“After New Year’s, actually. It’s a whole … thing,” he started to explain when he noted her raised brows. “My family has a cabin up north. We used to go up there a lot, but, well, when my dad died, we stopped for a long time. Just locked the place up and didn’t return for years. In case you couldn’t tell, this two-week stretch of the holidays is my mom’s favorite time of the year. If coming home and shacking up in the guesthouse is all it takes to keep her happy, well.” He raised his glass to his lips, took a drink.

“She really goes all out,” observed Morgan. “The food, the decorations, the Santa…”

“Did you see the Clydesdales?”

“The Budweiser horses? Yeah,” she said, remembering the two chestnut-colored animals hitched to a white wagon with a horseshoe painted on the side. They were giving sleigh rides just as she and Bennett left the party.

“Christopher’s friend has a farm just on the other side of town. He parks his car there and drives the horses over every year.”

Morgan nodded, her brain stuck on what Bennett had said just a moment ago, about his family abandoning the cabin after his father … “You think he’s dead?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“Sorry, I was just—” She hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but Clive Reynolds was Black Harbor’s most famous unsolved mystery. Curiosity mingled with the alcohol in her bloodstream, quelling her inhibitions. “Your dad. You said after he died…”

“Oh.” The shadow that had fallen over Bennett’s face lifted. He pressed his fingertip to the rim of his glass, slid it toward the edge of the counter like pushing a chess piece across the board. The cherry clung to the bottom. “He better be.”

4 HUDSON

The hush that descended upon Hudson’s entrance into roll call was so portentous, so profound, he felt as though he’d been swallowed by a wave. The phantom current that knocked the breath out of his lungs pulled him toward Garrison’s empty chair. He sat in the one next to it.

No one looked at him. Second-shift patrol officers, investigators, and command staff sat with their heads bowed, hands clasped, staring at their shoes or sneaking glances at the Wesson PD detectives who stood solemnly in the back of the room. Hudson did the same until, finally, Chief Stromwell cleared his throat. At a towering six foot five and 250 pounds, the chief was as large as the sand dunes he used to mow over in Iraq. And yet up there at the podium, he looked small. The reality of the past fourteen hours had made ants of them all.

“The hunt is on, but not for us. Wesson PD will be taking over…”