by E. R. FALLON
Eddie lifted an eyebrow. “And you were here to do an interview because you’re writing about the serial killer tourism industry.”
It took me a moment to gather he wasn’t kidding. “No, I’m writing about Freedom Village in general and also the surrounding vineyards.”
“Then why are you here, in the pen? Why aren’t you at the wine convention?”
“That type of event is a little too obvious for my taste. Alice Lane is a big attraction.”
He nodded in agreement. “I might look dumb but don’t be fooled: I’m not.” Eddie stood a good foot taller than me.
Feeding him more lies would have intensified an already deteriorating situation. Giving him a grain of the truth, that I was digging into a series of new murders, could have opened a Pandora’s box of shit I wasn’t prepared to manage. I opted to ignore him, for I didn’t owe him an explanation. If this fellow knew Mack like he claimed, I trusted Mack would have my back and cover for me if Eddie inquired about my identity.
“I’d like to go to my car now,” I said. “I believe that’s what you’re here for, to escort me out?”
Eddie cleared his throat and held still for a bit. He made an elaborate, servant type of gesture at the door. “After you.”
I touched my nametag. “What do I do with this?”
“Keep it,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.”
“Good, because I might return.”
I felt somewhat horrid acting like an elitist to him, but he wasn’t a decent guy himself. I shoved my notepad into my satchel and strode into the hallway after him.
The rest of the walk consisted of me following Eddie in silence. Karl wasn’t inside the area where they’d searched me when I arrived, and I continued out to the parking lot without uttering a word to anyone else. Distraught at the reunion with my mother, I wouldn’t have been able to speak even if someone had wanted to talk, or there had been somebody to speak with.
Back in the car, I texted Mack.
Do you know a guy named Eddie who’s a guard at the prison?
I’d been wrong about the rain and the sky had cleared while I was inside with Alice.
A minute passed before Mack wrote.
I take it your visit went well. Eddie said he knew me? I wouldn’t say I knew him. Arrested him for DUI last summer. Guy cried like a baby in the backseat.
Thanks. Had a bit of a run-in with him.
You ok? Mack asked.
Couldn’t be better.
My hands shook as I started the car.
Chapter 12
That night I sat at the counter in the diner in town, eating a solitary dinner of gooey blueberry pie, and plenty of coffee. Tawny came in a couple minutes after I began eating.
She stood by my shoulder. “Hi, Evan.”
I turned in my counter stool to greet her. “How are you?”
“I’m pretty good, thanks. Are you enjoying your stay in Freedom? I’m glad to see you’re in the best place to dine around these parts.” Whenever I saw her, she was smiling, and I wondered how she managed to find so much contentment in her life. “My spies tell me this isn’t the first time you’ve been in here. I take it you like the food?”
I chuckled. “Your spies are right. The food’s terrific. Please give my compliments to the chef.”
“I’ll go tell him myself.” She smiled again.
From where I sat I could see the kitchen, and Tawny went back there and spoke with the chef, her boyfriend. The diner began to fill up as people left work for the evening. Soon every stool around me at the counter had someone sitting on it. Tawny pointed at me and I waved to acknowledge the young chef, who shouted his thanks.
My server gave me a fourth refill of coffee and I put the cup to my lips. The ringtone I used for Sammie jingled away and I set the cup down on the saucer before I could take a sip. Sammie almost always texted first unless she had something very important to convey to me, such as something wasn’t right. I answered, my skin burning with anger and my throat closing in, certain she would tell me the press had started to hound her outside our building or, worse, that they’d somehow managed to get inside the building and found our front door.
“Are they bothering you?” I said. “Because if they are—”
“Is who?”
“The reporters.”
“That’s not why I’m calling you.” She released a long breath.
“Are you all right?” Then I thought of the dog, who hadn’t been eating and might have been ill. “Is it Paige, is she—”
“That’s not it either. She’s fine. Still not eating but okay otherwise.”
I sighed. “Are you okay?”
Sometimes it took Sammie a while to get the truth out. She didn’t like anybody being worried on her account. This seemed to be one of those times.
“I am. We are,” she said. “Someone broke into the apartment. I wasn’t here when it happened. I was at work, actually. Paige is fine, though. They didn’t hurt her, and she didn’t get out through the door.”
“What? When the hell did this happen?”
“When I was at work,” she reminded me.
I didn’t know she had returned to work, and, normally, the fact that she hadn’t told me would have wounded me, if I hadn’t been so distraught over the news of a break-in. Visiting Alice in prison had been anything but uplifting, but I’d found comfort in the fact that I’d believed Sammie and I were on agreeable terms again. “Are you okay? Is Paige okay?”
“Yes. I just said we were. Are you all right?”
“I don’t know if I am. I need to ask you a few questions before I know whether I’m all right. What did they take from the apartment? Did they leave a—”
“I already looked around for a note. There’s nothing. I found nothing. It doesn’t seem like they took anything. They moved around a few things but didn’t take anything.”
“What things did they move around?”
“Some photos.”
“The TV’s still there?” To my ears, I sounded astounded. “People just don’t break into apartments and leave empty-handed, unless they didn’t find what they came looking for.”
“Like what?” she said.
“I’m not sure yet. Or they wanted to scare us, let us know they could enter our home without our knowledge.”
“Who would want to do that? All the people I can think of who would want to do something like that because I helped put them away are all still in prison.”
“Maybe it’s not you who they’re trying to frighten. You need to dust for prints.”
“Are you saying that maybe they’re trying to scare you?” Sammie’s voice reverberated out of my phone and the people seated closest to me stared. “Me dust for prints? I’m no longer with the force.”
“Hold on a second.” I jumped off the stool and left my pie half-eaten on the counter.
Tawny ducked her head into the dining area from the kitchen. “Evan, is everything all right?”
“Yeah, I’ll return in a second to pay,” I replied over my shoulder, and then ran out the door. “Sorry about that. I was in a crowded diner,” I said to Sammie.
“You’re dining alone? I thought I heard someone talking to you just now.” Sammie’s voice held misgivings. Did she think I would stray from her that easily?
“I’m alone. The diner is crowded. There’s a lot of people talking inside. Someone from the hotel recommended the diner. It’s right in the town, close to the hotel.” I didn’t elaborate that the someone was a woman. Sammie got jealous easily, but I was loyal to her and she needn’t have worried. “Have you called the police?” I asked.
“I don’t want to because you missed your hearing,” she said. “Gilani told you not to leave the state. I’m afraid they’d ask me questions about where you are.”
I winced. The chief had left me a voicemail message saying he wasn’t my goddamn babysitter and I should have made an appearance.
“They would,” I s
aid to Sammie. “You should check for prints. I know you kept a lot of your old equipment. Tonight, if you’re feeling up to it, dust for them. One more thing—how do you know the apartment was broken into if nothing was stolen?”
“They busted the lock.”
“If you can’t get someone to come fix it tonight, I want you to go to a hotel with Paige. I don’t want you staying there by yourself if you can’t lock the door, do you understand?”
“Listen, macho man, I can take care of myself, okay?” I detected a smile in Sammie’s voice.
“With your training, I have no doubt you could. But you no longer keep a gun in the house.”
On the sidewalk in front of the diner, the constant quietness that enveloped the town compared to my bustling urban home startled me.
“And I know that you are aware that bad things can happen,” I said to Sammie. “But I need you to promise me you won’t turn your back if you’re inside our apartment without a lock on the door. The person who broke in could return to finish—”
“To finish murdering me, is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s possible. You might have startled them when you came in.”
“The kitchen window was open. I didn’t hear anything when I entered but I guess they could’ve easily jumped the distance to the sidewalk from the fire escape. It isn’t too far down from there.”
“Someone must have let them into the building. Most likely by accident they held the door open for the wrong person.”
“You want me to notify people that some creep got into the building?”
“No. That could scare someone into ringing the police. We don’t need anything getting back to Gilani and then having him asking you questions about me. Has he called you?”
“Yep. He wondered whether I knew where you are. I said we’d had a fight and that I had no idea where you went after you left. I said you hadn’t called me.”
“He believed you?”
“He must have because he didn’t contradict me.”
“Did you tell him I took the car?”
“Nope.”
“Thanks for that.”
“What’s a lover for if not to lie to the police for you?”
I chuckled. Even then, Sammie had a sense of humor and I loved that about her. “What are we going to do if someone in the building heard the noise of the break-in or saw something?” I said. “Heard Paige barking?”
“She isn’t much of a guard dog. No one has said anything to me, and no one from the force has shown up here. The people here tend to keep to themselves. You know how it is in a big city, people mind their own business.”
We’d appreciated that aspect of city life. Our apartment building was old and didn’t have security cameras. “Right, that’s true. Sometimes too true. Unlike where I am.” I looked around the quiet streets. “Hey, you can sway the cops if they do show up.”
“With, what, my charm? Oh, you mean because I use to be one of them. Sure, why the hell not, I’ll give it a try if the time comes.”
“That’s my girl.”
Sammie became quiet for a few seconds and then she let out a big sigh.
“What’s going on, Sam?” I said.
“I thought you might like to know that there have been no new murders here—in Seven Sisters—since that website, well, you know what they did.”
“I do want to know that so thanks for telling me.” My gratitude was genuine. Then I spoke with sarcasm, “And that means there have been no new killings since I left. I hope no one else, like a certain police chief you and I both know, thinks of that.”
“Evan, you can’t think that way.”
“But they can. And they might if I’m not careful.”
“Don’t say that. I believe in you.”
“Then that’s all that matters to me,” I answered truthfully.
“How are things going there? Have you been able to get some answers?”
Sammie knew my past more than any other person in my life, but I’d managed to withhold my visit to Alice. “It hasn’t been easy,” I said, painfully aware of what I held back from Sammie.
“And? What have you found out, or have you not found anything yet?” she spoke softly.
“I wouldn’t say that.” I spoke quietly despite the lack of pedestrians on the sidewalk. “I visited the detective who worked on my mother’s case.”
“How did it go?” Sammie knew a little about Mack, the little amount I’d opened up to her regarding his involvement and supportive presence in my life at one time.
“Fine. It went fine. I don’t know how much he can help me, but . . .” Reining in the truth from her felt like pretending I didn’t love her. But at the time I felt that not mentioning Alice would simply be better. I sighed in frustration at the growing problems I faced, not all of which Sammie knew. “I just want them to let me return to work.”
“I know,” Sammie said. “I understand how much your job means to you. Don’t you wonder if you should have stuck around here for the hearing? You ran off—”
The conversation was veering into less comfortable territory and made me want to tell her I had to take care of something and hang up. “I needed to—I had to—I had to come here and try to find some answers, and if I don’t, I can say I tried. I can’t explain it.”
Sammie murmured and I didn’t catch what she said, whether it was words of support or displeasure at my choice.
“I don’t like you and Paige being in the apartment without me nearby,” I said.
“I’m a big girl.”
“I have no doubt you’re capable of kicking someone’s ass, but do you want me to come home early?”
Sammie’s silence on the other end lasted for what felt like an eternity, because that was what she’d wanted to hear me say—that’d I come back—but it seemed like my offer to suddenly return prompted her into inaction because she didn’t want me to resent her if she said yes, come home.
“No, I’ll be fine, we’ll be fine,” she finally said. “Are you sure everything’s okay with you there?”
My throat tightened and my longing to return to her seeped through my voice. “Yeah. Listen, call me when the lock’s fixed. Do it tonight. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
“Love you,” I said, but she’d already signed off.
I stepped inside the diner to finish my meal. Despite the crowded atmosphere, I’d never felt so alone in my life.
*
I rolled out of bed late the following morning. With some coaxing and pleading on my part last night, Mack had arranged for me to visit Alice a second time. I’d have to lie to her that I’d somehow found information on her daughter overnight. Mack had wanted to meet me in person again to discuss the whole situation but I’d managed to avoid that, for now. I’d told him I hadn’t gotten what I wanted the first time and needed a second chance. After some pushing on my end, he’d reluctantly surrendered.
A text from Sammie appeared on my phone screen and I questioned whether I was still asleep and dreaming. I’d mistakenly fallen asleep last night without having received word from her that our apartment’s front lock had been fixed, and now I panicked. Had something happened in the middle of the night and I wasn’t aware?
I’m in the lobby.
My breathing returned to more of a normal pattern, but, wait. Sammie was in the lobby, my hotel lobby? My fingers worked swiftly to formulate a coherent reply. I eyed the half empty bottle of cheap whiskey on the table by the window. It’d been full when I brought it up to my room last night. I’d picked up the whiskey at the liquor shop on my way to the lodge from the diner. How much had I drunk last night? I’d consumed it straight from the bottle, sans glass.
Where are you? I wrote.
Hotel.
The lodge? Here? In Freedom?
Yep. I brought Paige along.
If what she wrote wasn’t part of some sort of half-awake dreaming state that I was in, was I really okay with her being there?
When I didn’t type a response, Sammie wrote.
Can you come down and get me? I don’t think they’ll let me up to your room unless you confirm you know me.
They’re giving you a hard time? I texted back.
Not yet. I’m explaining to them now.
I’ll be right down.
I put the cap back on the whiskey bottle and tossed it into the trash receptacle in the bathroom, but the bottle’s neck stuck out in such an obvious way that I removed it and then hid the bottle in the closet.
I started to ask Sammie if she’d spent all of the previous night on the road but stopped when I recalled I could ask her that in person in less than a minute. I put on the jeans I wore to the prison yesterday and left on the rumpled t-shirt I’d slept in last night. I wondered if the manager was downstairs. I hadn’t given him my check-out day yet and had avoided him earlier. Perhaps he wouldn’t ask for one if I continued to make him believe my journalist-on-assignment story, but would he or Tawny allow Sammie, an unregistered guest, to stay in my room? I wasn’t sure about the lodge’s policy on those matters.
I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. In the mirror above the sink my eyes looked bloodshot. If someone didn’t know me very well, then maybe they wouldn’t have noticed, but Sammie knew me better than anyone in the world.
I shut my room door and jogged down the stairwell instead of using the elevator, hoping it might somehow clear away the dreadful headache and ringing in my ears.
Sammie carried Paige in her arms and was speaking with Tawny at the front desk. Sammie turned when I came in and frowned when she saw me. If I looked as bad as I felt, then I wouldn’t have been able to disguise my boozy night after all. Sammie would have crossed her arms if she hadn’t been holding Paige.
“Evan,” Tawny said. “Mr. Samuels,” she corrected herself.
I acknowledged her with a nod.
Sammie took me by the arm and pulled me aside in the lobby. Paige wagged and I rubbed her head. “There’s a discrepancy. They seem to have registered you under a different name.”
I explained to her my reasons for doing that.
