The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2)

by John W. Mefford

  I knew I felt a tremendous bond with Luke and Erin, and even Ezzy in a slightly different way. But I personally didn’t have that familial anchor that most people got as they grew up. I had to seek it from others on my own. And then there was Mark. Maybe it was one of the subconscious things that had attracted me to him, in addition to his Italian charm. He had a family with well-established roles. And even though I found their opinions and traditions meddlesome and overbearing, I put up with it. All because I didn’t feel the comfort and support from my own family.

  I blew out a breath and turned back to the fire. A log split in two and fell between the slats of the grate. Staying at home, chilling out on the couch was indeed the right kind of therapy for me. But I still felt a hole in my gut. And I wasn’t sure that staying at home for the next month would truly heal the wound deep inside.

  I had to take action, do something that would finally patch that hole and allow me to put this crap in my rearview mirror. I recalled Dad’s funeral. It was somber, but at the same time sobering—my interaction with Carly notwithstanding. Douglass Butterfield recklessly and selfishly killed my mother. Alcohol had ruined his life and that of many others who had crossed his path. And then he’d killed his wife and her lover.

  Hearing Butterfield describe his state of mind and all the details around the crash that killed my mom was surreal. It felt like it was part of my life, but at the same time, it seemed like a story about someone else. A thought pinged my mind: I should finally visit my mother’s gravesite. To put the final chapter on her life, or maybe her role in my life, I knew I needed to make the effort to spend a few minutes saying something…whatever would come to my mind. But I had to do it there, at her grave.

  With a renewed sense of energy, I lifted from the couch—Pumpkin meowed in protest behind me—and walked into the kitchen. Just as I slid onto the barstool and opened my laptop, Ezzy walked through the back door with a single bag of groceries.

  “Morning, Dr. Alex,” she said cheerfully.

  My Guatemalan nanny, who had grown into a dear friend, was generally positive but also quite blunt. I needed both in my life.

  “Hola. ¿Cómo estás?”

  “Your accent needs work, Alex. Lots of work,” she said, sliding a gallon of milk into the refrigerator. “I’m good. Had a nice long night of sleep. And how about you?”

  I lifted my eyes just above the screen, but I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing.

  Ezzy placed pears in a bowl on the counter and then tossed the plastic bag in the recyclables pouch inside the pantry door. She finally turned back to me, a hand on her hip.

  “Well, are you going to make me ask you?’

  “Ask me what?” I knew I sounded like my twelve-year-old son.

  She flipped a few gray locks of hair out of her eyes and walked to our little coffee station, where she began to empty out the bag of ground coffee she had brought home.

  “Did you get the cinnamon dolce flavor again? I love that,” I said, glancing at the screen long enough to open a quick instant-message session with Gretchen at the office.

  “Nice try, Alex.”

  “What?”

  She pointed a finger at the ceiling.

  “Did someone plant a bug in the house?” I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Your room is just over my room,” she said with no facial expression. “I heard things last night. You either move in that squeaky bed at a very rhythmic pace, or…”

  I held up a hand. “I get it.”

  Grinning from ear to ear, she walked toward me, placed a hand on my shoulder, and then leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I’m so happy for you, Alex. Brad is a special guy. And that has nothing to do with what happened in your bedroom last night.”

  While I didn’t need her approval, Ezzy was the closest thing I had to a mom. And her acknowledgement of my happiness was…awesome.

  She then noticed my computer was open and I’d started an IM with Gretchen. “I thought you were taking the day off?”

  “I was…actually, I am.” After asking Gretchen to give me a minute, I told her about Butterfield sharing his life story and the realization that he was the one who had killed my mom.

  Anchoring her arm off the back of my stool, Ezzy put a hand to her heart and closed her eyes momentarily.

  “Ezzy, are you feeling okay?” She had a heart issue, and while daily medication was supposed to keep her issues in check, there were no guarantees.

  “I’m fine, Alex. Heartbroken for you, upset that you had to learn about your mother this way.”

  I rested my hand on hers. “I’m good. Well, I think I will be. I’m finally going to take the next step forward and visit my mother’s gravesite. I think that will give me some perspective about my childhood. I probably need to just forgive Mom and let my past be just that.”

  I could feel a tear bubble at the corner of my eye.

  Ezzy put her arms around my shoulders and hugged me tight. “You’re a hell of a woman. A great example for your kids, your family.”

  The tear bubbles suddenly multiplied, and I reached for a napkin and dabbed my eyes.

  She wiped away a tear of her own, then said, “So, back to my original question. Why are you working?”

  “I’m not really working. Gretchen has all the contacts and passwords to the records for the state of Virginia.”

  I flipped around and typed a note to Gretchen, asking if she could send me the URLs and passwords to the state of Virginia records management websites and databases.

  Sure. One sec, she said in a note back to me.

  Ezzy walked back into the kitchen. “I’m in the mood for guava juice. How about you?”

  “I’m game,” I said, as the data from Gretchen started to arrive in my IM box. I quickly started accessing the first website.

  Ezzy poured two drinks and brought mine over. “Thanks.” I took a fortifying sip and set the glass on the counter as Ezzy slipped into the seat next to me.

  “Mind if I ride shotgun?”

  While keeping my gaze on the screen, I released a wry smile. “You sound like one of the kids.”

  “They take twenty years off my age, what can I say?”

  “I just remember your predecessor. She nearly took twenty years off my life.”

  “Well, let’s not drudge up bad memories…even if she was a little tramp.” Ezzy giggled like a teenage girl, and I found it infectious.

  “What information are you looking for here?” Ezzy asked, leaning in closer.

  I clicked three times, then inserted one of the passwords Gretchen had forwarded. I clicked submit, but an error popped up. “She must have sent me the wrong password.”

  “Actually, I think you put in a capital I on the first key, but I think it’s a small L.”

  I tried again, using Ezzy’s suggestion, and clicked submit.

  A pop-up opened that said, Verifying your credentials. Please do not leave this screen.

  I took another sip of my guava juice and then wiped my mouth. “This site allows me to access death certificates.”

  Ezzy nodded. “So, are you going to start a memory album and you want a copy of this?”

  “Eh. Not really. Kind of creepy to keep a death certificate, don’t you think?”

  “Yep.”

  “Actually, I don’t recall Dad ever telling me the exact day Mom died. That would be nice to know so I can, you know…think about her every year. The date of the highway patrol officer’s report was November 11, so it’s near that date. But I want to know the specific date. It will make it more real for me.”

  “I understand. Glad you’re taking these steps.”

  I glanced back at the screen. The credential verification message was still visible, and the cursor continued spinning. “Having the death certificate will also help me verify the location where she was buried. I assume she was buried somewhere in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk area, but I have no idea.”

  When I looked again at Ezzy, she was pursing her lips. �
��What?”

  She exhaled. “You know I wasn’t fond of your dad…at least some of his actions.”

  “You mean when he set me up to be ambushed by the lunatic killer who had murdered Mark? Just that?” My sarcastic edge even caught me by surprise. “Okay…as you know, he claimed he had no idea she was a killer, just a former colleague from my training days at Quantico.”

  Ezzy was wiping her mouth after chugging on her guava juice. “I don’t want to pass judgment, especially on the dearly departed, but for him not to share any of this with you…I guess it seems—”

  “Selfish?”

  “You nailed it.”

  “Only because I lived with him.”

  “What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.” She patted my back.

  “I hear ya, sistah.” I flipped around and found a welcome message on the screen. “I think they only have one squirrel powering this website. At this pace, it might take all day to get through these sites and find everything I need. Then I need to book my travel.”

  “When do you want to leave?” Ezzy slipped out of the chair, walked to her purse on the counter by the coffeemaker, and pulled out her iPad.

  “It would be great if you could help. Thank you.” I strummed my fingers on the counter. “I’d like to have dinner with the kids tonight. So, maybe tomorrow morning?”

  “You could invite Brad over, and we could have our own version of a family dinner. I can make one of my new Guatemalan dishes. I’ll make it a little spicy to match you and Brad.”

  I popped an eyebrow. “Better make it extra spicy.”

  We both chuckled, and then she started tapping on her screen. To enter the self-service portion of the site reserved for law enforcement agencies, I had to enter another password and wait. This time it took about five minutes.

  “Finally,” I said as Ezzy quietly went about doing her thing. I was proud of her for embracing technology at her advanced age.

  I quickly found the search box and typed “Charlotte Troutt” and then clicked submit. Once again, the cursor spun, and a message popped up saying a search was in progress.

  I strummed my fingers for a second, then downed the last of my guava juice. I finally looked over Ezzy’s shoulder.

  “Hey, you’ve got your thing to do; I’ve got mine,” she said. “With this last-minute travel, prices are pretty high. But I’m comparing rates across multiple sites.”

  “Okay. Have you thought—”

  She flicked her wrist at me. “I’ve got it under control. You work on your own task,” she said playfully.

  Turning my gaze back to the screen, I found a message in red lettering: This person is not in our system. Please try another name or use a social security number.

  “Crap.”

  “What, dear?”

  “My mother isn’t showing up in their database.” I rubbed my temple.

  “Any way they could have…I don’t know, overlooked her? This was over thirty years ago. Probably before they had much of a computer system, if any at all.”

  “The likelihood is low, but plausible, I suppose.” I continued wracking my brain, trying to work through a scenario of how she still might be in their system, even though the search didn’t find her.

  I sat up in my seat and snapped my fingers. “Wait a second.” I jumped out of the chair and headed for the staircase.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Gotta find my purse from yesterday.”

  She mumbled something behind me, probably wondering if I was losing it. Taking two steps at a time up the staircase, my blood was pumping in overdrive by the time I reached my room and swung a left into my closet. I walked along the back wall, searching for my black leather bag, a durable but classy purse from Coach. “There we go,” I said, curling my finger under the strap and yanking it off the shelf.

  I scampered down the stairs and back into the kitchen, a bit out of breath.

  Ezzy had a puzzled look on her face. “What is it, Alex?” I sat the purse on the counter and began the excavation. “Something important in here that I’m pretty sure will help us out.” Since I had traveled with the bag, it had an overabundance of stuff in it—airline tickets, gum and gum wrappers, a Lisa Gardner paperback I had picked up at the airport, loose pens, a notepad, brochures from various groups that had been shoved in my face in and around the airport, and a package of tissues.

  “Any luck?”

  “Too much shit,” I said, now dumping items onto the counter. “Do you see a small photo?”

  “Eh…” Ezzy moved things around but shook her head. It felt like we were searching for a special granule of sand in a sandbox.

  “Wait…” I slid my hand in a side pocket and felt the paper edges of something rectangular. It was stuck to the leather, so I peeled it off and pulled it out.

  Ezzy pointed at the photo, her eyes wide. “Is that your mother?”

  I nodded. “It was on display at the funeral home, next to a few of Dad’s personal items. I guess Carly found it amongst Dad’s things and she put it out there.”

  “That’s nice, although somewhat surprising.”

  “Yeah. She seemed to be on her best behavior. Mario thinks she might be in line to receive an insurance policy payoff, but he said it’s just a rumor.”

  “Shouldn’t that money go to you and the kids?”

  “That’s what Mario said. It felt weird to think about. I don’t know. I’ll deal with it later if at all. Think about how he probably paid for that policy.”

  “True, but don’t forget about your kids. They have college and who knows what else in front of them.”

  I flipped the picture. “Maybe I’ll call Mario back soon and ask what he’s heard.”

  “She’s beautiful, your mother.”

  I took another gaze and then held the picture next to my face. “Any resemblance?”

  Mom’s hair was a couple of shades darker, and it had a little more curl to it as her locks fell just below her shoulders. She even wore a nice smile.

  “She reminds me of a young Judy Garland. Just stunning. And yes, I can easily see you’re related,” Ezzy said. It was hard not to smile at that. She placed a hand on my arm and asked, “So how does this old photo help us locate her record in the Virginia website?”

  Turning the picture over, I thumbed the back with my finger. “I thought I recalled seeing a name. An unfamiliar name.”

  It read: Charlotte Walsh.

  “Is that—” Ezzy began to say.

  “It’s her maiden name, and I’m guessing this is her handwriting,” I said. “Probably taken before she and Dad got married. It’s nice to actually see her smile for a change. Besides being younger, it’s strange to see her happy.”

  I sat on my stool and typed in my mom’s maiden name and then clicked submit. As expected, the cursor started spinning.

  “So why do you think you’ll find it this way? Obviously your mom was married at the time she died.”

  “True, but as you mentioned earlier, this computer system wasn’t around back then. It was probably typed in from a hard copy. And someone could have easily used her maiden name as a last name.”

  My mind began to think back to our days in Virginia Beach. I vaguely recalled passing by a cemetery when we used to run up to the mall. A tall row of evergreens lined the road, and I remember seeing a bulldozer digging up dirt, just visible between two trees, when we stopped at a light. I wondered if Mom was buried there. “Ah…” Ezzy said, her eyes glued to the screen.

  Seconds felt like minutes. After a while, I even began to whistle a bit.

  “Did the search cause the page to freeze up?”

  I moved the mouse a bit. “Don’t think so. Let’s give it another minute before I shut down the browser and try logging in again. I’d rather not start over.”

  Ezzy made herself busy by trying to corral all my loose items on the counter and shuffle them back into my purse.

  “I think I know why you have so many purses.”

&
nbsp; “And why is that?”

  “You have so much shit, that’s why.”

  We both laughed out loud, although it was short-lived. I was beginning to feel anxious, as if some IT nerd somewhere was trying to play games with me. I knew the thought was beyond ridiculous. I forced out a breath as the cursor continued its spin routine. “It’s like waiting to see if I won the lottery.”

  “Kind of,” Ezzy said. “In the lottery, you only have a tiny chance of winning. This search should turn up a result, as long as the server doesn’t crash. Or maybe the database indexes need to be cleaned up.”

  I turned to stare at Ezzy for a moment. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I overheard Luke talking to all of his Minecraft friends the other night. They sounded like a bunch of computer professionals. I have no idea what I just said.”

  That was pretty darn funny, but I didn’t laugh. I was too frustrated with the website. I smacked the counter. “Dammit, you piece of shit.”

  And just like that the computer gods heard me and a results page popped up.

  Ezzy stopped shuffling papers and things into my purse and leaned closer to the screen.

  I narrowed my eyes, as my heart pumped faster. “What the hell?”

  Ezzy recited the same message we had seen earlier: “This person is not in our system. Please try another name or use a social security number.”

  I could feel her eyes on me. “What does this mean, Alex?”

  Oxygen flooded my brain. I took a moment to get my bearings and try to think through all the possible logical conclusions. One thought split through the mental haze and became very real to me: “Ezzy, I think my mom could still be alive.”

  ***

  Three hours had passed, and I’d spent the last thirty minutes pacing back and forth in the kitchen.

  “You’re going to wear a hole in your socks,” Ezzy said, still sitting at the bar amidst the mess from my purse, her iPad, and now three empty glasses. She glanced at Brad, who had rushed to the house over his lunch break and was now standing at the opposite end of the kitchen. Smart man. He knew when to give me space.