Carved in Blood (Evan Lane Mystery Book 1)

by E. R. FALLON

  “And you’ll help me with that, you’ll help me see her.” Hope reddened Alice’s cheeks. “And if you don’t find her before I’m gone, then you have to send a copy of your article to her when you do find her. I’m not worried about what’ll happen with Rachel. The police will know what to do from there. It’s time I put Evelyn first.”

  “Yes, I’ll try to, but first, where is Rachel living at present?” I spoke carefully. “Does she reside in Freedom?” The thought made me feel quite ill.

  “The last I heard my family had to move Rachel out of the cottage they’d bought for her. They’re estranged from me but they did have the morals to tell me that much. The place was deep in the woods outside town and very hard to find if you didn’t know it existed. Rachel lives in a facility now. The caretaker had aged some, you see, and she couldn’t continue on with the arrangement. My family had paid her a lot of money to keep Rachel a secret, and so the woman was very comfortable with everything. I believe my family still owns the cottage but they haven’t used it since Rachel lived there, but I can’t be sure.”

  Which explained why the crimes had stopped occurring in Freedom after Alice’s arrest and imprisonment, and why Mack and the local police thought their job had been finalized for good. Still, I wasn’t confident about the idea that Rachel, if she was real, was murdering again, and in Seven Sisters, but that was the one strong lead I had.

  “Do you know what became of Rachel’s caretaker?” I asked.

  “If you’re wondering if Rachel killed her, you’re wrong. I believe she moved away. I could tell that Rachel didn’t hate the woman, but the only reason Rachel didn’t hate her was because the woman respected Rachel’s space. Perhaps she respected Rachel’s privacy too much. She’d told me Rachel spent a lot of time in a woodshed on the cottage’s property. The woman didn’t go in there, which I thought was odd, but, as I said, she gave Rachel some freedom at home. I think she wanted to pacify Rachel.”

  “Did you ever go in there?” I asked.

  “Into the woodshed? Yes. Nothing stood out to me.”

  “Did anyone from your family go inside?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, her spending time alone in that shed?”

  “I never saw anything out of the ordinary.” After a moment Alice said, “At the facility, Rachel had been writing to me here under a different name but I stopped writing back when her letters became . . . disturbing.”

  “You didn’t feel it was your obligation to inform someone of her condition?”

  Alice smiled sheepishly. “I’d thought Rachel would stop acting so strange if I went to prison for her and showed her how much I cared.”

  “Perhaps you should have let her go to prison, where she could have received the treatment she needed.”

  “A mother would do anything to keep her baby out of jail,” Alice retorted.

  “Even if that meant subjecting your other daughter to the loss of her mother?” I’d spoken before I comprehended what I was saying.

  Alice gave me a long, hard look, and then she said, “I hope you never have to make a similar choice someday, Mr. Samuels.”

  I brushed aside my growing emotions. “Let’s get back on track. Do you know which facility houses Rachel? Since she wrote to you from there, do you have an address for her?”

  “Let me see if I remember.”

  I allowed Alice plenty of time to mull it over.

  “No, I don’t remember the name of the facility,” she said. “My memory’s not as sharp as it once was.” She mumbled a few street names and cursed under her breath. “No, none of those were it. Hold on a minute. Let me think.”

  A moment of time went by before she sat up in her chair and recited a post office box number in a triumphant way, the way a game show contestant shouts the winning answer to a tricky question. “That was the address on her envelopes when we were still exchanging letters,” she said.

  The box was in Lamont. I didn’t imagine I’d find Rachel inside the post office at any given moment, but I couldn’t see another place to try. Perhaps the mail office would have the name and address of the person who rented the post box. But, I wasn’t officially the law, and would they readily give such information out to an ordinary citizen like myself?

  Could I get up and call for the guard, leave without letting Alice know she was my mother and that I wasn’t just another striving young journalist, that I was her son?

  Her words collided into my thoughts. “I still expect you to uphold your end of our deal, promise me you’ll try your very best to find Evelyn before my death. I don’t need to see Rachel again.”

  “I promise I will try,” I said.

  The irony left a bitter taste in my mouth. According to Alice, Rachel was a murderer but she was also my sister, my twin, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for someone who shared my blood, someone whose mother wanted nothing to do with her. Then the idea that Alice might be untruthful surfaced again in my mind, and I thought of a question to catch her with.

  “What did you end up doing with the ring you found in Rachel’s room?” I asked.

  “I chucked it into the river, same as I told the police.”

  “It never was mentioned in any of the articles written about the case.”

  Alice shrugged. “They never found the ring.”

  I received another text and Alice glanced at my shirt pocket. “Your phone’s making noises again. Someone wants you out of here real bad, handsome. You have places to be. I understand.”

  “I’ll call the guard to let him know we’re through here.” If they’d been listening in on us like Alice suggested, I considered they might not allow me to leave the building until I spoke with someone.

  As if reading my mind, Alice said, “They record the meetings between prisoners and guests but don’t listen to the tapes unless they suspect something. So if you don’t say anything to them when you leave this room, and I don’t say anything, we should be fine.”

  “How do you know what they do with the recordings?”

  “Word gets around in this place. It’s real cozy.” She beamed. “Go ahead, call for a guard to come collect you. I know you’ll be in touch if you can. You know better than to break a promise to me.” Alice gave me a sly wink. “It’s best you write to me with any news. It’s hard for me to get phone calls in here as you can imagine. They read any letter that comes to me, so if you’d like, we can use a code word for our little mission.”

  “What will the code word be?”

  She appeared pleased that I was letting her decide. “Molasses. You’re working on finding me molasses.” Alice smiled. “I always liked the taste of the stuff. Haven’t had it in years.”

  I almost said I never knew that but caught myself. “Molasses it is, then.”

  Alice pressed her hand against the glass separation wall. “Come here, let me look at you. I don’t get many visitors.”

  I only needed to move an inch to crouch and place my hand on hers through the glass. Our hand size matched palm-to-fingertip.

  “Would you look at that,” she said. “Your hand’s not much bigger than mine. Do you know what they say about a man who has small hands?”

  I warmed at her innuendo.

  “Perhaps your feet are bigger.” She tried to peer down at my feet from where she sat. “Doesn’t matter. Anything you’d lack you’d more than compensate for in charm.”

  I laughed and moved my feet so that she couldn’t see them.

  “We get along,” Alice remarked. “Feels like I’ve known you for years.” She sat back and looked me over. “Perhaps we knew each other in another life.” She smiled. “You can call the guard using that there,” she said, pointing at the button on the wall behind me.

  “I know,” I said.

  Given what she’d disclosed to me, I should have been running out of there and traveling to Lamont to see whether she told truths or lies, but I didn’t want to leave before Alice did. I wante
d to hang on to my mother until the last possible moment, until they hauled her away from me.

  “Why don’t you call first?” I said. “I need a few moments to organize myself.”

  “You haven’t even taken your notebook out of your bag. Will you remember what we talked about?” Alice stared at me, waiting for me to flinch, and there was that side of hers again, the side that, as an adult then, led me to believe she could still have been a killer.

  “I’ll be fine.” I patted my phone through my pocket. “Someone tried reaching me and I’d like to check my messages before I go.”

  “You can do that on your way out, or in the parking lot.”

  Alice took control of someone without them realizing. She ordered you around without it feeling like you were being commanded. She’d done the same to me as a child as she was doing to me, seemingly a stranger to her, now. She could be manipulative, but that in itself didn’t make her a killer.

  I turned my face to the side so she couldn’t see my eyes. “I’ll check them when I want, thanks.” I used a defiant tone.

  “Keep in touch, handsome.”

  Some moments later, I didn’t watch her leaving but I heard the guard collecting her from the room. Seeing my mother, older, frailer, and, in many ways, defeated, had made me question my decision to avoid a connection with her for so many years. She wasn’t the monster I remembered reading about in the newspapers of my youth. She was my mother, and she’d declared her innocence, and she was never getting out of prison unless I assisted her.

  What I wanted to come true for years, and what I never in my life imagined would, had happened: I’d heard her say she hadn’t murdered those young men. And while I should have felt relieved, I didn’t feel I could begin to accept her words as the truth unless I validated her innocence myself.

  In the parking lot, I sat in the car and read Sammie’s texts. I hadn’t started the engine. The guards hadn’t given me peculiar looks on my way out so I assumed Alice was correct in thinking they didn’t listen live to the prisoner visits.

  Wanted to check on you, Sammie had written. I think you’re in too deep, love. I’m calling Mack if you don’t write me or call soon.

  How easily could Sammie have obtained Mack’s number? I texted her back.

  So it turns out I might have a twin my mother hid from me named Rachel. She lives in Lamont. Heading there now. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. Love you.

  What?? Call me NOW. You can’t go there yourself. Wait for your detective friend to go with you. Please, Evan. Promise me.

  I would never have been able to reassure someone as protective as Sammie was. I wrote her again.

  I can’t wait. I have to go now. I’ll be ok. Don’t worry!

  Love, I always worry. I’m calling you now.

  I loved Sammie with all my everything but I’d already decided that when she did ring, I wouldn’t answer. There might have been a murderer out there who looked like me. At that time, I wouldn’t have allowed anyone or anything to stop me from finding out, not even our love.

  Chapter 15

  In the town of Lamont, I parked a short walk away from the post office.

  “Do you know when the person who owns box 293 usually comes in to collect their mail?” I asked the clerk at the front.

  “I can’t give out that information unless your name’s registered to the box, too. Are you registered?” she asked.

  I wasn’t and it would have been pointless to have lied. “I’m not.”

  “Then I’m sorry, I can’t help you, sir.” The clerk, an older woman, returned to sorting through the letters in front of her.

  I glanced at the line forming behind me but didn’t leave the counter. I rubbed my face and ruminated over some ways to pry the information out of her. I decided I’d try desperation. The name stitched to the front of her shirt said Beth. “The thing is, Beth, and I’m going to be completely honest with you—the box I’m asking about belongs to my sister. She isn’t well, and my family and I are very concerned for her safety. I’m trying to track her down for our mother.”

  I’d managed to hold Beth’s interest, and at some point in my explanation, she’d stopped going through the mail and looked up at me. “This is a pretty big city,” she said. “Do you really think I have time to pay attention to everyone who comes in here to collect their mail?”

  “No, but—”

  Beth cut me short. “Hold on.” She held up her finger for emphasis. “I understand first-hand what it’s like to have family troubles, so I’ll tell you that a young woman usually comes to collect mail from the box today.”

  “Today?” I didn’t want to sound too eager. “Has she already been in today? Have I missed her?” I became aware that I was resting my elbows on the counter, and I stood up and retreated slightly.

  Beth smiled, and to think I’d assumed she couldn’t. “She hasn’t. She’s due to come in today, in two hours or so. Looks like today’s your lucky day. I’ll be on my break then, but I’m sure you’ll recognize your sister when she comes in. Come to think of it, you two do look alike. That’s why I remember her, because she’s very pretty. Even with all the people coming in here all the time, she stands out.”

  “We’re twins.” I thanked her.

  “You can wait in here if you’d like, but I need to assist the customers in line.” She waited for me to move.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said, and stepped out of the way. “I’ll go outside for a bit and then come back in.” I would have surely piqued the interest of the security guard by the entrance if I loitered for hours.

  I left the post office to see if I could manage to get something to eat and then planned to return closer to three in the afternoon, when Rachel was due to arrive. I felt guilty shutting off my phone to avoid Sammie but I wasn’t leaving Lamont without an answer or two and it wouldn’t have felt right telling Sammie lies about my whereabouts, so I avoided her for the time being.

  I bought a plain bagel at a corner café. I couldn’t sit still inside the café so I walked around the city in the clear, crisp day as I ate. I threw the bagel away after only a few bites.

  I started for the post office again, and with more than a few minutes to spare, stopped inside a community art show happening in a little building off to the side of a police station, which I found quite fitting at the time. I’d been trying to soothe myself and prepare but I didn’t pay much attention to the amateur, yet surprisingly decent, mostly urban landscape paintings housed within the makeshift gallery. My mind was on whether Beth had remembered Rachel’s routine correctly and whether I should make haste and haul my ass over to the post office. I didn’t know exactly what I would do if I saw Rachel.

  In the end, I decided to return early. Well before three, I re-entered the building to find that, as promised, Beth wasn’t at the counter. A rather glum seeming young man stood in her place and assisted the customers before him as though the task annoyed him. Beth hadn’t been the friendliest person, but I’d got the impression that she enjoyed her job.

  I read the advertisements for postal products posted on the wall by the entrance door and kept an eye on the people entering the post office. Around three-thirty, Beth had retaken her place at the counter and I began to worry Rachel, or whoever collected her mail, wouldn’t make an appearance.

  Beth waved me over to the desk when she had a lull in customers. “I saw you frowning over there. Your sister will turn up, I’m sure of it.”

  I half expected Beth to point Rachel out to me when she entered the building, but if my sister looked as much like me as I, and everyone else, thought, then it shouldn’t have been too difficult for me to spot her.

  “Give her a few more minutes,” Beth said.

  “Does she arrive later sometimes?” I inquired.

  Beth’s eyes deepened with sympathy. “I’m afraid not but maybe she’s had a slight delay of some sort.”

  I nodded, although I didn’t believe a half hour counted as a ‘slight’ delay. I we
nt to return to standing near the door in case Rachel showed.

  A well-dressed woman entered the building and though the only thing I went on was her uncanny likeness to me, albeit with longer hair and a smaller frame, there was no doubt in my mind that she was Rachel. My mother had told me the truth. I felt doubly betrayed by her, for hiding my sister from me and then going to prison for her. But what if Alice was still telling tales and Rachel was my sister but not a killer? There was only one way to find out.

  Beth caught my eye and nodded at me. Rachel kept her hands in her pockets as she strolled toward the brass boxes along the wall at the back of the lobby. She didn’t carry a purse and stopped in front of one of the boxes and removed something from her coat pocket, presumably the box key. I didn’t want to alarm or startle her so I observed from afar and didn’t approach her.

  I felt Beth watching me from the counter, probably wondering why I didn’t speak to my sister. The door opened at my left and Rachel glanced over her shoulder in my direction and I pretended to check my phone.

  She walked past me with a few letters in her hand and I followed her outside. Beth shouted, “Hey . . . ” at my back. Rachel took her time moving down the front steps to the sidewalk, and the concern that she might have sensed me trailing her evaporated. If she had felt my presence, her manner gave no indication.

  The day had cooled more and I tugged my jacket around me as I walked a few paces behind her. She paused briefly to look in a shop window at a display of plump chocolates in neat rows, and I slowed down behind her so I wouldn’t have to pass her. I breathed more easily when she continued down the street and I could track her without my intentions being apparent. I still had my phone off and I wondered what Sammie was doing and if she had called Mack.

  Rachel rounded the corner and came to a halt. She walked into the lobby of what looked like a very nice doctor’s office and I casually kept an eye on her from the building’s wide glass door that faced the sidewalk. Rachel chatted with a woman at the desk inside and signed herself in. There wasn’t anyone else inside the lobby, and if I entered then, I’d stand out. I stared up and read the business name displayed in gold letters on the brick façade. Facility for Mental Health. The place seemed much too posh to have been government-run and most likely had to have been a private facility paid for by my estranged family.