Cold Case at Camden Crossing

Maybe before—when her mother had died. Although she hardly remembered her. She was three, Peyton five.

Their father’s depression and drinking had started then and had grown worse over the years.

Somewhere she heard a dog barking, and figured it had to be a stray

A breeze stirred the leaves on the trees, echoing with voices from the past, and sending the tire swing swaying. Images of her and Peyton playing in the swing, laughing and squealing, flashed back. Snippets of other memories followed like a movie trailer—the two of them chasing the mutt they’d called Bitsy. Picking wildflowers and using them for bows in their hair.

Gathering fresh eggs from Barb and Jean, the two chickens they’d named after their favorite elementary school teachers.

Then her teenage years where she and Peyton had grown apart. Peyton and Ruth Camden had been the pretty girls, into boys, when she’d been a knobby-kneed, awkward shy tomboy.

She’d felt left out.

Then the bus crashed, and Peyton and Ruth were both gone. And her father and the entire town blamed her.

Willing away the anguish and guilt clawing at her, Tawny-Lynn started toward the house. But an engine rumbled from the dirt drive leading into the ranch, and she whipped her head around, alarmed as the sheriff’s car rolled in and came to a stop.

Had the town already heard she was back and sent the sheriff to run her off?

They were pulling out all the punches before she even set foot in the house.

The sheriff cut the engine, then opened the door and a long, big body unfolded itself from the driver’s side. Thick dark hair capped a tanned, chiseled face. Broad shoulders stretched tight in the man’s uniform, and he removed sunglasses to reveal dark, piercing eyes beneath the brim of his Stetson.

Eyes that skated over her with a deep frown.

Her heart stuttered when she realized who the man was.

Chaz Camden.

Ruth’s brother and the boy she’d had a crush on seven years ago. The boy whose family had despised her and blamed her for their loss.

The boy who’d visited her in the hospital and tried to push her to remember like everyone else.

* * *

CHAZ HADN’T BEEN to White Forks in years and was shocked at its dilapidated condition.

He was even more stunned at how much Tawny-Lynn had changed.

The wheat-colored hair was still the same, although longer and wavier than he remembered. And those grass-green eyes were just as vivid and haunted.

But the skinny teenager had developed some womanly curves that would make a man’s mouth water.

“Hello, Tawny-Lynn.” Damn, his voice sounded hoarse. Rough with desire. Something he hadn’t felt in way too long.

And something he’d never felt for this girl...er...woman.

She shaded her eyes with her hand. “You’re sheriff now?”

He gave a clipped nod. He hadn’t planned on law enforcement work, but his sister’s disappearance had triggered his interest. He’d wanted to find her, and it seemed the best way.

“So the town sent you to run me off?”

She had no idea how close to the truth she was.

“I just heard you were here. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t pretend that your family and mine were friends, Chaz. I know how the town and the Camdens feel about me.” She gestured to his car. “So you can go back and report that I’m here only to clean up this place so I can put it on the market. I don’t intend to stick around.”

Chaz heard the anger and hurt in her voice and also recognized underlying guilt. God knows, he’d blamed himself enough.

He was Ruth’s big brother. He should have been able to keep her safe.

If only he’d been closer to his sister, known what was going on in her head. Some folks thought she and Peyton had run off together, maybe with boys they’d met somewhere.

But others believed they’d been kidnapped.

Tawny-Lynn turned to her SUV, raised the trunk door and reached for her suitcase. He automatically reached for it himself, and their hands touched. A frisson of something sparked between them, taking him off guard.

She must have felt it, too, because her eyes widened in alarm. “I can handle it, Chaz.”

“Tawny-Lynn,” he said, his voice gruff.

Her shoulders tensed. “What?”

What could he say? “I’m sorry for the way things went down back then.”

Anguish flickered on her face before she masked it. “Everyone was hurting, Chaz. Grieving. In shock.”

The fact that she was making excuses for the way people treated her proved she was compassionate. Still, she’d been wronged, and obviously hadn’t overcome that pain.

“Did you ever remember anything else?” he asked, then immediately regretted pushing her when she dropped the suitcase and grabbed the handle.

“No. If I did, don’t you think I would have told someone?”

That was the question that plagued him. Some speculated that she’d helped Ruth and Peyton run away, while others believed she’d seen the kidnapper and kept quiet out of fear.

Of course, Dr. Riggins said she had amnesia caused from the accident.

So if she had seen the kidnapper, the memory was locked in her head.

* * *

HE PULLED THE file with the photos from the bus crash from his locked desk and flipped through the pictures from the newspaper. The bus driver, fifty-nine-year-old Trevor Jergins, had died instantly when he’d crashed through the front window as the bus had careened over the ridge.

The pictures of the team were there, too. Seventeen-year-old Joan Marx, fifteen-year-old Cassie Truman and sixteen-year-old Aubrey Pullman. All players on the high school softball team.

All girls who died in that crash.