by Dani Pettrey
“No. The voice was different. I think he tried masking it, but there were similar inflections, similar pauses in his speech. I could just tell it was him.”
“You sound very certain,” Landon said, phrasing it as a statement rather than questioning her judgment.
“I am, and not just because I recognized his speech patterns, but for the simple fact that Karli didn’t have a primary care doctor.”
“Really?” Piper scooted forward until she was practically tottering on the edge of her seat. Landon prayed this would all lead somewhere, prayed Piper wouldn’t have to be disappointed again.
“You’re sure of that?” he asked, not wanting to take any detail for granted, not wanting to assume the information was correct without pursuing it to its core.
“I’m positive. Karli was of the mind-set that she was healthy and didn’t need a doctor.”
“But she needed her surgeon,” Piper said.
“Yes, if she ever wanted to compete again. I’m convinced that’s the only reason she went to see the surgeon, and the same reason she came to Wellspring. Competing seemed to be all Karli had.”
“Did the man claiming to be her doctor leave a contact number?”
“He didn’t get a chance. I hung up on him.”
Landon cringed. If only she’d played it smoothly—taken his number, led him on until the authorities could track him down.
“That was the last you heard from him?” Piper asked.
“Yes.”
“And the break-in?” Landon asked.
“Occurred only days later.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Taylor explained the event, from receiving the initial call from her alarm company, to her arrival at the scene and filing the police report, to finally completing a full walk-through for the insurance company.
“And the only thing missing was Karli’s file?”
“That is correct. That’s how I knew it was him.”
“So all of your data on Karli is gone?” Piper asked, her voice dropping.
“I didn’t say that.” Taylor smiled, turning her computer monitor toward them. “We are in the process of going paperless. My administrative assistant, Natalie, has been working painstakingly these past months to transfer all of my files to the computer.”
“Had she transferred Karli’s files before the break-in?”
“She was in the process. I checked before you arrived, and it appears we have approximately half of what Karli’s file contained.” Taylor typed in the necessary codes to access the database and retrieved what remained of Karli’s records.
Landon scanned the information, struggling to ignore Piper’s close proximity—the way her fingers rested so close to his on the desk.
“Karli Michelle Davis,” he said. They’d never heard her middle name before.
“That’s new.” Piper smiled.
Taylor’s perfectly groomed brows arched. “Her name?”
“Her middle name,” Landon said. “Although we’ve recently learned that Karli Davis may have been an alias.”
“An alias? Was Karli in some kind of trouble with the law?”
“Not that we know of.”
Taylor shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“She may have had the alias as a way to protect herself.”
“From what?”
“That’s what we’re trying to discover.”
Taylor sat back. “How bizarre.”
“I take it she never mentioned anything about that to you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Look at this.” Piper tugged his arm and pointed to the screen. “Down here in the Financial Responsibility section.”
Landon trailed his gaze down to the line she was pointing at, and his eyes widened. “Karli listed Rick Masterson as the responsible party on her account?”
Taylor swiveled the screen back to face her and double-checked the information. “That is correct.”
“Why would she put Masterson?” Piper asked.
“I don’t know why she listed him,” Taylor said, “but according to our records, he paid for her therapy in full.”
Landon’s mouth went dry at the revelation. “I think we’re going to need to ask Darcy and Gage to pay Masterson another visit.”
A knock rapped on the open office door.
Taylor looked up. “Oh, Tim, come in.” She turned back to Piper and Landon. “This is Tim Donovan. He also worked with Karli, did most of the hands-on therapy. I thought it might be beneficial if you spoke with him as well.”
“That’d be great. Thanks,” Landon said.
“Why don’t we speak in my office?”
“Sure.” Landon stood and followed Piper as she followed Tim.
“Thanks for speaking with us.”
“No problem. Anything to help catch Karli’s killer. Please have a seat.” Tim indicated two wheeled chairs at the foot of an examination table. “Sorry my office isn’t more glamorous.”
They were seated in a large room filled with exercise equipment—treadmills, recumbent bikes, enormous nylon balls, and free weights. Along the back wall was a series of examination bays, each with a paper-draped table and a curtain that could be pulled around for privacy. Tim’s desk consisted of a rolling cart with a laptop and a stack of files on the lower tray.
Landon waited until Piper was seated before taking the second of the chairs.
“Where would you like to start?” Tim asked.
“Taylor said you did most of the hands-on work with Karli,” Piper said.
“Yes, Taylor likes to meet with and assess each new client, and then she typically turns them over to one of us to do the week-to-week therapy.”
“How long did you work with Karli?”
“Four intense months . . . all down the drain.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“Did she talk much while she was here?” Landon asked.
“Yeah, she talked, but not about anything in particular.”
That sounded familiar.
“Tess said Karli opened up to her a few times while they were in rehab.”
“That’s not uncommon. Therapy can be intense for someone in Karli’s and Tess’s situation—fighting for what they love, what they live for. It’s hard work, and everything important to them is riding on it. It can be frustrating retraining muscles that used to respond so well, working past the pain. It touches the core of a person, causes them to reassess.”
Landon tried to keep his skepticism at bay. He didn’t doubt that physical therapy was hard work, but Tim’s description seemed a little too emotion-based for his taste. “Is that what you think happened to Karli—she was reassessing?”
“Karli was a fighter. That lady possessed a strength I’ve rarely seen. I don’t know if she reassessed anything, but she was bound and determined to compete again, and from what I heard she nailed it.”
“Sounds like you were proud of her,” Piper said.
“I’m always proud of my patients. But Karli, I admired.”
“Because she was a fighter?”
“Yeah, not just in therapy, but in life.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My job is people. Diagnosing their hurts and figuring out how they tick. I harness that knowledge to develop a plan that’ll get them healed.”
“So you figured Karli out?” Landon said, growing more skeptical of Tim’s approach.
“She was a tough one, probably the toughest I’ve seen, but deep down she was a hurting kid alone in the world.”
“You’re quite the philosopher,” Landon said dryly.
Tim shrugged, not at all fazed by Landon’s skepticism. “Call them like I see them.”
“And did Karli confirm your diagnoses?” Piper asked with a smile.
Figures Piper would buy into this guy’s touchy-feely approach.
“Like Tess told you, a few facts surfaced.”
“Such as?”
“Kar
li’s love for her mother. She felt that loss deeply.”
“What about her father?”
“It was like he never existed.”
Anger and heat coursed through his veins as he stood outside Wellspring Therapy. No doubt that good-for-nothing therapist was filling their ears full of his attempts to track Karli down. Fortunately, she had no idea who he was. But now the nosy girl and her detective friend knew someone else had been after Karli. They were discovering more than he’d anticipated. He’d wait a bit longer to see where they headed next—perhaps they’d still lead him to it. The cost-benefit ratio stayed his hand a little while longer. He wouldn’t kill them until he was certain he wouldn’t benefit from their continued digging, until he was certain they wouldn’t lead him to the location. If they got closer to the truth, closer to them, the balance would shift and he’d be forced to act.
32
Gage strapped into the Cessna, feeling the urge to pray for the first time in years, but he knew it’d be useless. God didn’t exist, and if He did, he wanted no part of Him. Anyone who let an innocent child die wasn’t worthy of worship.
“You gonna make it?” Kayden asked with a cheeky smile. “Your knuckles are looking a bit white there.”
Gage looked down at his fingers gripped tightly on the seat arm. He released it and shook out his fingers. “Just go.”
“As you wish.”
“Brat.” He glanced over at Darcy, who was watching the two of them with keen interest. “Are your siblings as obnoxious as mine?”
“My brother had his moments.”
“Had? He finally outgrew it?” he said loudly enough for Kayden to hear over the propeller, though he wasn’t one to throw stones when it came to playful immaturity—he was the master.
“He died three years ago,” Darcy said.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .”
“You didn’t know.”
“What happened?”
“Complications from his Down’s syndrome.”
“That’s awful.” Even more proof that there wasn’t a God.
“Peter was a blessing while we had him. A real light in darkness.”
Blessing? The poor kid had Down’s, and then it killed him. “It had to be hard, seeing him suffer.”
“It was, but God was kind. Peter went quickly once the complications started.”
“Kind? That’s the last thing I’d say about a God like that.”
Her brows perked. “A God like what?”
“A God,” he said, using air quotes, “who would create a child with Down’s syndrome in the first place.”
“Are you saying it would have been better if Peter had never been born?”
“No. Of course not.” He hadn’t meant . . .
“Then, what exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying if there is a God, it would be cruel of him to create a child that would have to struggle his whole life.”
“Yes, Peter struggled, but he also was one of the best, most amazing human beings I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.”
“I didn’t mean to imply he wasn’t.” That was the last thing he meant.
“Peter was kind and selfless and had a childlike faith that blew me away.”
“Faith in God?” She had to be kidding.
“Faith in his Creator and Sustainer.”
“Sustainer? You just said Peter died three years ago.”
“God chose to take Peter home, but that doesn’t mean He stopped sustaining him. He will be sustaining him for eternity.”
“I understand your need to think that . . .”
“Obviously you don’t.”
“I understand loss.” And all the torturous pain associated with it.
“That may be, but you clearly don’t understand God.”
“It’s kind of impossible to understand someone who doesn’t exist.”
“Why do you think God doesn’t exist?”
“Because it’s obvious.”
She leaned toward him. “Enlighten me.”
“There is way too much suffering and purposeless pain in the world for there to be a God.”
“Why do you assume painful circumstances are without purpose?”
“What purpose was there in Peter’s suffering? In your suffering his loss?”
“There are some things we can’t comprehend fully this side of heaven.”
“I’ve heard that kind of rationalization before.” He snorted.
“Because it’s true.”
“No, it’s because when someone dies senselessly there’s nothing else to say.”
“No one dies senselessly.”
“My son did.”
Darcy waited until Gage went to use the restroom before turning to Kayden.
“I feel like such a heel,” she said as they waited for his return.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“How long ago?”
“Almost ten years.”
“Wow. He was young.”
“Meredith got pregnant halfway through their senior year.”
Meredith. Well, that explained their bitter connection.
“They were planning to marry and move to Anchorage after the baby was born. Meredith was going to attend college while Gage went to culinary school in the evenings. They had it all worked out. All these dreams and plans.”
“What happened? I mean, how . . . ?”
“Their son was born prematurely and died two days after birth. Everything fell apart. Meredith decided she wanted to go on as planned, just without Gage.”
Darcy swallowed, watching Gage stride back across the concourse toward them, her heart breaking. “How awful.”
“He hasn’t been the same since.” Kayden tossed her empty soda can in the trash. “I just thought you should know, so you’d understand why he said those things. He wasn’t trying to be insensitive or cruel.”
“I understand.”
“He’s a good man. He’s just lost and hurting.”
Piper adjusted the heat, warming her hands in front of the vent as Landon paced outside their rental vehicle—still parked in Wellspring’s lot. His friend with the Marshals had called, and they had been talking a half hour. Piper didn’t think she could contain her anxiety. What was Luke telling him? Had Karli been part of the Witness Protection Program? Was that why she was dead . . . because of her past?
Finally Landon climbed back in the 4Runner. Cupping his hands, he blew on them.
She directed the heat vents in his direction. “Well?”
He smiled. “Karli was definitely part of Witness Protection.”
Relief flooded her. This was it—the key to solving Karli’s murder. The key to finding Karli’s killer and proving Reef’s innocence—she just knew it. “That’s wonderful. What was her real name? Why was she in the program? What happened to her parents?”
“There’s a slight complication.”
Her chest tightened. “What kind of complication?”
Gage led the way up the Kodiak Inn steps with Darcy on his heels. She’d been awfully quiet since their arrival, ever since he’d left her and Kayden alone.
It was clear his sister had taken the opportunity to enlighten Darcy fully about his past. Usually Piper was the blabbermouth, but leave it to Kayden to take on the role in their sister’s absence.
The way Darcy looked at him now, with careful compassion, grated on his nerves. His life and his son were none of her business.
He paused at the door, turning to face her. “I know Kayden blabbed.”
“She just—”
He held up a hand to silence her. “Let me stop you right there. I don’t care why she felt the need to share my personal business. The point is, it’s my business. Mine. And I won’t be answering any of your burning questions. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“And I don’t want you pestering my family either. I know someone like you may find this hard to accept, but there are things in this world that are private,
and they deserve to remain that way.”
“I totally agree.”
“Ha!” She was a piece of work. The least she could do was admit it.
“You think you’ve got me pegged, but you don’t know anything about me.”
“I know what I need to.”
She linked her arms across her chest and cocked her head in the superior way that got under his skin. “And what exactly is that?”
“Getting the story always comes first. It’s what drives you, and because of that you will always choose your career over people.” Just as Meredith had.
“If that were the case, you’d already be reading about you and Meredith in the paper.”
“So what, I’m supposed to thank you for not publishing my business?”
“I’m simply saying you’re wrong about me, and if you’d actually get off your high horse for a millisecond, maybe you’d see that.” She stomped past him into the inn.
He grunted. She’d better be phenomenal at her job for him to put up with the aggravation she was causing him.
Gage placed an order at the coffee shop around the corner from the Kodiak Inn. Darcy had continued her conversation with the inn owner long after they’d learned what they needed to—that Theresa Masterson had a rock-solid alibi for the night of Karli’s murder. He’d taken the opportunity to politely excuse himself and told Darcy to meet him at the café when she was done. He needed time to clear his head. To get away from Darcy’s emotion-filled gaze. At least she was no longer looking at him with pity. After their argument, she’d quickly shifted back to indignation, and that suited him just fine.
“Winter Wonderland” played over the shop’s speakers; silver garland lined the glass door, and paper snowflakes dangled on shiny silver pipe cleaners from the dropped ceiling.
He sat on a stool while the gal behind the counter worked on his order. Darcy assured him she’d only be a minute, but he knew better. Getting Darcy away from a source was like taking a pacifier away from a sleepy toddler.
His cell rang. He looked at the number and smiled. “Hey, kiddo. How’s it going?”
“We’re making progress,” Piper said. “How about you?”
“Darcy and I just finished checking out Theresa Masterson’s alibi.”