Page 58 of Mystery in the Mountains

“No, I’m here.”

“Asher, if you need to go get some work down at your shop, it’s fine.”

“No, I’m not leaving you . . . not when your house is being strange.”

“It is strange, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll call Abe and see if we can track down Bridget. She’s the only one I would know to talk to about this stuff.”

Sunny nodded. “Okay, well, that sounds good.”

“After I do up the dishes, I’m going to fix the sink,” Asher said, slipping his hand into hers.

“Sounds like a plan.”

They finished their breakfast in a comfortable silence, one of an old married couple who’d been together forever and didn’t need to fill it. With Sunny, he could just exist, and after the night before, it was like everything was back to how it should be.

Yes, some things were still up in the air, but the bond between him and Sunny was back.

The sight of her taking her last bite resonated deeply within him.

Yeah, life was good.

Chapter

Nineteen

SUNNY

The sound of Asher outside hammering something filtered in with the breeze as Sunny sat to go through the stacks of her father’s papers.

Although these papers did seem to be organized, it looked like he had newspapers from every day from around the year of the accident. A few were in another box dated with circled stories, the same ones he’d cut out and taped up on the far wall across from the board.

She kept finding herself looking at the name in the middle, Bradford Wilkes.

Why is that name familiar?

It was like she should have known the name, but she just couldn’t place it.

But all there was to do was keep organizing.

As she slid the last box of organized newspapers on the shelf, a picture slid out. It was probably the last picture ever taken of her parents together.

It was out in their yard. Her mother and Ruth Black looked like they had been either gardening or foraging, with dirt-smudged pants and her messy blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her father was standing next to her with his arms around her, smiling down at her, while Ruth and her mother smiled at the camera.

Then she saw it. Deep in the woods behind them. Red eyes.

The office chair scraped the floor as she quickly stood to make her way downstairs.

“Asher,” she called.

She stepped out onto the porch as the screen door slammed shut behind her.

“Asher,” she called again.

“What’s up?” he said from around the corner.

She descended the stairs to find Asher, who had trimmed the overgrown bushes and repainted shutters, on a ladder. “I’m going to get the flower boxes back up tomorrow.”

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