Trace (TraceWorld Book 1)

by Letitia L. Moffitt

  She remembered what Lynette had said about Maureen and Culver: “She married him for his money. He married her because he felt sorry for her.” That might very well be true, but Nola had a feeling it was true in a way that made each of them a little more sympathetic. Maureen wanted a future with hope, and Culver wanted her to have one. What’s more, it seemed increasingly likely that Culver’s relationship with Lynette might have been similar. Despite coming from money, Lynette was still a gold digger, clearly, and had a fancy lifestyle to uphold. And Culver, once she’d suckered him in, cared enough not to simply cut her loose like most men would before a mistress got too demanding. People’s lives, and especially their relationships, were seldom as simple as they seemed from the outsider’s perspective.

  There was still one question Nola wanted to ask—had wanted to ask from the moment they sat down. She put down her fork, sipped her iced tea, dabbed her lips with her napkin, and took a breath. “Got anything on the brother?”

  Nadine shook her head. “Grayson’s clean. Not so much as a speeding ticket.”

  “I know that part already. Anything more of a gossipy-type nature?”

  “Nothing interesting, except—ooh! You’ll like this. He used to date Anna Villagomez over in Albany.”

  Nola could only stare. “He dated her?”

  “Yeah. More than dated, in fact. They were sort of involved for, like, six months. Then it ended, no idea why. You know her, right?”

  “Of her. Never met her.” She was thinking she might like to meet her. She was thinking a lot of things right now. Had Anna become wary of Grayson’s following her around? Had he become too much like an addict, she his enabler? This has nothing to do with the case, she reminded herself sternly—but then again, she herself wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with the case either. None of this was really about the case anymore. It was starting to become more about her own life.

  A crash behind her interrupted the jumbled churn of her thoughts. Nadine rose from her seat and Nola spun around. An elderly man was lying on the restaurant floor while a terrified busboy knelt beside him. Instantly, the uniforms at the next table sprang into action. Two of them pulled the busboy aside and gave a third room to aid the fallen man. Was he choking? No. Seizure? Symptoms didn’t match. Heart attack? The man clutched his chest.

  Oh God oh God. Nola felt her own heart racing. She didn’t know the man and had barely caught a glimpse of him before the cops stood in the way, but one thought pounded through her brain: please don’t die.

  “Jesus, Nola, are you all right?” Nadine was at Nola’s side, holding out a glass of water for her.

  Nola had turned back around, not able to watch, dreading what might happen next, dreading that trace-feeling coming over her again. She couldn’t deal with it like this, so unexpected, in the middle of an ordinary day. It was ridiculous to think that way—people died unexpectedly all the time. Death happened so often, it could be considered part of an ordinary day. People were shocked, or they shrugged it off. They grieved, or they lived in denial. But very few of them had to experience so deeply the last moment of life that escaped a human being. Nola did. So did Grayson and Anna. It changed everything, in ways she was still struggling to understand.

  “He’s OK. He’s sitting up and talking, Nola,” Nadine said urgently. “His color looks normal. He’s fine.”

  Nola nodded, sipped her water, and smiled to show Nadine that she, too, was fine. She wasn’t, though. There would always be more trace. It was inescapable. It was starting to seem like she didn’t find it but rather that it found her.

  ___________

  Nadine had some mystery books in her desk that she wanted to return to Nola—Nola sometimes felt like a lending library, with her father, Nadine, and Mrs. Lafferty all holding membership cards—so Nola went back to the station with her friend to get them. Detective Commander Dalton was returning to the ugly grey building at exactly the same time, and he held open the door for them. “Ladies.”

  Still shaken but putting up a good front, Nola was about to exchange a “private joke” look with Nadine to remind her of their conversation over lunch when she caught the expression on his face. Serious, and unhappy, as if an unpleasant task awaited him. “Nola, this is good timing. Are you on your way to the courthouse or can you spare me a minute?”

  “My afternoon case was settled out of court. I can spare you quite a few of them.”

  “Good. Can we talk in my office?”

  Nadine had obviously caught the tone of his voice and glanced at Nola, who telegraphed back her own anxious uncertainty before heading to Dalton’s office.

  “Lunch at the happy kitchen?” he asked, pulling out a chair for her.

  She nodded, wishing he didn’t feel the need to make small talk to lessen the blow of whatever he was about to say.

  “Love their green-chili enchiladas.” Then, perhaps remembering who he was talking to—Nola liked to get to the point—he seated himself behind his desk and did indeed get to the point. “I understand you’ve been in contact with two people closely connected with the Culver Bryant case.”

  She didn’t ask how he knew that. If Nadine could find out who Grayson was dating, Dalton could find out who Nola was talking to in her spare time. “Yes. Lynette Veesy and Grayson Bryant. Both of them initiated contact with me.”

  “What was the purpose of that contact?”

  His voice was calm and neutral, but it was hard not to feel like she was being interrogated. “Lynette Veesy asked for my help in finding Culver Bryant. I made it clear what my arrangement was with this department and emphasized that I would be obligated to report any relevant information.”

  Dalton nodded. “And Grayson Bryant?”

  Nola swallowed hard. She wondered if he’d heard it; it had sounded deafening to her. “He contacted me for . . . personal reasons.”

  Dalton said nothing for a moment, doing that detective thing, she supposed, where they wait for you to talk yourself into a conviction. Finally, seeing that she wasn’t going to elaborate (what in the world could she say?), he continued. “You were very certain Grayson Bryant was connected to murder in some way. Very certain. I don’t take your certainty lightly.”

  She supposed there was a compliment there, but it was being greatly overshadowed by implied accusation, skepticism, and doubt. But there was no easy explanation she could give him that would dispel any of that. “I was certain that I detected trace on Grayson Bryant. I wasn’t wrong. I simply had never experienced that before. I’ve since learned that trace can be detected on certain people, though it’s extremely unusual.”

  “We’re actually lucky Grayson Bryant had a complete alibi and so was not treated as a primary suspect. You probably heard that infamous quote attributed to me a couple years ago?”

  She knew the one he meant. He’d said it right after rumors began to circulate that he’d soon be the next chief of police: “If there’s one thing I hate worse than a criminal getting away, it’s an innocent person being accused.” Dalton’s enemies—and you didn’t get that high up on the PD totem pole without making some—pointed to this as a sign of his weakness, evidence that he was soft on crime. Personally, Nola respected him tremendously for it, but she could see how it was probably not the way he’d want to start a new job.

  “As unpopular as I was for saying that, I still stand by it to this day. We could have done serious harm to Grayson Bryant’s reputation if we’d pursued him as a suspect and the press got wind of it.”

  “I know that, sir—” She was back to being distantly deferential, as when she’d first met him.

  “For goodness sake, don’t ‘sir’ me! I’m not blaming you for anything, Nola. You’ve done your job exactly as required. I just need to let you know how things stand around here.” He sighed, running his hands through his hair. He had just the tiniest hint of silver at the temples, in a way that inevitably made men look distinguished rather than old, and Dalton was no exception. Nola thought fleetingly about N
adine and herself giggling over lunch about how handsome he was, but it was hard to dwell on anything that lighthearted at the moment.

  “Nola, this is a high-profile case, and you know that, but it’s high-profile in a different way from most. Oddly enough, if it had been a missing child, no one would likely have the tiniest objection to your working with us, because it would show we’re willing to do whatever it takes. When a wealthy, well-connected, highly influential man goes missing, the game changes. You can’t simply try everything, because everything that doesn’t yield results is going to be seen as a sign of ineptitude, more bumbling police incompetence. Don’t ask me why it’s this way, it just is. We need to be very, very careful here. Do you understand what I mean?”

  He said the last sentence gently, with a concerned look as if afraid she might start crying. It was a definite possibility. She straightened up, balled her hands into fists, and tried to get control. “Yes, sir,” she said and mentally winced. It sounded cold. That was better than sounding teary, though.

  Dalton smiled faintly. “Look, you said your afternoon case was settled. You have the rest of the day off. Why don’t you go home and relax a bit? Maybe see a movie or hit the mall, something fun.”

  Nola nodded, but she knew she wasn’t going to do that. And she wasn’t going to do anything that would make any department types feel the need to snitch on her either. She was going to drive to Albany to look for Anna Villagomez.

  9

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hello, Nola.”

  Nola put her phone on speaker so she could start the car and get on her way, but there was only silence. This was typical. There had been a brief time when Nola worried that her mother might have early-onset Alzheimer’s, because she would call and appear to have forgotten why. That concern didn’t last. Her mother hadn’t forgotten; she just didn’t have normal conversations. She seemed to think being on the phone with someone could be the same as being with them in person, and long periods of silences weren’t at all strange or pointless.

  “How’s work, Mom?”

  “I saw Steven yesterday at Wegman’s. He said you were doing some important casework?”

  Nola sighed silently. She had asked how her mother’s work was, and her mother was responding as if the questioning had been reversed. Again, typical. “I guess it’s important. It involves Culver Bryant.”

  “Greenbriar,” her mother exclaimed, a typical Emma Lantri non sequitur. “Yes, that’s the name of it. They look like very nice houses.”

  “Dad says they’re crap.”

  This brought out exactly the reaction Nola had known it would. “I would love to live there. Some of them have river views. I was even thinking of taking a look at them one of these days.”

  That gave Nola an idea. “It’s near where I’m working. I can stop by on the way home and get some pamphlets and stuff from them if you like.”

  It was nowhere near where she worked. It was nowhere near anything, really, but she knew her mother’s terrible sense of direction. More important, this gave Nola an excuse to check the place out. She didn’t know what that would accomplish, but it couldn’t get her into trouble with Dalton if she was there on behalf of her own dear mother.

  “Get the floor plans if they have them,” her mother said. “I like looking at those. I like imagining where I would put all the furniture.”

  “Will do. I’ll stop by sometime next weekend and bring you what I get.” As Nola ended the call and put her phone away, she smiled. There were moments when she could see the whimsical side of her mother and not just her weirdness, and she understood perhaps why her father had fallen for her.

  That was a long time ago. As she turned up the road that would eventually take her to Greenbriar—she figured she might as well do this now on her way out of town—she thought about how many couples she knew who had replaced love and affection with a sort of knee-jerk instinct to contradict, to defy—to hurt, even. When she was in an especially dark mood, she would look at people’s homes as she drove by and wonder just how much suffering was going on behind those walls, masked by tidy lawns and well-kept beds of geraniums.

  And here was Greenbriar, an entire community of homes waiting to be filled with human joy and human misery. They did look like very nice houses, as her mother had said, at least the ones that were finished, and Nola had no doubt the others would look pretty much the same. There had been a time when the ordinary life represented by houses like this seemed like the worst fate ever. Now Nola could see what a snobbish sort of belief that was. She could afford to shun the ordinary; a lot of people could not.

  She followed signs pointing her to the real estate office, which unsurprisingly looked identical to the houses. She parked and entered the office, finding herself in an overly A/C-chilled room with racks of pamphlets and floor plans. A woman about Nola’s age in a dark blue suit and nylons sat behind a desk and chirped cheerfully on the phone. She nodded and mouthed something with her heavily lipsticked mouth at Nola, probably “be with you in a minute.” Nola nodded and busied herself gathering literature.

  “Sooo sorry about that,” the woman was saying now, having finished her call. Nola resisted the urge to say something sarcastic like Yes, how incredibly rude of you to continue a work-related phone conversation at your place of work. Something about situations that demanded a thick social veneer often made Nola prickly and uncomfortable. She hated that about herself and tried very hard to get over it but failed frequently.

  The woman, Patty something, went through the expected questions—“How did you hear about Greenbriar? When were you looking to move? Do you rent or own now”—and was in the middle of suggesting a tour of the grounds, which was the main thing that had interested Nola to begin with, when Vincent Kirke appeared from seemingly out of nowhere. He looked just as surprised to see Nola as Nola was to see him, and for a weird moment they stood there gaping at each other. Vincent recovered first, easing a smile onto his face. “Ms. Lantri, isn’t it? How good to see you again. I heard Patty saying you’re looking into Greenbriar for your mother, is that right? Patty, I can take over here—I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  This was not quite what Nola had planned. So much for not defying Dalton. She realized she had not spoken yet, so to deflect the awkwardness, she blurted, “Do we get to ride in one of those golf carts? I love those things.”

  If she could have smacked her forehead without looking even more like a teenager, she would have. And to think she made fun of her mother’s conversational weirdness.

  Vincent grinned. “Unfortunately, no, just an ordinary old car. Hmm, note to self: get golf cart.” He opened the door of a silver Acura parked next to Nola’s old Ford Taurus, looking even shabbier for the contrast. She itched to tell Vincent he really ought to write that “note to self” in earnest. These were supposed to be houses geared toward lower-income families, after all, and she wasn’t sure it was such a good idea to be taking them around in a fancy new car, especially when there were rumors, at least in the construction business, that corners had been cut.

  “We’re still under construction, as you can see, so I can’t show you everything, but we do have some models for you to look at, and I think you’ll find them as beautiful as I do—and so will your mother.”

  As she listened to Vincent’s salesman speech describing the many delightful amenities of Greenbriar, Nola wondered how to find out what she really wanted to know. There didn’t seem to be any subtle way of asking him if these really were the high-quality materials promised or if her father had been correct in his assessment that it was all, as he put it, shit. If she appeared critical, he would either laugh at her obvious lack of knowledge about construction or become defensive at the implications. Either way she’d gain nothing.

  They went through two of the model homes, Nola murmuring appropriate remarks of praise and appreciation, all the while frustrated that she was wasting her time. It was true that the models did not look terribly luxurious, even fr
om her own inexpert view—cabinet doors were pine with a cherry wood-like stain, and the carpets and tiles were clearly not top-of-the-line—but that meant very little. Her father had suggested that the whole thing was cheap and shoddy, not just the frills, and at the moment Nola had no way of discovering whether that was true.

  Getting back into the car after seeing the three-bedroom Hillcrest (did they always have to have the same bland names?), she expected Vincent to take her to the next model (Sunvista, or would it be Riverglen?), which would be larger and way too big for one person, but of course real estate types always liked to push upgrades at you. To her surprise, however, he turned the car around and headed back for the office. “Are there any models of the bigger homes?” she asked just to have something to ask.

  “Not yet.”

  He did not seem inclined to elaborate. This was interesting. The problem was that Nola couldn’t figure out what it could mean or if it had any importance at all. She cast about for something else to say before the drive was over. “My mother likes the location especially, though I imagine some people were probably worried about the factory.”

  He shot her an odd look. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “A lot of people hear factory these days and think ‘toxic waste dumped in my water.’ Even though they shut it down, like, thirty years ago.”

  Victor chuckled. For some reason, it annoyed Nola. It reminded her of a used-car salesman laughing when a woman asks a question about gas mileage. She almost expected him to say something like Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. Instead, he said, “We did extensive testing of soil and water for just that very reason. Everything passed. You can see copies of the reports in the office if you wish.”

  Nola was sure she already knew what the reports would look like: pages and pages of incomprehensible data that would make most people stop reading and say, Looks good to me. “That’s OK, I should get going.”