She grabbed her crutches. “Why are you down on one knee?”
He looked flustered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Get up. A cop begging a reporter’s forgiveness on one knee is a journalist’s money shot.”
He stood and helped her up. “Mary’s gonna get you out of here.”
“Great. Get the door for a lady?”
Greenwood ran to Mary’s car, opened the back door. Caitlin saw Mary behind the wheel, Lakshmi at her side.
She called back to Scott, “You gonna be okay?”
Canton smiled again. She couldn’t be sure, but this one looked like eighty percent. “Go. Therapy, talk, friends—”
“Help,” she said. “I promise.”
CHAPTER
87
“CAN WE GET some air in here?”
Mary lowered the rear windows. “Anything you want, Caitie. We won’t be in this car long.”
Caitlin let the fragrant breeze fill her lungs. “Why not?”
Lakshmi leaned over the front seat. “The press saw Mary’s car. We’ve got to switch. Get those crutches ready.”
“The hospital made me take them,” Caitlin said. “I’m fine. I ran barefoot through a cornfield two nights ago.”
She sat back, closed her eyes, saw Angela Chapman sprinting ahead of her through the rain. She opened her eyes, sat forward. “Lakshmi, how’s Angela doing?”
The girl’s expression darkened.
Mary fielded the question. “They’re keeping her under observation, Caitie. No one’s really allowed near—”
Lakshmi cut her off. “She doesn’t want to speak to me, or see me. Ever.”
“You don’t know that,” Mary said. “It’s early.”
Lakshmi shook her head. “She screamed when she saw me, Caitlin. Said it was all my fault, said she never wanted to see me again.”
Caitlin touched her shoulder. “Lakshmi, you can’t imagine what Branford did to her. You don’t know her reality. You’re a good friend. Someday Angela will thank God you were there for her, even if she didn’t know you were. Take it from me.” She caught Mary’s eyes in the rearview.
Lubbers blinked away a tear. “Here we go.”
They pulled into a lot and parked next to Lakshmi’s graphic-wrapped Toyota.
Caitlin reached for her crutches, then laughed. “Guess it’s time for a paint job.”
Lakshmi helped her into the passenger side of the Missing-Chapman-mobile. Mary handed Lakshmi keys and walked around to the driver’s side.
“Lakshmi’s not coming with us?”
“You kidding? She’s got a story to write.”
Lakshmi drove Mary’s car back toward campus while Caitlin and Mary took 37 South.
“Not sure what your plans are, Caitie, but you’re welcome to the cottage again, if that’s not weird. Otherwise, Aaron and I would love to have you.”
Caitlin stared at the signs for the next three exits. “Could we go down Tapp Road?”
“Seriously? I don’t think we can go to the crime scene, even if you lived it.”
“I want to go to where Woods raped me, and I’d like you to go with me.”
Mary shook her head. “You’re the patient.”
She turned east on Tapp Road, pointed out the nursing home that Chapman ran to for help, almost two miles from Branford’s house. Caitlin looked through the clumps of trees on the other side of the street, trying to guess where she herself had run from him, but everything looked different under the sunshine.
Mary warned her half a mile from the farm.
“I’m fine,” Caitlin said, “for looking, at least.”
“Then here we go.”
Even two days later, law enforcement vehicles surrounded the farmhouse. Embower’s keep looked small, maybe a quarter of the size of the Bro-duce compound.
“Lakshmi found the deed, you know, under the name Chet Watkins.”
The cornfield passed by them, happy as corn could be, all ears, no sounds.
“Branford’s real name was Chet?”
Next came the road to the Branford house and the quarry beyond.
“He showed up as a Pizza Monster shareholder. She backtracked from there, just like you taught her.”
“That’s a shame,” Caitlin said. “It was really good pizza.”
Mary laughed. “I thought that yesterday and felt like the worst person on Earth.”
“Are you kidding? You’re the best.”
Mary went somewhere sad. “I’m sorry I let the FBI into the house.”
“Don’t be. I’m sorry it took me twenty years to come back. I’m sorry I missed your wedding.”
Mary nodded. “Well, you’re here now.”
They crossed a bridge. Caitlin pointed toward the familiar sheet-metal shed of the old stone-cutting mill, and Mary turned onto a recently paved road. A new two-story building with a large parking lot took up the area in front of the old mill. A sign displayed the hours of the South Bloomington Gymnastics Center.
Mary took a spot, reached for the door. “Need me to let you out?”
Caitlin grabbed her hand. “Hold on, I’m not done apologizing.”
“And I said you don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“Fine, then let me thank you.”
“Well, in that case.” Mary sat back, relaxed.
Caitlin started with the easy stuff. “Thank you for being there for me, for not giving up on me after twenty years.”
“Caitie—”
“Just listen. Thanks for offering me your home, for hugging me like no one else, for your lipstick—”
“My lipstick?”
“If you hadn’t given me that hideous pink lipstick the first night I got here—”
“Which you didn’t wear.”
“Exactly. If Branford hadn’t found that in my purse and put it on, Roman wouldn’t have noticed his disguise.”
“We would have kept looking.”
“I know, even after twenty years of me being an asshole.”
“You weren’t an asshole—”
“I hated you.”
Mary didn’t try to interrupt. “Okay.”
Caitlin looked down at her fingers and pulled on the bandage over her missing nail. “You asked why I didn’t come to you after I was attacked. I couldn’t. I was so mad.”
“At me?”
Caitlin had to get it out, and she owed it to Mary to look her in the eyes. “I love you, Mary Lubbers-hyphenate-Gaffney. I’m saying it now so you don’t feel bad or take any guilt on yourself in any way, but I hated you.”
Mary looked away for a second, bit her bottom lip, then returned to Caitlin’s eye contact. “Okay. Why?”
“It’s the dumbest thing in the world.” Caitlin let the words out with a sigh. “You were the only one I told about my mother’s profession.”
Mary’s eyes opened wider. “As in, the porn star thing?”
“Troy Woods knew.” Caitlin looked up, tilted her head back. “He told Chief Hartman, and Hartman used it to embarrass me. The only way Woods could have known—”
“I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Mary put her hands on the steering wheel at ten and two, then ran them to eight and four. “I don’t even remember telling him.”
“We were at Nick’s English Hut. He said something about how we looked like virgins.”
“Ohmigod.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I was trying to get you laid.”
Caitlin reached over and touched her leg. “Stop, Mary. I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad. I need you to understand how alone I felt and why I didn’t come to you then. I was looking for someone, something to blame, like how Angela Chapman reacted when she saw Lakshmi.”
Mary threw up her hands. “I am the world’s worst friend.”
Caitlin put her arms around her. “No, I’m the world’s worst friend, or at least I was. That ends today. Look at me: I’m a hugger now.”
Mary laughed through her tea
rs, squeezed Caitlin back. At some point, Caitlin’s need to blow her nose broke the moment. She reached into the door pocket, pulled out a missing persons flyer with Chapman’s face on it and blew.
“Let’s go see the place,” she said.
They walked around the new gymnastics center and faced the old mill. The machines, limestone powder, and chunks of discarded stone were all gone. Recent construction had filled in the broken windows, added walls to the main building, and paved a sidewalk. Still, Caitlin found the old walkway where Woods had showed off his Sprite trick. The row of remaining eight-foot blocks divided a strip of grass and a hedge.
“Here,” she said.
Mary stood beside her, said nothing.
Caitlin looked at the new strips of sod, the pressure-washed rocks, the blossoming shrubs, and saw nothing of Troy Woods.
“Hey, Mary?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your second-favorite pizza place?”
CHAPTER
88
Seven Days Later
ROMAN’S EYES HID behind sunglasses. His rental at the curb was still running. “So you’re staying?”
Caitlin stood in the open doorway of Mary’s cottage. “Come in, if you want.”
“I gotta hit the airport. Just wanted you to know I got the check. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Are you kidding? You flew to the Bahamas while I got kidnapped. Totally worth the money.”
Roman smiled. “Not sure your timing’s accurate. Your head wound might have been worse than we thought.”
“Oh, it’s definitely worse,” Caitlin said. She started to reach toward him, stopped herself.
He raised an eyebrow. “What, do we hug now?”
“You wish. So you came by just to say thanks for the check?”
He looked past her, into the house. “How long are you staying?”
“Why? Need the work?”
“I was thinking of going south.”
Caitlin knew what he meant. “Mexico?”
“It’s time, but I need to know you’re safe.”
“Mike, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“You’re right. I don’t have to. So you’ll be here for a while?”
“Maybe the whole summer.”
“Writing your story?”
“No,” she said. “Just living. Mary’s trying to get me to teach a fall-semester guest intensive. We’ll see. I’m pretty messed up.”
Roman looked her up and down. “You look nice enough. You and Greenwood got a date?”
“Are you kidding? It’s only been a week since I left the hospital.”
“Doesn’t sound like something that’d stop you.”
“The man used me, Mike.”
Roman smirked, repeated himself. “Doesn’t sound like something that’d stop you.”
Caitlin shook her head. “When Chapman disappeared, Greenwood blew up on the Bro-duce boys, basically had to let them go. So when I showed up, he pushed me toward their drug empire, knowing damn well Chief Renton would be afraid of the big-city journalist with an axe to grind against the BPD. Haven’t heard much in the way of an apology from that bitch, by the way.”
“Don’t think you will. She’s taken a medical leave. The interim chief is alright, though. Really has her shit together.”
“Maverick?” Caitlin laughed. “Jane better quit smoking. A job like that will stop a heart, stress alone. What about your best friend?”
“Aren’t you my best friend?”
In the past, she would have given him shit for that one. “I’m talking about the frat-boy kingpin, Kieran Michelson and his bros.”
“Amireau and Frodo have trial dates in six months. The feds are still working on the K-man. You know how that process goes. Could be a year, could be more. My boy Adam gets to stay in the Bahamas. They can’t really prove he did anything sinister.”
Caitlin remembered her stash of weed in the other room—and the description of Angela’s face the night she and her unoffending friends were kicked out of Kilroy’s Sports.
Sixty sheets to the wind, but laughing.
“I’m not sure the others did either,” she said through a sigh.
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Maybe pot will be legal by the time they get to trial. So why are you all dressed up if you don’t have a date?”
Caitlin laughed. Roman didn’t miss much. “Angela Chapman’s in a facility thirty miles from here. I’m gonna go talk to her.”
“For a book?”
She shook her head no. “Thanks for stopping by. Let me know if you go down to Mexico.”
“Are you kidding? I expect an update every day to make sure this state hasn’t killed you.”
“Come here, Roman.” Caitlin reached out for the hug. This time he didn’t resist.
She whispered in the big man’s ear. “What did you really want to tell me?”
Mike spoke softly. “I got a call this morning from a prison guard in Kokomo. Troy Woods died from wounds sustained in a riot.”
Caitlin swallowed. “Do they know who killed him?”
“They’re pretty sure the Aryan Brotherhood thought he helped law enforcement find a missing reporter.”
She let go, looked him in the sunglasses. “Wow. I didn’t expect that.”
“Karma, right?”
He stepped back, waved. “Stay safe, Bergman.”
She waved back.
He walked down the sidewalk, got in his rental.
Watching him go, Caitlin tried to decide how she felt about Woods’s demise.
Sunshine, a cool breeze, grass, trees, flowers, a beautiful college town, new friendships, no deadlines or headlines, nothing but time on her side—she decided not to give a damn one way or another.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Originally from central Indiana, thriller and mystery author August Norman has called Los Angeles home for two decades, writing for and/or appearing in movies, television, stage productions, web series, and even, commercial advertising. A lover and champion of crime fiction, August is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers, and regularly attends the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Norman Thoeming
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-975-7
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-976-4
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-977-1
Cover design by Andy Ruggirello
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
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New York, NY 10001
First Edition: April 2019
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