Sharp Absence (Sharp Investigations Book 1)

by Kate Anders

  Without any other options, I walk farther into the room over to the chair he is still gesturing at. Thankfully, he leaves the door open, so it doesn’t exactly feel like an interrogation, but I don’t think there is anything they could do to this room to make it feel friendly. It takes a couple seconds for me to talk myself into sitting in the chair, but once I finally do, I cringe a little internally. Something about this place gives me the creeps.

  This stuck-up guy is definitely watching me be creeped out. He still hasn’t said anything, he’s just standing next to the table watching me. After a while, he finally takes one of the other two chairs across the table from me. I will say one thing about this guy, he’s got the stare down, down pat.

  I take the opportunity to do the same. I’m not about to engage in conversation while he is trying to make some kind of power play. I hate guys like this.

  He’s wearing a button-down, standard business wear, so basically like all the other detectives. But he’s clearly trying to stand out among the crowd because he is wearing a leather jacket. Clearly, he wants to be the badass cool guy. I can’t help but to roll my eyes, everyone knows when it’s cold out a leather jacket is only going to help with the wind, it’s definitely not going to help you with the cold unless it’s lined, and this one isn’t. It’s all for show. The kind you could wear in the middle of summer while riding a motorcycle to avoid getting road rash if you lay down the bike.

  I can see the face of his watch sticking out from underneath the jacket. It’s one of those oversized watches that look fancy, but somehow, I doubt this thing is worth more than a hundred bucks. I’m a little surprised he’s not wearing an Apple Watch, if only for the workout apps. There’s no way this guy doesn’t have a PT routine he does every morning.

  And that’s when I hear it. Tapping. Rhythmic tapping. Great. My biggest pet peeve on the planet and this guy, of course, has to be a tapper. I lean back in my chair, cross my arms, and raise an eyebrow in his direction.

  He smirks back. Great, he knows he is annoying me.

  “I knew I shouldn’t leave the two of you alone,” I hear from the doorway. My head snaps quickly toward the familiar voice.

  “Hey, Joe.” I smile at him.

  “Hey, kid, good to see you. Thanks so much for coming in,” he replies as douche canoe next to him huffs while Joe takes a seat in the chair next to him. “You got something to say, Jones?”

  “Nope.” He pops the p.

  “She’s not a suspect, Jones, we’ve been over this.” Joe looks exasperated as he stares down Jones.

  “I never said she was, just that it was awfully curious how she has all this information at her fingertips, like maybe it’s a little suspicious. That’s all.”

  “Seriously?” I exclaim. He can’t be serious. He can’t seriously think that I am involved in all of this. What kind of moron would I be to be involved and yet at the same time bring a stack of information connecting all the crimes together, giving the police way more information than they had to begin with? “Please don’t tell me this guy is serious?” I implore Joe.

  “He is. He means well, I promise. It’s fine. Swear,” Joe tries to reassure me. It’s not exactly working.

  “If you say so,” I reply with a huff and lean back in my chair.

  “Okay, so how about we get this started? Kenzie, meet my partner, Detective Matt Jones, Jones, this is Kenzie.” Joe waves his hand back and forth, gesturing to both of us. Jones and I make no move to do anything other than continue staring each other down.

  Joe chuckles a little with an eye roll before continuing on.

  “We’ve had people in all morning who had connections to the women in the files you gave me. We’ve been looking for any sort of similarities between them, and connections they might have to each other or a specific place or person. Anything anyone remembers about when they left school, that kind of thing.”

  I finally break eye contact with Jones and nod my head at Joe.

  “So, I know we have a lot of information from you already, but I was hoping you would run both of us through the sequence of events from when Clara went missing, how you came across your information, up until through now,” Joe says.

  “Without leaving anything out,” Jones adds.

  “Of course, sure. Anything you need,” I tell them both, but focus my attention on Joe. This Jones guy is going to annoy me to death, I can already tell.

  For what feels like the millionth time, I go over all the information again. This time Joe is here to ask questions along the way, occasionally sliding over a piece of paper with corresponding information on it that backs up what I am saying. By the time I’m done running through it all, I feel like I’m out of breath and exhausted. I look down at my watch and I realize I’ve been sitting in this room going over all this information for almost an hour and a half. It’s like a time vortex in here.

  “Anything else you want to add, Miss Sharp?” Jones asks. He honestly seems a little less suspicious after all this time, maybe he’s finally on board with me.

  “Actually, yes. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I have a couple of people I wanted to mention,” I tell the two of them.

  Jones actually flips open his notepad like he’s going to take notes. Well, color me surprised.

  “Let’s have it,” Jones says.

  “So I’ve been racking my brain about all the people Clara could have come in contact with, and honestly, it’s not that many people. She’s basically the opposite of social. So unless we are talking about some random guy in a coffee shop she bumps into that she has no real connection to, there aren’t going to be a lot of suspects in her personal life.”

  “She didn’t go out much?” Jones asks.

  “I’ve met Clara probably fifteen, twenty times, and from what I remember, she keeps to herself. She’s reserved. Nice, polite, always helpful, but not what I would call talkative or sociable,” Joe explains his personal impressions to Jones. Jones looks at me to confirm.

  “He’s not wrong. On campus, she’s probably only really close to one person. Me. Outside of me, she has a friend group, but it’s mostly people in her program at school. The same core group of people in all her classes. She doesn’t date, she doesn’t really go to parties. The few times she has gone to parties has always been because of me, when she thought I was shutting myself in too much. And even then, I’m right there with her, and she sticks to me like white on rice at those kinds of things,” I explain.

  “Alright, so not a lot of interpersonal connections?” Jones looks up at me after scribbling some more notes in his pad, I shake my head in response. “Alright, so who would you consider questionable if she doesn’t really interact with people?”

  “There’s a guy in her program that’s always in competition with Clara, and she always beats him out for everything. She even got the most prestigious internship over him, and he was pissed. Like super pissed. He’s more than a little bit of a misogynist. He’s definitely confronted her before.”

  “Name?” Jones asks.

  “Preston Pierce,” I tell them.

  “Okay, anyone else?”

  I proceed to tell them all about the people on my list and running through all the reasons I don’t think they were really viable suspects, but I figure I should mention them just to be on the safe side. And then I get to my last theory.

  “I looked at all those files, I’ve looked at them a million times. Clara knew something was going on and she was trying to find a connection. It has to be the same person, it’s the only thing that makes sense, so it has to be someone who has been on campus each year that a girl went missing. So that’s students, employees, professors, teaching assistants, that kind of thing. I have a hard time believing some pimple-faced eighteen-year-old was skilled enough to pull something like this off.”

  “So you think someone on campus?” Jones asks.

  “Yes. Someone Clara probably would have never looked twice at being a danger. Or any of the other girls, for th
at matter. An employee would have a valid reason to be around them.”

  “We think so too, Kenz,” Joe tells me.

  I really did expect Jones to protest Joe validating my theory, but instead he’s just going over his notes and jotting more things down.

  “Do you know anything else, have you gotten anywhere with all the new information? Any leads, anything at all?” I ask Joe.

  Joe sighs pretty big before finally answering me. “Not exactly. We’ve started running through all the information, independently verifying things. We’ve had to contact families since not everyone was reported missing. We are trying to get DNA samples from family members, but these kinds of things take time,” Joe explains.

  “DNA samples?” My stomach bottoms out. “But wouldn’t you need something to compare it to?”

  Crickets. The room is full of crickets. No one says anything. After a few seconds, Joe and Jones look at each other and Jones finally nods and Joe turns back to me.

  “We’ve had someone looking through old files, people who have been found but not identified. Just trying to rule out that no one who is missing has shown up somewhere else.” Joe starts.

  “But someone has, someone has been found” I whisper.

  “Yes, there’s a Jane Doe that was found a few hours outside of Raleigh, no one identified her, and DNA was run but no matches. The general description fits height, age, weight, that kind of thing. All just general information. We just want to make sure, you know, rule out everything.” Joe gives me a small smile that’s clearly meant to reassure me. It doesn’t.

  “Fitz…” Jones mutters. They exchange another look.

  “There’s some concern, Kenz. You were right, the similarities are overwhelming, it looks like a pattern. These kinds of things, they don’t normally end with, with well—”

  “People who are alive?” I finish for him.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, Kenz. I really am. Like I said, we don’t know anything for sure, but we’re going to run the DNA ASAP and get some answers.”

  “And if it’s one of the missing?” I ask.

  Joe doesn’t say anything. Jones closes his notepad and looks up at me before making things clear.

  “If it’s one of the missing women, then the chances for the other women go way down. You should prepare yourself.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “FALLEN” BY SARAH MCLACHLAN

  “Prepare yourself.”

  The words keep ringing in my ears. It was always a possibility, but one I would never really let my mind wander off to, only in my nightmares. But in just a few seconds, the far-off possibilities suddenly look a whole lot more like reality. I don’t know what I would do if she weren’t on this earth anymore.

  Living through another death. I probably have the same amount of memories with Clara as I did with my brother, if not more. Losing her would be devastating, the loss of another sibling essentially. Would I survive it? My parents are proof that you can survive something but at the same time not go on living. Is that what my future looks like?

  As I’m leaving the police station, the voices telling me goodbye and they will be in touch all sound like they are coming from a million miles away. Like my head is underwater in the bath while someone in the room talks to me. I know they are there and talking, but no clue what they are saying. I don’t really even care what they are saying at this point. No. I’m stuck on two words.

  The daze I’ve been in as I walk through the station clears a little as soon as the crisp, cold air hits my skin. The shock of the temperature change has me realizing I didn’t zip up my jacket or put on any gloves, so the cold is biting at my skin. Midway through pulling my gloves out of my jacket pocket, I hear his voice.

  “You didn’t call.” The accusation is heavy in his voice.

  You can do this. Be cool, I tell myself. I count to five before I finally lift my head and let my eyes meet his. He looks so nonchalant, just leaning back on a metal bench that no doubt is freezing the back of his thighs through his jeans. He’s clearly waiting for me. How did he even know I was here?

  “What?” I ultimately decide playing dumb is the best way to save face here.

  “You didn’t call me,” Will repeats in the exact same tone and intonation as before. Like a recording, an exact replica.

  There’s an unspoken standoff between the two of us. Finally, Will sighs before leaning forward and putting his elbows on his thighs and clasping his gloveless hands together. I wonder if his fingers are as cold as mine.

  “I would have come with you,” he says. I must have a confused look on my face because he clarifies. “If you had called, I would have come to the interview with you. I would have wanted to be there with you.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal, I was just sharing the information you already have.” I shift my weight before meeting his eyes again. “There wasn’t any need to bug you.”

  I feel his eyes boring into mine. He sees right through me, I’m sure of it. There is no way he doesn’t know that I’m upset.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing—”

  “Don’t,” he interrupts. “What happened?”

  “I answered some questions and met Joe’s partner, like I said, nothing to write home about.”

  “That’s how you want to play this?” he retorts on a huff.

  I shift my weight back and forth on my feet a few times, hoping that it comes across as me being cold and not like I am squirming under his questions. I take the opportunity to cup my hands in front of my face to try and warm them up with my breath, and with any luck, keep Will from being able to get a good read on my emotions.

  “Kenzie.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay, I just wanted to get it over with and I wasn’t really in the mood to call you and talk about everything. Come on, you have to get that, right? It’s embarrassing. Did you honestly expect I was just going to pick up the phone and be like ‘Hey Will, wanna come down to the police station with me?’ I don’t think so.” The words rush out of my mouth so fast I have no chance of stopping them.

  I can tell Will doesn’t know what to say to me now. I don’t think he thought I was just going to come out and address the giant elephant in the room. That I tried to kiss him and he took a big giant pass.

  Will narrows his eyes and takes a moment to stand up before addressing the situation as well. “You don’t need to be embarrassed, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I scoff.

  “I’m serious. You’ve been through so much in such a short amount of time, of course it makes sense that you would be looking for comfort, we were finally getting somewhere with the case and you were happy. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “That’s what you think happened?” My eyes feel like they are going to pop out of my skull with how wide they are opened.

  “It is what happened,” Will declares.

  “Okay. Sure.”

  “Kenzie.” He takes a few steps closer to me. “What do you think happened?”

  “Well, seeing as I’m the only one who gets to decide what I was feeling or why I do anything, don’t you think it’s a little more than what I think happened?” I retort.

  There’s a pause. It seems to go on forever.

  “You’re right,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, what now?” I say in disbelief.

  “You heard me.” He sighs. “Now tell me what I’m missing.”

  I don’t want to. I don’t want to tell him the truth, I don’t want to tell him that I like him. How he makes me feel. How he’s the silver lining in this hellish scenario.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him.

  “It does if you are going to go in for police interviews without calling me,” he argues, bringing us back to the beginning of this godforsaken circle.

  “I didn’t need to call you. I told you, it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “I heard you the first time. I still don’t believe you.”

 
“Well, maybe I don’t care what you believe.”

  “Kenzie.”

  “Will.”

  We stand there about two feet away from each other in a stare down. I break first.

  “What do you want me to say?” I ask.

  “The truth.”

  “Fine. I like you, okay? Like, like you like you.”

  Will looks genuinely shocked, but I still manage to steamroll forward.

  “Outside of that first day when we met, and I thought you were kind of a douche, but even then, I thought you were hot. You know, that whole hot guy asshole vibe thing.” I wave my hand in the air like I’m swatting away an errant thought. “But then after that it was different, you were different. And I liked you. And I get it, you’re not interested and it’s not a good time. Apparently my friend is probably dead in the middle of nowhere and I’m standing here outside arguing with the guy I like because he doesn’t like me back. Who does that? Could I be any more self-obsessed?” The guilt starts crawling up from my toes, quickly becoming suffocating.

  The tips of Will’s boots enter my vision as my head hangs down in defeat. He’s so close I can almost feel the body heat coming off of him. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Will lifting his hand to reach out to me before he hesitates.

  “I don’t know where to start,” he says quietly.

  “Nowhere. It’s fine. I’m fine,” I lie.

  “Kenzie, did they say something in there to you about Clara?”

  I guess Will is just going to stumble right on by the declaration of my feelings. Thank God.

  “Not exactly,” I whisper.

  “Then why—”

  “They’re collecting DNA. There’s a body. I think an old body from what they said, but they want to check it against the missing women’s DNA. Something about it being consistent. And how I should prepare myself.”