Page 29 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
With a steadying breath, she nodded, and Belinda slid the photo onto the corner of the desk right next to where Lauren and Jesse were standing. Lauren’s fingers hovered over it for a second before she picked it up.
The man staring back at her was young—early to mid-twenties. Sharp features. Dark eyes. He was dressed in military camo, standing with his hands hooked into his belt like he owned the damn world.
Her chest tightened.
“You’ll be all right,” Jesse whispered to her.
Yes, she would be. She would get through this, but for the moment, it was like being dropped down into that nightmare again.
Lauren searched the face in that photo, waiting for recognition to slam into her. For some hidden memory to claw its way to the surface. But there was… nothing.
No flicker of familiarity. No whispered echo of his voice in her head. No buried scream trying to break free. And yet, just looking at him made her stomach churn.
“I don’t remember him,” Lauren admitted, her voice raw.
Belinda exhaled, and it almost sounded like relief. “Maybe that’s for the best.”
Lauren wasn’t so sure. Maybe if she remembered him, the rest of this—Abilene’s and Nicky’s deaths, the attack on Jesse and her—would start to make sense.
“How long have you known about all of this?” Hallie demanded, and Lauren looked up to see that the sheriff had given Reardon a hard glare.
Reardon’s mouth pinched together for a couple of seconds before he spoke. “For twelve years.” And he continued despite Hallie’s loud groan. A groan because Reardon had still been the county sheriff then, and he’d kept this to himself. “Belinda’s parents had just died in a bad car wreck, and she was in my office. She blurted it all out.”
“I’m not sure why, but I started getting flashbacks while Tim was telling me what’d happened to my parents,” Belinda blurted. “I just started talking and couldn’t stop until it was all out.”
“She was clearly traumatized,” Reardon piped in. “She fell apart right there in my office, and I decided then and there not to report her, that the bastard got what he deserved.”
“That wasn’t your call to make,” Hallie assured him. “You obstructed justice—”
“I protected an innocent, traumatized woman who’d been through hell and back,” he spat out. “There was no good that could have come from me telling anyone what Belinda had done. It was over. Reggie was dead.”
“No, it wasn’t over,” Lauren insisted. Her voice sounded far away, as if it weren’t even hers. “There were other captives. At least two other sets of unidentified DNA in that bunker.”
“DNA that could have been left months earlier,” Reardon argued. “I only had your word that there’d been other captives, and, hell, you could have imaged it. Or Reggie could have used a recording or something to make you think there were others. The bottom line is there were no other missing girls or women reported during that time.”
Jesse moved in front her, aiming a warning finger at Reardon. “That doesn’t mean Lauren imagined it. You sonofabitch. You kept everyone in the dark—”
Lauren took hold of his hand, trying to rein him in. Trying to steady him as he’d done for her.
It worked.
Jesse looked at her, the apology all over his face. He’d been right to say those things to Reardon. But the blame game wouldn’t help now. They needed answers, and it was possible Belinda and Reardon might know more that would help with the current investigation. Because with Reggie dead, they had a copycat killer on their hands, and they needed to stop him.
Or her.
After all, Belinda could be just as twisted as her brother had been. Maybe she was just better at hiding it. If so, all of this could be some sick psychological game to torment Lauren and keep her a captive of the past.
“I’m ready to accept my punishment,” Belinda said, her voice breaking the silence.
“To hell you will,” Reardon snapped, but the comment wasn’t meant for his wife but rather aimed at Hallie. “What she did was self-defense. Reggie had a knife and would have killed Belinda.”
“We only have Belinda’s word for that,” Jesse said, throwing Reardon’s earlier remark about Lauren right in the man’s face.
Reardon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “My wife is not going behind bars for something that happened sixteen years ago. You should be thanking her.”
“I do thank her for coming in,” Hallie spoke up. “But obviously, there are a lot of questions. And possible charges.”
“Bullshit,” Reardon repeated. “Sixteen years. And it was self-defense. You can’t charge either of us with obstruction or concealing a body since the statute of limitations applies.”
