Page 10 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)
Eight
Josie woke in the afternoon, eyes gritty, lower back aching.
She stretched, her feet flexing. She expected to feel Trout’s warm, soft body against her toes but there was only empty space.
Sitting up, she blinked until the room came into focus.
There were no sounds coming from downstairs.
Wren was still out with Erica and would be for another two hours.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Josie stood and walked out into the hall.
From the top of the steps, she saw Trout lying in the foyer, head pointed toward the front door.
Ever since Noah’s abduction, he often lay there when Noah wasn’t home, quietly awaiting his return.
Josie knew trying to distract him would be futile, so she went back to their bedroom.
After brushing her teeth in the en suite bathroom, she returned to the bed and checked her phone.
There was a new text message from the boutique where she’d purchased the dress for their vow renewal ceremony reminding her that if she wanted it to fit properly for said ceremony, she needed to come in for a fitting, stat.
Ignoring it, she scrolled through the rest of her messages, checking for any updates on the Tobias Lachlan/Cora Stevens case.
There were none. Not surprising since it had only been a few hours since she left the riverbank.
For all she knew, her colleagues could still be out there, sifting through what remained of the rapidly hardening mud inside the sedan.
Gretchen had put in a call to the Brighton Springs Police Department.
No response yet. Josie wondered if they would have difficulty getting the case file from them.
She hoped the widespread corruption didn’t extend to the Lachlan/Stevens case.
With a sigh, she pulled up her internet browser and started perusing articles about the case. She clicked on what looked like a comprehensive piece in the Brighton Springs Herald, written by a reporter named Carmen Hernandez.
FIVE YEARS LATER, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF A brIGHTON SPRINGS COUPLE CONTINUES TO STUMP POLICE
Riley Stevens was sixteen years old when her mother and soon-to-be stepfather went out to dinner and never came back.
What she remembers most from that night is that she didn’t speak to her mom at all.
She came home from school and went directly to her room without saying a word to her mother.
“I was angry with her,” Riley told me as we sat down for a meal at the diner Cora Stevens waitressed at for over a decade.
“She’d grounded me—and rightfully so—because I’d stolen vodka from Tobias’s liquor cabinet and gotten drunk at a friend’s house.
I was young and stupid, and she was the easiest target for my irrational teen rage. ”
Cora had rarely had reason to ground Riley in the past. The two had an easy and loving relationship.
For most of Riley’s life, it was just her and her mother.
“She was a great mom. The best. Losing her was like having a piece of my soul ripped away. Even now, five years later, I miss her so much it physically hurts.”
Josie stopped to take a couple of deep breaths, alarmed at how quickly Riley Stevens’ words brought long-buried emotions to the surface.
Ever since Noah’s abduction, it was more and more difficult to ignore and compartmentalize messy feelings.
The fact that she’d spent a lifetime trying not to process them—despite ongoing therapy—likely didn’t help either.
When Josie’s grandmother, Lisette, died, it felt like her soul had splintered, and she had been over thirty years old with plenty of family to support her as well as blessed, painful closure.
Cora Stevens’ sixteen-year-old daughter had had none of that.
“Every single day since she disappeared, I wish I’d put aside my stupid, misplaced anger and at least spoken to her before they left the house.”
Instead, Riley was woken in the early morning hours of April 9th by Tobias’s son, Zane Lachlan, who was seventeen at the time.
He routinely got up at sevena.m. on weekdays and took the Hyundai Accent to school so he could use the weight room before classes.
That day, the Accent wasn’t in the driveway.
His dad’s work truck and Cora’s old, beat-up Buick were exactly where they left them before going out to dinner.
“Zane tried calling them both. Then I tried calling Mom. No answer. It was totally unlike them to not come home and not take our calls. We started to freak out.”
The teens looked to Zane’s older brother for direction. Jackson Wright was twenty-three and had long ago moved out of the Lachlan home. The night the couple disappeared, he was at a party to celebrate the retirement of a family friend. The party went well into the night and Jackson was hungover.
“He got over that real quick,” Riley said, “and came over right away. Jackson was always the cool head in the room. He called the police immediately.”
The article was momentarily blocked out by a notification from their security system.
A thumbnail video popped up, showing Noah pushing his key into the lock.
A tiny knot of apprehension that she didn’t even know was present unfurled in her stomach.
Relief. She wondered if she’d ever stop feeling relieved seeing him again after they’d been apart, even if only for a few hours.
Trout greeted him noisily and enthusiastically.
Josie knew it would be several moments before the coming home ritual was completed.
She turned her focus back to the article.
The rest of the day and the weeks and months that followed were a blur to Tobias and Cora’s children.
An exhaustive search followed, ranging a hundred miles in every direction.
Community members joined. Fliers were created and hung all over the town and beyond.
Reward money was offered for any information about the couple.
A tip line was set up. The Brighton Springs Police Department spent well over a year investigating nearly a thousand leads that came in through that line.
None of them panned out. The couple seemed to have literally disappeared into thin air.
“We had them on camera leaving the restaurant,” said Brighton Springs detective John Fanning. “They were smiling and holding hands. A couple of people saw them in the parking lot getting into their car and driving off. No problems.”
Josie took a minute to text John Fanning’s name to Gretchen.
She’d be on shift soon and she could try to get in touch with him.
Noah’s heavy footsteps climbed the stairs.
Seconds later, he appeared in the doorway to their bedroom.
His dark hair was tousled like he hadn’t bothered to smooth it down after removing his skull cap at the crime scene.
A slow grin spread across his face as he took in her bare legs and sleep-mussed hair.
“So, you’re just helping yourself to all my shirts now?”
Josie glanced down at the Cherry Springs State Park T-shirt she’d slept in. Then she arched a brow at him in a pretend scowl. “You came home. I thought you were leaving me for a woman who sweats perfume and farts lavender incense.”
Noah laughed and stripped off his shirt, dropping it into the laundry basket. “I didn’t know that was an option. Where is this woman? I want to meet her.”
“Over my dead body,” Josie grumbled, unable to look away as he stripped down to his boxer briefs.
“Hmmm, that might be an improvement over the way you smelled this morning.”
She grabbed Noah’s pillow and threw it at him, hitting him square in the chest. He looked delighted as he took off his last item of clothing and strolled into the bathroom.
Her skin felt hot as she watched him go, not tearing her attention away until he was out of view, and the water in the shower came on.
Trout sauntered in, glanced toward the bathroom, and hopped up on the bed, snuggling against Josie’s leg. She stroked his soft back. Then she returned to the article and Brighton Springs Detective John Fanning’s statement about the missing couple.
“We got the car on camera a few more times on what looked like their route home. They weren’t being followed at that point. Weren’t speeding. Tobias Lachlan wasn’t driving erratically. They just…POOF! Vanished into thin air.”
When I read this quote to Riley, she agrees. “That is certainly how it feels but whatever happened, someone somewhere knows the truth. At this point, I’ve made my peace with the fact that my mom isn’t coming back. I just want to know what happened.”
Tobias’s sons want the same thing for their father.
“We just want answers,” Zane told me by phone a few days before I interviewed Riley.
“We pretty much know at this point that they’re dead.
You hate to even think it, but the truth is that if our dad was alive, he would have found a way back to us by now.
He was our world. Losing him was like having everything we knew ripped out from under us.
He deserves to rest in peace. They both do. ”
Despite having realistic expectations about what happened to their parents, neither Tobias’s sons nor Cora’s daughter have given up hope that one day, they’ll get closure.
“It would be wrong to lose hope,” said Jackson Wright in response to an email I’d sent him regarding the case. “After all this time, we’ve come to grips with the fact that they’re likely dead, but we can’t give up on finding them. They would never give up on us. We still want to bring them home.”
Josie’s chest constricted. The bone-deep sadness, weariness borne of years of not knowing, was palpable, oozing out of the phone screen and trying to crawl under her skin. Next to her, Trout sighed.
“Hey.” Noah’s large, warm hand curled around her ankle. She hadn’t even noticed him come out of the bathroom. Stark naked, he tugged her toward the foot of the bed until she was flat on her back and then climbed over her. Drops of water from his wet hair showered her.
With an unhappy grunt, Trout sprang up and jumped from the bed, finding a sunspot to bask in.
“You’re dripping,” Josie said, looking up into Noah’s hazel eyes, alight with that particular kind of mischief that set every cell in her body on fire.
He took the phone from her hand and tossed it aside. “I prefer glistening.”
Josie laughed, gliding her hands up his arms. Her fingers brushed over the puckered scar on his right shoulder where she’d shot him ten years ago.
It was before they were together. She’d been trying to save the life of a teenage girl.
At the time, Denton PD had its own issues with corruption.
As far as she was concerned, no one could be trusted.
Desperation made her pull the trigger. Noah had covered for her and proven his loyalty time and again over the years.
Lowering himself, Noah kissed the hollow of her throat. “Wren?”
“Not home for another ninety minutes.” He smelled like soap and fresh linen and home. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest.
“What were you reading?” he asked against her skin.
“What do you think?”
He knew her well enough by now to know that she obsessed about big cases even when she wasn’t at work.
Her collar was tugged down. Noah’s mouth found its way lower.
“I’m going to give you an update. Not because I like talking shop in bed—as you know—but because I don’t want you thinking about anything else but us for the next ten minutes. ”
“Ten minutes!” Josie protested, wrapping her arms around him. “I just told you we had ninety! Surely, you can do better than ten.”
“Maybe if you sweat perfume and fart incense…”
Smiling, she swatted at his back. “I will leave this bed right now.”
“No, you won’t.” His lips traveled up to her neck and he was right. Short of a fire, nothing was getting her out of this bed anytime soon. “’Cause then you won’t get to hear my update.”
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”
Hot breath cascaded over her skin as he spoke. “Everything is wrapped up at the river. From what Hummel could tell, the gear shift was in neutral.”
Which meant someone had rolled the car into the river.
Noah continued, “The driver’s seat was back far enough to accommodate someone Tobias’s height—which we got from his driver’s license. Another skull was recovered. Likely belonging to Cora Stevens but that will have to be confirmed.”
“Gunshot wound?” Josie asked, breathless with anticipation as his hand slid under her shirt.
“Probably. That needs to be confirmed. Also, Hummel found some personal items. The remains have been transported to the morgue. Dr. Feist should have something by tomorrow.” He lifted his head and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. “Now, stop wasting minutes.”