Jace could see it meant the world to Brynn to believe in her neighbors, but he’d seen firsthand what happened between people who believed blindly in one another. It wasn’t pleasant.
“So you think it’s someone we don’t know?” Jace asked, pausing when Lance shot him a warning glance. He took the subtle caveat in stride. It was in Brynn’s nature to protect those she considered family. Jace respected that. “I hope you’re right.”
Detective Kendrick chose that moment to come downstairs from the studio apartment overhead. He appeared tired, but that was understandable. He’d driven in from the city early this morning and had been going nonstop ever since. It was evident he was committed to solving this case. He wasn’t going to lay down and let the FBI take over unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Detective, can I get you a coffee?”
“That would be nice, Ms. Mercer. Thank you.” Kendrick pulled out a chair from underneath the table and joined them, his gaze landing on Jace. “I had an interesting conversation with Ms. Irwin about the party you two attended on the night Emma went missing.”
“The party you’re referring to was thrown by Nick Caine, a friend of ours who graduated a year before us. I’m not even sure you could call it a party, but more of a get-together that got a little out of hand once the drinking started. I’d had to delay my ship date to boot camp due to getting mono in my senior year. I needed a doctor’s release before I could ship.” Jace explained again, having already gone over this with Kendrick on the phone. He’d reached out to each of the Kendall siblings after Noah’s discovery at the beginning of the summer. “I was flying out that Sunday, and Nick wanted to do something nice for me before I left.”
“In the list of names you provided me, you didn’t include Kyle Foster.”
“Deputy Kyle Foster?” Noah clarified, pushing the bowl of peanuts into the middle of the table. “He’s got to be…what? Four or five years older than Mitch? What was Foster doing in the city that night?”
“Kyle Foster wasn’t there, as far as I can remember.” Jace was confused as to why Shae would say something like that. Had she mistaken someone else for Kyle? “We were at a rental house near the college. One of those row houses. There was only supposed to be ten people in attendance, but you know how that goes when the word got out about a keg. One thing led to another, and maybe we ended up with around twenty or so friends. As Noah mentioned, Kyle was a lot older than the rest of us. I would have noticed had he come anywhere inside the house.”
“Shae said she had a brief conversation with him on the porch.” Detective Kendrick leaned back when Brynn returned to the table with a hot cup of coffee. The steam was evident as it evaporated into the air. “Like you, she didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“Thought you might want one, too,” Brynn murmured in Jace’s ear before setting down his very own cup of coffee.
Her kind gesture reminded him of why family and friends were so important.
“What does Kyle Foster being in the city have anything to do with Emma’s disappearance, though?” Lance asked, doing so for all of them gathered around. It made no sense from Jace’s standpoint as to what connection Foster might have had with Emma. “He wasn’t even a deputy back then, and he was also a couple of hours away from Blyth Lake.”
“Shae came early.” Jace recalled seeing her come through the front door with Stephanie. The two were usually with Andrea, but she’d had other plans that night. He tried to put himself in the detective’s frame of mind. “And Foster being there matters because he would have had time to return to Blyth Lake had he known Emma didn’t have a car that night.”
“You think Foster—”
“There’s no way that—”
“I’m not saying Kyle Foster did anything,” Detective Kendrick interrupted the various denials going around the table. “I’m putting together a timeline of people’s actions and whereabouts, that’s all.”
“Did Shae say what she and Kyle spoke about that night?”
Detective Kendrick had drunk maybe half his cup of coffee, but he finished the rest of the contents off in one swig. Jace didn’t envy the long day ahead of him, but he did want to know if any of this new knowledge put Shae’s life in danger.
“I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon enough,” Detective Kendrick said wryly, telling Jace that he was now familiar with how small towns worked. He set his empty mug on the table and pushed the chair back as he stood. “Kyle Foster warned Shae that night that she might want to keep a close eye on her little sister. So if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go find out why Foster would issue such advice.”
CHAPTER NINE
Shae dropped the curtain back into place when a knock came at the door. She was expecting Brynn later, who’d offered her a ride back to Jace’s house. She’d left her vehicle behind and currently had no other transportation. It didn’t matter, though. She was fine with having a front row seat to Main Street where the police station was only a block away from the bar.
Did Kyle Foster have something to do with Emma’s disappearance? She didn’t believe so. She had dismissed his comment that night as ordinary concern and later as a statement that she thought only stood out because of its context after the abduction. Kyle hadn’t meant anything by it.
“Coming,” Shae called out, frowning in disappointment that she hadn’t seen Detective Kendrick leave the Cavern. What was keeping him from walking over to the police station? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep…”
Jace Kendall.
Shae couldn’t stop the flush that flooded her cheeks. The day’s events had wound down with her answering Detective Kendrick’s questions, but nothing could wipe away her confession to Jace when they’d been sitting at the edge of his pond. She’d done so in order for him to understand why being in his presence hurt like a physical injury, but now his knowledge was like sprinkling salt over a raw, bleeding wound.
“May I come in?”
Said the spider to the fly. Shae only had herself to blame. She’d put herself in this position. She’d made herself vulnerable by being honest, but she was no longer that teenage girl with a crush. Then again, she’d thought she’d finally worked her way through the guilt of taking the car that fateful night. Maybe she could give him a break.
Memories could be a bitch.
“Let me guess,” Shae said wryly, stepping back to give Jace room to cross the threshold. She could play another game of questions and answers. “Detective Kendrick asked if you saw Kyle Foster that night and you’re wondering why I didn’t say anything earlier. Is that about it?”
“I didn’t see him, but that’s not why I’m here.” Jace waited for Shae to close the door before continuing. Obviously, she wasn’t so sure she should have let him in after that response. His warm gaze intimated that there was something more. Her presence here was about closure, nothing else. “I’m worried about you, Shae. From my understanding, there have been some people upset by the finger pointing going on around town. Some unfortunate things have happened where certain people could have gotten very badly hurt. I don’t want to see you in the crosshairs of that type of idiotic behavior.”
“I’m fine, Jace. Really.” Shae’s reply didn’t seem to be good enough. What did he want from her? She gestured toward the couch, making sure she took the chair. “Look, I wasn’t the one pointing fingers at anyone. Detective Kendrick started asking me questions about the night Emma went missing, going over and over those hours before she was taken. I’d honestly forgotten my conversation with Kyle, because I was thinking back to the party itself. Remember, I took the car and Stephanie drove separate. I didn’t want to enter the party alone, so I waited out on the porch for Steph. Besides, we were in the city. It shouldn’t have mattered who was there at that time.”
“It matters if Kyle had time to drive back to Blyth Lake…if he’s the guilty party.”
Shae understood that Jace was afraid Kyle would come after her, but Detective Kendrick would surely forewa
rn her if he thought that was a possibility. She sat on the edge of the chair so she could easily rest her elbows on her knees. Jace was close enough that he reached for her hand and held it in his, just as he’d done earlier today.
His gesture was innocent, yet his touch took her back to a time when she’d thought of only herself instead of her sister’s needs. It was an endless cycle she wasn’t sure could be broken.
“It’s doubtful that it means anything,” Shae replied, slipping her hand from his as she sat back in her chair. She curled her fingers into her palm to keep his warmth without thinking through the reason why. It was better to talk about the investigation. It was why she’d returned to Blyth Lake in the first place. “Kyle was at your party, Jace. He warned me that he overheard some girls say that Emma had a crush on Billy Stanton. I’d already known that, so it wasn’t a big deal. No one ever asked me who was at Nick’s that night until Detective Kendrick called me a couple of months ago. I listed the names of those I’d remembered and never gave it a second thought.”
“Until today,” Jace corrected, leaning back and pulling his cell phone from the front pocket of his jeans. He began scrolling through his contacts. “I’ll try to touch base with Nick. I haven’t talked to him in years and don’t even know if the number I have is current, but it’s worth a shot.”
Shae figured Nick was on Detective Kendrick’s list of people to talk to today, but she’d like to have the answers sooner, if possible. Jace was making the call, and he was the one who Kendrick would blame if this was screwed up. Kyle had always been nice to her, and he’d done nothing that night to suggest he was a cold-blooded killer out to murder her sister.
She pushed herself out of the chair while Jace placed the call. Making them two cups of tea would give her something to do and hopefully stem the urge to look out the window. It wasn’t as if she expected some type of riot in the street, anyway.
“Nick? This is Jace Kendall. It’s good to hear your voice, man.”
She listened closely to the one-sided conversation as she used the microwave to heat two cups of water. Brynn didn’t own a kettle. At least, she hadn’t left it here if she did, so it was the best Shae could do in the interim of her stay.
“Yes, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I appreciate you coming to Mom’s service. It meant a lot.”
She winced in shame that she hadn’t made it back to Blyth Lake for Mary Kendall’s funeral. Shae and her parents had sent flowers, all of them knowing it wasn’t nearly enough for a family they’d known most of their lives. It didn’t matter that the Irwins had been away from town for nine years at that point. They still should have paid their respects in person.
“Um, I actually called for a specific reason. You see…”
Shae slowly unwrapped two tea bags and began soaking them in each cup as she listened to Jace’s side of the conversation. She didn’t take him for the sweetener type, so she waited until the tea had steeped enough before removing the small bag of pressed leaves. She added a teaspoon of sugar to hers before carrying both cups into the living room.
“Really?” The surprise evident in Jace’s tone told Shae he’d uncovered something useful. She set his tea on the coffee table as he continued talking. He’d stood from the couch and was walking slowly back and forth on the area rug while listening carefully to what Nick had to say about Kyle Foster. “No, I didn’t. I appreciate this information, though. I’ll pass it on to the state police detective in charge, but I can pretty much guarantee he’ll want to hear this from you personally.”
“Well?” Shae couldn’t stand not knowing what was said on the other end of the line. She sat back down on the chair while he picked up his tea. “What did Nick say?”
“There’s a valid reason Kyle was at Nick’s house that night. Foster was the one who supplied Nick with the keg,” Jace shared, giving the tea an odd look. Did he take his tea with milk? He continued before she could throw out the question. “Remember how most of us used Byron Warner to buy us alcohol back in the day? Well, apparently he said he couldn’t drive into the city that night, so Nick paid Kyle fifty bucks to make the delivery himself.”
Jace took a drink of his tea and promptly spit the hot liquid back into the cup, but not before he’d inhaled some of the beverage. She sprang from her seat when he began coughing uncontrollably, doing her best to try to take the cup from his hands before he burned himself.
“Are you okay?” Shae realized that was a foolish question as Jace’s face became red from lack of oxygen. He was still coughing, but eventually he was able to inhale a bit of air. She took the small gift of his breathing to run over to the counter, thankful that this was a studio apartment. She grabbed a dishtowel and raced back to him so that he could wipe his face and hands. “Jace?”
“Jesus.” Jace managed to wheeze out the name, but it sure sounded like criticism to her. He struggled once more to clear his throat before trying to talk. “I think that’s the worst coffee I ever drank.”
Shae could only stare at him as she allowed his meaning to finally sink in. Her lone response was to laugh, because his dramatic reaction to her favorite beverage was on par as if she’d fed him a plateful of liver. His face was still beet red from straining to inhale. To make matters worse, he went into another coughing fit trying to clear the liquid from his airway.
She wrapped an arm around her abdomen as her muscles clenched from uncontrollable laughter. It was too much, and the more he looked at her in disbelief, the harder she laughed.
“I could have died,” Jace exclaimed, most of his words coming out clear now that he could breathe. Well, she couldn’t. Shae wiped away her tears as she tried to relax her stomach muscles, but another incredulous glance from Jace made her attempt futile. “You’re mean. Downright mean. What the hell was that crap?”
Shae tried to tell him that she’d made him green tea, but she couldn’t get the words out. She needed to sit down before she fell, because at this rate, he’d be taking her to the hospital.
“Stop.” Shae held up a hand to prevent him from saying anything else. He was just making her fit of laughter worse by his drawn-out reaction. “Please. I need to breathe.”
“You?” Jace asked as he used the towel to swipe away the remaining droplets on his shirt. She thought she heard another wheeze coming from his direction, but she was still attempting to control herself. “I thought the color looked pretty weak. Tea, huh?”
“Green tea,” Shae managed to say, using both hands to run her fingers across her cheeks. She might have succeeded in controlling her fits of laughter. “It’s one my favorites.”
“Of course, it is,” Jace said dryly, though his wink told her that he wasn’t being mean. She cocked her head to the side in curiosity as she finally sank back in her chair. She didn’t know when the last time was that she laughed so hard. “That stuff is beyond bad. You always were the odd duck, Shae.”
“Odd duck?” Shae didn’t have the energy to take offense and his crooked smile told her she didn’t have to. “I’m perfectly normal, thank you.”
“Did a psychiatrist just use the term normal?” Jace lifted the cup from the coffee table she’d taken from his hands, wiping away the excess moisture. She noticed that when he set the cup back down, it was right next to hers. He was definitely a dedicated coffee drinker. “I usually wouldn’t consider going to a head shrinker, but I might make an exception with you.”
“And have me know all your deep, dark secrets?” Shae teased, remembering back to when the two of them got locked in the chemistry lab by Andrea their senior year of high school. It was the week before he came down with mono. “Which reminds me. Did Mr. Chandler ever figure out that you switched Lynn’s class assignment with yours?”
Jace dropped the dishtowel on the coffee table and reclaimed his spot on the couch. He shot her a look of warning about the secret he’d told her in private.
“No, and you’ve made your point.” Jace smiled as the memory must have come back to him as w
ell. He shook his head in bewilderment. “I never did find out who locked us in that lab.”
Shae reached forward for her tea, covering up her embarrassment. Andrea had known of Shae’s crush on Jace and thought it had been a good idea to lock them inside a classroom together. There was no need to give Jace any more ammunition than he already had.
“Can we rewind to approximately forty seconds ago when you were smiling?”
“What do you mean?” Shae took a sip of her tea, wishing the calming properties would kick in soon. She blamed herself for the turn this lighthearted conversation had taken, and now she needed to find a way out. “I smile all the time. You must not be looking.”
“Trust me, I was looking.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Do you ever wonder about the choices we made as teenagers?”
Jace tilted the bottle of beer until the wheat-flavored beverage hit his lips. The lawn chairs Lance had brought over from their dad’s house had seen better days, but they got the job done. The two chairs were now positioned on the porch so that they could see the driveway and the road approaching from either direction.
“You’re asking me that?” Lance propped his boots up on the wooden railing and crossed his arms as he got more comfortable. “I think Brynn was always in the back of my mind. She was my better half, and I left her here all alone.”
“Brynn chose to stay here in Blyth Lake,” Jace corrected his baby brother, recalling quite well the phone conversation the two of them had after that devastating confrontation. “I’m just saying that our lives would have been different had we not left for the service.”
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