Page 5 of Two Hearts Reunited

“We’d like to think so,” Ashley said gently. “Come on. Let’s get you settled so we can eat. I’ll get the food on the table while you and Brian get your truck put away.”

“Sounds good,” Eric agreed as they crept across the floor, returning to the kitchen.

Chapter Three

The snow was coming down pretty hard as Anya left the mall through the employee exit, stepping carefully onto the recently salted steps leading into the parking lot.

“See you tomorrow, Mel,” she said to the security guard, who would be locking up after she left.

“Take it easy driving home, Anya. I heard the roads around the lake are getting slick.”

“I will. I’m sure the plows will come around as soon as the wind dies down. Luckily, I don’t have to come in tomorrow morning,” she replied.

She trudged through the snow toward her truck, unlocking and starting up the engine before she stepped out from inside with a scraper in hand.

After waiting until her vehicle was started, Mel called out, “Need any help?”

“No, I’m fine,” Anya answered loudly. “You stay right there so you don’t get caked with wet snow. Luckily, the windows aren’t iced up yet. I just need to knock off some of the snow.”

“As long as you’re okay, I’m locking up then. Goodnight, Anya,” he answered, waving before pulling closed the heavy steel door.

The snow seemed to be coming down harder, she noticed, sighing as she stepped back into the truck. After backing out from her parking space and shifting gears, she drove toward the lot’s exit and onto the side street that would take her straight to the access road leading to the family cabin.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have any problems with frozen water pipes because of the wind. That was the problem with living in a place that wasn’t meant to be used other than seasonally. But the place had been paid off years ago, and luckily her mother hadn’t tried to borrow against the cabin along with the house after her grandmother went into a retirement home.

When Mom had died relatively young after a sudden heart attack, Anya had picked up where Mom had left off, attempting to continue piecing together the past. But first, she’d had to sell the family home and come up with funds to cover all the debts that Mom had incurred. Anya had no idea how much trouble Mom had been in financially until she’d returned home to visit her in the hospital and eventually had to deal with funeral expenses.

But what she’d discovered after coming home to Crystal Rock had made Anya feel guilty about the fact that she’d finally moved on with her life since Mom never had. Instead of returning to Madison, where she’d been able to get her business degree because of a scholarship she’d received, she’d left a well-paying accounting job to return to Crystal Rock for good.

It had taken months to straighten out Mom’s affairs and clean out the house and put it on the market. Luckily, Anya had enough money put away in her savings to take care of most of Mom’s debts. At least she still had connections here in Crystal Rock, so she’d been able to get a decent job right away. Not only was she working as the accountant and manager at Sanders’ Floral, but she was also in charge of monitoring the entire mall’s upkeep and expenses.

All Mom’s hard work wasn’t going to be for nothing, even though no one had appeared to take her seriously when she’d insisted that her youngest daughter had been kidnapped. Shanna had been rebellious, and somewhat of a troublemaker as she was growing up. But Anya blamed it on the fact that Dad had spoiled her rotten. When he’d been killed while driving drunk, Shanna had blamed Mom because Mom and Dad hadn’t been getting along for a very long time.

But the truth was, Dad had lost his job a few years earlier, and instead of making an honest effort at finding another, he’d sat at home, feeling sorry for himself while Mom had picked up a second job. The worst thing about it was, he’d had offers, but since he wouldn’t be making the money he’d been making as a county assessor, he’d decided that all the other jobs were beneath him.

When Anya got home from school, she’d do laundry, make dinner, and mainly clean up after Dad, who made no effort whatsoever to help out. Shanna was too young to really understand. Anya hadn’t wanted Shanna to be as disappointed in Dad as she was, so she and Mom tried to make life less complicated when Shanna was home. Although Anya never knew when Dad was ready to fly off the handle because of his drinking, so Shanna spent a lot of time being sent to visit her friends.

She’d dealt with one horrendous thing after another back then. Anya had been painfully in love with Eric O’Neill when he and his family had left town. She’d been terribly heartbroken that summer between her sophomore and junior year in high school and probably hadn’t been as patient with Shanna as she should have.

Six months later, Dad had been killed. Shanna had been nearly fourteen.

And six months after that, Shanna had disappeared.

The roadswerebecoming treacherous, Anya realized, slip-sliding on the curve that was located right before the turn-off into the cabin’s driveway.

She coasted downward along the driveway, being careful not to press too hard on the brake. Luckily, the garage wasn’t at the end of the drive but rather to the left, so she was able to gain control of her old beat-up truck before parking and stepping outside to open the carriage door.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have trouble leaving tomorrow since she’d heard that the forecast had changed, and now they were calling for several more inches of snow.

Anya glanced around the property. She was going to have to break down and invest in a few exterior lights other than solar. She was doing everything that she could to stay on a strict budget and it was getting tough.

But if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to afford to pay the investigator she’d finally hired to check out a few of the people she’d been unable to question on her own. For a while, she’d followed up on the long list of suspects Mom had left on her computer. But she couldn’t drive around and spend her time investigating while working full-time to pay off the rest of Mom’s debt, otherwise she would have had to file bankruptcy and would have lost the cabin, the only place where she could still hang onto the magic of her childhood.

Maybe she should try to have a talk with law enforcement again soon. No, she decided. It would be better to compile more information. Even though they’d blown Mom off, which had only been for Mom’s own benefit since she was obviously becoming obsessive about everything related to the investigation while ignoring her own health, Anya was beginning to think that maybe she shouldn’t have gone along with the suggestions made to her by the local police chief. Mom had finally given up asking for help, thinking that the cops might not takethe evidence that she’d gathered through the years seriously. But there’d apparently been another attempt at reestablishing the trafficking ring in Crystal Rock during the past ten years, according to what Anya had read in the local paper last year.

Despite Anya’s doubts, Mom had always been certain that Shanna had been taken by the traffickers. Once Anya had listened to the recording on Mom’s phone, she had no doubt that Mom had been right.

After pulling the truck into the garage and then swinging the carriage door closed from inside, she hoisted her large bag over her shoulder, bracing herself for the walk to the house from the garage. Grabbing the lightweight shovel she kept near the side door, she unlocked it, stepping outside and closing the door behind her. She quickly pushed the shovel forward along the narrow brick path that led to the back door of the cabin, jogging along the shoveled path as she scooped away the snow.

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