by Jeff Abbott
Did they know? Did the Halls know, before the crash, that David and Jane were together? Was that the argument between Laurel and Perri that Adam discovered when he stopped by her home?
The orange phone that Brenda Hobson remembered lying by the wreck was not mentioned in a detailed inventory of what was recovered from the wreck site at the car. So, after Brenda Hobson moved it out of the way, someone had taken it. Also not listed: the laptop David used at Happy Taco.
Or the crowbar. She and David had misplaced all sorts of things in their secret odyssey.
Where was it all?
Unless these items had been purposefully taken from the crash site in the chaos.
Who would have had access? Who had come to the crash site? The Halls had both come to the accident site, her mother. Kamala, Trevor, Adam? She realized that she didn’t know. No one had ever discussed it with her. It wasn’t a question you asked: Hey, Mom, which of my friends came to where I lay bleeding and David lay dead? Did you notice?
Could the phone, missed in the scene processing, have been taken at the same time the suicide note was planted? She bit her lip at this thought of efficiency.
She moved on to the report of the suicide-note analysis, which was stamped “Confidential: Client’s Eyes Only.” The paper and ink had been tested chemically. The ink came from a Skymon Gel Pen and was two to three years old. The ink had been on the paper for several months; it wasn’t contemporary to the crash. The paper came from a Japanese notebook, with an unusually high fiber count—the analyst made a note that those were expensive paper notebooks. Jane recognized the brand name: Tayami. No one had ever asked her if she owned a Tayami notebook.
She tried to call Randy Franklin’s office. No answer. Maybe his temp had fled once she saw his broken file cabinet. His voice mail mentioned a cell phone number. She tried that as well. No answer. She didn’t leave a message. What would she say? Hey, I stole your files, can you answer some questions on them for me?
She turned to the phone pages. The FBI number. She dialed it. She got an automated answer, instructing her to press the appropriate button to channel her call. She finally got an operator.
“My dad called this number before he died,” Jane said, her voice tentative, uncertain. “I mean, a few weeks before he died. I’m wondering if maybe he was trying to report a crime. His name was Brent Norton. Do you know if there was a record that he called?”
“When did he call?” The operator sounded sympathetic.
She gave the date on the record. “I just don’t know why he’d call the FBI.” Her voice broke. “They said he died in an accident cleaning his gun and I just don’t know if that’s true. He tried to call the Secret Service, too.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. We get lots of calls,” the operator said. “What’s your name and your number? I can see if I can find a record of his call in our database. And if so, we can call you back.”
She gave it to her, but then she realized she had just described her father, tearfully, as if he were a crank caller: calling governmental agencies and then dying from a gun mishap. She hung up. She started to dial the Secret Service number and then she hung up, too. He had called them just once, not again. Had he lost his nerve? Why would he have only called once? Maybe these spreadsheets weren’t enough proof, without knowing what the entries meant.
She tucked the files back in her bag. She didn’t even know where to start with the financial files. She needed another line of attack while she figured out what to do about the spreadsheets.
Pressing Adam had already spilled some secrets about that night. She couldn’t grill Trevor while he worked at the coffee shop. But she could talk to Amari Bowman, over at the University of Texas. She had her number in her phone from her earlier rebuffed attempt to communicate.
She texted Amari: I know you don’t want to talk to me but I MUST talk to you. Meet me at the Littlefield Fountain at noon.
She got a fast reply: CAN’T.
She texted back: MUST. PLEASE.
Jane took a deep breath and wrote: I will camp my homeless ass in front of your sorority house. I literally have nothing to do but to bug and annoy you. Talk to me for fifteen minutes and I’ll leave you alone.
Five minutes passed. Then the phone: Fine. Fountain at noon.
She didn’t want to take a rideshare car to the UT campus. Her mother, she knew, was tracking the charges and destinations, and she didn’t want to explain. But her mother’s office wasn’t far from the park—a ten-minute walk—and she could borrow her car. Or take it and leave a note. Laurel seemed to spend most of her hours on the phone at the charity office. She walked, the history of her father and David thumping against her shoulder. The office of her mom’s charity—Helpful Hands Reaching Out—was in a quiet park of restored bungalows that dated back from when Lakehaven was first settled.
The sign on the small pink house read HHRO. She opened the door; there was only her mother and a part-time assistant working there. Her mother had run it for nearly ten years now, as a job that still allowed her time to create her mom blog. And when Brent’s business with Cal failed, it had been her mom’s charity job that had kept the Nortons from having to tap into savings to stay afloat.
Laurel’s assistant, Grant, wasn’t at his desk but she could hear her mother’s voice, talking quietly in her office. “Well, I hear Grant, back with our lattes…” Laurel said.
Jane waited a moment and then stepped into the open doorway.
Laurel sat at her desk, her gaze going immediately to Jane, her smile freezing, and Kamala Grayson turning to face her, the inevitable, sugared smile creeping onto her face.
33
PERRI MET HIM at a bar where they’d met once before, when Matteo Vasquez had written the second of the “Girl Who Doesn’t Remember” stories. That one had focused on the connections between the two families, and Perri had felt it made her look a bit petty and vindictive, when she had said nothing that hadn’t been kind and forgiving. But Vasquez had a way of making one’s words take on color and an edge she didn’t want the world to see. Or maybe she had to be more careful about her tone. She had decided that she wouldn’t help him with the third interview, but he was done with her anyway. A back part of her mind had thought he’d write about her lost boy and that rotten Norton girl forever. And of course he wouldn’t. She’d had no mind for strategy back in those grief-crippled days; now her thoughts fell in place with a cold certainty. So he wouldn’t be able to twist hers, or Liv Danger’s, words in a way that made her look bad.
He didn’t look so good himself. Vasquez sat in a back booth with what looked like a Bloody Mary in front of him, a notepad, and a smartphone. He had lost weight since the last time she saw him, and back then he had worn pressed khakis and a nice shirt, looking the part of the polished reporter. Today he wore scruffy jeans and an old flannel shirt and a Round Rock Express cap that had a worn brim. He needed a shave. She realized as he stood to shake her hand that he needed a shower. The polished journalist was gone.
“Mr. Vasquez.”
He gestured across the booth. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Hall.”
She sat. A waitress approached and she glanced at his drink.
“It’s a Virgin Mary,” he said.
“I’ll have the same,” she said. Although she had just been sent home from her job and there was a crazy man accusing her of arson and theft and she could use a drink, she wasn’t ready to start before lunch. Not yet.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Fine. You’re no longer with the paper?”
“Downsized. I’m freelance now.” He said this like it was a good thing, but she could hear a tension beneath his words.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I’m on social media a lot, posting supershort news bits. Looking for a topic to write about or an interesting person to interview.”
“You said you got an e-mail about me?”
“You still live next door to Jane Norton.”
>
“Yes.”
“Her memory ever come back?”
“She says not.”
“I would imagine not. Liv Danger. Who is that?”
“Why are you asking me? You don’t write for the paper anymore.”
“But I still write, and a follow-up on the earlier stories would be interesting.”
“I can’t imagine that they would be.”
“The e-mail I got suggested that you are conducting a vendetta campaign against people tied to the crash.”
Her drink arrived and she thanked the waitress and took a sip. It was perfect and she wondered if it was the only good thing she would experience today.
“Well, that’s ridiculous.”
He slid a piece of paper to her. “This is the e-mail. I’ve had no luck tracing who sent it.”
She read it:
Mr. Vasquez:
Having written so much about the Hall and Norton families you should know that I suspect a campaign is being waged against people involved in the crash by a woman calling herself Liv Danger and that woman is really Perri Hall, who blames the world for her son’s death instead of blaming herself, as she should.
She attacked Jane Norton at her son’s grave (see attached video, posted to Faceplace). Her son’s gravestone had ALL WILL PAY written on it. I think she did that to take suspicion off herself.
Brenda Hobson, who was a responding paramedic at the crash, had her house burned down. The surrounding houses were burned down as well. There was no reason for anyone to target Ms. Hobson, and the burning of the other houses was done as a cover, easy since they were all unoccupied. Gasoline and rags in bottles are not hard to do.
Shiloh Rooke, the other paramedic, had film of an embarrassing personal nature taken from his home and mailed to his girlfriend. Again, not a hard thing to do if you follow or watch someone for a few days to determine who is important to them and what their weakness might be.
Randy Franklin, the private investigator hired by the Halls after the crash, has left town and shut down his office this week. Try calling him; his voice mail greeting now says he’s closing his office. See if he talks to you. See if phone records show that Perri Hall called him this week.
You might also check her computer history to see what Faceplace pages her computer accessed at certain interesting times.
If I were Jane Norton, the person Perri Hall blames most, I would be scared.
Maybe you should write about that.
“You can’t be serious,” Perri said. She took a sip of the Virgin Mary and pushed the e-mail back to him. “That’s a hatchet job with no proof.”
“If I call these people and talk to them, and ask them about this, what do you think they’ll say? There is a pattern here.”
“My husband talked to the Hobson woman,” she said, but as soon as she said the phrase, she realized it sounded haughty, unkind—like someone who might indeed blame others for the misfortune of her life. This was a woman who tried to save her son’s life. Vasquez looked at her like he was thirsty for her words. “I mean…he talked to Ms. Hobson. He drove down there with Jane Norton and talked to her. So, if I were doing this, as this ridiculous letter claims, I don’t think my husband would be going and talking to the supposed targets.”
“Are you still married? I heard you filed for divorce.”
“I did, but it’s not final yet. Nothing is final.”
“Ah.”
“I am not waging some battle.”
“You attacked Jane Norton.”
“I had no idea that she would be there. I couldn’t plan that. These other crimes, they took planning. It doesn’t fit together.”
“That’s a pretty weak defense.”
“And this is an asinine accusation to make against a grieving mother.” She stood. “I’m not going to listen to any more.”
“I’m going to talk to Hobson and Rooke and try to find Franklin. As well as the other sources from back then. If there’s no story, there’s no story. But if there is, well, it’s a huge one. You sure you don’t want to talk to me?”
“I have nothing to say about this, Matteo.” She softened her tone, although every bone in her body was thrumming with anger. “Someone is setting me up. I’m not doing this. I’m not capable of it.”
“The video.”
“That was a moment’s madness. You don’t have children; you don’t know what it’s like.”
“I seem to remember the Nortons saying that the suicide note couldn’t be real, either. Not a real indication of Jane’s mental health.”
She took a deep breath. “Hardly comparable.”
“Oh, I think someone wants me to compare them.”
A new fear crept its way up her spine. “Are you going to go to the police with this?”
“No. Not yet. I don’t have any evidence of any connection. Only a pattern. A pattern’s not enough.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, if I found evidence, I’d have to be a responsible citizen.”
“Please don’t do this. Please.”
“I’m giving you a chance to comment on the record, Mrs. Hall.”
“Then I’ll say I did not do this. I haven’t.”
“Then who do you think did?”
She had a decided opinion on that. “I don’t know. Like you said, it would take evidence. We don’t even know if there’s a connection. But I’d trace that e-mail if I were you. Whoever is accusing me is most likely the guilty party. Ask yourself why they didn’t sign it or send it from an account that would tell you who they are.”
“Maybe they’re afraid.”
“Of me?”
Matteo Vasquez watched her. “May I call you for quotes if I find additional information?”
She nodded. “But this isn’t anything that leads to me. You’re wasting your time.”
“I have a lot of it to waste.”
Pay him, she thought. Pay him not to write the story. He’s giving you a hint to make this go away. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve fallen on hard times.”
He shrugged.
How did you bribe someone? She had no idea. Cal would know how to do this. She wanted to ask him, but she didn’t want Cal to know. He’d say, Bad idea, it will blow over. Well, he wasn’t being accused of being a nut.
He watched her. She fidgeted. “Did you want to tell me something, Mrs. Hall?”
No. She wouldn’t pay him. It would only make things worse for her to offer. “No. But maybe I’ll find out who is behind this, and then that’s your story. Someone terrorizing a woman who lost her son. Will that get enough clicks to feed you and house you?”
He didn’t answer.
She left, and tried to slam the door of the nearly deserted bar, but it was the kind that shut itself slowly. The daylight was harsh against her eyes and she stumbled to her car.
Her phone buzzed. Three text messages. All from friends, all saying, You should check Faceplace. And I’m so sorry.
Fingers trembling, she did. The video of her grabbing Jane and hauling her toward the grave had…exploded across Faceplace. What was the word she’d heard used at work: viral? Someone she knew had shared it to their page, more had followed, until a gossipy news site with ten thousand followers did so and it began to be widely shared. Blogs and online articles had been written about it, not always accurate. People had started leaving comments on her own page:
You’re horrible.
Don’t blame you, I’d have half beaten that girl, too, if she killed my son.
I understand she was in the car wreck with your son, but this is wrong. You need to find Jesus, He will bring you peace.
She shouldn’t be visiting your son’s grave, give her a punch for me.
Wrong. Even if you’re grieving, this is wrong. As a mother you know this. Did it bring your son back? Did it make you feel better? Get some help.
What is wrong with you?
She trembled. The ease of strangers, commenting on her life, saying things they’d not say to her face. She could on
ly imagine what would happen if Matteo Vasquez wrote a story about this now, and now he had even more reason to write it. To strike while the iron was hot. He’d get more views, more clicks. Wasn’t that the name of the game now? Truth and nuance be damned.
Who sent that e-mail?
34
JANE. HELLO.”
“Hello, Mom.” Jane’s gaze didn’t waver from Kamala. What are you doing here? Why are you talking to my mom? All those questions wanted to burst forth from her. Instead she just stared, helpless and at a loss for words. She hated the way she always seemed to freeze around Kamala, stumble for her footing.
“Jane. How are you today? Better?” Again with the Kamala-smile that seemed to fool the world. Why couldn’t the world see what she saw?
Because you sound crazy when you talk about her this way. You do her work for her.
“I’m fine, Kamala, how are you?” Jane said. “Sorry, Mom, I guess I should have called first. I didn’t realize you were busy.”
“Kamala just wanted to talk to me about charity involvement with her sorority at UT. Doing a fund-raiser.”
“I know your mom is doing such good work and I just thought maybe we could be of help to her,” Kamala said.
“That’s generous. Mom, maybe call me later? I’ll be back at home,” she lied. She forced a civil smile on her face. She will not make me crack. “Nice to see you, Kamala. So kind of you to help my mom.”
“Well,” Kamala said, modestly, “someone has to.”
Jane nodded, her face burning, and she closed the door. She took a deep breath. Then she saw her mother’s purse behind Grant’s desk—she’d probably told him to dig the money out to pay for her and Kamala’s lattes—and she, without thought, knelt, grabbed the keys to her mother’s Volvo, and went out the door.