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  UNVEILING THE PAST

  Scripture quotations and paraphrases are taken from the following versions: The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. The King James Version.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN 9780525653660

  Ebook ISBN 9780525653677

  Copyright © 2020 by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  Cover design: Kelly L. Howard

  Cover images: Andy Ryan/Getty Images, Shutterstock

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

  WATERBROOK® and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Sawyer, Kim Vogel, author.

  Title: Unveiling the past : a novel / by Kim Vogel Sawyer.

  Description: First edition. | Colorado Springs : WaterBrook Press, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019034940 | ISBN 9780525653660 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780525653677 (electronic)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3619.A97 U58 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019034940

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Readers Guide

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  A father to the fatherless…

  is God in his holy dwelling.

  —Psalm 68:5, NIV

  One

  June 1992

  Little Rock, Arkansas

  Margaret Diane DeFord

  While her daughter happily crunched a big bite of off-brand sugar-frosted flakes, a cereal reserved for summer consumption only, Diane sipped her second cup of coffee and perused the Sunday paper. Bright midmorning sunshine flowed through the sliding glass doors that led to their small balcony and glared against the newsprint. Diane angled the folded pages away from the light. A short article caught her attention, and she laughed as she finished the paragraph.

  “What’s so funny, Mom?”

  She peeked over the top of the paper at her daughter. “It’s snowing in Colorado.”

  Meghan’s fine dark eyebrows shot up and her mouth formed an O, revealing a gap where her bottom front teeth used to be. “But it’s summertime. It’s not supposed to snow in summertime.”

  Diane shrugged. “Tell it to Colorado.” She glanced out the sliders and winced when the sunlight met her eyes. Not a cloud in the sky. Today would be a scorcher in Little Rock.

  “You know what?” Meghan swung her bare feet and grinned, holding her spoon like a sword. “It’d be neat if it snowed in the summer. Snow is nice and cold, and it would cool us down when it’s so hot outside.”

  A six-year-old’s logic. “It’d be neat, but it isn’t possible. You need cold atmospheric conditions for snow to form, and you don’t get that in the summer.”

  Meghan’s face puckered. “Then how come it snowed in Colorado? It’s summer there, too, isn’t it?”

  “Sure it is, but the elevation is different.”

  “What’s elebation?”

  “Elevvvvvation.” Without conscious thought, Diane slipped into her teacher’s voice. “Elevation is the height of a land area above sea level. The higher the elevation, the cooler the temperature. Colorado’s average elevation is probably six thousand feet higher than Arkansas’s. It makes a difference.”

  “Ohhh.” Meghan’s expression brightened. She clanked her spoon onto the table and half scooted off her chair. “Can we go to Colorado and see the snow?”

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go on an impromptu vacation and experience snow in June? But a single mom on a teacher’s salary didn’t have the luxury of taking impromptu vacations. Or even planned vacations beyond day trips to local museums or the zoo. She shook her head. “Sorry, no can do.”

  Meghan’s bottom lip poked out. She slumped into her seat.

  “But later you can go to the pool and cool off that way.” She’d had to pay more in rent than she preferred to live in an apartment complex that included a private pool and playground area, but it was worth it. Meghan could go swimming whenever she wanted.

  “Okay.” Little enthusiasm colored Meghan’s tone.

  Time for distraction. Diane pointed at Meghan’s bowl. “Finish up your cereal before it gets soggy.”

  “I like it soggy.”

  “The sooner you finish eating, the sooner you can head to the pool.”

  “Okay.”

  Diane raised the paper and focused on an article about an agreement between President Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin on arms reduction, ideas forming for discussing the potential ramifications of the pact with her history students when school started again in the fall.

  “Mom? Mom!”

  Diane snapped the paper down. “What?”

  Meghan scowled. “I asked you a question.”

  She’d been more caught up in her thoughts than she realized. “What was it?”

  Meghan tapped the paper. “I read a new word on there. Hold it where I can see.”

  Diane lifted the pages.

  Meghan squinted at something. “What is uh-bit-you-are-ees?”

  Confused, Diane flipped the paper around. “Oh. You mean obituaries.”

  “What’s obituaries?”

  This child had more questions in her than Diane ever imagined a small head could hold. “An obituary is the
printed record of a person’s death.”

  Sadness pinched the little girl’s face. “You mean it says somebody died?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Diane glanced at the columns. At least a dozen names were listed, and postage stamp–sized black-and-white pictures gave a face to each name. Her gaze fixed on one, and for a moment she forgot to breathe.

  “Like my lizard died?”

  Diane stared at the name—Charles (Chuck) Harrison—and the grainy image beside it.

  “Mom, like Lenny the Lizard died?”

  “Meghan, enough questions already. Eat your breakfast. It’s turning into a soggy mess.”

  “I like it—”

  “Eat!”

  Meghan yanked up her spoon.

  Diane bent over the page and read the entire obituary. Slowly. Underlining the words with her trembling finger.

  Charles (Chuck) Harrison, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, age 52, died on June 15, 1992, in his home. He was born February 25, 1940, in Fort Smith, the fourth child to Frank and Edna (Collins) Harrison. He graduated from Fort Smith High School and earned degrees in business administration and accounting from the University of Arkansas, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1963. He owned and managed Harrison Accounting, a successful business in Fort Smith, for almost thirty years. He married his childhood sweetheart, Melinda Garland, in September 1962. To their union was born one child, Kevin, in 1965. Charles was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife, Melinda; his son, Kevin, of Fort Smith; his brothers, Richard and James; his sister, MaryAnn (Harrison) Walker; and several nieces and nephews. Cremation has taken place. No service is planned.

  She gave a jolt at the final line. No service? Why wouldn’t the family have a service for someone who held lifelong connections to a community? And how had the man died? “In his home” was such an ambiguous explanation. More questions than Meghan could ask in a day formed on Diane’s tongue, but all of them remained unstated. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—ask the person who could answer.

  She slid her gaze to a name in the middle of the impersonal recitation. Kevin. Her blood went as cold as the snow covering the mountaintops in Colorado. A dozen images flashed through her mind’s eye, and she winced with each remembrance. Mother always said she had a stubborn streak a mile long, and she’d put it to good use when she determined not to think about Kevin Harrison. She’d succeeded. Until now.

  These people—Charles, Melinda, Richard, James, MaryAnn, the unnamed nieces and nephews…She had a connection to them. Well, not directly, but Meghan did, which meant Diane did by default.

  She glanced at Meghan, who sat with her chin in her hand, stirring the last few sodden flakes in her bowl with a stubby finger. She’d slept in yesterday’s pigtails, and they hung askew with stringy wisps of darkest brown framing her flushed cheeks. The stretched neck of her favorite Care Bears nightgown sagged, and a squiggly thread stuck out from the seam of one shoulder. Such a disheveled mess and yet so beautiful. Not a single resemblance to her blond-haired, blue-eyed father.

  Thank God.

  She closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t seen the obituary. Wishing she hadn’t seen Kevin’s name in print. Now she’d have to start all over in wiping him from her mind. She popped her eyes open and tapped her daughter’s wrist. “Hey.”

  Meghan didn’t lift her face, but she shifted her eyes and peered across the table through a fringe of messy bangs.

  “Are you done?”

  She offered a barely discernible nod.

  “Put your bowl and spoon in the sink. Then do your morning stuff.”

  Meghan nodded wisely. “I know. Wash my hands, brush my teeth, and get dressed.”

  “But don’t put on your swimsuit.”

  “No swimming?”

  “Nope. We’re going to do something else.”

  A hint of curiosity flashed in Meghan’s brown eyes. “What?”

  “It’s a surprise.” It would be a surprise to Diane, too. She had no idea where they’d go or what they’d do. She’d probably end up using her credit card, spending money she couldn’t afford to squander. But she needed a distraction.

  She flicked her fingers at Meghan. “Go on now. Hurry. We don’t want to be late.”

  Giggling, Meghan hopped down from the chair and grabbed her bowl. She scampered to the sink, her bare feet slapping the linoleum. She clattered the bowl and spoon into the sink, then flashed a grin over her shoulder. “We’re gonna have fun, right?”

  “C’mon, Di, we’re gonna have fun.”

  The voice from the past—the voice she had steadfastly blocked from her memory for seven years—attacked. He’d given her a lot more than fun.

  Diane gritted her teeth. “Hurry, Meghan.”

  Two

  May, Twenty-Five Years Later

  Carson Springs, Arkansas

  Sean Eagle

  Chinese takeout for the third time that month. And it was only the fifteenth. Sean picked up his fork but didn’t aim the tines for the mound of steaming chicken-fried rice on his paper plate. He glanced across the kitchen table to Meghan, intending to ask if they could forgo bringing home any more little white wax-coated boxes until at least the end of June, but the sight of his wife expertly wielding chopsticks diverted his attention.

  She paused with the bamboo eating utensils halfway to her mouth and grinned at him. “What?”

  He pointed with his fork at the pair of sticks holding a clump of food, then met her curious gaze. “You handle those things like a pro. Are you sure you’re Italian and not Chinese?”

  He’d meant to joke, but when her smile faded, he recognized his error. When would Meghan decide to do more than stare at her biological father’s name on the paper in her desk drawer? The sooner she found the man and satisfied her curiosity, the sooner they could stop living under the shadow of someone neither of them had ever met.

  She put the bite in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Pinching a chunk of chicken with her chopsticks, she shrugged. “Mom always said if you’re going to eat Chinese food, you shouldn’t use a fork. And Grandma said that adage about being hungry a half hour after eating Chinese is only true because you lose part of each bite to your lap.”

  Sean gave the expected laugh and finally plunged his fork into the rice. They ate in silence. Well, except for the mumble of news reporters from the television around the corner in the living room. Years ago, he’d developed the habit of keeping the television or radio on. For noise. His house was too lonely without it. He hadn’t expected to need a source of noise after he got married, though. They’d been husband and wife three years already, and—

  “Are you done?”

  Meghan stood beside him, hand outstretched. He glanced at his plate. The food, with the exception of a few stray pieces of rice, was gone. He didn’t even recall eating it.

  “Yeah, I guess I am.” He handed her the grease-stained circle of white paper, then picked up the fork, wooden chopsticks, and pair of empty water bottles and followed her to the kitchen. He placed the fork on the counter near the sink and tossed everything else in the recycling bin while she dropped their plates and napkins in the trash can.

  Leaning against the counter, he folded his arms over his chest and observed her put the fork in the dishwasher. He was capable of doing it, but she had a “system,” and she didn’t want him messing it up. Always so independent and self-sufficient. Sometimes he admired the traits. Sometimes he wished she needed him a little more.

  “All done.” She clicked the door closed and shot a smile over her shoulder.

  “Not quite.” He bobbed his chin at the appliance. “You didn’t start it.”

  “It isn’t full yet. No sense in wasting water.” She grabbed a handful of paper towels and a spray bottle of cleaner and crossed to the table.

  Sean remained in place, staring at the dishwasher’
s stainless-steel door. She’d put things in the racks every day for more than a week, and there still wasn’t enough in there to warrant running it? Something wasn’t right with that scenario. His mom hadn’t gotten a dishwasher until he was a junior in high school, but he recalled the appliance humming every other day at least. But then, Mom had made use of her stove every day.

  He understood why Meghan didn’t cook much. Investigations took them away from home, sometimes for days at a time. Even when they were tied to their desks in the Arkansas Cold Case Investigations Department, the commute from Little Rock to Carson Springs put them home past the normal supper hour. Grabbing something quick was easier than preparing a meal and eating at eight o’clock or after. Before their wedding, how many suppers had he grabbed at a drive-through window?

  Sure, he understood, and he didn’t blame her for not wanting to cook. He was tired, too, at the end of the day. But memories of home-cooked meals and conversations around the table sent feelings of family rolling through him—a longing for the life he’d had with his parents. The kind of life he always thought he and his wife would share.

  He shifted his attention to Meghan, who spritzed the laminate tabletop and wiped it down with the crumpled wad of paper towels. Her mink-colored ponytail swayed beside her cheek, giving her a girlish look. But she wasn’t a girl anymore. She’d be thirty-two this year. Thirty-two…and he was thirty-six already. When his mom was thirty-six, he’d been a seventh grader. Even if he and Meghan had a baby tomorrow, he’d be forty-one by the time their child started school and fifty-four—three years older than Meghan’s mom was now—when the child graduated.