The Last to See Her

by Courtney Evan Tate

  “That’s what everyone keeps saying,” Meg told him. “It annoys Gen to death.”

  “It’s true, though,” Hawk said. “Too often, kids wind up paying the price for their parents’ actions. I’ve seen it a million times.”

  He’s felt it, too, Meg decided as she studied his face.

  “Are your parents divorced?”

  He blinked. “Yes.”

  Just what she’d thought. But she didn’t press.

  “When will you bring Thad in?” she asked instead.

  “Soon,” he answered.

  “I miss my son, Joey,” she told him. “I can’t wait until you find my sister so we can all go home.”

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  “Do you think you’re intuitive?” Hawk asked her. “Did you sense anything about Gen and Thad’s marriage as it was falling apart?”

  Meg stared at him. “Before it actually did, you mean? No. I have to admit that I did not. Like I said, it was sudden.”

  “So he hid his affair well, then?”

  Meg nodded. “Very well. It seemed to have been going on for a long time, by the way Gen spoke of it. But like I said, he would never confirm the details, which is part of the problem. She couldn’t get past something that he wouldn’t even admit to.”

  “He never admitted it?”

  “Not really. But Gen saw proof with her own eyes. His admittance of it was unnecessary.”

  “I thought she didn’t know who it was?” Hawk’s eyes were razor sharp.

  “She didn’t. She doesn’t. But she saw them together. Saw the woman from the back. It was unmistakable. She just doesn’t have the identity of the woman. Not knowing who it is doesn’t change the fact that it was an affair.”

  “No. You’re right. It doesn’t. Just...knowing who it is could be helpful.”

  “Do you think she’s involved?” Meg’s head snapped up.

  “Anything is possible,” he answered. “Everyone is a possible suspect.”

  “I thought you’d ruled me out?” she asked, her eyebrow lifted.

  “I said I believe you,” he clarified. “I could always be wrong.”

  Meg’s sigh was long and loud.

  “You and your opinions are giving me a headache,” she complained.

  “They’re not wavering,” he corrected. “But things change in an investigation. It will all be clear in the end.”

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “Hopefully,” he answered.

  Together, they left the coffeehouse, she for her hotel and he for the police station. When she was halfway down the block, she glanced over her shoulder. He was already out of sight.

  15

  Now

  The hooded figure wove through the dark sidewalks, among people, through the shadows.

  With hands tucked in pockets, it strode with purpose toward a hotel at the end of the street. Sliding next to the building, it waited until someone approached the door at the back of the building. It slipped inside like a shadow behind the hotel guest, unnoticed by anyone. Hunched in a stairwell, it paused.

  It seemed to consider something, waiting on the step.

  A black-gloved hand emerged from a pocket, flipping the platinum ring over and over in its fingers.

  For an outsider, it would be impossible to tell whether the person was male or female, its face was so far hidden beneath the hood of the jacket. The size wasn’t telling—it could be a tall female or an average-sized male. The jacket was boxy, so shape wasn’t apparent.

  It started walking once again, and seemed to zigzag through the hotel, ambling through one floor after another. Finally, it opened the door to Meg’s floor and silently made its way to Meg’s hotel room door.

  It stood there, silent.

  Finally, it rapped its knuckles on the door and set something small on the ground.

  Then, it slipped away, back into the stairwell.

  * * *

  Across town, Detective Nate Hawkins pulled open his kitchen drawer, hunting for a bottle opener. Unable to find one, he popped the top of his beer bottle on the edge of the counter. He then tossed the cap into the trash can before he took a gulp.

  He stretched his legs, rotating first one ankle, then the other. He’d been at work all day, from before dawn until a few minutes ago. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was almost 10:00 p.m. Too late for anything but a beer. Food would rest heavy in his belly, making it difficult to sleep.

  With a groan, he downed the rest of his beer, tossing his bottle in the recycling bin. It landed with a clink. His feet were numb. God, he hated dress shoes. He kicked them off on the way to his tidy gray-and-blue bedroom. As he rounded the corner, he remembered the look on Meg’s face earlier that day, how she’d appeared genuinely pained at her sister’s disappearance. He would almost believe that she truly didn’t have anything to do with it.

  His years of experience contradicted that, however.

  She was there that night; it was completely unfeasible to think she wasn’t involved on some level. He dropped onto his bed, pulling his shirt off. He lay back, staring at the ceiling.

  Meghan had been with Genevieve. She was a younger sister who had always been in Gen’s shadow, but that also described two million other women in the country. They didn’t usually harm their sisters for that. Meg seemed fresh-faced and innocent, sincerely worried and definitely annoyed with him.

  He rolled onto his side and reached for the file on the floor.

  He examined the timeline, the facts.

  Thaddeus Thibault hadn’t been to see him yet, and it was time to remedy that. In the morning.

  Hawk closed the file and turned out the light.

  Sleep didn’t come easily.

  It felt like he was still tossing and turning when his phone rang. He grabbed at it, glancing at the time. Three in the morning. He’d been asleep—it just didn’t feel like it. It was the kind of sleep that made a person feel more tired when they were awake than when they went to bed.

  “Hawkins,” he muttered into the receiver.

  “Detective,” Meghan said, and her voice shook. He sat up.

  “Dr. McCready,” he answered. “What’s wrong?”

  “There was a knock on the door,” she said. “I answered it.”

  “And?”

  “And there wasn’t anyone there. But...”

  “Yes?” he urged her, impatient.

  “My sister’s wedding ring was on the ground in front of me. Someone had put it there. She threw it off the balcony the night she disappeared. How did someone find it?”

  “And why would they put it at your hotel door in the middle of the night?” Hawk added. “That’s interesting. Okay. Did you touch it?”

  “I picked it up with the bottom of my shirt.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Wait. There’s one more thing. There’s a small note with it. It just says FOR THAD in big block letters.”

  “Is it your sister’s handwriting?”

  “No,” Meg said shakily. “It is not.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Hawk hung up and pulled his shirt back on. Who needed sleep anyway?

  He arrived at the hotel an hour later. The person at the front desk seemed unconcerned when he inquired, and soon he figured out why, as he stared at the surveillance footage from the lobby.

  “No one came or went,” he said aloud.

  The clerk glanced at him. “It was three a.m. Even here in the city, there’s not a lot of activity at that hour.”

  “Except Dr. McCready had a nocturnal visitor,” Hawk reminded the clerk. “Is there a back way?”

  “Yes,” the man nodded. “But, you have to have a hotel key card to access the back door.”

  “Did anyone swipe their card?”


  The clerk punched the keys on his computer. “A few did.”

  “I’ll need that list,” Hawk told him.

  “And you can have it,” the clerk said. “After you bring a warrant. I’m sorry—it’s hotel policy. I’d get into trouble, otherwise.”

  Hawk scowled but relented. He’d just have to come back.

  But for now, he’d go check on Meghan. He took the elevator, and when he knocked on her door, she answered in a robe.

  She had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked tired.

  “Detective,” she greeted him.

  “Tell me again what happened.”

  “Won’t you come in,” she quipped, as he walked past her. He rolled his eyes and went straight for the console table, where the ring sparkled in the light. He pulled gloves on and looked at the note.

  “‘For Thad,’” he said out loud, studying the letters. “But you say Gen didn’t write this.”

  “That’s not her writing,” Meg answered firmly.

  Hawk looked at her. “Is it yours?”

  Meg sucked in a breath. “Of course not.”

  Hawk looked at the bedside table, where Meg’s notebook was. “Do you mind?” he asked.

  She shook her head silently and handed him the notebook.

  He looked at the letters Meg had scrawled on the page. “You certainly have a physician’s hand,” he said wryly. She didn’t smile.

  “Would you mind writing the words FOR THAD?”

  He looked her in the eye and didn’t blink.

  Anger surged through her, but she did as he asked.

  He studied the letters. “I’m no handwriting expert, but this doesn’t appear to be the same,” he finally said.

  She sat down on the sofa. “That’s because it isn’t.”

  He ignored her waspish tone. “Can you walk me through when you received this again? Just recite everything, even if you don’t think it matters. Was there anyone in the hall? Did you notice a cologne in the hall? Anything?”

  She went through it again, not remembering any new details, and as she did, he turned the wedding ring over and over in his hand. The lamplight caught the facets of the diamond, and she seemed mesmerized as she spoke.

  “I’m not well versed in diamonds, but this seems like a very big one,” Hawk said after she finished speaking.

  “It is,” Meg answered. “It’s four carats. In layperson speak, that means it’s huge.”

  “From everything I’ve read about Gen, it doesn’t seem very like her,” Hawk offered. “I mean, she was moving to a rural town, somewhere that doesn’t seem very glamorous. The pictures I’ve seen of her don’t make her appear very flashy. Why did she want this giant ring?”

  Meg actually laughed. “That would be Thad,” she answered. “He wanted it. He thought it was a symbol of their social standing, I think. She started out with a smaller ring when they first got married. He bought her this one a few years back.”

  “So Thad is concerned with appearances?” Hawk asked.

  Meg nodded. “Yeah. He’s an accident attorney. Public perception is everything to him.”

  “He’s an ambulance chaser?” Hawk lifted his eyebrow. Meg smiled.

  “Some call it that.”

  “Interesting.”

  In Hawk’s book, ambulance chasers were toward the bottom of the slush pile that was attorneys. They were all scum, but especially the ones who profited off despair.

  “Don’t like lawyers much?” Meg asked.

  “Not much,” he replied. “So do you have any ideas of who might’ve found this ring? Who might’ve returned it to you? I mean, how would someone know that it was Gen’s? That this is the hotel room to return it to?”

  Meg shook her head. “I have no idea. I don’t know many people here.”

  “Maybe it was Gen herself,” Hawk suggested, and Meg burst out laughing.

  “You think my sister ran away? For what reason?”

  “A prank? Maybe she was trying to find a way to get back at Thad?”

  “By scaring the shit out of me? I don’t think so. This would in no way get at Thad. Gen doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She’d never ever want to scare me like this. Trust me, wherever she is, she doesn’t want to be there. And as I said, this is NOT Gen’s writing.”

  She stared at him with disdain, and he shook his head.

  “Listen, I’ve seen weirder,” he defended. “I meant no offense toward your sister.”

  “You just don’t know her,” Meg decided. “If you did, you’d understand.”

  “Well, all I know is, I’m going to be calling Thad first thing,” Hawk declared.

  “You mean, in...about three hours?” Meg looked at her watch, and Hawk cringed.

  “I guess so. I can sleep when I’m dead, right?”

  Meg looked stricken, and Hawk cringed again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It was in poor taste.”

  “Gen can’t be dead,” she said firmly. “She’s not. She’s being held somewhere. There can’t be a world where Gen doesn’t exist.”

  Hawk looked at the woman in front of him, slender, tired and worried. She certainly didn’t seem like a woman who had hurt her sister.

  He swallowed hard. He had ignored his instincts earlier in his career a few times, and each of those times, he’d regretted it. Every bone in his body was telling him now that Meg McCready was innocent, yet...

  Gen’s wedding ring had turned up on her doorstep in the middle of the night.

  It didn’t make sense.

  16

  Gen, Then

  “Do we want kids?” Gen asked her husband, her hand flitting along his chest as they lay in bed. Many might say they should’ve had this conversation before they’d married, but Gen hadn’t thought of it before now, not until her sister had just gotten pregnant.

  Thad shook his head.

  “I don’t want to bring children into this world.”

  Gen paused, not overly concerned. She wasn’t the average woman, someone who had played with dolls as a child. She’d always read books instead.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “I’m fine with that.”

  “Just like that?” Thad asked, surprised.

  She nodded. “You seem very sure of yourself. Since I’m ambivalent, I’ll go along with you on this one. It’s called picking my battles.”

  He chuckled. “You’re sure you don’t want a long-haired little girl who looks just like you?”

  She stared. “Are you trying to talk me into it? Just get on board. I’m on your side. Besides, we could end up with a daughter who looks like you, for all we know, on the genetics carousel.”

  He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “The kid would have good genes, so I’m not worried about that. It’s the rest of the world I don’t trust. The crime, the ugliness. I just don’t want to have to worry about an innocent child. We’ve got enough on our plates.”

  Gen couldn’t argue with that. She alone had stacks of ideas for books. Thad was working on his law practice. They simply didn’t have time to give to a child right now.

  She stroked his arm. “It’s fine. I’ll be happy as the cool aunt.”

  “You can spoil that child as much as you want,” Thad told her.

  She nestled into his side. “I plan on it.”

  * * *

  No one anticipated that Meg would miscarry the following week.

  Gen spent days at her house, curled up next to her, feeding her ice cream.

  “Do you want to watch Gilmore Girls?” Gen asked on a particularly hard day. Meg’s face was puffy and her eyes were red. Her hand slid over her empty belly, subconsciously protecting a baby that was no longer there.

  “Sure,” she answered quietly.

  Gen queued it up, and soon they were immersed in Stars Hollow and the nons
ense that followed Lorelai Gilmore.

  “If I could talk as fast as her, I could see twice as many patients,” Meg finally said later in the day, her legs tucked beneath a quilt.

  Gen laughed, and in that moment, she knew Meg would be okay.

  “You’re so strong,” she told her sister, taking her hand. “You can literally do anything you put your mind to. You can overcome anything and achieve everything. I’m so proud of you, Meggie.”

  Meg swallowed hard and squeezed Gen’s fingers. “Thanks. I don’t feel strong right now, so I’ll take your word for it.”

  “I’m your big sister, so I’m always right.”

  Meg rolled her eyes at that, and Gen was relieved that Meg was still able to joke around. She noticed that Meg had managed to let go, just slightly, of the sadness and grief she’d been carrying around all week. Gen hoped that her sister would understand, with her physician’s mind, that her baby had miscarried because something was wrong.

  God doesn’t make mistakes, her mom had told her, and it was true.

  She just had to believe that when the time was right, it would happen for her. Everything that was meant to be would fall into place.

  Gen was able to convince Meg to get up and get dressed, and they went shopping that evening. They had their nails done and pedicures, and had a nice meal out at their favorite sushi place.

  Gen ate an entire plate of salmon avocado rolls and wasn’t even sorry. She primly patted her lips after, and Meg laughed.

  “You up for a movie?” Meg said.

  Gen glanced at the clock. “Let me just see what Thad is up to tonight.”

  But he was working late on a job, so they loaded up on buttered popcorn and Junior Mints, and watched a movie in a theater with sticky floors.

  Thad texted Gen midway through.

  How’s she doing?

  Gen discreetly answered, her phone halfway in her purse.

  She’s going to be all right.

  And she was.

  Meg threw herself into her work, and before long, she rarely thought of her failed pregnancy. She thought of surgical maneuvers, and staffing issues, and trying to make enough time for date nights with Joe, and climbing the ranks at the hospital.