It's Never too Late

For him?

“It was important to her that you be told right away,” the man said then, his gaze serious.

Mark got the message.

“Sheriff?” Greg Richards had started to walk away but turned back.

“The other names on that list...were they like me, legitimately allowed entrance due to criteria not noted in the admittance papers?”

“Yes.”

“All eleven of them?”

“Yes.”

So whatever lawsuit implications Addy had been hired to find were gone. Did that mean she was out of a job? Or that she’d be around longer while she kept looking?

She’d gone to the wall for him.

“One more thing.”

“Sure.” Richards stood casually, looking as if he’d stay there all day if Mark asked.

“Where would a guy go if he wanted to find out information on a fire that took place, probably in Colorado, at the Keller home a quarter of a century ago.” He’d been thinking a lot about that fire. About Addy’s aloneness.

The sheriff’s easy expression tightened. “I’d leave that one alone.”

“You know about it?” That shocked him. He’d had the impression he’d been the only one Addy had told about the tragedy.

The man appeared to consider his next words carefully and then said, “It happened here. Addy was born in Shelter Valley.”

He could feel the truth shudder through him. And so much made sense. The recurrence of a nightmare she hadn’t had for years. Her need to talk about something that had happened so long ago.

The breakdown on her back porch...

She’d been reliving the past because she’d come face-to-face with it.

Had she been out to her old neighborhood? Seen where the fire had taken place?

Had she borne that pain all alone?

Realizing that the sheriff of Shelter Valley had just gone out on a limb for him, understanding small-town protocol, Mark asked, “Is that why she was here...brought in to investigate whatever threats had been made? She knew someone involved?”

“Will Parsons.”

“The university president, Will Parsons?”

“His family took her in after the fire....”

Mark came from a small close-knit town. And knew what he had to do. “I’d guess, since she’s so well situated, there’d be a way to get hold of the case file on that fire.”

Greg Richards frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“The memory of that night haunts her, Sheriff. I don’t know what I can do to change that, but...I’d like to try.” It was the right thing to do. Friends looked out for each other. A favor for a favor... “I was the fire investigator back in Bierly, where

I come from. Fire forensics have only been around about ten years, but I’m pretty up on the newest studies. I was thinking maybe, if I could re-create the fire for her—figuratively—if I could take her to the site, live through it with her, she could see it through the eyes of an adult instead of a traumatized child. I’d been thinking I’d have to travel to Colorado to accomplish that, but if it’s all right here...” He was talking faster than he was thinking. “Maybe, if we can help her there...she’d...consider staying...”

Because it was his only hope of keeping the love of his life.