“Goin’ on thirty years now. Started right after I got out of college.”
“So it’d probably be accurate to say you’ve had your finger on the pulse of the big stories here over the years?”
“On every single one.” Jenkins grinned.
“What can you tell me about Sandra Hollings?”
Jenkins’s expression sobered as he leaned back in his chair. “Had a feeling that’s what you were looking up.” He shook his head. “That woman caused a lot of trouble in this town. I understand the curiosity, but some things are best left dead and buried, Dr. McClane.”
Interesting choice of words. “I’m a shrink. I’m not in the habit of letting things lie.”
With a chuckle, Jenkins shook his head. “I like you, McClane. You say what’s on your mind.” His tone lightened. “What do you want to know? I’ll see if I can help.”
“For starters, why was she fired?”
“If memory serves, the school board felt it was in everyone’s best interest if she found employment elsewhere.”
“Just like that?” Ethan asked. “And she didn’t fight it?”
“No, not just like that. By that time, her affair with Henry Branson was pretty well-known. Henry had been fairly stupid where Hollings was concerned. She was . . . ” He looked away, as if trying to find the right words. “When she talked to you, she had a way about her that made you feel like you were the only person in the room.”
“She was charming,” Ethan stated plainly.
“She was more than charming, Dr. McClane. She was dangerous. More than one man in this town fell prey to her good looks and intoxicating voice. Henry was just the poor sap who got caught.”
“By whom?”
“His son.”
“Chief Branson?”
Jenkins nodded. “Way I heard it, the boy and his friends walked in on them in Henry’s classroom one day after school.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Traumatic for young Will. Henry broke things off after that, but three days later, Will’s mother committed suicide. Poor Will found his mother’s body hanging in their shower. Horrible thing for any kid to live through.”
It would be. But it would also give Will Branson a motive for killing the woman who’d destroyed his family.
“Word spread through town,” Jenkins went on. “People can be vicious when they gossip.”
Ethan knew that to be true. “So Hollings just left after that? All because of the affair?”
“No. There were other issues with the board. That was just a big strike against her.”
“Other issues,” Ethan said, thinking about what Alec had told him. “Issues with a student?”
“I don’t know. If there were, it was never made public. But . . . ”
“But what?” Ethan asked.
“Well, there was talk that she’d been involved with one of her students. Some said it was her way of getting back at Henry for ending things, and at the school board for reprimanding her over their affair. No one knows for sure, though.”
“Wait. You’re telling me she was screwing around with a student, and the student’s family didn’t press charges?”
“None of that was ever proven. But that was the general consensus around here. My guess is the family didn’t want to drag their child’s name through the mud. People in this town don’t forget anything either, Dr. McClane.”
“I don’t suppose you’d know who that student was?”
“Sorry. That I don’t know.”
But he sure had a guess and wasn’t saying.
It had to have been Seth Raines. Samantha had mentioned she’d heard her parents arguing about Sandra Hollings before Seth had died. Ethan looked back toward the viewer. “So she had an affair with both a student and a teacher, and the school board kicked her out. She left in February and then showed back up here in the fall.” After she’d had a baby. Did Jenkins know about the baby? “Why do you think she came back?”
“Beats me. And not everyone’s convinced she did come back.”
“You don’t seem so concerned over the fact she just up and disappeared.”
“That’s because I don’t think she did. Listen, Dr. McClane, you weren’t here then, and you didn’t know her. Sandra Hollings was the kind of woman who wanted attention. She loved that people were talking about her, scandal or not. She didn’t care one iota that she’d damaged marriages or caused trouble in this town. She could wrap a man around her finger, and did, more than once, and when the well ran dry or she quit having fun, she moved on. She was always in control, and she loved it. Henry was the first one who slapped her down before she had a chance to dump him. And that grated on her.”
Jenkins shook his head. “If she showed back up here like people say, then it was because she wanted to torment poor Henry—or someone else. I wouldn’t put it past the woman. But I can’t help you with that, because I didn’t see her. I know people are talking like something awful happened to the woman, but from what I know, that’s not the case. Odds are pretty good she’s working on her fifth marriage somewhere, causing chaos for some other stupid sap who didn’t have the good sense to get away from her when he could.”
Jenkins’s cell phone rang, and he glanced down at the number. “Sorry. That’s my assistant. Step out for a minute and the place falls apart.” He stood. “Look, I gotta get back to the office.”
“Yeah.” Ethan rose and shook his hand. “Thanks for the information.”
“I’m happy to help. If you have any more questions, come by the paper and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Anytime.” He disappeared up the stairs.
Ethan sat and reread the article. Something didn’t make sense. If Hollings had been a gold digger as Jenkins had insinuated, would she have come back after she gave birth to bleed money from Henry Branson? Or Seth Raines’s family? Neither family seemed to have a lot of money. Not like the Kellogg family.
A quick look at his phone told Ethan he’d been at the library for more than thirty minutes. Urgency pushed him out of his seat. He still didn’t have the definitive proof he wanted, but he printed a copy of the article anyway, gathered the microfiche, and headed for the stairs, hoping and praying the whole time that Samantha was back at her house and that he could talk some sense into her.
And if she wasn’t, he’d camp out on her front porch and force her to listen when she finally came home.
A single sconce cast light over the small basement bedroom in Jeff’s palatial house. He hadn’t spoken a word to Sam on the drive, just dragged her in this room and locked the door.
Heart racing, Sam dug through dresser drawers, searching for anything to help her escape. Blankets and sheets filled the chest. Nothing she could use to pick the door lock. Slamming the drawer, she moved on to the next one, and the one after that, only to find them empty.
Frustrated, she turned and glanced over the sparse room. A bed, a dresser, a nightstand. No phone. No window. No way to out. Tightness pressed on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She fought back the panic, but her legs trembled, and she sank to the end of the bed.
Her nails dug into her palms. She told herself to stay focused, that she could figure a way out of this. She didn’t know who Jeff had called from the car, but her gut said it had to be Will. If Ethan had seen Will that night at the falls, then Will really was involved too. He and Jeff had lied to her all these years. They’d had a hand in both Hollings’s death and her brother’s. And now, because she hadn’t listened to Ethan when he’d tried to warn her, they knew who Ethan was too.
Panic came back, swift and urgent. She pushed to her feet and paced. She had to get out of here, had to warn Ethan. She knew for certain he hadn’t been at the cabin. If he’d been there, she would have remembered. She knew his voice almost better than her own. But more than that, she believed in her heart that he hadn’t killed her brother. He couldn’t have. The man who had so gently and thoroughly cared for
and loved her these past few weeks couldn’t possibly be a murderer.
There had to be something in this room she could use to pick the lock on the door. A pen, a paperclip . . . anything. Moving around the bed, she tugged the nightstand drawer open. The lock on the door clicked, and her heart rate shot up as she whipped toward the sound.
Will stepped through the doorway, his face drawn, his jaw as hard as stone. “Dammit, Sam. I really wish you weren’t here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Dr. McClane!”
Ethan froze when he heard the voice. With one hand on his car door outside the library, he glanced over his shoulder only to see Thomas barreling right for him.
He took a step back and held up his hands to brace himself before the kid took him out. The article he’d printed fluttered to the ground. “What the—”
Face flushed, Thomas skidded to a stop mere inches away. “Sorry.” Breathing heavy, he stepped back. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I saw your car at Ms. Parker’s, but”—he sucked in a breath—“you left before I could catch you.”
“I’m in a rush, Thomas. I don’t have time to chat.”
“I know. But it’s important.”
“Whatever it is can wait.” Ethan jerked the door open.
“Oh shit.”
The shock in Thomas’s voice made Ethan glance over his shoulder. And when the boy lifted Ethan’s paper from the ground, his face white as snow, a whisper of foreboding rushed down Ethan’s spine. “Thomas?”
“Why do you have a picture of the Hollings woman?”
“You know who she is?”
Thomas nodded.
“How?”
“She . . . I’m pretty sure she was my mother.”
“Holy shit.” Ethan slammed the car door and focused in on Thomas. He hadn’t put that piece together. Hadn’t even thought the kid could be involved. “Start talking.”
“I don’t know much about her. Mary—the aunt I was living with in Portland—used to talk about her when she got drunk. They were cousins. Mary mentioned Sandra Hollings’s name a few times, said how she didn’t want me, how she’d only had me to get money out of my old man, but that it hadn’t gone how she’d planned. I put two and two together.”
The elderly woman’s rant about how evil Thomas’s mother had been suddenly made sense. “Your guardian knows?”
He nodded. “She doesn’t let me talk about her.”
“Who else knows?”
Thomas swallowed, but didn’t answer.
“Don’t think about lying to me right now. Who else?”
“Ms. Wilcox knew. When I started high school in Portland, she was the vice principal at my school. I wrote a paper in my English class about my birth mother. About how I was doing research, trying to find her. About how I didn’t know where she was, I only knew her name. She called me into her office one day and asked a whole bunch of questions. After that, I started getting into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Thomas shrugged. “Little stuff. At first I got blamed for things that went missing at school, graffiti on property. Got suspended a few times. Then one day the police came out to my aunt’s house, asked a bunch of questions about who I was hanging with, what I was doing. Cops searched the house, found some stuff in my room that wasn’t mine. Wouldn’t listen when I said I never stole anything.”
“You never did?”
Thomas looked away, then back again with a frown. “Not at first. After? Yeah. Why not? I was already getting in trouble for it. No one believed me.”
They’d set him up. Ethan ran a hand over his face. Crap, he’d been wrong about the kid. As wrong as all the people who’d believed he was a murderer. “You recognize any of those police officers?”
“Yes. Chief Branson was one of them.”
Shit. Thomas was the link that had brought them all back to Hidden Falls. He’d been digging up info on his mother, and Margaret and the others were afraid of what he’d find. “Who’s your father?”
“I don’t know. Mary always changed the subject whenever I asked.”
“But you guessed.”
Thomas shrugged again. “People talk. You just have to listen.”
“What did they say?”
“That Sandra Hollings got around. That she was seeing another teacher up at the school.” He looked away and bit his lip as if he didn’t want to go on.
“What else?”
Frowning, he let out a breath. “People also said she messed around with one of her students.”
“Seth Raines?” Thomas nodded slowly. “And you figured out Ms. Parker was his sister.”
“Manny Burton told me.”
Ethan rested his hands on his hips. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner?”
“If she’d been your mother, would you go bragging about it?”
Hell, no. He’d have kept quiet too.
Ethan ran a hand through his hair. The fact he, of all people, had been wrong about Thomas cut through him. He’d have to figure out a way to make it up to the kid. “Sometime I’ll tell you about the woman who gave birth to me. We can compare war stories.” He pulled the door open again. “But right now I have to find Ms. Parker.”
Thomas grasped his arm. “Wait. That’s why I was looking for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw Ms. Parker was with that politician guy. In his car.”
The hair on Ethan’s neck tingled. “Kellogg?”
Thomas nodded. “She was crying. I’ve seen that guy with Chief Branson. And with that janitor, the one who hurt Ms. Parker. It didn’t seem right.”
Fear clawed at Ethan’s chest. He reached for his cell and dialed Samantha’s number. “When?”
No answer. Dammit, Samantha. Pick up.
“About an hour and a half ago.”
“Son of a bitch. Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. They were headed out of town.”
Out of town . . . That could be anywhere. She’d been alone with the guy for over an hour. If she’d told him about Seth, about what she’d remembered from the cabin . . .
Fear sliced through him.
“Do you have a cell phone?”
“Yeah.” Thomas pulled a small phone from his pocket. “It’s a prepaid. Nothing fancy.”
Frantic, Ethan grabbed it, then punched in Alec’s number and handed the phone back to Thomas. “That’s my brother. You tell him everything you just told me. Do it fast and then tell him I’m headed to Kellogg’s to find Samantha. He’ll know what to do. Then get yourself to Manny Burton’s house and stay there until I find you again.”
“Yeah, but Dr. McClane, what if—”
Ethan didn’t hear the rest of Thomas’s question. He climbed into his car and slammed the door. Then prayed he found Samantha before it was too late.
Sam’s heart raced, and she moved back as Will stepped into the room and closed the door with a soft click at his back. Sad stone-gray eyes focused on her from across the room. Eyes she’d stupidly trusted all these years.
“I never wanted it to be like this,” he said softly.
She eased back another step. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. You know too much. That’s the problem.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything.”
He shook his head. “I tried to keep you out of it, Sam. I did everything I could to get you to leave. Even after Kenny flipped out, you still wouldn’t go. Do you know how hard it was for me to move that body? A normal woman would have seen that and run. But not you. No, you stayed, and now we’re both fucked.”
Sam’s hands flattened against the wall at her back, and her pulse went stratospheric. She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but something in her gut said the body he was referring to was not Kenny’s. “You . . . You killed Margaret?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “No. That was Kenny. I don’t know what the hell got into him
. Margaret must have been busting his balls about you. Kenny was always nervous around you, Sam. But I had to cover it up. Just like I’ve been covering up their bullshit for twenty years. I took her to your house so you’d see it and run. But you didn’t.”
Terror tightened her throat. “Will—”
He glanced toward the door and back, then lowered his voice. “Listen carefully. We don’t have a lot of time, and the only way you’re getting out of here is with me. They want me to take you to the cabin. They have something special planned. But I’m not going to let them hurt you.”
His words circled around Sam as she stared at him. Confusion clouded her thoughts. Was he saying . . . he wanted to help her? “Y-you’re not?”
“I’m so fucking tired of this shit. Of cleaning up after them. I made one bad choice, one terrible choice, and I’ve been paying for it my whole life. I didn’t like the Hollings woman, Sam. I hated her for what she did to my family. And I wanted her to suffer. But I didn’t want what they did to her. I tried to stop them. I really did. But it was too late.”
Hope spread like fire through her chest. A hope she was almost too afraid to reach for.
“Did he . . . ” She almost couldn’t form the words, but she had to know the truth. “Did Seth hurt her?”
“No.” Will’s eyes turned sad. “I think in some small way, Seth felt sorry for her. I know there were rumors she was screwing around with him, but she wasn’t. She was just a tease. She flirted with all of us in school, and Seth, well, you know how mature he was. I think he thought it was all an act and that he just wanted to help her in some way. But it wasn’t an act, and she wasn’t above using him to make the men in her life jealous. She spread those rumors about the two of them so that Jenkins and my father would fight over her.”
“Lincoln Jenkins?” Sam’s eyes widened. “Jenkins was sleeping with her too?”
“Jenkins was pissed when he found out he wasn’t her only lover. Wanted to teach her a lesson. He came to the rest of us and convinced us he had a plan to scare her. Kenny and Jeff were more than happy to play along. They were ticked she wasn’t flirting with them in class, and Maggie . . . well, she just couldn’t stand not being the center of attention, you know?” He shook his head. “Being the center of Jenkins’s attention didn’t save her from Kenny, though.”
Repressed (Deadly Secrets) Page 27