Free What You Can't See by Allison Brennan, Karin Tabke, Roxanne St. Claire Page B

He’d hurt her, hadn’t he? By loving the land more than his own daughter?
    A tear escaped and Skye watched it hit the table. She never cried. But this was her father, and her emotions were always close to the surface with him. She’d loved him so much…and then he’d died. He’d never have died if she’d agreed to live with him in the mountains like he’d wanted.
    The autopsy report said he’d been alive for two days after the fall. With a broken back, he couldn’t move. He’d died of internal bleeding.
    She hadn’t even worried about her dad until the assistant ranger called. After all, her father often disappeared into the woods. He could take care of himself. Then it took them two days to find him. Dead.
    Skye poured another cup of coffee, angry with her mother for leaving in the first place. Her father had never recovered from Marjorie running away. To find herself, to find God, whatever, she’d left to join this freaky religion in the middle of Oregon. What did Oregon have on Central California? Why did any god want a mother to abandon her only child?
    “Take me with you, Mom,” Skye said out loud, feeling ten again. Torn. Between a father she loved, and a mother she knew.
    Marjorie had said children were a distraction. “You’re your father’s daughter.” As if that were a bad thing.
    Why was she thinking about her mother? It was Anthony’s fault, making her talk about the past. She’d gone to sleep thinking about her empty life, and woken up with these odd emotions she usually kept under tight control.
    Feeling claustrophobic, Skye stepped out on her deck to breathe in fresh, cold air. The biting predawn salt air wrapped around her and she shivered, barely noticing she only wore the tank top she’d slept in and panties. She heard the waves crashing on the rocks below her house. The dark water topped with the glowing foam of breaking waves. They crashed in, rolled out.
    She walked down the wooden stairs and across the rough and rugged cliff, rocks sharp against her bare feet. The sensation didn’t pain her, instead it made her feel alive. Her skin prickled, her hair rippled, in the brisk ocean wind.
    She was alone. Her father had died because no one thought to look for him. Her mother had died because she’d run away to find herself, and ended up being murdered by a man she’d trusted. Her own husband would never have killed her, but she trusted a stranger more.
    The memories of what was lost flooded her and she couldn’t stop them.
    Skye’s body hung with despair. So much death in her life. She had no one. No family. No parents, grandparents, brothers, or sisters. She was sheriff, but what did that mean? Constantly on show. Constantly worrying that someone was going to stab her in the back. Her election was coming up. Her first election. She’d been appointed by the board of supervisors after the Santa Louisa sheriff died of a heart attack. She’d been held up to the media and community as the first female sheriff. They’d passed over well-qualified men to be able to say they’d appointed a woman.
    Who was she to have this job? She didn’t deserve it. She was a chess piece. A pawn. All she’d wanted was to be a cop. To stop predators from luring lonely housewives into cults. To know that when someone was missing, maybe they’d better look, just to be on the safe side. Better to be embarrassed than grieving.
    Rocks shifted beneath her feet and she looked down. She should step back from the cliff. It wasn’t stable here. The sandrock crumbled continually. Her house, which had at one time been one hundred eighty feet from the edge of the cliff, was now, after only thirty years of erosion and storms, one hundred fifty-two feet from the edge.
    What would it be like? To be truly free? Not grieve, not regret, not constantly question her own competence, her job. Herself.
    She’d always been alone, but she’d pretended. First that her mother wanted her, then that her father loved her. She