#1-3--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  “Well, what is this about?” the man said. “Why do you want to talk to Ollie?”

  He didn’t miss the paranoia and suspicion in his voice. Had to be the father.

  “We’re looking for a friend of his, a girl by the name of Alison Sweetgrass,” Marcus said, holding the door open. “We spoke with Ollie this afternoon, and we have some more questions for him. You’re his father?”

  Ryan rested his hand on the rail of the stairs, his foot on one of the rickety steps. He didn’t have to look over to Luke to know that the way he was standing, arms crossed, was likely the reason the man appeared as unsettled as he did. It was just the effect his brother had, that perpetually pissed-off military presence. Add in a cop at the door and then him, and the man must have thought his son was in a world of shit.

  “Yes, I’m Ollie’s dad, Pete Edwards, but Ollie’s not here. I don’t know any Alison, but I don’t know many of his friends. A girl, huh? So what has she done, or has she dragged my kid into something? What is this?” Yup, he sounded defensive.

  “No, look, Ollie’s not in trouble,” Marcus said. “We’ve been looking for Alison. She’s a missing person, is all. When we spoke with him this afternoon, he said he hadn’t seen her, but we have a witness who saw them together today. Alison is a minor, too…”

  Pete was already shaking his head, and Ryan knew why his brother had let the statement hang like that. “Look, I don’t know where he is, but if he said he didn’t see her, then your witness is wrong. You said my kid’s not in trouble. He’s a good kid and has a good head on his shoulders. If he’s with some girl who has a cop and ranger showing up at my door, then she’s the problem…”

  “She’s my daughter,” Ryan said. They were getting nowhere, and he could sense Pete was getting ready to point another finger at Alison or tell them to leave. “She’s missing, and we’re just trying to locate her. Ollie isn’t in trouble, per se, unless he’s hiding her. Lying to an officer, that is a problem. Do you know where your son is?”

  Pete shook his head.

  “Look, we just want to find her,” Ryan continued, “so the best thing would be to go and get Ollie on the phone so we can settle this once and for all.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” Pete said. “I told you that. He could be in town or something. I just got home from the shop.”

  Ryan could see how stained his hands were, a mechanic’s rough hands. The yard was overgrown, and he could just make out metal and engine parts in a wheelbarrow off to the side. An old rusted-out car had weeds growing through it, too.

  “You’ve said that already, so how about you get Ollie on the phone now?” Marcus said, though it wasn’t a question.

  It was another second before Pete walked back inside, and Marcus stood in the doorway, holding the screen door open. He heard the TV turn off, and then he could hear the man talking on the phone.

  “Hey, Ollie, it’s Dad. Where are you? Because there’s a couple cops here, and a ranger. They said they spoke with you earlier about a girl…” He appeared in the doorway again, the phone to his ear.

  Pete wasn’t soft spoken, and Ryan could just make out someone on the other end. It had to be Ollie. He could feel his heart hammering. He was getting answers, and he hoped to God Alison was with the boy. He glanced over to Luke, who was standing with his arms crossed, still holding his ground.

  “What’s the girl’s name again?” Pete asked Marcus, pulling the phone away from his ear.

  “Alison,” Marcus said. “Is that Ollie on the phone? Let me talk to him.”

  “Hey, Ollie, this cop wants to talk to you. Listen, you tell him where she is. Then you come on home, you hear?” Pete said, then handed Marcus the phone.

  “Ollie, this is Deputy O’Connell. I spoke with you only a few hours ago, and you said you hadn’t seen Alison, but we have a witness putting you outside the liquor store. You two were trying to hustle beer.”

  Ryan couldn’t hear what the kid was saying to his brother.

  “Cut the crap, Ollie,” Marcus replied. “Where is she? You want to help her, then you tell us where she is.”

  Marcus was listening again and shook his head as he lifted his gaze to Ryan, who wanted to take the phone and find out where Ollie was and what was going on with Alison. Given what Jenny said had happened, he was no longer just worried about his kid being out there. Now, a life sentence was hanging in the shadows. She could end up locked away forever, and he didn’t have a clue when the details of that night could be coming to bite her in the ass.

  “Then you stay there,” Marcus said. “We’re coming now.” He hung up the phone and handed it back to Pete. “I’m going out there now. Your son’s not in trouble. Thanks for co-operating. Alison is with Ollie.”

  Ryan stepped back with his brother, falling in beside Marcus as they moved back to their vehicles.

  “Apparently, it was Alison and Ollie outside the store,” Marcus said. “He took her up into the park on his ATV, to some shelter he found or something. He’ll meet us at the trailhead.”

  Ryan glanced back to the now closed door of the trailer, feeling as if he was finally getting closer to fixing this. “Before we go, can you find out everything about a shooting in Atlanta? It was Jenny’s husband, Wren Sweetgrass,” he said. “This may go nowhere, but I have a feeling that after we find Alison, there could be another bigger problem lurking on the horizon.”

  He had his brothers’ attention.

  “Uh, yeah, I can, but I’m almost afraid to ask why,” Marcus said, and Luke said nothing, just wiped his face. Ryan knew that anything he said would stay just between them.

  “Jenny just told me something else that I don’t know how to wrap my head around,” he said. “It appears her husband’s shooting wasn’t an accident. Alison may have shot him, and Jenny may have covered it up. I have no idea where this sits with the Atlanta PD.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jenny had taken only a few sips of the beer when another woman walked in the back door of the kitchen, wearing a dark blue firefighter’s uniform. Her long dark hair was tied back, and she was several inches taller than both Karen and Iris. Her name was Suzanne, the other sister, and from the ensuing conversation, Jenny realized there was also another brother, Owen, who was the eldest, a plumber. For some reason, she stared at the back door, expecting him to walk in too as she waited for word from Ryan.

  “That’s the third time you’ve glanced at your phone,” Iris said. “Ryan will call as soon as they hear something. Drink your beer.” The woman was confident and gorgeous, and Jenny could see the resemblance that linked all the O’Connells—the same expressions, the same eyes. “So would you tell me about Alison?”

  Suzanne and Karen stood across from her, leaning against the counter by the sink. The wall oven was on, and she could smell the casserole. The aroma should have had her mouth watering, but her appetite had fled. Her daughter having gone inconsiderately missing had left her anxious and out of sorts.

  “Yes, Alison. Well, she’s a teenager, fourteen, born April 8. She’s headstrong and smart, but as of late, I never know what to expect from her.”

  All three were giving her everything, and she waited for the questions about her character, about how she could have kept Alison from Ryan. She expected it, but instead there was only interest.

  “Ah, those teenage years,” Iris said. “I know them well. I did it alone with six kids. They can test everything you have and then some, your sanity, your peace of mind. Then there’re the sleepless nights. They’re at that age where they’re no longer sweet little kids, and they suddenly believe they know everything, more than you. I understand well that battle for independence and sense of self.” Iris actually reached over and patted her hand, then gestured to the beer that was still full in front of her. “You know, Luke was the one who took off on me. He camped out in those hills, not just once, but every time he was fine—better than fine, as a matter of fact. That was maddening, considering I was a wreck. I swore it took t
en years off me.”

  “It was five times, Mom,” Karen said, then lifted her glass of white wine and took a sip. “He actually built a shelter for himself. He went up to sleep in it and kept food there, said it was the place he went when he needed to think. Guess that should’ve been a sign he would join the military, special forces. He learned early how to go it alone, and he always came back. Wonder if that’s why he stays here now when he’s on leave, because of how he made everything so hard for you, Mom.”

  Suzanne had her arms crossed, and the way she was looking at Jenny, long and hard, made her wonder if the criticism was coming, but Suzanne merely pulled her gaze from her and slid it over to Karen and her mom. “And then there was you, Karen,” she said. “The way you butted heads with Mom…good God, thought you’d bring the house down around all of us. I was the good one. Then there was Owen, who acted like the parent, the responsible one.”

  Jenny found herself looking around at Karen, Suzanne, and Iris, who cringed.

  “Let’s just say I survived, and I have every right to the early gray in my hair, which I now have to color regularly,” Iris said. “Honestly, I think all of you should forever be picking up the bill for it.”

  “Aw, Mom, you don’t look a day over thirty…thirty-five…forty,” Karen said, teasing.

  Iris tossed her a frown, and Jenny wondered if this was a joke between them. “We totally get the teenage girl thing,” she said. “Don’t worry, though. Ryan knows the woods, the park, and with Luke and Marcus, they’ll find her. She’ll be home in no time to continue driving you crazy and testing you, doing more stupid teenage stuff, and you’ll find yourself counting the days until the next crisis.”

  Okay, not what she’d expected. She reached for her beer, lifted it, and took a swallow. “You’re being rather nice,” she said, “considering Ryan is Alison’s father. I kind of expected anger at me for keeping it from him, not telling him. At the same time, it was just one of those things. We’d barely exchanged names. I had already met my husband and started seeing him by the time I found out I was pregnant.” She made herself stop talking, watching the exchange between the women.

  “So your husband is in the picture, or not?” Karen asked, leaning on the island. “You live next door to Ryan, just you and your daughter?”

  All three seemed to lean in closer, waiting for what she’d say. The question was there on their faces. She could always see when someone was curious. It was right there.

  “No, he’s not in the picture,” she said. “He died. It’s just me and my daughter.”

  There it was, the sympathy.

  She felt herself wanting to share more, but that wasn’t a good idea, so she pulled her gaze away and stared at her beer. “And here we are. Imagine my surprise at moving in right next to Ryan, but now my daughter’s missing. As you know, she’s been rather prickly…”

  “Understandably so,” Iris said. “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Suzanne was studying her in a way that was making her uncomfortable. She fought the urge to roll her shoulders.

  “I guess I’m at a loss as to why she thinks Luke is her father, though,” Karen said, swirling her wine in her glass.

  Jenny could feel the minute the questions had started to spin in a direction she didn’t like. All three women were giving her everything. Now would’ve been a perfect time for Ryan to call, to come back and walk through the door, or for the roof to fall in.

  “You know what?” Iris said. “It’s not the time for twenty questions or for poking and prodding into Jenny’s personal life. This is really between Ryan and Jenny,” she added to Suzanne and Karen—though, as Suzanne’s eyes were once again glued on Jenny, she wasn’t sure she agreed.

  “You know, Jenny,” Iris continued, “one of the things I learned the hard way is that when you’re a single parent, everyone suddenly believes they can tell you how to raise your kids. They point out how you can do better, or they become quick to criticize when your kid screws up. I had six, so you can multiply the comments you’ve heard about your kid to have some idea of what I was on the receiving end of. Not sure it’s gotten any better now, but don’t let anyone make you feel as if you’re the one screwing up. There’s a considerable amount to juggle, and I learned pretty early on that I wasn’t going to be a helicopter mom. I learned that a teenager is no longer a child, and if you want your daughter to be an adult, a fully functioning adult who can make her own decisions and stand on her own two feet, you need to take a step back and let her be responsible for them.”

  Iris pulled on a pair of hot mitts and opened the oven to lift out a huge pot of shepherd’s pie. As she rested it on a hot plate on the island, Jenny wondered if she was planning on feeding everyone.

  “So your kids got in trouble, then?” she said.

  Iris dragged her gaze over to her, and she thought Karen stifled a laugh. Meanwhile, Suzanne’s expression wasn’t giving anything away as she turned to her mom, her arms crossed, as if she had decided to just listen and take everything in, then cast judgement.

  “Trouble?” Iris blew out a breath, her expression dramatic. She glanced up as if thinking. “Let’s see. There was Luke constantly taking off and me having to call the sheriff, and then there was Marcus, who was suspended from school after being caught smoking and cheating on a test—and then there was the graffiti. Pretty sure Ryan was responsible for that one, but he never got caught. He was wily. Add in the court time with Luke after he busted a teacher’s nose…”

  “Mister Lewis, he was an asshole. He deserved it,” Suzanne cut in. “Luke was defending you.”

  “What? Why?” Iris said.

  All Jenny could do was watch the back-and-forth, seeing that Iris likely didn’t know even half of what her kids had done. She wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make her feel better.

  “Oh, he was kind of a chauvinist, always telling sexist jokes in class. Don’t think he liked girls or women. One day he went too far and made a joke about you, said it was unfortunate that Dad had left, as the O’Connells were now known as a bunch of hoodlums because their mom wasn’t looking after them as she should be.”

  Iris just stared, and Suzanne gestured as she continued, glancing over to Jenny. “You see, Mom always insisted we were old enough to step up to the plate. She wasn’t going to be waking us up for school. We were old enough to set our own alarms, and if we woke up late and had to race out the door wearing yesterday’s clothes, with our hair sticking up, then that was on us. You never had breakfast ready for us, either. We had to make it ourselves if we wanted to eat. I remember you said that your job was to make sure there was food in the house, but it was up to us to pack our own lunches and make ourselves breakfast.

  “Then there was the laundry. If we didn’t have clean clothes, that was on us, as we were all responsible for doing our own laundry and pitching in. If we forgot something or waited until the very last minute, Mom wasn’t going to run out to the store to pick it up for us. If we didn’t bring what we needed for a school project and got a zero in class because of it, she said that was just too bad, and if we had to retake the class, then hopefully that would be enough of a lesson for us. Then there was the paperwork from school, all those permission slips and forms that had to be filled out. Mom made us fill them out completely so the only thing she had to do was sign them.”

  Jenny looked over to their mom, who wore an odd smile and was holding her head high, nodding.

  “Karen learned to forge my signature,” Iris said, dragging her gaze over to her daughter as if to make a point, teasing.

  “Hey, it was just one less thing for you to do, Mom,” Karen said.

  Jenny was pretty sure Suzanne was trying not to laugh as she said, “Wasn’t that for that overnight trip with Gus Littlejohn, because there’d be no chaperones?”

  Karen winced. “Tattletale…”

  Iris just lifted her gaze to the ceiling. Boy, something about hearing all this had the O’Connell family seeming more human and
relatable. “So that’s why Luke broke that teacher’s nose, because I wouldn’t do everything for you?”

  Suzanne shrugged. “No, he called me up in the middle of class and made me stand there beside his desk as everyone was working and listening, and he asked me what was wrong with you that you couldn’t be more attentive to us and more involved with our academics, monitoring our grades. He said when he called you to say my grades were barely passable, apparently you responded by saying you had no intention of babysitting any of us with school or standing over us like we were six years old. You said we were old enough to understand the importance of doing our homework and passing our classes, and if we failed and had to redo a class or stay later, we would learn pretty quick the consequences of our actions.

  “You said you had no time to be following us around and micromanaging our lives, making decisions for us, because we were all teenagers and were learning to be responsible adults, to stand on our own two feet. He said you didn’t care about us, that you weren’t much of a mother and should be doing more for us. So when Luke saw how upset I was at lunch, I told him everything, and he tracked down Mister Lewis, punched him in the face, and said, ‘Don’t you ever talk about my mother like that again.’”

  Jenny wasn’t sure what expression was on her face, but it likely matched the shock on Iris’s.

  “I didn’t know that was what happened,” Iris said. “Now I feel horrible, because I grounded him for a month and made him do all that work to cover the cost of the lawyer I had to hire to get him a slap on the wrist instead of time in Juvie. Why didn’t he tell me, or you? At least you should have.”

  Suzanne shrugged. “He made me promise not to, Mom. He was furious, and rightly so. Anyway, look how we turned out: amazing.”

  Jenny wondered if this was a pep talk to make her feel better about her troubled daughter.

  “See? Six kids,” Iris said, and they started laughing.