CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Noah rubbed his hands up and down Reese’s arms in an effort to keep her warm. The first towel Brynn had given her to dry off had been soaked by the time she’d wiped the water off her exposed skin. The one she currently had around her shoulders was now damp from collecting the moisture from her clothes. It didn’t help that the central air of the bar was cooling the place even more now that the majority of the town had been told to vacate the premises.
“I’m so sorry, Reese,” Cassie barely managed to whisper through the hoarseness she’d acquired from crying for the last hour. “I tried to explain everything to you at the diner earlier this evening, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you what I’d done.”
“You hired Darcy to attack Reese, Cassie.” Noah wasn’t in the forgiving frame of mind. Sheriff Percy needed to put this woman in cuffs and take her away before Noah decided to do it for him. “Reese was physically assaulted and had to be treated by paramedics. What if she’d suffered a concussion or worse? Did you ever think of that?”
“Noah, d-don’t.” Reese was having some minor trouble keeping her teeth from chattering, but Noah couldn’t take her home quite yet. The sheriff was still trying to piece together what was related to the actual events compared to the body they’d discovered in his home. “Cassie, I still d-don’t understand why you tried to s-scare me away.”
“You came to town asking all these questions about Emma. I didn’t think anything of it until I heard that you were really trying to find out what happened to Sophia.” Cassie wiped away her tears with a couple of white napkins she’d taken from one of the tables. “It was only a matter of time before you figured out that she snuck out of camp to talk to my mom. I didn’t want those damned nude photographs from so many years ago making my mother’s life impossible back here in our hometown, especially when it was so hard to make them disappear in the first place.”
“And this is when you asked Darcy to attack Ms. Woodward?”
Sheriff Percy shook his head in disappointment. Noah was also in disbelief that one of their own could resort to such heinous measures.
“You don’t have to stay here for this,” Noah whispered, deciding it might be better take Reese home while the sheriff sorted this out.
“Yes, I do.” Reese pasted a smile on her face as Brynn brought her yet another towel, though this time it was accompanied by a blanket. “Thank you so much.”
“It’s no problem,” Brynn said with a side-eye toward Cassie in disgust. “You just let me know if you need anything else.”
“Darcy didn’t mean to hurt you, Reese.” Cassie pressed the back of her hand to her trembling lips, trying to maintain her composure. “He only meant to scare you. We just wanted you to leave town, Reese. That’s all. He was horrified when he’d heard just how badly you’d been injured when pushed you against the tiled wall. He didn’t mean to do it so hard.
Reese. And then he was afraid you’d recognize him. He’s always in and out of the diner with my mom.”
“He did hurt me, Cassie.” Reese handed Noah the damp towel and then wrapped herself in the warmth of the soft blanket. A little color was coming back into her cheeks, but that might have had to do with the shot of whiskey Rose had brought over from the bar. “And everything you’ve done has made me question the good intentions of everyone I’ve met in Blyth Lake. They didn’t deserve my suspicion, and what you’ve done could very well have kept others from telling me about Sophia. They believed it was too dangerous to talk to me.”
“Don’t you understand,” Cassie practically begged, leaning forward with the napkins wadded up inside her fingers, “what those photographs would have done to my mother, the diner, and even me had they been rediscovered? Those pictures weren’t just nude photographs, Reese. They were pornography in the worst way, because my mother made a mistake that she shouldn’t have to suffer for over and over. These people would have crucified her. They aren’t going to tolerate her past mistakes.”
“You didn’t give the people of this town a chance to prove you otherwise, Cassie,” Noah answered in a hardened tone, not even attempting to hide his disgust. “You and Darcy went too far with this cover-up over something you thought might hurt your business. It had nothing to do with your mom’s reputation.”
“I’m inclined to agree with Noah,” Sheriff Percy said in disappointment as he nodded toward one of the younger deputies who had stayed behind while Deputy Foster had accompanied Darcy to the hospital. The deputy stepped forward. “It also has me wondering if it wasn’t Darcy out in those woods that night when Deputy Wallace was killed. Did Wallace recognize Darcy? Was he using the shortcut to walk toward Ms. Woodward’s residence and then panicked when he saw my deputy standing guard out at the old Yoder place?”
“You think—” Cassie cheeks had been rather flushed from all the tears she’d cried this evening, but every bit of color drained from her face at the sheriff’s implication. “No. No, no, no. Darcy didn’t kill Deputy Wallace, Sheriff. He didn’t. After things started getting out of hand is when Darcy tried to warn Reese away. After that, he stayed far away from her, because he feared she would recognize him. He wasn’t near her house that night, Sheriff. I promise you.”
“I guess we’ll have to find that out on our own now, won’t we?” Sheriff Percy gestured toward the deputy to take Cassie into custody. “You took matters into your own hands and created a hell of a mess here. You’re just as guilty as Darcy, Cassie. You’re under arrest for—”
“Wait.” Reese held up her hand as if she could stop what was about to happen. “This is getting—”
“Cassie?”
All eyes turned toward the entrance of the bar. Annie Osburn stood there in all her glory using a cane to help her slowly advance toward her daughter.
“Mama?” Cassie’s eyes filled with even more tears as she practically broke down in the chair. “I’m so sorry. You weren’t ever supposed to—”
“I wasn’t supposed to know that you hired Darcy to scare off this poor woman?” Annie Osburn wasn’t one to take any prisoners. She was a woman in her own right, but she was also a mother whose every decision had been based on ensuring her daughter was raised properly. “I figured something was up between the two of you with all those secret conversations in the kitchen. I could hear you two whispering like you were a couple of teenagers. I might be old, Cassandra Mae, but I’m not deaf. But to do something so awful?”
Noah had been standing over Reese this entire time, but he pulled up a chair so that he could sit next to her. What he had to say, no one else needed to hear. Cassie was too busy trying to condone her choices and actions, so he used this time to see what was on Reese’s mind.
“What were you going to say before Annie walked in the door?” Noah asked softly, tucking some damp strands of hair behind her ear. It irritated him that she was still shivering on and off, when he could have her home on the couch with dry clothes. “Cassie and Darcy committed a crime, sweetheart. That can’t go unanswered.”
“Do you really believe that they had anything to do with the body we found?” Reese grabbed Noah’s hands and held them close, leaning into him for support. She wasn’t looking for him to agree with her, because it appeared she’d already made up her mind. He’d have to change it, because the bulky bandages on her hands reminded him of how severe her injuries could have been had she not fought as hard as she had. “I’m positive that when Sheriff Percy or Detective Kendrick investigate Darcy, they will find that he didn’t kill Deputy Wallace. All this is doing is muddying the water, and potentially allowing whoever was responsible for Emma’s death to remain free.”
“Do you forget what took place an hour ago?” Noah reminded Reese, needing her to see what she was suggesting wasn’t the wisest call to make right this moment. “Darcy was going to physically attack you again. He—”
“But he didn’t.” Reese rubbed her forehead as she attempted to conjure up exactly what had taken place out in that alleyway. Her action drew his attention to her scar. “I think he was trying to apologize, just as Cassie suggested to us earlier. I didn’t give him the chance.”
“Do you want this happening to someone else? What happens when a reporter gets wind that Anastasia Pearl Osburn lives out in an old farmhouse to the east of town? Is Cassie going to take matters into her own hands again? Is Darcy going to follow along for a few hundred bucks?”
“I think we need to let the sheriff do his job here, but I’m not going to press charges.” Reese surprised him by softly resting her bandaged palm on his cheek in a subtle plea that he wasn’t sure he could accommodate. “Please understand my position. They made a mistake. It was a colossal one, I’ll give them that, but it was an emotional mistake all the same.”
Noah shook his head in disbelief that she could just let this go, although he wasn’t certain the law would allow this to go unpunished. Simple assault was a Class A misdemeanor. She might not have any sway over the sentencing that would be handed down over this type of crime, but it was something they could discuss tomorrow.
Right now, he wanted to take her home.
There were many things on his mind, and quite a lot he wanted to say to Reese.
This wasn’t the time or place.
The entrance to the Cavern opened once more, revealing Detective Kendrick. Noah breathed a sigh of relief. The sheriff might be handling this situation in the proper manner, but it was good to have someone on the outside conduct a fair investigation without emotion coming into play. Towns like these were known to sweep their dirt under the rug a time or two.
“Detective, I’m glad you were able to come,” Noah said as he offered his hand. The firm handshake lasted a little too long, alerting him to the fact that something was wrong. What else could have happened this evening? “Reese, would you please give me a moment?”
Reese didn’t have time to answer as Annie took his vacant seat. She was rather quick for an old-timer, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was apologizing for what her daughter had done.
“First, I don’t want you to worry about Darcy Tillman or Cassie Osburn. I’ll be taking over the investigation shortly.” Detective Kendrick didn’t stop walking until he’d led Noah across the room where no one could hear what he had to say next. His grim expression had Noah steeling himself for the news about to be delivered. “The DNA results came back from the lab.”
“I think we all knew it was Emma Irwin,” Noah guessed with a shake of his head. It wasn’t like the entire town hadn’t known who had been killed and hidden inside that wall all those years ago, but it was still hard to swallow that evil of this kind could exist among the residents of this town. With that said, he never would have guessed that Cassie and Darcy would have attacked an innocent woman all because she’d asked a few questions about the past. “Have you told her family?”
“Noah, it wasn’t Emma.”
Detective Kendrick allowed his words to penetrate, but even then, Noah had a difficult time accepting them as the truth.
“I saw what hair was still there,” Noah said rather cautiously as a sinking awareness in the pit of his stomach took up residence. “It was the same length, the same color…”
It could have been the look on the detective’s face, or it could have been a simple deduction of reasoning, but Noah was already denying where his thoughts had taken him.
“No.” Noah flat out denied what Kendrick was about to confirm. “No, that’s not possible. Anderson installed that drywall before—”
“Pete Anderson didn’t construct that additional room until a year after Emma went missing. They weren’t even living there until more than a year after renovations began.” Detective Kendrick laid a compassionate gaze on Reese when all Noah wanted to do was turn back time. This news was going to devastate her. “I wanted you to know first, so you can be there for her.”
“How conclusive are the results?”
There could have been a mistake at the lab. Noah was grasping at straws, but he didn’t want to pile onto the load Reese was already under tonight.
“Noah, the body you and Ms. Woodward discovered behind that drywall was Sophia Morton. The lab ran the whole series of tests twice,” Detective Kendrick confirmed before gesturing toward Reese. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I promise you I will do everything in my power to catch the son of a bitch who put her in there.”