CHAPTER TWENTY
Noah texted a lengthy message to Lance, figuring his baby brother would eventually be able to reach out and explain the contextual bomb Detective Kendrick had dropped on the phone.
“Lance would have said something twelve years ago if whatever he and those girls had done that night had anything to do with either disappearance, of that I’m sure.” Gus took out his trusty handkerchief and dabbed the perspiration off his forehead. They’d moved outside to the shade of the large oak tree in the front yard to wait for Reese’s return. “Your mother and I raised you boys better than to keep something so important from the police.”
Gus wasn’t going to get an argument from his son. Noah agreed wholeheartedly that if anything illegal or illicit had occurred that particular night, Lance would have said something to one of his brothers or their parents. He was stateside, so getting ahold of him shouldn’t have been an issue. Why wasn’t he responding to Detective Kendrick’s calls?
“Lance is due home in a few weeks on terminal leave, but I’m sure he’ll call me back today.” Noah looked over toward the woods where the shortcut was located, finally recognizing the shitstorm they’d unraveled when he and Reese had taken a sledgehammer to one of the walls. “When you think about it, Lance was seeing Brynn by the time winter rolled around that year. Whatever relationship or crush Lance and Sophia may have had on one another faded after that summer was over. Plus, he wouldn’t have known she ever went missing a year later. He was getting ready to finish school and head off to boot camp, remember?”
“It still doesn’t explain why Lance would have risked the grounding of his young life to sneak two girls out of Birdie’s camp.” Gus had taken a large bucket of scrap wood they’d emptied into the bed of his truck and turned it over to use as a seat in the front yard. The porch still had some decaying planks that needed to be replaced. “You know how strict Birdie was with those overnight campers.”
The sound of his truck finally broke through the trees. It wasn’t long before she pulled up close to the porch. He only had to look at her pretty face through the windshield to know something had happened while she was in town.
Noah had his hand on the driver’s side door before her white flip-flop ever hit the ground.
“Are you okay?”
Reese didn’t answer, but his chest tightened when her bottom lip tremored. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her as she stepped into his embrace. Whatever had happened was more emotional than it was physical. He breathed a sigh of relief to know she hadn’t been attacked again.
“Reese,” Noah murmured reassuringly as he took her by the shoulders and pushed her back just enough so that he could see her expression. “What happened?”
“Jeremy and Whitney Bell were at the diner when I was picking up lunch.” Reese brushed back a flyaway strand, showing him her troubled gaze. Those beautiful brown eyes of hers were heavy with confusion. “At first, I had terrible visions of him doing something horrible to Sophia. He was acting so strange. But then he leaned down and whispered something in my ear so that no one else could hear what he was telling me.”
For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what Jeremy Bell had to do with Sophia or Emma. It wasn’t like Whitney had ever hung out with Emma, unless she tagged along with her older sister. Was that the connection? Had Shae Irwin told Whitney something that would give an explanation as to why Emma had disappeared?
“Noah, Jeremy Bell said that I might want to talk to Annie about what she and Sophia really talked about that night.” Reese wiped the moisture away that had gathered underneath her lashes. “I knew there was something else to that conversation. I knew it. When we talked to Annie last week, it didn’t make any sense that Sophia would seek her out because she’d uncovered that Annie was actually Anastasia Pearl Osburn. There had to be more to the story.”
Noah didn’t like all of these loose ends, either. A lot of this responsibility had been on Sheriff Percy to help the state with their investigation. Towns of this size were close-knit, which is where the sheriff could have used his influence to seek out the truth. Unfortunately, the sheriff was all but retired on active duty. He didn’t want to do anything that might upset the applecart.
Was Emma’s time at camp related to the reason she vanished all those years ago? It was highly doubtful, but it was still a lead that should have been checked out by law enforcement.
“There’s something else.” Noah didn’t want to add to Reese’s stress, but he couldn’t withhold the information Detective Kendrick had given over the phone. “The night that Sophia went to see Annie? My younger brother was the one who snuck her out of camp and drove them over to her place.”
Noah shifted backward, giving Reese room to step away from his truck. He shut the door behind her, leaving the food in the back seat for now. She leaned against the hot metal as she absorbed this latest bit of news. She was taking this better than he would have thought.
“How do you know this?”
“Detective Kendrick called right as you were heading into town.”
“And you didn’t know? Lance never said anything to you about that?” Reese glanced past his shoulder to where Gus was waiting patiently. She’d gotten to know him this past week, so Noah wasn’t surprised that she was worried about hurting his feelings. “Can we call him? Can you reach out to him? We need to know what was actually said that night.”
“I’ve already sent him a text message to call me back.” Noah didn’t like to make excuses for his siblings. They’d been taught honor at a very young age. Even with that lesson, people made mistakes. “He’s returning home in a few weeks for good, so I know he’s stateside. It shouldn’t be long before I hear something back from him.”
Noah prayed that he was right, because he couldn’t fathom his brother evading a police investigation.
He was surprised when Reese quickly spun around, opening the door to the truck. She retrieved the bags with the Styrofoam containers inside of them, hooking one on her arm and carrying the other two with her right hand. With a bump of her hip, she closed the door. The pace in which she did so set him on edge, because he could already tell what she had in mind.
“Reese, we should call Detective Kendrick to let him know what Jeremy Bell said to you today.” Couldn’t she see that they were stepping on a hornet’s nest? “Let Kendrick talk to him to find out what he knows.”
“Why wait when we can drive to Annie’s house and talk to her?” Reese reasoned, slipping around him and heading toward Gus. He instinctively stood and took the food from her hands, shooting a commiserating look toward Noah. He’d seen it a million times when his mother had become headstrong about a subject she became determined to sort out. “Do you know where she lives? If not, we can stop back at the diner in town and get the address from Cassie.”
“Of course, I know where Annie lives, Reese,” Noah said, bringing her up short when she would have walked right back to his vehicle. He rested his hands on her arms to try and get her to see reason. “One week ago, you were attacked in a public place. Someone didn’t want you asking questions, and he or she went to pretty disturbing lengths to get his or her point across. It’s not smart to be traipsing around town when whoever it was who tried to hurt you is still out there free.”
“And you think it’s Annie?” Reese had her oversized brown sunglasses on top of her head, but she lowered them onto the bridge of her nose to make her point. She was going to question Annie with or without him. “She’s an eighty-some-year-old woman, Noah. Trust me, she wasn’t the one who attacked me in that restroom.”
“I never said that I believed Annie was responsible for what happened to you, but you’ve been asking questions that someone is uncomfortable with when it comes to Emma and Sophia.” Noah could tell by the look on Reese’s face that he was going to lose this battle. A glance toward his father sitting on that damned bucket and eating his club sandwich as if he were watching a fucking television show proved that he wasn’t going to be any help. “Am I the only one who sees the sense in calling Detective Kendrick to take care of this?”
“You’re the only one I see standing in my way, at the moment,” Reese pointed out, shooing her fingers at him like he was a field mouse caught in her kitchen. “Annie basically sought me out last time, so she’s already proved she’s willing to talk to me. I can get answers quicker than Detective Kendrick can, and you know it.”
Reese brushed past Noah, causing his arms to drop to his side. He lifted them up in frustration, but his father only took another bite of his sandwich as he settled in to enjoy his lunch and this impromptu skit from daytime television.
Son of a bitch.
“Are you coming?”
“I’m driving.” Noah needed to be in control of something. If that something was his own truck, then so be it. Reese had already settled herself into the passenger side of his F150, dangling his keys in her hand. “Have you considered calling Tanner and asking him about this new development?”
“Tanner?” Reese practically laughed in mockery over her cousin’s name. “I’m barely speaking to him right now. The reason he attended camp that year was to keep an eye on Sophia, because my uncle never let her do anything alone. And what did Tanner do that he decided wasn’t of importance? He was too busy trying to impress some girl named Beth Ann Mason to check on his sister or do what he’d been sent there to do. He said he only saw her twice, and that was when Birdie called camp meetings.”
Noah didn’t think it was a good idea to bring up that Beth Ann had been his first kiss. He might not be the smartest man in Blyth Lake, but he sure as hell was not totally devoid of common sense.
“Dad, can you go ahead and lock up?” Noah asked through his open window. He had finally accepted the inevitable. “I think we might be awhile.”
Gus raised a hand in acknowledgement as he continued to eat his lunch, smiling after his son. Noah’s stomach growled, but it looked as if he wasn’t going to be eating anything till supper time.
Noah didn’t utter a word until he pulled the truck into her driveway, shutting off the engine before she could protest.
“If we’re going to go traipsing around town, please allow me to have a shower and change my clothes.” Noah opened the driver’s side door before walking around the front bumper and assisting her down from the cab. Her eyes were still covered by those oversized sunglasses, but her scrunched up nose at the delay was too cute to resist. He leaned in and kissed her forehead before jogging up the steps and using the key she’d given him days ago. It wasn’t like there was any significance in the gesture, and he certainly didn’t put a spin on it. “Give me ten.”
“Eight,” Reese called out with a smile. No one else, besides probably her family, would have caught the strained line running across her forehead as she worried about what they were about to uncover. “You could earn a real kiss if you’re ready in five.”
“You’re on.”
Noah quickly made his way through the living room, down the short hallway, and into the bedroom. His open duffel bag still sat on the chair in the corner, and his toothbrush was still seated beside hers in the ceramic holder.
This was a temporary situation.
Reese had come here looking for answers, and today might be the day she got what she wanted. That left Noah wondering if she wouldn’t cut short this so-called vacation and head home once she’d found those answers.
He tossed his clothes into the hamper next to the dresser with a little more force than necessary and made his way into the bathroom. With a flick of the handle, the shower came to life. He rested his palms against the counter and stared at himself in the mirror.
It shouldn’t matter when Reese went back to her life.
He’d gone into this summer fling with his eyes wide open.
Then why did thinking about her leaving feel as though a knife was piercing his chest?