Chapter 2 - The Daughter Who Drowned
Harrison shouted for help.
Two ranch hands ran from the celebration.
He ordered one of them to call an ambulance and the other to find his private physician.
Lucy moved between Harrison and her mother.
“Don’t touch her.”
Harrison raised both hands.
“I’m trying to help.”
“Men always say that first.”
The statement sounded far too old for an eight-year-old child.
Tommy clung to his sister’s sweater.
Harrison removed his coat and laid it over Mara.
Nine years earlier, Mara Hart had vanished during a storm.
Her truck had been discovered beside the Blackwater River.
A section of broken railing hung above the flood.
Police found her blood on the steering wheel.
They never found her body.
Harrison searched for two years before investigators convinced him there was no chance she had survived.
Now his daughter lay behind his stable with two children he had never met.
Mara’s hand closed around his wrist.
“Not the county hospital.”
“Why?”
“They have people there.”
“Who does?”
Her eyes moved toward the ranch house.
Before she could answer, she lost consciousness.
Harrison’s sister, Evelyn Hart, emerged from the courtyard.
She stopped when she saw Mara.
For a moment, pure terror crossed her face.
Then it vanished beneath concern.
“Oh, my God.”
“Is that Mara?”
Harrison looked at her carefully.
“You recognize her?”
“She is my niece.”
“How could I not?”
Evelyn stepped closer.
Lucy blocked her.
“No.”
Evelyn forced a smile.
“Sweetheart, I’m your great-aunt.”
Lucy reached into her pocket and removed a small folding knife.
The blade trembled in her hand.
“My mother said never go near the woman with the silver horse pin.”
Evelyn’s hand moved toward the brooch fastened to her coat.
It was shaped like a running horse.
Harrison had seen her wear it for years.
He turned toward his sister.
“What did you do to Mara?”
Evelyn’s face hardened.
“You are listening to a frightened child.”
“I am listening to the daughter of a woman we buried without a body.”
The ambulance siren sounded beyond the gates.
Mara woke for one second.
Her lips barely moved.
“Dad.”
May you like
“The river was staged.”
Then her eyes closed again.
