#1-3--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Chapter Ten

  Ollie’s house was just outside Livingston, a single-wide mobile that had seen better days. The grass was waist high in some parts, and junk was piled here and there. Ryan took in his brother standing out front with some guy who had light shoulder-length hair and couldn’t have been more than fifteen, he thought.

  He pulled up beside a rusty red station wagon and stepped out of his pickup, taking in the scrawny kid. He wore a tan sleeveless shirt and baggy blue jeans, both covered in dirt and appearing to have seen better days. The kid appeared uneasy, looking over to him and then back to Marcus, standing at the base of lopsided stairs that seemed ready to collapse.

  “I told you I don’t know where she is,” the boy said. “How many times do you want me to tell you? I don’t even know her that well.” His voice was high pitched, fast, loud, trying to be convincing.

  Ryan didn’t need his brother to tell him this was Ollie Edwards, and Marcus only glanced his way as he came up beside the two. The boy was tall and skinny but still at least three inches shorter than he and his brother.

  “You find out how he knows her?” he asked.

  Marcus had his arms crossed over his chest the way he did when he was questioning someone. “Ollie, this is Ranger O’Connell. He’s also looking for Alison. Why don’t you tell him what you told me?”

  Another thing his brother did was get the suspect to repeat the story, then catch the inconsistencies. It was harder to remember a lie than the truth.

  “I met Alison at school,” Ollie said. “I’m a senior. We hung out. She’s nice, is all, new to the school. She didn’t know anyone. But I got kicked out and haven’t seen her in over a week. I swear that’s the truth.”

  “How old are you?” Ryan asked.

  “Seventeen. Look, that’s all I can tell you. I said I didn’t know anything…”

  “Why did you get kicked out of school?” Marcus said. “It’s the beginning of the school year. You haven’t really had a chance to screw up yet.”

  Ollie was shuffling back and forth, fidgeting. “Smoking,” he said.

  Ryan and Marcus looked at each other, knowing it would’ve been more than that, considering they’d both tried smoking in high school. Marcus had been busted by his math teacher and received a slap on the wrist, detention, with the punishment of having to write a five-thousand-word essay on smoking and its dangerous health effects. Ryan had been lucky, having learned from his brother’s mistake. He knew that alone wouldn’t have been enough to get Ollie kicked out.

  “You know, Ollie, I don’t like it when I’m lied to,” Marcus said, “and not telling me everything is the same as lying. Come on, out with it. I can just as easily put a call in to the principal and find out in two seconds, or you can come clean and start telling me everything.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Look, what does me getting kicked out of school have to do with Alison?” Ollie wrapped his arms over his chest. He was shaking. Yeah, he was scared shitless, and Ryan would’ve bet anything he knew something or had done something. Whether that had anything to do with Alison, he’d yet to hear.

  “Well, why don’t you start with telling us why your backpack was found up on the trail at Livingston Peak with your stuff in it, papers from school, among other things?” Ryan said. “You want to talk about that?”

  Marcus pulled out the school paper he’d given him earlier and unfolded it, then held it out to Ollie.

  “Shit!” Ollie said. “Look, yeah, this is mine, but it was in a backpack I don’t have anymore. When I got kicked out of school, Alison was there outside. I was pissed, and I gave it to her. She was always carrying this ratty blue thing. I asked her if she wanted mine, and she said sure and took it. I gave it to her with my things in it and all. I wasn’t going to need it anymore. If she hadn’t taken it, I would’ve dumped it in the trash. I’ve got a job now, working with my dad as a mechanic, helping out in the shop.”

  “Well, what about Alison? When was the last time you saw her?” Marcus asked. Ryan was still trying to figure out what he wasn’t telling them.

  “A few days ago,” Ollie said. He was still shuffling, and he shoved his hands in his jean pockets, stepping up on his toes and bouncing a bit. “She came by the garage, wanted to talk.”

  Ryan exchanged a glance with his brother. “About what?” he said. “Look, in case we haven’t stressed this to you, Alison isn’t missing just yet, but her mom is worried, and Alison’s not answering. Finding her backpack up the mountain, abandoned, we have to wonder why she’d go up there, anyway. Was she looking for something, what? I’m sure you have an idea.”

  “Maybe she just went for a hike,” Ollie said. “Did you ever think of that? She’s carrying a lot of shit, you know. Maybe she just needs some space from her life, her mom, everyone. She’s angry about a lot of things, angry at her mom, and then finding out the way she did that her parents had been lying to her…”

  Marcus reached for his shades and pulled them down a bit on his nose, peering over them at the boy. Ollie had let something slip, and Ryan was trying to wrap his head around it. Okay, so there was a secret. He’d already figured out that much, considering how Jenny had been acting, but he had yet to find out what it was.

  “About what?” Marcus said. “Come on, Ollie. Tell me everything. I guarantee you, the last thing you want is for something to happen to Alison. If she doesn’t come home and I find out you withheld something that could have helped, you would be in a world of trouble. So how about this? You tell me everything you know about Alison, everything she told you, everything she shared, and I promise not to keep showing up here. Your other option is for me to show up at your dad’s shop. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be happy about that, considering having a cop poking around is bad for business.”

  He thought the kid was going to shit his pants, as he swiped both his hands over his face and dragged them down roughly. “She said she found out that her dad isn’t really her dad,” he said. “Something about how her parents really got into things, how her dad treated her mom, telling her what to do all the time, and then her dad was drunk one night after one of their fights. Apparently it would get pretty rough. She confronted him, told him to stop hurting her mom or something like that, and she said he just stared at her from behind his desk, and it was there in the way he looked at her.

  “He told her he had a lot of regrets. He started talking and saying weird stuff, that her mom should have been more grateful to him and a bunch of weird and cryptic shit like that. She said her dad was different, changed, and she saw how scared her mom had become of him, the way he talked to her, treated her. Apparently he said something in his drunken stupor, told her that her mom had been knocked up by some guy she hooked up with before him, that she wasn’t really his. But he said he’d wanted her, he’d married her mom and raised Alison as his own. Alison was gutted and upset and furious with her mom, realizing that they’d lied to her the entire time she was growing up. She felt unwanted, and she’s been trying to find out who her real father is.”

  Ryan couldn’t pull his gaze from Ollie. His heart thumped. It seemed he was getting a bigger picture of how this girl’s life had crumbled apart, and maybe an idea of why she was acting like a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, doing and saying the things she was. It was because of how bad she was hurting. That was a shitty thing for a kid to hear. He crossed his arms over his chest, taking in Marcus, who glanced his way.

  “So she’s angry and hurt?” Marcus said. “What does that have to do with her having your old backpack and us finding it dumped up the trail with her cell phone in it?”

  Ryan didn’t pull his gaze from the kid, who was still shuffling and running his hands over his forehead, brushing his hair back, shaking his head. His face had peach fuzz. He knew way more about Alison and her situation than he was letting on.

  “All I know is what she told me,” Ollie said, still shuffling his feet. “I’m not lying to you. She’s looking for him.”

 
; “Her father, her real father?” Ryan jumped in.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Where is she looking for him? Come on, she had to have told you.”

  Ollie looked over to him with light hazel eyes in an unsmiling face. “Well, here, of course.”

  For a second, he felt his chest squeeze. “Here? You mean Livingston?”

  “That’s what I said. Alison told me that whoever her father is, he lives here in Livingston. That’s what her dad said to her. He said her father is from Livingston, Montana. So imagine her surprise when her mom up and moved them back here. She’s angry, furious at her mom. She said she’s going to find him, this guy, whoever he is, and get in his face about abandoning her.”

  Ryan pulled in a breath, knowing how well that would go over. He wondered whether Jenny knew any of this. He was pretty sure she didn’t, but then, what did he really know about the two of them other than the fact that they both seemed to be steeped heavily in secrets, likely ones they were keeping from each other?

  “What does that have to do with Alison hiking up Livingston Peak?” Marcus said. “Her mom said she hates everything about the outdoors. That’s what I don’t understand. You said her father is here, but who is he?”

  Ryan looked at his brother, realizing both of them had the same thought, that maybe she’d found him and that was where she was.

  Ollie smiled, actually laughed under his breath. “She never said who the guy is. Maybe she knows, maybe she doesn’t. I don’t know. Her being on a hike probably has got nothing to do with that. You’re right that she doesn’t fit in here. The outdoorsy thing isn’t for her. She talks about going back to Atlanta, too, the life she had there, the friends, the city. She misses it.” He shrugged. “I have no idea what she’s doing up there, but maybe she’s looking to clear her head, go for a hike. Take your pick. I told Alison it was something I liked to do. Took her up there once on the back of my ATV. I like Alison, but at the same time, I know there’s no rhyme or reason to anything she does.”

  Ryan lifted his gaze, looking past Ollie to the tilted porch.

  “Okay, thanks, Ollie,” Marcus said, then handed him a card. “If you hear from Alison, you call me.”

  Ollie took it and said nothing else as he strode up the steps, which creaked under him, and went back into the trailer.

  “You think any of that’s true?” Marcus asked as they started back to their vehicles. “Maybe she found the guy here, or thinks she did.”

  “Don’t know,” he said. But he’d ask Jenny, just one more thing to add to the list of secrets she seemed to be carrying. Pregnant by someone here…so who was it? Someone else she’d picked up? Maybe. Considering how she’d approached him and been gone when he woke, how many others were there? “I’ll ask Jenny about this guy. I’ll handle it, find out who he is, and then maybe we’ll find Alison.”

  Marcus said nothing as he pulled open the door of the cruiser, then rested his arms on the top of the car. Then he said, “You do that, but as soon as you find out who it is, you let me know. I’ll talk to him. Maybe she’s already showed up at home, but if she doesn’t show up tonight…”

  Ryan lifted his hand. “I know. We’ll start looking.”

  He waited until his brother had driven away, then climbed into his truck and started it, knowing he still needed to stop into his office. He’d check in and tell Peters, the other ranger working the area, let him know about Alison, a troubled teen taking off into the woods. Then he planned to ask Jenny outright who the father was, because everything about this situation with his unexpected new neighbors was beginning to snowball, and it had him wondering what other deep, dark secrets Jenny was holding on to.

  He was suddenly being dragged into the life of a woman he’d slept with one time and barely knew, and suddenly, he had more questions than answers.

  Chapter Eleven

  What was it about being told to sit and wait at home that reminded her so much of Wren? Her husband had had a cruel streak she’d never expected. It was in who he was, what he did, how he crushed her with his words and then built her up again. The same words had rolled off his tongue nearly every day: “Let a man handle it, and don’t worry your pretty little empty head. Stick to what you’re good at, the bedroom, the kitchen, and staying fit and attractive for me.”

  Those were just some of the many things he’d said to her, but the smile that had charmed her the first time they’d met would appear after every cutting remark, every cruel word. And then what would he do but lean in and kiss her? She had felt as if her entire life was in the palm of his hands, and he alone controlled her.

  It had been horrible to be under his mercy, feeling as if her voice, her life, her confidence were continuing to shrink away. Ryan hadn’t done that, but she couldn’t help feeling as if Wren still had a hold over her life.

  She slapped the dough on the counter and kneaded. If she didn’t do something, she thought she’d lose her mind. She’d stared at the clock and swept the floor already as she waited, listening for every creak or noise outside that would tell her Alison was home. She pictured the minute, the relief that would come, and then she’d scream and yell at her daughter for what she’d put her through yet again.

  She heard a vehicle and a door closing, and she grabbed a towel, wiped her hands, and hurried barefoot to the door, ready to grab her daughter, hug her, and then yell at her. But it was only Ryan. His heavy footsteps creaked on the porch as she pushed open the screen door. He pulled off his shades and tucked them in his shirtfront, and she found herself looking around him for Alison. No one was there.

  He reached for the edge of the screen door, holding it open above her head.

  “You didn’t find her,” she said.

  He just shook his head and somehow maneuvered her back into the house. “No, but we talked with Ollie, and at least we have some ideas now. Seems your daughter shared some personal stuff with him about your late husband and you, and I kind of need to ask you about it, because it could definitely tell us where Alison is. Certainly tells us where her head is at.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Just hearing that he knew something about her, that Alison had been sharing their personal stuff with strangers, had her feeling such anger and betrayal. What was her daughter thinking?

  “I can tell by your face that I’ve just hit a nerve, but I need you to put it aside.”

  She forced herself to swallow past the lump in her throat as she clutched the dish towel still in her hands. They were standing in the entryway, by the stairs. The hardwood floor was stained, and the beige carpet runner on the stairs was old and worn. Ryan was watching her as if he knew something she wasn’t going to like.

  “Just say it, Ryan, because I’m not liking this game of silence. It’s something my husband, Wren, used to do. I’d walk on eggshells around him because he’d make me think he knew some secret about me and then wouldn’t tell me. He’d let me worry about how bad it could be. It’s the kind of thing that fucks with your head, so just spill it already!” she snapped. “This is my daughter. Just tell me. Whatever she said, just say it.” She could feel the edge of her nerves, the bite, the discomfort.

  What did he do but glance away? His expression was off, but he nodded. “It seems your daughter shared a lot about the personal problems between you and your husband. A lot of fights, anger, control. Apparently he was drunk one night and told your daughter he wasn’t her father.”

  Had the floor actually moved? As she stared up at Ryan, it took another second before her brain reminded her she needed to breathe.

  “I can tell by your face that part of that is true,” he continued. “Her father also apparently told her that whoever fathered her lives here, in Livingston. Now she’s looking for him. Is this true? Right now, that’s the biggest lead we have, and chances are whoever this guy is, if we find him, we find Alison. Who is it, Jenny?”

  She wondered whether that sound had been her, the squeaky wheeze. She had to tell herself to pull it toge
ther past the fear, the horror. Her chest tightened, and she couldn’t pull her gaze from Ryan as her mind completely blanked. The man she’d married and loved…she now realized he had betrayed her.

  “Are you sure he said that, that my daughter really said that? That can’t be true,” she said. It was all she managed to get out, flustered, not making any sense. She’d held on to the secret for so long that she had never imagined it would come out this way. No, she’d never planned for it to come out at all. It was supposed to stay buried forever.

  “So you’re saying the story is made up, that Alison’s father isn’t someone who lives here, that your husband wouldn’t have said that to her?”

  “Wren was a lot of things, but hurting Alison like that is something he wouldn’t have done. He loved her. I can’t see him doing or saying that,” she replied. No, he’d gone out of his way to put Alison first, to love her first, to love her more and do things for her that he’d never have done for Jenny. This made no sense.

  “So you’re saying it’s a lie, that Wren is her father, her biological father?”

  If she lied, would he believe her? She hesitated. The way he looked at her, really looked at her, she had to look away. “He was her father in all that mattered. He raised her, she has his name…”

  “You’re still not getting it. Your daughter’s missing, and these secrets are going to keep us from finding her. So Wren isn’t her biological father?”

  It was a surreal moment, but she shook her head. “No, he’s not,” she finally said.

  Ryan made a sound of frustration and rested both hands on his hips. He still didn’t know the truth. She could see he was thinking it was someone else. It would be easy enough to let him believe that. He gave her everything. “Why is it so hard for you to just tell the truth, Jenny? Does her biological father live here, or did he? What’s his name?”

  She was furious at Wren for opening this door, the same door he once had closed. How could he have told Alison when he’d been the one to say she’d never know? She swallowed again and nodded. “Yes, he’s from here.” She didn’t pull her gaze from Ryan, seeing his frustration with her. That was a look Wren often had given her, every time they were in the same room.