It’s a ten-year-old black Honda Accord with 100,000 miles and a scrape on the back left fender, but it drives fine. The person selling it is a seventy-year-old man, and he says it belonged to his deceased wife. I offer him cash, and he accepts it. He doesn’t remember to take off the tag that’s in his name, and I don’t remind him. Armed with the title signed over to Miranda Henley, I drive back to my motel.
My main task will be following Candace Price in hopes of getting some sort of condemning evidence about Keegan. Even so, I can’t get that suicide note out of my head. I decide to take a detour. I have to find Cole Whittington’s family to see if he carried out his suicide plan somewhere else, and give them these last words from him. Once that’s done, I’ll be able to move on.
13
CASEY
Cole Whittington is listed in the Dallas phone book, with his address as clear as day. I jot it down, then check the local newspapers’ obituaries to see if he went through with killing himself. There are several Whittingtons who’ve died over the last few years, but none of them is named Cole.
So maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he just planned it, then changed his mind. Maybe he was just having a really bad day, and pulled himself together. Since he had his own Bible, I figure he must be a Christian. Miss Lucy was a Christian, and even though she’d had horrible things happen in her life, I can’t picture her ever committing suicide. But I guess even Christians can get clinically, brain-sick depressed.
The Bible is marked up, verses underlined and highlighted in color, notes in the margins, like he spent time studying it.
Maybe he just hasn’t done it yet. There’s not a date on the note, and it was probably left there recently, or it would have been discovered by now. That thought fills me with a sense of urgency. What if he’s still making his plan, setting his affairs in order, preparing for the day when he actually carries it through?
I load my things into my car and check out, keeping the Bible with me, its note tucked between Genesis and Exodus. I drive by the address in the phone book and see a For Sale sign in the yard. There’s a white Nissan SUV in the driveway, and there’s a magnetic sign on the side that says UpDown Seat Company. There’s an address, a phone number, and a website. I jot them all down.
I could go to his door right now and knock on it, hand the Bible to whoever answers, and walk away, never to look back. Or maybe they would just toss the Bible on the foyer table and forget about it until they’re notified that he killed himself after I could have done something.
I fight the sense of responsibility that rises in me. This is the same kind of obsession I had in Shady Grove, when I had the overwhelming sense that I knew who’d kidnapped the missing girl. I felt like I was the one who had to save her, and in that case, I was right.
Hannah would tell me to stop this, that it’s not my job, that I have to stop playing God. She would tell me to move on and hide, to take care of myself. But I know myself well enough. I couldn’t live with myself if I let this go. What if, later, I look the guy up on the Internet (which I know I would do) and learn he’s killed himself? What if one of his kids finds him? What if they never get over it?
I check into another motel. By Monday morning, the obsession still hasn’t left me. I drive back by Cole Whittington’s house, and the white SUV is gone. So I drive over to the UpDown Seat Company. It’s a small metal warehouse building with a sign on the outside. I pull into the parking lot and glance in the mirror. Do I look like myself? Will they recognize me from my pictures?
My hair is up in my baseball cap, and my eyeliner is smudged, my eye shadow smoky. I’ve lined my lips to be slightly bigger than my real lips, creating a fuller, rounder effect. Nobody will be fooled into thinking my lips are really that way, but I hope all this makeup will distract them. I certainly don’t recognize myself, as hard as I look.
I grab the Bible and go to the door, where a Help Wanted sign is taped. There’s an older woman sitting at the front desk behind a counter. She smiles and looks up at me. “Hey there. Can I help you, baby?”
“Yes,” I say. “I wondered if I could see Cole Whittington. Does he work here?”
“Sure does, sweetheart. He’s my son. He’s in back. I’ll go get him. Can I tell him what it’s about?”
“I just wanted to return something of his I found.”
She seems a little distracted, so she doesn’t ask what. “Okay, sweetie. Wait right here.”
While she’s gone, I look around to see what kind of place this is. I glance at a framed ad on the wall across the room, featuring a seat that seems to be their main product. Apparently it moves somehow. Up and down, I’m guessing?
There’s another Help Wanted sign on the counter.
The woman rustles back in. “He’s on his way, hon.”
“Thank you. What is it you make here?”
That smile pops back up to her face. “My son Blake invented this hydraulic seat that moves up and down from the floor to regular chair height with just a button. It’s great for people with arthritis in their knees or hips, who can’t garden or play with their grandbabies or do normal things, because if they’re like me, they can get down but they can’t get back up. We make it here. A hundred percent made in America. We have so many orders we can hardly fill them all.”
Before I can respond, Cole steps into the office. He’s a nice-looking man, probably about thirty-five, but he looks tired and pale. He seems a little apprehensive as he approaches me. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I say, pulling his Bible out of my bag. I lower my voice and lean toward him. “I found this Bible, and it has your name in it. I just wanted to return it.”
I see the recognition on his face. “Yeah, I’ve been looking for that. Thanks. Where’d you find it?”
“In a motel bed table,” I say so low that his mother can’t hear.
His pupils flicker, and I wonder if he’s thinking about writing the note. He looks at me as if wondering what I know, but I just smile. “So . . . if it’s yours . . .”
“I appreciate it.” He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a twenty. “Here, take this for bringing it back.”
I hold up a hand. “No, I can’t take that. I just . . . wanted to get it back to you.” I want to ask him if he still wants to take his own life, if he still sees things as hopeless.
Instead, I just stand there looking at him. His phone rings, and he grabs it out of his pocket and looks down at it. Without another word to me, he rushes out of the room.
“Thank you for bringing it back, hon,” his mother says. “He’s been real distracted lately. Maybe you helped restore his faith in humanity.”
I think of telling her about the note, but then I decide that whatever is going on with him, I might make it worse if I do that. Not knowing what the right move is, I go back to my car.
14
CASEY
Hannah should have gotten the box by now, and I hope she’s found the phone inside the stuffed bunny. I know she’s desperate to hear from me and has been worried that I’m injured or dead. Hopefully this has put her mind at ease.
I know she often goes for a walk after supper, so I drive about thirty minutes outside of town and try her at six thirty. If she’s followed the same instructions we had for the previous phone, she has it on silence all the time. Still, I call her. It rings to voice mail, which hasn’t been set up. I hang up and hope she’ll see the missed call soon, and that the phone is not still stuffed inside the toy.
I find a park at the edge of a lake, and I get out and walk as I wait for my phone to ring. After a few minutes, it does.
I click it on, my heart pounding. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Her voice is tight, high-pitched. I can tell she wants to say my name, to ask if I’m okay, to demand I tell her everything, but she’s quiet. I hear the wind whooshing, and I know she’s walking.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Yes, I’m fine. So you got the bunny?”
“Yes,” she
says, “but come on. I almost missed it.”
“I knew you’d try to turn it on. Did Jeff see the box?” I ask.
“No, I was home by myself with Emma when it came. You know, you’re really good at this. It’s a little scary.”
“It’s in my DNA,” I say.
“How come it’s not in mine?”
“I hung out with Dad a lot.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then she says, “They’re saying you’re a hero. You saved that girl.”
My hand is sweating, so I switch to the other ear as I walk out onto a public pier. “Almost got caught, but I got away.”
Footsteps jar her voice. “The media is all over it. It’s like dueling news stories. They released the crime scene pictures.”
“I know.”
“First they call you ‘the homicidal hero,’ then they’re debating whether you’re a psychopath. I want to call them so bad and tell them you’re not any of that.”
“Don’t!” I say. “Don’t ever do that. Do you understand me?”
She sighs. “Yes, of course.”
I lean over a rail and look around to see if anyone is within earshot. “No, I’m serious, Hannah. It’s not just you. It’s Emma, and Jeff, and Mom. You can’t let your emotions lead you into doing something reckless.”
“Me, reckless?” she says. “You’re the one who risked everything for a girl you’d never even met. I have to let them just keep thinking those things about you. The media is crazy here, camping out on the front lawn, blocking our street. I had Jeff park my car on the street behind us and I snuck out the back way just so I could come to the walking park.”
The word sorry seems so useless. “Don’t throw the old phone away at home. They might go through your trash.”
“Can they do that?”
“Yes. Once it’s taken out to the curb it’s fair game. In fact, have Jeff take your garbage to the dump. Don’t leave any of it out for them to dig through. Remember? Dad used to go through trash when he was investigating crimes. The media can do it too.” I draw in a long breath, let it out. “Are they camping out at Mom’s too?”
“Yeah, some of them.”
“How is she?”
“She keeps having these horrible thoughts that you’re going to die. She has all sorts of new rituals. She checks the mailbox about seventy times a day, even though the media is there. I’m taking her to the doctor twice a week. They’re adjusting her dose.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and cover them. “What about the police? Are they harassing you?”
“They come by every so often to see if they can badger me into spilling my guts. I think I’m being followed.”
“Who’s come by? Keegan? Rollins?”
“Yes, they come together.”
My head is starting to ache. “Have they threatened you?”
“Their very existence is a threat. I just keep acting like I’m mad at you, like I hope they find you so this will be over for all of us.”
“Good. Hannah, just tell them whatever they want to hear. You can’t let them think you’re a threat.”
“You’ve told me that over and over.”
I feel the tears rising in my eyes, my throat constricting. “How is Emma? I miss her so much.”
“She’s trying to walk. So precious. I wish I could be like her and be oblivious to all this.” Her voice catches. “I wish you could see her.”
I swallow back the knot in my throat and press my tear ducts. Crying does no good. “I know you’re a great mom. Take care of her.”
“Just worry about you.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Casey, you have to figure out a way through this. I can’t stand never seeing you again.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Really? So there’s a possibility that this will end someday?”
I don’t want to get her hopes up, but maybe hope is just what she needs. “I just have to get enough evidence against them that they can’t squirm out of it. Once I do . . . Yeah, maybe there’s a chance.”
I hear her muffled crying on the other end. I hope she can’t hear mine.
15
DYLAN
Though I’ve got a lot on my plate, I know I’m in a dark, dangerous place. My actions with Keegan were stupid. I should have kept my cool with him instead of lashing out. But it is what it is. Out of self-preservation, I take the time to go to my group meeting at ten o’clock, since I haven’t been in the last couple of weeks. Until a few weeks ago my PTSD defined me, but since I’ve been chasing Casey Cox, it hasn’t seemed so looming. The Keegan thing was a setback.
I go in and get a Styrofoam cup of coffee, made bitter by the brown industrial pot that is probably in need of a deep cleaning. I nod to a few people I know.
Dex, probably my best friend here, is already in his seat, his prosthetic leg stretched out in front of him like a trophy. Leo, who is also dealing with the loss of a leg, is clearly still unemployed or he wouldn’t be here. Grayson, a kid who’s barely nineteen, still has that distracted look in his eyes, as though the blast that killed his buddies was only thirty seconds ago. He’s got a PTSD service dog that pants as it sits at attention next to him.
“Dylan, dude!” Dex says, lifting his hook for me to fist-bump. I’m not in a fist-bumping mood, but do it anyway as I drop into the seat next to him.
“You okay, man?”
“Yep,” I say, sipping the sludgy coffee. “You?”
“Never better,” he says, and I know it’s a load of garbage, but it always makes me smile. “Just sent you an email. Got that list we were talking about.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
“Dylan, you’re back.” I turn to see Dr. Coggins making her way to the empty seat we all save for her, as if it has her name on it.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Well, it’s good to see you. Everybody ready to get started?”
My phone vibrates as she introduces the newcomers, and I check it. An email has come in from my donut contact at the police department, with a list of the cops who have retired or resigned from the force in the last decade and a half. Right behind it, I see the email from Dex, with the list of those who’ve died.
Suddenly I don’t want to be here. I need to go home and get to work on these.
“So, Dylan, why don’t you start? Tell us how you’ve been doing.”
I look up, my thumb still on my screen. “What?”
“You’ve been gone a while. Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah, pretty good,” I say. “I’ve been out of town, working.”
“Working. That’s great.”
The other guys who know me nod, and someone spouts out, “Gainfully employed, brother!”
Across the circle, a girl named Rose, who’s an army nurse, asks, “So, your friend who died . . . Have you been taking that okay?”
I don’t remember telling them that, but I suppose Dex may have relayed that info. “Yeah . . . no, he’s . . . he was . . .” My voice suddenly fails me, shredding into ten voices in different pitches. I clear my throat and try again. “A good friend.”
“Want to talk about the triggers that pulled in you?” Dr. Coggins asks.
My leg is crossed over my knee, and I look at my foot, shaking like I’m amped up on something. “Uh . . . not really, no.” I can’t tell them that I’m working on his case, that I’m trying to nail the killer, that the person they all think did it isn’t the one.
“So your job,” someone asks. “What is it you’re doing?”
“PI work,” I say. “Routine stuff.”
“Dylan was a cop in the army’s Criminal Division,” Dr. Coggins provides. She quickly deflects and turns to someone else. “So, Leo, did you have that talk with your wife that we discussed?”
Relieved that the spotlight is off me, I stop shaking my foot and drop it to the floor. I lean forward, listening to my buddy. After he talks, a new guy pipes in. He’s just back from deployment and has no physical signs of injury. When she draws him
out, he sounds just like me.
“I was looking forward to coming home, being with my wife, my kids. But my wife says she got back a stranger.”
“Tell me,” Dr. Coggins says. “What kinds of triggers are you having?”
“My kid’s birthday the other day—number five—some genius brought firecrackers, and the minute the first one popped I knocked my daughter to the floor . . . trying to cover her.”
“Oh no,” one of the women whispers.
He leans back in his seat, rakes his fingers through his hair. “I scared her to death . . . My wife drags me up to get to our daughter, and I left the backyard then, trying to get it together. I heard her friends telling her I’m dangerous.”
“You weren’t dangerous, dude,” Dex tells him. “You were protecting your little girl. What idiot would set off firecrackers around you?”
“They don’t get it.”
“We’ve all done that, man,” I say, my voice suddenly clear. “The other day, my car backfired and I swerved into a ditch.”
The room gets quiet, and I wonder why I said that. I wouldn’t have told it when the spotlight was on me, but now . . .
“I went to a movie the other day with my girl,” one of the new guys says. “Couldn’t stand not being able to see behind me, and on the screen, there was gunfire . . . and the sound . . . Chest got tight, heart pounding, sweat covering me. I slipped out to go to the bathroom and just kept walking. Never went back. Now she won’t return my calls.”
Dr. Coggins’s voice is soft but confident. “I can promise you that it’ll get better if you just stay with us.”
Another guy who hasn’t been to group in a few months jumps in. “It hasn’t gotten better for me.”
Levi, three seats down, leans forward and says, “Well, you wouldn’t know that since you stopped coming the minute your disability payments kicked in.”
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