Then Declan heard an inner voice warning of doing just that.
It wasn’t his conscience; it was a collective featuring Madi, Caleb and Desmond. They’d all made it clear that they were concerned Declan was blurring the line between dedication and obsession. That finding justice, finding the truth, wasn’t worth the toll of the quality of his life.
Not after the same obsession had taken their father’s life.
Since Declan was their big brother, a part of him prickled at being directed at what to do or, more aptly, what not to do. Just as quickly, though, as his gruffness reared its head, he’d remind himself that in the small town of Overlook, they weren’t just bystanders.
Madi, Caleb and Desmond had told him that from experience they knew what it was like to be slowly consumed by a mystery. He had to learn to let go and live a little.
Considering the case was about their abduction, Declan figured they might have a point.
Now, though, with his truck broken down and the rain trapping him inside a diner that had only two other patrons, Declan couldn’t help deciding his vacation hadn’t really started yet. This was more of a pit stop. Which meant if he looked at the files now, it didn’t count against him.
Agnes returned with a few hand towels, cutting off the physical action of taking the folder out. He ordered a coffee and some bacon and eggs and returned the towels. Then he retrieved the folder and put it down on the tabletop with minimal guilt and maximum focus.
He hadn’t been there at the park that day.
He hadn’t been attacked and taken and held in a basement.
He hadn’t had to trick a man and fight to get out as the three scared and hurt eight-year-olds had done.
He hadn’t had to make the terrifying trek through the woods to find help.
No, Declan hadn’t been there at all.
He’d been too consumed with his own little world to notice the triplets had disappeared until an hour after the fact.
And then he’d had to wait with the rest of Overlook for three days, hoping and praying they would find nothing but good news.
Declan could still feel the helplessness that had nearly crushed him during the wait.
And now?
Now Declan was older, smarter.
Now Declan had focus and patience and a lot more experience.
Now Declan was the sheriff.
He couldn’t save the triplets from what had happened, but he could damn sure finally give them the peace they deserved.
The rain continued to fall. Music from the kitchen floated to the front. Declan didn’t wrestle with his choice anymore. The diner would actually be the perfect place to look over the newer evidence. No one from his family at his shoulder. No one from the sheriff’s department by his side.
He opened the folder.
No one was going to distract him here.
The time for questions was over. Now it was time for answers.
REMI WAS, AS her cousin Claudette said, a “Hot Mess Susan.”
Not the worst thing she’d been called in her thirty-three years of life but definitely not the most flattering, either.
What was worse than being called a Hot Mess Susan?
When the nickname actually applied to her.
And now, pulling into the diner off Exit 41B, it definitely applied.
Remi cut the engine in a parking spot and let out a sigh that had apparently been trapped in her chest for the last hundred miles. It dragged down her shoulders, slouched her back and put pressure on the stress headache that had been brewing all morning.
“‘Go see your father,’” she muttered to no one, adopting her mother’s pushy voice. “‘It’ll be fun. Stop stalling, Remi. It’ll be fine.’”
Her mother wasn’t right about much...and she was wrong about that, too. It hadn’t been fine. In fact, it had been awful and exactly what she had expected.
Josh and Jonah had met her with hugs and sibling love, and then all of that mush had soured when their father had sat them down at the dinner table. The questions had started and they’d all daggered her. Remi had felt like she was interviewing for her job at Towne & Associates all over again. However, instead of sitting across from a group of public accountants she was looking at three cowboys who didn’t understand a lick of why she’d left the ranch all those years ago in the first place.
Which was why she hadn’t told them of her current problem. One that she’d been wrestling with before she ever decided to heed her mother’s advice and go see the Hudson men in Overlook.
How she ever thought they’d take a second to think outside of the ranch and help her, she didn’t know.
But now with the rain hitting the roof of her car, reminding her that she didn’t have a rain jacket or an umbrella, Remi felt her troubles being pulled back to her. That, and the weather, had been one of the reasons she’d taken the exit and parked herself outside of a diner. It’s neon open sign was a distraction she was ready to fully embrace.
She grabbed her purse, tucked her phone in the waist of her exercise leggings and tried to think about how see-through her shirt was going to become just from her short jaunt between the car and the front doors.
Then she ran.
And immediately became drenched.
A chime sounded over the door as Remi danced inside. She was met with cool air that made her now-wet clothes cold. A song was playing somewhere in the small space, and through the cook’s window behind the counter a man gave her a look. An older woman in uniform also looked through the window and called out.
“Be with you in a sec, hon!”
Remi gave a polite smile and decided not to check her shirt to see if her bra was showing through the beige. Instead, she ran a hand through her dirty-blond hair that was probably dark now and took a quick look at the few
