“Are you sure you’re ready to have the house overflowing with all us kids again?”
Noah was only half-kidding. Only one of them was certain as to what their future held. That was Gwen. She’d served in the Navy and had gotten out around four years prior. She finished her bachelor’s degree within two years and was a very successful personal financial advisor. She’d already scoped out an office on Main Street, right next to the only bank in town.
“About that,” Gus started to say before pausing, settling himself in the same chair he used at every meal. The seat was positioned at the head of the table, but it also provided him a view of the entire kitchen. Noah hadn’t understood it as a boy, but the military had ingrained a specific conduct in his father that had saved countless lives—never expose your back. “Take a seat, son. There’s something we need to discuss.”
Noah’s initial reaction was to refuse. Nothing good ever came from when his father uttered the words take a seat, son. Memories from when he borrowed the truck or when he had stolen a beer out of the refrigerator on one of Lance’s dares came to mind. Come to think of it, the majority of the shit he got himself into came from dares his brothers had dreamed up.
“Is everyone alright?”
Noah took his time crossing the kitchen tile. He wasn’t in any hurry to receive another blow. The news of his mother’s death had been more than enough.
“Everyone is fine.” Gus lifted a keyring off the kitchen table and took his time removing one of the keys off the metal sphere. It was then Noah noticed a gleam of excitement in his father’s eyes, along with what appeared to be sorrow. “Do you remember your grandfather?”
“Grandpa Earl? Sure, I do,” Noah replied, recalling his mother’s father giving all the boys a silver dollar when he walked into the house every Sunday afternoon for dinner. Gwen always received two dollars, which she took great pride in rubbing in her brother’s faces. “I must have been, what? Ten years old when he died?”
“That sounds about right.” Gus finally worked the key off the silver ring. He set it on the table and slowly pushed it toward Noah. It couldn’t have been a key to the house, because he already had one. “Earl and I sometimes didn’t quite see eye to eye on things, though I respected the man for who he was.”
“You mean the time he wanted to buy you and Mom a new vehicle when the truck broke down?” Again, there were certain things a young boy didn’t understand until he was older. His father was a very proud man. He supported his wife and family without any help from others…including family. “It took you two days to fix that old Ford. Mitch had to walk to and from football practice on his own.”
“It did him good,” Gus said gruffly, emotion heavy in his tone. He gestured toward the key, still on the table. “Anyway, your grandfather left a sizable inheritance for your mother when he passed. We never touched a penny of it. It sat in the bank collecting interest until just before your mother’s passing.”
“Wait,” Noah directed, thinking back to when his mom and uncle went months without speaking to one another. “Is that why Uncle Jimmy stopped coming to Sunday dinner?”
Noah had always assumed it was too hard on Jim Webb to be surrounded by family when he didn’t have one of his own. Losing Grandpa Earl had been difficult on everyone.
“That about sums it up. Your uncle was cut out of Earl’s will because of how he disgraced the family name.” Gus took a drink of his coffee, taking his time to formulate an answer. Noah braced himself, never liking family secrets. The last one had been finding out that Uncle Jimmy had done a stint in jail. “It all stemmed from when your uncle stole some valuables from your grandparent’s house instead of telling them he needed the money. It only got worse when Jimmy refused to get help for his drinking problem.”
Jim Webb had always been the black sheep of the family, but Noah felt for the man. Living in Grandpa Earl’s shadow couldn’t have been easy.
“Your mother never doubted that each of you boys would return home at some point in your lives.” Gus set his mug down on the table with a smile. “Mary wasn’t so sure about Gwen, though. That girl never did like being smothered by you boys when it came to her boyfriends.”
“Gwen doesn’t seem to have a problem being the one to suffocate us,” Noah reminded his dad wryly. “Have you received your monthly call?”
“She rings me weekly,” Gus answered with a smile, the pride for his daughter shining through. “I don’t want you ruining this moment for the others, so keep that in mind the next time she calls you.”
“Ruin what?”
“Your mother bought each of you a parcel of property here in Blyth Lake.” Gus leaned forward and planted an elbow on the table. He tapped the key with his other hand. “She used the money from her inheritance to buy you a home. You got the old Yoder farm. Having you all come home was her final wish, son.”
CHAPTER THREE
“I wish you’d take a real vacation instead of wasting your time in Blyth Lake.”
Reese Woodward stared down at the worn notebook in her hand, counting at least seven names on her list. An additional three had already been scratched out as dead ends. One of the remaining individuals had the answers she was seeking.
“I can’t do this with you right now, Tanner.” Reese tossed the small notebook on the counter with a sense of purpose. “Emma Irwin went missing twelve years ago. One year to the day before Sophia disappeared. I know there’s a connection. That photograph proved it.”
“No,” Tanner argued, saying the same thing he’d said in their previous conversation. “You want there to be a connection, so you’ve convinced yourself there is one. Everyone back then attended the same summer camps within a sixty-mile vicinity. Hell, even I went that year, not that I remember Emma at all. All you’re doing is wasting your money skulking around some backwater town.”
Reese grabbed the glass of sweet iced tea she’d made this morning and pushed open the screen door. The afternoon temperature was rising and it was already well into the mid-eighties. She’d heard over the radio this morning that tomorrow would be even hotter.
The humidity wasn’t that much different out here on the porch than it was inside the house. Unfortunately, the rental had no central air conditioning unit. Just a fan. Unless there was a cross breeze, not even the open windows could keep the place cool in the heat of the day.
She didn’t really mind. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the wildflowers had already bloomed. Summer had officially arrived, and with it a new sense of purpose.
Reese had an opportunity here to find out what had happened to Sophia all those years ago.
“I’m not wasting a dime. I’m on vacation,” Reese reminded her cousin, stepping over a rotted board in the floor. Other than that one decaying plank, the porch was quite solid. She took a seat on the porch swing she suspected had been hung here fifty years prior and lifted her face to the slightest of breezes. She slowly drew in a breath, savoring the sweet scent of summer that hung in the air. “There’s really no difference between spending money in Ohio versus renting a house in Florida at astronomical prices. In fact, I’m saving money.”
“If you think that, then I know you’ve gone batshit crazy.”
Reese could picture Tanner rubbing his forehead the way he did when he was frustrated with her logic. They might only be cousins, but they were more like brother and sister, considering how they were raised. Their mothers were sisters who lived in the same small town of Heartland, Ohio. There wasn’t a day that went by when they weren’t visiting each other’s houses for one reason or another.
“Sophia didn’t run away, Tanner. She wouldn’t have done that to us. You know her.” Reese didn’t want to get into another argument with her cousin, so she switched topics. Eleven years had passed since Sophia had been declared a runaway. The sharp pain of abandonment had eventually turned into a dull heartache, and even that only materialized when her name was mentioned at holidays and family outings. Time had a way of er
asing the pain and only promoting the cherished memories. “Have you talked to your mom recently? I thought about driving over there this weekend, but then I’d have to answer too many questions about where I had been. Mom said that Aunt Lydia cut and styled her hair. It’s the talk of the town.”
Reese and Tanner had both agreed not to tell their families what she was doing in Blyth Lake. She was only around thirty miles from their hometown, but she lived and taught algebra at a high school in Springfield, Illinois. She’d had to go where the teaching jobs were upon graduating from Ohio State University.
Unfortunately, driving to her parent’s house meant spending more than just the weekend. She loved her family, but Tanner didn’t have to endure the guilt trip she got for being so far from home every time she showed up for a holiday. He still resided in their tiny hometown of Heartland and had dinner with the family every Sunday.
“I spoke to Mom yesterday. She’s gearing up to have one of her garage sales.” Tanner paused, as if it suddenly dawned on him what that meant for his childhood memories. “Awww, damn it. Let me call you back tonight. I’m just now wondering what she’s got her hands on.”
Reese smiled as Tanner disconnected the line, no doubt calling his mom to make sure she didn’t include his autographed CD of Green Day’s American Idiot or any of his other prized collection of junk he kept at the house. The CD was his favorite from when they were teenagers. He must have shown it to half the town. Her grin faded as she recalled Sophia’s love for the popular band, as well.
Sophia hadn’t run away from home, regardless of what the police had thought at the time. Something had happened to her. Something bad had come to visit their small town.
Reese sighed as she slipped her cell phone in between her legs. She pushed off the porch with her flip-flop to put the swing in motion, thinking maybe she should have shared with Tanner that this break was becoming rejuvenating in a strange sort of way. She’d gotten so caught up in the same monotonous daily routine back in Springfield that she was beginning to lose sight of who she was and what she wanted for her future.
She still wasn’t completely sure about the latter.
Technically, this was the best vacation she could have asked for. The stillness out here in the country held a peaceful quality that one couldn’t find nor buy in the city. It made her think that maybe it was time she moved back home to take a job at her old high school.
The distant sound of a heavy vehicle reached her well before she caught sight of a dusty black F150 driving down the dirt road. The driver wasn’t speeding at all, but the ground hadn’t seen rain in well over two weeks.
The road was basically rock, and it had been oiled in the past, but that had to have been over a year past considering all the dirt one kicked up when driving it now. A cloud of dust followed closely behind the bed of the truck as it passed by the flat stretch of her front lawn. The house she’d rented was set back a good ways from the road.
There was only one destination that the vehicle could be headed to, and that was nothing but a ramshackle old farmhouse a half mile down the old rock road.
Why?
It was a shame that the county had allowed a picturesque property to slip in such a way. It was now basically derelict. Okay, she might be exaggerating a bit, but the house needed more than just an update. It needed a total renovation to become livable.
Hell, the electrical and plumbing had to be from the last century. She wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to just knock it down and start over.
She’d heard the last owners had walked out on the mortgage around five years ago after being unable to sell off the farmland. Word had it that some of the high school kids still hung out there when they skipped school or wanted to have a party. She’d seen no evidence of that kind of behavior in the past week that she’d been renting here, though.
Reese hadn’t heard any music or loud voices coming from that direction. Then again, high school was out for the summer and folks were on vacation to typical places like Florida. The kids who were still stuck at home were most likely hanging out at the lake across town—the girls in their bikinis and the boys staring at them from behind their mirrored sunglasses.
The teens wouldn’t need a place to hide their drinking parties until school started back up in late August and fall started to set in.
Reese glanced to her left even though various pines and oak trees prevented her from seeing the house or the old barn. Her daily jog always took her out past the property to the dead end at the edge of the woods bordering the DNR wetlands preserve, because the other direction led to one of the main roads that had too much traffic for her liking.
Come to think of it, she had seen some old discarded beer cans out there at the turnaround, along with some old rusting junk folks had thrown down there.
She’d never caught sight of anyone trespassing or even taking the shortcut back through the cluster of woods that led to Seventh Street. The road they were on paralleled the edge of town, maybe a half mile away. The woods between them and the town were covered in game trails and uneven broken ground, especially near the small creek. Well, it was according to the map she’d looked over the other day.
That area was only a hop, skip, and a jump from Seventh to hit Main Street once you crossed through the woods.
It was hard for her to put a finger on it, but there was something sinister about the old farm property. It could have easily been the fact that there were a couple of windows missing or the fact that the screen door was hanging on by just one hinge. It resembled one of those deserted houses in the movies where the kids always dared each other to spend the night and talked about ghosts.
Either way, she only ever ventured that direction during the morning hours when she was running.
She never went out there after dark, and never at night.
It was probably all in her head. Reese had spent too much time reading about Emma Irwin’s disappearance. The young girl was last seen at a party on the very same Yoder farm. At least, that’s what it was called back then. It still was. Old habits died hard.
Regardless, the latest owners had moved in months after Emma had basically vanished into thin air, just like Reese’s cousin had a year later. Emma Irwin had never once given the impression that she wanted to run away, though some had said she’d gotten pregnant and the family had snuck her out of town.
The sheriff had first treated her disappearance as a kidnapping, so unlike Sophia’s case where the police had ruled her as a runaway. The police had conducted searches for Emma and played out the whole campaign to locate her.
Neither girl had ever been found.
Not a trace.
That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
Was Tanner right? Was she just wishing there was a connection?
Was she wasting time here, looking for a correlation where there was none?
She’d already decided to head into town for dinner, but she also had every intention of driving her car. Now, curiosity got the better of her. A walk might do her some good. Besides, she’d be able to return home before dusk.
Why was someone visiting the Yoder’s place, anyway? Had the property finally been sold?
Reese suppressed a shiver at the thought of someone moving into such a dreary place. To each their own, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was a local or another out-of-towner who bought the place for the land value.
She stood and slid her cell phone into the back pocket of her shorts. It was a beautiful day. It wouldn’t hurt to use the shortcut into town. Surely she’d be back before it got too dark, and the little hike would allow her to see what was going on next door.
Not that she was being nosey or anything. Furthermore, Annie’s Diner always brought in a lot of local traffic. It was still early, but there should be some patrons rattling around the place. And who knows, she might get lucky. Maybe another name could be crossed off her list.
It hadn’t been that hard to acquire the names of those who a
ttended the camp Emma and Sophia had gone to that summer. Two of the women had moved away after their high school graduation, and one of the men had unfortunately died in a freak skiing accident two years back. That left seven people who might have a clue as to why Emma and Sophia went missing within a year of each other.
Reese quickly walked back into the house and set her glass of iced tea in the fridge before grabbing her keys. She hesitated, thinking she might want to close all the windows before leaving. She decided against it. The last time she closed and secured all the windows, she might as well have lived in the bottom of a volcano that night.
She locked the door behind her, figuring the screens were set in place. Regardless of what had happened twelve years ago, the worst crime to be committed in Blyth Lake was a couple of teenagers being picked up for four-wheeling through a farmer’s pasture and scaring his herd half to death just north of town. There had been some mention of vandalism being done to the abandoned house next door, but no one had ever confessed, leaving the sheriff nothing to go on other than some graffiti.
Reese hooked her keys onto the belt loop of her jean shorts and patted her back pocket where she’d stored a twenty-dollar bill, her identification, and a credit card before descending the stairs. She walked down the gravel driveway to the rock road, all the while peering to the left to see if the truck was coming back her way. It wasn’t.
The only sounds she heard were the birds and two chipmunks chasing each other into the cluster of trees. Her mind spun with ideas as to why someone would want to buy the property next door when it had been deserted for so long. It was foolish of her to think it might have something to do with Emma’s disappearance, but she could rationalize just about anything at this point.
Reese chalked it up to too many hours in front of the computer researching missing children and the unspeakable crimes people committed on them. She was letting her mind run away with her, so the best thing would be for her to walk past the property and find out for herself why someone would want to purchase a rundown house out past the edge of town.
Unlocking Fear Page 2
