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little like I’m walking through a fog, but okay,” the older man answered, still sounding slightly befuddled.
    â€œI thought it might be better if I brought Lily and Uncle William with me rather than tell what I have to tell twice,” Ross said then.
    â€œSure. Why don’t we go inside?” Flint suggested, ushering the threesome up the porch steps and hollering “We have company,” as he went in behind them all.
    From upstairs came Coop, and from the kitchen at the rear of the house came Kelsey and the newly arrived Jessie.
    And while Flint had no explanation for it, he only had eyes for Jessie, whom he said good morning to.
    More greetings made the rounds and then Kelsey got everyone out to the picnic table in the backyard for coffee because no single section of the house could comfortably seat so many at once yet.
    â€œI’m glad to see you back with us, Flint,” William said as they all settled. “I do remember that you were leaving after Anthony’s party for a business trip.”
    â€œAnd I’m glad to see that you know who I am,” Flint teased his uncle.
    With a nod in the direction of Jessie, William added, “And this beauty? She must be your wife?”
    They were sitting beside each other—at Kelsey’s suggestion. But Flint was slightly discouraged by this lapse in his uncle’s recall.
    â€œNo, this is Jessie, Kelsey’s sister,” Flint explained as if it were no big deal that William had made the mistake. “I’m not married anymore.”
    As if to get past William’s lapse, Lily jumped in then to ask where Anthony was.
    â€œCoop just put him down for his morning nap,” Kelsey answered. “But you can look in on him later if you want.”
    After a drink of his coffee, Ross took the lead. “I had a call from the police today,” he began.
    As a private detective, Ross was the family’s closest link to law enforcement. He’d done all he could to try to find William when he was missing, as well as to look into the whereabouts of Lulu Carlton—Anthony’s birth mother—for Cooper.
    After having it confirmed that Anthony was Coop’s son, Coop had done the math—he’d been involved with Lulu at the time Anthony would have been conceived. He hadn’t had any idea that she was pregnant when they’d broken up and he’d left her in Minnesota, but Ross had discovered that she’d come to Texas.
    Ross had also discovered that there had been a car accident near where William’s car had gone off the road, on the same day William had disappeared, that a woman had been killed in that accident but that without identification, she was in the Haggerty morgue, listed as a Jane Doe.
    The time lapse between when Jane Doe’s accidenthad been reported and when William’s car had been discovered in the ravine days later had raised questions about whether the two incidents were related. No one had yet to answer those questions. But the coincidence had made Ross suggest that Cooper take a look at Jane Doe.
    Sure enough, Coop had identified her as Lulu Carlton and provided his son’s mother with a proper burial.
    In the course of all that, Ross had had several dealings with state and local police, so it was no surprise that news coming through those same channels that involved the Fortune family would still go to Ross first.
    â€œIt seems,” he was saying, “that the man who was working at the church as the groundskeeper in January was arrested for stealing a car and robbing a convenience store in Dallas a couple of days ago. His name is Charlie something-or-other. He wasn’t alone, he had that Courtney woman with him—the one who brought Anthony to Max Allen—”
    â€œMax Allen?” William asked, obviously lost.
    Lily placed a reassuring hand over William’s where it rested on the picnic table. “Remember you met him—he’s