Protector (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 3) by Roxie Noir, Amelie Hunt Page B

With the gouges in the hill where they were.”
    Garrett stroked the stuffed dolphin with one finger, frustrated as hell. There were so many strange parts to this mystery, so many odd details that he couldn’t quite reconcile to what had happened — but none of them proved anything.
    Taken all together, they might point in one direction or another. But individually, he still had nothing . The cremation could be incompetence. The same with the junkyard that trashed the car before it got examined.
    The gouge next to the road and the side view mirror could mean something, or they could be from any point in the last fifteen years. Just because he’d seen another car that night didn’t mean it had anything to do with his parents.
    “But he ended up not really proving anything,” Seth said, and shrugged. “Even if they were going that fast, it doesn’t mean anything.”
    “It means that something made them go that fast, in the rain, in the dark,” Garrett said. “You and I both know they weren’t driving like that for the hell of it.”
    “I know,” Seth said, quietly.
    Violet came back up to Garrett and looked at him, her blue eyes enormous. She had wispy red curls and Seth’s stubborn jaw line.
    “Holy shit!” she said again, then gently took the dolphin back off of Garrett’s knee.
    Jules closed her eyes and sighed, and Garrett forced himself not to laugh.
    “Violet, please ask Uncle Garrett if you can have the dolphin back, don’t just grab it,” Jules said.
    “Caahhve dolf?” Violet asked.
    “Yes,” Garrett said.
    She grabbed it and ran off again. Seth grinned and elbowed Jules in the side.
    “I’m hoping the novelty of that particular phrase wears off,” Jules muttered. “Last month she taught everyone in her play group to shout a saltier version of ‘gosh darn it, Seth,’ and telling her not to say it only made her do it twice as much.”
    “It’s pretty funny,” Ellie said. “And also adorable.”
    “I know,” said Jules. “Momma’s gotta learn to watch her mouth.”
    Violet threw a stuffed frog, then gasped dramatically.
    “Oh no ,” she said, her face totally serious. She ran after the frog.
    “Anyway,” Seth said. “You think you’re close?”
    “I think I have to be,” Garrett said.  
    He glanced at Violet, watching the little girl play with her trucks and stuffed animals.
    Can she shift? he wondered.
    “Someone in Obsidian knows what really happened,” Ellie said. “I’m almost positive of it. We just have to find the right person.”
    ‘That’s the problem,” Garrett said. “It’s Obsidian.”
    To put it lightly, the Monsons weren’t popular in town.
    “It’s actually not as bad anymore,” Seth said. “When the Grand Escalante became a National Park, Obsidian became the eastern portal into it, so now there’s a fair number of tourists who come through on the way in. A new motel opened, a couple new restaurants, a hiking supply store. It’ll never be a big city, but new people have moved here.”
    “The Escalante’s a national park now?” Garrett asked.
    That was strange. It had always been a national monument, but his family had gone camping there every spring almost since he could remember. The landscape was beautiful and wild and rugged, cascading red cliffs for as far as he could see — and almost no other people.
    But now it was a destination. There were probably tour buses that went there.
    “It’s a little weird,” Seth admitted. “Having the fresh blood in Obsidian is good, though. And you might find more help out there than you think.”
    I sure hope so , Garrett thought.

    * * *

    That night, Garrett and Ellie went to bed in separate rooms. He was pretty sure that Jules and Seth knew something was up, but after explaining all the madness that had been the last few days, he didn’t also feel like explaining what was going on with him and Ellie.
    Not that Garrett was completely certain he knew. She seemed to like him, but she was cautious