Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (61)

Sky nodded. “Owen didn’t like his glasses because not a lot of kids have them. But now he loves them because Uncle Dex got him the perfect pair.”

My mouth curved at that. “It can take a little time to figure out, but what makes us different is also our superpower. Though sometimes, we can’t see that those differences make us beautiful.”

She was quiet for a long moment, as if mulling something over. She looked so much older, and it was a punch to the gut. “Owen said she was gone for a long time. Is it like … is it how it was with my mom?”

Every muscle inside me twisted so hard, it was a miracle my bones didn’t crack. Skylar almost never asked about her mother anymore. There had been questions when she started school, around Mother’s Day, or when they did projects about family, but I couldn’t remember one time she’d asked about Kendra in the last year.

I’d always tried to be honest and protective when it came to the topic. But trying to figure out how to ease the blow of her mom leaving was like walking through a minefield. “Did Owen telling you that make you have questions about your mom?” I asked gently.

Skylar shrugged in a way I knew meant yes.

I took my girl’s hands, so tiny in mine. “You are the most amazing kid on the planet. I don’t know how I got so lucky to have you as mine.”

“Daaaaaaad.”

“It’s true,” I said.

Sky bit her lip, a little uncertainty in her gaze. “Then how come she didn’t want me?”

God, I wanted to kill Kendra in that moment. Even knowing it was better that she’d simply left. The pain she’d caused ate at me. Even more so because I worried it was my fault.

“She wasn’t ready to be a mom,” I told Skylar. “But she knew I would love you. That I would love being your dad. So she gave me the best gift I’ve ever been given. You.”

Sky thought about that for a moment. “I am pretty great.”

I laughed, scooping her up into my arms again. “The absolute greatest.”

Skylar slapped her hands on my cheeks like she had when she was little, rubbing her tiny palms on my scruff. “I’m gonna make something for Supernova.”

The way kids’ minds worked was a trip. “I think she’ll love whatever it is. Your vase is her favorite.”

Sky’s smile widened. “I like her.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. Only I was starting to think like didn’t come close to encompassing how I felt about Nova. And that was dangerous.





I scowled at the road as Pete kept futzing with my radio. He changed the station thirty seconds into every song when he realized he didn’t actually like it. Then changed it back again.

“Pick a station and keep it there,” I clipped.

“Touchy, touchy,” Pete sniped. “You’d think I’d get a thank-you for filing the majority of the paperwork from yesterday while you took off early.”

My fingers tightened on the wheel. “I didn’t take off early. I went to talk to a victim.”

He bristled. “And you didn’t take me?”

I wouldn’t take him anywhere if I had a choice. Today, he’d caught me heading out to meet Roger to interview Heidi’s family, and there’d been no shrugging him off.

“You weren’t needed,” I ground out.

Pete’s glare bored into the side of my head. “It was Nova Monroe, wasn’t it?”

It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. She was Travis’s only living victim, at least to our knowledge. And the only other case I had on my desk right now was out-of-season poaching in a section of national forest land.

“Yes.” That was all he was getting from me.

Pete muttered something under his breath, but I just turned up the radio, letting the sounds of Credence Clearwater Revival drown out any attempts at conversation until I pulled up in front of Heidi’s parents’ house in Clover Creek.

Only about twenty minutes from Starlight Grove, Clover Creek was slightly larger but was still rife with that small-town feel. The house looked straight out of textbook Americana—white with black shutters, a wraparound porch complete with a swing, and immaculately mowed grass with a tire swing hanging from a tree in the front.

Shutting off the engine, I climbed out of my truck. Pete was already hurrying to the door as if it were some sort of race. It wasn’t. And the longer he was on the job, he’d start to realize that.

The door swung open, and Roger frowned at Pete but then nodded in greeting. “Pete.”

Pete only scowled at the acting sheriff. “Where’s the family?”

That had Roger bristling. “You’re here as a courtesy. That campsite’s on state land, and since the state police are drowning in cases at the moment, they gave jurisdiction to us. You’re not point on this.”

“Maybe I’ll get Sherri to request jurisdiction,” Pete shot back.

“Enough,” I clipped, my voice low as I stepped onto the front porch. “This isn’t about you. This is about showing respect for the people who are hurting in there and doing everything we can to find their daughter.”

Roger cracked his neck. “You’re right.”

A muscle in Pete’s cheek fluttered, but he said nothing, just stepped inside.