by Tess Diamond
They fell back into silence, and this time, Abby let it go and focused on the road, on the mountains ahead, and what lay beyond.
Chapter 14
The Rice farm was set in the valley, near a tiny town called McCloud that was more of a gas station and a restaurant than a real town. Cattle were grazing in the rolling fields that made up the property, and the big red barn and horse paddock looked like they hadn’t seen use in a while.
Abby pulled up to the front of the yellow farmhouse, where marigolds were planted in each of the window boxes, shining like little suns.
“So, let me take the lead here,” Paul said. “I know you’re used to interviewing people, but I’m gonna have to show them my badge. They’re going to have questions.”
“I understand,” Abby said quickly.
“You do?” he asked, feeling surprised. He’d expected her to fight him on this. She was opinionated, Abby was. She liked to lead.
“Paul, you’re an FBI agent. You’re showing up on these parents’ doorstep and you don’t have any news about their missing daughter, but you have a whole lot of questions about her. I don’t want to step in it or accidentally give these people false hope. You have the experience to navigate this a lot better than me. I respect that.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“But you need to respect my instincts too,” she said. “You’ll be asking the questions. But me? I’m gonna be looking around as much as I can. There’s a lot you can learn just by looking at a person’s space.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “You’ve always had a good eye.”
“Okay, then, we’re agreed,” she said.
“For once,” he said, and then mentally winced. Why did he keep having to bring up the tension that had overrun their friendship since that damn kiss two years ago?
Because you want to push. Because you wish things were different.
Because you want her. And maybe you always have. Maybe it’s always been her.
Goddamn his mind. Paul shook the thoughts from his head as he got out of the truck, following Abby up the porch steps and knocking on the door. There was barking, and then footsteps and the door swung open.
“Mr. Rice?” Paul asked.
He was a slight, wiry man with round glasses perched on the end of his nose and motor oil under his fingers. “That’s right,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Special Agent Paul Harrison,” Paul said, flipping open his badge. “This is Abigail Winthrop, she’s consulting with me today. We’d like to ask a few questions about your daughter, Keira.”
Paul watched as the blood drained out of Morgan Rice’s face. “Did you . . . did you find her?”
“No,” Paul said gently. “But if you and your wife are willing to sit down with me, you might be able to help us.”
“Of course, come in,” Morgan said. “My wife’s in town,” he added. “Martha’s got quilting circle on Wednesdays.”
He ushered them into the house, where jute rugs and rough, natural wood furniture decorated the rooms. When they got to the living room, he gestured for them to sit on the couch.
Above the mantel, there was a picture of Keira, with two prayer candles with the Virgin of Guadalupe on them flanking the photo. The candles were lit, a rosary and some dried roses resting between them.
“So, what is this about?” Morgan asked.
“I’m investigating a case from fifteen years ago,” Paul said. “In the process, I’ve found some similarities to Keira’s case. And I wanted to speak to you about her.”
“All right,” Morgan said, and he could hear a hint of wariness in the man’s voice.
“Keira went missing at a soccer meet in Yreka?”
“Yes,” Morgan said. “Normally, my wife or I went with her. We’d chaperone. But my father was sick. So we thought it would be okay for her to go alone this one time.” His lower lip wobbled, his eyes filling with tears. “It was a mistake,” he whispered.
“Mr. Rice.” Abby got up off the couch, grabbing the tissue box on the end table and gently pushing it into his hands. “Keira was sixteen. It was totally reasonable for you to let her go on a chaperoned field trip. This wasn’t your mistake.”
He grabbed one of the tissues, clutching it in his hand. “Keira is such a good girl,” he said. “So talented.”
Paul felt a growing pit in his stomach at the use of the present tense. This poor man. He could feel the loss in this house, the way it seemed to ache out of every wall. He remembered that feeling so well—that dull numb dread that was so damn hard to ignore.
If it was your child you lost, you can’t ever ignore it.
“Mr. Rice, you said that you and your wife usually chaperoned,” he said. “How long had Keira been playing soccer?”
“We had her in peewee soccer at five,” he said. “Her coaches were talking scholarships when she was in middle school.”
Paul could see Abby looking at him out of the corner of her eye, curious at this line of questioning. He wondered if all the other missing girls Zooey’s Code Sibyl had picked out were soccer players. Was that how he was selecting his victims? Most of the Northern California teams in this part traveled up and down I-5 all the way to Oregon, to compete with other teams.
Was their unsub someone in the school system? A parent himself?
Paul couldn’t discount any possibility. His work had taught him that even the most violent sociopath could have a family, people who loved him, people who had no idea what he was really like. Some of them were just that good at concealing who they really were.
“So sports are a big part of her life,” Abby said. Paul noticed she had picked up on Morgan’s use of the present tense, using it herself, so she wouldn’t cause any ripples or offend.
“Oh, yeah,” Morgan said. “All her friends play. When she went missing . . . her best friend, Jayden, she took it very hard. She was the one who was rooming with Keira that night. My wife and I tried to reassure her that it wasn’t her fault, but it was very difficult for her.”
Paul felt a twinge in his chest. Morgan Rice was clearly a good man. His concern for another child—his own missing child’s best friend—made that clear. And the haunted look on Abby’s face told him everything: that she was thinking about Cass, about the two of them. Of what she’d lost.
“Mr. Rice, do you mind if I use your bathroom?” Abby asked.
“Of course, it’s just down the hall. Last door to the right.”
“Thank you.” Abby got up, shooting Paul a meaningful look. A look that clearly said, distract him.
What in the world was she up to? But he gave the slightest tilt of his head, to show he understood.
Abby disappeared down the hall, and Paul turned back to Morgan Rice, the questions mounting in his head.
Chapter 15
Teenage girls kept their secrets in two places: their rooms and their phones. Keira’s phone was long since submitted as evidence, but when Abby opened the door across from the bathroom and peeked inside, she saw a laptop sitting on a blue-and-white painted desk.
Keira’s desk was neat and orderly, and while everything was in the right place, there was no film of dust or stale air in here.
Her parents kept this room dusted and clean. The bed was made. Like they were waiting for her to come home.
Abby pressed a hand against her aching heart, trying to clear the sudden tightness in her throat. This was so sad. Morgan Rice looked like a shell of a man, tired and sad and running out of hope, fast. The little altar on the mantel, the dried flowers and rosary, had drawn her eye the moment he’d brought them into the living room. She hoped that their faith gave them some modicum of relief from the not-knowing.
She knew how terrible it was to wonder. But she had years of some kind of peace before that, before she realized that Wells hadn’t killed Cass. She knew both sides of this coin: neither was good. They were just endured differently.
Keeping an ear out just in case Mr. Rice came looking to see why she
was taking so long in the bathroom, Abby hurried over to the laptop on the desk and booted it up. She clicked on the messages icon, and bam, there they were: Keira’s text messages.
She pulled a thumb drive out of her purse and pushed it into the USB slot, loading the messages—and the rest of the laptop—onto the drive, before plucking it out. She was about to shut the computer down, when she noticed the video chat icon on the dock was bouncing up and down.
Frowning, she clicked on it. And there it was: thousands of missed calls on Keira’s Skype account. All from Keira’s best friend, Jayden. Abby scrolled down, seeing that the calls went back nearly two years, ever since she went missing. They lessened after a while, but the most recent call had been last week.
That was some really heavy grief. Or . . . her always curious mind thought, maybe some very heavy guilt?
She grabbed a pink, fluffy pen out of the cup on the desk and scribbled down Jayden’s phone number and user name, dropping the piece of paper in her purse. She slipped out of the room, going across the hall to the bathroom and running the tap for a few seconds before going out again.
She smiled as she came into view of the living room and Paul got to his feet. His eyes were disapproving. He didn’t like that she’d gone off and done some sleuthing on her own. Control freak, she thought, with more than a little affection.
“I think we’ve taken up enough of your time, Mr. Rice,” Paul said, reaching out and shaking the man’s hand. “Thank you for your time. I’ll call you if I have any other questions.”
Mr. Rice nodded. “Thank you for looking into Keira’s disappearance,” he said. “But, Agent Harrison? If you find my little girl? You call me first. I’ll need to prepare her mother.”
Abby had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from tearing up at the resigned look on Mr. Rice’s face. He may talk about Keira like she was still alive, but he knew how slim that chance was, deep down. It was clear in his eyes.
“I promise, sir,” Paul said solemnly.
“Thank you,” Morgan said.
“Take care,” Abby said, before she followed Paul out of the house.
He waited until they were back on the highway, headed home to Castella Rock, to say, “So, your snooping session turn anything up?”
Abby nodded at her purse, keeping her hands on the wheel as a semi merged in front of them. “Thumb drive in my purse. I loaded her entire laptop and all her texts onto it.”
“You do realize this is completely illegal,” Paul said, digging through her purse all the same.
“So arrest me,” Abby dared. “I found out something useful.”
“Oh?”
“Keira’s Skype account was full of missed calls from her best friend. I’m talking thousands of calls over the last two years.”
Paul frowned. “Why would she be calling Keira after she went missing?”
“You didn’t call Cass’s cell phone a few times, to hear her voice on the voice mail message?” Abby asked.
Silence fell in the cab of her truck, and she felt her stomach drop and embarrassed heat crawl up her chest and neck to flood her cheeks. “I guess it was just me,” she muttered quickly.
“No, Winny, I—” He let out a long sigh, jerking his hand through his hair, rumpling it. “I did,” he admitted quietly. “Fuck, I must’ve played the videos I had of her a thousand times.”
Her fingers were holding the steering wheel in a death grip. She tried to relax her fingers, but it was hard.
After Cass was killed, after Wells was caught, they’d had less than six months before graduating and going off to their separate colleges. They’d never sat down and talked about any of it as teenagers—they hadn’t known how. And by the time they were adults, it was too late. They were supposed to have healed. Done their grieving and moved on.
She had tried. Maybe he had succeeded, until she dragged him back into this. She knew he’d been engaged to another FBI agent at some point. His mom had shown her pictures. His fiancée was a gorgeous woman, petite, but somehow beautifully fierce-looking. She didn’t know what happened there, only that they never made it down the aisle and weren’t together anymore.
But now he was back here, with her. And they had to talk about it, didn’t they? Because she’d involved him in this.
Once again, Abby, you are the author of your own destruction, she thought.
“I think it might be more than that, though,” Abby said. “Grief is one thing. But grief mixed with guilt? That’s another.”
“You think the best friend knows something?” Paul asked.
“You know how girls are at that age,” Abby said. “They have entire secret lives from their parents. Even if they’re close with them, like Keira Rice obviously was. But they don’t keep secrets from their best friends.”
You did. That traitorous thought floated to the surface, and she pushed it down. This wasn’t the time.
“So you’re just going to call her up and ask?” Paul asked.
“Why not?”
“It’s not the worst idea,” he said. His phone rang, and he looked down. “It’s Zooey.” He tapped it on. “Hey, Zo. You’re on speaker with me and Abby.”
“Great!” Zooey said. “I’m calling about the coroner’s report.”
“What about it?” Abby called.
“Well, it’s not complete,” Zooey said. “It looks like the FBI didn’t do their own examination of the . . . of Cass’s . . .” She hesitated. “Of Cass,” she said finally. “They just relied on the county coroner’s report. Problem is, both the copy in the FBI files I brought and the copy that Abby has in her files are missing pages.”
“It’s probably just a clerical error,” Paul said.
“Probably,” Zooey said. “But we should get the original just to be sure. Look, I don’t mean to be an ass, but rural counties like this aren’t exactly bastions of forensic progress. Add in the fact that we’re talking fifteen years ago, which is practically the Dark Ages scientifically, there are things the ME might have missed that I’ll be able to pick up.”
“The original report would be at the sheriff’s department, in the records room,” Abby said to Paul.
“Okay, we’ll dig around until I find it. And then”—he checked the time on his phone—“then, we all need to get ready for dinner. Because you’re both invited to my mom’s. No excuses.”
“Ooh, Mama Harrison, I can’t wait,” Zooey said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Hey, Zo, run some searches for me on the missing girls Code Sibyl pulled up,” Paul said. “I want to know everything they had in common.”
“On it,” Zooey said.
“‘Bye for now.”
He hung up.
“It’s probably best that you go to the sheriff’s station alone,” Abby said.
“Why’s that?”
“Ryan’s a deputy now.”
“Ryan as in your ex-boyfriend from high school Ryan?” Paul asked.
Abby nodded. “When I moved back home to take care of Dad, he seemed to think it would be a good idea to pick things up again. That was about as far from my thinking as you could get. He didn’t take it well.”
“If I remember correctly, Ryan rarely takes anything well,” Paul said.
“You can just drop me off at my place. Zooey and I can meet you at your mom’s.”
“Okay,” he said. “I wouldn’t let him bug you, though.”
Abby shot him a look. “I can take care of myself when it comes to Ryan,” she said. “I just don’t feel like dealing with it today.”
Once upon a time, breaking up with Ryan had been the peak of her teenage heartbreak. In fact, he had been the reason she and Cass had fought the day before Cass was killed.
Her throat tight as she pulled onto the road that led to her place, mind circling around those thousands of calls Jayden had made to Keira’s Skype account. When the trees and the fence and the gate that had the wooden sign her father had carved himself, WINTHROP ACRES, affixed to it came into view
, all the tension began to uncoil inside her. Home soothed her in a way little else did.
“I’ll get out here,” she said, when he pulled up to the gate.
“Abby, it’s like half a mile down the road.”
“I know, I need the fresh air.”
He looked at her, searching, and the hair on the back of her arms stood on end under his scrutiny.
“We need to talk,” he said. “About all this.”
Abby bit her lip. She thought about what Zooey had told her, about the bomb, about the PTSD. She thought about the secrets she was still keeping. All the pain she kept hiding.
“I know,” she said. “But not now.”
She got out of the truck, leaving the keys behind for him. And he slid across the bench, taking her place in the driver’s seat, waiting until she opened the gate and disappeared from sight, to drive away.
Chapter 16
Castella Rock, like many tiny rural towns, had a sheriff’s department rather than a police department. When you had so many citizens living in the far-flung reaches of the county, a sheriff served the area better. Plus, the county never had money for both. It was always one or the other.
The sheriff’s department was set in the town square. An old fountain was still spouting merrily, the cherubs’ faces faded from years of water running over them, lending the whole thing a haunted air. The brick building the department operated out of was two stories, with a records room in the attic and a bell tower with a bell that hadn’t rung in nearly fifty years.
Paul opened the glass doors, the brass handles worn from years and years of hands pulling them open. The building was cool and quiet this time of day, and when he walked into the main room, only one deputy was at his desk, his feet propped up as he looked intently at his phone.
Paul cleared his throat and the man started, looking up. When their eyes met, he felt a flash of recognition, followed quickly by disgust.
Ryan Clay. Abby’s ex-boyfriend from high school . . . and his ex-rival on the baseball team. When Cass had been killed, Paul had quit the team, his focus shifting to law enforcement, college, and the FBI, and Ryan was finally number one. It was something that seemed to endlessly please him, because every time after that when he saw the guy, he’d talk loudly about all his wins and his new position as team captain.
