by Leo, Cassia
“Settle down, Tiffany,” I reply, and her panicked eyes snap up to meet my gaze. “He’s not dead. And you’d better believe I know who you are, Tiffany Randall, date of birth February 12, 1994. Boyfriend: Derek Niman, date of birth August 23, 1991. Best friend: Isabel Lake, date of birth July 7, 1994. Should I keep going?”
She hangs her head. “What do you want?”
I pull out a chair from the table behind her, ignoring the way she flinches at the sound of the legs scraping the tile floor, and I take a seat right in front of her. “Where’s Izzy?”
She glances up at me again, and this time I see a note of cognizance in her brown eyes before she quickly looks away. “How do you know Izzy?”
“Tiffany… Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany… Don’t make this harder on yourself. The faster you answer my questions, the faster I can get out of here and take off this balaclava. This thing itches, okay?”
Santos chuckles and shakes his head.
“You’re going to tell me where your friend is,” I continue, “or Santos, here, is going to make sure your boyfriend never wakes up. Got it?”
She sniffles and gulps as her knees bounce up and down with anxiety. “I don’t know where she is. I swear I don’t know where she went,” she blubbers, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please believe me. I know nothing about any of this.”
I lean forward in the chair, resting my elbows on my knees as I let out a sigh. “I feel bad,” I begin, shaking my head in dismay. “I really don’t like punishing someone for being a loyal friend. Loyalty should be rewarded. This really pains me.”
Her eyes are wide with terror as I nod at Santos, who lifts the back of his blazer to reveal a knife holster secured around his waist. He pops open the snap and slides out a hunting knife with a six-inch carbon steel blade. The dim early morning light filtering in through the window in the breakfast nook glints off the sharpened edge. Santos steps toward Tiffany’s boyfriend, who is now groggily lifting his head and blinking his eyes.
“Please don’t,” she pleads. “Please, you don’t have to do that. I’ll tell you what you want. I—I know where she went.”
4 King
Present Day
“Hunting?” Sooner repeats the word to himself as he jots down some notes on his yellow legal pad. “You said this was a few days ago. Do you remember the exact day? Today is Sunday the 11th if that helps. Did you go hunting with her on Thursday or Friday? Or another day?”
“I’m pretty certain it was Thursday,” I reply without hesitation.
He nods. “Thursday the…8th?”
“That’s right.”
He’s not nodding or smiling anymore, and I don’t know if this should make me nervous. Is he going to turn into the bad cop and go for a dual-personality character? Or is this part of his schtick? Is he going to start telling me how bad things look for me, and how he only wants to help me out?
“Okay, so you and Izzy went hunting on Thursday, and she seems to have gone into work on Friday,” Sooner says, establishing a clear setup for his next question. “Did you speak to her at any time after you went hunting on Thursday? Maybe over the phone or text message or Facebook? Any contact with her at all?”
I purse my lips and pretend to think hard about this question. “Hmm… I’m pretty sure we texted each other, but I don’t remember when that was.”
“Do you have your phone on you?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay, no problem,” he replies, his tone brightening as he remembers he has to pretend to be my friend so I can volunteer to give him my phone. “Do you know where your phone is?”
This is where the interview is going to take a turn.
I don’t have a cell phone on me, and the phone I used to communicate with Izzy is a burner phone. That would make me look very guilty if the police found that out. Unfortunately — or fortunately, I’m not sure yet — I lost the burner phone the last time I saw Izzy. And now that the crime scene is crawling with cops, I can’t go back to look for it.
Of course, I was very careful not to discuss anything incriminating on that burner phone. And I had my tech guy wipe it clean before the last time I saw Izzy. If they do find it, I doubt they’ll glean anything from whatever data is left on there.
“No, sir. I do not know where it is,” I reply, resisting the urge to adjust my position in the uncomfortable chair. “I lost it while helping Izzy with a problem in her bathroom.”
“You lost it in the bathroom?” he asks, unable to hide his skepticism.
“No, sir. She had a problem with the subfloor beneath the tile in her bathroom,” I clarify. “I had to get under the house — in the crawl space — to check it out. I didn’t realize my phone was gone until a few hours later. When I went back to look around for it, it was gone.”
“It was gone? Just like that? Do you think she took it?”
“No, sir. I don’t think she’d do that.”
Sooner looks a bit perplexed by this polite, almost reverent, answer. “Did you work in the crawl space before or after the hunting trip?”
I scrunch my eyebrows together at his attempt to trip me up. “Before, sir. The last time I saw her was when we went hunting.”
He writes something in his notepad and shakes his head. “I can’t believe I forgot to grab an interview form,” he says, pushing his chair out and rising to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”
I sigh as he leaves the room and softly closes the door behind him. He’s probably going to fetch Bad Cop. I try not to fidget too much, painfully aware that the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling is pointed straight at me.
A few minutes later, a ginger wearing a white polo and jeans, who can’t be much older than I am, walks in carrying a few sheets of paper and a couple of pens. “How’s it going, King? I’m Special Agent Jake Stanley with the FBI field office in Charlotte.”
He holds out a hand for me to shake. I take his hand immediately, aware that waiting too long will make me seem bitter instead of worried and eager to find Izzy.
“Nice to meet you,” I reply.
“You need some water or something to eat?” he inquires, and I shake my head. Without hesitation, he grabs the back of the chair Sooner vacated and pulls it around the table so he can sit next to me. “This is just a simple witness statement form. Can you read and write?” he asks, placing one of the sheets of paper and a pen in front of me.
“Yes, sir,” I reply, straightening the form in front of me, so I can read the words at the top of the page: FD-302 Federal Bureau of Investigation.
If I fill out this witness statement form, anything I write here is impeachable in a court of law. Good thing this case — and I — will never see the inside of a courtroom.
“Great,” Stanley replies cheerily. “When we’re done chatting, you can write down your statement on this form. For now, we’ll fill out this form. It’s just your basic information, name, date of birth, etcetera.”
Etcetera.
First, he sits next to me to try to fool me into thinking we’re on the same side. Then, he pulls out an FD-302 and tries to pretend it’s no big deal. Now, he’s implying my personal information falls under the category “etcetera.”
I should just lawyer up already, but I don’t want to draw any additional heat or make them think I’m a flight risk. The last thing I need when I leave this station is to get tailed by the FBI. Besides, they’re just starting to tip their hand, and I’m curious to see what other cards they’re holding.
“First and last name?” he asks.
“Kingston Jameson, but I go by King.”
“You got a middle name, King?”
I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to say my deadbeat father’s name aloud. “Darryl,” I reply, correcting him when he attempts to spell it with one R.
He looks me over for a split-second. “How tall are you?”
“Six-two.”
“Do you know how much you weigh?”
“About 190.”
“Yes, sir.”
Now he glances at the pen lying on the table in front of me. “Right- or left-handed?”
“Right.”
He smiles, then he puts his pen down and moves his chair back to the other side of the table so he can face me. “You work out a lot?”
I pause for a moment as I contemplate what, if anything, would have caused him to smile when I said I was right-handed. “Sometimes.”
“You like to dig holes?” he asks, looking a bit too eager now.
I keep my expression blank as I think of all the holes I’ve dug lately. Perhaps the cops know more than they’ve let on. Maybe Stanley’s about to turn into the bad cop.
“Excuse me?” I reply, feigning confusion.
“Scratch that. You like working around the house a lot?” he corrects himself. “I noticed there’s a freshly dug fire pit in your backyard.”
I try not to roll my eyes. “Yeah, I worked construction for some years.”
“In the military?”
The guy is starting to piss me off, but I maintain my composure. “Yes. I was an engineer in the military, and I own a construction company in Vegas.”
“Vegas?” he replies, his eyes lighting up. “I have family in Vegas. Are you from Vegas?
“No, sir. I’m from Tennessee.”
“Tennessee? Hmm… How long’d you live there?”
“All my life until I enlisted.”
“And you enlisted at the age of…?”
“Twenty.”
He’s rattling off the questions fast, and I suspect the pause he takes now is because he’s arrived at the question this has all been leading up to. “So, back home in Tennessee, were you an outdoorsman? ’Cause it seems you and Izzy liked to do a lot of outdoorsy stuff together, like hunting. Did you do a lot of that back home in Tennessee?”
I take a few deep breaths as I contemplate whether I should be evasive or whether I should toy with Stanley a little. I decide to have a little fun.
“According to the military, I’m good for over six hundred yards on a moving target. According to me, I can field dress a deer in under a minute. According to you, that makes me a murder suspect. Am I right?”
His eyes are locked on mine as he cocks an eyebrow. “We’re just here to chat…for now. Unless you have something you want to get off your chest.”
I shake my head and lean back in my chair again. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“Okay,” he replies with a shrug. “So what brings you all the way out here from Vegas?”
“Guess I’ve got a restless soul.”
“A restless soul?” he replies without a trace of a smile. “Have you consumed any drugs or alcohol today?”
“No, sir.”
He leans back in his chair, apparently deciding it’s time for him to get comfortable, too. “Okay, King — interesting name, by the way — the point of this interview is to find Isabel Lake. And—”
“Izzy,” I correct him just as I did Sooner. “She prefers Izzy.”
Fuck if I’m going to let these assholes screw up my girl’s name.
Stanley looks slightly amused. “Okay, to find Izzy, we have to go back to the beginning. Do you want to tell me how you came to know Izzy Lake?”
5 Izzy
July 26th
“I asked Johnny Sills to head over and show you where the main water and gas shutoffs are,” Ursula Lovelace says, pulling a set of keys out of her top desk drawer. “He’s a volunteer fireman for the Charlotte Fire Department, and handsome, to boot. Wink-wink.”
I chuckle nervously. “I’m not really looking to get into a relationship right now, but I appreciate the help,” I reply in my faux Carolina accent. “Do you know what time he’ll be by?”
She rises from her squeaky desk chair and rounds the oak desk, which is so clunky and battered, it looks as if it’s been donated and purchased at the Goodwill at least three times. “A single girl like you’s gonna need a man around the house to help with all those leaky faucets and critters.”
The thought of the critters I’ll have to contend with in the middle of the North Carolina countryside conjures images of razorback turtles and fluffy-tailed deer, but I have a feeling my brain is being optimistic. “Exactly what kind of critters are you talking about?”
Her plump face splits into a wide grin as she dangles the keys in front of me. “Oh, you know, just the usual spiders and mosquitoes and the occasional rodent.”
My skin tingles as I take the keys from her hand and squeeze my fingers around them. “But the inspector said that the only critters I might need to call pest control for would be the squirrels.”
The auburn curls surrounding her face quiver as she giggles. “Oh, silly girl. Squirrels are rodents. You’re in for quite a culture shock, young lady.”
I can’t help but smile as I run my thumb over the jagged edges of the longest key. My very own house… If I have to, I’ll fight off a million squirrels to protect my home.
Of course, now that I’m wanted by some type of criminal organization, I have a feeling it won’t be squirrels I’ll be fighting off. I just hope my new identity as Jolene Fisher, the fourteen pounds I gained, my new dark-brown box-dyed hair, ditching my old Ford F-150 for an even older Ford Ranger, and the way I zigzagged my way across the country from Las Vegas to Valdese, North Carolina, have worked to conceal my whereabouts.
Ursula walks me to the door of her realty office in a rundown strip mall on the outskirts of my new hometown, which happens to be my father’s old hometown. “How are you liking working with Edie?” she asks as she opens the door for me and we’re blasted with a thick gust of humid Carolina summer air. “I saw her at services on Sunday, and she was talking you up like you’re her favorite grandchild.”
I brush off Ursula’s attempt to flatter me into spilling the beans on what, if anything, my new boss, Edie Bryant, has told me about her relationship with her estranged granddaughter. “Edie is the sweetest woman I’ve ever met,” I reply, hoping she takes the hint that I’m not going to gossip with her. “ I’m actually on my way there now.”
Ursula gasps as I reach for the door handle on my rundown brown pickup truck. “You’re not even gonna say hello to your new house before you jet off to work? You’re such a working woman, Jo-Jo.”
I chuckle at her attempt to make a joke at my expense. “Yep. That’s me. Just a regular old modern woman.” I reply, opening the driver’s side door and climbing inside. “See you soon, Urs-Urs!”
* * *
Pulling into the parking lot of The Junk Drawer, my Ranger sputters to a stop in a parking space, and the oppressive June heat immediately smothers me. I’m used to dry desert summers. This humidity is like living inside a sauna that smells like hot pavement and warm grass.
The bells jingle as I enter my new place of employment, and I breathe a sigh of relief as a rush of air-conditioned air washes over my heated skin. The Junk Drawer is my eccentric new boss’ idea of a Joanna Gaines style upscale junkyard with indoor retail space. It’s a clever name for what is becoming a bit of a tired concept, but Edith “Edie” Bryant has managed to make the space feel modern and comforting all at once.
As I pass a display of vintage candle holders, I slip the neck-strap of my knee-length apron over my head and tie the strings around my waist. “Good afternoon, Miss Bryant!” I call out to my boss.
“You’re red as a beet, honey-child. Can I pour you a glass of cucumber-mint water?” Edie asks as I approach the sales counter in the corner of the store.
I tuck my purse in the corner of the shelf under the register and shake my head. “No, thank you, Miss Bryant. You know that stuff makes me pee every fifteen minutes.”
She waves off my reply. “Sweetie, you know I done told you to stop calling me Miss Bryant. I’m just Edie.”
I shake my head again, more adamantly this time as I take a seat on the stool behind the counter. “No, ma’am. My momma tau
ght me how to address my elders with respect, and I’ll be doing it until the day I die.”
My mother taught me no such thing, but it sure sounds nice when I say it in a Carolina accent.
“Besides,” I continue, “aren’t you the one who tells me not to sweat the small stuff?”
She nods proudly. “That’s right. And don’t you forget it. Where are you coming from this afternoon?”
“Just came from the realtor’s office. I got the keys today,” I mention casually as I retrieve a pack of almonds, which I always keep in my apron pocket to maintain my new healthier weight. No scrawny insults for me anymore.
Edie claps her bony hands together and gasps. “You just got the keys to your first house, and you’re sitting here talking to this rickety old bat? You don’t have to work today. Go on and bask in your first day as a homeowner.”
“Nope. I can’t really move in until I get a bed. So it doesn’t really make sense to drive all the way out there just to look at it. I’ve been there enough times over the last four weeks. Besides, I need the hours.”
“Oh, hogwash. Let’s go find you a nice headboard in the furniture department.”
“No way,” I reply forcefully. “I can’t afford anything in the furniture department right now, and I won’t allow you to gift it to me.”
She appears stymied with my ability to shoot down her generosity so easily. “You know, sweetie, it’s not very nice to refuse a gift. Didn’t your momma teach you that?” She fixes me with a hard look that dares me to challenge her, and I don’t. “That’s what I thought. Now, come with me and let’s pick out a headboard for you. And afterward, we’ll head on over to Mike’s Mattress Plaza and get you one of those new memory foam mattresses. They’re pretty reasonably priced.”
I shake my head and smile at Edie’s aggressive generosity. “Yes, ma’am.”
When we arrive at the furniture department, we find a thirty-something woman with a sleeping baby strapped to her chest eyeing a vintage wrought-iron headboard and matching footboard. My heart sinks as I realize it’s the only twin-sized headboard we have in stock, and I really don’t think Edie had planned on buying me anything larger than a starter-size twin bed.