Locked in Silence_Pelican Bay [Book 1]

  Locked in Silence

  Pelican Bay #1

  Sloane Kennedy

  Contents

  Copyright

  Locked in Silence

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Sloane Kennedy

  Locked in Silence is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Sloane Kennedy

  Published in the United States by Sloane Kennedy

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Images: © Wander Aguiar

  Cover Design: © Jay Aheer, Simply Defined Art

  Copyediting by Courtney Bassett

  ISBN-13:

  978-1976149948

  ISBN-10:

  1976149940

  Locked in Silence

  Sloane Kennedy

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Buick

  Jeep

  Grindr

  Google

  Stradivarius

  Avengers

  Marvel Comics

  D.C. Comics

  Disney World

  Etsy

  Disney’s Cars

  Matchbox

  Etsy

  Acknowledgments

  A big thank you to Lucy Lennox for “special ordering” this book and for the quick and entertaining beta read (and no, I’m not ever letting you off the hook for what happened at the 91% mark)!

  Thank you to Claudia and Kylee for the helpful feedback and to Courtney for the thorough proofing job!

  As always, thank you to my soul sisters, Claudia, Kylee and Mari for your love and support! (And yes Mari, I am dedicating this book to you because you’re so pretty)

  Prologue

  Nolan

  God, I hated the cold.

  Hell, it wasn’t even that cold yet, but October in Minnesota and October in sunny California were two very different animals. Of course, pretty much everything was a different animal when it came to pitting the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes against the Golden State.

  “Slow down, Nolan,” my mother groused as she leaned across the console and lifted her glasses enough so she could study the speedometer. “You’re not in Hollywood anymore,” she reminded me as she leaned back and focused on her knitting needles once again.

  Don’t do it.

  Don’t do it.

  I chanted the words to myself several times and then did it anyway.

  “San Francisco,” I murmured.

  Why, Nolan? Just why?

  I shook my head at my inner voice because I didn’t have an answer for that.

  “What, dear?” my mother asked without looking up.

  “I was in San Francisco, Mom.” I took my eyes off the road long enough to glance at her. “San Francisco, not Los Angeles.”

  She didn’t answer. She just took her hand off one knitting needle long enough to wave her hand.

  Dismissed.

  As usual.

  I sighed and forced my attention back to the road. I was never going to make it. I’d been home for less than twenty-four hours and I felt like I was going to bust out of my skin.

  Home.

  Knowing my mother wouldn’t notice, I shook my head. Pelican Bay, Minnesota wasn’t home for me. It never had been. Yeah, I’d spent my first eighteen years here, but it hadn’t ever been home. At best, it was purgatory.

  A harsh comparison? Maybe. But after having experienced the freedom that came with living anywhere but Pelican Bay, I supposed I was just a little more than biased about the subject.

  My mother clucked her tongue as she glanced at the radio. “Need to be home by four or I’ll have to pay Mrs. Kellogg for another hour.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that comment. I certainly couldn’t tell her what I wanted to. That we wouldn’t be late if she wasn’t such a control freak when it came to driving. Or that maybe if she hadn’t spent an extra twenty minutes complaining to anyone who would listen at the medical device supply company about the price of the walker we’d gone there to purchase, we wouldn’t be running behind now.

  So, I settled for staying silent since it was really what she wanted, anyway.

  My stomach rolled uncomfortably, but I knew it wasn’t from anything I’d eaten today.

  “Mrs. O’Reilly is coming over tonight to pick up her casserole dish. She doesn’t know about…you know,” my mother said with another wave of her hand. “The incident,” she added, lowering her voice.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath.

  I’d heard that word more times than I could count in the last twenty-four hours and it made me want to scream every time.

  “She thinks you’re just home for a visit. No need for her to know about…the incident.”

  I bit into my lip to keep my mouth shut this time.

  “I’ll be going to Edith’s for bridge, so you make sure to thank her and tell her I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  I didn’t answer, and she clearly wasn’t expecting a response because she began humming to herself.

  Fifteen more minutes.

  I just had to get through fifteen more minutes and then we’d be home – no, not home. That word didn’t fit. The house – we’d be at the house. Fifteen minutes and we’d be at the house and I could have a few minutes to myself.

  I let my eyes scan the quiet road around us. Dusk was already threatening to fall, signaling the start of what would be a long, brutal winter. A winter I had no clue how I was going to get through.

  Tall trees lined the winding road, so it wasn’t until I rounded a curve that I saw it. The small lump in the middle of the road. I shifted the steering wheel so the tires wouldn’t roll over the body of the poor raccoon that hadn’t been quick enough while attempting to cross the road. Just as I was about to avert my eyes so I wouldn’t have to take in the gruesome sight, I saw another bundle of fur moving, and I instinctively slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the right, causing the car to violently swerve.

  My mother let out a gasp as the car careened along the shoulder before skidding to a stop.

  “Nolan!” she shouted as her purse and knitting needles went flying. “Watch out!”

  I ignored her and put the car into park as I tried to catch my breath. Adrenaline surged through my blood. I lifted my hand to adjust the rearview mirror, ignoring my mother as she scolded me with some comment about the terrible driving habits I’d picked up in Hollywood.

  My eyes settled on the dead raccoon and I once again saw movement.

&nbs
p; I jerked open the car door.

  “Nolan, what are you-”

  I cut off my mother’s words when I shut the door behind me. I quickly scanned for traffic, but the country road was dead to the world. I trotted up to the poor corpse and tried to quell the nausea that went through my belly at the gruesome sight. I’d never been allowed to have pets as a kid, but I’d always had a soft spot for animals. So when my eyes fell on the baby raccoon trying to shrink away from me as it curled against the dead raccoon’s body, my heart broke for the poor little thing. I swiveled my head to see if I could see any other raccoons around, but the forest around me was silent. Cold air seeped through the thin material of my jacket, reminding me that I really needed to go shopping for winter clothes soon.

  Another bout of nausea hit me, but this time it had nothing to do with the poor dead animal at my feet or its orphaned offspring.

  I debated what to do, since there was no way I could leave the baby sitting in the middle of the road or it would end up just like its mother. I quickly stripped off my jacket and used it to carefully scoop up the baby, which hissed at me pathetically a few times and struggled in my hold. I jogged to the shoulder and stepped into the heavy brush before putting the baby down. When I went back to the road, I waited so I could watch the small animal wander off into the woods. I had no clue if the raccoon was old enough to survive on its own, but I figured it would hook up with some other raccoons or something. When the animal didn’t move, I turned to walk back to the car, assuming my presence was probably making it nervous. But when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the little animal scurry across the road and right back to its mother’s body.

  I let out a huff and debated what to do. I knew it was just nature’s way, but I couldn’t leave the animal there to die. I hurried back to the raccoons and again bundled the baby in my jacket. This time it didn’t make as much of a fuss, so I took that as a sign from above that I was doing the right thing. I hurried back to the car.

  “Nolan,” my mother chided as she worked to reorganize her purse. “Was that really necessary?”

  I kept the bundled-up raccoon on my lap and got my seatbelt buckled. “Sorry,” I murmured. “I couldn’t just leave it there.”

  “Leave what there?” she asked. Her eyes bugged out when she saw the baby raccoon. “Nolan, get that filthy thing out of my car!”

  I wasn’t someone who often went against my parents’ orders, even at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, but there wasn’t even an ounce of hesitation when I said, “No.”

  I’d been forced to return to a living hell, but I’d be damned if I was going to consign the poor creature to a certain death. It was a small battle, but I was fighting a big-ass war and I needed this win. I’d save the little thing if it damn well killed me.

  Okay, yeah, I was being overly dramatic, but I needed this.

  “I want that thing out-”

  “Is old Doc Cleary still in business?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Doc Cleary,” I said. “The vet over on Mulberry Street. People used to always bring him baby birds and stuff, right?”

  My mother looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Yes,” she finally answered. “But he’s in Florida visiting his daughter this week.”

  “Damn.”

  “Nolan, language!”

  I barely managed not to roll my eyes as I pulled up the browser on my phone.

  “What are you doing? Mrs. Kellogg is going to charge-”

  “For another hour. I know, Mom. I’ll pay for it, okay?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, young man,” she snapped. “People might talk to their mothers in Hollywood like that…”

  I tuned out the rest of her words. It was scary how easily I was able to fall back into that particular habit.

  It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. It turned out there was a wildlife rescue center just outside town. I tried calling, but the call went to voicemail. The raccoon had gone really quiet on my lap, which had me worried, so I hung up the phone. I’d just have to risk that someone would be at the center, so I put the car in gear and got us back on the road.

  My mother was still ranting at me, but it wasn’t until I pulled off the main road we were on that she finally fell silent. After a few beats, she picked up her knitting and I swore I heard her mutter something about Californians disrespecting their mothers under her breath.

  I ignored her and followed the instructions my phone was giving me on how to get to the center. The GPS app had me turning onto a desolate dirt road that had low-hanging trees lining it. The sound of the branches scraping gently over the roof of the car was creepy, and I noticed my mother had finally looked up from her knitting.

  “Where are we going?” she finally asked. Her eyes fell on a small wooden sign that said Lake Hills County Wildlife Rescue and Sanctuary. “We shouldn’t be here,” she murmured. “He doesn’t like visitors.”

  “Who?” I asked. “You know the people who run this place?”

  “Edna Moreland dropped a bird off here once and he threatened her. She told the cops and they came out here to question him, but he got off with just a warning. Like he did that night…”

  My mother’s voice dropped off.

  “What night? Who?”

  But she didn’t answer me, so I focused on avoiding the ruts in the road. We reached a gate that, luckily, was open. There was another sign displaying the name of the sanctuary on the wooden fence that held the gate in place. I drove through the gate and the trees began to get thinner and thinner until we reached a large clearing. There was a large farmhouse sitting on a slight rise in the far corner of the property. Several outbuildings, along with dozens and dozens of different kinds of pens, were scattered over a large swath of the clearing. The dirt road switched over to gravel, which I followed to one of the smaller outbuildings that had yet another sign with the center’s logo and name on it. I put the car in park and glanced at my mother. Her eyes were wide and she was clutching her knitting needles.

  I didn’t even bother to ask if she was coming with me. And I didn’t bother telling her I’d be right back. My mother had a tendency not to really hear me, anyway.

  I held my jacket to my chest as I got out of the car. I heard the locks on the car engage right after I shut the door. I wish I’d been smart enough to grab the keys, since I wouldn’t put it past my mother to crawl over the console and drive off without me at the first sign of danger.

  Maternal instincts were something my mother didn’t really have in spades.

  I glanced down at the raccoon. Its eyes were closed, but it was still breathing. “Hang in there, buddy,” I murmured as I scanned the property. I could hear dogs barking and a variety of other sounds, but I didn’t see anyone. I hurried to the door of the small white building I’d parked in front of, but a quick tug confirmed my fear.

  Locked.

  Fuck.

  I glanced around again. “Hello?” I called out.

  Nothing.

  I debated between trying the house and checking around some of the pens and finally decided to go with the pens, since I could hear dogs barking excitedly. I shot my mother a quick look and motioned with my head which direction I was going, but her eyes were swinging wildly around.

  Looking for my would-be murderer, no doubt.

  Hell, the car likely would be gone by the time I returned.

  I walked around the building and followed a dirt path past a large paddock that housed a couple of horses and a donkey. Some goats and chickens were also roaming around the pasture, but when my eyes fell on an animal that most certainly didn’t belong with the little group of farm animals, I came to an abrupt stop.

  A zebra.

  An actual zebra.

  Where the hell did you get a zebra from in Minnesota?

  Remembering the poor little charge in my arms, I quickened my pace. As interesting as this place was, I didn’t have time to explore. But I still couldn’t stop myself from checki
ng each pen I walked past.

  That was why I didn’t see it until I was practically on top of it.

  Not to mention the damn thing didn’t make a sound.

  It was the sudden shock of white in my periphery that had me coming to a rough halt.

  It was a wolf.

  A fucking wolf.

  A fucking wolf that wasn’t in a pen.

  I swallowed hard and felt my muscles lock up tight at the sight of the animal standing less than fifteen feet from me. Its lush coat was stark white and I couldn’t help but think how that coat would look covered in my blood.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered as the animal’s dark eyes settled on me and stayed there. I cuddled the raccoon closer to my chest as if that could somehow protect it from the wolf’s jaws.

  Hell, who was I kidding? The animal would likely come after me first.

  I took a few steps back, ever so slowly, but the wolf automatically stepped forward, so I stopped. I broke out into a cold sweat as fear engulfed me. I wanted so badly to run, but my instincts told me that was the last thing I should do. I could scream, but would anyone hear me?

  I wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. I’d been silently screaming my whole life and no one had ever heard. Now that I was prepared to do it for real, it likely wouldn’t change the outcome.

  I was just about to open my mouth when I heard a loud snapping sound. The wolf suddenly turned around and I watched it trot several feet away. I lifted my eyes to follow the animal’s path and settled my gaze on a tall figure standing near a small building. He was bundled up in tan coveralls that were covered in dirt and stains and there was some kind of scarf wrapped around his neck. A baseball cap covered his head.

  The man snapped his fingers again and the wolf dropped to the ground. Its eyes stayed on me, but it didn’t move.

  The man and I stared at each other. He was a big guy…easily several inches taller than my own five-ten frame. The coveralls hid his figure and from the distance, I couldn’t really make out his facial features.