This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 Lily Campbell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. s in a book review.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
What did you think of
Hide No Secrets?
Lawson & Abernathy Series
Special Agent Of FBI Brenda Lawson and Homicide Detective Mack Abernathy
Illusive Series
Brenda and Mack’s Past
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About The Author
Chapter 1
Mack Abernathy cast a long eye at a flat sea of corn fields, brown and dry under a sizzling, tormenting sun. It seems like the clear blue sky stretches on forever across the horizon. Heavy drops of sweat oozed down his rough face like angry beetles struggling through a plate of sticky syrup.
“There's a town about five miles up the road,” he said with a sigh of relief as he eyed the fuel gauge. “We can stop and grab a bite to eat, and get some gas.”
Brenda Lawson glanced over at her friend. Despite the heat, Mack was wearing his street-battered gray trench coat. Not that Brenda could call him out for it. “Green Ridge,” she nodded. “We can rest for a good bit there.”
Mack focused on the narrow two lane that his old Oldsmobile was cruising down. “You sure about that?” he asked.
Brenda grew silent for a minute. Los Angeles won't be any better than New York. Corruption is everywhere. Am I just running from a fight because I'm tired?
“We're making it in good time. You shouldn't be late for your friend's funeral,” Brenda answered, ignoring the sweat dripping off her forehead. The dry air blowing in from the open windows wasn’t offering much relief.
“Whatever. I—”
The Oldsmobile gave a sudden, violent jerk as a loud 'Bang' sound exploded from under the hood. Mack felt the steering wheel trying to get away from him. “Hold on.”
Brenda waited while Mack struggled to steer the Oldsmobile to a stop on the side of the road. She looked at the hood and saw hot, dangerous steam flooding out into the sizzling air.
“We were making it in good time.” She sighed, stepping out into the heat. She opened her door against a thick set of corn stalks as she did, and walked to the front of the car. “Maybe the water hose went?”
Mack stared down at the hood with hard eyes. “Could be? I'm not a mechanic,” he pointed out. “We’re going to need some help real soon.”
“Same here,” Brenda nodded her head. “Guess we're walking to Green Ridge.”
Mack looked down the scorched back road lined with dry corn fields and signed deeply.
Brenda knew they were too far out to get any reception, but she snatched out a black cell phone from the right pocket of her suit jacket and tried anyway. “No signal.”
Mack frowned a little. He wasn't one to tolerate the heat. “I'll lock up the car and grab the last two bottles of water.”
Brenda checked the Glock 17 she had hidden in a shoulder holster as Mack locked up his old car. As Brenda glanced around at the ocean of corn fields, a strange, somewhat spooky feeling entered her gut. She reached up her left hand and felt the hot air. The air felt… abnormal.
Something isn't right about these cornfields, whispered a voice deep inside Brenda.
“Let's move,” Mack told Brenda, handing her a bottle of warm water. “We've got some walking to do.”
Brenda followed him onto the baking road. “Good thing I wore my walking shoes. Never been one for high heels.”
Mack grunted and got his legs moving. “Nebraska… flat corn fields...” he grumbled.
Brenda let her eyes examine the corn fields as she walked beside Mack, ignoring the angry, blazing sun that was trying to fry her mind.
Brenda ran some numbers through her mind. Been driving for forty minutes… town is five miles up the road… nothing but open corn past the town for fifty miles… nothing behind me except corn.
The sound of an approaching truck made Brenda jump. Like a mirage, a rusted farm truck appeared in the distance.
Mack glanced at Brenda. “What's the matter?” he asked, seeing the look in her eyes.
“Something isn't right,” Brenda told Mack. Holding back her thoughts from Mack was not a good idea. “I can't explain what I'm feeling, but ever since we got off the main road, my gut has been fussing at me.”
Mack nodded his head. “Yeah, same here. I took the scenic route because I was getting sick of the truckers trying to hog the road.” He focused back on the approaching farm truck. His gut tightened.
The rusted truck with red splotches of old barn paint slowed down and eased up to Mack and Brenda on nearly bald tires. A man in his early thirties popped a head full of bright blond hair out of the driver's side window and eyed the two strangers with flat, lifeless eyes. “Car trouble?” asked a voice that was far from friendly.
“Yeah,” Mack answered in a straight, direct voice. “Is there a garage in Green Field?”
Lance hesitated to answer. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Mind giving us a ride?” Brenda asked, keeping her voice tough. She snatched out her FBI credentials. “I'm Agent Brenda Lawson. This is Detective Mack Abernathy.”
Lance tensed up. What are the cops doing out in the corn?
“Is there a garage?” Mack asked again, his voice hard and impatient this time.
Lance studied Mack. Mack stood strong and tough as bare wood. It was clear the man was a street-battered guy who could handle himself in a fight. Lance on the other hand had only been in one fight—and that was with his cousin Andy when they were ten years old.
“Yeah, there's a garage,” he jerked a thumb at the bed of the truck. The bed was filled with a few small hay bales, some old dried-out corn, and a few rusted tractor parts. “Get in.”
Mack glanced at Brenda. Brenda looked out at the cornfield and then accepted the ride. She crawled into the bed of the farm truck like a trained soldier, sat down on a hay bale, and waited for Mack. She banged the side of the truck as soon as Mack was seated. Lance hit the gas and the farm truck sputtered forward.
“Nice guy,” Brenda muttered.
“Yeah, definitely.”
They didn't say another word until the farm truck reached Green Ridge. Its dry, dusty downtown area was nothing more than a city block filled with single-story wooden buildings that held a few functional businesses. Lance drove past the local 'Feed and Seed' store and swerved onto a dirt parking lot attached to a brick garage. A rusted tow truck was parked outside the garage in the scorching sun.
Mack jumped down onto the dirty yard and rushed to the garage without saying a word to Lance. As soon as Brenda’s feet hit the dirt, Lance made a quick U-turn and drove away. Brenda stood still for a few seconds and examined the surroundings. Nothing but corn, corn, and more corn surrounding the town of Gree
n Ridge.
Mack stepped into an open, greasy bay. “Hello?” he called.
“Yeah?” a hard voice called back, opening a side door that was connected to the garage. A large, fat man who looked like a bulldog stepped out of a hot office and eyed Mack. “What do you want?”
Mack looked at the man’s name tag on his shirt. Melvin was wearing a clean pair of gray work overalls—not a single spot of grease on them. “Car broke down about a mile south of town. Need a tow.”
Melvin spotted Brenda step into the open bay. He didn't like strangers showing up. No one in Green Ridge liked strangers, especially Mr. Frinton. Melvin narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “I'm closed.” he mumbled in a hot, angry voice.
“You're the only garage in town,” Mack informed Melvin in a voice that was far from patient. “I need a tow.” Mack whipped out his badge. “I'm Detective Abernathy.”
Melvin tensed up. Cops? What were cops doing in Green Ridge?
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” he asked. “I said I was closed. Take a hike.”
Brenda watched Melvin reach over to a greasy table and pick up a tire iron. “Put that down,” she warned.
“I said take a hike,” Melvin roared, ignoring Brenda. “Don't make me split your skulls open.”
Brenda began to go for her gun. Mack shook his head at her. “Think you're man enough?” he asked, putting his badge away.
“Try me.”
Mack didn't offer a moment of hesitation. He stalked forward like a powerful grizzly bear with his head tilted toward the ground. Melvin gripped the tire iron in his fat hand and waited for Mack to get close enough to strike. Mack kept walking forward with narrow, angry eyes. “Take your best shot,” he growled at Melvin.
Melvin took a quick step backward and then threw the tire iron at Mack's head. Mack ducked down, feeling the tire iron whiz over the top of his head, and then brought up a fist that caught Melvin hard right under his jaw. Melvin's head nearly left his shoulders. The man's eyes rolled back into his head, and he hit the ground like a sack of corn.
“Nice guy,” Brenda told Mack as he spit onto the floor. “See if there is a phone inside. I'll watch the bay.”
Mack nodded his head, stepped over Melvin's fat body, and entered a stuffy, cramped office lined with old paneling from the 1970's. Mack glanced around, shocked to see that the walls were bare—no photos, calendars, nothing. Mack approached the single wooden desk that sat up against the back wall. A Bible lay on the desk… only it wasn't a real Bible. No, the Bible was some kind of strange book. Mack read the large red letters printed on the book’s black leather covering. “Adam Frinton, Prophet.”
The desk was clear except for the false book. No phone. He returned his attention back to Adam Frinton. He picked up the book and opened the front cover. A single photo of a smiling man appeared before him. Mack memorized the face and then flipped through a few pages. “Looks like the guy I decked belongs to a cult,” he said in a disgusted voice before throwing the book into a metal trash can sitting beside the desk.
“No phone, huh?” Brenda asked, reading Mack's face as he walked out of the office.
“No phone,” Mack shook his head. “I found a cult book. Some guy named Adam Frinton thinks he's a prophet. Seems chubby fell for his line.”
Brenda felt a cold chill run down her spine. “Maybe he isn't the only one?” she suggested. “The guy who gave us a ride into town had the same attitude, Mack.”
Brenda eyed the blazing day sitting outside of the bay. She drew in a deep breath of heat that smelled of dry corn and old grease. “We need to locate a phone. We passed a small diner up the street.”
“No police station, though,” Mack pointed out. “The farm truck we rode into town on had expired tags.”
“I saw.”
“The tag on the license plate was from 1994. The trucks we passed in town, from what I could read, also had expired tags.”
Mack walked outside into the heat and examined the license plate on the rusted tow truck. “Expired tag,” he informed Brenda in a hard voice. He looked back toward the downtown area, where the few trucks that were parked in town were driving away, leaving town. “Looks like we're not welcomed.”
Brenda watched over seven rusted farm trucks leave town—in a hurry. “Feel like stealing a tow truck?”
Mack walked around to the driver's side of the tow truck, yanked open a rusted door that squeaked like a dying crow, and checked the gas gauge. “Truck is on empty. We wouldn't get far,” he grunted. He slammed the driver's door closed and looked around. “Let's take a walk into town.”
“The diner?”
Mack nodded his head.
Brenda glanced behind her, saw Melvin still lying unconscious in the shadows of the bay, and moved to join Mack. She stepped from the dirt parking lot onto a sun-baked sidewalk.
At that moment, a small boy burst out of a hot general store, spotted Mack and Brenda, and yelled, “You better run or you'll die! They'll kill you like they killed my daddy!”
Mack and Brenda watched the boy take off across the street and vanish into the small diner.
“Let's get a cold drink,” Mack grunted and began making his way toward the diner. Brenda checked her gun and followed as the sun continued to bake her mind.
Chapter 2
Dry and dusty air slapped Mack in his stone face as he walked through a hazy glass door, scuffed and clouded with grit from the street. He stepped into a long rectangular room lined with green booths, brown paneled walls, and an old, cracked, brown linoleum floor. A long wooden counter sat at the end of the room. It was empty—except that Adam Frinton was everywhere. Photos of the smiling man were pasted all over the walls. “That's Adam Frinton,” Mack grunted under his voice, “the cult guy.” Mack scanned the diner for the strange kid who had thrown that dangerous warning into the hot air outside.
Brenda scanned a large photo sitting over the first booth and memorized the face, then searched for the missing boy. “Smell coffee?”
Mack nodded his head. “Eggs and bacon, too. But the place looks spotless.”
He approached the front counter while Brenda stayed at the front door. “You in here, son? If you are, you don't need to be afraid,” he called out. “I'm Detective Abernathy with the police.”
Brenda didn't expect Mack to get an answer, but a stringy head of blond hair rose up from the front counter. He had a dirty face that belonged to a little eleven-year-old body. She knew something was terribly wrong in Green Ridge. “You better get outta here,” the kid warned Mack. “Mr. Frinton told everybody to get to the meeting spot. He was real mad, too.”
Mack eyed the boy, who was wearing nothing but dirty overalls. The child’s bare arms and bony shoulders were showing, baked from the sun. He was skinny—too skinny. “Where's your parents, son?” he asked.
“Ain't got no daddy… he's dead… they buried him in the corn. My momma works here in this diner, but she went home. She thinks I'm home, but I ain't,” he told Mack, remaining behind the front counter. “Saw you hit Melvin. So did Mr. Sallows. He was hiding… went and told Mr. Frinton, too. All the guys are going to the meeting… ain't good. Mr. Frinton only calls a meeting when he wants to kill somebody. That's what my momma told me, anyways.”
Brenda looked at the smiling face of Adam Frinton, then out at the front street. It was deserted. For the moment, the entire town was deserted… except for Melvin, lying where Mack had left him. “Is there a phone?” she asked, turning to the kid.
“Ain't no phones in town. Mr. Frinton don't allow phones, or them wireless phones people carry. Ain't no computers either. Or television. Have to ride all the way to Pepper Plains to find a phone, and that's over fifty miles away,” the kid fussed. “Used to have a phone—still got the phone poles up—but momma said Mr. Frinton ordered the guys to cut all the phone and computer lines. Had to turn in our phone and computer, too. Wasn't fair. Wasn’t fair at all.”
Mack studied the boy’s dirty face and then glanced
back at Brenda. “We're dealing with a cult.”
Brenda stared at Mack for a few seconds and then spoke. “Cults are bad news, Mack. When I was sixteen, I got caught up in a cult.” Brenda glanced around the diner and then looked back at Mack. “I had to fight my way out. I almost died. Once the cult has you, you can't escape.”
Mack was taken back by the confession. Brenda wasn't the type of woman who could be taken in by a smiling face spouting slick lies.
“Son,” he spoke, turning back to Josh, “What is your name? And who is this Adam Frinton person? Tell me all you know.”
He stared at Mack with frightened eyes. Mr. Frinton hated children. He was the only boy left in Green Ridge and that was only because his mother hid him from Adam. “I am Josh. He's a mean man… momma says he's a killer. I believe it,” Josh spoke in a scared voice. “He came into town one day, last year around this time when the sun’s always hot. Never left.”
“You better stay with me, son,” Mack told Josh, feeling his heart ache for the young boy. “Brenda, watch the door. I'll go check the kitchen.”
“Got it.”
“Stay here, Josh,” he ordered Josh. Josh hesitated, and then obeyed, staring at Mack with wide, hungry, eyes.
Mack stepped into a small kitchen, like any other kitchen in any other diner. Except that Adam Frinton's face was plastered all over the brown paneling wall. “Yeah,” Mack grunted, marching to the back door. It opened up into a back alley of hard, cracked, dry dirt. Nothing but open corn fields lay beyond the alley. “Yeah,” Mack grunted again, staring out at the corn with uncertain eyes.
He slammed the back door closed and engaged a flimsy lock, then checked the walk-in cooler. The cold air was both a shock and a relief from the sweltering heat as he searched the interior. A box of unopened donuts was sitting on a metal rack. Mack snatched the box and walked back into the diner. “Here. Eat, son,” he told Josh, handing the boy the donuts.
“Hey, thanks!” Josh accepted the donuts, sat down behind the counter, and dug in.
Hide No Secrets Page 1