Kill Her Twice - River's Edge Mysteries, #1

When Emily James digs up a mysterious leather purse buried in her garden, she unknowingly digs up some very old wounds. Kallita Prewitt, the owner of the crusty old handbag, had disappeared a quarter of a century before, yet her belongings remained intact within the bag. No one wants to reopen the cold-case investigation into her disappearance twenty-five years earlier, least of all Sergeant Dan Clifford, Clarksville's detachment commander.
Against Clifford's orders, Detective Sergeant Colm O'Byrne assists Emily as she launches her own investigation, revealing secrets and opening old wounds that might better be left untouched, and setting off a chain of events that raises the question: What is Dan Clifford hiding?