Page 33 of The House on Forgotten Hill

It was him.

My pulse quickened as I flipped to the next photograph, and the next.

The woman was younger, with long dark hair.

I reached for the newspaper clipping lying on the table beside me. “I think the woman in some of these photos is Melinda Bellamy.”

“The missing girl?” Caleb asked.

I nodded.

We continued to sift through the pictures. In one, Melinda had her back to Preston. It was clear by their facial expressions that they were having a heated argument. My heart pounded as I looked at the next one. Melinda’s head was turned to one side, and a streak of blood ran down her cheek.

In the next image. Preston's arm was raised, his expression twisted with anger, as Melinda recoiled from him. My pulse quickened as I turned to the photograph after that.

She was lying motionless on the floor.

Preston stood over her.

By then, my hands were trembling, almost causing me to drop the final photograph. As I looked it over, for a moment I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Then the realization hit, and a chill swept through my body.

Preston was no longer looking at Melinda. He was staring out at the window, hands on hips at the camera, at my father.

Now I understood why my father had hidden the photographs beneath his office floor. Because he hadn’t just witnessed a crime. He’d been seen doing it.

16

The ride home was quieter than I’d expected. For the first several minutes, neither Estelle nor I spoke. The only sounds inside the car were the hum of the engine and the occasional rattle of loose gravel beneath the tires.

The photographs sat in my lap, but I hadn’t looked at them since we’d left Caleb’s studio.

I wasn’t sure I could.

My father had carried the answer to at least one disappearance, an answer he took to his grave.

I reached into my handbag and pulled out the newspaper clipping about Melinda Bellamy, streetlights flashing across the page as I unfolded it.

My eyes drifted to the date printed beneath the headline.

I read it once.

Then again.

And then I gasped. “Estelle!”

She glanced over. “What is it?”

I held up the article. “I was so caught up in everything I was looking at this morning, I realized I didn’t pay much attention to the date Melinda went missing.”

“What about it?”

“She was reported missing the day after my father died.”

The words felt strange coming out of my mouth.

Too unbelievable.

Too horrible.