Sharp Absence (Sharp Investigations Book 1)

by Kate Anders

  “Fuck.” Will stops hesitating and reaches out for my hand. How in the world his fingers are as warm as they are is beyond me, but there’s a sharp sting that comes with his warm fingers hitting the skin of my cold ones.

  “Yeah,” I whisper.

  “I’m sorry, Kenzie.”

  I take a few moments to absorb the comfort he’s giving me before throwing my walls back up and trying to protect my newly shattered heart against a different kind of trauma. I move out of the space Will and I are sharing.

  “How did you know I was here?” I ask, trying to get my head straight.

  “I didn’t,” he says, letting me take the space I need.

  “Then how are you—”

  “Sitting out here waiting for you?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “I have some information I needed to turn over to the police and while I was dropping it off, they were kind enough to let me know you were already here. I took it upon myself to wait.”

  “Information? What information? You handed over everything at the diner.” I demand.

  “I turned over all the information I had at the time. I had new information.”

  I barely have the time to open my mouth to demand the information before Will keeps going.

  “I told you if this became an official police case, that I would be turning over everything to the police. I’m just doing what I said I would.”

  “Fine. What information?” I demand.

  “Once King had everyone’s name, she did a little digging on her own. She managed to get access to a couple of their email accounts and found some emails that fit the same pattern as with Clara. So I turned them over.”

  “Oh.” I deflate a little. Not really new information, more like confirmation of the information that we already had. Nice to have but not really moving anything forward in any way.

  “I’ve also been going over all the footage they have gotten so far from the library.”

  “You have footage, like real footage?” My body perks up at the thought of real information, something for me to do.

  “This is ridiculous. You’re freezing. Come back to the office, or fuck, pick a car and we can talk with a heater on.”

  He’s not wrong. I am freezing my ass off. But I know if I sit in my compact car with Will, his presence will overwhelm the space and I will be even more uncomfortable than I am now.

  “The truck,” I tell him.

  “Good.” He turns and starts walking toward the parking lot as I fall in step behind him. That’s when I notice he has his key fob in his hand and I can hear the beep of his truck in the distance and the engine roar to life. He’s warming up the truck. Why can’t he go back to being a douche? Him being a jerk would make this all so much easier.

  When we reach the truck, he doesn’t head for the driver’s side. No, of course, he goes to the passenger side and opens the door for me. Our eyes meet as I pass him on the way to the front seat. It only takes a few seconds for Will to be in the truck with me, but I need those to try and convince myself he is a jerk and to let it go. It does not work.

  “Footage?” I prompt.

  “Joe sent over the footage they were able to get from the library, apparently they upgraded their system a couple years ago so everything is on digital and it’s backed up for a fairly decent period of time.”

  “So twenty-four hours rerecords on VHS tapes?” I joke.

  He laughs.

  “I don’t know how some people still use that nonsense, but no, it’s digital. I scanned it and so did King, we both agree that there is no one there consistently over the corresponding time stamps for the emails. It was a long shot, but we had to look.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “This guy has been covering his tracks all along, there was no way he was hanging out at the computer terminals sending blackmail emails in front of a camera so that all we had to do was match time stamps with security footage. We figured it was probably close enough to the library that he was able to tap into the Wi-Fi but far enough away not to be on library surveillance.”

  “So what, like in a car or something?”

  “That’s what our thought was,” he agrees.

  “Let me guess, the library doesn’t have security cameras on the parking lot?”

  “Oh, they do. The angles aren’t great, and it’s clear it’s not their main concern, the outside cameras are mainly focused on entry points.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” I sigh. “So, did you see anything?”

  “Yes. We both found two cars that sat in the back of the parking lot, almost completely out of the cameras’ field for long periods of time. But it’s so far in the distance from the camera that we can’t see inside the car or really get meaningful information about the cars other than they both looked like four-door cars in a dark color.”

  “Not exactly helpful,” I commiserate.

  “So early this morning I hit the surrounding businesses that might have any angle on the parking lot and I finally hit pay dirt at the little mom-and-pop taco place.”

  “You’re kidding?” I’m stunned. Did he really just say we got lucky and have a real lead? Because it’s sounding a lot like we might have just gotten a lead to work off of.

  “Not kidding. I turned the footage over while I was there. I got the full plate of one car and a partial on the other. One of the plates came back as stolen, but the partial has a list we are going to have to sort through.”

  “Oh my god.” I stare at Will in shock. “That’s like a real lead. Like actual, real progress.”

  “Not done.”

  “Continue, continue.” I motion my hand, trying to get him to hurry up. I should have never been avoiding him, I could have been working on this all along, how much further along would we be if I hadn’t been such a coward?

  “King said that one of Clara’s files is so encrypted that she can’t break it. Well, she said she probably could if she had an unlimited supply of Starbucks double shots and wasn’t on a timeline. She decided this was too time sensitive, so she’s taking the file to a friend who should be able to open it or at least help out a lot,” Will explains.

  “Okay, I trust King. If she says she needs help, then I’m all for it,” I tell him.

  “Good.” Will nods.

  There’s a silence that seems to start small before it starts to build up in the cab of the truck. Ultimately, I’m the one who decides to break it.

  “Will, I will never be able to say thank you enough for everything you are doing for me and Clara, I don’t even know if I could put into words how grateful I am that you are helping with this.”

  “I know you’re grateful, Kenzie, you don’t have to say anything,” Will tries to reassure me.

  “I’m sorry about the other day. I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I don’t know what I was thinking. I would never want to make you uncomfortable, and of course, you aren’t interested. I just, I wasn’t thinking, I just, I dunno, I wanted to. I got caught up, and I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.” Clumsiest apology ever.

  “Kenzie, you don’t have anything to be sorry about, and it’s not that I’m not interested—”

  “Will, don’t. It’s okay. Clara is all that I can think about right now. She needs me. She needs us. So I just want to, I dunno, pretend it didn’t happen or something.” I lift my eyes up slowly to meet him, trying to will myself a backbone to hold up under the scrutiny.

  Will doesn’t say anything for a while. He looks like he is going to a couple of times, and his right arm keeps twitching like he wants to reach out, but ultimately, he holds himself back.

  “Kenz—” he starts.

  “Can we just put it behind us and move forward for Clara?” I’m close to begging. I’m sure my cheeks are red with my embarrassment. Hopefully he thinks it’s the heat from the heater blowing at full force.

  “If that’s what you want, we can put it aside for now,” Will says simply.

  “Okay, good.” I pause
for a few moments before forging ahead on our new status quo. “Could you email me everything you have so far?”

  “Already done.”

  “Okay, well then, I guess that’s it,” I say on a shrug.

  “I guess so.”

  “I really am sorry,” I say quietly.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise, you didn’t do a single thing wrong, Kenzie,” he tries reassuring me again. And with that, it is time to go our separate ways. With any luck, the next time we meet it won’t be this level of uncomfortable and I won’t feel the urge to run and hide under a pile of blankets at the end of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “SCHOOL’S OUT” BY ALICE COOPER

  I spend the rest of the afternoon going over all the information for the millionth time, although this is the first time that I have media to go through. I have to admit I don’t know how cops spend time going through surveillance footage on a regular basis, it’s literally the most mind-numbing thing in the world to do. Besides, unless you really know what you are looking for, it is hard to tell what is just normal everyday people going about their lives and who is the bad guy. Unfortunately for the rest of us, bad guys seem to look like everyone else. It would be so much more convenient if they would just wear signs around their necks or something.

  I spent hours watching the footage last night, and if Will hadn’t included the helpful hint to not watch it at speed but rather to speed it up, I would have gone crazy. Hell, I did go a little crazy. I even nodded off a couple of times. It’s easy to see how things could be missed when going over this kind of footage.

  I did finally find the cars that Will was talking about yesterday at the police station. I totally get what he was saying about how it was hard to really tell anything about the cars other than they were four-door cars that were dark colored. I have no idea how he managed to get license plate numbers off them, I had it zoomed in and my face pushed up against the screen and I don’t think I could tell you more than a number or two off of them. But then again, Will does this for a living and he has King in his corner, maybe she was able to get it.

  I even spent some of last night going over my list of suspects. Or rather nonspecific suspects. I went down some sort of social media rabbit hole trying to find references to the jerk Clara was always competing with or the professor she didn’t like. And then I made a big mistake. I looked for current social media posts. I started with Jenny’s name because she has the more visible case compared to everyone else.

  For the most part, everyone was really supportive, you know the standard thoughts and prayers and people trying to spread awareness about Jenny being missing. Some people were even sharing little anecdotes and stories about how nice she is as a person and how everyone loves having her around. I’d say eighty percent was nice and positive.

  But the other twenty percent. It’s like a cesspool of cretins. The absolute worst of the worst internet trolls. People speculating about all the possible things that could be being done to her right now, it’s like some weird bizarro fantasy torture porn or something.

  After that, I just kept going from being so angry I wanted to scream to being so disheartened by humanity that I wanted to cry. I don’t understand how anyone could be excited by the idea that some young woman they don’t even know could be out there somewhere suffering a horrible fate. It’s disgusting.

  The only positive about the whole thing is on some of the posts about Jenny there are some mentions of Clara and the other women. The word is slowly starting to get out. This is a case of missing women. Foul play. People are aware now, they can be on the lookout and take precautions to keep themselves safe. It isn’t much, but it is something. Something I can be proud of and hopeful that it will bring me one more step closer to getting Clara back home where she belongs.

  Which brings me to now. Slightly defeated, slightly hopeful, more than a little afraid. So I do the only thing I can think of. Sitting on my couch for the millionth time staring up at my Wall of Crazy. Everything is starting to blur together, but at least this time I’m comfortable. I still haven’t managed to get out of my pajamas. Flannel pants and a hoodie with a cup of hot cocoa while wrapped in one of those overpriced fuzzy lap blankets from Target is my idea of the ideal way to spend a morning. Granted, it would be better if I was watching The Holiday for the millionth time instead of staring up at the world’s most depressing wall, but that’s life.

  Thankfully my phone picks this time to start beeping, effectively saving me from falling back down the rabbit hole of despair. Determined to be positive, I stumble off the couch in search of my phone.

  Don’t ask me how it ended up underneath the sofa, but sure enough, that’s where I finally find it.

  Will: You awake?

  Me: Yep. Sleeping isn’t one of those things that happens a lot around here anymore.

  I miss sleep.

  Will: I’m sure. So I have an update.

  Me: Okay

  Will: King is headed over to my place to go over some information.

  Me: Did she get that last file open?

  Will: She didn’t say.

  Me: Did she already meet with that guy?

  Will: Look King isn’t exactly forthcoming with things except in person.

  Me: Oh.

  Will: Do you want to come meet with us, that way you get information as I get it?

  Me: Really?

  Will: Yeah, I don’t want there to be any miscommunication between us.

  I would rather us both get the information at the same time.

  I don’t know what to do with that. It’s kind of nice that he’s thinking about my feelings on the matter. And the truth is, I know I overreacted yesterday. My feelings were already bruised from the rejection, I couldn’t help but come down on him for not telling me everything immediately. He really didn’t do anything wrong at all. But even in spite of that, he’s still trying to make me feel better.

  I really do wish he was more of a jerk. It would be easier to stop liking him if he could just be an asshole.

  Me: I really appreciate that, Will, really, thank you

  Will: Of course.

  She’s meeting me over at my place, do you want me to pick you up?

  Me: Are you not at home?

  Will: No, I’m at home

  Me: Then it makes no sense for you to leave only to head back to your place, I’ll just drive myself

  Will: Do you remember how to get here?

  Me: Uh, not really. I was mostly asleep the last time we drove to your place.

  Will: LOL

  Alright I’ll just text you the address and you can follow the GPS

  Me: Sounds like a plan.

  It only takes a few seconds for Will to send me a pin to click on with his current location so that Maps can give me directions. I wait for the app to plot the fastest trip to Will’s place, which as it turns out, is not exactly the quickest trip in the world. It’s at least a thirty-minute drive. I swear one of the things that drives me batty about North Carolina is how you can’t get anywhere in any sort of straight line. Even some of the highways out here feel like back roads.

  Since it’s going to be a trek up there, I need to get moving, I’m pretty sure King isn’t the kind of person who is just going to stand around waiting. No, she seems more like the type to do what she sets out to do and leave a trail of dust in her wake as she goes back home.

  Still aiming for continued comfort, I slide on my favorite pair of well-worn jeans. The denim is a little thicker because it’s not a stretchy material and while the waistband has a nice comfortable fit to it, the rest of it is probably about a half size too big. Basically, the perfect amount of comfort, especially for a trip in my car. A T-shirt and a hoodie complete the look, and two minutes and a messy bun later, I’m out the door.

  It turns out Wednesday night at nine p.m. is not a time that anyone is out on the road. And while I always appreciate not having to combat traffic, it feels more than a little creepy to
be out on the road by myself in the dark, surrounded by the giant pines everywhere.

  I’ve never been a big fan of driving in the dark. It’s just not my thing. Hell, driving isn’t really my thing. I don’t trust other drivers. Or the weather.

  The quiet in the car is really playing into the creepy sensation that’s starting to take hold. And of course, that’s the moment that Mother Nature decides my life hasn’t been challenging enough lately and the sky opens up.

  I know they say it rains in Seattle all the time but I often wonder if these same people have never visited here before. I can’t remember a week that went by where there was not some kind of rain, and more often than not, it’s more than one day with rain. It never stops. And it always seems to happen when I am driving. I’m like a magnet for rain.

  Reaching over to grab my phone off the passenger seat so I can turn on my upbeat driving playlist, I notice there are flashing lights up ahead.

  “What now?” I wonder out loud.

  By the time I get my playlist started and classic rock starts pumping out of my speakers, I can tell that the flashing lights are construction.

  “Always with the fucking construction,” I mutter under my breath.

  With these small two-lane highways, construction means one side of the traffic isn’t moving at all while traffic on the opposite end goes forward using our lane. Basically, hurry up and wait. There may not have been traffic when I started this journey, but there is sure as shit a backlog of cars starting to build up behind me.

  I take this opportunity to try and relax. Reaching over to turn up the volume, Alice Cooper starts piping out through my speakers. Before I know it, my head is moving up and down and I’m doing my full-body shimmy while belting out “School’s Out.”

  It kind of feels like school is out. I haven’t been going to classes and I’ve all but given up on graduating with my entire focus being on getting Clara back, everything else has just flown out the window.