“We’ll have to climb it,” Reece said.
Before I knew what was happening, his hands were around my waist and he was effortlessly lifting me up. “Grab the bar at the top,” he said through clenched teeth. “Then swing yourself over.”
I did as he instructed as quickly as possible before fear or vertigo could make me freeze. But I let go too early and dropped hard to the grass on the other side.
“You okay?” Reece asked.
I nodded from the ground, my tailbone aching. I never would have made it over without the boost from Reece. I wondered how he was going to do this. But I forgot—he was an athlete. He jumped up several feet, grabbed the iron bars, and pulled himself over without so much as a grunt. He dropped to the ground quietly like a cat.
If he and Toni ever had kids, they would be 100 percent pure ninjas.
I was still on the grass, propped up on my elbows. He held a hand out and pulled me to standing. I brushed myself off and limp-followed him up the hill as he took control and charged ahead. After all, I’d only broken into one house. He was the master.
We followed the curve of a sunroom—shades drawn like all the other windows—to the back of the house. Reece was marching from window to window, squinting in each one.
“They’re all locked,” he said.
I groaned in disappointment. “What now?”
“There’s a way,” he said. “There’s always a way.”
I followed behind, having to take two steps for every one of Reece’s giant strides.
“People never forget to lock their front door,” he said. “They use a dead bolt and everything. But they don’t realize that’s the least likely way for an intruder to get in.”
“What’s the most likely?”
“Unlocked windows. Unsecured sliding glass doors.” He stopped walking and gazed at something on the ground. “And basement bulkheads.”
He yanked on the handle and the door moved, then groaned as it opened outward. Reece looked over his shoulder and smiled.
He went down the stairs first. At least we didn’t need a flashlight. Enough outside light poured in, and there wasn’t much to see. The basement was just a basement. It was empty, aside from a furnace and the usual equipment, and smelled musty.
I pointed at the wooden staircase that led to the first floor.
Reece nodded, then maneuvered himself in front of me so he’d go first. As we exited the stairwell onto the first floor, I had a shock. It wasn’t empty. The living room was fully furnished, including a flat-screen hanging on the wall.
“I thought you said no one lived here,” I whispered.
Reece’s face looked equally confused. “My buddy said no one has lived here for years. And I even staked out the house a few times and never saw anyone.”
“Then why is it furnished?”
“Maybe the previous owner left the furniture? Maybe someone still owns it but they live somewhere else?”
We turned into the kitchen next. The dining area had no furniture, but pots and pans hung from the ceiling above an island. A stool was pushed out from the counter as if someone had gotten up in a hurry and didn’t push it back in.
I stepped over to the island, then stopped short. I shot my hand out, frantically grabbed Reece’s arm, and pointed to a mug still steaming on the counter. I let out a high-pitched, panicked noise. “Someone’s here.”
That’s what Toni found out. She came here looking for a way to throw a party for Reece and found that the house wasn’t unoccupied after all.
I slowly turned around. The person was probably still in the house. He or she heard us coming in . . . and hid. Or went to get a weapon. My mind whirred with the possibilities.
“What should we do?” I whispered. Part of me wanted to run around the house screaming in anger, opening the doors, wildly looking in every nook and cranny until I found the person and made them pay. But I could hear Toni’s voice in the back of my head pleading. Don’t be stupid. Don’t end up like me. Get out.
“We’re leaving,” Reece whispered back. “We can bring the cops back with us.”
That was the smart move. Despite how much I wanted to be stupid. I just couldn’t. For my parents. For Toni. For Evan. I had to get out alive.
A floorboard creaked in the other room, near the entrance to the basement.
Reece took my hand and pulled me behind him, leading us in the opposite direction. If that person was waiting for us where we came in, we’d find another way to leave.
Reece opened a door, saw that it was only a pantry, and moved on. The next door opened into the three-car garage I saw on the way up the hill. We went down a couple of steps into the cavernous room, Reece practically shoving me ahead, but I stopped and gasped.
“What?” Reece hissed.
I was surrounded by air, precious oxygen, but I couldn’t seem to get any of it into my lungs. I pointed to the car parked in the only occupied spot in the garage. It was a black SUV with tinted windows. The car I’d seen enough times now to know this was not a coincidence.
Reece, thinking I was only pointing out further evidence of someone living in the supposedly abandoned home, yanked on my hand. He pulled my paralyzed body out the garage’s side door and down the driveway.
But not before I got a good look at the license plate.
CHAPTER 27
We climbed back over the fence and Reece stuffed me into the passenger side of my car, knowing I was in no condition to drive. He pulled away, spewing dirt and dust up from under the tires.
“We’re going straight to the police,” he said. “And we’re not taking no for an answer. We’re dragging someone back here.”
My heartbeat thrummed, reverberating through my whole body. The black SUV—it connected Flynn’s death and the attack on Toni. Whoever lived in that house was the person responsible. I was so close now. Secrets always reveal themselves.
Now that my brain was moderately working again, I pulled out my cell and dialed Cooper’s number. He answered from Toni’s hospital room. “Yeah?”
“I know where she went,” I said breathlessly. “It’s a long story, but there’s a house we thought was empty. And it’s not. Can you find out whose name is on the deed without leaving Toni’s side?”
“I can call a friend at work, yeah,” he said. “Give me the address.”
I did, and he promised to call back.
My right leg bounced up and down in the seat as Reece careened around curves and blew a light. As we pulled into the parking lot of the police station, my phone chirped. I answered, “Coop?”
“The house belongs to some corporation in the Caribbean,” he said. “DD Exports. I can’t find any information on them.”
A company? “Why would they want a house in River’s End?” I asked.
“I don’t know. As a rental property or investment maybe?”
Was some shady company running an illegal operation out of that house? And Toni saw something worth killing her over? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“Okay. We’re headed to the police station. I’ll fill you in as soon as I can. Don’t leave her.”
I marched into the station with Reece at my heels. But before I could approach the reception window and beg for help, the door opened and Officer Reck stood towering before me.
“Back again, Miss Tulley?” he asked.
The start of a headache stirred in my temple. I’d never told him my last name, had I?
Beside me, Reece let out a sigh of relief, assuming the cop and I were on good terms. “Officer,” he said, “we need your help.”
I tried to give Reece a look that said No, not him, but the details of our morning poured out of his mouth.
Officer Reck laid a giant hand on Reece’s shoulder. “Okay, okay, calm down. Where’s this house?”
He wrote the address on a l
ittle pad of paper as Reece recited it. Then he handed the paper to the woman at the dispatch desk. “Send a squad car or two to this address, please, and have them detain anyone on the premises.”
He turned back to Reece and me. “Let’s go to my desk.”
We followed him to the now-familiar desk, littered with Styrofoam cups, tucked in the corner of the station. “Now, why are you so sure this was where your friend went the night she was hit by a car?” he asked, lowering himself onto his chair.
“She wasn’t hit by a car,” I said. “I told you that before and you didn’t believe me.”
“Did you find evidence of a crime at this house?”
“Well, no,” I said. “But we didn’t get a chance to look around much. We realized someone else was there and took off.”
“How did you get into the house?”
I paled, starting to regret coming here.
Reece spoke up. “The front door was wide-open.”
“And there’s something else,” I said. “The car that hit my ex-boyfriend—I saw it in the garage.”
Reck scratched at his goatee casually. I almost expected him to yawn. “At that house?”
“Yes!” I felt like I was just spinning my wheels here.
Reck narrowed his eyes. “I thought you couldn’t identify the car from the hit-and-run. I thought you didn’t get a plate.”
“I didn’t. Well, not that night. But I’ve seen the car a couple of times since. One time it followed me.”
“And it was the same license plate each time?”
“Well, no. I never saw the plate until today.”
“So you can’t actually confirm this is the same SUV.” He gave a small shake of his head to let me know what he thought of me wasting his precious time. “Do you know how many black SUVs are in the area?”
“Can you just run the plate?” I snapped. I grabbed a Post-it from his desk and jotted down the memorized numbers.
I pushed it across his desk. “Please.”
He looked at Reece, with an expression on his face that said, Can you believe this emotional crazy girl? He was probably hoping for some guy camaraderie, but instead Reece said, “Run it,” in a tone that said, If she’s crazy, so am I.
Reck let out a sigh so exaggerated, it was like we’d asked him to babysit quadruplets, not to—you know—do his job. He rummaged around in a drawer, finally pulling out a giant pair of eyeglasses. He slipped them on, and his fingers slowly punched in the numbers from the Post-it. Then he tilted his head back and forth, cracking his neck, while we waited for something to happen on the computer.
I saw a flicker of blue as the screen changed.
He clucked his tongue. “You must have memorized it wrong. Nothing’s coming up. The screen’s blank.”
I sat motionless and tight-lipped, though inside I was burning.
The desk phone rang and he picked it up. “Yep.” He paused as he listened to the voice on the other end. “Okay. I’ll take care of it.”
He hung up the phone and looked at us. “There’s no one at the house now. A unit will stay on hand. If the person comes back, we’ll detain them and see if they know anything about your friend.”
Reece turned to me, his face twisted in frustration. I could tell he was expecting me to explode. To scream that this wasn’t good enough.
Instead, I rose from my seat. “Thank you, Officer. You’ve been a big help. We’ll leave it in your hands now.”
I briskly walked away, trying to keep my face unreadable, until we got outside and Reece sidled up to me. “Morgan? What the hell just happened in there?”
“He’s involved,” I said.
Reece blinked quickly. “How do you know?”
“Because the SUV did come up on the screen. I saw words reflected in his glasses.”
“Could you read them?”
“They were backward, so mostly no. But I clearly saw ‘DD.’”
“It’s a company car,” Reece said. “DD Exports.”
What was going on here?
• • •
I parked next to Reece’s car in the hospital parking lot.
He clawed his fingers down his face. “I need to sleep. I can’t even focus right now.”
I gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. I was exhausted and I’d actually gotten a few hours. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I just brought you back to your car. Go home. Sleep.”
He rolled his head to the side and eyeballed me.
“What?” I said.
“Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t go back to that house. We’ll figure this out, but our top priority has to be staying safe. Something’s going on, and people who get too close to the answer end up . . .” He aimed a thumb at the hospital building behind him. “And Toni would murder me if anything happened to you while I was taking a nap.”
I snorted. “Don’t worry. Get some sleep. I’ll be good.”
He heaved a sigh and dragged himself out of my car and to his own.
I would be safe, but I wouldn’t give up. I had to keep digging.
My phone buzzed from the pocket of my jeans. I hadn’t heard from Evan all morning. It had to be him. I looked down and felt a twinge of anxiety. It was an anonymous text from a restricted number.
Meet me at The Falls in an hour. I can help you. I have information.
An eerie feeling swept over me, like the cool breath of a ghost, causing goose bumps to spring up on my arms. It was too easy. It had to be a trap.
But it wasn’t a threat—like, Meet me here or so-and-so dies, come alone. It was worded like an offer.
I read the text over and over until finally coming to a decision. I couldn’t let this opportunity go. The truth was so close now. But I wouldn’t go alone.
I texted Evan.
are you around?
After a long minute, he wrote back.
not right now. y?
My fingers flew over the phone.
got a weird text. some1 wants me 2 meet them at the falls in 1 hr. i need 2 go. i need answers.
He responded quickly.
not without me. i’ll meet u there. i’m 45 mins away.
Where is he? I thought. But before I could ask, another text came in.
in nh. bringing back answers for you like i promised. see u soon.
Evan had gone to New Hampshire? I stuck the phone back in my pocket and held my hands out in front of me. They were shaking. My nerves were on edge, and I felt like my heart was beating double time. The answers were so close now.
But a small voice whispered from the back of my mind.
I bet that’s what Flynn thought, too.
• • •
I parked next to Evan’s car. His was the only other one in the lot, so unless my mystery informer was hiking through the woods, he or she wasn’t here yet. I took the path, tossing uneasy looks over my shoulder, until it opened up at the top of the waterfall. Evan stood, nervously shuffling his feet. When he saw me, he jogged over.
“You’re here!” He pulled me into his arms, but let go too quickly. “Did you see anyone else?”
I shook my head.
“How’s Toni?”
“No change. But Cooper and Reece are taking turns watching over her so she’s never alone.”
“Good,” he said.
“And I think I know where she went that night. Reece had his eye on this giant abandoned house—he wanted to throw a party there and she went to check it out. But it wasn’t abandoned after all. The car that killed Flynn was there. Everything’s coming together.” I was speaking too quickly, the words rushing out of my mouth like the water raging down the falls beside us. “What did you find in New Hampshire?”
He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket. “I think this explains everything.”
A
branch snapped from somewhere behind me. Evan stopped and looked over my shoulder. His face was a battleground of emotions—fear, grief, betrayal—but shock won out.
He let out a ragged breath and said, “You are alive.”
CHAPTER 28
I spun around to face the person, but what I saw only confused me more. Evan’s dad?
“Mr. Murphy?” I said, my voice sounding so small against the backdrop of the rushing water.
He was dressed casually, in jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt, and walked confidently toward us, hands in his pockets. He laughed, as if my recognizing him was some kind of joke. And that made everything click into place. I was looking at a dead man.
“You’re not Evan’s dad,” I said.
A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, confirming the truth. This was Doyle Murphy. The man who’d disgraced his company and his family and thrown himself off the top of the falls, in this very spot. Evan’s uncle.
I shot Evan a look. “You knew about this?”
“Not until today,” he said. “Not until this.” He handed me the paper he’d been holding. I unfolded it, and the world spun.
It was James Bergeron’s birth certificate. Flynn’s birth certificate. And Doyle Murphy was his father. Flynn and Evan were first cousins, and their fathers were twins. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry as dust.
Evan positioned himself in front of me, fists balled at his sides. “How can you be alive?”
Doyle kept his voice neutral. “They never found my body, Evan.”
“The current took it away,” Evan said. “Your blood was all over the rock.”
Even though the impossible was staring him in the face, Evan couldn’t seem to accept it. Or maybe he just needed to hear an explanation. I did, too.
Doyle gave his nephew a long, cool stare. “It’s easy to get a bag of your own blood when you donate on a regular basis.”
Forget Me Page 18