Marj… What had she gotten herself into now? “When is he going to be home?”

“Any minute. Or at the end of the day. I don’t know. I don’t rightly care. What’s he going to do? Arrest me for breaking and entering? My brother wouldn’t do that. Especially not after what I found.”

“What did you find?”

“It’s too complex. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.” Her voice was agitated, disturbed.

“All right, all right.” When Marj got her mind on something, there was no changing it. “I’ll get there soon as I can. I just got out of the shower. I’ll put on some clothes and be right there.”

“You need a ride?”

“No, Talon gave me the Mustang, remember?”

“Right, good. Meet me at Joe’s house.”

“No way. I am not going to sneak through your brother’s house. I sure as hell don’t want to be an accessory to whatever it is you’re doing. I’ll meet you at the big house.” Big house, meaning the main ranch house, of course. I hoped the words weren’t foreshadowing…

She sighed over the phone. “Fine. Just hurry, please.” She clicked the phone off.

An hour later, I arrived at the ranch house. Marj met me at the front door, Roger lapping at her heels. I knelt down and gave the dog some love.

“Since Roger’s following you around, I assume Talon’s not here?”

She shook her head. “He went off an hour or so ago. He texted me to let me know. Little did he know I was riffling through Joe’s bedroom at the time.”

“So what’s the big deal? What did you find?”

“We’re going to need a glass of wine for this.”

“Marj, it’s noon. We don’t need wine. We need lunch.”

“Well, it’s Sunday, so Felicia’s not here. And I can’t wait to talk to you about this. We’ll eat after. And suit yourself, but I’m having a glass of wine.” She walked to the kitchen.

I followed. “Fine. Just water for me, please.”

Marj poured our beverages. “We need to go to my room. I can’t risk having this stuff out in case someone shows up in the house.”

My heart started pounding. What was she getting at?

When we got to Marj’s room, her bed was filled with scattered newspaper articles. She sat down on a empty spot and cleared another spot for me.

“Take a look at these.”

I grabbed an article, and nausea overtook me as I read the words. It was about a little boy who had been abducted and never found. I put it down and picked up another one. This one had been found, strangled to death in a vacant field. Ice shrouded my skin.

“Marj, what is all this about?”

“You tell me. I found an envelope full of these articles hidden in Jonah’s closet.” She shook her head, her face pale, her lips trembling. “All this time I thought Talon was the one with the issues, and now I find out my oldest brother—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to.”

“I doubt Jonah has these for any other reason than…” I couldn’t finish the sentence either. Why would he have them?

“I can’t imagine that my brother would ever…”

“See? That’s because he wouldn’t.” I leafed through the papers, checking the dates. “I mean, look at these articles. They’re twenty-five and thirty years old. If Jonah were interested in abducting little kids, he’d be looking at present-day stuff.”

Marj’s features softened, and I could see the relief coursing through her. “Oh, God, Jade. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you were too busy freaking out. Joe is the nicest guy in the world. He would never even think of doing anything like this.”

“Of course he wouldn’t.” Marj’s cheeks flushed their usual rosy pink.

“But there has to be a reason why he has these articles.”

She nodded. “Yeah, there has to be. But why?”

I smiled. “Now that you’re done freaking out and thinking your brother is some kind of pedophile, why don’t we go to the kitchen and you whip us up one of your gourmet lunches? I’m starving. With full bellies, we can come back in here and read through all of these and figure out what’s going on.”

Marj created some amazing beef stroganoff out of leftovers she found in the fridge. She finished her glass of wine and elected not to have another. A half an hour later, our bellies sated, we went back into her room.

We perused the articles and arranged them in chronological order. There were six altogether, all boys abducted between the ages of eight and eleven, except for one girl. Only one of the boys had been found. The other five children had never been found. The articles ranged from thirty years ago to twenty-five years ago. Only one of the boys was from Snow Creek. The rest were from Grand Junction or other towns in the vicinity.

I cleared my throat. “So over a span of what looks like about five years, six kids were abducted, mostly boys. Only one was found—dead, starved, and strangled, showing signs of physical and sexual abuse.”

Marj nodded. “I wish I knew why Jonah was keeping these articles.”

“Do you think he might have known one of the kids? Thirty years ago he was what, about eight?”

Marj’s eyebrows shot up. “I bet that’s it. I bet he knew the guy from Snow Creek. But what was the boy’s name?” She searched through the articles. “Luke Walker, nearly twenty-six years ago. Joe would’ve been twelve. But it says this kid was nine when he was taken. That would’ve been Talon’s age.”

My heart jolted. “Do you think Talon knew him?”

“Maybe. That doesn’t explain why Jonah was keeping the articles, though.”

“You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

“What?” she asked.

“We have to ask Jonah.”

“Problem with that on two counts,” Marj said. “Remember how he reacted the last time we went to him demanding answers? And this time, I was snooping through his house, not just snooping through my dad’s old documents in the basement.”

“I know. But this is going to eat at both of us until we know what’s going on.”