“Are you okay?” she asked, raising one eyebrow at me. She searched my face, probably horrified by my goth-like makeup and flyaway ponytail.
“Yeah, just haven’t slept,” I admitted. “I’m investigating two missing people: Lily and Nova Nesbitt. Can ya tell me anything about them? Do ya know the husband, Martin?”
“Well, I know he’s a realtor and he goes to work every day at nine in the morning. I don’t think he’s much of a morning person though,” she said, staring over at Martin’s door with a frown on her face.
“Why do ya say that?”
“Well, I’m never here at night. I work third shift, so usually he’s going to work when I’m coming home. Sometimes, I wait until after he’s left before lying down because he stomps around, and I’ve heard him hit the walls before.” She gave me a flat, nervous smile.
“Do ya think he was abusing his wife?” I mashed my teeth together, then winced.
“Well, that’s the weird thing. Whenever I see him, he’s super nice to me. That wife of his…well, she never comes outside, and a few times I tried to knock and ask to borrow something, eggs or what have you, she closed the door in my face. I know this sounds weird, but sometimes I wondered if it was her over there banging on the walls. Cause she seemed like the mean one.”
Ugh. This is getting me nowhere, I thought in frustration.
Circles, and more circles.
“What about the little girl? Did ya ever see her outside?” I pushed.
She shook her head. “Nah, I didn’t even know they had a kid. Of course, then again, I’m always sleeping during the day and working at night, so I don’t see much anyway. I do remember her being pregnant a long time ago, but then her husband said she lost the baby. It was supposed to be a little boy, I think. He seemed sad about it.”
I glanced over at Martin’s door, wondering if he was on the other side of it now, listening.
“Did ya see him moving anything out of there recently? Furniture, or a bed, maybe?”
Again, she shook her head. Disappointed, I thanked her, and strolled around the right side of the house, circling around to the front fence line. The rain was picking up, but I didn’t mind. My mind was twisting and turning, trying to make sense of all this, as my boot struck the edge of a rock. I stumbled forward, catching myself clumsily on the fence.
I looked back at the rock, instantly recognizing it. There were six of them arranged neatly along the fence line, delicate yellow flowers between each one. Squatting down, I studied the row of rocks. Where are the rest of them?
My finger brushed over fresh soil squares where nearly five more stones were missing. The soil where they’d previously sat was darker, fresher than the dirt surrounding the other stones.
This is where those strange stones in Nova’s bag came from. But why? Why would she bring these stones with her? She barely brought any clothes, but she thought to bring along garden décor? It didn’t seem likely.
Carefully, I wedged one of the stones out of its place and was surprised to discover it was quite heavy. Did Martin bring them along to use as a weapon when he followed them to West Virginia?
Roland and Mike were standing on the sidewalk, looking like two drowned rats.
“There’s an umbrella in my cruiser,” I told them, peeking through the fence. I filled them in on the stones. “Do you guys mind taking some photographs of where the stones were removed? And we also need to bag up the others to make sure they are, in fact, the same.”
Roland rolled his eyes at me, but Mike nodded. “Will do.”
I crossed the street to Martin’s truck, where a guy around my age, with full-sleeve tattoos on his arms, stared back at me from the driver’s side. I noticed he was wearing gloves.
“Hi. Who are you?”
“Max. Chad was supposed to tell you I was coming. I handle most of the forensics in Granton and Mount Juliet. He sent me over to process the truck.”
I thought about all those missed calls. What else did Chad want to tell me? Hopefully, he had found more at the cabin.
“Any blood inside?” I asked.
Max shook his head. “Nothing yet. Most of the stains in here look like they came from food or drinks.”
I pointed in the back seat. “Those shoes might be the only link we have between our suspect and the missing child. They need to be bagged and tagged asap.” The two orange sneakers were still lying on the back floorboard, glittering despite the cloud-covered sun.
“Can you guys handle this for a while?” I shouted over to Mike and Roland. They were squatting in the same spot I was earlier, examining the stones from the garden.
“Why? Where you off to?” Roland asked.
“I’m going to go talk to Nova’s family. Try to corroborate her story and get some more info on Martin Nesbitt from their perspective.”
I ducked my head inside my jacket as I crossed the street and climbed in behind the wheel of my cruiser. I glanced up one last time at the turn-of-the-century apartment building that Nova used to call her home. “Where the hell are you, Nova?” I asked, digging my cell phone out of my pocket.
I knew I should probably call my boss first, but I dialed mom instead.
“There you are! I’ve been worried sick,” she huffed on the other end of the line.
“I’m totally fine, mom. Sorry to worry you. I got in so late last night that I didn’t want to wake you up with my call.” I pressed my thumbs to my temples, massaging. I really have to get a mouth guard, I thought, drearily.
“Have you seen him yet?”
“Seen who?” I opened my eyes and stared down at the paper Martin had given me, with Nova’s dad and sister’s numbers on it. I really needed to get in contact with them asap.
“The asshole ex, that’s who! Did you lock him up yet?” my mother asked.
“No, but we did talk to him. He’s been less than helpful, to say the least. Claims he doesn’t even have a daughter. I was expecting him to say a wide variety of things when we confronted him, but not that. I’m going to talk with her other family members now. Can I c—?”
“I heard there were cadaver dogs at the Appleton Farm,” mom cut me off before I could hang up the phone.
“Really?” Quietly, I cursed myself for not calling Sergeant DelGrande first. If they found a body or some other important piece of evidence, I needed to know that now. “I gotta go, mom. Need to call my boss.”
“I heard they didn’t find anything, though.”
I sighed, loudly.
“Listen. I got to go. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Of course. But when are you c—?” I hung up before she could finish.
I didn’t get an answer when I called Rita or Reginald, but I knew where they lived so I decided to drive on over. I tried to call sarge on my Bluetooth as I merged onto the expressway, but like the others, he didn’t answer.
The setting sun glared harshly in my eyes, making me sleepy, and making my head pound harder. I turned the radio up to distract me and drove to the small town of Tellico Plains.
With the way my luck was going with this case, I expected to find no one home. But when I parked at the curb in front of a cottage-like A-frame house, I saw a man and woman carrying groceries inside. Even from a distance, I knew the man must be Nova’s father. He had the same blue-black hair and rawboned shape.
“Mr. McKinley?”
The handsome man nearly dropped his bags when he saw me. “Oh no. Did something happen to Nova?”
***
“There was an incident,” Nova’s father, Reginald, said, taking a small sip of coffee. Nova’s half-sister, Rita, was seated across from me next to her dad. Unlike Nova, she was heavier, with soft blonde curls and green eyes flaked with gold.
Reginald offered me some coffee but out of habit, I’d turned it down. Now, as I stared at the bubbly black liquid they were drinking, I wished I had some caffeine in my system.
“What happened?” I asked, gently. Did they know where Nova was? Did they get i
nto some sort of disagreement with her?
“He seemed great, and then…he just didn’t. Martin…I’m talking about Martin. You see, he told Nova that her sister and aunt said things at their wedding, terrible things. But the truth is, they didn’t. They were shocked when I asked them about it. I don’t understand why someone would lie about something like that. He had no reason, he wasn’t provoked…we’ve always been kind to him,” he explained.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
Reginald pursed his lips. They were shaped like a tiny pink Christmas bow. “She stopped by one day last year. I’d been asking and asking for her to come, and finally she gave in and came. But she didn’t stay long. Martin kept calling her phone. That man is insecure and controlling. Do you think he did something to my daughter?”
“I don’t know, sir, but I’m trying to find that out.”
“If she left Martin, I don’t know where she’d go. Rita hasn’t seen her either.” He jabbed a thumb at his daughter and she nodded, staring into her coffee cup.
“And if any other family had been in contact with Nova, they would have told me. The truth is that she has been distant for years now. At first, I blamed her. I thought she was so swept up in her feelings for a man that she’d forgotten about where she came from. But I wasn’t always a good father to Nova. I was a raging alcoholic for at least half of her life. I would take it back if I could, but I can’t. Over time, I’ve come to accept the truth.”
“And what truth is that, sir?” I asked, leaning forward.
“She grew up with an abusive father and now she is a victim of domestic violence. They say it’s a cycle, and I guess that’s true. If she left Martin, then she would have come to one of us. She would have had to, because she doesn’t have anyone else. Martin made sure of that. I’ve never even been to their house; can you believe that? The fact that she hasn’t called or turned up tells me something that I don’t want to believe but that I know to be true: my daughter is probably dead. If she wasn’t, we would have heard from her by now.”
My heart cracked and split apart for this man. He was trying to act strong, but I could tell that he was like a dam on the verge of bursting open.
“I hope that’s not the case, but I promise, I’ll do everything in my power to find her. I’m also searching for Lily.” I leaned in even further. I studied Reginald’s face first, then Rita’s.
“Who is Lily?” Reginald asked, taking a slow sip of coffee, his face smooth as glass.
He doesn’t know…he really doesn’t know he has a granddaughter, I realized. I leaned back in the creaky chair, stunned.
“I met with Nova on a separate occasion, before she disappeared. She reported that her daughter was missing. Lily is your granddaughter, sir.”
Reginald’s cup of coffee slipped from his hands and shattered on the tile floor at his feet. There goes the dam, I thought, stonily.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Neighbor
CLARA
“I need to ask you a few questions. May I come inside?”
I imagined myself saying ‘no’ then closing the door in his face.
“Of course, Sam.” I stepped back and gestured for him to come inside. “Would you like some coffee? Water, maybe? It’s hot out there, I know.” I led the way into the kitchen.
My dining room table was tiny. At most, it could seat four, and right now the leaf was down and there were only two chairs. I’d forgotten to take the trash out today and I realized it had a smell.
“Water would be great,” Sergeant Sam said, taking the seat closest to the trash can, his nose twitching as he sat down.
After I got his water, I took the seat across from him, forcing myself to breathe slowly. Right away, I noticed how sweaty he looked, and stressed.
Maybe he’s stressed because he knows I killed his friend. He’s about to tell me they found Andy’s decaying corpse, I thought, desperately. Without asking if he minded, I pulled out my pack of Camels and lit one.
If my smoking bothered him, he didn’t let on.
“The dogs were too wound up out there. We couldn’t keep them away from your side of the land. Especially the barn. I’m sorry, Clara.”
Here it comes, I thought. But why hasn’t he arrested me yet?
“We had to contain the search to the inside of the cabin for the time being. They didn’t cause too much of a ruckus on your side, I promise.”
My body shook with relief. If it was anyone else searching my land, they probably would have found the body. But Sam and I went way back; we’d known each other for years.
“Right now, they’re spraying a chemical called luminol inside the cabin. It will glow blue in the presence of blood.”
Images of that rusty red stain on the floor sprung into my mind, as I took a deep drag. “But don’t you already know there’s blood?” I said, coughing forcefully. I stubbed the cig out, disgusted with myself for smoking the whole thing so fast.
Sam frowned. “We took some samples already. But sometimes, we can see more if the perpetrator has cleaned up the scene. Sometimes, we can even see the manner of death.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said, still looking grim. The butt was still smoking in the ashtray. Sam stubbed at it for me, staring into the murky ashtray as though it held the answers to my tenant’s disappearance. “I need to ask you a few questions, Clara.”
“Sure. Of course.” I was smiling, despite myself, so relieved they hadn’t uncovered my deep, dark secret. Yet.
“I’d like you to look at this picture and see if this is the truck you saw?” Sergeant Sam pushed his cell phone across the table toward me. It was a picture taken of a small, black pick-up.
I stared at the picture, trying to keep myself composed. “Where did you see this truck?” I asked, my voice sounding steadier than it felt.
“It’s about a quarter of a mile from here, parked in that dirt turnabout near Widow’s Curve.” That’s not what it was actually called, but everyone in Northfolk knew where Widow’s Curve was. It was only a ten-minute walk from here.
“Anyone inside the truck?” I asked, the picture turning blurry as I focused too hard.
“No. It was abandoned there. No license plates, nothing. I think this might be the truck you saw parked in front of Nova’s cabin on the night she went missing.”
I cleared my throat, looking over at my pack of cigs wistfully. I wasn’t wondering if I’d seen the truck before because I already knew that I had.
“No, I don’t think so. The truck I saw looked larger. Higher up from the ground.”
“But you said it was dark. Hard to tell color and size from all the way across the field…”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I agreed. Why was that truck parked near Widow’s Curve? It wasn’t supposed to be there.
My stomach filled with dread. This whole time, I’d been worried about them finding Andy’s body, when all along, I had bigger things to be concerned about.
“You okay? You looked peaked,” Sam said.
“Fine. This whole thing has sucked the life out of me. I’m worried about my tenant and her little girl. Don’t want that husband of hers turning up here again. You think I’m in danger?”
Sam shook his head. “No, I don’t. But I can have one of my officers keep an eye out for you tonight. To be honest, I’m not totally convinced that the husband did this. The details are more complicated…I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Martin Nesbitt’s truck is parked right now nearly twelve hours away. We’re searching through it. I can’t help wondering if it’s just a coincidence, the two trucks…”
“You said there were other things you wanted to ask me,” I said, eager to be alone and get my thoughts straight. I needed a cigarette. And I needed this talk to be over with.
“I wanted to ask you about this, too.” Sam bent down, lifting up a clear plastic bag. He’d carried it in under his armpit, but I hadn’t noticed what was inside. Now, he sat its contents on the tab
le and looked at me.
It was an ugly stuffed rabbit with button eyes. I’d seen it, and many like it, a thousand times before.
“When Officer James told me that they found a stuffed rabbit in the child’s bed, I didn’t think anything of it. But then today, I saw it in the evidence locker. I recognized it immediately—didn’t Andy used to make these?”
I nodded, solemnly. Andy was obsessed with that old sewing machine of his. Besides drinking, it was the only thing that he ever seemed to commit to. Why he chose to make creepy stuffed toys was beyond me. The girls always hated having them in their room. Eventually, I shoved them all into a plastic bag. Like the other unused items in the basement, the bag of bunnies was sitting in a corner. Collecting dust, just like me.
“Any idea why one of Andy’s stuffed rabbits would be found in the bed of a missing child?” Sam asked.
I cleared my throat, nodding again. “It was me. I’m the one who put it there,” I admitted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Cop
ELLIE
My mind was reeling as I pulled into the Granton police station. It was a two-story brick building, a newer, more modern version of our station back home. I still couldn’t reach Sergeant DelGrande, but I had a couple texts from Chad. I parked the cruiser, unhooked my seatbelt and thumbed through his message:
Chad: There were cadaver dogs at the cabin today. They reacted slightly near the blood stain, but it was a minor reaction according to the dogs’ owner. I don’t know how to interpret that. We couldn’t search much outside the residence, though, because the woman next door has a dead kid buried over there. Sorry if that sounds callous, I’m just in a mood today. There was a small hole, just a couple feet deep, that looked freshly dug. But no body and no blood. That hole could have been dug up by coyotes or coons. We’re getting ready to spray luminol. Maybe that will tell us something. Will you call me tonight? I’d like to discuss the results with you. Also, the teeth you found: there were strange markings (striations) on them. Did Nova sew? Sometimes dressmakers and tailors hold needles in their teeth while sewing. I’m not sure if that helps you at all, but I found it interesting.
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