Don't Close Your Eyes

by Christie Craig

  Connor left. Juan went to lunch. Mark made the call.

  “So how’s my big-city friend doing? Giving you any shit?” Sheriff Adam Harper’s voice boomed out of the phone.

  Mark leaned back in his chair. Funny how small-town accents seemed to carry more of a Southern drawl. According to Brown—and Mark’s quick Internet search—Pearlsville was about as small as they came.

  “Just normal crap.” Mark moved the conversation to Lakes. He kept it vague, saying she remembered something bad happening to her cousin and thought the girl had gone missing.

  “She thinks the name is Jenny Reed. She was part of the Reed family.” Mark’s gaze caught on the manila envelope and reminded him he should be out trying to get another kid justice, but he couldn’t forget the desperation in Annie’s eyes.

  Couldn’t forget that it felt too damn close to the look that stared back at him when he shaved every morning. He even skipped shaving some days so he didn’t have to see it.

  “Reed? Jennifer Reed?” Harper said.

  The way Harper said it caught Mark’s attention. “Yeah?”

  “And this girl…how old would she be now?”

  Mark leaned his elbows on his desk. “It happened twenty-four years ago. She was young—”

  “So late twenties, right?” Harper asked.

  Mark picked up a pen and started clicking the top. “Yeah.”

  Harper’s laugh caught him off guard. “Well, you can put Ms. Lakes’s fears to rest. Jennifer Reed’s fine. In fact, if I lean my head to the left, I can guarantee you she’s fine.” He chuckled harder. “She’s my desk clerk. I’d say she’s twenty-eight. Pretty thing—blond, blue eyes. And she’s got the kind of curves that make a man dizzy.

  “Hold on a second,” the sheriff said. “Jennifer,” he called out. “Come here?” Pause. “Did you, or do you have a family member around your age who’s also named Jenny?”

  Mark pressed the phone closer.

  “No, why?” The woman’s weak reply reached Mark’s ear.

  “Did you go to school with any other Jenny Reed?”

  “No,” she answered.

  Mark clenched his jaw. What was the chance of there being two Jenny Reeds in a town of three hundred? But…? “What about neighboring towns?” He wanted to believe Annie.

  “Well, I’m over Jordan County. I can ask around, but the other counties around here didn’t even have their own schools until about ten years ago, so I’d think Jenny would have known her.”

  Mark stopped trying to believe. “Thanks.”

  When he hung up, he pulled out the paper with Annie’s number. “Fuck.” The lady was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Why were the good-looking ones always crazy?

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, as Mark was still trying to forget Annie, Brown stormed in.

  Mark stiffened. When his boss barged in, it was either bad news or an ass chewing. Or both. Mark tossed out words hoping to divert the shit storm. “Just hung up with Harper. He said hello.”

  Brown nodded. And when he didn’t start ranting, Mark hoped…

  “I went through my personal files on the Talbot case. I found the name of the shelter where Johnny Cash was staying.”

  Mark stood up. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

  Brown handed him a piece of paper. “Go find Brittany Talbot’s killer.”

  * * *

  It was almost eight that night when the jingle of her phone interrupted Annie’s shower. She jumped out, grabbed her robe, and dashed into the living room. By the time her wet feet slid across the tile dining room floor to a quick stop, the phone quit ringing.

  She checked missed calls.

  She had two.

  After her depressing and disastrous meeting with Detective Sutton, she’d forced herself to drive to Anniston State Park. She’d sat in her car. Breathing in. Breathing out. Feeling like a scared little girl.

  She couldn’t leave the car.

  Feeling like a failure, she’d gone to Isabella and poured her heart out. Afterward, Annie did what she usually did. She’d reached down and snatched up her big-girl panties. Pulled them up so tight, she got mental camel toes.

  Just because Detective Sutton didn’t believe her, didn’t mean she couldn’t do it herself. She’d already started. She’d called Fran’s ex-husband to ask where her cousin was. He wasn’t home.

  It had taken some verbal dancing to get Fran’s mother to give Annie his number. But the conversation with her aunt hadn’t been nearly as uncomfortable as the one she’d soon have with her mom.

  You’re scared of your mom, too, aren’t you? Detective Sutton’s words played in her head. He was right. But not in the way he thought.

  All her life, her father had shielded her mom because she was emotionally fragile. Annie spent her life doing the same thing.

  Now the thought of talking to her mom about all of this gave Annie stomach cramps. The thought of telling her her suspicions about Jenny Reed gave Annie’s heart a workout.

  But first, she needed some proof.

  Staring at her phone, she hit the missed calls button. Her breath caught.

  Mark Sutton’s name flashed on the screen. She really hadn’t expected to hear from him. She nipped at her lip. Just when she was about to listen to the message, a knock sounded at her door.

  She jumped. Could it be him? She hadn’t told him her address, but a cop could get it.

  The knock sounded again. Her pulse knocked with it.

  Pulling her nubby robe closer, her stomach plagued her with I’m-practically-naked-and-it-could-be-a-good-looking-man-at-the-door kind of flutters. Moving in, teetering on her tiptoes, she pressed her eye to the peephole.

  Her breath released. From disappointment or relief, she wasn’t sure.

  She unlocked the door.

  “Brought you a gift.” Isabella raised the vase of flowers as she walked in.

  Annie caught a whiff of the sweet floral scent as her friend rushed to the kitchen and set the flowers on the bar.

  She met Isabella’s faux smile. “You bought me red roses?”

  Her friend studied her and bypassed her question. “What happened? Did Fran’s ex call?”

  “Not yet.” Annie studied the flowers. “Explain?”

  Isabella rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’m regifting them.” Isabella’s still-puffy eyes explained the rest.

  “You should keep them,” Annie said.

  “Not happening. Take them, or the dumpster rats will enjoy them.” Isabella’s brown eyes picked up a new gleam. “Why the fuck is he doing this? It’s over?”

  Annie couldn’t answer that. She’d come into Isabella’s life post divorce, and her friend hadn’t shared a lot of details. Annie still gave it a shot. “He obviously still loves you.”

  “Well, that’s just pretty damn inconvenient.” Isabella put up a front. One Annie saw right through. “So nothing from Fran’s ex?” Isabella’s conversational U-turn might as well have been a NO TRESPASS sign.

  Annie’s phone beeped again with the detective’s message. “You want some wine?”

  “Yeah.” Isabella started to the kitchen then stopped. “I’m sorry. You’ve had a rotten day, and I’m tossing my problems at your feet.”

  “Are you kidding? You once listened to me whine for an hour.” In fact, Annie had dumped all her life history on Isabella—too much wine one night—but Isabella hadn’t opened up.

  Her friend darted into the kitchen.

  “Are you really over your ex?” All Annie knew was that the breakup had come right after Isabella’s third miscarriage. Annie understood how that could’ve broken Isabella’s heart, but should it have broken the marriage?

  “Puh-lease, he’s history.” Her friend’s tone said the conversation was over.

  Annie didn’t feel she had a right to push. “Give me a second. I just missed a call from the detective.” She hit the receive message button, her chest tightening.

  “What? Mr. Hot in Dark Shades c
alled?” The wicked smile appearing on Isabella’s lips had Annie regretting her honesty about the good-looking cop.

  “I’m sure it’s about the case.” She placed the phone to her ear, unable to deny the anticipation fluttering in her stomach.

  The recorded message came on. “Hi. This is Detective Sutton.”

  His husky, warm-chocolate voice brought on a visual of him sitting across from her at the coffee shop—wide shoulders and enough confidence to fill his brawny frame. Instantly, she became aware of her lack of clothes, of how the cotton robe rested against her nipples. Just the man’s voice turned her on.

  The message started, “Uh, Ann…Ms. Lakes. I made a call.”

  She stopped breathing. Pirate slinked over and rubbed his scarred face against her leg. She ignored the feline. Ignored everything. Even the warm flush in her body. Did Detective Sutton have answers? Was it going to be this easy?

  “I found out that Jenny Reed did exist.”

  Her breath caught. Her heart raced. She’d been right. Validated. She wasn’t…crazy.

  “Actually,” he continued, “she does exist. She works for the sheriff’s department in Pearlsville. I guess your dreams are…just dreams. Maybe you should go see someone about them. Get some professional help.”

  Annie closed her eyes. Why were the good-looking ones always jerks?

  Chapter Six

  At eight the next morning, after a blessed two hours of sleep, Mark drove out to see Janet Rigley, who lived twenty miles outside Anniston. His visit yesterday to the St. Peter’s Shelter had gotten him nothing…except Janet’s name, address, and telephone number. Apparently she used to run the shelter where Johnny Cash had stayed four years back.

  Janet Rigley might be their last hope of finding Cash.

  But first he had to find her. After driving down three uneven dirt roads, coating his Mustang with dust—not to mention having his teeth knocked loose by his car’s violent bouncing—he spotted a mailbox with the right address on it.

  He turned into the drive, and an old farmhouse with a wraparound porch appeared before him. Someone had put some TLC into it.

  When he pulled to a stop, something moved on the front porch. A rocking chair. A woman sitting in it was staring at him.

  As he reached for the door handle, his phone rang. Pulling his cell from his pocket, he eyed the number. The precinct.

  He waved at the woman as he answered, hoping it wasn’t an emergency.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Mildred said over the line. “Sergeant Brown asked me to give you a jingle. Pearlsville’s sheriff is trying to reach you. Something about a favor you asked of him for a friend.”

  A friend? Mark doubted Annie Lakes considered them friends. For the umpteenth time, he wished he’d been more diplomatic in the message he’d left. But he’d warned her that he wasn’t good at sugarcoating things. He still felt bad. So bad that this morning he’d driven a mile to go to a different coffee shop.

  The coffee wasn’t worth a shit, either. “Did Brown say what the sheriff wanted?”

  “Nope. Just that you should call him.”

  Curiosity bit. What did Adam Harper have? “You got the sheriff’s number?”

  “Have you ever known me to not be prepared?” Her tone brought on an honest chuckle. He’d never quite understood their uncommon bond. She looked after him. And since her husband died a year ago, he’d changed her oil and mowed her lawn when her son couldn’t do it—and they traded off watching each other’s dogs.

  “Do I tell you enough how good you are?”

  “Not enough,” she responded.

  He chuckled.“Well, you’re great. Can you text the number?”

  “Will do.”

  When he looked up to the porch, the woman now stood beside the rocker. She looked about sixty, wore jeans and a red T-shirt. A long gray ponytail rested on her shoulder. He got out and moved toward the porch.

  “You lost?” the woman asked. Right then a man walked out onto the porch.

  “Not if you’re Janet Rigley.”

  A big dog stood up beside the man.

  “Then I guess you aren’t lost. What brings a good-looking guy like you out to see me?”

  “Mama,” the man scolded then turned to Mark. “She’d flirt with the devil.”

  “Only if he was good-looking,” she said with humor.

  Mark grinned and moved up the steps. The dog ambled over. Mark held out his hand for the canine to sniff, but it bypassed Mark’s offering and jammed its nose deep into Mark’s crotch. He flinched. The animal didn’t have a soft nose.

  “Pixie,” Ms. Rigley scolded, then grinned. “She likes the good-looking ones, too.”

  “It’s okay.” Mark gave the dog a pat and a nudge away from his boys. Bacon, his own dog, had a crotch fixation.

  Looking at the woman’s son, Mark offered him his hand. “Detective Sutton with the Anniston Police Department.”

  Ms. Rigley spoke up, “You probably hear this all the time, but I swear I didn’t do it.”

  Her jovial tone brought on his mandated smile. “I heard it once or twice, but I believe you. I’m looking for a homeless man who stayed in the shelter when you ran it. He called himself Johnny Cash. He was a witness to something several years back, and we can’t locate him now.”

  Mark’s phone dinged with a text, no doubt from Mildred. He pushed back his curiosity to deal with the problem at hand. Or two of them. Finding Johnny Cash and removing Pixie’s nose from his crotch again.

  Ms. Rigley set her rocker to creaking. “I remember Johnny. That wasn’t his real name.”

  “I figured that. What can you tell me about him? You wouldn’t know where he is, would you?”

  “What I know is what he told me, and that’s probably more of a pipe dream than reality. When you’re down on your luck, you sometimes create a better past. But if there’s one guy who could’ve climbed out of the gutter, it’d be him. He could play a guitar and sing like nobody’s business.”

  “Anything you can tell me would be appreciated.”

  “Then pull up a rocker. We’ll pick each other’s brain and see if I can’t help.”

  Since her dog had already checked out his privates, he supposed his brain was up next.

  * * *

  Mark left with a hell of a lot more information than he came with as well as a pair of slightly bruised balls. Pixie had gotten him four times. At least his dog was a gentle sniffer.

  But it was worth it. He had the names of Cash’s homeless friends, and a church and bar where the man sometimes played. Finding Cash no longer felt impossible.

  As soon as he got away from the house, he pulled over, found the text with Adam Harper’s number, and called him. While it rang, Mark rolled down his windows to get a breeze. It was only April, but the Texas temperature had run off spring.

  A second later, a dainty Southern voice answered the sheriff’s phone. Jenny?

  “Sheriff Harper, please.”

  “One minute.” There was a pause and then, “Can I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Detective Sutton.” Sweating, Mark ran a hand through his hair.

  “From Anniston?” Her tone came out overly inquisitive.

  Yup, this was Jenny Reed. And from her inquiring tone, it appeared the sheriff had explained the reason for Mark’s inquiry. That annoyed him. One, because he came off like the village idiot, and two, if she told anyone in the family that a cop from Anniston was looking into the case, they’d suspect it came from Annie.

  “Is he in?”

  “One second.”

  Mark remembered Annie Lakes’s voice carrying similar soft notes.

  “Hey.” Harper’s voice came out boisterous after the lyrical voice.

  Mark settled back in his seat. “You called.”

  “Yep. I went for a couple of beers last night with TJ Gunter and Tom Patrick down to the Cowpoke Bar & Grill. Best little bar in a hundred miles.”

  Mark didn’t know these men or why the sheriff felt the n
eed to tell him about his night out, but he figured sooner or later the man would get to the point.

  If the sheriff had one.

  “Yeah?” Mark said.

  “I was telling them about your call. Laughed our asses off.”

  Yup, the village idiot.

  “Then, TJ, he’s retired from the department. He gets confused sometimes, but he said something interesting. Something about a Reed girl gone missing years ago. That was before I got here.”

  Mark clenched the phone. So, he was no longer the village idiot. And Annie Lakes was no longer crazy. “Was there an investigation?”

  “I’m assuming. But according to TJ, they were assisting you guys.”

  “What?” Mark asked.

  “He said you guys asked us to look into the family.”

  “I’m lost,” Mark said.

  “It’s hearsay,” Harper continued. “To be honest, TJ’s dealing with the beginning stages of can’t-remember-shit disease, but he said the Reed girl went missing in Anniston.”

  “Here?” Mark sat up.

  “That’s what he remembers. He says it was suspected she drowned in the lake at Anniston State Park. But without a body they were suspicious, and they asked the sheriff to check it out. He doesn’t remember what you guys ruled it, though.”

  He recalled Annie saying they were on a camping trip. Could her cousin have drowned, and she’d gotten it wrong? He didn’t buy that. Did he? “Was her name Jenny Reed?” Regret for his call to Annie burned in the pit of his stomach.

  “TJ’s not good with names,” the sheriff answered. “He just remembers she was from the Reed bunch. And like I said, his memory isn’t what it used to be. I’ve got Rusty, my deputy, looking through the old files at the courthouse. But the courthouse flooded several years back and most of the old files were ruined. You might want to look into your own files.”

  “I will,” Mark said.

  “Oh,” the sheriff added, “when I explained things to Jennifer, I found out she’s only twenty-two. Her mom is on a cruise and won’t be back until tomorrow. Her dad passed about ten years ago, so they can’t tell us anything. So I made some phone calls to one of the Reed boys. George, I think. He hasn’t returned the call yet. But I heard his brother passed last week.”