Last Stand Sheriff

by Tyler Anne Snell

  He pushed away from the wall, but Remi didn’t move. She felt her eyebrows furrow in together as she continued to stare at the wall.

  “What is it?” Declan asked. He turned around after Remi pointed.

  “That seam that’s been painted over.”

  “You mean the wallpaper? Yeah, they painted over it.”

  Remi shook her head, finger still poised in midair, and looked around the small hallway.

  “Where are the other seams?” she asked. “If you paint over wallpaper you’re going to see more than one, or bubbles from the paint over the paper. Something over the chair rail or at the corners. Not just one seam. No one is that good at painting over wallpaper, especially not in the eighties or nineties.”

  Declan touched the seam beneath the paint.

  “Unless it’s not a seam from wallpaper.”

  Green eyes met hers. Remi saw the excitement. The potential. The possibility that they were close to something new. She felt it, too.

  What she didn’t expect was what happened next.

  Declan touched the wall next to the seam and then reared his arm back and punched that same spot. Remi gasped as his fist went right through the drywall.

  “Declan!”

  “I’m okay,” he said. Then he did it again, beneath the hole he’d just made. It expanded the open space. Remi was prepared to grab his arm to keep him from doing it again when he slowly put his hand into the hole and pulled more of the drywall out. It came off with ease. He tossed the blue-painted chunks to the left of her. There was no trace of wallpaper on any of the pieces.

  Then he kicked the wall, opening a new hole.

  Remi took a step back.

  It was oddly intriguing to watch the man pull, punch and kick away an entire panel of drywall with such ease. And in a blazer and slacks, no less.

  Soon there was a Declan-sized hole in the wall. Remi moved closer again as the sheriff stepped just enough inside of the hole to peer straight at the spot where the seam was. Without looking anywhere else, he pulled two things from two separate pockets of his blazer.

  One was a pair of plastic gloves, which he put on with lightning speed and precision. The other was a pocketknife.

  He opened it, wordlessly.

  Then he slid the blade beneath the seam like an expert surgeon.

  Remi held her breath.

  The chill from outside had found its way into the cabin. Goose bumps moved across her skin.

  A long, agonizing minute crept by.

  When it was over Declan had cut out what had made the seam.

  “My God,” he breathed out after holding it up. He met Remi’s gaze with a look of total bewilderment. “Huds, it’s a piece of paper.”

  * * *

  THE PAPER WAS small but thick. One side was covered in paint, but the blue hadn’t bled all the way through. The ink that was scrawled across the other side, the one that had been against the original cream-colored wall, was still legible.

  In fact, it was nearly pristine.

  “What does it say?”

  Remi followed him into the kitchen, careful to keep her distance as he gently laid the paper down on one of the counters. The power was off, but the natural light kept the first floor bright. Still, Declan set the paper beneath the window that ran across the kitchen wall, not wanting to miss a thing.

  “It’s a name.” The handwriting was tight, neat. Declan didn’t recognize it, though he did the name. “Justin Redman.”

  “Who? Is that all it says?” Remi went from a careful distance to right up against his side. She smelled like the beach. Sunscreen and sunshine. It might have knocked him off his game had they been in a different setting.

  But not now.

  Not here with the note from the wall.

  “That’s all it says,” he confirmed, tilting the paper up so she could see it better. “Justin Redman.”

  “Does that name mean something to you?”

  Declan nodded.

  “He was a part of one of the cases my dad was working when the triplets were taken. Aggravated assault. Redman was attacked outside of the old gas station at the turnoff to County Road 11. The one that shut down when we were around fifteen, sixteen. He couldn’t give a good description and there were no witnesses. Then Redman died in a car accident. The department never found out who attacked him but suspected it was drug related.” Declan pulled out his phone to take pictures. “I don’t know why his name would be here. Or, for the matter, why it was painted against the wall.”

  “Or how that man in the bar knew about it,” Remi added.

  A shot of adrenaline went through Declan.

  “Or how he knew about it,” he repeated, chewing the words over.

  Remi shifted and walked away. Declan took several pictures before laying the paper gently back down on the cabinet.

  “What are you doing?” he called.

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m looking at the walls again! Check for any seams or bubbles or discoloration. If there’s one hidden piece of paper, who knows how many more there might be!”

  Declan followed his rising excitement and Remi’s instructions. Together they inspected the first-floor walls in silence. Sometimes Remi would be the one running her hands over different spots, other times Declan would rub certain stretches of faded paint.

  When they ended their search at the top of the stairs again, Declan took pictures of the wall he’d partially demolished.

  It had been easy to punch through the drywall but had left his hand stinging. A glance down showed blood. He tried to keep that hand out of Remi’s view.

  “What now? Do we go downstairs and look?” Declan was surprised at how eager Remi was to help. Surprised and pleased. It helped remind him how easy it had been to hang out with her as kids and teens. Being in her company was nice now, even if they were looking for hidden clues in walls.

  It also reminded him how bizarre their current situation was compared to them hanging out in the loft space of his family’s barn or out behind the high school complaining about Mrs. Darlene’s too-hard geometry homework and Coach Kelly’s ridiculous rules about dressing for PE.

  Declan was surprised at himself for what he said next.

  “We got way more than I bargained for already. I need to take that paper back to the department and do some digging. I can come back out here later and look downstairs, though I stand by there being not a speck of dirt or dust down there that hasn’t been cataloged already.” He motioned to the walls around him. “This, though... This was a surprise.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to keep looking? I don’t mind.”

  Declan shook his head.

  “You’ve done more than enough already, Huds. Thank you, I mean it.”

  Remi’s cheeks darkened slightly. From rosy to rosier. She was blushing. It was an endearing sight.

  “It was no problem.”

  Declan went out to his truck, grabbed one of the plastic sandwich bags he always carried in the cab, and bagged the note. Remi waited outside, leaning against the truck and looking off into the woods. It was a nice sight when he came back out, ready to leave.

  It wasn’t until they were both back in the cab of the truck that Declan realized the weight of what they’d just done.

  What they’d found.

  A new clue to the abduction case.

  The case that had torn his family apart.

  The case that changed all of their lives.

  Justin Redman. Declan had already reviewed the cases his father had worked on through his career. Michael Nash had been a great detective. Which had been the leading point of fact that had contributed to his obsession with the case and then led to his downfall. He was the great detective who couldn’t for the life of him solve an inch of what had happened to his own family, in his own hometown.r />
  It wore him down until there was nothing left.

  And now Declan had a piece of something his father had never seen.

  Could this be the missing part of the puzzle that finally led to some answers?

  Could he finally help his family find the peace they’d been searching for?

  A hand touched his arm. Declan was startled by it. Remi’s eyebrow was arched, her expression soft.

  “Did you say something?”

  She smiled. It was soft, too.

  “I asked if you were okay.”

  Declan took off his hat and set it down on the center console. A restlessness was starting to settle on him. An itch he needed to scratch. But that was how it had started with his dad—focusing to the point of isolating himself.

  Declan didn’t want to do that.

  Not to the woman who had seen what he couldn’t.

  “Sorry,” he said, starting the truck. “I get caught in my own head sometimes. Yeah, I’m good.”

  “And that blood on your hands?”

  Declan smirked.

  “Hazard of the job.”

  That earned a snort from Remi, and soon they were back on the dirt road.

  The farther away they got away from Well Water, the more he tried to relax and be in the moment.

  It wasn’t until they were on the main road pointed back to Winding Road that Declan realized how much of a grade A jackass he’d still managed to be.

  “What are you doing?” Remi asked the moment he slowed and started to pull onto the grassy shoulder.

  Declan switched on his flashers, put the truck in Park, and turned in his seat to face her.

  “You called me because you said you wanted to talk, and I pulled you out to a crime scene without even asking what it was that you wanted to talk about. I swear my mama taught me manners. Now what’s on your mind?”

  A peculiar look changed Remi’s expression from confusion to somewhere between amusement and hesitation. He thought she might not tell him for a moment, but then she angled in her seat to face him better and began.

  “Well, you know how stressed I was trying to decide if I should take the job in Colorado and you said you thought I should?”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah! You said it would be a huge step in your career, right?”

  It was Remi’s turn to nod.

  “It would be and, the Monday after I left here last, I accepted the position.”

  Declan smiled.

  “That’s great, Huds! You busted your tail to get it!”

  Remi’s cheeks tinted a darker shade of rosy again.

  “It is great. I’ve actually already started packing up the house. What’s not great is how slow that’s been going since the morning sickness kicked in last week.”

  For a second, Declan thought he heard her wrong. Then Remi raised her eyebrows as if to say, Yeah, you heard me right, big man. When she didn’t speak for another moment, Declan realized he must have heard her right.

  Then he finally added up some things he should have probably already been questioning.

  Declan might not have been as good a detective as his father or his brother but, by God, he’d be a damn near a fool to not understand the real reason Remi Hudson had come back to town again.

  Chapter Five

  “You’re pregnant.”

  It was more a statement than a question, one that didn’t seem to match Declan’s increasingly inquisitive expression. Remi didn’t know what she had hoped to see from the man at the news but was glad, at least, he hadn’t tried to rebuff her immediately.

  And that she hadn’t had to spell it out for him, either.

  “According to the lab tech who took my blood and the nurse who called me with the results,” she said with a nod. “Not to mention more than a few tests.” Remi pulled her phone out and went to the Gallery app. When she got to the cluster of pregnancy test photos she’d taken originally in disbelief, she passed him the phone.

  Declan was quiet as he swiped through them. There was another odd contrast between the muscled sheriff and her pink-and-blue-floral phone case. He stopped on the last picture and zoomed in with his fingers, expanding the part of the digital test that clearly read “pregnant.”

  “You’re pregnant,” he repeated when he was done. Remi took her phone back. Their fingers touched. Declan was warm. Just as he had been the night that had led them to this moment.

  “I didn’t notice at first that my period didn’t come, and then when I did I assumed it was because of stress, but then I was just so hot and Googled my symptoms. I started to do the math. I grabbed a test and made an appointment the next day for the blood draw. Though they took a urine test, too, and it was also positive.”

  Declan’s expression was passing from curious to shocked. His green eyes, tall grass in a breeze, were the size of quarters. A man trying to process as much information as he could while seeking out more.

  “But we used protection,” he pointed out.

  “And yet, here we are at almost six weeks. I guess the Nash swimmers are Olympians.”

  “Six weeks?” Declan’s voice jumped at that.

  “Five weeks, five days. Based on conception since, well, that was easy to pin down.” Remi held her phone up again. “I have an app that I can show you. It explains a lot, which is good because I grew up with three men and—” Before she could finish the thought Declan’s cell phone shifted their focus. A rhythmic set of beeps filled the space of the cab around them. Remi could see the caller ID read Detective Santiago. Declan didn’t reach for it.

  “My news isn’t going anywhere,” she said with a light laugh. “You can answer the phone. I won’t be offended.”

  Declan still wavered, but by the fourth ring he hit Answer.

  “What’s up, Jazz?”

  A woman’s voice floated from the receiver, though Remi couldn’t hear what she was saying. A slight panic took over as Remi realized she didn’t know if Declan had started seeing someone in the time after they’d been together. She had told him several times he needed to lighten up and live a little as they’d been trapped between the sheets together. Had he taken her advice as she’d taken his about her promotion?

  And, if so, did it really matter?

  Remi did want children. Eventually. Now was unexpected, but she was taking the surprise with a cautious, slightly terrified smile of acceptance. Telling Declan had never been a question in her mind.

  However, her expectations of a future together had never been set.

  Declan Nash might have been wild when they were younger, but his love for his family had never been in question. He adored his mother, looked up to his father, and he’d die to protect each and every one of his siblings. The man he was now? Remi was seeing the sheriff, a respected man filled with responsibility and the need to protect. Even now, years and years later, he was still trying to protect that same family he’d fiercely loved when they were younger.

  No, there was no doubt in Remi’s mind that Declan would absolutely step up to his role as father.

  What she didn’t know was what that meant for the two of them in the future.

  And where that future might take place.

  Because, as much as she liked and respected the man next to her, Remi hadn’t for a moment wavered in her desire to move to Colorado. As she’d told Declan when they last spoke, her new job wasn’t just a career maker. It paid extremely well.

  Financial stability hadn’t always been something the Hudson family could claim, and Remi would be damned if she didn’t change that for her kid.

  She didn’t have to hear the conversation going on next to her to read the changes in Declan’s demeanor. The shift to sheriff was quick. His brow furrowed, his forehead crinkled, and a frown ate away whatever emotions he was feeling about the news she’d given him.

>   He nodded even though Detective Santiago couldn’t see it.

  “Yeah, you were right,” he said, gruff. “Thanks for the heads-up. I appreciate it.” A sigh pulled his chest down. “Yeah. I’ll head that way after I change. Give me twenty.”

  He ended the call. Then he was staring again.

  “I have a situation I need to take care of at work.”

  “Everything okay?”

  That sigh came back. She didn’t like how it brought the man down.

  “Everything is up in the air,” he answered. “I’ll know more when I get there. Is that okay?”

  Remi held her hands up to show no offense was being taken again.

  “Listen, I promise you that me being pregnant hopefully isn’t going anywhere. We can talk about it more later on. If you want.”

  Declan’s expression was hard.

  “I want to.”

  He put them back on the main road and soon they were on Winding Road, leading up to the ranch. In the time between their stop and the arch that read Nash Family Ranch, Declan had called two people and hurriedly given them information she didn’t understand. Remi wasn’t trying to snoop, though. Instead, she watched out the window as trees whipped by. Winter had stripped some of them bare. Others were shades of dark green and dark brown. Remi wondered if it would snow for Christmas.

  How would the holidays look now?

  She started her new job two days into the New Year. This was the last time she’d be in Tennessee for the foreseeable future.

  How would her family take the news that she was moving so far away? Not well, she imagined. The last time she’d come to town she’d almost told them about the decision she had to make. To accept the new position or not. Yet, she’d found herself back in their old fights of leaving the ranch for school and after. Moving to Colorado? She doubted that conversation would end in anything but a fight. Especially once she added in the news of a baby on the way.

  “Sorry,” Declan grumbled as he ended his last call. He cut the engine in the driveway at his house. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  “Well, I’m sure that note and, well, this—” Remi motioned to her stomach, which was bloated if she was being honest “—isn’t helping your sheriff to-do list.”