Grace swallowed hard. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
His father’s expression grew pinched, and he faced Conner. “She’s a journalist? I hadn’t realized that.”
“She wants to know about her mom.”
Resting his elbows on the table, his father leaned forward. “If your motive is to drag poor Jason’s name through the mud...” He shook his head. “Jason’s mother has been through enough, hasn’t she? First losing her husband in a horrible helicopter crash, now her son.”
“That’s not my intention, sir.” Grace moved to sit on the edge of her seat. “I like to shed light on untold stories. I’m sure people would be fascinated to learn of the—” she seemed to be choosing her words carefully “—things that go on in an Amish community beyond farming and cross-stitch.”
“You really did move away from here young.” Kevin folded his arms, a self-satisfied look on his face. “The Amish do far more than farm and needlework.”
Grace tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t identify with the Amish at all. My father raised us in Buffalo. Please forgive me if I find this story fascinating. Others will, too. I’m sure of it.”
“Oh, people will find it interesting,” his father said. “They were all over your mother’s murder, too.”
Grace’s face burned red, and uncertainty glistened in her eyes.
“Dad!” Conner scolded him. “Grace came here to talk, not to be put on the spot.” Conner suspected his father’s blunt comment was a result of wanting to protect Jason, his great-nephew.
“After your mother’s murder, a young reporter thought she’d make a name for herself and wrote story after story about the Miller murder for the Quail Hollow Gazette. She inserted herself to the point that the Amish wouldn’t talk to anyone anymore, not even law enforcement.” His father fisted his hands in his lap, his anger evidently directed at a long-ago slight, not at the need to protect Jason. “The journalist was a huge detriment to our investigation.”
“You never told me that.” Conner studied his father’s face. A vein throbbed at the elderly man’s temple, his ire still palpable. His father had pored over paperwork and reports at the kitchen table long after the town had written Sarah Miller’s death off to a tragic and random encounter with a stranger passing through town. Yet they had never been able to prove it.
Conner himself had never felt the need to read the newspaper accounts because the case had taken over his young life, leaving his father obsessed and his mother absent. Now, as a law enforcement officer, he understood the delicate relationship with reporters and with the Amish. He had recently tried to mind this relationship when he’d asked Grace to stop asking questions about the night Jason was killed.
“People would say my accusations regarding the reporter were only conjecture on my part,” his father continued. “That I needed to take responsibility for not handling the investigation. That I was the only one responsible for not finding the murderer.”
“My intention wasn’t to upset you.” Grace pushed back from her chair, stood and smiled sympathetically. “I’m sorry, sir. I was under the impression that your son had told you I was coming.”
“He did. But I thought I’d be talking to Sarah Miller’s daughter. Not a journalist.”
* * *
“Please, sit down.” Conner gently touched Grace’s wrist and they locked gazes. He gave her a quick nod as if to say, “It’s okay. Please stay.” Trusting him, she sat down. If she hoped to learn anything about her mom, she didn’t see that she had much of a choice.
She glanced over at the undersheriff. Tingles of awareness prickled her skin from the retired officer’s intense focus. She hadn’t realized she’d be ambushed when she arrived here.
“I’m sorry you had a bad experience with a reporter. I have no intention of making anyone look bad.” Her only motivation was to reveal the truth. Let the rest of the chips fall where they may.
The retired sheriff grumbled under his breath, perhaps understanding more than most how these things worked.
Grace picked up a French fry and distractedly dipped it into the glob of ketchup she had squirted onto her paper plate. “I understand you put a lot of time into my mother’s case. Why was this one more difficult than most?” She knew from her journalism career that all cases weren’t neatly wrapped up.
Conner’s father folded the corner of the takeout wrapper from his hamburger. “Murder is rare in Quail Hollow. Some might say I was out of my depth. I worked that case harder than I’d ever worked anything before. Or since.” There was a faraway quality to his voice. “The best lead we had was a man who had been traveling through town. Eventually, we tracked him down, but he had a solid alibi. Rumors cropped up that there was another stranger in town. The locals needed to believe it was an outsider. It grew harder and harder to separate fact from fiction. But that’s where we still are all these years later. A vagrant passing through town killed Sarah Miller.”
“Were there any other suspects?”
The two retired law enforcement officers exchanged a subtle glance that she might have missed if she hadn’t been so observant. A heaviness weighed on her chest, making the room feel close. When neither of them answered, she pressed, “What aren’t you telling me?” A cold pool of dread formed in the pit of her stomach. “What?”
Kevin drummed his fingers on the table. She guessed it was a nervous habit. “In a murder investigation, the person closest to the victim is usually investigated.”
She tossed aside the French fry and wiped her hands on a napkin. “That’s not unusual.” She shrugged, trying to act casual when her insides were rioting. Her sweet father. Her mother’s murder had destroyed him. “You cleared my father and then moved on to this stranger passing through Quail Hollow.” Her gaze shifted between the two men. Holding her breath, she waited for reassurance. Of course they’d cleared her father. Hadn’t they?
Kevin finished chewing a bite of his burger and swallowed. “Your father moved out of town before we could one hundred percent clear him.”
“Well, that’s only partially true.” Harry leaned forward and gave her a reassuring smile. “I knew your father a bit from town before your mother’s murder. Your father and mother used to sell corn at the farmers market on the weekends. He was a friendly man. Talkative. You girls were his little helpers. After your mother’s murder, he shut down. Her death broke him.” He pressed his lips together. “Even though we never officially cleared him, my gut told me that he could never have hurt Sarah. Never.”
A lump of emotion clogged her throat. “Thank you.” She averted her gaze, fearing she’d lose it if she didn’t. This was the price of looking into her family’s story, the reason she had avoided it all these years. The reason she’d probably leave here today and forget she ever came.
“What else can you tell Grace about the time surrounding her mother’s death?” Conner asked the question Grace was now afraid to, because she was uncertain she could afford the emotional toll.
“The night Sarah disappeared, she had taken the horse and wagon into town to drop off a few pies. She had sold them to the diner. She left you girls home with your grandmother. A few people noticed her in town, but didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious. She never came home.”
She never came home.
Pinpricks of dread washed over Grace’s scalp as if she were reliving her mother’s last moments. She had vague memories of hanging out at the farmers market. Maybe the memories had been dreams, yet the images were vivid: the long dresses of the Amish women, the farmers’ work boots and the