Secrets We Keep GO PL

by Barbara Freethy

  Hadn't she?

  He felt sick at the disturbing thought that these remains could be his beautiful Cassidy.

  No! There was no way it was her. She couldn't have been killed. She couldn't have been in this house all these years.

  He heard Dylan go into the driveway and yell for one of the police officers who'd responded to the fire to come into the garage.

  When Dylan returned, he said, "You can go outside, Hunter. I'll take care of this."

  "I'm staying."

  "Why?"

  "Because I have to. I found the body, and…" He couldn't bring himself to say the words aloud.

  "And what?" Dylan's gaze narrowed in concern. "What is going on, Hunter?"

  "This was her house," he whispered.

  "Whose house?"

  "Cassidy's."

  Dylan's jaw dropped, his gaze widening with shock. "Cassidy?"

  "This was her foster home."

  "No."

  "Yes."

  "But she ran away. She told you she was leaving."

  "I always thought so."

  "It's not her. It can't be her." Dylan's words echoed the refrain going around in Hunter's head.

  He was happy to have Dylan's reassurance, but he had a bad feeling in his gut. "What if Cassidy didn't run away with Tommy? What if she never left?"

  Two

  Hunter didn't know how he made it through the rest of the day and night. While all he wanted to do was find out who the remains belonged to, he'd had to continue on with his twenty-four-hour shift, leaving the investigation to the police. While the gruesome discovery had spread through the firehouse, he'd asked Dylan not to mention Cassidy, and his brother had agreed, leaving the others to endlessly speculate about how a body had ended up in the walls of that garage.

  That question was still rolling around in his head when he finally got off shift early Friday morning. He grabbed his duffel and walked out to the parking lot where his rather dusty but trusty Jeep was parked next to his brother's refurbished Porsche.

  Their cars said a lot about their personalities. He liked a rough and rugged, outdoor lifestyle. For him, a car was just a way to get somewhere else. But Dylan had a passion for old classics. He spent hours refurbishing vintage cars that were sleek, sophisticated, and fast. Actually, they both had a liking for speed, but he preferred to drive a car that could also take him off-road. The best adventures always seemed to be off the beaten path.

  He threw his duffel bag into the passenger side of his car as Dylan stopped next to him.

  "What do you say to some breakfast?" Dylan asked.

  "Breakfast would be good, but first I want to go to the police station. I need to know what they've found out about the bones we discovered yesterday."

  "I figured you'd say that," Dylan replied with a gleam in his eyes. "And I'm way ahead of you. I called Max a few minutes ago."

  "Emma's husband is working this case?"

  "Yes. He said to come by, and he'd give us an update on our Jane or John Doe."

  "Okay, good. I'm glad Max is on it." His anxiety was still high at the thought that the remains he'd found might belong to Cassidy. No matter how much he had tried to talk himself out of that idea, until he knew for sure, he just couldn't relax. He couldn’t stand the thought that those bones could possibly be hers. She was too beautiful, too sweet, too alive—at least she'd always been that way in his head, even after the heartbreaking way things had ended between them.

  "I asked Burke to come with us, but he has to go pick out a stove with Maddie," Dylan added.

  "That's fine."

  "Why don't we take one car? The station is only a few miles from here. I'll drive."

  "Of course you will." His oldest brother always liked to drive, to be in charge. Not up to arguing over nothing, he locked his car, then got into Dylan's Porsche.

  "I guess your first day back at work didn't go exactly as planned," Dylan said, as he pulled out of the lot.

  "No, it did not. I had a bad feeling as soon as we turned down the street, but I never expected to find what I did."

  "Cassidy was in foster care when she lived in that house, right?"

  "Yes. Her parents died when she was thirteen, and she went into foster care because she didn't have any relatives to take care of her. She was bounced around a few times. She'd been living with the Faulkners for about a month when we met in high school. She was the new kid, and she was super shy and awkward, but God was she pretty. I looked into her big, brown eyes, and I couldn't remember my name." He cleared his throat, seeing the smile on his brother's face. "Anyway, we dated from February to May. And then on the day of the prom, she said she was running away with another kid, and that was that. I never saw her again."

  "I remember that part. You got drunk and angry and crazy for a while there. But the sadness in your eyes was what really bothered me, what concerned us all."

  "It was a bad time."

  "What do you remember about her foster family—the Faulkners?"

  "The father was a realtor. The mother was a homemaker. They'd been foster parents for years. I think there were five or six other kids in the house when Cassidy lived there. She didn't say much about the Faulkners, but she did tell me once that she didn't think anyone outside of the house knew who they really were, that they weren't the kind, wonderful people that they pretended to be."

  "Did she give specifics?"

  "No. She got really unhappy whenever their name came up, so I didn't push. I wish I had now. That skeleton…" He shuddered at the memory. "Who knows what was going on in that house." He took another breath. "It can't be her, Dylan."

  "I'm sure it's not."

  "Do you think they will be able to identify the body quickly?"

  "Max said he was expecting to hear from the medical examiner this morning. Tell me about the kid that Cassidy ran away with."

  "He was another foster kid, but he had only been there a couple of weeks. Cassidy said they'd been at another home together, and that's when they'd become friends. She was really happy when he got to the house. She always said they were just friends. And I wanted to believe her. Obviously, that wasn't the case, since she left town with him."

  His thoughts drifted back to that horrible day. He'd just picked up her corsage for the prom when he'd gotten her text. He could still remember it word for word: I'm sorry. I have to leave the city. Tommy needs me, and I need him. I hope you can forgive me one day. Please don't try to find me. Be happy, Hunter.

  He'd called her back. He'd texted her all night long, but she'd never answered, and by the next morning, her phone was dead. He didn't know if she'd gotten a new one or changed her number; he just knew that she was really gone.

  He barely remembered the rest of that year. The summer had been hard, too. They'd planned to work at a camp in Yosemite together, but he couldn't make himself go on his own. Senior year had gotten a little easier. He'd dated as many girls as he could, trying to put her out of his head. By college, he'd almost forgotten her smile, her laugh, the taste of her kiss.

  But it was coming back now, and he didn't like it. What the hell was wrong with him? It had been fourteen years. He'd had other relationships. Her memory should not be bothering him this much.

  "Did you ever try to find her?" Dylan asked. "Stalk her on social media?"

  "No. Never. She made her choice. I haven't thought about her in years." He'd deliberately put her out of his head for a very long time, although he had had to struggle a few times on his recent road trip, because they'd spoken so often about seeing the world together. "I'll be fine once I know it's not her. Then it will be a tragic story, but it won't be Cassidy's tragic story."

  "True, but I'm not sure you'll be fine. You haven't actually been fine in a while."

  He couldn't argue with that, so he let his brother have the last word, happy that they'd arrived at the police station.

  They gave their names to the clerk behind the counter and were told to wait in the small lobby. While Dylan chec
ked out some wanted posters on a nearby bulletin board, he paced around the room, feeling wired and tense, like he'd had too many cups of coffee, but he'd barely had one.

  When a nearby door opened, and Max Harrison entered the room, he let out a breath of relief. His cousin Emma's husband wore dark jeans and a button-down shirt, a badge on his waistband. His green eyes were more serious than usual as he shook both their hands, then said, "Why don't we talk inside?" He led them down a hallway and into a small conference room. "This is my partner, Detective Vance Randall—Dylan and Hunter Callaway."

  Detective Randall, a fifty-something man with war-weary brown eyes, gave them a nod and motioned them into chairs at the table, an open file in front of him.

  "Have you ID'd the body?" Hunter asked as he took a seat across from the detective.

  "Yes, we have," the detective replied.

  "Well?" he asked impatiently. "Whose bones were in that wall?" His nerves were screaming for the few seconds it took the detective to answer his question.

  "They belong to a young male, probably around the age of sixteen or seventeen," Randall returned.

  The air went out of him like a popped balloon and it took a second for him to get his breath back.

  "I told you it wasn't her," Dylan said, a relieved note in his voice.

  "Her?" Max echoed. "Who are you referring to?"

  "Cassidy Ellison," he replied. "She was a girl I dated in high school. She lived in the house back then. Do you have a name for the victim?"

  The detective glanced at the file in front of him. "Yes. Thomas Mark Lucas."

  "No," he breathed. "Not Tommy. Are you sure?"

  Detective Randall pulled out a photo and put it on the table in front of them. "We are sure. Did you know this boy?"

  He stared at the picture of the rail-thin kid with the dirty-blond hair, and the big, dark, unhappy brown eyes and felt a mix of emotions. He'd hated Tommy for years, because Cassidy had chosen Tommy over him, but seeing his face now reminded him that Tommy had always looked a little broken. It was his vulnerability that had probably made Cassidy want to take care of him, be there for him.

  "Yes. I knew him. He was a foster kid living with the Faulkners for a few weeks before he allegedly ran away with my ex-girlfriend. Do you know how long the body was in the house?"

  "We're still waiting on forensics for more details, but they estimate the time of death to be approximately fourteen to fifteen years ago," Max replied.

  "Which is when I last saw him."

  "You said he ran away with your ex-girlfriend?" Max continued.

  "It was the day of the junior prom. Cassidy and I were supposed to go together. I got a text saying she was leaving town with Tommy, that he needed her, and she needed him. I called her, texted her; she never answered, and I never heard from either of them again."

  "We need to find Cassidy." Max pulled out a pen, grabbing the notepad in front of him. "What can you tell me about her?"

  He suddenly didn't want to answer the question. He could see where all this was going. Tommy was dead. He'd been killed and left in the garage of the house. And Cassidy had disappeared at the very same time. The police might think she was responsible for Tommy's death. Or they might think she had been killed, too.

  His stomach turned over again. Maybe he shouldn't feel relieved just yet. "What do the Faulkners have to say about all this? Do they have an explanation for how a kid in their care was killed and hidden in a wall in their garage?"

  "Donald Faulkner died five months ago," Detective Randall said. "His wife Geralyn was hysterical when she learned of the discovery. She said it wasn't possible, and we had to be wrong. She started screaming and crying and eventually had to be sedated and taken to the hospital."

  "Was she living in the house alone now? Is she still taking in kids?" he asked.

  "That apparently ended several years ago. Geralyn has been completely on her own in the house since her husband died five months ago, although her sister Monica and twin nieces Dee and Halsey occasionally stay there when they're in the city. She also sees her brother-in-law Evan and nephew Colin. We will be interviewing all of them. We're just at the beginning of this investigation."

  "Mrs. Faulkner has to know who did this, or maybe she did it herself. How could a teenage boy have been killed and buried in the walls of the garage without her knowledge?"

  "Exactly what we're going to ask her," Max replied. "We obtained a list of the kids who were living with the Faulkners around the time in question. Want to tell me which of these kids you knew?"

  Max spread a series of photographs in front of him, and his past came alive in an even more painful and terrifying way, because he hadn't actually looked at her image in fourteen years.

  But there she was, with her long, blonde hair, her beautiful features, and her haunted brown eyes. He drew in a heavy, hard breath and then put his finger on her photo. "This is her—Cassidy Ellison."

  "And she allegedly ran away with Tommy Lucas?" Max asked.

  "I thought so."

  "They might have left town together, and Tommy returned at a later date," Dylan interjected.

  "That's possible." He didn't know what to think. "Was the house searched for any other bodies?"

  "It was," Max said, meeting his gaze. "We had a forensic team go through every inch of the place. We're certain there are no other victims."

  "At least, none that were buried there. If the Faulkners were willing to hide a body in their garage all these years, what else were they willing to do?"

  Max tipped his head. "True. Like I said, we're just at the beginning. We'll get all the answers."

  "I hope so."

  "Even if that makes your ex-girlfriend a suspect?" Detective Randall asked. "It sounds like she was the last person to see Tommy. And she disappeared at the same time."

  "She wasn't the last person to see Tommy; that would be the person who killed him, and she did not do that. She was his friend, and she was a sweet, kind-hearted, shy girl. She didn't have any aggression or violence inside of her. And she and Tommy were very close."

  "Do you have any idea where Cassidy is now?" Detective Randall asked.

  "I already said I never heard from her again. And it seems to me that the one you need to talk to is Mrs. Faulkner."

  "We will do that as soon as the doctor allows us to question her," Max said. "But we are also going to try to locate all the individuals who lived at the house during the time period in question. That will include Cassidy."

  "I understand. I can't help you. I don't know where she is, and I didn't know any of the other kids." He pushed back his chair and stood up. "Thanks for the update, Max."

  He didn't really care what the others thought as he left the room and then the station, not stopping until he got to the parking lot. He paced by the Porsche, taking deep breaths that did little to calm his racing pulse.

  It wasn't air he needed; it was answers, and those answers were probably going to have to come from Cassidy…

  But how could he see her again?

  On the other hand, how could he not?

  Three

  Cassidy got up from her desk to close the window as a gust of wind blew the landscape blueprints she'd been reviewing all over the floor. Her office, in the back of the Wild Garden Nursery, overlooked the Pacific Coast Highway and the Pacific Ocean. As she looked through the panes of glass, she could see storm clouds on the horizon, whipping the waves into a turbulent frenzy.

  It was early June—but it didn't feel like it. The weather had dropped ten degrees from the day before and the high today would be barely sixty degrees. She really hoped the rain would be light and quick. She had a lot of planting to do over the weekend at the Holman Estate in San Francisco, the biggest job of her career as a landscape designer, and she was eager to get started.

  Designing and planting gardens had been her dream since she was a little girl, since she'd pulled weeds at her mother's side, and pressed tiny seeds into moist, dark earth and woken
up every morning, impatient to see them sprout. She smiled to herself at the happy memory. She could still see her mom in her head: the big sunhat covering her light-blonde hair and very fair complexion; her laughing brown eyes; her smile that had been as bright as the sun that beat down on them; her voice as soft as the whisper of breeze that lifted her hair off the back of her neck.

  Pressing her fingers against the window, she wished she could hear her mother's voice one more time, that she could tell her all that had happened since her death, that her mom could see how she'd pulled herself out of the darkness and actually built a life that was pretty good now.

  The Wild Garden Nursery had become the place of her rebirth, so to speak, and located on a hill in Half Moon Bay, a coastal town just south of San Francisco, she'd finally found a safe place to call home.

  But it wasn't just home. It was also her place of business, and right now she had work to do.

  Returning to her desk, she picked up the blueprints and spread them out in front of her as her office door opened.

  "There's a storm brewing," George Mitchell said as he ambled into the room with a slight limp in his gait. At sixty-nine years old, George might have lost a bit of mobility, but his wise hazel-colored gaze was as sharp and as penetrating as it had ever been. "My knees have been swollen since I woke up this morning. You know what that means?"

  She bit back a smile, knowing that George wouldn't appreciate her commenting on the fact that he needed to stop spending hours moving plants and planting trees behind the nursery and start delegating his work to the younger employees. "I do know what that means," she said instead. "Rain is coming."

  "It's coming, and not just a drizzle. I can feel it in my bones."

  An odd shiver ran down her spine at his words. She'd actually been feeling a little uneasy, too, and she didn't know why. Because unlike George, she really couldn't predict the rain. In fact, the clouds usually opened up on her when she least expected it.

  "You might want to put off your planting tomorrow at the Holman estate," George added. "I know you're eager to get started, but best not to do that in the rain."