She looked down at the filter in her hand. The sides crushed. The end stained yellow. It turned inexplicably hot in her hand and she dropped it back to the ground. She held the hand away from her, careful not to let it touch her clothing or her skin. Her only desire in that moment was for a sink with good, hot water and an endless supply of soap.
He had been here. She was sure of it.
Something in the air vibrated, and once detected it couldn’t be ignored. He had stood right here, smoking and watching. His skin had touched this same rock. The saliva of a person who killed children had wetted and collapsed the thin cigarette paper. And she’d touched it.
She shuddered, troubled by the intimacy. To be so close—
A thought arced across her frontal lobe like electricity through a closed bus. She froze.
He had been here, had scaled the rocks and lain in wait—of that much she was certain. But what evidence was there that he had climbed back down? Maybe she was all alone on the rock face, her mind playing tricks on her.
Or maybe he had never left.
CHAPTER
5
“ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S Office.”
The woman who answered sounded bored. Laura even thought she could hear gum cracking.
“Yes, hello. I’m trying to reach Deputy Franklin Stuart.”
“Who’s calling, please?” she asked, and cracked her gum again.
Just like her mother taught her, Laura thought. She ignored the question. “Is Deputy Stuart on shift?”
“Who’s calling?”
There was an edge in her voice now. It should have been easier than this. Usually small-town law enforcement was more trusting. Maybe the OCSO had been getting calls from other journalists, ones with a little more determination than the staffers at the Gazette.
Laura decided to play it straight. “It’s Laura Chambers.”
No response.
“From the Gazette.”
The receptionist popped her gum right into the mouthpiece, then relaxed again. “Hey, you’re the one seeing him, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s me, Liz Paulson?” Her voice went up at the end, making it a question. “We went to high school together. I was a few years ahead of you.”
Laura could remember two older girls named Liz. One had been a model-skinny brunette who took pleasure in policing other girls’ weight, always pinching love handles and counting calories out loud, and the other one had been a real bitch.
“Liz! Wow, it’s so good to talk to you. How long has it been?”
“Ever since you took off for college, left us for all those Yankees. I don’t know how you put up with those people, Laura. No manners at all.” She smacked her gum so hard, people in Durham must have heard it.
“None whatsoever,” Laura agreed. “What have you been up to?”
“Oh, I work the switchboard here nights, try to keep up with the boys during the day.”
“What are their names again?” As if she’d ever known or cared.
“Bryce is six, Jaxon just turned three.”
“They sound lovely, Liz.”
“Cute as buttons. Speaking of, how about that Frank Stuart?”
Laura paused. “He’s cute all right.”
“Oh, I’ve seen enough of him to know that. By the way, if I know him like I think I do, he’s probably at Hopsky’s by now, blowing off a little steam. Like I said, y’all are seeing each other?”
“I’m not sure it’s anything worth mentioning.”
“Come on, it’s just us girls. You know, a lot of the ladies around town are wondering just how you hooked him.”
“Hooked him.” The words felt mealy in her mouth. “What does that mean? Like a fish?”
“Don’t be that way, Laura. You know what I’m asking.”
“I really don’t.”
“I mean, how did you get him to go for”—she paused—“for you.”
“I guess that means you don’t think it was my looks or my winning personality.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No? How’d you mean it?”
“Same old Laura. Always so prim and proper—always too good for the rest of us. You never could take a joke.”
She took a deep breath. “Liz, I’m actually calling in more of a professional capacity.”
“How do you mean?”
“As a reporter.”
“For the Gazette? You call that professional?”
“Yes,” Laura said, “I do.”
“Honey, I personally talked to someone at the New York Times today. The Times. From New York.”
“Yeah? They wanted your stunning insights?”
“Don’t take it out on me, sweetheart. I didn’t make you small time. You did that all on your own.”
Laura bit down on her lip. “You mean small time like working for the Gazette? Or small time like answering phones?”
“At least I’ve got a husband. I’m not thirty years old shacked up with my mother, a living reminder of what happens when little fish wander into a big pond.”
Laura squeezed her phone so hard she thought it would shatter.
“And by the way,” Liz barreled on, “you think I don’t know what this is about? You want to know about that poor little missing girl, same as all the others. But you’re worse than they are. You call up, mention Frank all casual, pretend to be buddy-buddy with me, and all to profit off the taking of a child. The Bible tells me exactly where people like you will end up, surely it does.”
“Finished?” Laura said.
“Not by a sight. Calling up, talking about being Frank’s girl, then pumping me for information without mentioning being a reporter? That’s probably impersonation. That’s a felony.”
“Arrest me,” Laura said, and hung up.
* * *
She should have known. Hopsky’s was just three blocks away, a perennial favorite among local law enforcement. Walking toward the bar, Laura replayed the conversation in her mind. Even more infuriating than Liz’s disgusting self-righteousness was the news that the New York Times had called. Best case scenario, someone up there had caught wind of the case and decided it had just enough down-south country flavor for a one-time human interest piece. Worst case scenario, the national press would smell the kind of ratings-boosting, circulation-increasing, day-in, day-out edge-of-your-seat drama that only a missing white girl could deliver.
Worst case scenario, they would descend on Hillsborough like a plague of locusts. She was running out of time.
A red neon sign in the window alternately flashing two words, BEER HERE, marked Hopsky’s. The door had once been part of a backhoe, a thick piece of metal painted fire-engine red. Beyond the door, the bar ran front to back along the left-hand wall. Cramped booths upholstered in cracked brown leather ran down the right side. In back the space opened up enough to accommodate two pool tables and a bandstand made of old pallets.
The bandstand was empty but the jukebox blared Michael Jackson, his voice riding the fierce, staccato rhythms of “Smooth Criminal.” It was ten thirty on a Friday night and the place was shoulder-to-shoulder, standing room only.
Laura pushed through a group of tall men and short women all wearing boots and cowboy hats and ordered a bourbon neat. The bartender didn’t bat an eye. That was her drink, and in Boston it had been her one concession to her origins. Up there, a woman ordering bourbon usually raised an eyebrow or two. Down here it just made her one more southern gal looking to get laid and start the weekend off right.
“Someone buying that for you?”
She glanced into the mirror and spoke without turning around.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m meeting someone.”
“Really? Who is he?”
“A cop, actually.”
“Law enforcement?” The man gave a long, low whistle. “Must be tough.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I better be careful then.”
&n
bsp; Laura turned around and looked up at him, then reached out and grabbed a bicep, giving it a squeeze. “You might be okay.”
“Think so?”
“Probably. Still, this guy I’m seeing? He’s a real bruiser. We have to be careful. Maybe we should get out of here.”
Frank Stuart pushed a lock of hair off his forehead and gave her his lopsided grin. “Safety first,” he said, and followed her out of the bar.
* * *
As was her habit, Laura woke before sunrise. Hard blue predawn light filtered between the drapes. She rolled off the bed and pulled open the drawer of the nightstand. Frank liked to smoke when he’d been drinking, and it only took a moment to locate his pack of cigarettes and a lighter and slip them into the pocket of her robe. Frank’s breathing stayed slow and even. A cord ran from the back of the alarm clock, behind the headboard, then along the wall until it reached an outlet near the sliding glass door.
On her way through the door, she reached down and pulled the plug out by its roots.
The apartment’s balcony overlooked King Street, the one running perpendicular to Churton. It was ten feet wide and three feet deep, with a decorative wrought-iron railing set at waist height. From the ground it was supposed to add a bit of architectural flair, Laura thought, but it fit the drab apartment building about as well as a square peg did a round hole. Frank and his balcony had that in common—style over substance.
Still, there was room enough for two dingy white plastic chairs and an ashtray. It had been years since she’d smoked more than a few times a month, but the old habit still reared its ugly head during times of stress. She smoked one cigarette and waited for the sun to claw its way over the steeple of the First Baptist Church.
“Laura?”
“I’m here,” she said, and tossed her cigarette butt down into the street before ducking inside.
Frank pulled himself up to sit against the headboard and rubbed his eyes. “Thought you snuck out on me.”
“Just woke up early. I grew up on a farm, remember?”
He held out an arm and she climbed back under the covers, then lit another cigarette and smoked it looking up at the ceiling. She said nothing. Out on the balcony she’d decided that simple silence would be the best approach. A minute passed. She could feel his eyes on the side of her head.
“Something wrong?”
She exhaled sharply.
“Come on, I know when something’s bothering you,” he said.
“Six weeks of dating and you know me that well. Amazing.”
“Did I do something?”
She shook her head.
“Will you at least talk to me?”
“It’s got nothing to do with you, Frank.”
“Then—”
She raised a hand, cutting him off. “And it’s got everything to do with you.”
He reached over and lit one himself, balancing the ashtray on his stomach. “You don’t usually make a habit of talking in riddles. Am I supposed to know what that means?”
She rolled over and put her free hand on his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s the missing girl, the one who wasn’t in the field. It’s got me a little shook up.”
“Oh,” he said.
She held her breath. It was the critical moment, the tipping point. Things could go one way, or they could go another. By any rational measure Frank should realize exactly what was happening. A cop and a reporter in bed together, and suddenly the reporter brings up a big case. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to put things together.
Still, two powerful forces worked in her favor.
One, Frank just didn’t have the experience on a big-city police force, or with a big-city paper, to understand just how transactional this kind of relationship could be. He’d yet to be used, to know what it felt like to be hollowed out of information and then tossed away. Without the memory of being burned, at least once, there was nothing stopping him from reaching out for that hot stove.
And two, he had been raised a quintessential southern gentleman. That training had instilled in him a belief that women are delicate flowers, easily scared and always deserving of protection. He would, Laura suspected, see her more as a damsel in distress than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And he didn’t disappoint.
“It’s got you scared, huh?” he said, and pulled her close to him. That simple protective instinct never ceased to amaze. Properly accessed, it blotted out all other motives and perspectives. Instant tunnel vision.
Laura locked eyes with him and then looked away, feigning embarrassment. “Just the idea of Teresa Mitchem out there, all alone, it makes my skin crawl. You know what? I take that back. It’s the thought that she’s not alone. That’s what scares me.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of. We’re going to get this guy, Laura.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
He pushed back and took her by the shoulders, turned her to face him. “What do you hear?”
“I mean, have you read the paper, Frank? Were you listening to the people in Hopsky’s last night? Teresa Mitchem is all anyone is talking about. To be honest, a lot of them were shooting you sideways glances.”
He grimaced. “Why?”
“Probably because they were thinking the same thing I was: how come I found you in a bar, and not out looking for that poor girl?”
“I just had a twenty-four-hour shift. I can’t take a break?”
Laura ground her cigarette out in the ashtray. “Cops don’t take breaks when they’re hot on the trail. Everyone knows what it means. It means the Sheriff’s Office has nothing worth working overtime on.”
He just stared at her, a faraway look in his eyes. She could guess that he was replaying the bar last night, wondering how many evil eyes he’d missed.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said.
He rolled his eyes.
“Tell me.”
“You’re wrong, okay? It’s been thirty-six hours. We’re still processing evidence. Something will turn up.”
“But you don’t know what, or even if, it will turn up. Meaning it’s true, you’ve got nothing. Oh God, Frank, I wasn’t really being serious. Please tell me the police have something, anything to go on. That girl—”
“Is missing, I know. And we’re doing everything we can to find her.”
“Okay, physical evidence can take time, I get that. But it’s a small town, there aren’t any strangers here. Olive Hanson must have spent time with someone, and someone else must have seen it. So who is it?”
“She had a few friends at school, but these kids are the same age to within a few years. We’re talking ten-year-olds. How is one of them going to kill a girl, let alone wash the body?”
Laura’s eyes widened. “She was washed?”
“Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Well, you did say it.”
“Yeah, I did.” He let out a breath. “But you can’t print that. Promise me.”
She put a hand on his chest, leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. “Hey, it’s me we’re talking about. I’m not going to print anything we talk about here. This is just pillow talk.”
“I still shouldn’t be talking about it.”
“Well, the cat’s already out of the bag. You can’t just say something like that and then not give a little more. I was born with more than my fair share of curiosity.”
He chewed it over.
“Okay, but it stays between us.”
“Of course.”
“Yes, she was washed.”
“And moved?”
He gave her a look. “Well, he didn’t wash her in the middle of a field, did he?”
“Could have brought a bucket and rags. It’s not out of the question.”
“It wasn’t a bucket and rags.”
“This is from the official evidence report?”
“No, my own common sense. You wash a body in the middle of a field, it would have just gotten muddy. The soil is soft there, lots of country cl
ay. She would have been red from head to toe. But it wasn’t like that. Someone washed her and dressed her in a white cotton nightshirt, then drove her out into the center of that field and laid her down. Carefully. No stains on the dress other than where the morning dew had soaked through it. And that happened after”—he coughed—“after she was alone again.”
“Meaning she was killed somewhere else.”
He nodded.
“That night, Fourth of July, no one saw Olive Hanson and Teresa Mitchem together? Or individually?”
“You really have no respect for the lawmen around here, do you?” He pushed himself up on one elbow. “You and everyone else in town apparently thinks we’re just sitting around shooting the shit, but believe it or not we are checking that kind of thing out.”
“And?”
“Jesus, you never quit. And we haven’t found anything. Like you said, it’s not a big town. We’ve talked to everyone who was anywhere nearby. We pressed anyone who we thought looked fishy. There’s nothing there.”
“Who was fishy?”
“I’m not doing that, Laura. I’m not giving out names so we can turn into Salem. They were just people nearby who couldn’t prove they didn’t do it. But not everyone has an alibi. That’s life.”
“That’s life,” she repeated, and decided to take a shot in the dark. “I heard a rumor the FBI is involved.”
He sat up on the edge of the bed facing away from her. “Who said that?”
“Like you said, maybe it’s better if we don’t use names.”
“Well, it’s not true.”
“You going to look at me and say that?”
He started to turn back before he caught himself. “You always knew how to get what you wanted from me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on. I know high school wasn’t your favorite time in life, but does that mean you’ve blocked out everything from back then?”
Laura had graduated Orange High a year early as part of the class of ’05. Frank had been in the year behind her. She remembered him just as tall as he was today, but without the mass he’d packed on later during his career as a cop. He’d been partial to band T-shirts and bootcut jeans and she only remembered him because they’d both been in the school band, him on saxophone, her on flute, always sitting together in the woodwind section. She’d catch him looking at her and smile.
Last Girl Gone Page 5