Guilty as Sin by Jami Alden

fourteen-year-old Tricia Fuller who’d gone missing in Sandpoint, Idaho. Revisiting Sandpoint and everything that had happened here was the last thing on earth Kate wanted to do, but she knew she couldn’t say no.
    Her own notoriety and the fact that the media had connected her to Tricia’s case meant that Tricia and her family would receive more coverage than 99.9 percent of any of the other hundreds of thousands of kids currently missing in the United States.
    It was horribly unfair, Kate knew, that some children were headline fodder for weeks, even months, rallying the public around the families and galvanizing the search.
    The reality of it gnawed at her conscience for the families and kids who were ignored, whose faces she wasn’t helping to keep on the TV screen or the front pages of thenews. But she couldn’t let that keep her from seizing on the tragic connection she had with this case and this town and the media’s desire to exploit it, not if it could help get Tricia home safely.

    “Brooke, her sister, had gone out,” Jackson said, “some party on the lake. I’d gone to bed early, around nine,” he continued. “At that point Tricia was watching a movie on the great room TV.”
    He reached up and scrubbed a big, blunt-fingered hand across his face. “Goddamn pills. I didn’t hear a goddamn thing when she left, I was so out of it.”
    Kate gave CJ and Tommy puzzled looks. She hadn’t heard anything about Jackson being under the influence. “Pills?”
    “Goddamn sleeping pills,” Jackson clarified. “My doctor prescribed them because I haven’t been sleeping more than an hour or two at night, ever since Suzanne…” He broke off, pressed against his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
    Kate’s heart squeezed in sympathy as Jackson took a shuddering breath and tried to compose himself. Shortly after the New Year, Suzanne Fuller, his wife of twenty-five years, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Despite attempts at treatment, she’d died within six weeks.
    “I keep thinking, if only I hadn’t taken it, I would have heard her sneaking out. I would have been able to stop her.”
    She couldn’t imagine the man’s pain, first losing his wife, then having to deal with the horror of having his young daughter disappear.
    “She followed her sister to the party?”
    Jackson nodded. “More to spite Brooke, I think, thanbecause she really wanted to go. They haven’t been getting along well lately. When Tommy suggested we come out here, I was hoping that a change of scenery…” His voice trailed off as he gazed out the windows across the lake.
    Tommy shifted on his feet and his eyes met hers. There was no missing the guilt that flashed across his face.
    “Brooke was the last one to see her,” CJ offered.
    “What time was that again?” That bit of information was already seared into Kate’s memory banks, but she wanted to make sure everyone was sharing the same information. Inconsistencies led to mistakes, false leads, and confusion when keen focus on the details was essential.
    “A little before eleven, Brooke said,” CJ replied. “It’s in the police report I sent you. She indicated they argued, and she told Tricia to ride her bike back to the house.”
    But when Brooke arrived home a little after midnight, Kate knew, Tricia was nowhere to be found.
    “Can I speak to Brooke?”
    CJ and Jackson exchanged glances. “She’s not up to talking to anyone,” Jackson said tightly. “As you may imagine, she’s struggling with all of this.”
    She could so easily imagine. Again her gaze was drawn to Tommy as though by a tractor beam, as her own guilt and grief formed a tight knot in her chest, threatening to cut off her breath. “Maybe later. At some point, it would be good if we could get her in front of the cameras.”
    “Jesus, that’s cold,” Tommy interjected. “That’s all you can think about?”
    Kate felt her hackles rise at the notion of having to defend herself, especially