When Secrets Kill

by Zoe Carter

  * * *

  Lauren drove into the Thornwood Heights Mobile Home Park, looking for #6, which, according to a simple online search, was home to Monica Gallagher. Luckily for reporters, online searches now included “associated with” names, and Monica’s name was linked to Trevor Gallagher and Tammy Gallagher. That easy.

  Number 6 was a shabby mess that still had Christmas lights up. There was an Under Foreclosure sign posted on the front door and she could see inside; it was pretty empty. She couldn’t imagine Trevor here. And there was no sign of his truck.

  “Hey, it’s you,” a male voice said.

  Lauren whirled around. A blond guy with a sleeve tattoo was standing in the doorway of #8. He had a beer in his hand. He stepped out of the shadows. Oh crap. Doug, Daniel, something like that. She’d picked him up in The Fraser—shiver—a few months ago. They’d had five shots—that she’d paid for—and played truth or dare, leading to her stripping in a stall in the bathroom and four-second sex.

  Shit. He was leering at her. “Want to come in?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “No,” she said loud and clear, and got back in her car. I will never come in. This Lauren Riley doesn’t drink anymore. She doesn’t screw strangers in bar bathrooms. She doesn’t demean herself.

  If some little girl calling you “the killer” didn’t rattle you the way it used to, don’t let this, she told herself. Head held high. She took a deep breath and got the hell out of the trailer park, driving back to town and the police station. Trevor must have left his contact information on the missing-person’s report he’d filled out.

  Maria, one of the temps filling in for the receptionist, smiled at Lauren. “Donut?” she asked, holding up the cover of a container. “I overdid it for my daughter’s bake sale today.”

  Lauren never turned down sugary carbs, especially with pink icing. “Thanks, Maria.” She took a bite. “Mmm, this is so good. Hey, the guy that was in here about an hour ago, Trevor Gallagher, asking about his sister—did he happen to say where he could be reached?”

  Maria glanced over her shoulder, and Lauren craned her neck to see her father’s office in view—and her dad sitting there, reading some paperwork but probably listening. “I can’t give that information, Lauren. Sorry, hon. That’s confidential.”

  Crap. Maria was so sweet that Lauren wasn’t willing to try to play her or sneak around on her watch for information. Lauren glanced around for her sister Nova, who worked in the records department, but didn’t see her. Not that her überresponsible eldest sister would necessarily give her confidential info either. She thanked Maria again for the donut, then headed out, putting on her sunglasses.

  Hotel? Motel? Inn? One of the many bed-and-breakfasts? Thornwood Heights was a resort town right on the lake; there were a lot of places to stay. Lauren finished her donut and got back in her car and started with the most visible hotel, The Thornwood, which was pretty pricey. A soldier fresh back from Afghanistan who’d grown up in a trailer park probably wouldn’t be drawn here, and she didn’t see his black pickup in the lot.

  The truck wasn’t at the Thornwood Heights Inn, Phillips Bed and Breakfast, The Starlight Hotel, or the many B and Bs that dotted the lake. Had he left town? With his sister’s murder unsolved? Not likely.

  The only place she hadn’t checked yet was the Elk Creek Ranch Inn, but that was ten miles out of town, a boring drive down an endless gravel road that opened up to farmland and grazing cattle. Lauren’s car, which was her sister Nova’s old Honda, had over 150,000 miles on it and was twelve years old, so hopefully it could handle a little flying gravel.

  The noon sunshine was bright and Lauren rolled down the windows, breathing in the fresh farm air as she passed a herd of sheep. As she drove toward a horse pasture, she found herself pulling over so that she could think about what the hell she was going to say to Trevor Gallagher if she found him. When he’d emailed her about getting together for information, he’d been hopeful that his sister would be found. Now there was no hope.

  She stared at the brown mare and the filly, hoping the right words would make themselves known. She would tell Trevor Gallagher the truth. That she wanted to write about his sister, pay tribute, demand justice.

  Lauren drove on, going another two miles until she turned left at the huge round sign for the Elk Creek Ranch Inn with its golden-lasso logo. Another quarter mile up a dirt road lined with tall blooming yellow flowers, the sprawling white farmhouse came into view, behind it, a big red barn.

  And in front: Trevor Gallagher’s truck. He was here.

  His grief was fresh, but based on how he’d sounded when she’d overheard him talking to her dad and that jerk Lewton, Lauren could tell he was a guy who’d want answers. Just like she did.

  Lauren parked beside his truck and glanced in. Empty, not even a stray wrapper or errant coin on the floor mats.

  She headed inside the front door with the “Welcome, Ranchers!” sign, a bell jangling overhead. A tall, thin woman in a cowboy hat came out of a back room, carrying a stack of folded blue sheets that she set on the counter beside a potted cactus.

  “Here for a room, hon?” the woman asked. “We only have one left, but it faces the sunrise if you’re an early bird.”

  Lauren smiled. “I’ve never been an early bird.” Had she ever seen a sunrise? She didn’t think so. For as long as she could remember—until pretty recently—Lauren had spent mornings sleeping off drinking binges. But she’d seen her share of sunsets, usually from the front seat of a car, with some stranger she’d picked up in a bar. Evidence A: Doug or Daniel with the tattoo sleeve. She wasn’t that person anymore. She couldn’t be.

  “I’m actually here to see a guest. Trevor Gallagher?”

  “Ah, yes. Mr. Gallagher is in bunk three. Bunk is Elk Creek Ranch parlance for room. Head around back. You’ll see the three on the door.”

  “Thanks,” Lauren said. She walked around the side of the house, a chicken scooting past faster than she thought chickens could go on their two skinny legs.

  Number three. She raised her hand to knock, then paused, feeling like a class-A bitch for intruding on his grief. Maybe she should let him be for a few days.

  But time and action were paramount to solving a murder. Yes, Tammy Gallagher had been killed three weeks ago, but her killer had probably been resting comfortably all this time because her body hadn’t been identified.

  She sucked in a breath and knocked.

  No answer.

  She hesitated for a second, then knocked again. A little harder.

  He opened the door. For a moment, she was knocked out by the sight of him. Trevor Gallagher filled the doorway. The guy was six feet plus of muscle, and the intensity of his blue eyes froze her in place. It took everything not to stare.

  He was waiting for her to say something. Say something, idiot.

  “I’m Lauren Riley, the reporter from the Townsend Report. I overheard you talking to the chief of police earlier, and then saw you come out of the morgue. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your sister.”

  The rock-hard expression didn’t change. “Look, when I got in touch with you last week, it’s because I was desperate to find my sister and I saw your post about the missing young woman and thought you could help. But—” Anguish etched into his features and he looked down for a second.

  “Trevor, I’d like to do a story about your sister and demand justice for her—”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Like I said, I got in touch when I thought you might have information. And no offense, but I learned my lesson a long time ago that reporters care about getting the story without caring whose lives they destroy in the process. So no comment.” He held the door, clearly waiting for her to leave.

  He was too polite, too much of a military man to close the door in her face.

  “I do care,
” she said. “I’m hoping that you can tell me about Tammy so that I can capture what she was like, make her into a real person for our readers and not just a—”

  “Dead runaway druggie?” he finished, his tone so deadly serious that she took a small step backward. “Like I said, I have no comment. If you’ll excuse me,” he added. Again, waiting for her to go.

  “Could I see the photo you showed the chief and Lewton earlier?” she asked. “I only had the photo you sent, pre–dye job and makeup.”

  “What’s the point?” he asked.

  “Because I swear I know that face. I saw her somewhere but I can’t place it.”

  He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the photos. “Here.”

  Lauren gasped. “Now that I see Tammy with the blond hair and makeup, I know where I saw her before.” She pointed at the cell phone. “I saw that girl talking to my boss—my... I saw her talking to Victor Townsend behind our office building.”

  Trevor leaned against the door. “And?”

  “And someone murdered Victor. He was working on the story about missing girls and women from Thornwood Heights and surrounding towns. Your sister was talking to him. Suddenly a few weeks later she’s murdered too?”

  “Talking to Victor Townsend outside the Townsend Report office building? Could have been about anything,” he said. He stepped back, his hand on the door frame. “I have a funeral to plan.”

  Could have been. But come on. It was some coincidence. Tammy and Victor hadn’t been talking in his office. Instead she’d seen them meeting in secret.

  Why?

  Trevor Gallagher lifted his chin, his eyes cold. She needed to give him a little space, a little time. She nodded at him, taking a last glance at him, suddenly so...unable to drag her eyes off him, to walk away. “If you change your mind, I’ll leave my card,” she said and slipped it on the rocking chair to the left of the door.

  The moment she turned, the door closed. Yup, military manners. He’d probably wanted to slam the door in her face.

  She had something. A small something, but something. Tammy Gallagher with Victor. Had they been talking about the missing girls?

  To which Tammy herself had then been added?

  No, actually. Tammy hadn’t just gone missing. She was murdered.

  And if she was going to get Trevor Gallagher to talk to her about his sister, she’d need something more concrete to tell him. She had to have information.

  Which meant her family, full of law enforcement, was going to get the third degree over dinner. And if there was one way to get a Riley to talk, it was to make something they all liked. Italian? Mexican?

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered to a barn cat chasing after a leaf blowing in the breeze. She took one last glance at the window next to his door, hoping he’d be watching her go, which would tell her he was interested in what she might have to say, but the curtains were still drawn.

  Trevor Gallagher wasn’t going to be easy, that was for sure. But when had Lauren’s life ever been about easy?

  Chapter Three

  After making arrangements with the funeral home director, Trevor had walked the fields at Elk Creek for miles before his head cleared enough to finally call his mother. The sound of her voice made him want to hit something. She’d had the decency to cry and shriek, “My baby, my poor baby Tammy,” then said she couldn’t deal with this. Rather than getting on a plane and coming home, she said she would mourn Tammy privately.

  Jesus. Trevor would never understand his mother. Trevor and Tammy had different fathers, neither of whom had stuck around after learning she was pregnant, and Trevor used to think his mother did the best she could as a single mother. He sure as hell couldn’t help judging her now, though. Her child was lying in a morgue. And she wasn’t even planning on coming back home for the funeral. Which meant things were going well with the stranger she’d uprooted her life for.

  Now Trevor walked through the run-down mobile home where he had grown up, shaking his head at the foreclosure sign on the door. As if anyone would buy this piece of junk with its shabby patch of grass outside. He’d never been ashamed of living in a trailer park; it was home, and his mother had earned an honest living as a waitress and barmaid. Most of his friends had grown up in the trailer park too. Yeah, they’d wanted out; they all had big dreams. Trevor had always hoped for his own ranch, raising cattle, horses, alpacas for his sister, who loved those wild-looking creatures. Unable to ever get along with his mother, he’d moved out of this trailer the minute he’d turned eighteen by getting hired as a hand on a ranch not far from the Elk Creek spread. But his friends were rough around the edges and he found himself getting into trouble, so he and a buddy had decided to enlist, learn to become men, serve their country. Trevor had been determined to come back in one piece and take in his sister, and see her through college since she was the bookish one in the family. He’d buy a small ranch with the money he’d been able to put away over the past four years and build it up. Those were his plans. In his little free time the last few months he’d been researching ranches for sale on the outskirts of Thornwood Heights, and one seemed perfect. He’d held that peaceful homestead in his mind to keep him going on his last mission.

  And while he’d been thinking about livestock and ranch equipment, Tammy had been lying dead in the woods. Someone had killed her.

  I’m hoping that you can tell me about Tammy so that I can capture what she was like, make her into a real person...

  That reporter, pretty as she was, sincere as she’d sounded, was full of it. Reporters were all the same: after the story with the goal of selling papers. Or in her case, an online newsblog that preyed on controversy. He should never have contacted her last week, but he’d been so damned desperate for any bit of information about Tammy.

  Now he had nothing to say to Lauren Riley.

  But he had a lot to say to the Thornwood Heights police. He drove back into town and parked in the THPD lot. He hoped Lewton wasn’t around. When Trevor had walked into this police station determined to speak to someone about his missing sister, Lewton had given him the runaround, then had him fill out a missing-person’s report. He was halfway through it when he realized Lewton had left. Angry, he had gone after him and found Lewton with the chief of police. That must have been when the reporter had overheard their conversation.

  Listening, eavesdropping, like reporters did. He shook his head.

  “May I help you?” asked a middle-aged woman at the front desk. A container of pink donuts was beside the telephone.

  “My name is Trevor Gallagher. I identified my sister earlier today—the girl found in the woods.” He felt sick to his stomach saying those words. “I’d like information on the case.”

  The woman studied him. “One moment, please.” She disappeared into an office and returned with a forced smile, the kind of smile that told him someone had told her to get rid of him. “You want to speak with Officer Paretti, but he’s out on duty. I’ll have him call you as soon as he’s free.”

  “Paretti,” he repeated. “I’d appreciate that.” There was no need to antagonize the police at this point; he needed them on his side. But he’d give Paretti a couple hours at most to get back to him.

  As Trevor turned to go, he noticed Chief Riley staring at him from his open office doorway, but then the man picked up his phone and started talking. Just as I figured, Trevor thought. The chief doesn’t want to deal with me. Trevor would give them a day or two to make some progress on Tammy’s murder. And then he’d be on Chief Riley whether the guy liked it or not.

  * * *

  Lauren carried the sack of groceries into the house she shared with her father and sisters, her gaze, as always, going to the wall of family photos in the hallway. There was her beautiful mother, gone over twenty years, since Lauren was five. But she still remembered Charlotte Riley. D
ying of cancer, her mother would let Lauren crawl under the covers and snuggle beside her, her head resting on her mother’s frail rib cage, the slow but steady rise and fall of her chest a comfort that five-year-old Lauren hadn’t known how to articulate. They would lie that way for hours until her sister Nova would call Lauren downstairs to help with dinner or sweep the kitchen or something even more boring. Then came the day that her mother’s chest had stopped rising and falling, and her father hadn’t been around much after that.

  All Lauren remembered of those first couple of years after her mom died was Nova, making her school lunches and brushing her hair, and helping her with homework. Nova had done all the things their mother used to do, and Lauren had been a real brat to her eldest sister. Sometimes, Lauren had just wanted to make Nova lose her cool, which she did all the time. Otherwise, Lauren felt completely powerless. Now, when she thought of those days, she felt like a real shit. Nova had given up a lot to raise her kid sister.

  Next was a photo of the three Riley sisters. Nova, Jennifer and Lauren, taken just weeks before Jennifer had fled town after high school graduation. Nova, Lauren knew too well. Jennifer—a mystery. For twenty years Jennifer Riley had stayed away from Thornwood Heights. But when Lauren had been in trouble, big trouble, accused of murder trouble, Jennifer, the New York City police detective, had come home.

  Lauren would never forget that. The middle Riley sister might be cagey and private and liked to say she couldn’t comment as if she wasn’t a close blood relative, but she’d come the minute Lauren needed her.

  Lauren let her gaze linger on the photo of her father and Nova at some Thornwood Heights PD holiday party from around fifteen years ago. Nova worked at the station, not as a cop, but in the records department, and in the photo, Lauren could see the drink in her father’s hand and Nova’s lifted chin, the worry in her eyes. Her father had stopped drinking when his wife died, and Lauren always thought Nova kept that photo up there to remind him—and Lauren—what a drunk looked like. He had almost a full head of hair back then, but now tall, robust Big Tommy Riley, as he was called, was three-quarters bald. Grief and stress had done a number on him.