#1-3--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Everything about Jenny and the way she stood, the way she breathed, told him how agitated she was. It was something no one could hide, not from him.

  “I texted dozens of times,” she said. “She doesn’t answer the phone, ever, so I know leaving a voicemail is pointless. As I said, when she doesn’t want to answer me, I get silence.” She held up her phone as if making a point.

  He knew when a kid was hiding something and didn’t want to face consequences. “You’re sure she’s not at school?”

  The look she gave him said everything. “Unless she’s hiding in some corner, she’s not here. Her teachers all marked her absent.” She pulled in another breath and lifted her hands, then let them fall. “She hates school. She basically hates everything and everyone right now. So no, I guarantee you she’s not here.”

  Okay, point made. He found himself lifting his gaze, taking in the grounds, the street, the cars. “Chances are she’ll be at home. You could go home and wait for her,” he suggested. Just then, there was a ding on his phone, and he took in the text from his brother.

  Livingston Peak, halfway to the summit. Here’s the link. Isn’t this your neighbor’s daughter, Alison Sweetgrass? Something I need to know? WTF is she doing in the park? Evidently on an afternoon hike!

  He just stared at the text and could feel without having to look up that Jenny was staring at him. “Found her,” he said, then sent off a quick reply to his brother. Thx! Not yet. Will get back to you.

  “Where?” she said.

  He glanced up as he clicked the link to see her location, knowing exactly where that was. What the hell was Alison thinking? “On a hiking trail, in the middle of nowhere, so I guess that answers one of my questions. Your daughter apparently decided to go for a hike up Livingston Peak instead of going to school.”

  She was a kid with a chip on her shoulder and was likely looking for trouble. She hadn’t seemed like the type who’d take a hike to figure things out, but maybe he was wrong.

  “So we have two options here,” he continued. “You go home and wait for her to show up, or we go into the park after her.”

  She set her jaw. Yeah, Alison was on exactly the wrong side of her pissed-off mom. “We? You said ‘we.’”

  He wasn’t sure what to make of the way she said it, so he shrugged. “You seem to forget what I do. This is my area, my park. Not much goes on that I don’t know about, and I’m certainly not sending you off alone when I’m the one who knows where she is. My advice is for you to go home and wait. She’ll show up eventually.”

  And meanwhile, he would absolutely drive out and see what Alison Sweetgrass was up to in his park. There was just something about the girl that was so rough around the edges, and he’d bet his bottom dollar that she was making the worst choices possible. That was not the kind of careless troublemaker he wanted running around in his park.

  Jenny was already shaking her head. “No, I’m not going home. Like, what the hell would she be doing on the trail?”

  “Going for a hike,” he said.

  The face Jenny made said everything. “Not likely.”

  Yeah, he thought as much, considering kids who looked and acted like Alison didn’t often go for the scenery or a quiet stroll in nature. Alison was the kind of girl who had no idea what she was getting herself into. There were bears and cougars, and he was sure she didn’t have any idea of the other dangers out there. Some kids did, but not Alison, for sure.

  “You sure you want to go up after her?” was all he asked.

  Jenny gave everything to him in her glare. She was pissed, angry. “My daughter, my problem. I don’t plan on waiting hours until she decides to show up. I’ve had about enough of her crap.”

  He just shrugged, picturing the confrontation that was likely to happen when they tracked her down. “Fine, let’s go,” he said and took in the surprise on her face.

  “You mean with you?”

  He started to the passenger door of his truck and pulled it open. “If you want to find your daughter in my park, then yeah, you bet it’s with me. I’m the only one who can use the back road up. There’s no public access.” He took in her hesitation and something else in her expression, and then what did she do but lift her chin, tuck her purse over her shoulder, and climb into the passenger side of his truck?

  He just stood there for a second. She wouldn’t look his way, uncomfortable, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was so much about her that he might not want to know. Was she hiding something? Definitely.

  He gave the door a shove and started around to the driver’s side, stuck on the fact that both mother and daughter were steeped in something that didn’t quite sit right with him. If he was smart, he’d help her find her daughter and then listen to his brother and keep his distance.

  But then, Ryan had never been that smart when it came to women.

  Chapter Seven

  Where are you? Why are you on a hiking trail at Livingston Peak?

  She wrote the text to her daughter from where she sat in the passenger side of Ryan’s truck. She’d never expected to see him again. At the same time, there was something about her life. She’d moved herself and her daughter from Atlanta for a fresh start because her aunt had died and left Jenny her house, a surprise she was still wrapping her head around—except this fresh start seemed to be turning into just a different version of the trouble she’d walked away from.

  “You texting her again?”

  She hesitated before looking over to Ryan. Being in his proximity was doing things to her reasoning that she didn’t like. She’d put him from her mind years ago, told herself he was the bad boy she’d picked up in a bar for a night of sex, and he’d never amount to anything. She was having a lot of trouble with the fact that she was now sitting in his truck while he drove her into the park where her daughter supposedly was. She couldn’t keep her head screwed on straight. “I am,” she said.

  “Don’t,” he replied as her thumb hovered over the green send button.

  “Why not?”

  A smile or something pulled at the edges of his mouth, and he shook his head. “Because the minute you do, she’s on to you. Right now, we have the element of surprise on our side. I know where she is, and she doesn’t know we’re coming. She’s ignored every one of the how many texts you’ve already sent. One more isn’t going to have her responding, but it will have her running if she’s trying to hide from you, and it seems that’s exactly what she’s doing.”

  Why did it seem Ryan O’Connell knew more about her daughter than she did? That didn’t sit right with her. “She’s my daughter, you know,” she said. She couldn’t help herself.

  “She is, but at the same time, I know kids like her.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? She turned and really looked at him, feeling the slight against her. “Seriously…?” she started before he cut her off.

  “Oh, don’t go jumping down my throat again. I deal with kids looking for trouble on a daily basis, and I can tell you I used to be one. She’s angry, got a chip on her shoulder, acting out, and she’s trying to push every one of your buttons. You busted her for something, and she knows she’s in a ton of shit, so instead of facing the music, she’s avoiding you. Just something kids do, and reasoning skills are definitely not something teens are known for.”

  She just stared at him, still holding her phone and seeing the text she hadn’t sent. She turned off the screen. “So are you a shrink now, too?” she said, knowing it had come out a lot more sharply than she’d planned.

  “Got nothing to do with being a shrink, Jenny. I see this all the time. I deal with that part of human nature that goes looking for trouble. And I’m not you, so I’m a hell of a lot more objective.”

  “Excuse me?” Even she could hear the incredulity in her voice. “What does this have to do with you not being me? I’m her mother. I know her better than anyone.” Her heart was hammering, and she had to still her mind and the panic that had her heart pounding and he
r hands sweating. Did he have any idea of all her secrets? But that was impossible. Only one man ever had.

  Wren.

  “That’s the problem. You’re too close to her. You’re not seeing it. She’s pushing your buttons, Jenny, and she knows just what to say and what to do to get a reaction from you. Not a great or healthy reaction, but she’s a teenager. There’s a stage where kids who were once reasonable suddenly go brain dead and do things you’d swear they wouldn’t do. It’s called hormones, and then if you add in something at home, problems, changes, stress, moving, you get a kid acting out. You moved from Atlanta. Where’s her father, still there?”

  There were the questions. She felt the truck slow and took in where he pulled off the road, up a wide grassy trail with tire tracks down the middle, definitely a back road. He was glancing at his phone. He really seemed to have a handle on what he was doing, in charge, caring. It was unsettling. What could she tell him? Nothing.

  “Her father died and left me a mountain of debt. We lost everything. Yeah, she’s pissed. We had a nice house, a life, but we had to leave. Moved back to Livingston, to the house my aunt left me. What about you? You have to have kids.”

  “Althea was your aunt?” he said. “I’m sorry to hear about your husband. But no, no kids, not that I know of.”

  Her stomach pitched, and for a second she wondered if she’d stopped breathing.

  “Relax,” he said. “You look as if you’re about to puke over there. Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

  Yeah, he had. “You know, I didn’t know my aunt very well,” she said. Good save! She could talk about her eccentric aunt, her father’s sister, whom she’d seen only a handful of times, before Alison. Then there was Wren Sweetgrass, a man she had loved and married—that is, until he showed her who he really was the day after he put a ring on her finger.

  “She was a sweet old lady, a busybody,” Ryan said. “Didn’t think she had any family.”

  Okay, her aunt was a safe subject. “Everyone has family, somewhere,” she replied. “Just not everyone knows who their family is.”

  What the hell was she doing? She pulled her gaze from him and looked out the window. The trail he was driving was like a dirt road. She didn’t have a clue where they were.

  “You know, in my line of work, I ask a lot of personal questions,” he said, “and I always know when someone is hiding something. It’s something everyone does, and you do it well.”

  Her heart thudded again. Did her face show anything?

  “Your daughter acting out…I take it this is new, all this behavior you’re getting. Kind of makes sense, if her father died. Bad times make everyone do things they wouldn’t do in their right mind. Add in teenage hormones, and it makes a world of sense now, what I’ve seen. When did your husband die? Was this recent?”

  She felt the tightness in her chest and glanced out the window into the middle of nowhere. Why would her daughter be all the way out here? “Yes, kind of…but you know what? I’d really like to not talk about him. We’re supposed to be looking for my daughter.”

  “Understood,” he said. “Just one thing, Jenny.”

  Her stomach knotted again as she waited for the other shoe to drop. What could be coming next? He was smooth and far too curious. She gave him everything. What was it about having lived in stress for so long? With what felt like disasters coming at her from around every corner, she couldn’t help but be suspicious of everyone.

  She said nothing, as she couldn’t even force herself to swallow the lump stuck in her throat. She just looked at him, her hand on the seatbelt shoulder strap, squeezing. It was the only thing she could think to hold on to.

  “Just breathe, and know that if you want to talk about it, whatever it is that has you freaked out and running, I’m here, and I’ll listen,” he said. Before she could think of something polite to say, he was pressing the brakes. “Oh, hold up. According to this, she should be just up here, in the clearing.”

  As Ryan drove incredibly fast into the grassy clearing, her heart thudded. The view was incredible, but she could feel her anger at her daughter returning. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around her throat and shake her, to yell at her.

  But she knew that instead, after she got her daughter back home, later that night, she would go into the bathroom and cry into a towel, silent and alone.

  “She should be just up here,” Ryan said.

  All she could see was grass and a view—and something black on the ground. When he drove closer and shoved the truck in park, she saw that it was just a backpack. She looked around, not seeing her daughter anywhere. They were so high up, and she just couldn’t see her daughter walking up there.

  “Ryan, uh…” she started, but he was already out of the truck, his shades on.

  He walked over to the backpack and picked it up, and by the time she had stepped out and walked over to him, he’d unzipped it. She stared in shock as Ryan rummaged through the bag and pulled out a cell phone with a tiny crack at the top of the screen and a pink lipstick cover.

  “That’s my daughter’s phone,” she said as she took in Ryan, the backpack, and what looked like miles of nothing. She wasn’t sure what to make of his face.

  “And her backpack?” he said, looking around.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never seen that backpack before.”

  Alison had an old blue flowered backpack that she’d insisted on bringing from Atlanta. It was something her father had given her, the only nice thing he’d done for her—though her daughter had never seen it that way.

  He only nodded and stepped back. “Alison!” he shouted.

  Jenny stood there, looking around, listening, hoping for a response, but she knew it was just as likely her daughter wouldn’t answer. “Now what?” she asked after what felt like a minute of just standing and listening.

  Ryan shook his head, walked around to the back of the pickup, and dropped the tailgate. He settled the backpack down on it and pulled out his cell phone, then dialed and pressed it to his ear. “Well, first, I’ll call my brother, let him know. Then we’re going to go through this backpack and see what we can find. But, word of caution, Jenny, sometimes kids hide things you as a parent may not want to know. Why don’t you let me look and see what’s in here? Then I’ll take you back to your place, where it’s just as likely she’ll turn up.”

  She was already shaking her head, taking in his large hands, the shape of his fingers, which were so much like Alison’s. “Nope, I can assure you, Ryan, nothing my daughter could possibly do would surprise me,” she replied, but even as she said it, she couldn’t help but wonder whether that was merely wishful thinking.

  Chapter Eight

  Alison’s phone was password protected, and her mom didn’t have a clue what the password was. As well, Ryan was stuck on the fact that the backpack had contained only a few granola bars, a worn black hoodie, a pack of stale cigarettes, and class papers with the name Ollie Edwards written along the top, along with three empty energy drink cans, a half-eaten cheese sandwich in a Ziploc bag, and a can of warm soda.

  Jenny didn’t have a clue who Ollie Edwards was. They hadn’t even packed a bottle of water for their hike, it seemed, and why the hell had the backpack just been sitting in the clearing in the middle of nowhere, with Alison’s cell phone still inside?

  He was positive the girl had heard the truck approaching and had been determined not to answer. Pain in the ass, troublemaker, irresponsible… Did she have any idea in that teenage brain of hers that she was only making things worse? Apparently not. He wondered if anyone would be able to get through to her.

  “Ryan, I think we should have kept looking,” Jenny said from beside him in the truck. “We should have stayed up there, or at least me. I should have stayed up there. I would have made her come out, or outwaited her.”

  As he drove down their street toward her house, he spotted his brother Marcus already there, just stepping out of his cruiser, in his uniform and shad
es. Marcus looked his way as Ryan pulled up and parked behind the cruiser right in front of his place.

  “You seriously think you could have made her answer you?” he said. “I guarantee you staying up there would have had the opposite effect. She’s avoiding your texts. Her message is loud and clear. You weren’t getting anywhere, and she wasn’t answering me, either. You think I’d have left you out there, dressed the way you are? You have no supplies, no water, and you’d get lost. Then there would be two of you out there, wandering, and I’d have to bring in a lot more people to find both of you. You want to look, we’ll do it smart, with the right supplies, the right shoes and gear. For all we know, she’s likely had enough of the trail and is on her way down.”

  He wanted to find out why Ollie Edwards’s backpack was sitting out in the middle of nowhere with Alison’s phone. He didn’t recognize the boy’s name, but something told him that Alison wouldn’t have thought through her new friendship too well.

  “For all we know,” he continued, “she’s likely hiding and will show up before dinner. Kids do stupid things, but they generally always come home for food and sleep.”

  From the stark expression on her face, he wasn’t sure Jenny believed him, but he stepped out of the truck anyway and walked over to his brother, who stood waiting for him, arms crossed over his solid chest, working a piece of gum.

  “She show up here?” Ryan asked.

  Marcus merely glanced to the house and then over to Jenny, gesturing with his chin. “No idea. Just pulled up here, but let’s hope she has. Jenny, do you mind going inside and seeing if your daughter’s here—or if she’s been here, at least?”

  Ryan knew his brother wanted a word alone with him.