As for the investigation, Sheriff Tulley had stopped by that morning to inform us that there’d been no prints on the door or weapons other than mine and Nolan’s and that Jimmy had an alibi.
He’d supposedly been having dinner with his mother.
When I’d asked if he’d checked Jimmy’s arm for a bite wound, the man had coldly informed me not to tell him how to do his job. The man’s attitude hadn’t surprised me one bit, nor had the unfettered hatred in his eyes. But Nolan had been left completely devastated.
Not only because he still believed he’d somehow instigated the attack, but also because Gentry wouldn’t get any justice. I had no doubt Nolan was feeling that same level of helplessness he’d felt during his childhood when the town had turned their backs on him.
Darkness was starting to fall as I finished up in the small animal building. It was nearing mid-November and winter was starting to take hold, despite it still being officially a month away. I didn’t bother looking for Nolan at the livestock barn, because I knew where he’d be. But as I neared Gentry’s enclosure, I paused when I heard the sound of music drifting through the icy trees that danced above my head.
Not just any music.
Violin music.
Emotion clogged my throat as I quickened my pace. Since the night of the attack, Nolan hadn’t once looked at the violin. He hadn’t even bothered to take it home, since he’d been too preoccupied with everything else that had happened. In truth, I’d forgotten about the instrument myself. It had been sitting in the same spot on the couch that it had been in since I’d given it to Nolan.
As I rounded the corner, I came to a stop at the sight that greeted me. There was still enough light to see Nolan standing between the inner and outer fences of Gentry’s enclosure. His back was to me and he had the violin on his shoulder. He was moving the bow effortlessly, like it was an extension of his body, and the melodic, haunting music that surrounded us left me with chills. Gentry was on the opposite end of the enclosure, pacing like normal, his food untouched. But as Nolan played, the bear slowed his pace every few steps and sniffed the air. After about ten minutes, Gentry stopped moving completely and sat down against the fence. His big head would swing Nolan’s direction every few minutes, but he didn’t move from his spot.
But I didn’t care, because I would take even the smallest scrap of progress.
I stayed where I was, even though I really wanted to go to Nolan. I could see that his hands were chapped and red, since he couldn’t play while wearing gloves. But I was reluctant to set Gentry off again with my presence, so I waited until Nolan was finished and left the enclosure. It wasn’t until he was practically on top of me that he noticed me. His expression was pinched and his skin was pale.
He glanced at the violin and bow in his hand. “I thought it might help,” he murmured.
My heart broke for him, because nothing I’d said about the whole thing not being his fault had made any kind of difference. I was losing him. I knew it in my heart.
He was standing right in front of me, but he might as well have been back in California.
I reached for one of his hands and rubbed it between mine, then blew on it to try and warm it up. I searched out his gloves, but before I could reach for them where they were sticking out of his pocket, he stepped back.
“I should go home,” he murmured. “Here,” he said as he handed me the violin.
I tried to hand it back to him, but he shook his head. “No, it’s yours, it should stay here.”
Frustration went through me, but before I could get my phone so I could remind him I’d given it to him, he was walking past me. “I…I think maybe I shouldn’t come back for a bit,” he said out of the blue.
His words chilled me to the bone and I grabbed his arm. I waved my hand impatiently.
“It’s for the best,” he said, then tried to pull free of my hold. My frustration turned to anger, and I grabbed his hand and began pulling him with me toward the house. I wasn’t going to have this fight with him in the damn cold.
And I sure as shit wasn’t going to let him leave.
He didn’t fight me, which was almost worse. I’d take a pissed-off Nolan over a broken one any day.
Once I had him in the house, I stripped off his coat and boots and settled him on the couch with a blanket over his lap. I got the fireplace going and made us both some coffee. Nolan held the mug when I handed it to him, but he was too zoned out to actually take a drink. I finally took it from him and put it on the coffee table along with mine, then covered his hands with mine and began rubbing them to work some warmth into his chilled skin.
It wasn’t until they’d started to pinken up that I reached for my tablet and began typing.
What’s going on? You’re scaring me.
I’d expected my words to evoke some kind of reaction, but I wasn’t prepared for him to put some distance between us on the couch.
Like he couldn’t bear to touch me.
Nolan, please, I told you what happened to Gentry wasn’t your fault.
Nolan closed his eyes after reading the message. “I’m so sorry, Dallas. Everything I touch turns to shit.”
Fury like nothing I’d ever known before went through me and I grabbed his arm and forced him to face me. I jabbed my fingers onto the tablet, cursing the fact that I couldn’t just yell at him the way I wanted.
Don’t fucking say that. Don’t ever fucking say that!
“It’s true,” he whispered. “If I hadn’t come here-”
I couldn’t even take the time to tell him how his coming here had changed everything for me. There was no hesitation on my part when I slammed my mouth down on his. Nolan let out a startled gasp, but I didn’t care.
I couldn’t tell him what he meant to me, but I could damn well show him.
I kissed him hard and I didn’t give him time to even consider not returning my kiss. I wrapped my arms around his waist and dragged him forward until he was straddling my lap. I stole into his mouth over and over again, softening the kiss until I was lazily exploring every facet of his mouth. At some point, he’d slung his arms around my neck.
When we were forced to come up for air, he let out a soft sob and buried his face in my neck. I let him hide for a minute, but then I was forcing his chin up. As soon as his eyes met mine, he shook his head. “They’re going to try to take this place away from you, Dallas.”
It was the last thing I’d expected to hear, but before I could even think to ask him what he meant, he barreled on.
“Jimmy’s mom, Edith, came to the house this morning before I left for work. She…she was yelling at my mom about how our lies got Jimmy fired from his job. She told her she was going to sue you for defamation or something, and that the sheriff was looking into having your license pulled. I’m sorry, if I’d just stayed away from you-”
I kissed him again to silence him, then scrambled around for the tablet which had gotten knocked to the floor. Nolan tried to move off my lap, but I refused to let him, so he sat back enough so he could watch me type. He used his sleeves to wipe at his wet eyes, and every now and then, a small sob would catch in his throat.
First of all, Sheriff Tulley is welcome to try to have my license pulled. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Nolan’s eyes widened a bit at that and I nodded.
He might be a big fish in Pelican Bay, Nolan, but he’s not even a blip on the map when it comes to the state. They know a personal vendetta when they see one.
“He’s tried to shut you down before?” Nolan asked.
I nodded, then typed, And Jimmy coming after me isn’t new, either.
“But…but he was your friend.”
Was being the operative word. And friend is generous. He was a jealous son of a bitch who was waiting for me to fall. After the accident, he told anyone who would listen that I’d made it a habit of driving after I’d been drinking. I’ve never driven drunk. Back then, I didn’t even drink.
“But the accident…”
>
I wasn’t driving, Nolan.
He stilled and stared at the tablet. “What?” he whispered.
I pointed to the note again and then typed, My mother was driving the car that night, not me. She was the one who’d been drinking, not me.
“But then why does everyone believe you were?”
I sighed because the conversation had taken a turn I hadn’t been planning, but I knew it was something he deserved to know the truth about. Especially if I wanted him to understand how far back my problems with the sheriff and his vengeful family went.
Because that’s what my father told them.
Chapter Thirteen
Nolan
I read Dallas’s text three times before it really sunk in. “No,” I whispered. “Why? Why would he do that?”
Dallas took in a breath and began typing again. I moved off his lap so I could see better and this time he let me go.
How much do you know about my parents? Dallas asked.
“Um, a little. Your dad, he was one of those preachers who do their sermons on TV. And your mom was an actress. They came to Pelican Bay after people began accusing them of…” I let my voice drop off because I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Fraud, Dallas typed. My father was accused of stealing from his parishioners, but he was cleared when they found proof that it was the church’s accountant who did it.
I waited quietly as Dallas typed for several minutes, then handed me the tablet.
The whole thing made my father a celebrity of sorts, so he decided to parlay that into a new career. He wrote books, went on talk shows, gave motivational speeches…that sort of thing. My mother had been a B movie actress, but the scandal made her more well-known than her acting career ever had. She became one of those people who became famous for absolutely nothing. When I was a kid, we moved around a lot to accommodate my parents’ ever-changing careers. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago – we lived like that for years. But then things died down and my parents couldn’t get on TV or in the paper to save their lives. So, they decided to move to Pelican Bay – my father’s mother had grown up here and he’d spent summers up here with his grandparents before they’d died. In such a small town, it was impossible for people like them to not be celebrities.
I nodded as I handed the tablet back to him. “My mother was so excited when they moved here,” I murmured. “The famous Reverend Jeremiah Kent. She and some of the other people in town tried to get him to take over when Reverend Hill retired.”
It was just another role to them, Nolan – being respected pillars of the community. They thrived on knowing how revered they were. But it was all an illusion. They both had drinking problems and my mother had been addicted to prescription pain pills for years.
“What was all that like for you growing up?”
Not easy. Maddox and I got sucked into that world, you know? We stopped being their kids and became the supporting cast. We weren’t allowed to be second-best at anything. The more positive attention we brought to our parents, the better. If we failed at something or brought even a hint of shame to them, it was like we didn’t exist.
“What happened the night of the accident?”
My parents had both been drinking at the Fourth of July picnic, but not heavily…or so people thought. But they’d actually consumed a lot more than they let on and by the time we were ready to go, they were both feeling it. I offered to drive, but my mother insisted. I tried three times to get her to give me the keys, but she wouldn’t. There were people around, so I didn’t have the guts to take them from her or make a scene. And I was too afraid to tell anyone, so I got into the back seat. She was doing okay until we got closer to home. The road leading to our house had a lot of curves and she was going really fast.
Dallas pulled in a couple of deep breaths as I read his note. I closed my fingers around his as I read the message, but was forced to release him so he could continue typing.
It happened so fast. My father hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt, so he got thrown from the car. When I came to, I knew there was something really wrong with me. I could barely breathe and I could feel that there was something lodged in my neck. But I was too worried about my parents to even try to figure out what it was. I managed to get out of the car. My father was conscious, but he couldn’t move. He kept screaming at me to get my mother out of the car because the engine was on fire. I managed to drag her to where my father was lying, then everything went dark. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I’d been in a coma for nearly a month. My mother never had a chance – the crash had killed her instantly. My father was left paralyzed from the waist down.
“And you lost your voice,” I murmured.
He nodded, then began typing again.
No one ever talked to me about the accident. I didn’t realize why until I got home. Maddox had taken a leave from the military to care for our father while I was in the hospital. I hadn’t understood why he hadn’t come to see me at the hospital. When I got home, he could barely look at me. He wouldn’t talk to me. One day I finally confronted him about it and he lost it. Told me he hated me because I’d killed our mother. He’d always been really close to her. I was about to ask him what he was talking about when my father told Maddox to go cool off. That’s when my father told me what he’d done.
“He told everyone you’d been driving,” I said quietly. I was still reeling at the betrayal this man had suffered at the hands of the people who were supposed to have loved him the most.
He begged me not to tell anyone the truth. Said my mother deserved to be remembered for all the good she’d done in the community, not for one terrible mistake. He was so upset, Nolan. He really did love her and, despite everything, they were my parents, you know?
I did. Better than anyone. Because I had a similar relationship with my own parents. “I do,” I said.
My father had begged Sheriff Tulley to let the whole thing go. I didn’t know he’d told the Sheriff that I’d been drinking.
“Why would he do that?” I asked. “He could have just said it had been an accident. That you’d tried to avoid a deer or something,” I said, my voice rising as I considered what Jeremiah Kent’s actions had meant for his son.
I don’t know. I guess he was just desperate to protect his and my mother’s images. They’d been drinking in the car, so maybe he’d been afraid the cops would find the bottle or something.
“My mother said Maddox said some pretty bad stuff to you before he left to go back to the army.”
Dallas nodded, but didn’t respond to my comment.
“Have you seen him since your dad…”
Another shake of his head. No. After the funeral, he tried to contest the will that left me half of my parents’ money. He dropped the case just before he was deployed to the Middle East.
“Why haven’t you told anyone the truth now that your parents are both gone?”
I watched as his eyes shifted to the left and followed his gaze to see him looking at a picture on a bookshelf.
A picture of his family.
Both boys were young in the picture and had big grins on their faces. It looked like the photograph had been taken at Disney World. Their parents were embracing them from behind.
They all looked…happy.
“You wanted to protect them, too,” I said softly. Dallas’s gaze shifted to me and he finally nodded. He typed me a quick message and handed me the tablet.
They were my parents.
“I’m sorry, Dallas. It isn’t right.”
I have a good life, Nolan. This place…it’s saved me in so many ways.
My gut clenched at his words. What if he lost it because of me?
I felt his hands on my face. When I looked at him, he shook his head. I knew what he was trying to tell me – that I couldn’t blame myself – but I couldn’t get the image of Gentry clawing at that door or his cries of pain out of my head.
“I’m sorry, Dallas. I just can’t stop thinking about it. I made a c
omment to Jimmy about him wanting you and it set him off. I didn’t mean it – I was just trying to get back at him for calling you…” I stopped talking because I refused to repeat the word Jimmy had called him.
Dallas pressed his forehead to mine and let out a deep sigh. Then he grabbed the tablet.
Please don’t ask me to forgive you, Nolan, because YOU DID NOTHING WRONG. I need you to believe that, but if I forgive you, a little part of you will always believe it was your fault.
I understood what he was asking, wanted to accept it, even, but I just couldn’t. Dallas tapped the tablet in frustration, then began typing again.
You HEAR me, Nolan. You hear me like no one ever has before. Even when I had a voice to listen to, no one heard me. I need you to hear me now. I need you to do this one thing for me…for us.
I lifted my eyes to meet his after reading that last part.
Us?
Was there an us?
But I wasn’t brave enough to ask him.
I thought back to everything he’d said and knew he was right. There was no way to know for sure if my words had somehow set Jimmy off. He’d said that Jimmy had spread lies about him after the accident. Jimmy was a bully through and through. He got off on hurting others. What if just seeing Dallas’s name on that credit card had been enough to remind Jimmy that his former friend hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth?
Locked in Silence_Pelican Bay [Book 1] Page 16
