Emily started, jerking her head up from her work. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. I talked to Janet at the hospital. Your injury could have been very serious.”

“You need to inform your nurse friend about HIPAA regulations.”

“I’m sure she knows.”

Emily humphed. “Everything running smoothly?”

“Yep. Vina and Thea are keeping everyone company and filling their coffee cups. Dory is on her way in. It sounds like three-quarters of the town doesn’t have power—including the mansion.”

“I figured. Seems like we’re always the first to lose it.”

“What’s that?” Madison pointed at a thick file on the office desk.

Emily’s face brightened. “Simon gave me that yesterday. He put together pictures and documents that relate to the Bartons.” She sat at the desk and flipped it open.

Curiosity and some glossy black-and-white photos drew Madison closer. The first photo was labeled Barton Lumber Mill in crooked writing across the bottom. She touched a familiar man in the image. “That’s our great-great-grandfather.” He stood with a dozen other men, looking rugged and proud as they posed. “This has to be in the early 1900s.”

“Yep. That’s George.”

Madison scanned the other men, wondering who they were and if some of their descendants still lived in Bartonville. Heck, maybe some were eating in the diner right that minute.

“I haven’t seen this picture before, have you?”

“No,” said Emily. “It’s not among any of the photos I’ve seen at the mansion.”

Madison flipped through a few more logging photos. George Barton leaning against a felled fir that had a trunk wider than he was tall. A log truck with the Barton name on the door and a single humongous log on its trailer.

“It’s all gone,” Madison said under her breath, feeling a small pang for the family business that she’d never known. At the end the mill had cut wood only for other companies, its own supply of lumber gone. The mill was sold in the 1980s, and the new owners shut it down, intending to use the property for something else that never came to fruition. Now it was a small, rusting ghost town of buildings. Madison quickly flipped through more black-and-white photos, stacking them neatly, wanting to see the color ones deeper in the file.

The first color photo was a formal picture of the mansion. Emily sighed, and Madison understood. The mansion shone. It was a summer day, and the landscaping was immaculate. The paint perfect and the rails on the porch intact. Someone had set glasses and a large pitcher of lemonade on a table on the porch, waiting for the owners to sit and relax.

Madison placed it facedown on the viewed stack.

“Ohhh!” Emily picked up the next photo.

Four young women stood on the steps of the mansion, their arms hooked together, laughter on their faces. The simple dresses had wide knee-length skirts, the waists were tiny, and the women wore short white gloves. A holiday, perhaps Easter, judging by the daffodils and tulips.

Eagerly studying the faces, Madison recognized each of her great-aunts and her grandmother.

So young.

“She’s pregnant.” Emily indicated their grandmother.

Sure enough, one of the waists wasn’t that tiny. “Do you think she was pregnant with Mom or Uncle Rod?”

“This looks like the late 1950s. I’ll guess Uncle Rod.”

Madison held the photo closer, searching her grandmother’s face for a hint of herself but not finding it. Her grandmother had died when her mother was young. Madison had never known her.

“All girls,” Emily commented.

“The Barton curse,” Madison joked sadly. Male children had been few and far between in a century of the Barton line. Their ancestors typically had many girls and a single boy.

“Look at what’s on Grandmother’s wrist.” Emily pointed. “Do you remember that bracelet?”

Madison did. “The button bracelet. I didn’t realize it was that old.”

All three girls had played with the bracelet in the photo. It was wide, made of a diverse assortment of dozens of brass buttons with a few colored ones mixed in. “Grandmother must have given it to Mom. Remember how we fought over who got to wear it?”

“I’d spend hours looking at each button.” A dreamy expression covered Emily’s face. “I really loved it.”

Madison had too. One more thing lost in the fire.

“All four of the sisters are so beautiful,” Emily said. “Why did only Grandmother marry?”

Madison didn’t know the answer. Each of her great-aunts had brushed off the question in the past. She moved on to the next photo and immediately spotted her father, a big grin on his face.

“Where is this?”

Emily studied the photo of seven men with their fishing gear in front of a small tavern. “Isn’t that the bead store now? But why is this picture in the Barton file? Dad was a Mills.”

“Uncle Rod is in it.” He stood next to their father, an arm slung around his neck.

“I didn’t recognize him.” Emily squinted. “Look . . . isn’t that Sheriff Greer?” She giggled. “And Harlan Trapp—with hair.”

“Simon Rhoads too.” They looked like a rowdy group, ready to cause havoc for some fish.

“I think we could use this picture to blackmail Harlan or the sheriff,” Madison said. “I don’t think this is the image they’re currently trying to project.” She sifted through two more pictures of the same group of men in juvenile muscle poses. “Idiots.”

Emily elbowed her, fighting back laughter. “They were young. And probably drunk.”

A photo of a couple on a lookout high above the ocean made her stop. “Mom and Dad,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen this one.” Their mother was in profile, looking up at her husband, bliss on her face as he laughed at the camera. This was the loving couple her aunts had always described to Madison and her sisters.

A sad, confused wife.

Anita’s sentence echoed in her mind. Aunt Dory had said something similar two days ago. The words didn’t describe the woman in the picture.

Did Anita and Dory not tell me the truth?

“That’s the spot I nearly died at. Jeez, I was a stupid kid,” Emily said.

“Yes, you were.”

“You could have just as easily gone over the edge.”

Her father’s pocket watch popped into Madison’s thoughts—the shooting had wiped it from her mind. She glanced at Emily, her nose close to the photo of their parents, a hungry look in her eyes. Now or never.

“Em . . . I found Dad’s pocket watch in your room.”

Emily set down the photo and turned to Madison, dismay on her face. “You were in my room?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry, but why did you have it? Have you hidden it all these years?” Her sister’s expression was blank, but Madison knew anger simmered under the surface. “Mom searched high and low for that watch.”

“I know.”

Madison crossed her arms and tipped her head, waiting.

“I found it at Lindsay’s . . . that morning.”

Her heart stumbled. “What?”

“It was in the backyard. I stepped on it.”

“How . . .” Madison’s brain shut down. “Why . . .”

“I don’t know.” A shadow passed across Emily’s eyes. “Trust me, I’m still as confused as you are now. I told the FBI agents, and Agent McLane and I were driving to get it when . . . the accident happened.” Her throat moved as she swallowed hard.

“What d-does it mean?” Madison’s tongue stuttered over the words.

“I wish I knew.”

The memory of Emily picking up something in the yard the night their father was murdered suddenly rushed over her. “I saw you outside the night that Dad—I saw you pick up something from the grass. When I found the watch, I assumed that’s what you picked up.”

Emily paled. “You never said anything back then.”

“You never said anything. The investigators believed you were in the house. I saw you outside.” Her heartbeat accelerated, and a light-headedness made her sit in the other office chair.

Her sister’s mouth opened and closed, her eyes wide.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Madison caught her breath. “What are you hiding?” she whispered, her voice pleading for truth.

Tendons stood out on Emily’s neck, her pulse visible.

“Emily.”

Her sister ran a hand over her forehead and pressed at her temple. “What if I’m wrong?”

“Wrong about what?” Madison tensed, every muscle like rock.

Emily turned her attention back to the photo of their parents. “Wrong that I saw Tara out there that night.”

Her head reeled, and Madison clutched the arms of the chair. “Tara? No—she wasn’t there. She was at a friend’s. She said so.” Nausea swamped her. “I thought I saw Mom in the backyard moving in the trees.” Madison covered her face. “What is going on?”

“It wasn’t Mom,” Emily said. “I understand how you thought it was her because of the hair, but it was Tara.”