#1-3--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Ryan took in Jenny in the passenger seat. She was silent and had pulled into herself. It was the same behavior he recognized from his mom and his sisters when they were hurting and didn’t want to talk. Before he’d turned off the truck, she had already opened her door to step out.

  “Jenny,” he said, “this is about Alison first, about finding her. Then I want to know everything, everything that happened with Wren. I want you to open up and talk, but I can see the lack of trust you have. Maybe you think everyone is going to hurt you like he did, but that’s not true.”

  She stilled her hand on the open door.

  “I guess I just don’t understand why you stayed,” he said. “You said he hurt you, and you let him. I guess I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just walk away and leave him, at least for Alison.”

  She pulled in a breath, her chest rising. He could see how tightly she held herself as she turned to him, her face filled with raw emotion, her deep brown eyes so angry. “I can’t make you understand,” she said. “It was just something that happened. Falling for someone, everything was perfect—and then it wasn’t. A numb feeling came over me when I suddenly realized that nothing would ever be right again. I was educated and smart, and I didn’t even realize I was so desperate and lonely that I’d let a man do that to me, treat me like that, have that kind of power over me.

  “I don’t know how it happened. I was just suddenly in it, living it. It was my life, and one day it changed. Everything about him was different. There was the drinking, and he was so powerful. He said I owed him. He said, ‘I don’t mean to yell, but why do you make me do what I do to you? You make everything so damn hard. Just get down on your knees, where you belong.’

  “He was so loving in the beginning, and then something just snapped and changed along the way. It became about Alison, staying because of her, not having the strength to walk out because I didn’t believe it was something I could do. Instead, I listened to every cruel remark, believing what he said. Near the end, I heard him laugh when he showed more of who he was. He said I was vulnerable, lonely, fucking weak. It was my fault. I had made it too easy.

  “It was the mind games, the way he believed he owned me, every part of me. After he was shot, when I stared at the blood on my hands, you know what? It was a relief. I was so happy he was dead, because for the first time, I could breathe. At the same time, I loved him, and I was angry at that part of me that could still love him despite who he was.

  “I have a mother and father, you know, brothers and sisters. I don’t see them anymore because he didn’t want it, didn’t want me in their lives or them in mine. I haven’t spoken to them in so many years. He isolated me, and I let him. You think I’m a liar? You demand the truth? Well, I won’t be treated like that or have you look down on me because you believe I’m the worst mother ever, because I stayed in the marriage, because I wasn’t strong enough, because I didn’t do the best in your eyes. You’re right. I don’t trust anyone, and it shouldn’t matter to me what you think. Is there anything else you want to know?” Passion flickered in the way she spoke.

  In that moment, as she shared her dark night of the soul, he realized it was a part of her. It was there in her voice, something so raw. Knowing just how vulnerable she was had him understanding more of what her life had been, and his daughter’s. What they’d lived through, he didn’t understand.

  “You said your husband was shot, but you haven’t said what happened,” he finally said. “Who shot him, how, why?” He unfastened his seatbelt. Marcus was standing in the doorway, gesturing to him. Jenny looked straight ahead, out the window, and he didn’t have to see her eyes to know how hurt she had to be.

  She said nothing for another second, then gave him everything in the next breath. “I was upstairs in our bedroom when I heard the gunshot. It took me a minute to understand what it was that I had heard. I raced down the stairs and into his office, seeing him on the floor, bleeding, and my daughter was standing there. I remember going to him, seeing the look in his eyes—horror, fear, something I’d never seen before. I pressed my hands to his stomach as I tried to stop the bleeding. I screamed at her to call 911, but she just stood there, and it was then, as I looked at her, hearing Wren gasping and feeling his body jerk under me, that I realized she was staring at him. There was a gun in her hand, at her side. I could feel the life pouring out of him.”

  His chest tightened. She looked away for a second, and he wondered if the horror he was feeling showed. Things were going from bad to worse for his kid.

  “But she didn’t answer me,” Jenny continued. “She just backed away, dropped the gun to the floor, and walked out of the room. I called 911 and watched the life seep out of him. When I heard the sirens coming, I knew he was dead, and all I could think of was protecting my kid, so I picked up the gun, knowing I was out of time. I didn’t think. I just ran into the kitchen, and the first thing I thought of was the grease trap under the sink. I grabbed the dishtowel and lifted the lid, and I slid the gun in, pushing it into the white, solidified grease. It just fit, and it was hidden. Then I put the lid back. I don’t remember ever feeling so clear or confident as I focused everything in each moment. I heard pounding at the door, and I hurried back to where Wren was lying in a pool of blood. I just yelled and called out as I went back down on my knees with the towel still in my hand, and I pressed it to the hole in his chest, covering it with blood even though it was no longer spilling out. That was where they found me.

  “Of course, they knew he was dead. They pulled me off him. They tried to revive him, loading him in the ambulance. The police were there. I said it had to have been a break-in or someone he was meeting with. I said I’d heard the shot and had found him, and I had no idea what had happened. I grabbed Alison from her room, and we went to the hospital. All the while, the cops were at the house, and I knew they were searching, investigating. The entire time, I was picturing where I hid the gun, right there in plain sight in the grease trap. They never found it. They said there were no signs of a break-in, so it had to have been someone he knew. Wren had a lot of visitors, men, people he did business with. The neighbors were questioned and said there was always a lot of coming and going. He worked from home.”

  Then she stopped talking and stepped out of the truck, and she stood there and faced him. He didn’t have a clue what to say.

  “So now you know my secret, and you know something no one else does, Ryan,” she said. “You wanted to know something? Well, that something gives you the ammunition to blow my world apart, and my daughter’s. There, now you know everything, or more than anyone knows. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to find her.”

  She shut the door, and all Ryan could do as he stepped out of the truck, following a woman he knew nothing about, was try to wrap his head around the fact that his daughter had shot the man who raised her.

  Now he was left with more questions than answers. What the hell had happened in that room between Wren and Alison, and why?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Iris O’Connell was a tiny woman, maybe five feet, with the same blue eyes as her son. Actually, every one of the O’Connells seemed to have the same vibrant blue eyes.

  She was in Ryan’s mother’s home, sitting in a chair in the living room after meeting Luke, who had long dark hair, a ripped body, and eyes that gave everything when he looked at her. Iris was sitting on the sofa beside Jenny in capris and a white tank. Her dark hair was short, and her face gave away nothing of what she was thinking. She was polite. Jenny felt out of place.

  “As I said, Alison is my daughter,” Ryan said, “and she’s missing. Jenny and I were together once. I didn’t know about Alison. They just moved here from Atlanta. Marcus and I found in her journal that she knows her father is an O’Connell, but she believes it’s Luke. There’s nothing else you need to know right now.”

  There was something odd about having everything summed up in a paragraph. No one said anything, as the front door opened just then, and a woman calle
d out, “Hey! Didn’t know everyone was showing up here today. What’s the occasion? Why didn’t anyone…?” She was short, with red hair and the same brilliant blue eyes, wearing a black pantsuit. As she stepped into the living room, she stopped talking, likely at the sight of the shock that Jenny knew was on all their faces.

  Luke didn’t pull his gaze from Ryan. “I’m not understanding,” he said. “You’re saying you have a kid with your neighbor, the girl who was causing trouble next door, and now she’s missing because she’s gone searching for her father, who is actually you, but she thinks it’s me?” He gestured between her and Ryan.

  The redheaded woman glanced at her in shock, then at Ryan. “You have a kid?” she said. She had to be a sister. Her voice was dramatic, high pitched. How many sisters had Ryan said there were?

  “Okay, manners, here,” Iris said. “Karen, this is Jenny. Yes, apparently I have a grandchild, and we’re just trying to sort out the situation. It’s kind of a mess. Everyone is understandably upset, but we need to focus. This is about finding Alison.”

  Karen closed her mouth and dragged her gaze over to Jenny, who didn’t have any idea what she was thinking. Sitting here with this family, she could feel herself shrinking under the spotlight shining down on her. Uncomfortable was an understatement.

  “Okay, I guess it’s nice to meet you, Jenny,” Karen said, then gave her attention back to her brothers, who towered over her. “I have a ton of questions here, like…you didn’t know? How old is she? And what the hell happened?”

  “Karen, I’m sure everyone has a ton of questions,” Ryan said, “but right now, all that matters is finding Alison. Whatever questions you have will have to wait. But yes, she’s my kid, actually a teenager. Luke, you’re saying no kid has come around here or tried to reach out to you? She’s about this high, short dark hair that looks like she cut it herself…” Ryan held his hand up to show her height.

  “She did cut it herself,” Jenny said, “and dyed her hair just before that. It’s a mess—and don’t forget her nose ring.”

  Karen dragged her gaze over to her, and so did Luke.

  Jenny shrugged. “She’s going through some stuff.” She couldn’t make herself look at Ryan as she said it, because she didn’t want to see the way he was looking at her, what he thought of her, what a horrible person she was.

  “Karen is a lawyer, Jenny,” he said in a way that surprised her, and she wasn’t sure what expressions she was seeing on everyone else’s faces. Of course, they had to be wondering why he’d said that, or maybe it was just her own paranoia.

  Then Luke was shaking his head. “I’m telling you, I haven’t heard from or talked to anyone.”

  “Well, hang on a second, Luke,” Iris said. Everyone looked her way, and she crossed her legs and rested her hand over her knee. “Didn’t you say some underage teen girl was outside the liquor store, trying to get you to buy her beer?”

  “When was this?” Marcus asked.

  Jenny had to fight the urge to squirm, as Karen kept dragging her gaze between Ryan and her. She was still reeling over what she’d shared. Vulnerability was a constant companion she didn’t want to have anymore.

  “Today,” he said. “Maybe sometime this afternoon.” Luke had crossed his arms over his wide chest. He was wearing a gray T-shirt over blue jeans, and his muscles showed through every stitch of clothing. “Yeah, a troubled kid, a teenager, walked right up to me as I came out.”

  “What did she look like?” Ryan started, then turned to Jenny. “You have a photo of Alison on your phone?”

  She pulled her phone from her back pocket. “I’m not sure how recent it is, not after the godawful cut…” She opened her phone, seeing the pictures of her unsmiling daughter. “Here’s one from just after we moved here.”

  In the photo, Alison’s hair was still long, but she had already dyed it jet black. Jenny didn’t know why, but she showed Iris first.

  “That was before she cut it all off and pierced her nose,” she said. She wasn’t sure what to make of Iris’s expression as she held out the phone to Ryan, who showed it to Karen, Marcus, and Luke. Just watching the four siblings, she could see they were close.

  “Well, that’s her,” Ryan said. “Boy, she really looks different there.” He lifted his gaze to her. Alison had changed so much. It had been like a downward spiral, and Jenny had been at a loss for what to do.

  “I don’t know,” Luke said. “Maybe, not sure. Yeah, short dark hair that looked like she’d butchered it—and she was dressed ridiculously slutty, looking for trouble. It was more the guy with her, though. He was tall, scrawny, and his shirt and pants…like a grease monkey. Why does she think I’m her father? No offence, but I’ve never seen you before,” he said, turning to Jenny.

  She didn’t move or say anything, sitting as straight as she could as she tried to figure out how to explain the inner mind of Wren.

  “We don’t know all the details for sure,” Ryan said. “Jenny is at a loss, as well. But this guy she was with, that sounds an awful lot like Ollie Edwards, and I’m pretty sure he told us he hadn’t seen her.”

  Ryan and Marcus looked at each other, and then Marcus walked out of the room, his phone to his ear. She didn’t know what that was about.

  “We should take a ride back over to Ollie Edwards’s place,” Ryan said. “Luke, you should come with us.” He let his gaze land back on her and gestured to her, and she stood and walked over to him. He settled his hand on her shoulder, steering her away. “Look, I’m going to head back over to Ollie’s with Luke and Marcus. Can you stay here with my mom and sister? I’m not telling you what to do, and we need to talk about what happened, but in the meantime, please just stay here.”

  Even though she wanted to say no, she realized from the way he touched her that he was asking, not demanding. He rested his hand on her shoulder, then pulled away. She could hear his family talking behind them, but she didn’t know what they were saying.

  “Okay, but you call me the minute you know anything, the second you talk to him…”

  He pressed his hand over her shoulder again and rubbed, then nodded. Just then, Marcus walked back in the room, and Ryan and Luke followed him out, leaving her alone with two women she didn’t know. They’d have a lot of questions they’d want answered.

  She pulled in a breath to say something, but Iris started toward her first.

  “Okay, so who’s had dinner, nobody?” she said. “Well, I have a casserole in the oven, and Luke’s beer is in the fridge. Karen, pour yourself a glass of wine. Come on, you two…” She was already moving into the kitchen, and Jenny realized she hadn’t even waited for them to answer.

  “Wine or beer?” Karen asked her.

  For a second, she stared, waiting for the inquisition. “Uh…” she said.

  Karen somehow maneuvered her into the kitchen, sitting her on a stool at the island. A beer was poured in a glass in front of her, and Iris and Karen were suddenly talking about the weather, how long to cook the shepherd’s pie, and whether they should add onions to the salad.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Holy shit, Ryan,” Luke said. “You know how to screw the pooch big time, so to speak. You really knocked that chick up? Man, I’ve heard of a lot of things, but you having a kid who’s, by the sounds of it, one step from juvie…”

  Luke was sitting in the passenger side of his truck as he followed Marcus back to Ollie’s place, his hand on the grab bar on the roof. The truck rattled over ruts in the road, and the sun had settled on the horizon. Now it was getting dark.

  “Her name’s Jennifer, Jenny,” he replied, “and there’s more to the story that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. How about we leave that for now and just find my kid? You think it was her outside the beer shop? And the timing, seriously, she just walked up to you?”

  He didn’t have to look over to his brother to hear him run his hands over his face, scraping over his stubble. At least he’d gotten his brother out of the house and was prompti
ng some type of conversation.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Luke said. “The kid was a mess, with the hacked-off dyed hair. I’ve seen some pretty bad ones, but she was wearing enough makeup and dark shadow that it seemed like she was taking up streetwalking. And what she was wearing…her shorts barely covered her, and the cut of her shirt, she may as well not have been wearing one. If that’s your kid, you’ve got a serious problem you need to straighten out, and quick, because I’m telling you she wasn’t really a kid, if you get my drift. The guy she was with, it looked like he was familiar with her in ways he shouldn’t be. How old is she, anyway, seventeen, eighteen?”

  He spotted the single wide and could see Marcus pulling up ahead of them. “No, almost fifteen.”

  “Whoa, seriously? She didn’t look anywhere near that young. Maybe it wasn’t her. Let’s hope it wasn’t.”

  He pulled up and parked behind his brother’s cruiser. Marcus was already pounding on the door as he turned off the truck and then looked over to his brother. “Oh, it was her, unfortunately. That’s what scares me.”

  “Man, then you’re definitely going to have your hands full, with a kid who turned out like that. Walking trouble. You said there’s more, but what more can there be? Did she have a father, or was it just Jenny and her?”

  He knew his brother had questions. All his family would, and he knew they’d keep asking until he answered, but the problem was that he couldn’t talk to them about any of it, considering what Jenny had said. Murder, messing with a crime scene, hiding the weapon and then lying…and who knew what else?

  “I know you have questions, but how about we just find her? That’s step one. Then, once I get my answers…”

  Luke just gestured toward the trailer as he stepped out of the truck, and Ryan followed. Marcus was talking with an older man with sandy hair in a stained T-shirt and khakis. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, hearing a TV inside and seeing the way the man glanced from Luke over to him.