Their property was southwest of Calgary on the upper slope of an isolated butte. One of the few modest old ranch homes still standing, it sat on a ridge over looking a clear stream and the mountains.
Since the day he’d arrived in Alberta, Graham had wanted this acreage, known as Sawtooth Bend. After he’d shown it to Nora, she fell in love with it, too. Six months after they were married they bought the land.
They belonged here.
They’d had dreams for building a big new ranch home and raising children here.
But those dreams had vanished with the ashes he’d released to the wind.
Loneliness greeted him when he opened the door.
He took a hot shower, changed into his jeans and a T-shirt. He wasn’t hungry. He poured a glass of apple juice, collapsed in his swivel rocker, turned to the window to watch the sun sink behind the Rockies.
How could he live without her?
How could he go on chained to his guilt?
He glanced at their wedding picture on the mantel, loving how she glowed in her gown. An angel in the sun. He beamed in his red serge. For that moment in time, his dreams had come true.
He was born in a working-class section near To ronto’s High Park neighborhood. He grew up wanting to find the right girl and become a cop, just like his old man, a respected Toronto detective. When Graham’s dad followed a case to Quebec, he met Marie, a secre tary for Montreal homicide. They fell in love and that was that.
The younger Graham grew up in Toronto fluent in English and, thanks to his mother, French. He dreamed of being a Mountie, a federal cop with the most recog nized force in the world. His father and mother had tears in their eyes the day his graduating troop marched by them at the RCMP Training Academy in Regina. His first posting was in southern Alberta, where he’d made some key arrests at the Montana border. It led to a de tective job with GIS in Calgary. Then he joined the Major Crimes section where he’d excelled at clearing the hardest cases.
But now?
He ran his hand over his face.
Now, his confidence had been shattered. He didn’t know if he was on the right track, a fact reflected in the way Stotter had looked at him. Bick was not connected. Graham had no solid evidence to prove the case was anything more than a terrible wilderness accident.
So why the hell was he trying to make it into some thing more?
Did he believe it was something more?
Was he missing something?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t think. It was black outside and he went to bed. But night winds rattled the windows and tormented him with questions.
Maybe what happened to the Tarvers was no accident? What about the missing laptop? The stranger at Ray’s table? The meaning of “Blue Rose Creek,” the last note Ray had written? Earlier, Graham had run the term Blue Rose Creek through databases but got nothing concrete.
Then there was the big insurance policy. There was stress in the Tarver home, money problems and the fact that they still hadn’t found Ray’s body.
Did he flip out, kill his family with plans to emerge and collect the insurance?
Go back.
What if Ray was onto a big story and someone killed him and his family?
How big does a story have to be?
Any way you cut it, a wilderness accident can be a perfect murder.
Mother Nature is your murder weapon.
The wind shook the house. Graham tossed and turned and in his dream state he heard Nora whisper to him as she did when he’d been underwater in the river facing death.
Keep going, Daniel. You have to keep going.
Little Emily Tarver’s dying words haunted him.
Don’t-daddy.
But the girl’s voice was so soft, so small and the river was deafening. These factors raised doubts. Did she actually speak at all? Or did he dream that she did?
Was he dreaming now?
Or was he mining his subconscious as her last breaths played in his memory. He could hear her again. But this time she said more.
He heard her clearly.
An icy chill rocketed up Graham’s spine, forcing him to sit up, wide awake.
The time glowed: 2:47 a.m.
He made coffee, sat in his chair and considered his case. Then he went to his computer and by dawn he’d completed a new case status report. He showered, had fresh coffee and scrambled eggs for breakfast then drove back to the office and placed his updated report on his boss’s desk.
Graham was convinced he now knew Emily Tarver’s dying words.
“Don’t hurt my daddy.”
After reading Graham’s report, Inspector Stotter removed the jacket of his mohair suit, hung it on the wooden hanger, and then hooked it on his coatrack.
“I know you’ve saved our team many times with solid detective work, Dan.”
Graham sat in one of the cushioned visitors’ chairs watching Stotter.
“You stood your ground when everyone else thought you were wrong.”
Stotter loosened his tie then rolled his sleeves to the elbows.
“But I don’t see it here. I don’t see a reason to grant your request to go to the U.S. and look into Ray Tarver’s history.”
“Why not?”
“I think you’re using this case as a means of repen tance.”
“What?”
“I think it’s got something to do with why you were in the mountains in the first place and why you jumped in the river after the girl.”
“I jumped in to help that girl.”
“The result was heroic but the act was suicidal.” Graham averted his stare.
“Danny, you’ve got to stop beating yourself up for what happened to Nora. You can’t go back and undo what happened. It was an accident, which is probably what happened with the Tarver family.”
“She spoke to me.”
“Who spoke to you?”
“I told you. The little girl, Emily. In the river. Just before she died.”
“Dan.” He let a long silence pass. “Dan, are you sure you’re ready to be back on the job?”
“I swear it happened, Mike.”
Stotter looked at him for a long moment, thinking.
“This isn’t in your report.”
“It was chaotic. I was unclear at first.”
“What did she say?”
“‘Don’t hurt my daddy.’”
“‘Don’t hurt my daddy’?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“She say anything else?”
“No, just, ‘Don’t hurt my daddy.’ Why would she say something like that? There has to be something else at work.”
Stotter looked hard at Graham for a long time then scratched his chin.
“You’ve attended traffic accidents, Dan. You’ve seen badly injured people in shock. They fight off people who try to help them. They say all kinds of things that
106 Rick Mofina don’t make sense when they’re in shock. I don’t think you have a clear dying declaration here
