Was it real?

A bead of cold sweat ran down the side of my face, using the lace-like scar

patterns as its path. If I let go of the railing to wipe it away, I’d end up on the ground, so I held tight.

“Arden, stop!” Her sharp command acted like a slap, knocking me out of the

dark spiral. “They loved you. You and Kelsey both. Don’t you ever doubt it, girl.”

I had no idea how she managed to see through my emotional mess, but I

grabbed onto her reassurance like a drowning child. They loved me, I knew they

had. With every word and every action, they proved they saw me as someone worth loving, repeatedly. Throwing it all away now because my world was in the

midst of remaking itself, was a piss poor way to honor that.

Forcing my fingers to uncurl, I turned and mimicked her position. “I know.”

The words were shaky. “I know they did, sir.” This time they were stronger.

“What did Carl find out?”

“It wasn’t what, it was who he talked to; Officer Payton and Audrey Peltier.”

The names seared through my brain, triggering lightning flashes of

memories. The young, picture-perfect couple who picked the quiet, green-eyed,

dark-haired girl with the mysterious past. Older and cynical, it was easy to recognize Audrey Peltier’s belief she would find her way through my emotional

walls and uncover the daughter she always wanted. Instead, she lost her

husband, her dream family, and ended up in psychiatric ward on suicide watch. I

refused to say anything until I heard exactly what Delacourt knew. I met her gaze, raised my chin, and kept my mouth shut.

Her small, sad smile came and went. “Hell of a thing for a child to discover.”

Forcing my shoulders to move in a negligent shrug, I shared a hard-earned truth. “Monsters come in all shapes and sizes.”

“True.” She stared into the cabin where Kayden and Tag still sat at the table,

probably in an attempt to give us some semblance of privacy. “Carl spoke to Payton. Seems he remembers the incident quite clearly. It took Carl awhile to get

him to share his version.”

I grimaced. “It didn’t match up with the official record.”

Her attention didn’t stray from the cabin’s interior. “No, it didn’t.” She didn’t

wait for a response. “According to him, he accompanied a caseworker out to the

home of a hysterical young woman claiming the child they were considering adopting was a demon. He and the caseworker arrived at the house to find a six-year-old girl, sitting on the front porch, clutching a paper bag. The scared-looking woman locked behind the screen door held a crucifix.”

Etched into my brain with painful clarity, I didn’t need Delacourt’s recital of

events to remember that day. When the caseworker’s nondescript sedan had

pulled into the driveway, closely followed by a black and white patrol car, all I

had felt was relief. A short-lived relief, it turned out, because as I headed down

the porch steps, Mr. Peltier pulled in behind them. I remember the choking fear

and panic that cemented my feet to the porch steps. The flimsy shield of the paper bag with all my things clutched to my chest. My mind screaming at me to

run, but my small body refusing to obey.

Through the sucking morass of memory, Delacourt’s rough voice continued,

“It seems the woman had called her husband, who rushed home to be with her. A

great deal of confusion and yelling ensued, so Payton took the child to his car.

He told Carl when he opened the door, the little girl had whispered something.

Since he couldn’t hear her, he crouched down and asked her to repeat what she

said. She looked at him with spookiest eyes he’d ever seen, and said—”

“He got mad and hit Sara.” I repeated those long-ago words. “When she

didn’t get up, he buried her in the garden.” I finished in a low tone.

The world went quiet. For a moment, I was six and terror’s cruel hands were wrapped around my chest. But six was a damn long time ago, no matter how close it felt. I cleared my throat and shared the rest of the story. “A few years before, Peltier had kidnapped a local girl, Sara Colton, when his wife was out of

town. He lost his temper when she struggled, and he killed her before hiding her

in the garden. The case was all over the news.”

Delacourt turned to me, the shadows failing to hide her sharp gaze. “Payton

worked that case. There was no connection between Peltier and the Coltons, no

link. Without your help, Peltier would have gotten away with it.”

Old, familiar bitterness broke through. “Audrey Peltier probably wishes he