The Temptation of Silence

by V. J. Chambers

  When Liam answered the door, his feet were bare and he had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looked scruffier than usual, and there was gray in his stubble. He gave her a haggard smile as he held out the phone.

  She took it. She tried to think of something to say.

  “I want you to catch him,” said Liam.

  “I want that, too,” she said.

  They gazed at each other for a minute, and then she took a step back. “All right, well… I guess I’ll get this back to the station, and we’ll see if we can get anything off of it.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “See you later.”

  “Bye,” he said.

  She turned, and then stopped and turned back. “Oh, is there anything that he said to you on the phone that might have indicated anything about his whereabouts or anything like that?”

  He grimaced. “I didn’t think to ask him those kinds of questions. I’m such an idiot.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said. “Don’t worry. Hopefully, this number will lead us right to him.” She held up the phone. “Evening, Liam. Thanks for getting in touch.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  She left, then, and she took the phone to the station, where she was met by David Thorton, who headed up the tech side of things at the department.

  “I don’t need this phone, I just need Slater’s number,” said Thorton. She’d called Thorton in to track this immediately, since he had already gone home for the evening.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, why didn’t you tell me that when I called you in?”

  “You didn’t ask.” Thorton snatched Liam’s phone out of her hands and disappeared into his office.

  Five minutes later he came out with a print out with GPS coordinates. “It doesn’t look like it’s moved in a half hour or so.”

  “So, where is that?” She squinted at the map.

  “Maybe you luck out and he’s settled in for the night,” said Thorton. “My job here is done. You put those coordinates into your phone, and it should lead you right to him.”

  She swallowed. “Thanks.”

  Ten minutes later, she was in the car, and there were ten other cars coming to the same coordinates to back her up.

  The spot on the map was actually frighteningly close to her house. It looked as if it Slater might be squatting in a vacation rental. Most of the ones by the ocean were empty in the winter, so it made sense. She should have thought of it herself.

  But instead, the coordinates took her (and all of the other cars with their sirens on) to a big dumpster that was central to a row of condos.

  When she tried to call the number, the phone rang.

  The phone was in the dumpster.

  Yeah, she should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Liam picked up a cheap phone at Walmart with one of those pay-as-you-go plans. He activated it and spent the morning telling anyone important about his new number.

  Then he got to work on the video he was editing about Finn and Dusk, and he began to wonder if he was doing damage to his psyche by focusing on Finn all the time. But no, this was good. He needed to do this in order to purge Finn.

  Dawson had promised that there would be a police presence watching Madison, and so he was reassured on that front.

  He felt good.

  Lighter.

  Free.

  And then he got a text from a new number.

  It said, It’s okay, tiger. I like you better with a little fight to you.

  How had Finn found his new number?

  Liam didn’t get it, but he called Dawson and turned over the number that Finn had texted from.

  She said they’d trace it, but that she didn’t have much hope that Finn would be so stupid. He’d ditched the last phone, after all, and now he’d probably just be going through a series of burner phones that he’d use once and ditch immediately afterward.

  Sure enough, later on, he got another text from Finn, but this one was from another number entirely.

  It was a picture of a woman with the words, Is she your type, tiger?

  Immediately, there was another picture sent.

  Or would you prefer her?

  Liam hadn’t answered the first text, and he wasn’t going to answer these either. Instead, he turned his phone off and tried to concentrate on the screen. He needed to make some progress on this video, because he was going to be going to Belinda’s house to say with Madison during Belinda’s conference tomorrow.

  However, he couldn’t concentrate.

  * * *

  “Trina Manning?” said Dawson. She was on the phone, which she didn’t like, but Trina lived in northern Maryland, and it was far too long a drive for her to make to ask Trina a few questions.

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “I’m Detective Haysle Dawson, and I work with the Cape Christopher Police Department in Virginia.

  “You work in Virginia? Why are you calling me here?”

  “I’m looking into the disappearance of Harlow Walker, back in 2004. It may be connected to an active serial killer investigation. I don’t know if the name Harlow Walker is familiar to you at all?”

  “Uh… no? Should it be?”

  “I understand that you were a member of a group when you were at Branwen College. This was a group of women who engaged in bonfires and New-Agey-type spirituality. They were supposedly led by a woman named Lola Gem. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  There was nothing on the other end of the phone except Trina’s breathing, which was noisy.

  “Ms. Manning?”

  “I don’t even live in Virginia.”

  “I know that.”

  “So, if, um, if you wanted to arrest me, could you?”

  “I’m only calling to gather information. I have no intention of arresting you, unless you’ve committed some kind of crime.” Dawson wasn’t sure how to take whatever the woman had just said. On the one hand, it raised her hackles. Was there a reason to be suspicious of this woman?

  “Well, you’re investigating a crime,” said Trina. “I guess this Harlow person is dead, and you think someone murdered her. So, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that maybe you think it was me.”

  “I don’t,” said Dawson, blinking. “Was it you?”

  “No,” said Trina.

  That was a stupid thing to ask, Dawson thought. It only made Trina more hostile and it seemed to confirm her fears. “I need to apologize,” she said, trying to backpedal. “I feel as though we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Please, I think that Harlow was killed by a serial killer named Phineas Slater. He attended college at the same time as you did. Hadn’t you heard about this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Trina. “Maybe.”

  “All right, so since we’ve established this isn’t some attempt to entrap you, do you think you could answer some questions for me?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Well, is there a reason you wouldn’t?”

  “I think maybe I should talk to a lawyer first? I can do that, right? I mean, this isn’t even your, um, what do you call it? Your jurisdiction. So, you can’t detain me or anything, can you? Am I being detained? Can you detain someone over the phone?”

  “I’m simply looking for information, Ms. Manning. But if your intention is to make me suspicious of you, I have to admit, you’ve succeeded.”

  “Oh, sure.” Trina scoffed. “Blame me. That is some passive-aggressive shit, detective.”

  Dawson sighed. “Listen, if we could simply talk a little bit about a bonfire that you might have attended in the spring of 2004? If we could talk about Lola Gem?”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Am I being detained?”

  “Well, obviously not, but if I could just—”

  “Then I’m hanging up.” And she did.

  Dawson sighed. She set down her own phone and massaged the bridge of her nose.What the hell had that been all about?<
br />
  Trina Manning was hiding something. She didn’t want to talk, and she was jumpy and paranoid. There was something there, and all of Dawson’s detective instincts told her to dig into it.

  On the other hand, she had one tiny shred of evidence connecting all of this to Slater, and that was the name Lola Gem, for which she only had the word of Catherine Wilson. There was no evidence of a Lola Gem on campus and no one else had ever seen the woman.

  And, while she was thinking about this cold case, she wasn’t working on tracking Slater down. They’d now picked up two more of his discarded burner phones. One had been outside the military complex in Virginia Beach, and one had been off the interstate, heading out of town.

  She had mobilized a group of uniforms to go searching in the empty vacation homes up and down the shore, but that was a vast amount of space to cover, and there was no way they could search them all thoroughly enough to find him—if he was even there.

  Slater had gotten into her house without damaging the property, which suggested he might be capable of using lock picks, and there might be no broken windows or signs of breaking and entering to be observed.

  So, she didn’t have a lead for Slater.

  But this thing with Trina Manning, it was tantalizing, a mystery that wanted unraveling.

  It called to her.

  Why did it seem that she was drawn only to the wrong things these days?

  She thought of Slater, thrusting the chicken nuggets at her, the way he’d told her to slow down and savor her food, and a strange, awful thrill went through her.

  * * *

  Belinda met Liam at the door, and she was all smiles. “Thank you so much for doing this. You are a lifesaver, Liam, really.”

  He smiled, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and tried to pretend it wasn’t weird to be coming back to this house. He looked around, and everything was mostly the same. There used to be a picture of him and Belinda that hung on the wall near the entryway, right next to the steps. It was gone now, replaced by a landscape of a sunrise over the mountains. His coats used to hang on the coat rack right next to the door, and he used to leave his shoes on the racks below, but now there were only Belinda’s and Madison’s.

  Belinda grinned. “Well, take off your coat and stay awhile.”

  He shrugged out of the coat and hung it up. It seemed wrong there, as if it might be polluting the house. He didn’t belong here anymore.

  “You want to go and throw that in the guest room?” said Belinda, nodding at his duffel bag. “I’ll wait for you in the kitchen to give you last-minute info.”

  He nodded. “Okay.” He ascended the steps. When he got to the top, he could see inside the bedroom he used to share with Belinda, and realized she’d redone the entire thing. It used to be all muted browns and mauves and golds. She had changed the color scheme to bold reds. She had put up a textured wallpaper and gotten a new bedspread. It was jarring.

  He turned the corner and stepped into the guest room, which he had once wanted to turn into an office so that he could make his YouTube videos, but Belinda had relegated him to the basement. She had said that they might need a guest room. He had said that this was his job now, that this was his profession. She had not seen it that way, and had constantly nagged at him to get “a real job.”

  The guest room now had the bedspread from their bed. He grimaced.

  She didn’t want to sleep under it, but she thought he did?

  He tossed the duffel bag down on the bed and then went downstairs to find her.

  She was cheery.

  She showed him that there were three casseroles in the refrigerator. Well, one was a lasagna. The other was shepherd’s pie, and the third was this thing with vegetables and cream of mushroom soup and ground beef. It was topped in crispy shredded potatoes. It was delicious, he remembered.

  “I remember you liked that,” she said.

  “I’m going to be here three days,” he said. “It’s too much food.”

  “You can take the leftovers with you,” she said. “You wouldn’t let me pay you. You said you wanted me to feed you.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She nodded. “Sure. I really do appreciate this.”

  “Where’s Madison?” he said. She was the entire reason he was supposed to be here, after all.

  “Oh, she’s in the basement,” said Belinda. “We turned that into a TV room and we put some exercise equipment down there. Madison is on a weird kick about exercise. I’m worried. She’s too young to be trying to lose weight, and she doesn’t need to lose weight.”

  “Well, exercise is healthy,” said Liam. “As long as it’s not excessive.”

  “Right.” Belinda nodded. “Right, that’s what I tell myself. I mean, what am I supposed to say to her? Forbid her from getting on the treadmill? That’s crazy. So, I just try to go with it.”

  “You worry too much,” he said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Um, speaking of worrying, the police came to our door a few nights ago, and I keep seeing a car circling? Do you know about this?”

  “Uh, what did they say to you?”

  “It’s that Slater man,” she said. She pointed. “He sat right there at this table and said to me that he would give me his phone number so that I could call him if I didn’t feel safe. He was a police detective. I trusted him. And all along, he was that Finn person who you used to have nightmares about.”

  Liam scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I forgot you asked me about that.” Apparently, sometimes he said Finn’s name in his sleep.

  “Should I be going to this conference? Are we safe?”

  Liam hung his head. “I don’t know about being safe.”

  “Seriously?”

  “But I don’t see that it would matter if you went to the conference or not,” said Liam. “He’s out there, and I’d don’t know when they’re going to catch him. So, you can’t put your life on hold. You can’t let him take that from you.”

  Belinda considered this. “Well, I guess having the police presence is good.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t call me after the cops showed up that night,” Liam said. He hadn’t thought about it, but it seemed odd now.

  “I don’t think I wanted to admit to myself how bad this is.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Liam. “I’m sorry that I brought that man into your life.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Liam.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “All right,” she said. “Well, I need to get going. I’m carpooling with some co-workers, and we’re meeting in the parking lot very soon. So, I guess, if you don’t have any other questions for me, I’ll be going?”

  “I’m good here,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said. “Call me for any reason, if you need anything at all, or if anything happens.”

  “I will,” he said. “You’ve got my new number, right?”

  She nodded. “I better say goodbye to Madison.” She descended into the basement.

  Liam followed, and they found Madison jogging on a trampoline next to the washing machine. He remembered what this place had looked like when his desk and his computers had all been down here. Now, there was a couch and a rug and a bunch of exercise equipment.

  Madison was sweaty, strands of hair plastered to her neck and forehead. “Liam! You’re here.” She jumped down from the trampoline.

  “I’m leaving, honey,” said Belinda.

  “You want a hug?” said Madison, grinning. “Or don’t you want my sweaty stink all over you?”

  “Get over here,” said Belinda. She embraced her daughter.

  Liam waited while they said their goodbyes.

  Then Belinda went upstairs and Madison told him she was going to keep up her exercise routine for ten more minutes, and that then she was going to shower.

  He asked her which casserole he should put in the oven.

  “God, those all sound so fattening,” said Madison. />
  Liam grimaced. Maybe Belinda was right to be worried. He thought about saying something, but he remembered what it was like when adults talked to him when he was a teenager, how they usually all said the same thing, and how it always felt as if they lived on another planet, and that they couldn’t possibly understand what it was that he was talking about.

  So, he said he was putting the crispy potato casserole in the oven, if she didn’t have a preference, and went upstairs and left her to it.

  Later, they sat at the table together, eating. Madison’s hair was still wet, and she had already changed into her pajamas.

  Liam decided to wade in. What the hell? “So, are you concerned about things being fattening all of the sudden?”

  Madison rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, not you too. You aren’t even my stepfather anymore, Liam. You don’t get a chance to say anything.”

  He shrugged. “I’m only curious.”

  “I’m eating, aren’t I?” She pointedly shoveled casserole into her mouth and chewed. After she had swallowed, she said, “My mom thinks I’m going to have an eating disorder or something, but I’m not.”

  “Right,” said Liam. He ate some more of the casserole. Maybe he was better off keeping his mouth shut.

  “I mean, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy,” said Madison.

  “Nope, nothing at all,” said Liam, nodding.

  “You never got fat,” said Madison.

  Liam raised his eyebrows. “Uh… I guess not.” He was pretty sure all the drinking had made him soft around the middle though. “But, I mean, I’m not the picture of health either.”

  Madison shrugged. “Mom, on the other hand, she got way fatter after you got married.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Liam.

  “You can’t deny she gained weight.”

  “She never looked fat to me,” said Liam.

  “Seriously?” Madison blinked at him in disbelief. “I’m not stupid, Liam. I don’t know what happened between you and my mom, but right around the time when she started gaining weight was when you started hiding in the basement all the time. And I’ve seen this before, with Derek.” Derek was the man who Belinda had been married to before Liam. Belinda had only been married to Madison’s father for a brief time when the girl was very young. “It’s like a pattern for her. She gets married, she gets fat, and then the marriage falls apart, and then she’s all on a kick to lose weight again.”