by Leigh Lennon
The door to his home office is open, and when I stop at the doorway, the pictures on the desk almost beckon me to push past all my fears. Closing the distance, I pick up the first picture. It’s Annie. Seeing her lifeless and choked is an out-of-body experience as my eyes stay fixed on the bracelet, it was certainly what the crime scene photographer was trying to focus on. It was odd. I remembered that bracelet. In all the times Annie and Gracie would allow me in their rooms, the last couple of times had been what I’ve clung to through the years.
A week before the murders, I’d noticed Gracie and Annie whispering about it. And since my sister rarely wore jewelry, it was odd to me she had it. I remember reading the letters that matched the color of the brown beads. If Annie could be described as anything, it would be an earthy free-loving spirit, and I loved it about her. The bracelet just fit her style. Gracie knew, but she had never told me.
My eyes fixate on this picture as I grab another photo, who I think is Annie. But it’s not. It has to be the girl from last night—the copycat case. The young girl, who had looked so much like Annie, has the same bracelet on. How can this be a coincidence? I don’t realize tears are falling down my face until one ripples onto the pictures I have in my hands.
“Malia?” His voice is calming, and I drop the pictures, flinging myself into his arms. The confident girl I had been just minutes ago is no longer the person in my body. I’m back to being the scared little girl Wells found so long ago, and like back then, I let him comfort me.
I’m not sure how I get there. I don’t think I walk. Maybe he picks me up, but when my tears stop falling from my eyes, I stare up, and he has me cradled in his arms, sitting on his lap in an overstuffed chair against the same wall that houses one of my paintings.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart.” He’s whispering this in my ear, over and over again.
“Are you saying it so you believe it, too?” I whisper back his way.
His hands whip around and push back my hair, falling in my face. “What we have makes no sense to me. You know this, right?” I don’t nod my head because I don’t know it. “I’ve dated women for months, even years, and never felt the connection you and I share, and especially over something that happened so long ago, and over the few letters we corresponded with.”
“Love doesn’t always have to make sense.” Fuck, did I just tell him I love him? Of course, I know this, but he doesn’t have to.
“And this is what you think we share.” His hands rub my forearms, and with his touch, his comfort is evident.
My fingers trace his jawline, the scruff from the day barely seen, but I feel it. “I think it’s something that can be built so easily with minimal effort. I’m not saying it’ll be simple, and, hell, it’s forbidden, not just with the age gap, but, fuck, you’ve been my hero my whole life. Why not be my everything.”
“Malia…” A deep rush of air escapes his mouth.
“Nothing has to be decided today, you know?” I’m the voice of reason, and I will continue to be. “Can you answer me one thing?” I ask, and in the question, I silently beg for the answer I want to fall from his lips.
“What’s that?”
“Am I just a case to you, or am I more?”
He hooks his index finger under my chin, tipping my head to meet his gaze. “Hell, sweetheart, you’ve been more than a case to me from the day I carried you out of your house.”
I burrow my head into the crook of his neck. In his response, he gives me a peace I’ve not had in a long time.
I wake an hour later in the guest room, the room I’ll make mine until my life can find some form of normalcy. The outside light is gone, and the darkness has fallen on the house. My eyes are heavy, and it makes sense seeing as a normal sleep cycle has not been something I’ve had since returning to the Pacific Northwest with the new developments in my family’s case.
I stretch my arms over my head, and a part of me wants to stay in this room away from the world around me. Maybe in my dreams, I can find my mom and imagine a normal life where I’m an aunt to Annie’s and Gracie’s kids. Both would have had children by now. They were ready at an early age to settle down and get married. Cabe may have had children, but I choose to think he’d be in the NBA, a goal of his always. Mom and Dad would have been retired, and I’d be in my junior year in college. Who knows if I would have been the artist I am today. I think the trauma forced me into a hidden talent. But I’d have my family.
My mind drifts back to the nights of the murder, thanks to the pictures I looked at earlier, and I shoot out of bed, my brain remembering things I had never thought of before. I’m hurrying down the hallway, my mind on everything I can recall of the very last time Annie and Gracie had me in their rooms, showing me how to exfoliate, at the age of nine. I round the corner, hurdling into Wells’s solid chest.
“Slow down, sweetheart.” He pulls back, giving us space. It may take a while for him to come to terms with our feelings, but at the same time, he can’t deny our pull to one another.
“I remembered something, the bracelets, the guy who gave it to her. And her journal.”
“Whoa, whoa, sweetheart, slow down.” He has me by the arm, pulling us toward the living room where Stewart is on the couch with a file in his lap. As I come into view, he closes the manila envelope quickly.
“Did you have a good nap, Malia?” he asks.
“Um, yeah, but I remembered something, something I’d forgotten after all these years.”
Wells settles me onto the overstuffed seat, bringing a kitchen chair from the eat-in dining room to sit smack dab next to me. “What are you talking about? We never found a journal or a diary of your sister’s?” he says, and with as much as he knows about the case, I don’t doubt him.
“Yeah, I know, but it’s because she hid it out of the view of everyone. It’s under a floorboard but not any floorboard. There’s an alcove that goes under the house. If you don’t know it’s there, no one would know to search for it.”
“We need a warrant to search it,” Stewart says.
“Why can’t you just ask the owner?” I ask.
Stewart laughs. “Yeah, sometimes it takes forever to get the new homeowner's permission. It’s easier to just get a warrant.”
“I think I can help you out with that,” I say, eyes boring in on me from each side. “I happen to know the owner, and I’m almost positive she’ll give you permission. As a matter of fact, I believe she may know where the journal is, too.”
I walk out of the room with his call to his bitch of a boss and ex-fiancée. I wasn’t one to hate. I did hate the man who took my family from me. It’s an emotion I can’t even compare anything to. But to hate, in general, was not something I concerned myself with. But after today, and the fact I understood she had been with Wells, I hate this woman.
When I could hear her screeching voice come through the line, I excused myself from the living room.
What can I say? I’m jealous she was once his, and I’m afraid I’ll never be? Yeah, maybe that is the deeper reason I hate her.
A tap on the door opens it, and when I’m expecting to see Wells, it’s Stewart in my doorway. “Hey, Higgie, are we ready to go?”
His expression is tight, and the frown on his face is readable. “Fuck that! I’m going.” Stewart doesn’t have to tell me what he’s about to say when his face contorts again into almost a sour look.
“He left, didn’t he? You’re his patsy, the person tasked with watching me?”
He breathes in a long inhale, exhaling a second later. “Actually, I’m waiting on a couple of uniforms, and then I’m heading over there, too. You see, he’s only trying to spare you the hurt. You’ve never been back there. Can I ask, have you been able to even look at the house?” he questions, and his eyes widen with curiosity.
“You must already know the answer.”
He steps past the threshold, keeping his distance by resting his hand on the dresser drawers on the inside of the room. “You made my point. Hel
l, Malia, Wells would string me up by the balls for sharing this, but he’s so spun up right now. He’s the calmest man I know, but the mention of you has him wanting to break down every door in the greater Seattle area to snuff out the person who did this to you. You’re more than a case. And I knew him when he dated Vanessa. I was shocked as shit when they got engaged, yet he never looked at her remotely the way he does with you. You’re his world, and putting you in the same house will make him unable to focus.”
He stops, but when his mouth parts, he continues. “Don’t be mad at him. It was my idea. He has to concentrate, not just to catch this guy but I also need his head in the game to stop this sick fuck before he kills again.”
“Then why have me here?” I ask, my hands on my hips, challenging him.
“Call it controlled chaos. It’s the one way he can keep an eye on you, which will help him stay centered when he’s out in the field.” He doesn’t say another word, just disappears. I’m left with so many more questions. The first being, will Wells make it through this case unscathed? I hope so because if he’s taken from me, I don’t think I can continue in this world without him.
Chapter 17
Wells
Vanessa is parked at the curb as I pull into the driveway. It’s been eleven years since Matt and I hauled our asses into the drive of this house, virtually a rookie cop, thinking my best friend’s sister was hurt. What I actually found was a scared little girl who never left my heart.
“I know we have permission.” Vanessa approached, a piece of paper in her hand as I exit my car. “But I wanted this on the up and up. The judge issued an expedited search warrant.” She bends down, looking into my car. “What, no Higgins or your little obsession?” she chides.
I ignore her dig, only answering about Higgins. “I needed him to wait on uniforms for Ms. Strickland, and then he’ll be over here.”
“About time you start thinking like a cop and not a horny teenager.” I shoot my gaze to Vanessa, and I don’t see a woman who’s been scorned. I’ve been able to get a good read on most emotions of hers through the years, and what I’m witnessing is jealousy, ugly green jealousy.
Could I have ever been more wrong about the woman I thought I’d share my entire life with? I don’t answer my own question because I know what my reply will be.
“Are we going to do this, Captain?” My tone is certainly questionably sarcastic as I continue, “Or are we going to play twenty questions?”
She ignores me, heading to the house. “According to records, the house is cleaned twice a year, and the electricity is still turned on. The aunt never wanted to part with it.”
The latter, I knew from Jules, but the electricity being on was a surprise. “There’s a small trust that pulls from it for the upkeep of the house. So people have been in and out of it all this time. I’m not sure if we find something if it will be entered into evidence.”
I had been smart enough to have Malia write a statement of the location and giving us permission as I had readied myself for the phone call with Vanessa.
“You got her statement, I hope?” she asks.
“Yeah, Van, it’s not my first rodeo.” I’d not referred to her like this since the breakup, but she doesn’t call me on it. “Here, I have the key, too.” I thought it odd that Malia had it with the rest of her keys, but she told me it was always on her aunt's chain, and when her aunt died, she used the same set for the car.
She pulls her gun, and I’d not thought of doing the same, though, with all the funky shit, it isn’t a bad idea.
I fall back, taking her lead as she turns on the lights, and we stop, in disbelief, to the left of the entry, sits the dining room, where three of the Strickland family members had been murdered. On the wall, separating the dining and the kitchen, sits a message written in red.
“I knew you’d eventually make it back to the scene of the crime, Detective Shanahan.” It looks painted on with his fingers, but upon closer inspection, it isn’t paint. It’s blood.
“What the holy living fuck?” Vanessa calls out. She turns back to me. “Call forensics right now. Finding the diary will have to wait.”
We stand still, not for any other reason than being speechless and dazed by what we’re staring at.
The street is surrounded by half of the force, in record time, when all I can do is sit on the front porch. The diary is so close yet so far away, and we can’t enter the house, not until it has been swept for an ounce of evidence as uniforms canvas the neighborhood for any witnesses.
Higgins comes running up the front porch, Vanessa and I still processing in our mind what we’ve been witness to.
“Who is with Malia?” I demand.
“Lotkey, Gorman, and Kenzie Walls.” His neck cranes to the forensic team as they begin to enter the house. “I’d heard something on the radio. What’s going on?”
I gesture to the doorway as a way of telling him to go see on his own. He walks over the threshold while my head rotates to Vanessa’s. “Van, you okay?” I’ve seen a lot of hideous atrocities throughout my time on the force, and so has Vanessa, but I’d never seen her react like this.
“Yeah, Wells, I’m okay.” Her gaze reaches mine, and I don’t believe her. “It’s just…”
We’ve not had this type of interaction since well before the breakup. “What is it, Van?”
She clears her throat and straightens her back. “This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” Her demeanor changes with the arrival of the upper brass, and the forensics detective finds us on the porch.
“Holy fuck, this guy is a sick son of a bitch. There was a lot of blood. However, it has been mixed with red paint, too, and I believe it’s only one blood type.” Our eyes spin to the forensics officer, John Lewis as he’s shaking his head. “This truly is a sick fucker.”
Vanessa’s bosses approach the front porch, all of us standing to give them the information when John continues, “You guys are able to search the bedroom, but just the bedroom for now.”
“Okay, what do we know at this point?” I ask John.
He shakes his head. “It seems to be more blood than someone can—"
“Live without,” I cut him off.
“Yeah, but in the autopsies yesterday, I was not made aware of a large amount of blood loss, which also leads me to believe—”
“There’s been another murder,” I finish for him again.
He gives me a slight nod of his head, agreeing with me.
“Captain Shay, has there been any leads in the case?” Vanessa’s boss’s boss asks.
She straightens her perfectly tailored suit, rolling her shoulders back. “Yes, sir. Malia Strickland remembered a journal the oldest sister had almost buried under the floorboard of the house, pushed up against the foundation. Annie, is who we believed was the intended victim, her family there at the wrong time. The young girl from last night was wearing a bracelet, the same as Annie Strickland. We’re going through databases to narrow down the list of vendors, especially since we believe Sarah Mastille served as a model of Annie Strickland.”
“Okay, we’re not going to be able to keep this from the press much longer.” His attention turns to mine. “And Ms. Strickland is in Detective Higgins and your care? Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, but she starts classes tomorrow. I don’t know what the backlash will be.”
“Okay, I’ll be sure the police officers are in plain clothes and will let the university know the protocol.”
He stops for a second, his hand rubbing his forehead. “There’s no way we can talk her into holding out until this case is solved?”
Would I feel better if Malia was in my care all day long? Hell yeah, but I can’t ask her to give up the little bit of normalcy left in her life. “No, sir.”
“That’s what I thought.” I think we’re done, but he only continues, “So, Smith Turner was released this evening, just two hours ago. We have a unit trailing him. This could be a simple copycat, which doesn’t exo
nerate him, but for now, he’s a free man.”
I’d never thought he was the psychopath who killed an entire family. “Okay, thank you, sir.”
With my gloves on, we enter the house, and my gut says something is not right in regard to this case, and I learned a long time ago to trust it. It’s never steered me wrong in the past.
“What are you going to tell Malia?” Higgie asks when we both kneel one yard from the window, according to her directions. I give a noncommittal shrug, my eyes focusing on what we might find. “By the way, I’m surprised Vanessa didn’t give you her long spiel about her being right and interviewing Malia right away.”
“I’m sure it’s coming,” I reply, using the crowbar to shift the beams of wood connected. “But,” I contend, my voice a little short because all my weight is on the crowbar, “I don’t think Malia would have remembered. Seeing the pictures was what jogged her memory.”
The boards are tight, but with a little wiggle room, and the help of some rot I can smell from the wood, and one last vigorous drive of the bar, the pieces are finally unearthed. “Fuck, that was not as easy as I thought.” But as I bring up the wood, I pull up the subfloor, too—a two-for-one endeavor.
“How was it so hard to pry it open, when Malia said it was easy for her sister to slide the journal in and out of?” Higgie asks.
“Good question, kid,” I pull at the statement Malia had written before I left, reading through it. “Ah, right here, she says that the house had a lot of work done on it, a year after the murders. I’m assuming it was fixed then—at least this would be my guess.”
