Deadly Christmas Secrets by Shirlee McCoy

Author:Shirlee McCoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

Harper wasn’t sure what she was hoping to see when Sandra took a folder from the cabinet and handed it to Gabe. Definitive evidence that proved Amelia was alive? Some hint at the truth?

Her pulse pounded at the thought, her muscles tightening with the need to do something. If Amelia was alive, she had to have some memories of her mother, her father, her family, friends and school. Had she wondered why no one had come for her? Had she cried for the people she loved?

The thought was heartbreaking, and Harper tried to push it away as Gabe opened the folder and took out several sheaves of paper.

“This is it. Not much. Just the photo and picture of the piece of blanket I was sent. The police took it as evidence earlier this evening.” He handed the papers to her. “There’s also the police report from four years ago, and a report from a private detective I hired after I got the package. He wasn’t able to discover anything more than what the police have.”

“Which is?” Logan asked as he reached for the papers.

“The package was mailed from a post office in Silver Spring. The employees don’t have any memory of the person who sent it, but security footage collected by the police captured the guy paying cash to mail it.”

“Have the police identified the person?”

“No. Although they called me this evening and said they might have a lead. They stopped by and took the piece of blanket, said they’re running some tests on it, looking for DNA. I’m going down to the station in the morning to meet with Detective Willard. You remember him, Harper?”

“He would be difficult to forget,” she murmured, her gaze focused on the picture Logan had handed her. She’d seen the resemblance between her sister and the girl in the texted photo. The resemblance was even more obvious in the larger version of the picture. The green of the eyes, the tiny dimple in the cheek, the shape of the chin... They were so much like Lydia’s, Harper’s breath caught, her heart skipping a beat and then another.

“Breathe,” Logan whispered in her ear. She sucked in a deep breath and dropped into a chair near the desk.

“This could be a photo of Lydia when she was this age,” she managed to say, her voice thick with tears.

She wasn’t going to cry, though.

She’d wept buckets of tears after Lydia’s body was discovered, a bucket more after police had closed the missing-persons case on Amelia and said she’d most likely died with her mother.

She’d cried, and it had done her no good.

Now she felt hollow eyed and tired.

“I thought the same,” Gabe said quietly, his voice rough edged and gruff. “I have all those old photos from when you two were kids. I took them out after I got this, because I didn’t want to think...” He shook his head.

“That she was alive?” Harper finished, because that was how she felt. “And we gave up on her?”

There.

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