Surviving the Truth

by Tyler Anne Snell

He sighed. He shouldn’t have let his excitement get the better of him. What were the chances that they’d actually find something after all these years?

  Kenneth looked back at Willa to voice his opinion.

  He stopped the second he saw how wide her eyes were. She didn’t wait for him to ask her what had changed.

  “If you think me finding that was a coincidence, wait until I tell you where I’ve heard one of those names before.”

  * * *

  TWO DAYS LATER and Kenneth was wearing a suit, a skinny tie, some boots, his badge and gun, and something akin to excitement across his lips. Willa watched him from the window of his SUV. She would have joined him but her own best-dressed self was trying to keep her heels dirt-free. Plus, in some way, it felt like Kenneth walking along Lot 427 was an intimate thing.

  He was seeing where it had all started.

  Just like she had when she’d first found the box.

  It was night, timed that way only because they’d lost track of the clocks on their phones while going over their plan again.

  A plan Foster Lovett wasn’t happy about.

  “Getting a warrant to search his house and workplace would be safer,” he’d told them both that morning.

  Kenneth had already thought about that.

  “There’s no judge in the world who would okay it,” he’d said. “No matter what any of us think, the truth is we have no hard evidence. It’s all circumstantial.”

  That was the understatement of the century.

  Not only did they have no evidence that said Joseph Page—the same Terry Page who had been part of securing and championing for Lot 427 to be built upon—was responsible for murder, they had no idea which murder that was.

  He wasn’t old enough to have killed Josiah Linderman...but his son, Joshua? Maybe. Since Foster had done his digging into Joshua, he’d found the number of the woman he had been dating seven years ago. Her name was Lottie and she’d told Kenneth a troubling story when he’d called her.

  A few days before Joshua had talked to his uncle at his mother’s grave, Lottie had all but broken up with Joshua.

  “He loved me but couldn’t seem to love the idea of committing to me,” she’d told him. “I wanted to get married and have kids and he, well, he told me he didn’t know if he could do that. So I told him he needed to figure that out and, if his answer swung our way, that he knew where to find me. He agreed to that and took his things and left. I guess he made up his mind. I never heard from him again.”

  From there Kenneth had said he’d been delicate when presenting the possibility that Joshua hadn’t come back because something had happened to him. Then, when he’d asked after Joshua’s adoptive parents and any friends or coworkers and why no one had reported the man missing, she’d rounded out the story with a deep sense of pity.

  “His adoptive parents died two years apart from one another. After that he became very closed off to people. As for where he was working, he was between jobs. He wanted to be a journalist but was having a hard time getting hired.”

  Kenneth didn’t say so on the phone but Willa had summed up his feeling after he’d recounted the conversation.

  “Joshua really did just fall through the cracks, didn’t he?”

  The fact that his father had done the same thing weighed heavy on both of them.

  Two Lindermans who had disappeared into nothingness.

  Lottie had emailed Foster a copy of an old letter Joshua had given her after that and, at the very least, they’d been able to match the handwriting to the note in the cigarette case.

  Had Joshua been investigating his father’s murder as an adult? And, more important, had he found a lead that had brought him to Terry Page?

  If so, then how did Ally Gray fit into it all?

  There were too many questions still, and hunches that they couldn’t back up.

  So it felt like the only reasonable play left was to be a bit unreasonable.

  And that’s why Willa was wearing a party dress, why Kenneth was in a suit, and why Martha was waiting for them to drop Delilah off at her house.

  They had a party to crash.

  A party that Terry Page would be attending.

  “What will that accomplish?” Foster had asked when they’d told him of their plan. “Are you just going to ask him if he’s been killing people over the years?”

  Kenneth had tensed. Willa knew the anger coming from him hadn’t been meant for Foster but it eked out of his words.

  “When I look him in the eye, I’ll know if he’s guilty.”

  Willa had known he was amped up...and emotional. It wasn’t just about Josiah and his son. Ally was involved.

  The one case he’d been forced to give up on.

  So she’d pulled Foster aside when there had been a break in the conversation.

  “If Terry Page is behind even one of these disappearances or, what we believe are in fact murders, then that means he’s either the man from the hospital or he knows him,” she’d said. “You know me and you know Kenneth. I can get Terry talking and Kenneth can guide that talk to something we can use. We have to at least try. If we show our hand to him first and he is guilty and we don’t have a way to prove it? What’s to keep him from running, or worse?” Willa had lowered her voice then. She’d looked toward Kenneth. Her heart had constricted and fluttered all at once. “He deserves answers. Just like Ally and the Lindermans, and this is the only way we can think of to maybe get some.”

  Foster had sighed but had agreed to the plan after that.

  Though he’d been sure to point out it wasn’t much of a plan all the way up until they’d left Kenneth’s house.

  “I’ll be close,” he’d called after them. “You say the word and that party will have more guests than they ever bargained for.”

  Willa found that image wildly comforting.

  Though now she was starting to get nervous as she watched Kenneth and Delilah walk around Lot 427 like a man paying his last respects to a place before leaving it forever wasn’t helping. They’d stopped on their way to Martha’s at Kenneth’s request.

  If Terry Page was guilty, what would happen next?

  What would she do? What would Kenneth do?

  She watched as the man and his dog started to walk back to the car. His blazer was unbuttoned. Willa saw the glint of his gun beneath it.

  For just a moment, Willa wished she’d never found the box.

  And hoped that its discovery wouldn’t take any more lives than it already had.

  Chapter Twenty

  The associates of Red Tree Development were celebrating two things.

  One reason to have a party was that they’d just completed a long-standing project in a nearby city. Something, according to Ronaldo—the man who hadn’t held back when talking to Willa on the phone after very little maneuvering on her part—that was a long time coming. It was a strip mall and, apparently, had been a pain in the entire company’s collective backside over the last year. Closing the book on the property had been reason enough for celebration, yet they’d decided to be less obvious with their disdain for their work to share the party with an employee’s birthday.

  Her name was Wendy and her husband had a good bit of money when they’d married.

  “Ronaldo said that’s why, when Red Tree does decide to party, they usually do it at Wendy’s place,” Willa explained. They’d parked her car in a line of vehicles along a long drive. It wasn’t McHale money but it wasn’t some house out in the middle of town, either. “Not only is this place big, it apparently has dock access to the creek at the back of the property and a gazebo somewhere else.”

  Kenneth had cut the car’s engine and quirked his eyebrow at that.

  Willa seemed to pick up on his thoughts.

  “Ronaldo seemed to like Wendy, but he had a lot of thoughts on people who own ga
zebos, and not all of them good,” she said with a shrug. “Then again, he said if he had gazebo money then maybe he wouldn’t dislike them so much.”

  Kenneth took the keys out and tucked his badge into his pocket. He wanted it on him if he needed it, but he didn’t want to spook anyone until then.

  “It’s amazing to me how powerful your small talk is,” he’d noted, not for the first time. “You call Ronaldo back to thank him for helping you and scoring points with your boss, and somehow you manage to get yourself an invite to a company slash birthday party with no one you know. And with a plus one.” He shook his head and laughed. “It’s a Southern superpower.”

  Willa wiggled her eyebrows at him.

  “A superpower I’ll use for good but don’t think for a second I won’t also use for it evil if it suits me.”

  Kenneth put his hands up in mock surrender and laughed.

  Then the reason why they were there was staring at them through the windshield.

  The house was large and set within the woods for privacy. Kenneth had only been by the home once when he was a teen and that was to turn his car around when he’d missed the dirt road to another dock access a few minutes before. He suspected since then the house had been renovated and given an addition or two. He also understood why Red Tree asked to party there and not at the office or a bar. It looked like something out of a movie. The two-story was lit up like a Christmas tree. Outdoor lights hanging from rustic-looking wooden poles every few yards led the way before the house lights inside and out took over. Music could be heard thumping, even before they got out of the car.

  Two more pulled up behind them.

  “I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that so many people are here,” Willa commented. She’d lost her earlier humor. “Surely if Terry Page is our bad guy, he won’t try anything with a crowd like this around?”

  Kenneth grit his teeth for a moment. “He better not.”

  A sigh escaped Willa’s chest. “Then let’s get this thing going.”

  Kenneth caught her hand before she could reach for her door handle. Willa searched his face, confused.

  But he wasn’t.

  Not at all.

  “Willa, you already know that I don’t like you being here—and yes I know you don’t care because you’re a strong, independent woman and the perfect ‘wing woman’ for this adventure,” he said, loosely quoting her from earlier when she’d said her not going with him wasn’t a negotiation. “But I have to say, I am glad you’re with me.”

  They’d already shared a lot in the last week or so, including many intimate conversations between his sheets, but Kenneth felt the need and acute desire to share more.

  He just didn’t know how to say it exactly. Not when they were on the trail of a murderer. Not when they were fighting to hopefully find justice for Ally.

  Not when there were so many unknowns that could still spell disaster for them.

  So the short statement would have to do.

  Though Willa didn’t seem to take it lightly.

  She took his chin, gave him a quick kiss on the lips, and broke it with a smile.

  “For luck.”

  Kenneth returned the smile.

  “Better than a rabbit’s foot for sure.”

  They left the car without any further comment and headed to the house.

  Willa took his hand before they went inside.

  * * *

  THE RED TREE employees and their significant others were a nice enough bunch. Willa vaguely recognized a few of them. She and Kenneth, dressed to impress, blended nicely, drinks in their hands and good company at their ears.

  Ronaldo was there, all smiles. He pulled Willa and Kenneth into a friendly conversation that lasted several minutes with him and his husband. For half of those minutes, it all felt so normal.

  But Willa caught a look across Kenneth’s face that she probably hadn’t been meant to catch. He might have been smiling but his eyes were like daggers as they surveyed the people around them.

  It was a reminder for the rest of the conversation that they weren’t on some fun double date. They were looking for a man with a thin-but-there connection to a box containing items related to two disappearances and one murder. Not to mention a cigarette case that held his name.

  Terry Page.

  Since learning his name, the sheriff’s department had undertaken an in-depth investigation for information on the man. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been listed in any criminal database and his social media profile had been scarce if not practically inexistent. The company’s web site bio page had one single picture of him, but it was old and somehow managed to be absolutely unmemorable. If Terry Page wasn’t guilty of something nefarious, he was guilty of online evasion.

  Ronaldo and his husband suddenly excused themselves to take a call from their babysitter. Willa eased into Kenneth’s chest and stayed close as she spoke so only he could hear.

  “Ronaldo said everyone from his office is here, and that includes Terry Page. We need to mingle faster.”

  Kenneth nodded and then they were off. Sipping drinks, utilizing small talk and polite hellos, and passing compliments when sucked into someone else’s orbit. It happened more than once and Willa could tell the routine was starting to wear on her partner.

  It made her want to do something drastic to help his heart, which had to be hurting right now. He could, after all, be in the same room with the man who’d shot the woman he’d vowed to spend the rest of his life with.

  Willa couldn’t help the pain in her own chest at that truth. If Ally had never died, she never would have come to know Kenneth the way she had. Never felt the warmth of him, the rumble of his laughter, or the delight of seeing him joyful. She wouldn’t be wondering about their future or if it would exist beyond the hurdles they were currently being thrown. She wouldn’t have an affinity for Delilah and how much he loved her. And she wouldn’t be standing in a crowded room of people fervently wishing to hold only one person’s hand.

  Willa knew in her heart that she would give it all up in an instant if she could somehow turn back time to save Ally.

  Because that’s how much she cared about Kenneth.

  She wanted any and all of his pain to be replaced by unending happiness.

  Willa sighed. She knew that was a pipe dream for every soul who walked the earth. That there would always be hard times. That happiness wasn’t every second of forever. Still, she scanned the new room they entered with hope that they would at least find some helpful answers.

  But there was no Terry Page.

  There was, however, a familiar face that bobbed into view just ahead.

  “Missy!”

  Missy Frye and her husband were also dressed in their Sunday best and holding obligatory cocktails.

  As they approached, Willa couldn’t help but note that Missy’s mass of curls put her own big hair to shame while Dave looked like he wished he was anywhere else than in stiff clothes at some fancy-schmancy house party.

  Missy dived in, bypassing any type of hello. “What are you doing here, Willa?”

  Outside of Missy’s calling the office to hunt down her husband, Willa only saw and socialized with her by bumping into her at places like the grocery store, hair salon, or any Clanton Construction functions. Missy was younger and had been more of Martha’s crowd growing up.

  Dave, though, wasn’t a true local. A nice guy who had been down on his luck, he’d been passing through Kelby Creek when he’d taken a job as part of a construction crew. Instead of leaving, he’d married Missy quick and, as Martha had not-so-politely said, been her prisoner ever since.

  To be fair, at the moment, he really did look the part of husband there against his own will.

  “We were invited by a friend from Red Tree.” Willa sidestepped a direct answer. She’d say Rolando if she had to, but wasn
’t sure why Missy and Dave were there at all. Missy worked in the county over at a nail salon and spa. So, Willa just asked, “What are y’all doing here?”

  Missy was beaming. She’d been a social creature since she was in diapers, according to Martha.

  “The same! And we just couldn’t pass up the invite. Look at how stunning this place is!” She seemed to realize that Willa had someone with her and waited, pointedly, for an introduction.

  “Missy, this is my friend Kenneth Gray. Kenneth, this is Missy and Dave Frye. I work with Dave at Clanton.”

  Kenneth was poised and professionally polite. He shook their hands, smiled like he was supposed to, and jumped right into a conversation about the almost-gaudy house around them.

  Missy wondered aloud why the woman of the house would still be working if they clearly had money and Dave said that sometimes people did things that didn’t make sense because outsiders didn’t know the whole story.

  They all agreed with him and Missy looked like she was ready to go another round of pure chatter when Kenneth pulled his phone from his pocket. Someone was calling him but Willa couldn’t see the Caller ID.

  Whoever it was, he gave her an apologetic look. “I need to take this.”

  Willa nodded and motioned to the next room. She hadn’t seen anyone go in or out of it in a minute or so.

  “Go ahead. It’s fine,” she assured him.

  He excused himself from the group, saying it was work, with a quick squeeze to Willa’s hand as he went. She watched him transform into downright focused as he hurried out of the room, answering.

  Willa hoped it was good news.

  She wasn’t sure if they could take any more of the bad.

  “Speaking of work, I guess this is as good time as any since your date isn’t here, but do you think I could talk to you about one of our current jobs?” Dave looked downtrodden just bringing it up. “I was going to talk to you about it last week but you were out.”

  “For good reason,” Missy added.

  He nodded, immediately apologetic.

  “Oh yeah, I’m not blaming you,” he interjected. “I just mean that’s why I didn’t see you there.”