I didn’t bother to answer that question. I was tired of everyone pointing out the obvious of what I couldn’t control.
“You know,” Reid continued, “when Lark came back to town, at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. She brought back so many memories of the past that I wasn’t ready to face.”
My fingers clenched tight around the armrests of my desk chair, my nails digging into the soft leather. “What’s your point?”
His expression softened. “The point is, big brother, that even though her presence back in my life hurt at first, it ended up being exactly what I needed. Wounds can’t heal unless you clean and flush them out.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. His relationship with Lark was different. Lark had been our sister’s best friend. She had been there the night Thea had died…she left town because of it.
Lark and Reid were never together back then. She didn’t love him and then leave him.
“Is there anything else?” I said, changing the subject.
Reid squinted suspiciously, but he didn’t push the subject. “We need to talk about Charles Adler.”
My pulse jumped. “You found him?”
“Not exactly.” He grimaced. “I’ve talked to some friends I still have at the department. Charles had retired by the time I’d become a cop, but apparently—he’d been basically forced out.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I leaned back in my chair. “What happened?”
“He had some old injuries that were worsening with his age. He’d already been put on desk duty, but there were rumors of his alcohol use and that he’d often come in drunk. The department started seeing him as more of a liability than anything else. ”
“He was always a piece of work,” I muttered, shaking my head. “The department should’ve done something about him long ago, and not just because he’s a liability for them.”
He was more than a liability for his children, and possiblyhis wife.
A look of disgust crossed my brother’s face. “Anyways, after he retired, he laid low for a while. People forgot about him, but then…”
The tone shift had my ears perking. “And then what?”
Reid raised his brows. “Charles went missing.”
My jaw dropped. “Missing?”
“Yup. There’s been no sign of him for the last seven years. His son reported him missing the day after he was last seen.”
I stared at my brother, letting the information sink in. “How the hell did no one know about this?”
In a town this small, you’d think that gossip would be all around town.
Reid shrugged. “That I don’t know. The police looked into it, but didn’t find any signs of foul play. Ash apparently was a wreck about it, but other than that, it was kept pretty quiet. Charles was never well liked and I’m not sure he had friends.”
I shoved a hand through my hair, suddenly feeling exhausted. After being woken up by Skye’s scream and bandaging up her hand, I hadn’t gotten much sleep before I’d woken up for the day at five in the morning.
“So, he’s still technically missing?”
“As far as I could tell.” Reid scrubbed the back of his neck. “I think I need to talk to the brother. He had a short interview when Charles went missing, but I’d like some more information.”
I let out a long breath. “No.” I shook my head. “Ash and I go way back. I’ll talk to him.”
The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Ash. Even in a town as small as Ember Hollow, I’d been avoiding the man for years. It wasn’t becauseI didn’t like him, but we had a history I was still recovering from in many ways.
“Are you sure?”
I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway.
Thegrungysmellofoil and gasoline surrounded me as I meandered into the auto shop. The receptionist, who’d worked there for as long as I could remember, beamed at me when she looked up from her computer.
