Unlocking Darkness (Keys to Love Series, Book Five)

by Kennedy Layne

  His response had ended up with him getting into trouble, but he could still remember the girl’s smile as the principal hauled him off the playground. Unfortunately, his quick-thinking reaction had also landed him right here in this hot seat. He didn’t get a lecture as much as he’d received a life lesson in the art of being a gentleman.

  Quite frankly, Gus was most likely waiting for grandchildren to sit on them so that he could teach them the same lessons he’d taught their parents. Mitch had to grimace another half-smile as he took a seat on the same stool so many years later.

  “Ah.” Gus nodded as he reached for the old coffee maker that still held the glass carafe with a small crack near the top brown plastic spout. As long as it didn’t spring a leak, he’d continue to brew coffee in it every day. “I suspect this is about Allie.”

  Mitch remained silent for a moment, taking the proffered cup his father slid over to him on the worn smooth wooden surface. He held the warmth of the mug in his hand and wondered why he was even here. Nothing his father said would change the way things with Allie would end.

  “This was usually your mother’s area of expertise—advice on the female gender.” Gus removed his toothpick to take a healthy drink of his coffee, the inside of his mouth evidently immune to the scorching temperature of the rich beverage. It was impossible not to notice the sparkle in his blue eyes. Mitch was taken aback that it wasn’t sadness until his father cleared up the misconception. “You know that she’s looking down on us right now and giving me the lecture of a lifetime that I don’t ruin this moment. I’ll tell you one thing—she would have loved Allie’s spunk.”

  “Spunk?” Mitch could use a lot of adjectives to describe Allie, but the word spunk hadn’t crossed his mind once. With that said, he realized that she had it in spades. He had no doubt that his mother would have adored Allie, but not even Mary Kendall had the power to keep the woman he cared deeply for in Blyth Lake. “Yeah, Allie definitely dances to her own set of tunes.”

  “And you wish the playlist was yours, as well.” Gus set his mug down with a wise smile. “You two have known each other for years. What makes today any different than the rest of them?”

  “Allie left the Corps to go to college. She fulfilled her dream of being a profiler with the FBI, which wasn’t an easy feat. She’s got a lot invested in her career with the Bureau.”

  Mitch ignored the vibration of his cell phone. Lester Feen had been calling into the station all morning with complaints regarding the edge of his property that bumped up against Raymond Dixon’s. The feds still had that section of land cordoned off with tape, and it would likely remain that way for a little while longer in case forensics needed to take another look at the two graves.

  “I understand that the two of you took separate paths, but you mentioned Allie’s name last year. This relationship that you managed to strike up with her has been going on for quite a while.”

  “Not really,” Mitch admitted, wondering what he was doing at his dad’s place to begin with. It didn’t escape him that Allie was supposed to leave town in two days, not that the itinerary would be altered if their plan didn’t net them the results that they wanted. But he wasn’t a young boy needing to be told what to do, and he typically wasn’t the type of man to need reassurances. “We spent a weekend together before deciding we made better friends than anything more.”

  “For who? You or her?”

  “For both, I guess.”

  Gus continued to chew on his toothpick, letting Mitch know that he wasn’t fooling him.

  “Allie never had a real family, Dad. She didn’t have what we have here, and I’m not sure she wants that to change.” Mitch recalled Allie saying that the closest thing she had to a family was a pigeon who visited her balcony from time to time. It made him want to embrace her and tell her what he could provide for her. “I did bring up the subject the other day.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s just say that it probably wasn’t the best time to talk about a relationship.” Mitch didn’t want his father finding out the truth about the investigation, so he needed to tread carefully here. “Allie originally came here because I called in a favor, but the days and nights we’ve spent together…I’m not sure I want her to leave for the city. Two weeks isn’t enough.”

  “Tell that to your brothers and sister,” Gus said with a rich laugh and a slap of his knee. “Son, time isn’t a measure of quantity. And is there a reason the two of you can’t continue and see where this thing leads with her in D.C.?”

  “A long-distance relationship isn’t what I had in mind.” Hell, Mitch hadn’t had any type of commitment on his brain when he’d returned home. “They never last, anyway.”

  “You’re being awfully general with that assumption,” Gus chastised as he reached for a rag to wipe off a dab of stain that had gotten onto the back of his weathered hand. “Distance means nothing if two people belong together.”

  “Allie worked her ass off to get where she is in her career. I doubt that she’d want to give all that up.” Mitch tried to look at the situation from her perspective. No wonder it never crossed her mind to make things between them more permanent. “I don’t blame her, either. Everything she has ever strived for is in D.C.”

  “Everything? Is that right?” Gus raised an eyebrow over the rim of his coffee cup. “Your mother’s death taught me that everything material wasn’t worth a plug nickel. It was all a meaningless diversion, and family was everything. That woman had more common sense in her pinky than I have in my whole body, so I’d have to go with her on this one.”

  Mitch understood where his father was coming from, but the hard facts of life weren’t so cut and dry. Allie’s entire existence was in D.C., and it wasn’t fair of Mitch to expect her to give it up based on two weeks and a long-ago, passion-filled weekend.

  He’d come here for a sounding board. His dad had given him that and more. His and Allie’s friendship spanned over sixteen years. It wasn’t likely to end, and considering the sensual nights they’d been spending together…whatever their relationship was morphing into wouldn’t disintegrate because of the miles between them.

  Mitch didn’t know what the hell he was going to do, but being able to come talk to his father told him one thing—he couldn’t give up his family for the city.

  He wanted it all.

  Then again, didn’t everyone?

  He’d never considered himself a selfish prick before, but he’d never been put in this situation, either.

  “I appreciate you listening to me, Dad.” Mitch set down the mug, not having the stomach for his dad’s battery acid this afternoon. He was hoping to meet Allie for lunch, anyway. “I’ll see you at The Cavern later tonight.”

  Mitch made it to the stairs before his father stopped him.

  “Son?”

  He turned to find that Gus had taken out his toothpick and was pointing the wooden stick his way.

  “Don’t let her get away if she’s the right one.”

  Mitch nodded slowly before walking down the woodshed’s staircase that led to the entrance. The cold air immediately seeped through his jeans as he exited the large storage shed, which told him it was time to take his vintage leather flight jacket out from the front closet at home.

  A home where he would have to walk through the front door alone after Allie headed back to D.C.

  He wasn’t enough of a selfish prick to stop her from being happy, though.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Allie, we were supposed to have left twenty minutes ago.”

  She was well aware of that, but she was currently staring at the white board in Mitch’s living room that she’d been working on practically all weekend. The answer was right in front of her, and she still couldn’t connect the dots. It was like a simple arithmetic problem where a decimal had been misplaced by one digit either way.

  It was frustrating as hell.

  “Five more minutes,” Allie said distractedly, looking down at the list of names Br
ynn had given her yesterday. Two of the men could immediately be crossed out—one had died in a ski accident and the other had been in the hospital with appendicitis at the time of Emma’s abduction. “There were quite a lot of people who weren’t at that bonfire.”

  “Deputy Foster being one of them,” Mitch pointed out, picking up the black whiteboard marker and crossing one of his employee’s names off the list. “Kyle was in the city that night, and he gave a timetable to Thorne that would have made it impossible for him to have been back in the city to abduct Emma.”

  “The list is getting smaller,” Allie murmured, a shot of adrenaline rushing through her. It was abruptly stopped when she thought back over this weekend. They had put such a well thought out, promising plan in place that had gone absolutely nowhere. “Why didn’t the unsub make a move on me? We had everything in place, even the disagreement between us that we orchestrated Saturday night at The Cavern.”

  “Who wasn’t at The Cavern Saturday who is on that list?”

  “No one,” Allie said with frustration, slamming down the sheet of paper on the numerous other files she’d been poring over most of the morning. A glance out the living room window showed her that the rain had yet to let up. “So, that detail should have tipped the scales in our favor. The unsub shouldn’t have been able to stop himself from saving me. What are we missing, Ken?”

  “You’re going to be missing a few strands of hair if you call me Ken one more time,” Mitch jested, taking Allie by the hand and all but pulling her to her feet. He prevented her witty rebuttal by claiming her lips. She tasted of hot chocolate and mint from the homemade concoction he’d made her for breakfast. He took his time savoring her flavor before pulling away. He shot a quick glance at the white board. “This will all be here when we get back.”

  He didn’t fool her. Even she could hear the frustration lacing his rich tone.

  Having a Kendall family dinner while Charlene Winston was still missing was a double-edged sword. Why hadn’t the unsub made his move? Had her profile been so far off that she’d led Jay’s team on a wild goose chase?

  “Fine,” Allie muttered, lifting herself up with her knee-high boots and bringing him closer to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her neck, instantly causing her to smile. “You keep doing that, and I’m sure you can talk me into a few other things, too.”

  “Would that include a couple of plane tickets in our future?”

  Allie couldn’t stop her heart from racing at his suggestion. True to his word, he hadn’t brought up their relationship since the night they both agreed to table the conversation. What had changed?

  “Mitch, we said—”

  “We said that we wouldn’t discuss us, and I’m not even entering that arena right now.” Mitch slowly pulled away until he was able to cradle her face in the palms of his hands. “I’d like to know we have a tentatively scheduled match in the ring, though.”

  “A long-distance relationship wouldn’t be—”

  Mitch gently rested his thumb over her lips to stop her from going any further. He wasn’t giving her a chance to voice her concerns, but then again, she’d been the one who’d put a lid on this topic of discussion.

  “All I’m saying is that maybe it’s time you allow something other than a pigeon to visit your apartment now and again.”

  It took Allie a moment to register that he’d heard every word she’d said two weeks ago about the status of her love life. She cautiously pressed her palms to his chest and allowed the rhythm of her heartbeat to sync with his. Did he believe it was easy for her to spend an entire day with his family as they laughed and shared memories of a joyful childhood? As fond as she was of that pigeon, her Sundays weren’t spent in the same manner.

  A long-distance relationship would mean that Mitch would have to give those family dinners up at least two weekends a month. Having witnessed his interactions with his family, friends, and neighbors…well, she wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t come to resent his time with her in D.C.

  “Allie?” Mitch caressed her lower lip with his thumb and waited to speak until she’d met his reassuring gaze. “It’s just a thought.”

  “I think I liked it better when we were on the same page,” Allie murmured after having cleared her throat twice. She backed up a step to give each of them a little breathing room before he could argue her point. Maybe it was time to head to the family homestead. “Let me grab the meat and cheese tray from the refrigerator. We can’t have you forgetting to bring one of the sides again. Gwen would kill you.”

  Allie was grateful when Mitch didn’t stop her from walking out of the living room and into the kitchen. He’d sliced three different block cheeses while she’d rolled the sliced meats, spreading out rows upon rows on a platter. Each sibling brought something to share with the meal, and it was Mitch’s turn to bring an appetizer. They had two different boxes of crackers. Ritz and Townhouse were what the small grocery store in town stocked on their shelves.

  Their barbequing days were over, and Gus was making a pot roast with homemade mashed potatoes and cooked carrots. She hadn’t had a home cooked meal like that since she’d gone to a colleague’s housewarming party last year.

  “Mitch, should we—” Allie sensed something was wrong the second she walked back into the living room. Mitch was staring down at the list she’d continually agonized over since receiving it from Brynn. It was easy to see he’d made a connection that the rest of them hadn’t. She quickly set the appetizer platter on top of the other files. “What is it?”

  Mitch shook his head in disbelief before walking over to the white board she’d spent all weekend creating, similar to the one Jay had put together at the police station. He slowly pointed to a name that she’d contemplated herself numerous times. Unfortunately, the implications of it would devastate his family.

  “We need something more concrete than the fact that he fits the profile,” Allie suggested softly, thinking of the ramifications this would cause to those he loved. What had Mitch remembered that would cause him to zero in on that particular name? “Let’s call Jay and have him meet us here to go over the details of what we have. We don’t know anything for sure at this point.”

  “It would make sense.” Mitch ran a hand over his face in incredulity, most likely in an attempt to come to terms with whatever dots he’d connected in the short time she’d been in the kitchen. “You once told me this wasn’t the type of case where the residents would say they didn’t have a clue, but instead that they would recognize the signs that have been there all along. You were right, Allie. If only I’d accepted what was right there in front of us the entire time…”

  “We don’t know anything for certain at this point, which is why we need to call Jay in on this before we spend dinner with your family.”

  “Can you imagine how that’s going to go?” Mitch stepped back, almost as if he didn’t want any part of what the future held once the suspect was brought in for questioning. “How am I going to tell Gwen that Chad’s brother—Wesley Schaeffer—attempted to kidnap and kill her all because he wanted a makeshift family that his father and brothers weren’t good enough to fill?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “That was a waste of time,” Mitch complained, making a left-hand turn onto First Street.

  “No, it wasn’t.” Allie had been silent ever since Thorne had left the house. “Jay pointed out a couple of wrinkles in your theory, but he was right not to bring Wesley in for questioning right now. If there’s a chance that Charlene Winston is still alive, we’d blow any chance of locating her if we show our hand too early.”

  Wesley Schaeffer.

  He hardly seemed like the type of man who could abduct and murder more than eighteen young women over the span of twelve years.

  Then again, Mitch couldn’t imagine anyone on the numerous lists made over the course of the last five months being responsible for such gruesome murders.

  Had Mitch made a miscalculation? Had he just
thrown a good man under the bus just to watch its tires rip this man’s reputation to shreds?

  It wasn’t as if Wes had the best standing in the community, but everyone made mistakes or had disagreements. Hadn’t Chad’s brother done his best to make amends? Truthfully, the Schaeffer family had been through hell and back with Clayton’s drunken involvement already.

  “We can’t bring Wes in for formal questioning based on the fact that he doesn’t have an alibi for the night Emma Irwin went missing,” Allie said, tapping her nails on the edge of the tray she’d chosen to set in her lap. “All the other points you made are circumstantial, at best. Plus, Wes lives in Cleveland. That alone makes it difficult to put him at the scenes of the abductions, especially the older ones.”

  “Think about it,” Mitch said, waving to an older gentleman walking his dog. “Wes has been spending more time here ever since Clayton got into legal trouble. He was the only one who would have known, besides Clayton, that Chad was coming home on that particular road at that specific time the night Gwen was attacked.”

  Gwen’s nightmares were what got Mitch thinking about the names on the list. She’d mentioned that it was Chad’s face she saw every night in her dreams, and a valid reason her subconscious would switch out the faces were if she’d unconsciously recognized her attacker’s resemblance.

  Wes fit every other criterion in the profile—he was in his mid-thirties, he came from a broken home, he was a local who knew the personal details of everyone’s lives, and he had access to all the victims. All that was left for Thorne to do was connect Wesley Schaeffer to the young girls who weren’t from Blyth Lake.

  “Everyone in town was aware that Chad and his father were in the city having dinner with Wes and Clayton,” Allie pointed out. “And you’re neglecting to mention how difficult it would have been to get ahead of Chad and Miles without them recognizing Wes’ vehicle, just to turn around and manage to run them off the road.”