She gulped. Gaines was certain the coach was having an affair.
Could it have been her sister? Her sister—who had just confessed to her employer that she wanted to adopt Allie’s own daughter. What was Emma doing? What was she thinking?
Running her hands through her hair, Allie began pacing the room. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. She’d confront Emma. Have her swear the affair wasn’t true. Make her explain about the conversation with Natalie.
There was no other way around it. Allie snatched up her cell, scrolled down, and touched Emma’s number. The line connected and dumped her straight into voice mail. The sound of her sister’s greeting was simple, direct, and practiced.
She cleared her throat. “Emma, I need to talk.” Allie clenched her teeth, then tried to relax her jaw.
The recording cut off.
“Come on.” Allie hit redial and then waited through the menu and options. When the voice mail beeped, she continued. “Listen, call me back when you get this. The weirdest thing happened. Sheriff Gaines came by, asking about you. I just want to know what really happened—that night.” She moved her finger to end the call, but then stopped. “I care, Emma. I really do.”
Allie hung up and paced the floor. Uncovering a few more details about the past wouldn’t necessarily clear her name. It might provide some answers to the Childree family, though, and many like them. She might also right some wrongs about the coach and his seemingly bulletproof reputation.
She needed evidence—something conclusive—to prove her innocence. To pin the murder squarely on Sheriff Gaines. Whatever it was, wherever it was, felt just outside her grasp.
Allie’s mind continued to spin with possibilities. What if the coach was also taking steroids? What if that night when Allie had found him, he’d overdosed, fought with Gaines, and had an aneurism? Could a coroner cover that up? Erase the fact from existence?
If Coach Thomas’s blood work showed drugs in his system, she might have a fighting chance. If the steroids were plentiful—enough for every member on the team and then some—why wouldn’t the coach indulge every now and then?
She stopped mid-step, remembering why the steroids were so easily available. The cabin D’Shawn Montgomery had mentioned. Allie ran to her laptop and with shaking fingers, did a search for property records in Glynn County. She looked for a structure—a house, a shack—everything within a reasonable radius of Brunswick.
Coach Thomas’s old house was listed among Allie’s findings, recorded as sold about a year after his death. There was nothing else under his name any further back.
Allie rapped her knuckles on the desk, thinking. Distance, time, location. The South Carolina state line was only an hour and twenty minutes away; the Florida border was about sixty minutes. Both less than a morning’s drive to a cabin and back.
Then it hit her.
The schools where the coach had worked. Allie dashed into the kitchen, opening drawers to find the regional map her mother had left for her. She unfolded it, grabbed at a few pushpins, and tacked the map on the nearest empty wall.
With careful fingers, she plunged a bright red thumbtack into Brunswick, Georgia. Recalling the timeline she’d scribbled out, she placed the next pin in Cottonwood, Alabama, the location of Thomas’s first head-coaching job, which lasted a mere seven months. She placed the next in Live Oak, Florida, the head-coaching job that followed. The third pin went in Aiken, South Carolina, just outside Augusta, Thomas’s head-coaching position right before Mansfield Academy.
The triangle, based on the pins, formed a possible target. Outside Douglas, Georgia, in Coffee County, seemed the perfect place to hide a bustling steroid operation. The area was wooded, but not overpopulated. Exactly an hour and forty-minute drive from Brunswick.
Allie hurried back to her makeshift office, pulled her chair toward the desk, and typed furiously. She brought up Coffee County property information, plugged in first and last names.
With a deep breath, she hit return.
FORTY-EIGHT
ALLIE
2016
Allie showered and dressed before dawn, had two cups of coffee before seven thirty, and left a message for Natalie explaining that she wouldn’t be at work because a family emergency had come up.
It wasn’t exactly the truth, Allie thought as she dressed hurriedly. But she couldn’t rest—she wouldn’t be able to think—unless she was able to get to the bottom of this new turn of events. A quick call to her parents’ house confirmed that she could borrow one of their cars.
“I’ll leave the key in the mailbox,” her mother added. “I have to run, dear. The ladies from church are picking me up for breakfast any minute.”
As they hung up, Allie promised to be back as soon as she could.
Before she left Brunswick, Allie made a third phone call, this time to Ben. With her throat strained, she dialed his parents’ house—the same landline number they’d had for years. With any luck, no one except her mother and Ben would know she was gone.
When his message clicked on, Allie began to speak. “Ben, it’s me. I wanted to tell you . . . If you left me that information about the Childree boy, thank you. I talked to his father, and D’Shawn Montgomery too. I’m heading out of town to check on a lead.” She paused. “If something happens to me, I want someone to know.”
Under any other circumstances, a long drive would help clear Allie’s mind. It used to be, before Arrendale, that with each passing mile, Allie was able to detach from college, medical school, and worries about Caroline.
Green and brown blurred as branches bursting with foliage and dull-leafed kudzu passed overhead, and Allie checked the GPS while she continued north. She swung a right and then a sharp left onto a dirt road, over bumps and uneven terrain.
Her body tensed with anticipation. The back of Allie’s neck stiffened; her shoulder muscles contracted. She’d have to peel her fingers from the grooves in the wheel if she held on much tighter.
All at once, the forest and vegetation opened in front of her. In the bright space, midway up the bark of an oak trunk, the corner of a tin roof poked through.
Allie caught her breath and eased the car forward.
She’d almost missed it.
The cabin, tucked back from sight and overgrown with vines and debris, was easy to overlook. Allie parked, thankful it hadn’t rained in the last few days; it would be easy to get stuck in the mud after a storm. She checked her cell phone coverage. One bar.
Allie frowned and pushed the car door open, causing a flock of birds to take flight. After a long glance at the ramshackle building in front of her, Allie stepped out of the vehicle, wishing she had a weapon. If there was someone living here, a homeless person or a pack of wild dogs, she wouldn’t have any way to defend herself.
Allie eased her way up the half-rotten porch, each step careful and measured. She closed her fist and pressed it to the closest window, making circles on the pane. The grime blackened her hand as if she’d held it over smoky embers. When she’d cleared a place to look through, Allie cupped her hands around her eyes and leaned closer.
No one had been here in ages. Allie noted the shotgun eased against the corner, another hung on the wall. She saw boxes of ammunition, cans of food on the counter, and a bed. There wasn’t any sign of even a makeshift laboratory, not even a pot on the stove or bottles of liquid.
She moved in front of the crooked door, pulled her shirt sleeve down over her fingers, and rested her hand on the knob. Allie could leave. Turn around. Go home. After all, no one had thought to search for this place in the last ten years. Even Coach Thomas’s wife hadn’t bothered, probably because she didn’t know or didn’t care.
Calling the local authorities would have stirred controversy, too many questions, and involvement by not only local but also state officials. The amount of paperwork and red tape involved in such a job would be mind-boggling and incredibly time consuming. Not to mention the risk of implicating herself, what she needed to avoid in the firs
t place.
Now, Allie was flagrantly disobeying a law officer’s command to cease and desist all investigation into the case. What she was about to do would be criminal violation on top of criminal violation. Breaking and entering. Theft, if necessary.
It was too late now. She wasn’t going to turn back.
Allie turned the handle and pushed. A gust of hot, musty air hit her face and stung her eyes. She pushed at the wooden door with her shoulder and elbow.
Her eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. A layer of gray dust covered every surface. Allie checked the living area and the small kitchen. The countertops held cans of beans and vegetables, edges rusted. A sweatshirt with a familiar Mansfield Wolverines emblem hung over the back of one chair. There were posters of the 2006 football schedules tacked to the rough-hewn walls.
Allie stepped into the hallway and checked the two small bedrooms and bathroom. Again, nothing had been touched. A faded quilt was draped over the side of one twin bed. A fleece blanket, moth-eaten, lay across the other.
One door was left. Allie pulled at the knob and turned. It led outside, behind the building. Grass grew in waist-length blades at least a dozen feet back, where the grove of trees stood in uneven rows. She turned to pull the door shut when a flash of sun on glass caught Allie’s eye.
She stepped back outside onto a makeshift staircase of cinder-blocks. Allie shielded her eyes. Tucked back behind the main cabin, barely visible in the fading light, was another building. Allie rubbed moisture off her upper lip and surveyed the smaller structure.
Her movement set several creatures stirring from the undergrowth. Crickets chirped in the distance, echoing the calls of mockingbirds in midflight.
As she walked closer, fronds of growth brushed at her legs, pulling at the edges of her pants hem and pockets. Intricate cobwebs hung untouched from the edges of the doorway. A spider scurried across the roof’s rusted edge, as if anticipating the destruction of its home.
Allie took a hand and swept away the webs and vines. Underneath, she found an unpainted door, double-bolted. Despite its sturdy appearance, the frame gave a little at the slight pressure of one hand.
After a glance behind her, Allie backed up, turned her shoulder, and charged at the opening. With one blow, the door broke into pieces, sending shards of rotted pine flying in every direction. A cloud of dirt swirled from the floor; dust particles hovered in the thick air and fluttered back to the ground. Allie rubbed the dirt from her face and coughed into her hand.
This was the place.
Coach Thomas hadn’t gotten rid of a thing. Maybe he didn’t care. Or didn’t have a chance.
There was a laminar flow hood, vials, and stoppers. Containers of benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate, and distilled water. Rows of syringes. Soybean oil.
A rickety stove with four small burners sat next to a sink, the counter next to it stacked with white coffee filters and glass beakers. Cotton balls and rags.
Her eyes, dry and irritated from the dust, rested on a few vials. The labels were faded and discolored, almost unreadable. She could guess what they contained before picking them up. Allie reached for the nearest glass container and held it between her fingers, rolling it to get a better look.
The label said Equipoise—EQ, as athletes and bodybuilders often referred to it. Allie rubbed away dirt with her covered thumb, turning the vial over in her hand. The amber-tinged liquid sloshed inside the glass. There was the usual label, seal, and markings from the manufacturer, but nothing to indicate where it came from. A few empty boxes lay on the counter, their labels torn away. Allie drew out her phone and snapped photos of everything. As she lowered the cell and started to slip it back into her pocket, she paused.
There had to be something more. Allie crouched down and opened the cabinet doors. Cardboard, packing material, and tape were crammed inside at odd angles. Piece by piece, she pulled out each scrap. After making a small pile on the floor, she felt the bottom of the black space for anything else. Nothing but dust.
She stood, surveying the room one last time. In the far corner, her eyes landed on a small wooden knob she hadn’t noticed earlier. As she walked closer, her throat tightened. Allie closed her eyes and pulled open the narrow drawer.
Inside it lay a few personal items. Gum, a granola bar, deodorant, a comb. A Post-it note with a phone number jotted on it in black ink. Allie stared at the number, debating if she should call. It could be old. It could be nothing. But she couldn’t take that chance. Allie swallowed and tucked the paper into her jeans.
There was a pile of light-blue papers, most of them terribly faded. Allie tensed. She recognized the horse’s head logo at the top of each page. It was the same company where her father—and many other vet offices, she reminded herself—ordered their equine supplies. She snapped more pictures, feeling sick, disgust rising up in her chest. The coach had destroyed so many lives.
Allie bent over and peered again into the drawer, squinting to make sure she’d seen everything. At the very back, there was something else. With trembling fingers, she reached inside the narrow space and withdrew a faded card. Inside, in her sister’s handwriting, were the words C—I love you.
FORTY-NINE
EMMA
2016
Emma didn’t move from her bedroom when Allie pulled into the driveway. Her own vehicle was in the garage, and she pretended not to hear the doorbell or her sister knocking. Emma exhaled in relief when Allie, after ten minutes, drove away in their mother’s car.
After listening to Allie’s voice mails from the night before, she’d immediately deleted them, though she couldn’t erase what her sister had said in the messages.
Listen, call me back when you get this. The weirdest thing happened. Sheriff Gaines came by, asking about you. I just want to know what really happened—that night. I care, Emma. I really do.
Emma powered off her phone. Not like this. The memories rushed back, full force.
November 2006
Emma’s wrist was taped with layers of cloth and bandages. A plastic tube snaked from the crook of her arm to an IV pole above her head. Her eyes fluttered open, taking in the sunshine streaming in through the window.
“Oh, you’re awake,” her mother exclaimed, her fingers trembling, straightening the edges of the crisp sheets. “H-how are you feeling?” She slid a look toward her father, furtive, worried.
She couldn’t answer right away. When Emma closed her eyes again, she had the inexplicable sense of floating in a fish bowl, eyeballs larger than life peering through the glass and examining her every move.
Then the memories slammed back. The argument. The angry words. His face. Emma swallowed. Goose bumps raised on her skin. She needed to feign confusion. Amnesia if she had to, until she could figure out if he was all right.
Emma eased her head a few inches to the left, finding the clock on the wall. It was ten o’clock in the morning. The slight motion left her dizzy, as if her body had been dumped into a life-size mixer and spun.
Her father approached the bedside. He laid a hand on Emma’s tousled hair, stroking the strands as if she were a child again. His eyes were red around the edges and ringed dark with worry. “Won’t you tell us what happened?”
Emma’s eyelids closed with the heavy slam of garage door on pavement. Jerky, multicolor images panned through her brain. Muted voices talked in the background, the words lost in an exchange of emotion and tears.
A light touch brought Emma back to the surface of reality. “Your sister—”
It was her mother talking, she thought. She shifted her gaze against the waning sunlight and adjusted her gaze.
“Allie,” Emma managed to whisper. They were supposed to watch a movie and have girls’ night. And then, when she’d run from the pharmacy, she’d caught a glimpse of her sister. Following her. Spying on her. Anger at Allie had seared Emma from the inside out.
A flash of a memory came vaulting back. Staggering drunkenly toward the hospital ER, just a block away
. Inside the medical center walls, on a phone reserved for patients and families, she’d made the call to 9-1-1. Somehow she’d managed to hang up and make it to the emergency room waiting room, where she’d been whisked back to see a doctor after almost collapsing at the check-in desk.
Emma moaned softly. The room went dark again and her parents looked black and shadowy, in silhouettes against the white walls.
“We have to tell her.”
Her father’s gruff, hushed voice reverberated in the empty space. “Lily, it will upset her. She’s fragile . . . She was probably attacked by some maniac who’s still on the loose.”
Emma moaned again at the noise. Her parents both jumped at the sound. Under the fringe of her eyelashes, she watched as her mother clutched at the edge of her shirt. Her father stood up and began to walk the perimeter of the small room. He never was one to sit still.
“Allie,” she repeated, the voice coming from her throat as scratchy as bark.
“Oh, sweetie,” her mother breathed out, tears in her eyes. Her hand found her throat, the fingers clutching and grasping at nothing. “I don’t know how to tell you this . . .”
Her father swallowed, never taking his eyes off Emma. He put a hand on his wife’s shoulder and patted the material of her cotton shirt. The motion was awkward, full of hesitation, as if his touch might break all the bones under her skin.
Their faces looked haunted and gaunt. Though Emma knew it was the harsh florescent light, her father’s hair looked more gray, her mother more frail. It was as if her parents had aged a decade overnight.
The words clung to her throat and scraped along her tongue. “Wh-where is she?” Emma croaked.
“There’s been an accident.” Her mother finally spoke again, just above a whisper. “An incident. We’re not sure of all the details.” She made a fist and pressed it to her chest as if she were keeping her heart from pumping out from between her ribs. “The sheriff’s department’s involved.”
Sister Dear Page 26
