LUCY: The Complete Lucy Kendall Series with Bonus Content (The Lucy Kendall Series Book 5)

by Stacy Green

  “The house in Lancaster burned down,” Todd said. “You saw it.”

  “I’m not talking about Lancaster. I don’t think those were her first kills. Not with the way she framed John Weston. Her back up plan was too good to be from an amateur. She’s done this before, and not in Pennsylvania.”

  “Agreed.” Lennox looked impressed. “I’ve got techs coming in from the Maryland field office in the morning. ViCAP only goes back to 1985, so it’s not going to be much help. I’ll have them search the various police records back to 1972, which puts Mary at eighteen if ADA Hale’s right about her age. But it’s going to be tough, because we don’t know if she limited her movement to Maryland and Pennsylvania.”

  “Crimes going that far back can be hit or miss too,” Todd said. “Although if it were as violent as the one we saw tonight, I’d think it would stand out.”

  “John and Mary met in Maryland?” I asked ADA Hale. “Do you know where?”

  “He never told me. I’m assuming it was Maryland because he worked for the highway department at the time.”

  Lennox scribbled it down. “I’ve got my people checking with the department, trying to find his address at the time of employment with them, but Maryland’s state records before everything was digitized are sketchy.” He turned to me. “I’d like you to work with my techs tomorrow going through the information. They’re damned good at what they do, spotting patterns and whatnot, but some of this is going to be old school. And you’re familiar with Mary. You might see something they don’t.” He glanced at Todd. “You’re welcome to stay as well.”

  “I can take a couple of days,” Todd said. “I’d like to help.”

  I watched Lennox, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He had something more to say to me. Finally, he smiled, revealing a row of white teeth. “Give your hacker a call as well. She might be able to find something my people can’t.”

  12

  While Lennox left to join the door-to-door canvas, the rest of our exhausted group went to the motel. My body felt like I’d gone a few rounds with an MMA fighter. My muscles groaned in agony, and I suspected dehydration was the culprit. I needed to drink some water and try to clear my head. Figure out what to do about this new information on Chris.

  The small standard motel lobby smelled like incense, sending my stomach into knots. Todd wiped his nose, and ADA Hale coughed. It didn’t matter the scent was a warm vanilla and drastically different from the stick left burning in the cabin. It still had the same smoky thickness that clung to my throat, and it still induced the same shivering sense of dread.

  “Thank you for paying for my room,” I said to the attorney as we followed him down the narrow, dimly lit hallway on the first floor. “Please let me reimburse you.”

  “Nonsense,” Hale said. “I covered tonight, and you can take care of the rest. How’s that?”

  Todd and I agreed, although I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d remain in Maryland.

  Hale stopped in front of room 109 and then turned to us with bloodshot eyes. His hunched shoulders betrayed his exhaustion and worry. “Thank you both for everything. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I nodded, unsure of what to say. If I’d answered my phone, none of this would be happening.

  Todd and I reached my room first. He hovered at my shoulder, making me feel claustrophobic in the already small space. “What?”

  “Something about all of this isn’t sitting right with me,” he said.

  “Just one thing?” I tried to laugh, but it sounded more like choking.

  “Chris lied to you about how much he’d communicated with his mother.”

  It hadn’t taken him very long to jump on that bandwagon. “Technically, he didn’t. He’s not required to give me any information. I never asked him, did I?”

  Todd hesitated, his teeth digging into his bottom chapped lip. “You planned to go after her, didn’t you? Take care of her yourself?”

  My last thread of patience snapped. “I don’t know why you’d think that, and I’m getting tired of hearing it.”

  “Because that’s what you do.”

  “We’ve had this discussion. I’m too tired to have it again.” I couldn’t continue to look Todd in the eyes and lie, either. Each time made me feel like I’d sunk a little lower into the grime of the earth.

  “Chris was going to help you?” Todd didn’t seem to care about my frustration. He had to be worn thin too. Sometimes it was easier to harp on the thing you couldn’t control than the few things you could. He’d probably latched on to my involvement with Chris in order to keep his thoughts away from his former stepmother and all the trouble she’d caused in his life. “Has he helped you before? Is that why he’d think he could handle her himself?”

  “Again, you’re creating scenarios in your head.” I just wanted to be left alone and sink into my own head, dark as it was. I needed to figure out my next move before tomorrow morning. “You read the emails. It’s pretty obvious Chris was in a bad place and got sucked in by her.”

  “He came to kill her, didn’t he?”

  “Stop.” I didn’t try to be nice this time. “I’ve told you everything I know. I shared the voicemails with you. If my computer specialist actually found anything that pointed to Mary’s location, I would have shared it with you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve spent the last month holed up in my apartment feeling sorry for myself.”

  “Why? So you killed a man.” He said it without any doubt in his tone, baiting me. “It’s nothing you haven’t done before.”

  I turned and jammed my keycard into the metal slot. “I’m done with this conversation. Thanks for driving me here and for your help today.” I opened the door and then faced Todd again. He hadn’t moved, his tall frame taut with tension. “And for letting Lennox in on your wild theory of me. That’s really something I need.”

  “That’s not just me, Lucy. You don’t think rumors have gone around since Kailey’s case and Brian Harrison’s body?”

  “Rumors you started.” I clung to the door handle, dizzy. How far had these rumors gone?

  “They took on a life of their own real quick,” Todd said. “And then you’re after this sex trafficking ring and wind up killing the big dog. And Preacher’s still missing, although I’ve got a feeling the body in the Allegheny Forest is going to be his. The description matches.” He let that sit, and I wanted to lunge at him, claw his throat. But I didn’t dare let go of the door. My legs weren’t strong enough to hold me.

  Todd kept going, his voice starting to remind me of the fly that gets trapped in the house in the fall and just won’t freaking die. “The FBI is all over the trafficking ring. You don’t think the rumors about you are going to travel?”

  “No thanks to you.”

  Todd bristled, pointing his finger at me. His hand was chapped from the wind. “Thanks to me, Lennox is trusting you. I told him you could handle yourself in this case, that you would be an asset to figuring out Mary’s mindset. And I promised him you’d do what he told you to do and not take off and start your own investigation. I stood up for you, despite everything my gut tells me.”

  He moved forward as he spoke, closing the space between us. An aura of anger surrounded him, his intense eyes loaded with emotion I didn’t want to process.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me.” I stepped into the dark hotel room and turned on the light. Standard double bed, nightstand, and dresser. Flat screen television I wouldn’t use. Bathroom to the right. “I’m exhausted. So are you. Let’s just get some sleep and start fresh in the morning. I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” He stepped back, the red in his cheeks fading. “Justin texted me earlier. The cat ate, and he stayed to pet him for a while. He’ll stop back in the morning.”

  “I’ll check in with him and see if he can stop by the next few days,” I said. “Sounds like we won’t be home soon.”

  Todd shrugged and headed down the hall, resigned to leave me be–at least u
ntil he couldn’t stand it any longer and had to dig in yet again. I closed the door, the click of the deadbolt sounding like bliss. I tossed my bag on the bed and debated doing the same with my worn out self, but I had things to take care of. A bottle of lukewarm water sat on the dresser next to the complimentary plastic cups. I unscrewed the cap and chugged the liquid until my stomach hurt.

  Camp Hopeful.

  How the hell could I find out if Chris and I crossed paths when I couldn’t ask him?

  That summer at the camp had been one of the most irritating of my life. I didn’t want the anger classes, didn’t want to talk about my grief or my mother or my choice to act out by having sex with boys and drinking. I wanted to rankle the counselors, get them mad enough to throw me out. So every activity, every group meeting, I acted like a jerk.

  They never lost their patience, and I hated them for it. It wasn’t until several years later in college, when I finally admitted my anger and actions were tied up with my guilt over being angry with my sister, that I appreciated the lessons the camp tried to teach.

  But that summer, I didn’t want to make friends. I couldn’t remember bonding with anyone, let alone an eleven-year-old kid. I would have seen him as a child, someone to avoid. I would have associated his age with the time my own life stopped and resented him for it.

  I’d remember Chris Hale.

  But what if he’d known me? Watched me from afar? It was definitely possible.

  So what? He could have forgotten all about it and then put two and two together when he heard about my connection to Justin Beckett’s parole hearing. His story could still be true.

  But then why wouldn’t he have told me?

  I refilled the water bottle at the bathroom sink. My reflection was dreadful. Face white enough the freckles over my nose looked more like small moles. Smudges under my eyes, limp hair, chapped lips. Chapped cheeks.

  My eyes were cloudy and still, like my reflection wasn’t real. Or off, somehow. The person in the mirror wasn’t really me, just what my mind thought I should see.

  I swayed at the thought and then grabbed the sample of hand lotion off the sink, tore open the packet, and smeared some onto my cheeks. The tender skin stung, but it was better than nothing.

  Still sucking down water, I paced the small room. I needed to find out if Chris had remembered me from camp. Every bit of instinct I possessed demanded it, and I would be useless to the investigation until I had my answer.

  On impulse, I grabbed the receiver, ignoring the thin film of other people’s germs on it, and dialed ADA Hale’s room.

  He answered quickly. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Hale, it’s Lucy.”

  “Have you heard from Chris?” His words quickened. “Did something happen?”

  Guilt swept over me. “No, I’m sorry. I just had a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “This is going to sound strange, but Camp Hopeful. I’ve…heard of it. So I’m familiar with what they do.” I twisted the cord around my finger, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “And I was thinking, even if it’s a long shot, does Chris still talk to anyone from the camp? Is there someone he might confide in that we could reach out to? Someone who might know something we don’t?”

  “I’m honestly not sure,” Hale said. “But the FBI has his computer and now his phone, so I’m sure they’ll find out if that’s true.”

  “Good point.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Still, I just wish I could do something now. I thought you might have a name, someone we could talk to.”

  “As far as I know, he hasn’t visited the camp in a while. He’s so busy with work he doesn’t have as much time to volunteer like he used to. But he donates because the place is so important to him.” Pride reverberated in his voice.

  “It helped him.”

  “Oh yes,” Hale said. “He came home changed that summer, really able to process things so much better. And he still goes back to the techniques he learned there. I think that’s why he keeps the memory box.”

  I sat up straight. Finally, something that might help. “Memory box?”

  “That’s what he calls it. It’s all the literature he got that summer, plus journals he kept. We haven’t discussed this in a long time, but I know he used to revisit those things when he was having a down spell.”

  “Down spell. Like depression?” Chris had never mentioned this to me, but I wasn’t surprised. He was so intense and internalized so much, combined with all the guilt he carried over the girls in the barn and the abandonment by his mother, he had to have trouble coping at times.

  “I suppose. He used to take medication for that and anxiety, but he’s worked hard to come to terms with everything that happened and what he did. I thought he had but now…”

  “What he did,” I repeated. “You mean the fight with the kid at school?”

  “Yes.” Hale’s answer was short. “Of course.”

  I suddenly felt guilty. Charles Hale was worried about the nephew he’d raised as a son, and I was asking questions for my sole benefit. “I’m sorry about all of this, sir. If Chris hadn’t met me, none of this would have happened.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You still would have found Kailey, and we’d still know the truth about Mary. She’d be in the news. We’d have found out about Justin and what she did.” He cleared his throat. “I think that’s what he can’t get past. That she went on and had another child, but she left Chris.

  “She treated Justin much worse.” At least Chris had a second chance at a normal life. He didn’t spend his childhood in a juvenile facility, serving time for a murder he hadn’t committed. Compared to Justin, the anger Chris carried about life seemed a little ridiculous. But everyone processed differently, and I certainly had no room to judge.

  “But she still gave birth to him,” ADA Hale said. “Chris feels abandoned. And guilty because he’s always thought he should have remembered more about what happened in Lancaster. That he should have known his mother was involved all along.”

  “He was a kid,” I said. “She was the authority figure. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “That’s what I’ve told him. But as I’m sure you know, he doesn’t always listen.”

  I tried to laugh, but it caught in my throat. My mind kept going back to the memory box.

  “I’ve got to check in with my wife,” Hale said. “Is there anything else?”

  Chris’s aunt. A prominent pediatrician. Is that why she wasn’t here? He never spoke about her as much as he did his uncle.

  “Of course. Goodnight.”

  I hung up the phone, a second wave of guilt rising. Todd was going to be awfully disappointed in me tomorrow morning.

  13

  The next morning, after a few measly hours of sleep, sheer luck helped me sneak out of the hotel and into the waiting cab without Todd or Hale seeing me. The rental car place didn’t open until seven, and I spent thirty long, freezing minutes outside its doors, waiting in fear Todd would show up at any moment. I hadn’t left any sort of message, and I’d booked my room for one more night. I hoped if he discovered I wasn’t in the motel, he’d assume I’d gone for a walk or to breakfast.

  By the time I was well out of town in my rental, my phone had started to ring, with Todd’s number popping up on the screen. I couldn’t put him off any longer.

  “Where are you?” His harsh tone left little hope of smoothing things over.

  “I needed to head back to the city,” I said. “I’ll be back in Jarrettsville by this evening.”

  “What for?”

  I slipped into the left lane to pass a meandering wind-up car. “Personal reasons.”

  “Personal like what? Something you shouldn’t be doing?”

  “Personal like none of your business,” I snapped. “Tell Lennox and ADA Hale I had a family emergency, but I’ll be back.”

  “Lennox is going to love that. He specifically told you-”

  “Not to do my own investigation,” I s
aid. “I’m not. This has nothing to do with Chris’s disappearance.” At least it wasn’t a lie.

  Todd’s silence lasted long enough I thought he’d hung up on me. “Lucy, I swear to God, if you’re screwing me over on this, I’m done.”

  “I’m not.” I ended the call and focused on the drive.

  Not soon enough, the city’s skyline emerged. Tall and foreboding in the gray light of winter, the Comcast Center and the Liberty Place buildings gave the skyline a more modern feel, while Three Logan Square reminded travelers of Philadelphia’s rich history. That building had changed names more than once, and I much preferred the name Bell Atlantic Tower – its historical ring fit the city a lot better and made me think of a time when we still used phone books and the cordless phone was an astounding modern convenience–as if the steel and girders skyline warned me to turn back and let the past remain hidden. I’ve never been very good at that. Besides, every person on this earth is a product of a past. They might tell themselves it’s a forgotten thing, but that’s not really true. Even if their previous experiences don’t drive their everyday existence, those moments shape the people they have become. So the past never disappears.

  Some of us are better at acknowledging it than others.

  The outskirts of the city gradually metamorphosed from small neighborhoods with struggling local businesses to middle class suburbs protected from the highway noise by great brown sound barriers, to the grittier part of the city along the Schuylkill River. Instead of staying on the interstate, I took Gray’s Ferry Avenue into the deeper part of the city, skirting the Devil’s Pocket area. I liked the name and the old row houses intermixed with the industrialized landscape of the river. My grandfather had grown up there, and he used to talk about the Pocket as if it really were Satan’s backyard. The name allegedly came from a local priest who said the neighborhood kids were such hoods they’d steal a chain out of the devil’s pocket. I didn’t know if the story was true or not, but I loved the analogy. Stealing from the devil took a lot of guts.