Runs Deeper

by R. D. Brady

  The lumberyard sat on the outskirts of Dover. It was owned by Reggie Tully, the uncle of Micah Donaldson, whom Steve had saved from Jack back in Millners Kill. After Steve had been released from the hospital, Reggie had offered him a job. Steve was now Reggie’s partner.

  A few minutes later, Declan pulled up in front of Dover Lumber. It was a long one-story converted factory. To the side of the main doors was a sign announcing that a showroom was inside. To the right of the main building was a large twenty-foot-tall fence with a double gate leading to the actual yard itself.

  He turned off the engine and just sat there for a little while. He did not want to go inside. He did not want to bring any of this ugliness inside. But he wanted to be the one who told Steve about Keith before he found out about it any other way. He also knew he might not have a lot of time.

  And that means I need to hustle. He quickly exited the car, cold air slapping him in the face as he made his way to the doors. He stepped inside to a well-appointed reception area with couches and chairs to the left and a large, wide reception desk at the front. Two doors were on either side of the desk, and two more doors were on the side beyond the couches.

  A young man behind the reception desk looked up. “Welcome to Dover Lumber. How can I help you?”

  “Rory, right?”

  The young man shook his head. “No, Rory left for school a few weeks ago. I’m Tanner.”

  Declan winced. “Oh, sorry. I’m new in town. Uh, I need to see Steve. He’s a friend.”

  “Uh, sure. Can I tell him who’s asking?”

  “Hey, Declan.”

  Declan turned as Steve stepped from the office beyond the lobby. “Steve. Hey. Um, I need to chat.”

  Steve frowned for a moment before nodding. “Come on back.”

  Declan followed Steve into the office. Brochures and design books were in a book caddy near the door. The office held two large desks on either side of the room. File cabinets bookended a table on the far side of the room that held a coffee station. The shared wall with the reception area had a couch with two chairs opposite it and a coffee table in between. The table was covered in papers, along with a coffee pot, a mug, and the remains of an egg sandwich.

  Declan nodded to the desk on the left. “Where’s Reggie?”

  “He’s out in the yard. A new shipment just arrived. He’ll be back in a little bit. Do you need to speak with him too?”

  “No, no. It’s you I need to speak with.”

  Steve took a seat on the couch at the back of the office, gesturing to one of the club chairs for Declan to take a seat. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  Declan shook his head. “No. We need to talk.”

  Steve leaned forward, his body going rigid. “Julie? Bess?”

  “No, they’re fine. Sorry, it’s not about them.”

  Steve closed his eyes, his hand on his chest. “Okay. I made some coffee a little while ago. You want some?”

  “No. I’m good,” Declan said as Steve pointed to the pot.

  Steve poured some fresh coffee into the mug already on the table. Invoices, blueprints, brochures—it looked like Steve was starting a new design project. “So, what’s going on?”

  Declan took a breath. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it: Keith Hodgkins was killed last night.”

  The coffee mug paused halfway to Steve’s mouth. “Killed? How?”

  “He was stabbed in an alley in Albany, a few blocks away from his mom’s place.”

  Steve just stared at him. “I’m not really sure I know what to say to that. I know I should probably say that’s a shame, but I can’t really seem to bring myself to.”

  “I know. But listen, there’s something you need to know.” Declan paused. “Before he died, Keith said you were the one who stabbed him.”

  Steve stared at him. “Is that a joke? Are you kidding?”

  Declan shook his head. “I wish I was. There’s a 9-1-1 call. He says it was you. He identified you by name. By the time the paramedics found him, he was unconscious, and he never regained consciousness before he passed. But the recording …”

  Steve closed his eyes. “No. Declan, no. I can’t go through this again.”

  “I know. I know. Do you have an alibi for last night? Keith was killed around two in the morning.”

  “Uh … oh. We went to Laura’s for dinner. We were there until around ten.”

  Laura was Laura Schiller, the nurse who ran the clinic with Julie. “That’s good.”

  Steve met his gaze. “You said he was in Albany, right?”

  Declan nodded.

  “There’s no way I could have made it out there and back. I was at the yard by 6:30 this morning.”

  Declan let out a breath. That was good. It was a twelve-hour drive to Albany. Even speeding it would take a full day to get there and back.

  Steve put the mug down on the table and walked over to the window, looking out into the parking lot. Declan gave him a minute, knowing he needed at least that time to process everything. Finally, Steve turned back to him. “Why would Keith say it was me?”

  “Have you had any contact with him?”

  Steve shook his head. “The last contact I had with him was when he stomped on my face.”

  Declan winced. “You haven’t emailed him, called him, looked him up on the internet?”

  Steve shook his head. “No. Nothing. I wanted to put this all behind me. The people I need in my life, I’ve kept there. Everyone else from that time can stay in the rearview mirror as far as I’m concerned.”

  Declan spoke slowly. “So you didn’t know that Keith ran a website?”

  Steve turned around with a frown. “A website?”

  “About you.” Declan pulled out his phone. He cued up Keith’s website. “The Kane Killers” was emblazoned across the top, blood dripping off the words.

  Steve took the phone and scrolled through. His mouth fell open, but he said nothing as he scanned the “articles” there. Finally, he handed the phone back to Declan. “He still thinks I’m guilty? After everything?”

  Declan nodded. “He has a small following, mostly people on the far-right fringe. It’s safe to say that while you may have banished him from your life for the last few years, he’s taken the opposite tack. He’s been obsessed with you.”

  Steve’s head jolted up. “Oh my God. My name. Did he report—”

  “No, no. He knew you’d changed it, but he never reported on what it was changed to. I don’t think he ever learned what it was.”

  Steve’s shoulders slumped. “Thank God.”

  “But Steve, we still have the problem of him IDing you as his killer.”

  Steve threw up his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you, Declan. I was here. That’s all I can say. How did you learn about this, anyway? Did Russ tell you?”

  “No. I have a friend in the Albany Police Department. When she learned about Keith, she called to give me a heads-up. But you need to be prepared. Someone’s going to come speak to you.”

  Steve shook his head, looking back out the window. “I thought we were done with all this.”

  “We are,” Declan said. “Keith was a raging alcoholic from the reports I’ve read. He was obsessed with you. It’s not a leap to think in his booze-addled mind, he conjured you up as his attacker. Just answer their questions honestly, and this will all go away.”

  Steve gave a small laugh. “I really want to believe you, but I have a feeling that Keith just opened a can of worms that’s not going to be so easy to close.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Albany, New York

  The bullpen was quiet. It was toward the end of the shift, and with the storm coming in, most people had taken off early. They weren’t going to get much here in Albany, but a couple of inches could really throw things for a loop. People got stupid once snow was on the ground.

  Gomez stretched, his back aching. He’d been hunched over his desk for the last hour. He’d been go
ing over the case files of the three deaths tied to Steve Kane. He’d done a deeper search and found some more deaths, thanks to Keith Hodgkins’s website. One of his neighbors had died, and two other people on the jury. All looked like natural causes, but the numbers were starting to add up. None of them were suspicious in their own, but taken together, they were like a neon sign. He’d presented his information to his captain, but the captain hadn’t been convinced. He didn’t have authority for a multijurisdictional investigation, so he was restricted to only investigating Keith Hodgkins’s death.

  He walked over to the coffee machine with his mug. Pouring some of the sludge left in the bottom of the pot, he looked out the window. The snow was starting to come down. He should have been headed home by now, but he was waiting on one more piece of information.

  Please tell me you got it.

  His phone beeped—a text message from the DA. She’d gotten the name: Steve Davidson. He scanned the quick message. It was a tentative reveal, only allowed to be used in the course of the investigation, and he was not allowed to reveal the name to any other sources.

  Gomez smiled as he hurried back to his desk. He’d thought it was going to be an uphill battle to get the judge to release the name. But apparently the judge saw what he saw.

  Gomez took a seat and moved his mouse, the computer monitor flickering to life. Davidson was a pretty common name. Even with it, finding him wasn’t going to be easy. He ran the first search and got hundreds of thousands of hits.

  Oh crap.

  He sat back, staring at the screen. I need to restrict this somehow. He paused. People tended not to like to stray too far from their comfort zone. Steve had grown up in upstate New York. He’d probably move somewhere similar. He ran a search in New York State only. He got a thousand hits. Restricting it by birth year brought it down to a couple hundred. He wasted an hour going through them before acknowledging that none were Kane.

  He bit his bottom lip. Where are you? He ran a search for Julie Granger, but the responses didn’t match up with the birth year. On a hunch, he tried Julie Davidson. Over a thousand responses. He added in Steve, and that number jumped down to a couple dozen. He restricted the responses to those living in New England.

  There were only three. The first two were in their sixties, which ruled them out. But the last match, they were the right age, and they lived in some place called Dover, Maine. He ran a search on Steve Davidson, but there was nothing on him online—he had no social media presence at all. There were millions of results, but it would be a waste of time to go through them all. He clicked to the images and scanned through them, but no one looked right.

  He switched to Julie Davidson. A new article came up of Julie Davidson when she was announced as the new doctor at the Dover Medical Clinic. And standing next to her was her husband, Steve. He magnified the image.

  Found you.

  He quickly dialed his phone.

  “Please tell me you’ve left the office,” Sullivan said by way of greeting.

  “I was just about to. But then I got that information I was looking for.”

  Sullivan paused. “You found him?”

  “Yeah, he’s living with Julie Granger in some place called Dover, Maine.”

  “Where the hell is Dover, Maine?”

  Gomez pulled up a map on his monitor. “Looks like it’s about fifty miles from the Canadian border in Maine.” The perfect spot if you needed to get over the border quick. “We need to get out there and question him.”

  “The captain said that’s okay?”

  “The captain said we should investigate the Hodgkins murder. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “That’s what we’re doing. Hold on a sec.” Sullivan’s side of the phone went quiet. A minute later, he was back on. “Dover is right in the middle of a snowstorm. No point heading out now. We’ll head out in the morning.”

  “He might be gone by then. We should head out. It can’t be too bad.”

  “They’re getting a foot of snow. The roads are going to be impassable. We head out there now, we’ll probably end up in a snowbank. He’s not going anywhere either. When the storm passes, we’ll head up, okay?”

  Gomez bit back the words that wanted to jump from his mouth. He knew Sullivan was right. But to finally find him and not be able to get him? He had a feeling he was going to regret it.

  He quickly switched to the weather website. “The snow’s supposed to end by midnight. How about we leave at two?”

  “You are a dog with a bone. Fine, two a.m. You get first shift behind the wheel.”

  “Deal. I’m going to call the police chief up there and see what he can tell me.”

  “She. I already googled her. She’s from Brooklyn, so don’t go up there thinking she’s some country yokel who doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  Sullivan snorted. “Oh, great. The Gomez charm. How will she be able to resist?”

  Gomez smiled. “You’re just jealous.”

  “I am jealous of many things in this world, my friend, your charm is not one of them.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just head home soon, okay? The roads were already getting bad when I was out.”

  “Yes, Mom. Give Michelle a big kiss for me.”

  “Nope. But I will give her your fondest nonphysical greeting.”

  Gomez disconnected the call, shaking his head. His partner’s sense of humor needed some work.

  He returned his attention to the computer and quickly found the police chief’s information. Nevaeh Brent. She was well decorated in Brooklyn. Why on Earth would she head out into the middle of nowhere? He quickly dialed the number. She answered after only a few rings. “Chief Brent.”

  “Chief, this is Detective Tom Gomez of Albany Homicide. I need to speak with you about a resident of Dover.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dover, Maine

  Laughter trailed down the stairs as Bess ran to her room, Julie giving chase. Steve smiled as he listened, but then their voices dimmed as they entered Bess’s room.

  And Steve’s thoughts returned to Keith Hodgkins.

  He still couldn’t work up any compassion for the way the man had died.

  Even in death it seemed Keith was trying to ruin Steve’s life, just like he did when Steve was a teenager. How could he think his killer was Steve? What had he seen? Was Declan right? Had he been so drunk he was just seeing what he wanted to see?

  “Out with it.” Julie stood at the bottom of the stairs, her arms crossed over her chest. Steve looked up with a start. He hadn’t even heard her come back down. For a moment, he thought of playing dumb, pretending he didn’t understand what she was asking. But they didn’t play games. They didn’t keep secrets from one another. He wasn’t going to allow Keith Hodgkins to change that.

  Steve reached up a hand. Julie crossed the room, taking it as she sat down next to him, her body angled toward his.

  “Declan found out some news today.” Steve hesitated.

  Julie squeezed his hand. “Just tell me.”

  Steve took a breath. “Keith Hodgkins is dead.”

  Julie blinked hard and stared into his eyes. “Good.”

  “Julie.”

  Julie yanked her hand from his. “No, I won’t pretend to feel bad for that man. He knew you were innocent but had you sent away. And then he made a name for himself on my sister’s death. Do you know how painful it was to turn on the TV or open a newspaper to see him talking about Simone? It wasn’t even about Simone. She wasn’t part of the story except as a prop. He erased her from her own death and made it about himself. So no, I don’t feel bad that he’s dead. He wasn’t a good man.”

  “He was murdered.”

  Julie jolted, then shook her head. “It doesn’t change anything. I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

  “He called 9-1-1 before he died. He told them I did it.”

  Julie’s mouth fell
open. “What?”

  Steve explained about the call, the police’s suspicions, the website, and Declan’s worries.

  Julie’s lips grew tighter and tighter before she stood up to pace the room. “That bastard. I hope his death was at least painful.”

  “Julie.”

  She whirled on him. “Don’t Julie me. He’s still trying to get you. And it’s not about you, but his ego. His poor, fragile ego.”

  Steve had expected a lot of reactions, but this anger was not one of them. There was a soft knock on the door.

  Steve started to stand, but Julie was already striding toward it. “I got it.”

  He sank back into the couch. This was not how he had pictured the conversation going.

  Hearing footsteps, he looked up, expecting to see Julie, but it was a tall African American woman, a gun holster over her blue flannel. Steve stood up. “Nevaeh. Hey.”

  Nevaeh smiled, waving him back down. “Hey there. Reggie just took Julie to the lumberyard. They’re going to shoot some rounds. She looks like she needs to shoot something.”

  Steve sat back down with a sigh. “Yeah. I just told her about Hodgkins.”

  “So you know.” Nevaeh took a seat in the chair next to the couch.

  “Yeah. Declan told me.”

  “How you doing?”

  “I’m not sure. I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but …”

  “Yeah. Well, unfortunately I think there might be more you need to be worried about.”

  “What?”

  “I got a call from a detective in Albany. He wanted to know about you.”

  “About me? But … I don’t understand.”

  “Apparently they had the judge unseal your record.”

  Shock ripped through Steve, followed by fear. “But—”

  Nevaeh held up a hand. “The judge said they could not release the name. But they could question you.”

  Steve just stared at Nevaeh, trying not to panic. It wasn’t working.

  “Nevaeh, I didn’t do it. I mean, I couldn’t have done it. I’ve been here. I never—”