Stay with Me (Misty River Romance, A Book #1)

by Becky Wade

  She took copious pictures of each article so that she and Natasha could go over them later in greater detail. Articles that brought to life the crime scene, the autopsy, the investigation. She read all the way until the Shoal Creek Killer was found, then glanced through the two weeks of entries following for good measure before slotting the scrapbook back into its place.

  Birdie Jean sat on her fancy sofa, legs primly crossed, spine straight, reading. Graciously, she gestured for Genevieve to assume the spot at the sofa’s other end.

  Genevieve perched on the cushion, purse strap over her shoulder, very aware of how long she’d already been in Birdie Jean’s home. She didn’t want to overstay her welcome.

  “What is it that you’d like to ask me, Genevieve? I can see a question in your face.”

  “Since you were living here in Camden during those years, I’m wondering if you have anything to add that wasn’t reported in the articles. About Russell’s death or the Shoal Creek Killer?”

  Birdie Jean’s glasses seemed to magnify her astute eyes. “Right when we first heard about Russell’s death, I recall that some people around here suspected Angus Morehouse. That was before Terry Paul Richards was arrested, of course.”

  “Angus Morehouse hasn’t been mentioned in any of the reading I’ve done.”

  “He was Russell and your mother’s nearest neighbor. A difficult man. Quick to anger. He and Russell had some disagreements about the property line between them, and they came to blows one night at a party over your mother.”

  “My mother?”

  “Russell accused Angus of making advances on Caroline.”

  “Had he been making advances?”

  “No one knows.”

  “How long before Russell’s murder did this fight occur?”

  “Several months before.”

  “Did the police question Angus after Russell’s death?”

  “I believe that they did. As far as I know, though, not a single piece of evidence tied Angus to the scene. It’s a far leap to assume someone who’s willing to fight with another would be willing to kill another. There are plenty of men around here who are willing to fight.”

  From what she could tell, Russell had been one of them. He’d broken lamps and a mirror when defending himself from the Shoal Creek Killer.

  “Some years after Russell’s death,” Birdie Jean said, “Angus had an altercation with a co-worker and injured the man so badly that Angus was sent to jail. When he was released, he moved back to town and worked as a welder. He’s been in a fight or two since then, but for the most part, he’s settled down and kept to himself. He’s retired now.”

  “Is he still living in the house near the one my mother lived in?”

  “Yes.”

  Genevieve nodded. “Do you have any memories of my mother, either before or after Russell died?”

  “I have no recollection of her before Russell’s death. She’d only been in Camden a short time, and she and Russell lived a good ways outside of town. I did see her a few times after Russell’s death, though. At his funeral. And once, walking into the grocery store.”

  “What were your impressions of her?”

  “She looked very sad, certainly. Lovely woman. After Russell’s death, she didn’t mix with the community much. As soon as she could, she moved away, and we understood why, of course. Caroline was young and her people didn’t live in these parts.”

  “Do you know what became of Russell’s family?”

  Her forehead creased. “I’m close in age to Russell’s mother, Alice. We didn’t go to school together because, in those days, schools were segregated. I was on a committee with her once, though. We were both women of faith, and we talked about that a few times. She and the rest of her family were active in this town up until Russell’s death. After that, like your mother, they moved away. To Atlanta, I believe.”

  The Atwells’ oldest child had been stolen from them with swift finality. Years later, her mother would come within inches of having her own children taken from her as irrevocably as her first husband had been. “Thank you,” Genevieve said.

  “You’re welcome. Call again, should you like to come back.”

  They said their good-byes, and Genevieve returned to her Volvo. Sitting in the driver’s seat, she pulled out her phone and scrolled to the photo she’d taken of the very first newspaper article about the killing. The house where Russell and Mom had lived looked small, well kept, rural.

  She hunted through her photos and located the picture she’d taken of Russell’s death certificate. She enlarged it until she could make out the address given for the location of his death.

  47130 Farm Road 481, Camden, Georgia.

  An inaudible voice was calling her toward her mom’s old house.

  A pall settled over her when she pulled to a stop in front of the home her mother and Russell had lived in as newlyweds.

  For a protracted moment she sat, peering through her side window, before turning off her ignition and exiting the car. The orderly brick house immortalized in the newspaper picture had fallen into disrepair. The roof sagged. Weeds choked the foundation. Today’s moody gray sky highlighted the somber temperament of the place. The windows bore cracks that reminded her of spider webs and holes that reminded her of open mouths.

  Clearly, the structure had been abandoned long ago. Immediately after Russell’s death?

  Had Russell not been killed, Genevieve would not be alive. Her mother would have given birth to different children, Russell’s children. Genevieve was distinctly aware that she, the daughter who lived only because Russell had died, was not necessarily welcome here, in the epicenter of her mother’s secret past.

  The house was set a good distance back from the road, nothing but desolate acres around it. She walked halfway to it, then stopped. Any farther, and she’d feel like an intruder.

  Her phone dinged, startling her so deeply that she yelped. Sam had sent her a text. Your car hasn’t been at the guesthouse for hours. Everything okay? The Kitchen was closed on Mondays, so he wouldn’t have gone to the restaurant this morning. She knew him well enough to know he’d spend his day working on the farm instead.

  Yes! she replied.

  Where are you?

  Genevieve paused. She wasn’t ready to divulge the long path that had brought her to Russell’s home. Plus, things were going so well between her and Sam lately. At the moment, she was technically trespassing, and if he found out she was pursuing the investigation to this degree, it might throw a wrench into things. And that, she did not want.

  I’m shopping, she typed.

  From this vantage point, she could see only one other structure. A simple house about a half a mile or so down the road. Angus’s house.

  Genevieve lived alone, but here, her aloneness made her feel vulnerable. She swallowed against the unease scratching its way up her esophagus.

  Her mother’s husband had died in this building, and the sorrow of that seeped up from the earth. The wind bemoaned the fact that Russell’s future had been robbed from him.

  Troubled, she studied the plywood blocking the door.

  Where had the Atwell family gone? And what did the writer of the mysterious letter know that Genevieve did not?

  After grabbing lunch in Camden, Genevieve arrived back at the cottage during the long, lazy hours of the afternoon best suited to napping. She’d need to resist the urge to nap, however, because she intended to spend the rest of the day and evening catching up on the work she’d sacrificed this morning.

  She let herself inside, tossed her purse on her desk, then froze when Sam straightened from the love seat and turned to face her, wearing a simple gray shirt and jeans. Her pleasure at seeing him stuttered when she registered the uncompromising seriousness of his face. What was the matter?

  “I didn’t see your car,” she said stupidly.

  “I walked.” He stared at her. “Where are your shopping bags?”

  Shoot! “I . . . didn’t end up buying a
nything.”

  His jaw firmed in a way that communicated his disbelief.

  He was going to see through her lie about shopping, exactly like he’d seen through her lies the morning he’d found her sleeping in this cottage. Her mind moved too quickly—darting in many directions—and too slowly, struggling to adjust to his surprise appearance. “D-did you let yourself in to search for Oxy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you found none.”

  “I found none,” he confirmed.

  Back when they’d hashed out their rental agreement, he’d reserved the right to search her cottage. Given that, why did the realization that he’d been here, searching for Oxy, hurt so badly? Why did it feel like a colossal betrayal?

  . . . Because almost two months had passed since he’d agreed to let her stay on his farm. In that time, she’d come to trust him, and she’d hoped he’d come to trust her, too.

  This proved that he hadn’t. Which stung.

  “I’ve had a bad feeling all day,” he told her. “It got worse when you said you were shopping. If you’d wanted to go shopping, you’d have gone on Saturday or Sunday like usual.”

  “I wasn’t shopping,” she admitted. “Nor was I in some dark alleyway getting high on Oxy. I was in the town of Camden researching my parents.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me that?”

  Agitated, she thrust her fingers into her hair, fanning the heavy mass around her shoulders. “I didn’t want to explain, and I didn’t want to risk upsetting you.”

  “Upsetting me? Did I react badly the other night when you said you couldn’t tell me more about your parents?”

  The quiet snapped with electricity, and her heartbeat began to accelerate. “No.”

  He held his powerful body still.

  She couldn’t tease her guilt apart from her anger. She’d been wrong to lie, of course. Very wrong. But he’d been snooping through her cottage!

  “Is it your instinct to lie whenever you’re faced with something uncomfortable?” he asked.

  His words hit so close to home that defensiveness rose inside her like a flash flood. “Why is it that I have to answer to you, Sam? Why is it that you expect me to let you search the place where I live—”

  “You know why I expect you to let me search this place.”

  “—and you expect me to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, when you haven’t told me anything about yourself?”

  He didn’t move outwardly. Deep in his eyes, though, she sensed a fire igniting. “I want you to be honest with me,” he said with stony control, “because I think honesty will help you. Your lack of transparency is strangling you.”

  “Your lack of transparency is strangling you!” she said vehemently, gesturing toward his farmhouse. “As far as I can tell, you’ve sequestered yourself up there so you don’t have to see or speak to anyone.”

  “I’ve made peace with being alone.”

  “God didn’t make any of us to be as alone as you are, Sam!”

  “He did.”

  “No. He didn’t.” She glared, her hands fisting. “I suspect that someone close to you has gone through drug withdrawal. And you told me that you once lost someone you loved. That’s it! We’ve had numerous conversations, and that’s all you’ve ever told me.”

  “You want to know about me?” he demanded coldly.

  “Yes!”

  “I fell in love with a woman named Kayden once. She was beautiful and talented and young and full of life.” He threw the words at her, his features expressionless. “I brought Percocet home for us to try. She got hooked, and it dragged her down. She spent two years trying to get free of it, and I spent two years trying to save her. We both failed. I walked out. She overdosed and died.” A tendon in his neck tightened. “That’s me, Genevieve.”

  All her organs seemed to slip downward as if on an escalator. What he’d been through was so shockingly awful that it rendered her instantly compassionate and instantly mortified that she’d found fault with him over his reluctance to share.

  No wonder he’d been hesitant to open up. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to rent this cottage to her. No wonder he’d demanded to search this place at will.

  She was a painful reminder of the woman he’d lost.

  He bent and picked up his hat from the love seat. Rolling it in the fingers of one hand, he moved toward the door. “You asked me earlier why you have to answer to me. Other than following through on the things we agreed on when I said that you could stay here, you don’t have to answer to me. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. I don’t want to get wrapped up in this.”

  “I . . .”

  He hesitated on the threshold, holding the door half open. “So long as you do the things you said you’d do when you moved in, that’s all I need from you.”

  “Sam—” She hurried to the doorway, but he didn’t look back. Shivering with the force of her emotions, gnawing on her bottom lip, she watched him go. Recriminations formed a cyclone within.

  Convincing Sam to befriend her had been like convincing a wolf to eat from her hand. In losing her temper, what had she done? Had she just ruined all the headway they’d made? Their relationship was more valuable to her than gold.

  She closed the door, sat heavily on the edge of her bed, and burst into tears.

  The north wind blew against Sam as his strides ate the distance between Gen’s guesthouse and his farmhouse.

  Fury roiled inside him.

  Hadn’t he shown Gen that she could count on him? Why, then, had she lied to him instead of simply telling him the truth? He couldn’t stand it when people lied to him.

  His memory swam back in time. He’d texted Kayden one day to ask what her lunch plans were, very similar to the way he’d checked on Gen today.

  I’m planning to work through lunch at my desk. XO XO, she’d texted back.

  Sam drove to her favorite sushi place and ordered a rainbow roll and a side salad to go.

  When he arrived at her office carrying Kayden’s surprise lunch, the receptionist greeted him with a smile. “Hi, Sam.”

  “Hi, Torrie. Is it all right if I head back and drop this off for Kayden?”

  Her expression dipped. “Oh. That’s thoughtful of you. And it would be all right, of course, to take it to her.” She fidgeted. “Except that Kayden doesn’t work here anymore. She was . . . let go. Her last day was Tuesday.”

  It was Monday. Almost a week had gone by, and Kayden hadn’t told him that she’d lost her job. She’d been pretending that everything was normal. Getting up, getting ready, going to work.

  They were so close—he’d thought they were so close. The realization that she’d been lying impacted him like a body blow.

  “I see.” He stood in the lobby of his girlfriend’s former firm, humiliated, stunned, afraid down to his bones because Kayden was everything to him. “Thanks for letting me know,” he’d said.

  Even now, his relationship with Kayden was part of who he was. A large part that equaled years of his life. Her death had scarred him more than any other event. There was no way that Gen could interact with a version of him that hadn’t been marked by Kayden. And because of Kayden, he had no tolerance for lies. Even small ones.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d been lonely for a long time, which should have made him strong. But in some ways, it had made him weak.

  The weakest part of him had come to care about Gen, despite his determination not to.

  If he were a color, he’d be brown. But Gen was one hundred bright colors. She was feisty and outspoken and felt things deeply. He respected her gifts and her ministry. Her personality, her appearance, her profession—all were larger than life. When he was talking to her in his farmhouse or garden or restaurant, she drove every other person out of his head. Even Kayden.

  He didn’t want to forget Kayden, especially because he could not go through what he’d gone through with Kayden a second time. The way he’d left things between him an
d Gen just now was for the best.There was no reason for them to communicate as much as they had been. With any luck, she’d leave soon. In the meantime, he didn’t want the stress she made him feel. He didn’t want the desire, either. Or the doubt or the amusement or the pleasure.

  Good riddance.

  Why, then, did his gut twist like a sponge at the thought of her leaving?

  Luke

  I grip the phone hard. I’ve been talking for a long time now. First to my mom, then my dad. They’re panicking and at the same time trying to stay calm. I know they’re terrified for Ethan. I know because I’m terrified for Ethan.

  Mom had Misty River’s sheriff call me. The sheriff contacted someone who called and said he was a specialist in urban search and rescue. After that, I talked to someone with the United Nations. Then to someone in San Salvador, who was hard to understand.

  Now I’m talking to my dad again, and I’m clinging to his voice because my phone is almost out of battery.

  I can’t lose this connection. I can’t lose him.

  “Son, Mom and I are going to fly down there. We’ll arrive tonight, and we’ll make sure the authorities get you out of there as soon as possible.”

  “Okay.”

  “You and the other kids just need to stay safe and wait. Tell them to hang on—”

  Silence.

  No! Please, please, no.

  The other kids stare at me.

  I look at my phone. The screen has gone dark. No more battery. No more communication with the outside world.

  Chapter Twelve

  The second Genevieve woke the next morning, a bad feeling expanded in her chest. The next second, she knew why. Her argument with Sam.

  Dr. Quinley had been suggesting that she spend time daily on introspection. Genevieve preferred action to introspection. Especially in recent months, because introspection forced her to confront the wrong turns she’d taken, the fraudulent persona she’d built. Which, unfailingly, submerged her in guilt.