Well Water wasn’t a spacious place by any means. The layout was simple. The front door opened into a narrow hallway that went back to the kitchen but opened up to the living space on the right and two small bedrooms and one bathroom on the left. The stairs to the basement were pushed against the only stretch of wall between the living room and the doorway to the kitchen. Down there, however, things took a turn for the creepy. That was where the Nash triplets had been locked up. A basement apartment was how it had been described in the news. A bedroom, kitchenette and bathroom.
A door that had once had four sets of locks on the outside.
Remi didn’t want to go down there yet. Instead, she walked through every room upstairs with fresh attention.
First of all, she was surprised that the cabin was fully furnished. She’d expected to walk into an empty, stale space. Instead, it looked very much like a vacation home, albeit from the eighties. Some furniture was covered with drop cloths, other pieces had a thin layer of dust. Again, she never would have picked this place to be the site of a town-wide legend whose story continued to terrorize.
Remi was careful as she picked her way through each room until eventually she made it back to the hallway.
Declan looked like a statue leaning against the wall opposite the bedroom and bathroom doors. Cast in stone, the man was rigid. Jaw set sharp and intimidating, shoulders broad and unrivaled, muscles a testament to his discipline and focus, and bright green eyes narrowed and seeing only the past. Remi felt a tug at her heartstrings for him. The greatest upset in her family life throughout her existence was her parents’ divorce and, honestly, it had been a blessing for everyone. She hadn’t had to deal with fear and then death like he had.
And she certainly hadn’t taken those experiences and been elected into a job that dealt in both on more than one occasion.
“If there’s something here, I’m not seeing it,” she said with sympathy. He nodded and tried to smile. It fell short, but Remi wasn’t going to fault him for it.
“It’s okay. I guess I didn’t expect there to be something.”
Remi glanced at the stairs across from him.
“So do we go down there next?”
Declan sighed. He took off his Stetson and thumped it against his thigh.
“This place has gotten a lot of attention but downstairs is another story altogether. I’m confident that not even a speck of dirt has gone undocumented from that apartment.” His attempt at a smile dissolved completely. It looked so odd in comparison to the faded but still bright blue paint that covered the hallway’s walls. The rest of the rooms were painted in similar, bright shades. Remi had somewhat expected wallpaper given the date of the cabin, but all the other rooms had a texture to them like they’d been sponged instead.
She guessed the Fairhopes hadn’t liked the effort since the hall didn’t have the same effect. It looked like they’d simply painted over wallpaper. Remi could see the seam right above the wooden chair rail that ran around the hall.
“We can go,” Declan continued. “You’ve already done enough by just coming out here.”
He pushed away from the wall, but Remi didn’t move. She felt her eyebrows furrow in together as she continued to stare at the wall.
“What is it?” Declan asked. He turned around after Remi pointed.
“That seam that’s been painted over.”
“You mean the wallpaper? Yeah, they painted over it.”
Remi shook her head, finger still poised in midair, and looked around the small hallway.
“Where are the other seams?” she asked. “If you paint over wallpaper you’re going to see more than one, or bubbles from the paint over the paper. Something over the chair rail or at the corners. Not just one seam. No one is that good at painting over wallpaper, especially not in the eighties or nineties.”
Declan touched the seam beneath the paint.
“Unless it’s not a seam from wallpaper.”
Green eyes met hers. Remi saw the excitement. The potential. The possibility that they were close to something new. She felt it, too.
What she didn’t expect was what happened next.
Declan touched the wall next to the seam and then reared his arm back and punched that same spot. Remi gasped as his fist went right through the drywall.
“Declan!”
“I’m okay,” he said. Then he did it again, beneath the hole he’d just made. It expanded the open space. Remi was prepared to grab his arm to keep him from doing it again when he slowly put his hand into the hole and pulled more of the drywall out. It came off with ease. He tossed the blue-painted chunks to the left of her. There was no trace of wallpaper on any of the pieces.
Then he kicked the wall, opening a new hole.
Remi took a step back.
It was oddly intriguing to watch the man pull, punch and kick away an entire panel of drywall with such ease. And in a blazer and slacks, no less.
Soon there was a Declan-sized hole in the wall. Remi moved closer again as the sheriff stepped just enough inside of the hole to peer straight at the spot where the seam was. Without looking anywhere else, he pulled two things from two separate pockets of his blazer.
One was a pair of plastic gloves, which he put on with lightning speed and precision. The other was a pocketknife.
He opened it, wordlessly.
Then he slid the blade beneath the seam like an expert surgeon.
Remi held her breath.
The chill from outside had found its way into the cabin. Goose bumps moved across her skin.
A long, agonizing minute crept by.
When it was over Declan had cut out what had made the seam.
“My God,” he breathed out after holding it up. He met Remi’s gaze with a look of total bewilderment. “Huds, it’s a piece of paper.”
* * *
THE PAPER WAS small but thick. One side was covered in paint, but the blue hadn’t bled all the way through. The ink that was scrawled across the other side, the one that had been against the original cream-colored wall, was still legible.
In fact, it was nearly pristine.
“What does it say?”
Remi followed him into the kitchen, careful to keep her distance as he gently laid the paper down on one of the counters. The power was off, but the natural light kept the first floor bright. Still, Declan set the paper beneath the window that ran across the kitchen wall, not wanting to miss a thing.
“It’s a name.” The handwriting was tight, neat. Declan didn’t recognize it, though he did the name. “Justin Redman.”
“Who? Is that all it says?” Remi went from a careful distance to right up against his side. She smelled like the beach. Sunscreen and sunshine. It might have knocked him off his game had they been in a different setting.
But not now.
Not here with the note from the wall.
“That’s all it says,” he confirmed, tilting the paper up so she could see it better. “Justin Redman.”
“Does that name mean something to you?”
Declan nodded.
“He was a part of one of the cases my dad was working when the triplets were taken. Aggravated assault. Redman was attacked outside of the old gas station at the turnoff to County Road 11. The one that shut down when we were around fifteen, sixteen. He couldn’t give a good description and there were no witnesses. Then Redman died in a car accident. The department never found out who attacked him but suspected it was drug related.” Declan pulled out his phone to take pictures. “I don’t know why his name would be here. Or, for the matter, why it was painted against the wall.”
“Or how that man in the bar knew about it,” Remi added.
A shot of adrenaline went through Declan.
“Or how he knew about it,” he repeated, chewing the words over.
Remi shifted and walked away. Declan took several pictures before laying the paper gently back down on the cabinet.
“What are you doing?” he called.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m looking at the walls again! Check for any seams or bubbles or discoloration. If there’s one hidden piece of paper, who knows how many more there might be!”
Declan followed his rising excitement and Remi’s instructions. Together they inspected the first-floor walls in silence. Sometimes Remi would be the one running her hands over different spots, other times Declan would rub certain stretches of faded paint.
When they ended their search at the top of the stairs again, Declan took pictures of the wall he’d partially demolished.
It had been easy to punch through the drywall but had left his hand stinging. A glance down showed blood. He tried to keep that hand out of Remi’s view.
“What now? Do we go downstairs and look?” Declan was surprised at how eager Remi was to help. Surprised and pleased. It helped remind him how easy it had been to hang out with her as kids and teens. Being in her company was nice now, even if they were looking for hidden clues in walls.
It also reminded him how bizarre their current situation was compared to them hanging out in the loft space of his family’s barn or out behind the high school complaining about Mrs. Darlene’s too-hard geometry homework and Coach Kelly’s ridiculous rules about dressing for PE.
Declan was surprised at himself for what he said next.
“We got way more than I bargained for already. I need to take that paper back to the department and do some digging. I can come back out here later and look downstairs, though I stand by there being not a speck of dirt or dust down there that hasn’t been cataloged already.” He motioned to the walls around him. “This, though... This was a surprise.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep looking? I don’t mind.”
Declan shook his head.
“You’ve done more than enough already, Huds. Thank you, I mean it.”
Remi’s cheeks darkened slightly. From rosy to rosier. She was blushing. It was an endearing sight.
“It was no problem.”
Declan went out to his truck, grabbed one of the plastic sandwich bags he always carried in the cab, and bagged the note. Remi waited outside, leaning against the truck and looking off into the woods. It was a nice sight when he came back out, ready to leave.
It wasn’t until they were both back in the cab of the truck that Declan realized the weight of what they’d just done.
What they’d found.
A new clue to the abduction case.
The case that had torn his family apart.
The case that changed all of their lives.
Justin Redman. Declan had already reviewed the cases his father had worked on through his career. Michael Nash had been a great detective. Which had been the leading point of fact that had contributed to his obsession with the case and then led to his downfall. He was the great detective who couldn’t for the life of him solve an inch of what had happened to his own family, in his own hometown.
It wore him down until there was nothing left.
And now Declan had a piece of something his father had never seen.
Could this be the missing part of the puzzle that finally led to some answers?
Could he finally help his family find the peace they’d been searching for?
A hand touched his arm. Declan was startled by it. Remi’s eyebrow was arched, her expression soft.
“Did you say something?”
She smiled. It was soft, too.
“I asked if you were okay.”
Declan took off his hat and set it down on the center console. A restlessness was starting to settle on him. An itch he needed to scratch. But that was how it had started with his dad—focusing to the point of isolating himself.
Declan didn’t want to do that.
Not to the woman who had seen what he couldn’t.
“Sorry,” he said, starting the truck. “I get caught in my own head sometimes. Yeah, I’m good.”
“And that blood on your hands?”
Declan smirked.
“Hazard of the job.”
That earned a snort from Remi, and soon they were back on the dirt road.
The farther away they got away from Well Water, the more he tried to relax and be in the moment.
It wasn’t until they were on the main road pointed back to Winding Road that Declan realized how much of a grade A jackass he’d still managed to be.
“What are you doing?” Remi asked the moment he slowed and started to pull onto the grassy shoulder.
Declan switched on his flashers, put the truck in Park, and turned in his seat to face her.
“You called me because you said you wanted to talk, and I pulled you out to a crime scene without even asking what it was that you wanted to talk about. I swear my mama taught me manners. Now what’s on your mind?”
A peculiar look changed Remi’s expression from confusion to somewhere between amusement and hesitation. He thought she might not tell him for a moment, but then she angled in her seat to face him better and began.
“Well, you know how stressed I was trying to decide if I should take the job in Colorado and you said you thought I should?”
He nodded.
“Yeah! You said it would be a huge step in your career, right?”
It was Remi’s turn to nod.
“It would be and, the Monday after I left here last, I accepted the position.”
Declan smiled.
“That’s great, Huds! You busted your tail to get it!”
Remi’s cheeks tinted a darker shade of rosy again.
“It is great. I’ve actually already started packing up the house. What’s not great is how slow that’s been going since the morning sickness kicked in last week.”
For a second, Declan thought he heard her wrong. Then Remi raised her eyebrows as if to say, Yeah, you heard me right, big man. When she didn’t speak for another moment, Declan realized he must have heard her right.
Then he finally added up some things he should have probably already been questioning.
Declan might not have been as good a detective as his father or his brother but, by God, he’d be a damn near a fool to not understand the real reason Remi Hudson had come back to town again.