by Mary Burton
The Realtor was local and surely knew Ann’s history with the house. Hell, everyone in town had heard something about her. “Understood, Dr. Bailey. I’ll let you know. Come to think of it, I might have a second showing here today. Mind if I hang on to the key and then put it under the planter?”
“No problem. Thank you.”
As Ann walked toward her car, she took what felt like her first deep breath in years. Maybe it was the air in the house or the memories, but each time she crossed that threshold, the air bottled in her lungs.
Twenty minutes later, she arrived at the forensic facility, parked, and made her way to the front desk. “Dr. Ann Bailey. I’m meeting Sergeant Bryce McCabe.”
The receptionist nodded, checked her driver’s license, and then gave her directions to the bay where the car was stored. Excitement tightened her nerves as she rode the elevator down two floors. Teaching was her first love, but there was a real thrill in working an active case. She understood now why Joan craved the work.
The elevator doors opened, and she stepped into the large garage warehouse area and saw across the room the blue four-door. All the doors were open, as were the vehicle’s trunk and hood. All the contents had been spread out on tarps on the floor.
Bryce stepped around the car and moved toward her, his strides long and his shoulders back. A man of few words, he moved with an easy confidence. Ann’s late husband had displayed all the same hallmarks, but underneath the pumped-up bravado was fear.
“Thanks for coming,” Bryce said.
As the distance between them diminished, she inhaled his scent, realizing how it energized her. No aftershave but the faint hint of soap mingling with a masculine smell all his own.
“This is Nena’s car?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “It was found outside of Paul Thompson’s motel room.”
“Paul Thompson’s motel room? That doesn’t make sense. A car like this would have been hot evidence, and if the killer had any sense, he wouldn’t have displayed it.”
“Reverse psychology? Hiding in plain sight?” He handed her a pair of gloves.
As she worked the gloves onto her hands, she shook her head. “Maybe. The car is unremarkable. Perhaps Thompson, if he is the killer, assumed it would take us longer to identify Nena.”
“Too smart or arrogant for his own good,” Bryce said. “He’s made it clear he thinks he’s smarter than the cops.”
“He’s smarter than most, but to park the car outside his motel room is a terrible mistake.”
“He’s denying knowing anything about the vehicle,” Bryce said. “Though he doesn’t deny knowing the victims or being in this car with Nena.”
“The podcast could be used to establish reasonable doubt. He’s trying to undercut evidence before you find it.”
“Maybe.”
“The evidence will tell you more, of course, but I tend to believe him,” she said.
“Assuming Thompson didn’t park the car at the motel, who would?”
“Someone who’s decided Thompson would be easy to frame,” she said more to herself. “Someone who knew he was interviewing these women and who didn’t appreciate Thompson’s investigation.”
“Like Elijah Weston?”
“He does think several steps ahead. But why kill the Fireflies?”
“Because they’re talking to Thompson. He doesn’t appreciate his past being reopened now that he’s on a path to create a new future.”
She thought about Nate and the troubling effect a story like this would have on him. “Show me what you’ve found.”
“Let’s start with the front seat and move our way backward,” Bryce said.
“Sure.”
He stopped at the edge of the blue tarp laid on the concrete by the open front door. It contained a variety of items you might find in anyone’s car. A black leather purse and also a brown purse had their contents displayed around the bags. She noted the black purse was made of expensive leather and fashioned with a fine stitching. It contained a small bottle of Chanel perfume, a costly brand of lipstick, and a gold watch. The brown purse was more worn and appeared to be of lower quality. Its contents contained drugstore lipstick, tissues, and a bag of generic chocolate candy.
“Two purses representing two socioeconomic backgrounds,” she said.
She moved to the back seat and again noticed a disparity in the discarded snack bags. One set favored dried fruit and nuts, whereas the other favored low-cost, high-sugar-content candies. There was also a collection of name-brand water bottles and soda cans. There had been at least two different women in this car.
Silent, she walked along the side of the car, her gaze skimming the blue paint coated in what looked like a thousand miles of dust and dirt. When she reached the trunk, she studied the collection of items laid out on a blue tarp. There were several items of clothing: designer jeans, the pair of blue cowboy boots that someone had purchased at the Classy Cat. To her right there were more clothes. These were lower end, likely from a box store, and they were speckled with dark-brown spots that looked like blood.
“These are the belongings of at least two, maybe three, different women.”
“And we have four victims, including Edith Scott.”
“Ms. Scott was the anomaly,” Ann said. “The one-off that the killer murdered for very different reasons. She was not a Firefly. She was not devoted to Elijah—in fact, she openly hated him. Edith, like the Fireflies, was a potential threat to his new life.”
“There’s another way to spin this,” Bryce said. “Do you think he might have used another Firefly to kill these women?”
“I don’t know what Elijah is truly capable of,” she said. That uncertainty sent her mind drifting to frightening places. “What would be the advantage to using or even killing these women?”
“Loose ends? Eliminate them all and whatever secrets they shared.”
“I don’t think so. When I spoke to Megan Madison, she was alive and well. She lives close enough to Missoula and Helena. Maybe she is more involved in all this. All groups, no matter how egalitarian, end up with members who carry more weight than others.”
“Killing is Madison’s way of winning Elijah’s approval?” Bryce’s voice was tight.
“Possibly.”
“Both Thompson and Elijah knew all these women. They had the means to travel and track down each woman,” Bryce said.
“I’d like to talk to Thompson,” she said. “I’d like him to tell me what he knows, and then I can confront Elijah.”
“That’s my job, Ann.”
“I might be able to get more out of each man. Elijah has a connection to me, and Thompson wants an exclusive interview with me. I’ll use both their desires to my advantage.”
“No, you’re too close to the case, Ann. And until I know which of these two men might be behind the murders, I want you staying clear of them both.”
“I can’t do that, Bryce.” Ann’s fear for her son’s safety grew by the minute. “These killings feel as if they’re getting closer to me and my son. I can’t hide from the danger, so I might as well run toward it.”
An hour later, when Ann stepped inside the police conference room alone, it was just her and Paul Thompson. Thompson had lost the subtle smirk from their last meeting in the coffee shop. His shoulders rolled forward very slightly as he tapped an index finger on the table.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee. It’s marginal at best, but I’ve tasted worse.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, thanks. Bryce McCabe offered a cup as he was tightening the vise on my balls.”
“That’s a bit extreme.” She chose the seat to his right and angled it directly toward him, knowing the positioning suggested they were on the same side.
“He was nice about it,” Thompson said. “But there was no missing his meaning. I can fight murder charges, run up a shit ton of debt, or I can help.”
“See this from Bryce’s pe
rspective,” she said. “He has a murder to solve, and there are three other pending unsolved murders that are connected. Four dead women, Thompson.”
He leaned toward her, his fist tightening. “I didn’t kill those women.”
“But you have the rare perspective of meeting and talking to them all. If you and I can work together, we might be able to see a pattern.”
“The pattern is simple. It’s Elijah Weston. These women were all fixated on him.”
“What’s your theory on the killer? Why would anyone want to single out the Fireflies?”
He shoved out a breath and sat back in his chair, reminding her of Nate when he was frustrated. “Like I said, Elijah Weston is cleaning up loose ends. I bet he parked that car in front of my motel room.”
It would be easy to believe him and confirm her biases about Elijah. But it was the truth that mattered, not justifying personal fears. “What drew you to this story?”
Thompson looked around the room, searching up and down the four walls. “Are they listening?”
She leaned back in her chair. “Do you mean Gideon and Bryce?”
“Yeah. The dynamic duo.”
She allowed a smile. “No. It’s just you and me.” She crossed her legs, taking extra care to look relaxed. “How did you hear about Elijah?”
“The troubles in Missoula actually made national news. You, if anybody, should know that. It was a popular topic in Nashville for a few weeks. My girlfriend and I talked about it a lot.”
“We had our share of reporters.” When a simple answer was full of extraneous information, she became suspicious that the response could be deceptive.
He cocked his head. “A bit of an understatement.”
“Perhaps.”
When she did not expand on her experiences, he shrugged. “Lucky for you the news cycle is fast and furious, and reporters move on to the next watering hole quickly.”
“And yet here you are. I’ve briefly read over the cases you covered in your podcasts. They’re all decades old.”
“In some respects, it’s easier if the cases are older. As time passes, reality feels more like fiction. Still titillating, but less dangerous. Distance and time make people more likely to talk. There’s less fear of the guilty, because they’re either too old, in jail for another crime, or dead.”
“But the passage of time creates its own challenges. Police files get lost, witnesses die, and memories slip out of focus. This story is still fresh.”
“It will appeal to my audience.”
“So, you heard about this case strictly through the media?” Ann asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I did read about it. Thought it was interesting, but then I met a woman in Nashville. Her name is Judy Monroe. We started dating, and she confessed to me she was one of the Fireflies. The more she talked about writing Elijah in prison, the more curious I became about the story. Through the Freedom of Information Act, I obtained the list of the Fireflies from the prison.”
“I’ve seen that list. The one you gave me was very detailed.”
Pride flickered in his gaze. “Judy helped me. She had already set up a social media account. I made it my mission to find them and reach out to them all.”
She recalled Judy’s name and remembered her picture on Thompson’s fact sheet had been blurred. “Were there Fireflies you approached who refused to talk to you?”
“Sure. There were about five or six, like Megan Madison, that didn’t want to be interviewed. They were either embarrassed that they’d fallen for an incarcerated man, or, like I said, they lost interest in Elijah because he’d been released. Some women like knowing their man is in a box.”
“Megan Madison doesn’t seem the type to write a man behind bars.”
“Her husband, Cooper, put her in the hospital about five years ago. She told me he joined AA and things are better now. But you’re a shrink. You know when an abuser crosses that line it’s easier to cross it again. Elijah must have been some kind of safe haven for her.”
“That’s very true.”
“Did your husband ever hit you?” Thompson asked.
The sudden reversal of the script took her aback. As her defenses rose, she reminded herself she had to give a little to get more. “No. He never once hit me.”
“What about your son?”
“Never. He adored Nate. He wanted to be a better father than his father had been to him.” She was willing to give a bit of herself to keep him talking. “Clarke struggled to distance himself from the past, and he appeared to be winning.”
“Appeared to be winning?”
She ignored the biting tone. “What is Judy Monroe like? What was her attraction to Elijah?”
“Judy has her share of control issues,” he said.
“Tell me about her,” Ann said.
“Fairly ordinary. She comes from a small town in West Virginia. Attractive. She’s good with computers and math and for the most part is self-taught. For a short while she worked as my personal assistant.”
“Did Judy ever come to Missoula to see Elijah?”
“She said she came out here a few times over the years. She seemed to know a lot about you and your son. She even had pictures of you and Nate. She’s the one that figured Elijah might be your son’s biological father.”
Ann searched her memory for anyone over the years whom she had caught lingering too long or watching her while she was with Nate. Had there been someone at Nate’s school, the university, or the grocery store? She could not remember any one person, but in the last couple of years, she had been distracted by her failing marriage, the separation, last year’s fires, and the resulting media storm.
“Do you have copies of the pictures Judy took?” Ann asked.
“They’re on my computer. Get my computer, and I’ll show you.”
“Sure.” She rose, anxious to know what data this woman had collected about her son. “I’ll be right back.”
She closed the door behind her, and down the hallway she found Gideon in the break room with Bryce. Each held a cup of coffee. “I need Thompson’s computer.”
Gideon studied her closely. “Everything all right?”
“Not exactly,” she said.
“Can we help?” Bryce asked.
“No. I’ll have to see this one to the end,” she said.
Bryce reached around the counter and handed Thompson’s backpack to her. “I thought he might want this. Is he going into detox without it?”
“I’m sure that’s part of it. I’ll let you know.” She turned to leave and stopped. “Can you fill up two cups with coffee for me?”
Bryce didn’t question as he plucked two white disposable cups from a stack and carefully filled each.
“He told Bryce he didn’t want any,” Gideon said.
“He said Bryce had his balls in a vise when you asked.”
Gideon chuckled. “Literally, not figuratively.”
“Either way, he wasn’t in the mood.” She hoisted the backpack on her shoulder and took the cups from Bryce. Their gazes met for a moment, and as she stared into his intense eyes, calm washed over her. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” He followed her down the hallway and reached for the door handle. However, instead of opening it, he said in a low voice, “When this is over, are you interested in taking a couple of days off with me?”
“That sounds really good. Though I’ll still have reporters on my trail, psycho Elijah, and a genius son who’s going to be more work as he grows older. When this is all said and done, if you decide to take a pass on that mini vacation, no harm, no foul.”
Humor glinted in his gaze. “I’m not worried.”
“That makes one of us.” She paused outside the closed door and rolled her head from side to side.
“Be calm. Be cool. You’ll get more if you don’t rise to the bait.”
“Thanks.”
He opened the door, and she offered the cup to Thom
pson.
When the door closed, she said to the reporter, “Hopefully, your testicles don’t feel as confined as they did.”
That prompted a small smile he would never have allowed with Gideon or Bryce. “I’m not fooled. The cops have forensic evidence linking me to the murders. I could still get screwed.”
“I asked the police to bring your backpack and laptop here so you would have access to it.” She handed him his backpack, and she took her seat, sipping the coffee. Refuting his statement was pointless. He was right. So far, he was the only suspect with tangible evidence working against him.
He unzipped the backpack and removed the trim laptop. After typing in the passcode, he scrolled through the files until he found what he seemed to be looking for. He stared at the computer for a long moment, as if weighing the value of helping her. “How do I know you won’t screw me over?”
“I’ve just as much to lose at this point as you,” she said.
“No one is threatening you with prison.”
“My life and my son’s are endangered.”
He turned the computer around and showed her the image. “Point taken.”
Leaning forward, she studied the pictures. Her nerves tightened like a bowstring when she saw the image of Nate and her at the park. She remembered the day. It had been two years ago about this time of year, and Clarke had worked back-to-back shifts, and they hadn’t seen him in days. Nate was feeling lonely and restless, and they had gone out for ice cream.
They had sat on the park bench and stared up at the sky and searched for recognizable shapes with the cirrus clouds. Christ, she had even talked about how lucky he was to have a dad who loved him so much.
“I don’t remember anyone taking these.” But she had been distracted and worried about Nate. “Do you have a picture of her? The picture on your printout wasn’t clear.”
He chose another file, frowned, and then clicked on another and another. “The pictures I took of Judy aren’t here.” He fished his phone out and searched his images. “They’re gone from my phone as well.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?” she asked.
“The files were here just a few days ago.” His tone had taken on an edge. “I’m not lying or playing games. They really are gone.”
