Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “I don’t understand, though. Why would he lie to us? Why wouldn’t he tell us that he knew her? Do you think Brandon told him not to say anything?”

  “I don’t know. That could be a possibility. But... what I think it is—and this is a little weird for me to say—is that Judd used to have a crush on you.”

  My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “He told me that a while ago, before we were married, actually. We’d run into one of my ex-boyfriends, and that had got us talking about exes and stuff. It wasn’t a bad conversation or anything, but that’s how it came up. He told me about this girl he had liked his whole childhood, the cousin of his best friend. And Brandon was his best friend, and you are his cousin.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “I had no idea. I was also pretty young.”

  “Right. Which he also felt weird about; he said that you were younger than they were, and he knew that it wasn’t really appropriate. He said you were thirteen?”

  “Yeah. That sounds about right. That’s how old I was when Brandon disappeared.”

  “Right. Judd said that for the longest time, he considered you like a little sister, but then he started to see you differently. But that you didn’t give him the time of day.”

  I opened my mouth to say something but then stopped, because I had no idea what to say to that. Didn’t give him the time of day? What? I hung out with Brandon and Judd as often as I could, but it had never once occurred to me that Judd had developed feelings like that.

  “So... are you telling me that he was purposefully dishonest because he has some grudge against me because I didn’t reciprocate his interest way back then?” That was almost harder to believe than anything else that had happened so far—first that Judd had a crush on me, and second that he would continue to harbor some sort of resentment about it all these years later.

  “I didn’t really press him for all the details,” Carla said, her tone curt. “Because it’s frankly not something I’m that interested in talking about. The past is the past, as far as I’m concerned; we all have them and some people are way more interested in reliving theirs than they should be. But... I’m not sure of Judd’s exact motives for this—after this conversation with you, I don’t plan on speaking about it again. Like I said, I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. But it bothers me that he was purposefully misleading to you, for no good reason. After we get off the phone, I’m going to text you a picture of something that I think you’ll be interested in seeing. It’s something that I found several years ago when I was doing some spring cleaning in the kitchen; it was in a cookbook. I have to think that Judd put it there and forgot about it. And I’m not going to tell Judd I did this—as far as I’m concerned, after this, the matter is done and over with. Does that sound acceptable to you?”

  “Yes,” I said, even though I had no idea what she was talking about. What was she going to send me a picture of? That she found in a cookbook? “Thank you, Carla,” I added. “I know you didn’t have to call me like this, but I really appreciate it.”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” she said. “I’m really not doing anything. I’ll send you the picture now. Good luck with everything.”

  She hung up before I had a chance to reply.

  I held the phone in my hand, waiting for whatever it was she was going to send. The seconds ticked by, and nothing. Was this some sort of joke? Was she trying to get back at me because she was mad that Judd had apparently admitted to some crush he had so many years ago?

  Still nothing.

  As I waited, I had vague recollections of the period of time immediately following Brandon’s disappearance, the way everything was in such upheaval. It was chaos, really, and it was difficult to remember any specific instance, though now that it had come up, Judd had been present, had been there for me quite a bit.

  “I’m here to talk if you ever need to,” he’d told me several times, which I had always assumed was a platonic offer, something he was doing because he knew how much Brandon had meant to me, how much he meant to both of us. And, yeah, there had been a few times that we’d gone off together, sat down by the river, and talked. I had felt better after that. I couldn’t even remember what exactly was said, but it had felt good to have someone who was willing to listen, someone else who seemed to understand my pain.

  ***

  Two photos came through, the front and back of a postcard. The front showed a photograph of a seagull flying through a bright-blue sky, the words Cape Cod written in pink cursive in the bottom right-hand corner. The second picture Carla had sent was the back of the postcard, covered in Brandon’s handwriting. Just seeing it made my heart clench, and I imagined this was probably similar to what Drew had felt when he’d opened Ashleigh’s journal after all these years.

  J-dog,

  Ash and I are safe and happy. Not going to give you any more specifics than that, for obvious reasons, but I wanted you to know that we have settled in and things actually couldn’t be better. Enough time has passed that I can say with certainty that things seem to have worked out. Certainly wasn’t the way I wanted life to go, but I really didn’t feel as if I had a choice in the matter. Hope all’s well with you.

  -B

  I read the words again, and then again, and then again. Then, I texted a quick thank you to Carla.

  After that, there was only one thing I could do: I called Drew.

  “Hey,” he said. “I was just thinking about you. Settling back in?”

  “Well, I was,” I said, “but then I got this phone call. From Carla.”

  “Carla?”

  “Judd’s wife? We barely saw her because she went in to nap with the baby, but as it turns out, she wasn’t really sleeping at all. And I guess sound travels really well there, because she happened to hear most of our conversation.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And she just got in touch with me because she said Judd wasn’t being honest with us. About not hearing from Brandon. Or knowing who he was with.”

  “What?”

  “She just texted me this picture of a postcard that Brandon had sent him. A postcard from the Cape. I’ll send it to you when we get off the phone, but it sounds like they’re there. Or they were there when he wrote the card.”

  “See, I knew something wasn’t right with that guy. Why the hell didn’t he tell us that when we were there? What’s the point in keeping that a secret?”

  “I don’t know. Carla said she thought it was because he was still resentful toward me because he used to have a crush on me? So I guess you were right about that. But I seriously had no idea. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. But has any of this made sense, from the get-go?”

  “No, not really. This is just keeping in line with the way things are going, I guess. Shit.”

  “I’ll send you the photos.”

  “What are you doing right now?”

  “Nothing. Just trying to re-acclimate to being back. Was going to head to bed early. ”

  “You want to come over?”

  I smiled, glad that he had offered, because I did want to come over, but I also didn’t want to seem like I was being too needy or anything.

  “I would love to,” I said. “When’s a good time?”

  “Now?”

  “Okay. I’ll text you those pictures and then I’ll head over.”

  ***

  I managed to sneak out without having to see Jill or Austin. Drew hadn’t responded to my message with the photos, but when I got to his place he had his phone in hand and was looking at the back of the postcard.

  “I think you know what we have to do,” he said. “Or what I have to do.”

  “What?” I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea I knew what he was going to say.

  “We’ve got to go to the Cape.”

  “Do you really think they’re still there?”

  “I don’t know, but they were there. And if they were there, then chances are good that someone there will know them.”r />
  “But... I know Cape Cod isn’t a huge place, but... what are we going to do? Go up and knock on every door and ask them if they know someone named Brandon or Ashleigh?”

  “No, of course not. I knew this wasn’t over, though, Gwen. I just had this feeling, and that was why I was having such a hard time with the fact that we were coming back empty-handed. But it’s not over yet at all. But look,” he said, reaching across and taking my hand. “I know this is asking a lot. If you don’t want to go with me, you don’t have to—I will completely understand. I want you to go with me, but I know traveling across the country is a lot more than just driving up to Mendocino.”

  He was right—even I could see how it would seem kind of crazy to go all the way to the East Coast because Brandon had once sent his childhood friend a postcard from there—but part of me wanted to believe that things happened for a reason, and that Carla wouldn’t have called with that information if we weren’t supposed to do something with it.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going to stay here and let you go do this on your own. What if you do find them? Both of them? And I’m not there? I want to see Brandon. I have questions for him. And I don’t want you to have to do this alone.”

  “I’m used to it,” he said. “But thank you. I’m happy to hear you say that. I’ll take care of the plane tickets and everything.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I don’t want you to do that. I can pay for mine.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt that you can pay for yours, but please, let me. Since you didn’t let me pay for dinner on our first date.”

  I smiled, thinking back to that night at La Fille, which now seemed like it had happened so very long ago. It still embarrassed me slightly now to think about how I’d acted, but I guess Austin was right—it really had been because I’d liked him.

  I stayed over at Drew’s that night and we had something of a repeat of our hookup in Mendocino. The next day I went back over to my place to repack my bag. Austin once again caught me as I was stuffing clothes into the duffel.

  He looked at me. “Wait—where are you going now?”

  “I’m going to Cape Cod,” I said. I told him about the text that Carla had sent.

  He widened his eyes. “You’re joking. No, you’re not joking, I should know that by now. But... when does this stop, Gwen? Don’t you think this is getting a little out of hand? Now you’re jetting across the country?”

  “I know how it seems,” I said. “I know this seems even crazier than driving around the state. But it’s just one of those things that we’ve got to pursue, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. And besides, I’ve always heard how nice the Cape is—if nothing else, this is just an extended vacation.”

  “Now, you know I’m not against anyone ever taking an extended vacation. And having met Drew, he’s a good guy and I know that you’ll have a good time. But it just seems seriously crazy that you’re doing all this. I mean, how much is it going to cost? Plane tickets are hella expensive.”

  “Some things you just can’t put a price tag on,” I said. “And weren’t you and Jill the ones saying that the universe is sending me signs? That these things just keep falling into our laps, like it was supposed to happen this way? This is just one more example of it, and I know it seems crazy, but we’ve got to stick with it.”

  Austin sighed. “I hate when you use my words against me! But you’re right—you’ve got to see this through to the end.”

  I didn’t want to be too optimistic, but it did feel as if we might get our questions answered this time.

  Chapter 25

  Drew

  I’d been to the East Coast a number of times: New York, both the city and upstate; New Jersey—only once and hopefully never again; Maine, which I loved; and Boston, which was a clusterfuck of a city and a nightmare to drive around. Luckily, the Ted Williams Tunnel made it possible to leave the airport and bypass most of the city streets above us, and then we were on 93-south, keeping an eye out for route 3, which would take us to Cape Cod.

  “From one coast to the next,” Gwen said, hanging her arm out the window. “I’ve never been to the East Coast before. It feels different.”

  “It does. And it’s funny, because some of the states around here are so small you can drive through a couple in what feels like only a few hours.”

  I felt a strange sense of freedom as we drove. The further we got from the city, the less traffic there was, so we were making pretty good time, and it really felt as if we were driving toward something, some sort of resolution. I just wasn’t sure what it was going to be.

  We crossed the Cape Cod Canal via the Sagamore Bridge, a dinky little bridge in comparison to the likes of the Golden Gate or the Bay Bridge, but with a view as picturesque as they come. We cruised on 6 for a while and got off at exit 10, which would take us into Brewster, the town I had chosen to stay in because of its central location, and also because I had heard that, at low tide, the water would recede over a mile, which was something I wanted to see, something I thought Gwen might like to see, too.

  “This is such a cute little town,” Gwen said as we drove down Main Street. And it was. There was very little in the way of commercial businesses—everything was quaint, with an air of history. You could tell that some of the houses, though they’d been renovated, were hundreds of years old.

  We checked into the inn we were staying at, which was a renovated captain’s house. Once we’d dropped our stuff off, we went out and took a drive around, almost as if we might just see them out for a walk and that would be that. But it was like I could sense them, like I could feel they were here somewhere. Now it was just a matter of finding them.

  Chapter 26

  Gwen

  Drew and I spent our first day exploring, both by car and on foot. There was an outdoor market on the town green, and we walked through, chatted with some of the vendors. I asked a few people if they knew Brandon Lillie, or Brandon and Ashleigh, but they didn’t know anyone by that name. We were both a little run-down from traveling, so we went to bed early.

  Our first order of business the next morning was to get coffee, which we got at a little coffee shop on Main Street. It was crowded, and there was a long line, but I didn’t mind waiting because it gave us a chance to look around, check out all the faces, see if we saw anyone we recognized.

  Of course that would be way too easy—Ashleigh and Brandon just happening to show up at the same place we were. But... the Cape was small, relatively speaking, and though it was still tourist season and there were plenty of people around, it definitely exuded that small-town feel, which made me think that we very well could run into them. I decided to ask the barista who was taking our coffee order.

  “Ash and Brandon?” The guy looked at us, sort of suspiciously. “Of course I know them. They’re here all the time. Who are you? Why are you asking?”

  “I’m Ashleigh’s brother,” Drew said.

  The guy frowned. “I didn’t know Ashleigh had a brother. She’s never mentioned a brother.” The frown deepened as he studied Drew’s face. “I can see a resemblance, though.”

  “I’m not lying to you, I swear,” Drew said. “We’ve come all the way out here from California to find her.”

  “As much as I’d love to help you play sleuth, I’m not just going to give you her phone number or tell you where she lives. That’s not cool, man. If you want, I’ll take your phone number and the next time she’s in, I’ll pass it along. That way, she can decide whether or not she wants to get in touch with you.”

  It was as if I could feel the air in the coffee shop get warmer, and I knew Drew was doing everything he could to keep himself in check. I reached over and took his hand, gave it a little squeeze.

  “That sounds great,” I said, and I looked at Drew and nodded, hoping he’d realize that causing a scene here was not going to get us any closer to finding anything out. And getting thrown in jail for assaulting a barista certainly wouldn’t help matters any, either.


  “You’re right,” he said to me afterwards, when I voiced my thoughts to him. “But he would really be helping us out if he would just give us their fucking number.”

  After we got our coffees, we took them outside and walked along Main Street for a little while. I watched the faces of the people we walked past, wondered if Brandon was driving any of the cars that passed by us. We made it back to our own car and Drew said we should take a drive over to the grocery store, which we did, and we walked the aisles, but no luck.

  “Let’s go to the beach,” Drew said when we left the store.

  I looked at him in surprise. “The beach?”

  “We’re not going to not go to the beach,” Drew said. “We’re on Cape Cod and all, and that’s the whole reason people come here to begin with. And who knows, maybe we’ll see them there. It’s hot out.”

  We had to go to the town hall to get a beach sticker for the day, and though we were planning to just enjoy things, I couldn’t help but ask the two women selling beach stickers if they knew Brandon or Ashleigh. They both looked at me over the rims of their glasses.

  “Those names don’t ring any bells,” one of the women said. “Brett and Abby?”

  “No, Brandon and Ashleigh,” I said. “Brandon Lillie. Ashleigh Parker. Maybe Ashleigh Lillie, I don’t know.”

  “Did they grow up here?” the other woman asked.

  “No.”

  “Then I probably don’t know them. The only people your age I know are the ones who grew up here, the ones who went to school with my son, Kenneth. Do you know Kenneth?”

  “Um, no, I don’t think so.”

  The woman slid the sticker across the table to me, and I could tell by the look on her face that she thought my question was foolish.