Page 103 of Capturing You

Despite the day’s sunshine, the house was chilly. Worried someone would peek inside and see her, Ford had kept all the blinds and curtains closed. Nice for safety, but he’d never turned on the heat. By the time the sun went down, it was downright cold.

She set the things on the coffee table. “Another fire?”

“Just thought we should burn the wood I hauled up last night so I don’t have to take it back down.”

He settled where he’d sat the night before, opened the pizza box on the coffee table, and shifted a piece onto a plate, which he handed to her.

“Thanks.” She nibbled a bite, savoring the salty meats, crisp veggies, and spicy sauce. Her stomach had been growling for hours. She hadn’t realized how much energy it took to solve a mystery.

Ford finished his first bite. “Good pizza.”

“The best in town." She sipped her water to wash down the bite. "You must have some great stories. Tell me about other mysteries you’ve investigated. Have you solved any?”

He took his time swallowing and wiping his mouth. “Nope.”

She waited for more, but apparently, he had nothing to add. “Whoa. Don’t overwhelm me with information.”

His lips did that twitching thing. “This is the most interesting mystery I’ve studied so far.”

“How do you decide which mysteries to write about?”

“I focus on mysteries that occurred in old houses. And I look for mysteries that happened in the late twentieth century or the early twenty-first.”

“Always murders?”

“Not…officially.”

“Meaning?” When he said nothing, she asked, “Can you give me an example?” Sometimes, making conversation with Ford was akin to getting the perfect shot. It took patience and determination and a whole lot of luck.

She could just give up, but like the perfect shot, when she managed to get him to talk, it was incredibly satisfying.

He set one ankle over his opposite knee. “Back in the late eighties, a two-year-old girl was snatched out of her second-story bedroom from an old plantation house in Georgia.”

“That’s awful.” She couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child that way. “Do you know who did it?”

He rubbed his lips together. “Nothing definitive, but the girl’s mother was an alcoholic, and neighbors reported their suspicions that she was abusive. They heard her screaming sometimes. There were even a few police reports, though nothing ever came of them.

“My theory—and that of others looking at the mystery—is that the mother killed the child, possibly by accident.”

That was even more distasteful than the idea that somebody had snatched her.

“Rather than confess,” Ford said, “she hid her daughter’s body and claimed she’d been kidnapped. The mom’s brother was the sheriff. Maybe he knew she did it and wanted to protect her. Maybe he couldn’t imagine his baby sister doing something so terrible. Either way, he investigated her claim of kidnapping and never entertained any other theories.”

“So she got away with it?”

“If she was guilty, then yes. Even though she wasn’t arrested or convicted, can you imagine trying to live with that?”

Brooklynn couldn’t, but there were people who would kill a child without blinking an eye. Alyssa and Callan—and his daughter, Peri—had come against just that kind of person.

“The woman and her brother inherited the house from her grandparents. It was empty for years while she was in college. She got pregnant and came home with a baby. She never told anyone who the father was.

“When she reported the little girl missing, she named the baby’s father, claiming he must’ve taken her. But she only had a nickname, didn’t know how old the man was, and didn’t know where he lived. Also, she’d always claimed she never told the father she carried his child. Even if he’d found out somehow, why kidnap her? Why not try to get custody legally? That theory had more holes than a sieve, in my opinion. Especially when the father was never located.”

“More reason to believe she did it. She still claims innocence?”

He looked toward the windows, though the twilight evening was hidden behind curtains. “She committed suicide a couple years after the girl’s supposed kidnapping. Her suicide note read,I can’t live with it anymore. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, a confession?”