Chapter 7
seven
. . .
REAGAN
I recognized Sheriff Lawless the minute he arrived at the station and led me into that stark, too-bright interview room, but he obviously had no memory of me, and for that I was grateful.
The last thing I needed was reminders of that night, of his brother. Not when my mind and my entire life was already a fucking mess. Not when, once this horrific day was over, I’d have to go home and figure out how to move on with my life without Lainey at my side.
Adding Finn to the mix would only make things more complicated.
Finn Lawless.
I hadn’t known his last name until the moment I laid eyes on the sheriff, and I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if he was around town, if he was still in the service, or if he was off somewhere else with a wife and a few kids by now.
Why did the idea of Finn having a family depress me so much?
“I’m sorry we had to meet like this,” the sheriff said as he took his seat across from me at the interview table.
“Actually, we’ve met before.”
He stilled, eyes slowly coming up to meet mine before darting all over my face, scanning what he could see of my body.
“I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember.”
I gave him a wry smile. “That’s okay,” I assured him. “It’s been a while. I spent most of that night with Finn anyway.”
“Holy fuck,” he cursed as recognition dawned. “You’re that Reagan?”
“Sure am.”
“Small fucking world.”
I choked on a laugh. “Sure is.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, it’s good to see you again. I wish it was under different circumstances.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, throat clogged with emotion. He gave me a few minutes to collect myself before I asked, “What can you tell me about…it?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say her death. The reality hadn’t fully sunk in yet, and some deeply rooted, delusionally optimistic part of me hoped it wasn’t true.
“We found her in a fairly remote part of the ridge west of town. Almost at the Oregon border.”
I blinked in confusion. “Wait…you found her in the woods?”
“Yes. It looked like she had cleared the area herself to set up camp.”
“That’s so…odd.”
“What is?”
“She called me on Sunday, complaining about the cold.” I chuckled at the memory. The same thing had happened seven years ago, where the nights had gotten too frigid to sleep outside, so we’d gotten the motel room for the last two. “So she checked into the motel.”
The sheriff scribbled in his little notebook. “I’ll be in touch with the owner,” he mused, more to himself than to me. Then he looked up. “You reported her missing on Thursday morning, correct?” I nodded. “Have you ever had to report her missing before?” A shake of my head. “Then why this time?”
“I knew something was wrong,” I said quietly. “I had a bad feeling before she even left, and when she sent me this text on Tuesday evening, that nagging in my gut got worse. But I waited, hoping she’d turn up.”
“What text?”
I fished my phone out of my purse and navigated to my messages with Lainey, then passed it over to him.
Lane studied it, then handed it back. “Who is this he she referred to?”
I debated whether or not to tell him about the stalker, given Lainey’s stubborn refusal to involve law enforcement of any kind.
But Lainey was gone now, and if her stalker had something to do with this, the sheriff needed to know.
As best as I could, I boiled down six and a half year’s-worth of creepy texts, calls, emails, and social media DMs into a succinct explanation.
“So you don’t even know this guy’s name,” he mused, leaning back in his chair and crossing thick, tattooed arms over his chest. “Were you and your sister not close?”
“She’s my best friend,” I ground out, growing irritated with his irreverence. “But we both had secrets, and this was hers. Her phone is going to be your best bet to get info on him.”
“Unfortunately, her phone is missing.”
I didn’t have a response for that, and Lane leaned forward again, picking up his pen and plowing ahead.
“Can you tell me why she was in the area? From Tennessee to Dusk Valley is a long way to travel for some hiking.”
“We own a photography business, and we had a client from the area reach out, wanting us to do an engagement shoot.”
More scribbling.
“I’m going to need the name of the client.”
Scrolling through my phone, I found the inquiry email and relayed the information. The scritching of his pen on the paper filled the silence between us.
“If you haven’t been able to locate her phone, how did you find me?” I asked.
“Ran her name through some databases and found you paired as next of kin. Your parents died some time ago, yes? Car accident?”
My eyes slammed shut with the reminder, the horrible images of that night flashing across the backs of my lids.
“Yeah.”
“Shit, sorry,” he said, catching my reaction. “You were with them, right?”
I nodded. “We were on our way to Knoxville. Got caught in a bad thunderstorm. Hydroplaned, went off the road. I survived; they didn’t.”
I spoke the words as flatly as I could, having gotten good over the years at never letting talking about it penetrate too deeply, lest I lose control completely.
Losing our parents had nearly broken both of us, but in the end, it had also brought Lainey and I closer together.
That first trip to Dusk Valley had been our re-entrance into society, the moment we decided to stop letting our grief control us and start living again.
And now, she was gone too.
“Do you have any idea where her phone might be since we didn’t find it on her body?”
“No. She never went anywhere without it.” Then another thought occurred to me. “Did you find her SAT phone?”
“SAT phone?” Lane asked like I was speaking a different language. “Like a satellite phone?”
“Yeah, I bought her one a few years back when it became obvious I couldn’t stop her from going on these little excursions alone.”
Lane hummed thoughtfully. “There was a tent at the scene, but we didn’t find any other personal effects besides what she was wearing. If she’d moved into the motel for the remainder of her trip, that would explain why.”
“Odd that she wouldn’t take the tent, though,” I mused, more to myself than him. “That thing wasn’t cheap.”
The fucking tent doesn’t matter, Reagan. Your sister is gone.
I dropped my head into my hands, and Lane gave me a beat before speaking again.
“I’m sorry,” Lane said, correctly interpreting my distress. “I know this is a lot.”
I looked up at him, and his expression softened at whatever he saw in my gaze. “Where do I go from here?”
Lane winced. “Not to pile on, but…we do still need to get that visual ID.”
“Fuck.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I didn’t want to do it, but there was no getting out of it.
Squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, I rose from my seat.
“Now?” Lane asked, standing up as well.
“Now,” I confirmed.
With a nod, Lane moved to the door and held it open for me.
“We’ll find who did this to her,” he promised me as we walked down the hallway, but my attention wasn’t on him.
Instead, my gaze locked on the group of men gathered at the edge of the bullpen.
I recognized three of them.
Crew, the youngest Lawless brother and a firefighter, if I remembered correctly.
West, everything about his physical appearance except his longer, shaggier hair an exact match to the man between them.
When Finn’s eyes caught mine, the entire world seemed to stop spinning. Everything narrowed to that moment, that reconnection.
Memories flashed quickly through my mind.
Skin.
Tattooed hands.
Sighs of pleasure and screams of his name.
A deluge of sensation, and I almost let it drag me under.
This man had haunted me. Had me questioning over the years if I’d ever find a connection with anyone like what we’d found together on that single night.
A one-night stand wasn’t exactly grounds for a solid relationship, but there’d been something in the air that night. A force greater than us drawing us together—the same force that had likely never let me forget him since.
Did he feel the same?
He looked at me as though he’d seen a ghost, like he’d been as haunted all these years as I had been.
Lane spoke, though his words seemed to come from miles away, snapping the world back into focus.
“Hey guys,” the sheriff said to his brothers. “This is—”
Finn cut him off.
“Reagan?” he asked hoarsely.
“Hey, Finn,” I said, not recognizing the breathy tenor of my own voice. “I wondered if I’d see you.”
“Holy shit, it is you.”
“Wait…Reagan?” West asked at full volume, reminding me we weren’t standing here alone. That our reunion had an audience. “Like one-night-stand, spun-you-out-for-a-minute Reagan?”
I blinked in surprise.
Spun him out?
Maybe I hadn’t been the only one plagued by memories of that night, cursed to remember.
“Yes, cocksucker,” he gritted out to his twin, going so far as to sock West on the arm. “That Reagan.”
“What’re you—” Crew started to ask but quickly stopped himself. His eyes went almost comically wide as realization dawned, darting between me and Finn.
I wanted to hide, to do whatever I could to avoid the expression of pity that passed over Finn’s face when he came to the same conclusion as Crew—the reason for why I was back in Dusk Valley.
“Fuck, Reagan,” Finn said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
I could only nod and look away, rolling my lips between my teeth and blinking furiously, trying to fight off the tears that threatened.
I knew I couldn’t hold them at bay forever. The dam would break today, likely the moment I set my sights on my sister’s lifeless body.
But I wasn’t going to break here. Not in the middle of the fucking sheriff’s department bullpen with too many eyes on me.
“Thank you,” I managed to croak out. “You guys were at the scene?”
“Yeah, we—”
“We can do this later,” Lane said. “Right now, Miss Lindsey needs to identify her sister.”
“Shit,” West hissed.
I swore I could feel the blood drain from my face and my hands, my fingertips going cold and shaky.
I didn’t want to do this.
“Okay, right,” Finn said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably and looking away from me. These were not ideal circumstances for a reunion, and I hated more than anything that it had to be like this. “We can catch up later then?” he asked hopefully. “If you want to, of course.”
I didn’t answer right away—truthfully wasn’t sure how to answer.
This was simply another thing added to my plate, pulling me in another direction.
Find who killed my sister.
Somehow keep my and Lainey’s business afloat in the face of all this uncertainty.
…Rekindle things with Finn?
His reappearance in my life seemed too good to be true, a bright spot in an otherwise black hellscape of loss.
I wasn’t sure I deserved it, and I’d learned the hard way once before that jumping into a relationship when grieving was a recipe for disaster.
Still, when he finally looked at me again, I couldn’t deny that the same current, the same magnetism that had drawn me to him before, was still there. I hadn’t misremembered the way my body awoke in his presence, like an instrument only he knew how to play.
“I…” I started. “I don’t know how long I’ll be around.”
“Sure, of course.”
Disappointment flashed across his eyes before he averted them, and I hated that I’d been the one to put it there.
“Johns?” Lane called, breaking the moment. A beat later, a deputy appeared at his side.
“Yeah, boss?”
I tuned them out as they discussed taking statements from the unfamiliar men, my attention focused wholly on Finn. Wanting to do something—anything—to erase the hurt I’d caused. Compelled to draw him back in when he was about to turn his back on me to follow his brothers.
Which was insane.
After all, was I not hurting? And over something far bigger than being unable to catch up with a one-night stand?
Ignoring all of that, I did something crazy, something that was maybe a little too reckless given my fragile emotional state.
“Finn?” I called.
“Yeah?”
“Will you come with me?”
“Anywhere,” he answered quickly.
I waited for him to change his mind, to realize exactly where I was asking him to come and back out.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he surprised me by extending his arm, reaching for me.
I didn’t pause to think about it before accepting his hand and lacing our fingers together, leading him to my doom.