Page 15 of The Couple's Secret
With a nod, Josie opened the back door.
“Wait,” Wren called. “Why do you stink so bad?”
Josie weighed her possible answers. Wren knew that she and Noah were police detectives, but they’d never discussed their jobs with her. She’d never been interested. Even if she had been, there were things they couldn’t tell her. Things Josie wouldn’t want to tell her like how three people, two of whom had been teenagers when their parents vanished, were about to get the worst news of their lives. Then again, the discovery of the remains of Tobias Lachlan and Cora Stevens wouldn’t stay secret for long. Wren would be able to find all the details if she looked for them. For now, though, Josie kept it simple.
“I had to jump into the river to check something out.”
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 seven a.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.”
