Harper tucked her phone under her chin and picked up her pen. “You got people out there looking for him—the Coast Guard?”
“We’ve had boats out all day. They called it off an hour ago when we lost the light. We’ll pick up the search in the morning.”
“I’ve got one more question,” Harper said. “Those gunshots people reported last night. Are you still certain those two things aren’t related?”
“I can’t find anything to connect them,” he said. “Besides, Cedarwood’s a good distance from Admiral’s Row.”
“It is by road.” She glanced at the map still open on her screen. “By beach, it’s much closer. No more than a few hundred yards. And if the wind was blowing the right way, it could have carried the sound down there easily.” She drew a breath. “I just think it’s a hell of a coincidence that he disappeared when people heard shots.”
There was a long pause.
“Now look, I know why you’re thinking this.” His tone was placating. “Over there in Savannah, you’ve got a lot of crime. You hear gunshots, you’ve got yourself some trouble. We hear gunshots out here? We’ve got duck hunters out in the marshes. We’ve got a boat with a bad mix in its fuel line. We don’t have a murder.”
“Duck hunters at two in the morning?” Harper couldn’t keep the skepticism out of her voice, and Southby obviously noticed it, because when he spoke again his voice was noticeably cooler.
“Miss McClain, if he was shot, where’s the crime scene? I’ve got no blood, no viscera. I’ve got no body. I’ve got nothing, Miss McClain, except a man who went for a walk and didn’t come home. Speculation is entertainment. I am not in the entertainment business. What I know for a fact is that riptides off that beach kill people every year. And sound carries strangely over water. Are we clear on this?”
Harper didn’t miss the warning underlying his words.
“Crystal clear,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “What’s important right now is that we find out what happened to Mr. Rayne and we are working on that day and night. We are making no assumptions about what has occurred, and neither should you.”
After they both hung up, Harper sat for a moment, thinking, before leaning forward and tapping DJ on the shoulder.
“DJ, did you say you thought Rayne’s dad was murdered? I can’t find anything about that online.”
He spun around, blinking at her from behind smudged glasses. His dark, wavy hair was even more unruly than usual. “I don’t know for sure. But the album has lines in it that make it sound that way. Hold on a minute.”
Spinning back, he typed something into his computer.
“There’s one line in particular in the song ‘Revolver Road.’” After a second, he half turned so she could see he was looking at lyrics online. He pointed at the screen. “‘I don’t want to go out like my daddy done. Live by the gun, die by the gun…’” He looked up at her. “I mean, maybe he was singing about someone else, but…”
“But it sounds autobiographical.” Harper finished the thought for him. “His girlfriend said he died when Xavier was ten. That would have been fourteen years ago.” She stood up. “I’m going to go see what I can find in the morgue.”
She ran across the empty newsroom, beneath the silently flickering television screens. She passed the cramped little break room and pushed through the double doors into the stairwell. Her footsteps echoed as she hurried up to the next floor. There, a hallway led past a series of offices for marketing, classified ads, and admin.
Harper stopped in front of a plain white door. The sign on the door read RECORDS.
Inside, the windowless room was pitch black. Harper felt the smooth wall for the light switch. When she found it, the harsh fluorescent strips lit up with a buzz, illuminating a small, utilitarian room filled with rows of metal filing cabinets.
Just over a decade ago, the paper had gone fully digital. Every article written was automatically logged and filed on the system. But there’d never been any money to go back and scan in the old articles. Anything before then was stored in here.
All the articles were filed by year and within the year by subject or name in a somewhat haphazard system that depended on whose job it had been to file.
She’d been in here not all that long ago researching her own mother’s murder. The unsolved crime that was at the heart of everything happening to her now. And some part of her drew her to that particular file, filled with terrible memories. At twelve years old, she had been the one to find her mother’s body on the floor, naked and cold, surrounded by blood.
Her father would be the first suspect, but with an alibi provided by his mistress, he would walk free. And nobody else was ever charged. Harper’s own investigations had found little new information, until the phone call last year that told her the murderer was still out there, looking for her.
Today, though, she walked by that filing cabinet, and turned to the first row on the right, making her way to the cabinets dated fourteen years back. Focusing on the crime at hand, she pulled a drawer open with a rattle and flipped through the overstuffed manila folders until she found the “R”s.
“Raccoon.” “Racing.” “Randall.” “Reptiles” …
No “Rayne.”
Just to be sure, she opened another drawer and looked under “M,” for “Murder,” but finding four thick folders with that label, she sighed. It would take an hour to go through it all.
After a moment’s thought, she slid them back into the drawer, and walked farther down the row to drawers marked for the year before that. Fifteen years ago. Again, she searched through the “R”s.
Right in the middle, she found what she was looking for. “Rayne, Michael James.”
She pulled the folder out. Inside, a small stack of articles was carefully folded. She opened the first, the paper soft beneath her fingers. There was a faint scent of dust to it.
Man Killed in Suspected Drug Deal Gone Wrong
By Tom Lane
Two people were injured and one killed in a shoot-out on 19th Street last night.
Twenty-nine-year-old Michael James Rayne was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives believed the shooting was drug-related. Bags of crack cocaine were found in Rayne’s pockets, along with a considerable amount of cash.
Witnesses said a large group of men had met on the corner. The meeting started amicably but soon deteriorated into an argument and then gunshots.
Police said Rayne was shot three times with a high-caliber handgun. He died almost instantly.
Detectives declined to comment on whether there are suspects in the case. At this time, no arrests have been made.
She folded the article away, and checked the next item in the folder. It was Rayne’s obituary. She read it, looking for one name in particular. She found it in the last paragraph.
“Mr. Rayne is survived by his wife, Lyla, and his son, Michael Xavier.”
She scribbled hurried notes as she flipped through the few remaining articles. One had been written a few days later, when two men were arrested in the shooting—both were known for their involvement in drug gangs.
When Harper had read through it all, she put the file away and closed the drawer slowly. The more she learned, the more twisted this story became.
She had a bad feeling about Xavier Rayne.
6
By the time Baxter returned at ten, Harper and DJ had finished writing and Miles, who had submitted his photos hours ago, had gone home.
The main article walked a fine line between exploitation and straightforward reporting. Baxter read it with a crease between her eyes.
Local Music Star Disappears
By Harper McClain and DJ Gonzales
Michael Xavier Rayne, a singer and guitarist, disappeared from his Tybee Island home in the early hours of Thursday after a night of drinking with friends.
He was last seen walking down to the beach from Admiral’s Row on the north side of the island just after two in the
morning.
His guitar was found on the sand early Thursday, but there was no sign of Rayne.
Police and Coast Guard searches failed to locate him and were called off at sunset.
At press time, his whereabouts were unknown.
The 24-year-old Savannah native, who performs as Xavier Rayne, recently released his first full album, “Revolver Road.” The first single off the record, “The Lying Game,” was one of the top streamed songs in the country this week.
Rayne is due to begin a national tour on Monday. His record company declined to comment on the situation or what his absence might mean to those plans.
His manager was rushing home from a trip to Paris, and could not be reached.
Hunter Carlson, keyboardist in Rayne’s band, was one of the friends with him that night, but said he went to bed when Rayne walked out to the beach, and had no idea what happened after that.
Rayne’s backup singer, Allegra Hanson, said no one noticed Rayne hadn’t returned until nearly midday, when he didn’t come down from his room. Only then, did they begin searching for him.
The actress Cara Brand, Rayne’s girlfriend, was also at his house when he disappeared. She said she wasn’t worried at first. It was only as time passed and he did not return that she became concerned.
“Xavier often went down to the beach at night,” she said. “He had insomnia. He said watching the sea helped him relax. The only difference is, this time he didn’t come back.”
“This is good,” Baxter murmured, tapping the last line with the blunt tip of her nail. “Gets everything across.”
When she’d finished reading both articles, she turned to Harper and DJ. “Good work, both of you. I’m sending this to the copy desk.” She gestured at DJ, who had propped his feet up on his desk, his arms pillowed behind his head. “Go home. Or wherever it is you go when you’re not here.”
Knowing better than to wait for a second invitation, he leaped from his chair and pulled on his jacket. “I’ll be at Rosie’s if anyone needs me,” he said. Rosie Malone’s was a downtown dive favored by Savannah’s media.
“Don’t get drunk and tell your friends from Channel Five what we’ve been working on,” Baxter barked as he disappeared down the stairs. “This is exclusive.”
His reply floated back to them from the stairwell. “I won’t.”
When he was gone, the editor walked over to where Harper still sat at her desk. “First thing tomorrow, I need you to go back to Rayne’s house and talk to the girlfriend. But no interviews. Just work on her. And all of them. Get them to trust you.”
“Okay.…” Harper didn’t hide her puzzlement.
“You’ve never covered a real missing-person story, have you?” Baxter gave her an assessing look.
Harper shook her head.
People had gone missing in Savannah before, of course. The police had asked the paper to run pictures of runaways now and then, usually teenagers on the verge of adulthood from difficult homes. A grown man vanishing in the night, though—this was new to her.
“This isn’t like a murder investigation.” Folding her arms, Baxter leaned against DJ’s empty desk. “After today, there won’t be much to get from the police because they won’t know any more than you do. Your information will come from the people who know Rayne personally. As soon as this breaks in the morning, you’ll have to compete with not just the local TV stations but stations from Atlanta and Charleston. But you got there first and you know everybody involved already, so you have an advantage.” Her dark eyes had a predatory gleam. “If Rayne’s friends trust you before the shit hits the fan, they’ll want to talk to you over all the outsiders. Convince them you’re someone they can trust. Make sure the story stays ours.”
She lowered her voice, although they were alone in the room.
“We need this, Harper. This story could keep Charlton off our backs.”
* * *
When her shift ended at midnight, Harper was too wired to think about going home, sitting on that little porch, watching the driveway for monsters.
She could have gone to Rosie’s with DJ, but she didn’t want to deal with the TV news crowd. In the end, it always turned into a competition—everyone acting tough, comparing war stories.
She wanted to talk to someone who really knew her.
She drove across the historic district, tires thumping on cobblestones as she made her way around the city’s picturesque garden squares, with their statues of stalwart generals. The elegant old buildings were beautiful in the pale amber glow of the streetlights, but she kept her eyes on the rearview mirror. Every time she turned a corner, she waited to see if anyone would appear behind her. But the streets were still.
Only when she was certain no one was following her did she turn down a short, scrubby lane not far from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
There were only two businesses on this street—a clothing shop popular with art students, and the Library Bar.
She pulled into an empty space at the end of the street, well away from the lights.
Before getting out, she checked her face hurriedly in the mirror, smoothing her tousled auburn hair and rubbing smeared mascara from the corner of her eye. When she was presentable, she climbed out.
She could hear music thumping as she approached the bar. The air held a faint, sweet hint of marijuana smoke. Harper smiled. To her, the scene was as familiar and comforting as home cooking.
For months now, she’d been carefully avoiding her old routine. She rarely went to Pangaea, her favorite coffee shop. And she only came to the bar now and then, when she was feeling lonely.
Junior, the bar’s hulking bouncer, grinned when she walked up, revealing a jeweler’s array of silver and gold teeth.
“Harper McClain. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“Right back at you.”
Perched on a tall stool just inside the front door, he tilted his large head as he contemplated her. “Where’ve you been? You hiding?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“Bonnie said you might have some trouble.” A calculating look entered his usually warm brown eyes. That look told her Junior had seen his own trouble. “Well, you won’t have any problems in the Library. If you need anyone taken care of I know people who can do it. You got me?” He held up a fist the size of a brick for her to bump. “No one messes with my people.”
She was touched. It wasn’t every day someone threatened to have her enemies killed.
Inside, the place was packed. The sickly sweet smell of spilled beer hung in the humid air.
She’d forgotten today was Thursday. Ever since the bar’s owner had instituted a two-for-one drinks night, Thursdays had done massive business. Three bartenders were on hand to deal with the young and very drunk crowd. Andi was newest: she had glossy, raven-black hair and wore a swoosh of eyeliner above fake lashes as long as butterfly wings. Tony (buffed, with dimples that earned him huge tips) had been working the late shift for nearly six weeks now. He was the strong, should-be-silent type.
The shift manager was Bonnie Larson. She wore a miniskirt and cowboy boots, topped by a black T-shirt that read THE LIBRARY BAR: LAST OF THE MOJITOS. Her long, white-blond hair was streaked with hot pink and pulled up into a high ponytail that swirled behind her as she swung four Bud Lights onto the counter and popped the tops.
“Here you go, kittens,” she shouted above the music as she slid them across. “These are so cheap they’re practically free.”
Harper stood at the back of the crowd, waiting her turn.
When she reached the counter, Bonnie had her head down, wiping spilled tequila from the bar.
“What can I get you?” she asked, without looking up.
“Margarita on the rocks,” Harper said, raising her voice to be heard above the music. “Don’t go crazy with the salt.”
Bonnie’s head shot up, a grin spreading across her face. “Harper!” Ignoring the other customers, she hopped up onto the bar to give her a
hug. “What are you doing here?”
Harper breathed in Bonnie’s comforting scent of cool, lemony cologne and the turpentine she used to remove oil paints from her hands.
An artist in reality, Bonnie supported herself tending bar and teaching part-time at SCAD. The two had been friends since they were six years old. Bonnie was the closest thing to family Harper had these days.
“It’s good to see you, too,” Harper said, as Bonnie released her and dropped down behind the bar. “I just needed to see a friendly face.”
“I’m as friendly as they get,” Bonnie assured her, dropping back behind the bar. She turned to a man in his twenties who was slumped on a barstool, watching the two of them with drunken fascination.
“Get up, Neil.” She snapped her fingers. “Give the lady your seat.”
Startled, he hopped up so quickly he nearly fell over. “I … yes.” He looked confused about the order and his own actions but shuffled back obediently as Harper took the pilfered barstool, still warm from his backside.
For a second, he stood there wavering. But then, giving the two of them an awkward bow, he retreated unsteadily.
“You’re mean,” Harper chided.
Bonnie waved that away. “He’s been sitting there for an hour, drunk as a coot and staring at me like a sick calf.” Standing on her toes, she turned toward the door and yelled, “JUNIOR!”
Across the room, he stood and gave her an inquiring look.
Bonnie pointed at the retreating figure. “Grab Neil and send him home. He’s wasted.”
Snapping a salute, the hulking bouncer stalked off across the bar in search of his prey.
“You really want a margarita?” Bonnie asked Harper, holding up the cocktail shaker. “Be aware: If I make you more than one of these I have to steal your keys.”
“Just one,” Harper told her. “I can drive on one.”
Bonnie narrowed her eyes. “I’ll make it weak.” She reached for the lime-juice bottle beneath the bar. “But tasty.”
Revolver Road Page 4
