Unlocking Fear

by Kennedy Layne

  “I’ve already sent him a text message to call me back.” Noah didn’t like to make excuses for his siblings. They’d been taught honor at a very young age. Even with that lesson, people made mistakes. “He’s returning home in a few weeks for good, so I know he’s stateside. It shouldn’t be long before I hear something back from him.”

  Noah prayed that he was right, because he couldn’t fathom his brother evading a police investigation.

  He was surprised when Reese quickly spun around, opening the door to the truck. She retrieved the bags with the Styrofoam containers inside of them, hooking one on her arm and carrying the other two with her right hand. With a bump of her hip, she closed the door. The pace in which she did so set him on edge, because he could already tell what she had in mind.

  “Reese, we should call Detective Kendrick to let him know what Jeremy Bell said to you today.” Couldn’t she see that they were stepping on a hornet’s nest? “Let Kendrick talk to him to find out what he knows.”

  “Why wait when we can drive to Annie’s house and talk to her?” Reese reasoned, slipping around him and heading toward Gus. He instinctively stood and took the food from her hands, shooting a commiserating look toward Noah. He’d seen it a million times when his mother had become headstrong about a subject she became determined to sort out. “Do you know where she lives? If not, we can stop back at the diner in town and get the address from Cassie.”

  “Of course, I know where Annie lives, Reese,” Noah said, bringing her up short when she would have walked right back to his vehicle. He rested his hands on her arms to try and get her to see reason. “One week ago, you were attacked in a public place. Someone didn’t want you asking questions, and he or she went to pretty disturbing lengths to get his or her point across. It’s not smart to be traipsing around town when whoever it was who tried to hurt you is still out there free.”

  “And you think it’s Annie?” Reese had her oversized brown sunglasses on top of her head, but she lowered them onto the bridge of her nose to make her point. She was going to question Annie with or without him. “She’s an eighty-some-year-old woman, Noah. Trust me, she wasn’t the one who attacked me in that restroom.”

  “I never said that I believed Annie was responsible for what happened to you, but you’ve been asking questions that someone is uncomfortable with when it comes to Emma and Sophia.” Noah could tell by the look on Reese’s face that he was going to lose this battle. A glance toward his father sitting on that damned bucket and eating his club sandwich as if he were watching a fucking television show proved that he wasn’t going to be any help. “Am I the only one who sees the sense in calling Detective Kendrick to take care of this?”

  “You’re the only one I see standing in my way, at the moment,” Reese pointed out, shooing her fingers at him like he was a field mouse caught in her kitchen. “Annie basically sought me out last time, so she’s already proved she’s willing to talk to me. I can get answers quicker than Detective Kendrick can, and you know it.”

  Reese brushed past Noah, causing his arms to drop to his side. He lifted them up in frustration, but his father only took another bite of his sandwich as he settled in to enjoy his lunch and this impromptu skit from daytime television.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Are you coming?”

  “I’m driving.” Noah needed to be in control of something. If that something was his own truck, then so be it. Reese had already settled herself into the passenger side of his F150, dangling his keys in her hand. “Have you considered calling Tanner and asking him about this new development?”

  “Tanner?” Reese practically laughed in mockery over her cousin’s name. “I’m barely speaking to him right now. The reason he attended camp that year was to keep an eye on Sophia, because my uncle never let her do anything alone. And what did Tanner do that he decided wasn’t of importance? He was too busy trying to impress some girl named Beth Ann Mason to check on his sister or do what he’d been sent there to do. He said he only saw her twice, and that was when Birdie called camp meetings.”

  Noah didn’t think it was a good idea to bring up that Beth Ann had been his first kiss. He might not be the smartest man in Blyth Lake, but he sure as hell was not totally devoid of common sense.

  “Dad, can you go ahead and lock up?” Noah asked through his open window. He had finally accepted the inevitable. “I think we might be awhile.”

  Gus raised a hand in acknowledgement as he continued to eat his lunch, smiling after his son. Noah’s stomach growled, but it looked as if he wasn’t going to be eating anything till supper time.

  Noah didn’t utter a word until he pulled the truck into her driveway, shutting off the engine before she could protest.

  “If we’re going to go traipsing around town, please allow me to have a shower and change my clothes.” Noah opened the driver’s side door before walking around the front bumper and assisting her down from the cab. Her eyes were still covered by those oversized sunglasses, but her scrunched up nose at the delay was too cute to resist. He leaned in and kissed her forehead before jogging up the steps and using the key she’d given him days ago. It wasn’t like there was any significance in the gesture, and he certainly didn’t put a spin on it. “Give me ten.”

  “Eight,” Reese called out with a smile. No one else, besides probably her family, would have caught the strained line running across her forehead as she worried about what they were about to uncover. “You could earn a real kiss if you’re ready in five.”

  “You’re on.”

  Noah quickly made his way through the living room, down the short hallway, and into the bedroom. His open duffel bag still sat on the chair in the corner, and his toothbrush was still seated beside hers in the ceramic holder.

  This was a temporary situation.

  Reese had come here looking for answers, and today might be the day she got what she wanted. That left Noah wondering if she wouldn’t cut short this so-called vacation and head home once she’d found those answers.

  He tossed his clothes into the hamper next to the dresser with a little more force than necessary and made his way into the bathroom. With a flick of the handle, the shower came to life. He rested his palms against the counter and stared at himself in the mirror.

  It shouldn’t matter when Reese went back to her life.

  He’d gone into this summer fling with his eyes wide open.

  Then why did thinking about her leaving feel as though a knife was piercing his chest?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “This isn’t at all what I expected.” Reese was standing next to Noah in front of his truck, both of them staring in awe at the ten or so chickens pecking the ground in front of a two-story house painted sky blue with a porch covering two sides. It was absolutely stunning. “I didn’t know she had that kind of money, not that I mean anything by that.”

  “Trust me, you and I are on the same page.” Noah rested a hand on her lower back as he guided her toward the overzealous chickens. “Let’s just say this place has had a major makeover since the last time I drove out this way.”

  Reese figured that was when Noah was a teenager. She would have kept walking had a chicken not started to flap her wings in panic when they tried to pass her.

  “Oh!” Reese almost tripped Noah in her haste to avoid being attacked by militant poultry. Wouldn’t that be a story tell her parents? “Shoo. Go away. Get, now.”

  “You grew up thirty miles from here,” Noah said with a laugh. He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to him. They finally made it to the wooden steps. “How could you be afraid of a chicken?”

  “Chickens. You forgot the S. I grew up in a regular neighborhood,” Reese reminded him with a little shove to his ribcage. “We didn’t have any chickens. You know…houses, trees, streets, sidewalks. We didn’t have any pigs, cows, or chickens.”

  “You didn’t go to the county fair every summer like the rest of us poor country folk?” Noah knocked on the screen door. Reese n
oted how solid it was compared to the one on her rental house. “My brothers and I went every year, but it was Gwen who could ride horses like she was born in the saddle.”

  “Really? You grew up on a good-sized lot of land. I’m surprised your parents didn’t—”

  “Noah? Reese?” Annie didn’t hesitate to open the door for them, stepping back so they could join her inside the cool interior. Reese only ever felt refreshed like this when she ate at the diner. She did her best not to moan in pleasure as they left the humidity outside. “Come in, come in. I was just about to have a glass of lemonade Cassie made this morning.”

  Reese’s mouth began to water at the mention of the homemade beverage that contained just the right amount of sugar. It was also a good reason to delay the inevitable. Something held Reese back from asking Annie about Sophia right away for fear she would receive an answer she didn’t want to hear.

  It was doubtful this sweet old lady had anything to do with Sophia going missing, other than maybe giving her some details on who to contact once she arrived in Hollywood. Reese still didn’t believe Sophia had gone across the country without saying a word to her family.

  “What brings you two out my way? Had I known, I would have had you stop by the pharmacy to pick up my new prescription. Cassie couldn’t get away from the diner this afternoon since Molly had to leave early for some reason or another. I had to have Darcy head back into town even though we’d just come through a couple of hours ago.”

  Annie bustled around the kitchen pouring the drinks and arranging what looked like homemade chocolate chip cookies on a sunflower plate. Her energy was high, and Reese could just imagine how hard it had been for this woman to give up her livelihood…not only once, but twice.

  “Are you two going to answer my question or leave me to fill in the blanks?”

  “Um, well, something’s been brought to my attention that I’m hoping you can clarify,” Reese explained, wrapping her hands around the cold crystal. She was used to condensation immediately coating the outside of a glass, so it was nice to allow the coolness to seep into her palms without the moisture. “I ran into Jeremy Bell at the diner today. He indicated that the talk you and Sophia had involved more than her just wanting your advice on acting.”

  Reese paused so she could study Annie’s expression, but the older woman gave little away as she cocked a brow in question.

  “We also discovered that Lance and Emma were with Sophia that night when she came to see you,” Noah interjected, laying all their cards on the table. It wasn’t as if this was a game where that mattered, but it did leave Reese without much wiggle room. “Reese has waited a long time to get answers regarding her cousin’s disappearance. If you know something, Ms. Osburn, please tell us.”

  Annie sighed in resignation as she lowered her eyes to the trim on her sleeve. She was wearing a lightweight blouse, though the sleeves went to her wrists. There was no reason she needed to worry about overheating while staying inside the central air.

  Reese’s stomach seemed unsettled in anticipation of what the older woman was about to share with them. Jeremy Bell had been right about there being more to the story.

  “Your Sophia recognized me one day when I had been visiting Cassie up at the camp. She was volunteering that year, and she needed something from the house.” It was obvious that Annie was trying to remember what that something had been, but she was struggling with her memories. She batted the air with her hand in frustration. “Anyway, as I’ve already told you, Sophia showed up at the diner that night asking questions about my time in Hollywood. The only thing I left out is that she somehow discovered old pictures of me that I would have rather had left buried.”

  It took a minute for the meaning behind Annie’s words to sink in.

  Old pictures?

  Noah cleared his throat, obviously caught off guard with the direction this conversation was going.

  “Ms. Osburn, you aren’t trying to say that Sophia tried to blackmail you, are you?” Reese couldn’t imagine her cousin doing such a thing, even at that young of an age when common sense wasn’t so common. “She—”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Annie denied emphatically, waving her weathered hand in the air once more. “I didn’t mean to imply that she had done anything of the sort. It came up in conversation, is all. I admit to being quite shocked she’d found something I thought had been concealed from prying eyes locally, at least. I wouldn’t discuss it with her, and I won’t discuss it now. It was a part of my life I’d rather forget, and at the time it could have hurt my reputation, my family, and my business. I’d like it kept quiet now, as well.”

  Annie took a sip of her lemonade and then carefully set her glass back down on the table. She’d straightened her shoulders, as if she was prepared to battle Reese in how the rest of the discussion was carried out. Annie believed her reputation was at stake, and it wasn’t Reese’s intention to upset the older woman.

  Unfortunately, nothing was making any sense.

  “Ms. Osburn, did this conversation happen at the diner during business hours?”

  “Yes,” Annie answered, though she was frowning in her attempt to recall that night. “Yes, it did. Sophia left after I’d written down on a piece of paper the agency I’d used to get my start in the movies. The reputable one, mind you. I would never in a million years dream of allowing someone as sweet as Sophia to wade through the sewer that represents the darker side of that life.”

  Is that what Jeremy Bell had heard that night, believing by mistake that Sophia had tried to blackmail Annie? Was he saying that he thought Annie was responsible for what could have happened to Sophia because of that destructive secret?

  Or had Emma taken it upon herself do something later that was of a malicious nature?

  “Did you see Emma Irwin with Sophia that night?” Noah asked, his line of thought parallel to hers. “Or my brother?”

  Reese was somewhat shocked, because she hadn’t figured Lance into the equation. If Sophia and Emma had somehow come up with a plan and it was the reason for their disappearances, then why leave Lance alone?

  It made Reese realize how futile this visit had been.

  “No, not that I recall.” Annie rested her arthritic fingers to her thinned lips and shook her head. “I never questioned how she got to the diner, nor did I tell Birdie that the girl had snuck out of camp. Hollywood can be very seductive and calls out to a lot of pretty girls. It was obvious that Sophia had stars in her eyes. My heart broke when I’d heard why you were in town.”

  Reese sat back in somewhat defeat, realizing that none of her original speculations had any legs to stand on. Sophia visiting with Annie was nothing more than teenage dreams and wishes for a different life. Lance and Emma helping her make that happen was most likely a coincidence, especially since nothing bad had ever happened to Noah’s brother.

  “Thank you for talking to us today, Ms. Osburn.” Noah pushed back his chair before reaching over and patting the woman’s hand. She returned the gesture and squeezed his fingers when he reassured her that they wouldn’t tell a soul about what Sophia had uncovered back then. Annie’s private life was her own and none of anyone’s business then or now. “I hope your new prescription works out. I know how hard it was for my dad to find the right medication to control his blood pressure.”

  “Old age isn’t for the weary now, is it?”

  Reese stood, though she was at a loss for words. Her mental and emotional state had been drained of the initial burst of energy from this morning. Jeremy Bell had been trying to help, and in doing so, gotten her hopes up for those elusive answers.

  “I’m truly sorry that I couldn’t help you more, dear,” Annie said as she slowly walked them to the front door. Noah stepped out onto the porch first, but Reese hadn’t braced herself for the humidity quite yet. “I do hope you find the answers you’re seeking.”

  “Me, too,” Reese murmured, taking Noah’s offered hand. She winced when the oppressive heat blanketed her body once again
.

  Not even the chickens flapping their wings at another disruption bothered Reese as she walked to Noah’s truck. She looked back over her shoulder, but Annie had already closed her front door and gone back inside to enjoy her central air.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t find the answers you were looking for, sweetheart.” Noah lifted the handle on the passenger side door and used it to lean against as he seemed in no hurry to leave. He had a way about him that made a woman feel as if she were the only one in the world. “We’ll keep looking.”

  “You know, I talked to every single person in my neighborhood the week Sophia went missing.” Reese rested a hand on her chest as those painful memories resurfaced. “It didn’t take much to convince Aunt Lydia that Sophia had run away. She’d always been one to rebel, but she never would have hurt her family in that way. I don’t understand why everyone was so eager to accept that answer.”

  “Because it gave them hope that one day she would come back.” Noah reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist, pulling her close. He held her against him in a comforting embrace, despite the humidity. “Hope is what has us getting up every morning. Without hope, there would be no reason to go on.”

  “I didn’t choose hope, though.” Reese leaned back to see what his opinion was on the fact that she’d gone down a different road. For some reason, his outlook on such a decision was important to her. “I know she’s gone, Noah. I just want answers and maybe to find whoever was responsible.”

  “You’re a realist, sweetheart. There’s nothing wrong with acceptance, either. You’re misunderstanding my words. You want closure. That’s healthy, but you’re walking a very fine line of being dragged over into her life. Remember, you still have your own life to live.”

  Reese closed her eyes and rested her cheek on his chest, soaking in his strength. There was a truth in what he was saying, but he didn’t realize just how much truth.