Reining In Trouble. Tyler Anne Snell

twice and yet has four children. Have you met any of them yet?”

      Nina didn’t want to lie as much as she didn’t want to talk about the email. She nodded and went with a vague in-between response.

      “I’ve only met Caleb, briefly.”

      Molly lifted up four fingers and ticked them off as she began.

      “We have the eldest, Declan, who’s the sheriff. He lives on the ranch in a house that used to belong to Dorothy’s in-laws before they passed. He’s a nice man but lets his work consume him. Which I guess you have to if you want to keep your community safe.”

      “Dorothy mentioned him. She said I wouldn’t have to worry about any flak for throwing large scale events from local law enforcement since her son was the sheriff.”

      “A definite perk! Though, let me tell you, he’s an intense fellow but it’s just his way.” Molly held up three fingers. “Then we have the triplets. Desmond, Caleb and Madeline. The only triplets born in Overlook in seventy years.” Her smile disappeared. Her humor fell away. It was such an abrupt change that Nina wondered if they should stop their walk. But, just as quickly, Molly reverted to normal. “Desmond is a businessman, as best as I can describe him. He lives here on the ranch in a house built right behind the main one. He has a bit of money beneath his belt that he’s made outside of the ranch. He’s usually out of town on some work trip or another. Madeline lives there, too, since he’s hardly ever home. She works with him, but last I heard she was trying to find something else to do. Then there’s Caleb.”

      Obvious affection threaded around the detective’s name. It prompted a flutter in Nina’s stomach.

      “I know you’ve already met him but, as a local gal, let me be the first to tell you that he spelled trouble when we were younger. Kids are kids, sure, but Caleb was an absolute wild child. Fearless. I was better friends with Declan yet I still have several stories of Caleb being a little daredevil.” That change passed across Molly again. It was like the air deflated from her words. This time the change was slower to leave. “He’s a detective now, one of the best Overlook has had, if you ask me. He lives on the ranch, too, in a cabin the triplets started to build after their father died.”

      Nina thought of the cabin she’d seen the day before with new attention. She didn’t interrupt to say she’d already seen where the man lived.

      A wistful smile lifted the corner of Molly’s lips. “I once thought it was a bunch of bull-hockey that twins and triplets had a different kind of bond between them than other siblings—I mean, I have a sister who’s my best friend—but once you see them together you’ll understand it to be true. Maybe it’s just genetics or maybe it’s what they went through back in the day, but either way, once you meet the Nash triplets, you don’t forget them easily.”

      They were getting closer to the stables. Nina could make out Molly’s husband, Clive, with a beautiful almost-silver white horse in a pen. He waved at them, cowboy hat in his hand. Molly returned it with a wide smile. An ache of loneliness joined the ache from last night still radiating through Nina. Still, she didn’t want the conversation to end.

      “What they went through back in the day?” Nina repeated.

      Molly gave her a sheepish look.

      “I didn’t mean to bring it up,” she hurried. “It’s just one of those things that I assume everyone in town knows.” A haunted feeling crept over Nina. It pulled at the hair on the back of her neck. “When the triplets were eight someone abducted them from a park in town.” Nina felt her eyes widen. She stifled a gasp. “That triplet connection they have saved their lives, at least that’s how it was told to me by my mom when I was older. They were held for three days. Three. Can you believe that? Then, by the grace of God, they helped each other escape. Sure, they got hurt in the process, but all things considered it was a miracle. One the town still likes to talk about today, especially since the man who took them was never caught. And, believe you me, they looked for him for years.” She shook her head. Her frown managed to pitch lower. “Honestly, since you’re now employed by the Nash family, I’m sure someone in town will try to get more information out of you about it. Some insights they’d never heard before or, maybe, just some kind of theory they have about who was behind it. Still, it’s not something the family likes to talk about so, please, keep it to yourself. The Nash family is a lot more than their tragedy.”

      “I won’t say anything,” Nina promised.

      Molly gave her a polite nod. Her history lesson and rundown on the Nash siblings transitioned into talk about the stables and the horse Clive was with. It wasn’t until Molly and her husband started talking about their daughter’s latest homework assignment that Nina excused herself.

      She walked along the side of the barn until she was at the wooden fence a hundred or so feet behind the stables. It encased a long-stretching field. A few horses were grazing in the distance, cresting along the curve of a hill. Nina watched them with admiration, and a small amount of dread. The last time she’d ridden a horse had been with her mother. She’d been terrified. Her mother had made her a promise.

      “I won’t let anything happen to you, Nina. Trust me.”

      Nina had still been terrified but nothing bad had happened. She’d been convinced her mother had worked some kind of magic. A spell.

      Nina wished her mother had used that same magic on herself.

      She placed her hands on the twisted wood of a fence post and took a long, deep breath. Caleb’s face appeared in her mind as clearly as the green grass and gray, cloud-filled sky. She felt herself soften.

      She often forgot that, just because she’d lived through something traumatic, didn’t mean she was the only one who had.

      Tragedy had a way of taking a person and changing their shape. Nina found herself wondering how it had affected one detective in particular but she finally came out of her thoughts enough to realize the cloud she’d been looking at in the distance wasn’t a cloud at all.

      It was smoke.

      “Hey, Molly?” she called over her shoulder. Geography had never been Nina’s strong suit in school but she was pretty sure the only building in that direction belonged to the same man she had been thinking about. Maybe they were doing a burn pile? But why there?

      Nina ducked between two wooden posts and stepped out into the field. She glanced down at her watch.

      Did Caleb take normal lunch breaks?

      Was it her imagination or was the smoke cloud becoming larger?

      Unease started to kick up in her stomach. Then Nina was running.