Near You

by Mary Burton

  He wanted her to be Ann, and he wanted Clarke Mead’s spirit, caged on the other side of life, to be watching and brimming with impotent fury. Soon, he’d take back everything the man had stolen from him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Missoula, Montana

  Monday, August 23

  12:15 p.m.

  When Ann arrived home, there was a manila envelope leaning against her front door. It was not marked. She picked it up and studied it for a moment and then looked around as if she expected to see someone watching her.

  Inside the house, she closed the door and let her purse slide from her shoulder. She opened the flap and pulled out two stapled sheets of paper. Scrawled on a sticky on the top page was a note from Paul Thompson. “Thought you might like to see my notes on the Fireflies. Call me.”

  Ann gripped the printout, walked into her office, and sat down. The thirteen names were in alphabetical order, as with the list Bryce had texted her. But this list also included the women’s pictures. She flipped to the names she knew. Lana Long. Sarah Cameron. Megan Madison. Dana Riley. She scanned the remaining nine, searching for the Jane Doe in the Polaroid picture found at the crime scene. None of the pictures appeared to match images that had been taken from various DMV systems.

  She did not think any of these women really looked like her, but they all shared similarities that mimicked her own features. Light-brown hair. Caucasian. Thirtyish.

  It certainly was not illegal for Elijah to have a preference for a particular type of woman, but the pattern was unsettling. She had sometimes gone days, weeks, even months without thinking about Elijah. But it seemed he had been constantly preoccupied with her while he was in prison.

  A truck pulled up in the driveway and honked. She pushed the list back in the envelope and put it in her desk. She hurried to the front door and was relieved and thrilled to see it was her brother, Joan, and the boys.

  As Gideon rose slowly out of the driver’s seat, the boys barreled out and both ran toward her, each carrying hand-carved pieces of wood that sort of resembled mini canoes.

  “Mom!” Nate hugged her and glanced up at her with a beaming face that triggered a surge of emotions.

  “Hey, big guy!” She ran her hand over his short hair, noting he smelled like fish and unwashed little boy.

  Kyle held up his quasi boat. “Aunt Ann, look what we made. Dad showed us how to carve.”

  She took the roughly hewn chunk of wood and carefully inspected it. Maybe it was not a canoe but a dog. “It looks amazing. I had no idea we had such talented wood-carvers in the family.”

  Joan rose out of the passenger seat, looking far from the sophisticated Philadelphia detective she had been a year ago. Her clothes were splashed with dried mud, and her hair stuck up in the back. “Modern-day life is so badly underrated,” she said. “Hot showers, refrigerators, toilets. There’s no place like home.”

  “You have a good time?” Ann asked, smiling.

  “It was great,” Joan said. “Really. The boys had a blast, and I’ve never seen Gideon more in his element. It was a successful trip that I will adore in retrospect.”

  Gideon’s face had tanned a shade deeper, and he moved with the relaxed confidence of a man who was at peace with himself. Ann was glad to see her brother happy, and if she was honest, she envied his place in the world.

  “Looks like you survived a few days alone,” he said.

  “Turns out I was fairly busy. Working with Bryce McCabe on the Anaconda homicide.”

  “I tried to track the case,” Joan said. “But no service in the backwoods.”

  “You both back on the job tomorrow morning?” Ann asked Gideon and Joan.

  “My shift starts at eight tomorrow morning,” Joan said. “Fingers crossed there are no death investigations before noon.”

  “I’m on the same schedule,” Gideon said. “Get Kyle off to his first day of school, and then I’m back on duty.”

  “My Tuesday class is one to two p.m., so I’ll pick up both boys from school,” Ann said.

  “Thanks,” Gideon said.

  “How did the house cleanout go?” Joan asked.

  “So far so good.” She considered whether to tell them about the list now or give them the night to settle in. Knowing her brother would be annoyed if she did not mention the list immediately, she said, “I got home and found an envelope waiting for me from Paul Thompson. It contained a list of Elijah’s Fireflies.”

  Gideon cursed. “Who is this reporter?”

  “He’s doing an in-depth podcast, as if the world needed a blow by blow of the case.”

  “You haven’t spoken to him, have you?” Joan asked.

  “God no,” Ann said. “But he’s left several messages and stopped by the house twice.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Gideon said.

  “Thanks, but no,” Ann insisted. “I’ll deal with him.”

  “I want an update on the Anaconda case,” Gideon said.

  “Mom!” Nate shouted from down the hallway. “What’s this on your wall?”

  Ann muttered a curse as she explained to Gideon and Joan, “It’s a timeline of the cases I’m working on with Bryce.” She mentally reviewed the timeline as she hurried toward her office, hoping she had not pinned up any graphic crime scene photos. Thankfully, there were none. She ushered both boys out of the room. “It’s a case I’m working on.”

  “A homicide?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes. And that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Are you working with Sergeant McCabe?” Nate asked.

  “That is correct.”

  The boy frowned. “Will you be able to pick me up from school tomorrow?”

  Ah, children and priorities. She smiled. “Yes. I said that I would. And Kyle is coming by here afterward, just like we planned. In the meantime, I bought ice cream bars and Popsicles. Which do you want first?”

  “Ice cream bars,” Nate said. “We ate burgers on the road.”

  “Yeah!” Kyle said.

  “In the freezer, guys. Help yourself.” As they thundered through the house, Ann prayed life would find a way to settle down and balance.

  Kyle ran up to his father and Joan with his half-eaten ice cream bar in hand. She said goodbyes to the trio, leaving Nate and her alone in their home.

  “You haven’t unpacked much, Mom,” Nate said.

  “I know.”

  It still felt odd to be here with him and not at the ranch or even the house on Beech Street. But this was the new normal.

  “Nate, let’s grab your backpack and get those clothes cleaned,” she said.

  “I didn’t wear everything I packed. Sergeant McCabe overpacked by twenty percent.”

  “I kind of remember you adding a few things before you left.”

  Nate shrugged as he bit into the ice-cream sandwich. “Maybe.”

  She dragged his pack to the small laundry room and dug out a pair of muddy shoes, which had leaked and smeared whatever clean clothes he’d had. She sorted it all, and soon the machine was kicking into gear.

  In the next two hours, Nate showered, and she laid out tomorrow’s clothes and school backpack and made his lunch. By 7:00 p.m., he was in bed asleep with King Lear on his chest.

  She took the book from him, replaced the bookmark, and as she thumbed through the pages, she noticed the previous owner’s bold handwriting scribbled on the inside front cover. It read “Elijah Weston.”

  The blood rushed from Ann’s head as she stared at Elijah’s precise script. Had he given this to Nate? And if he had, what made him think he had any rights? As she stared at her son, it took all her control not to wake him up and ask about the note.

  She placed the book on the nightstand, shut off the light, and left his room. Quietly, she closed the door behind her. Her secret, no matter how much she wanted it to stay hidden, was going to come out, and the best she could hope for now was to try and control the message.

  In her office, she pulled up one of Paul Thompson’s podcasts, and p
utting in her earbuds as she listened to his smooth, deep voice, she scrounged through the papers on her desk for his card. He had dangled effective bait when he brought up Nate’s paternity and then sweetened the trap with the list. And like it or not, she was going to bite.

  I do not like to hurt people. But sometimes they make it impossible for me to be kind. I am not sure why some people insist on being cruel, but it is a sad fact of life.

  Standing outside Ann’s house, I reach for a stick of gum and pop it in my mouth. As I chew and fold the silver wrapper into the shape of a bird, I watch her move from room to room through the house as she closes all the shades, and then one by one shuts off the lights.

  I imagine her lying in her bed, her mind abuzz with images of faceless, charred bodies. And that makes me smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Missoula, Montana

  Tuesday, August 24

  8:00 a.m.

  Bryce’s phone rang as he sat at his desk in his Helena office. “Sergeant McCabe.”

  “This is David Brown, Sarah Cameron’s boyfriend. You’ve called me a few times. And sent a deputy by my house.”

  “I have a few questions for you.”

  “Cops have ruined my life. I don’t trust you.”

  “You need to put your trust issues aside. I’m investigating two murders in Montana that we think are linked to Sarah’s murder.”

  “I’ve never been to Montana.”

  “I didn’t think you had,” Bryce said. “I’m trying to figure out who might have been in contact with Sarah before she died.”

  “I told this all to the Knoxville detectives,” Brown said.

  “Run it past me again. Do you remember anyone who might have just showed up? Someone she’d not seen before.”

  “She was always meeting strangers,” he said. “That’s part of being a Realtor.”

  “She talk about anyone in particular?”

  “Look,” Brown said, lowering his voice. “Sarah and I had a big fight a few days before she died. I’m still pissed at her, but I also feel like shit knowing the way she died.”

  “What was the fight about?” Bryce asked.

  “I caught her in bed with another guy.”

  “Who?”

  A hush settled. “I’d never seen him before.”

  “You must have gotten a good look at him.”

  “Sure. Tall, lean. Shoulder-length brown hair.”

  “And you never caught a name?”

  “Not at first. Sarah came back to me, begging to explain. She said he was a reporter, and she’d made a mistake.”

  “A reporter?”

  “Does something on podcasts. He was doing a story on women like her.”

  Paul Thompson. “If I sent you a picture, could you identify him as the man?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Stand by for a text.” He selected a picture of Thompson from his website and sent it to Brown.

  Seconds passed. “That’s him,” Brown said.

  “You’re sure.”

  “Couldn’t miss that winning smile.” Bitterness layered over the words.

  “Thanks, Mr. Brown.”

  “Did he kill Sarah?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let me know when you do,” Brown said. “I owe it to her.”

  “Sure.”

  Bryce ended the call and immediately texted the information to Ann.

  Bryce: Be careful.

  Ann: Will do.

  He hoped she had the sense to stay clear of Thompson until he could dig deeper.

  Ann read Bryce’s text and, though mindful of his warning, refused to be stopped by it. She entered the coffee shop. She spotted Paul Thompson sitting in a corner booth, and judging by his open laptop and array of papers, he had been here awhile. When the door opened, he looked up, his gaze expectant. He moved to rise, jostled the table, and his coffee sloshed on the pages. He appeared torn between mopping up the mess and greeting her, until the brown liquid migrated toward his computer.

  “Dr. Bailey,” he said as he lifted his laptop.

  “Mr. Thompson.” It was petty to enjoy his discomfort, but she did.

  He quickly set the laptop on a chair and pulled napkins from the dispenser as coffee dripped over the side of the table. He tossed her a quick glance as he mopped. “Call me Paul. When you say Mr. Thompson, I think of my dad.”

  She pulled out a chair as he grabbed a fresh layer of napkins and sopped up the last of the liquid.

  “Can I get you a coffee or tea?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.” She took a seat and did her best to look relaxed.

  “Sure?” He gathered up the sopping mess of napkins and dumped them in the trash before he dried his hands and then threaded long fingers through his hair. “Thanks for suggesting this coffee shop. I never would have found the place if you had not mentioned it. It might be my new favorite hangout.”

  “Glad to be of service,” she said.

  He sat, and again his fingers combed through his hair. “You grew up here, right?”

  He was trying to make conversation, trying to break the ice and win her over to his side. She imagined in his computer was a big fat dossier on her history. “I did. What about you?”

  “Tennessee,” he said.

  “That was where you became interested in podcasts?”

  “I was an English major and always liked storytelling. But try and pay the light bill with that. Then I got the idea for a podcast. As you might guess, there are lots of recording studios in Nashville, so all I had to do was find the right story.”

  “You’ve found several stories,” she said. “I listened to the one about the missing girl in North Carolina. Very compelling.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Did your story help the police solve the case?”

  He sat a little taller. “They’ve been inundated with fresh leads, but so far no arrests.”

  She imagined that most of those leads were dead ends. Everyone wanted to be famous, and attaching themselves to a successful podcast was a way to do it.

  “I reviewed your list of the Fireflies. You’ve done a great deal of homework.” She had cross-checked a sampling of the facts he’d listed by the thirteen names and discovered everything was correct.

  “I’m a good investigator.” His eyes darkened and shifted, as if he sensed they had moved beyond the pleasantries and were getting down to brass tacks.

  “I can see that.” She steered the conversation. “Why this case?”

  “It’s gripping,” he said. “Elijah is the brilliant loner, outcast. The perfect archetype for a story. And now that Elijah is out of prison, people will be curious about his next move and the women who are attracted to him.”

  “That’s all past tense,” she said. “What do you think he wants now?”

  Thompson sat back, regarding her for a beat, before he said, “To get revenge against the people who put him in jail.”

  Her heartbeat kicked against her ribs. “How can you be so sure?”

  “He’s already used one Firefly, Lana Long, to spy on your late husband last year. And there’s an online group for the Fireflies. Lana did her share of talking to some of the others until she died,” he said.

  “You know about the online group?” she asked.

  “I know how to dig.”

  “Why was the group taken down six months ago?” she asked.

  He grinned. “I’ve been pretty generous with my information. Now it’s your turn to talk.”

  “You said you were from Tennessee. You must have heard about Sarah Cameron’s murder.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I did. Her death is part of the reason I’m determined to finish this podcast.”

  “Why?”

  “I interviewed her. I liked her.”

  “Liked her? You slept with her.”

  He shrugged. “We were both adults. You knew Elijah in college.”

  Ann ignored him. “Do you have any idea about who could have
hurt Sarah?”

  “I have theories.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’ve said too much. Now it’s your turn. I want to interview you.”

  She drew in a careful breath, wondering whether he was recording this conversation. “When you and I first met, you mentioned my son.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said quickly. “I was trying to break through the ice and get your attention.”

  “You got my attention.” She leaned in, lowering her voice. “If I agree to be interviewed, I want your word you will not involve my son.”

  He regarded her. “I will agree to that.”

  She was making a deal with the devil, but if she could protect Nate, she would do it. “Give me a couple of days. It’s the beginning of the school year. Everything’s crazy.”

  “Saturday.”

  She supposed he was trying to be generous, but she also sensed an underlying threat if she did not agree. “Text me the location.”

  “You won’t regret this.”

  She already did.

  Elijah pulled into the entrance to the trailer park south of town. His mother had lived here for at least twenty-five years, and he had lived here during his middle school years. As the car rumbled slowly past the long trailers, he noticed not much had changed. There were still some who kept their places up well enough, taking the time to install small fences, gardens, or porches.

  As he rolled down the gravel road, the muscles in his body tightened, and he had the urge to turn the car around and leave. He had worked hard to put distance between himself and this life, but it seemed no amount of learning would erase the marks that had been left.

  He parked by a collection of several broken chairs lying on the damp soil next to his mother’s grayish-white trailer. Grabbing the box of her favorite brand of chocolates, he got out of the car and climbed the steps. Inside, the laughter of a television crowd boomed. You could set your clock by his mother. She never missed the morning lineup of game shows.

  He knocked, taking a little pleasure in knowing she would hate any kind of interruption now. When she did not answer, he knocked harder, pounding until he heard a gruff, “All right, I’m coming. Hold your damn horses.”