“So you’ve been seeing Ian Patterson on the sly, haven’t you?”
The expression on Augusta’s face was almost comical. Her eyes widened incredulously, and she looked momentarily chastened, before her brows collided. “How . . . did you know?”
Savannah didn’t feel comfortable explaining, not even to her sister, so she used the same line she always used. She shrugged. “I just guessed.”
In fact, Augusta was keeping her secret about as quiet as humanly possible. She hadn’t said a word about anything, but Savannah knew.
“Are you gonna tell Caroline?”
Savannah bit the inside of her lip. “I really think you should.”
“Are you kidding? She’ll go out of her mind! You saw how she reacted when I told her I wanted to offer the reward for Amanda Hutto!”
“Augusta, that man is a suspect in two murders.”
“Yeah, well I believe he’s innocent!”
Savannah looked at her meaningfully. “Are you willing to stake your life on it?” The question wasn’t meant to be hyperbole. The risk was about as real as the sweat trickling between Savannah’s breasts, down her arm and into her cast.
Augusta gave her a beleaguered look, full of confusion, and that didn’t do much to reassure Savannah. “I just have this feeling, Sav. Please don’t tell Caroline.”
“I can’t promise and it’s not fair for you to expect it.”
Augusta frowned.
“Come on . . . what would you say if the situation were reversed? Would you let me carry on with some guy who was being investigated for multiple charges?”
Augusta didn’t answer, because both of them knew the answer. Augusta wouldn’t balk at telling Caroline—or for that matter walking straight into police headquarters and demanding police protection whether Savannah wanted it or not.
“Okay, this is important, Augusta, so listen to what I’m about to say. . . .”
Augusta glared at her. “Are you taking lessons from Caroline about how to be Mommy in absentia?”
Savannah wouldn’t allow Augusta to bait her. “There might come a moment when you will ask yourself, ‘What should I do?’ Do what Augusta Aldridge would never do.”
Augusta screwed her face. “What the hell is that? A commentary on my life? You think I need to second-guess my actions because they aren’t the ones you and Caroline would take?” She tossed down a brush she had picked up. “Boy, am I sorry as hell I came out to commune with my baby sister!” She stalked out of the boathouse.
Savannah followed her out, yelling after her. “It’s not a commentary, Augusta! You’re just too damned predictable!”
Augusta turned, walking backward, her face a mask of indignation. “Yeah, well, doing the right thing is predictable, Savannah!”
“That’s my point, exactly!”
Augusta spun on her heel and Savannah watched her go, knowing it was time to talk to Caroline. There was no way she could keep what she knew to herself, especially now that Augusta had confirmed it.
Caroline would have closed the office early except that news didn’t stop for anyone. Life went on; so did the headlines.
She couldn’t imagine how her mother had weathered the disappearance of their brother, making decisions, smiling bravely for the cameras. For Caroline’s part, she felt as though her life was coming unglued and she couldn’t even afford to focus two minutes of her own time to piece it back together. There were so many other things that took precedence.
When she got home, she found Augusta sitting on the porch, sipping a glass of lemonade, jeans rolled halfway up her calves and her strawberry-blond hair twisted haphazardly on her head. Augie regarded her with cool blue eyes, watching her walk wearily up the drive. “Long day?”
Caroline nodded, but couldn’t quite find the energy to speak.
She stood there a moment, looking at her sister, and wondered how long it had been since they’d all been back under the same roof. It felt like an eternity, but the days were passing in a blur and she had barely spent any time with either of her sisters. At this rate, the year would be over . . . and then what? Would they each go their own way? The thought of that made Caroline glum. Dropping her briefcase on the bottom step, she sat down next to Augusta on the porch step. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, how are you holding up?”
Augie sighed. “Okay, I guess.” She took another sip of her lemonade and offered the glass to Caroline.
Caroline took a tentative sip and nearly gagged on the unexpected taste of vodka.
Augusta laughed. “I got into Mom’s stash.”
“That’s not like you.”
Augusta narrowed her eyes at Caroline and asked, “Yeah? How the hell would you know?”
Even in the growing twilight, the air was thick and hot after the heavy rains. The sun had beaten down mercilessly all day, baking everything it touched. Whatever moisture the rains had infused into the landscape was quickly evaporating. Caroline noticed the fine sheen of sweat on Augie’s arms and the slight sunburn on her shoulders, and meant to ask if she’d been out in the sun, but the barb stung. “Touché,” she said.
So they sat there, cocooned in the silence that followed.
“Where’s Savannah?”
“Inside.”
“Sadie?”
“Still angry.”
“No dinner?”
Augusta turned to look at her, her eyes gleaming. Caroline thought they held a trace of challenge. “Nope.”
“So what are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for the sun to set.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Felt like it.”
Caroline wanted to remind her that there was a psycho out there somewhere, but something about Augusta’s expression made her hold her tongue. Her blue eyes were a little glassy, and she looked a bit like she had been crying at some point during the day.
After a moment, Augusta continued. “You know . . . I read an article in the Tribune that said researchers were concerned the fireflies are vanishing. Apparently, Clemson is doing a study, asking folks to sit out in their yards from eight to ten and count fireflies, then go online and record the numbers on their site.”
As much as she wanted to say she read every single article every day, Caroline couldn’t possibly. “You read that in the Tribune? ”
Augusta nodded and swirled the drink in her cup. “Somewhere in there between all that death . . . maybe page five. I had to look hard to find a story that didn’t make me want to stuff myself in a sack of stones and jump off that dock out there.” She gestured in the direction of the boathouse.
Caroline thought maybe she understood how Augie felt.
Life here had never quite seemed like a fairy tale, but since they’d come home, everything was stained a pale shade of death.
“There’s something so magical about fireflies,” Augusta said wistfully, peering at Caroline with one eye closed. “Remember when we used to catch ’em and put ’em in jars and pretend they were fairies?”
Caroline nodded and Augusta drained her lemonade and set the glass down next to her on the other side of the step. “It would be sad if they vanished.”
“I know what you mean,” Caroline admitted. “You know, I’m starting to understand what’s keeping me here this time and it has nothing to do with money. . . .”
Augusta lifted a brow in challenge. “Liar . . . it has something to do with the money.”
Caroline couldn’t stifle a chuckle at Augusta’s glittery-eyed expression. “Okay, maybe a little, but seriously. I think the real magic we were feeling way back when wasn’t about what we thought we were putting in those jars,” she explained. “It was about the fact that we were trying to catch those bugs together.”
“So they could live out their short miserable existences in our stinky peanut butter jars instead of out here where they belong,” Augusta added with false wonderment, waving a hand at the expansive great outdoors.
“Jesus!” Augusta exclaimed suddenly. “We are responsible for killing off the fireflies!”
Caroline laughed again. “Well . . . if we are, the least we can do is sit out here and take a survivor count together. I’m in if you want the company.”
Augusta smiled a nostalgic smile and shook her head. She sighed loudly. “There’s got to be something more to this place than bad shit and good people dying, doesn’t there? I still feel a little magic out there . . . somewhere.”
“So do I,” Caroline agreed, and leaned unexpectedly to kiss her sister on the cheek . . . and they sat together, waiting for nightfall . . . and the reassurance of a single firefly.
Jack couldn’t stand the thought of going home.
He couldn’t get the image of Kelly’s sightless eyes out of his head.
He stopped by the Dive Inn—ironically still avoiding Kelly, though now he was avoiding the confusing emotions her death left him with—particularly the gut-wrenching guilt. He sat at the bar, and thankfully even the bartender avoided him, probably responding to the dark look on Jack’s face. Without a word, he poured Jack a Guinness and slid it over the bar toward him along with the remote, eyeing the television.
Jack blinked at the screen, grabbing the remote and turning it up in time to listen to the last minute of the clip of Caroline with Sandra Rivers.
“. . . are you stepping in now because you’ve lost faith in our boys in blue?” the bitch said. “And will you continue the more hardcore stories or do you plan to abandon them now that it seems too risky for your employees?” She pushed the microphone in Caroline’s direction.
Although he knew she was in distress, Caroline’s expression reminded him of her mother’s—she had the same grace under fire—the same cool gaze—but if he said as much to Caroline, she would think he meant it as an insult. The truth was that he admired the way her spine straightened in the face of challenge, the way her chin hitched high against adversity.
“I was sorry to hear,” the bartender offered. “She was . . . er . . . a sweet girl.” He only knew Kelly at all because she had tracked Jack to the bar one night. He’d been annoyed, and he’d given her a bit of the cold shoulder, earning questions from the bartender later.
Jack nodded, staring at Caroline’s face, needing her. He focused on her lips, watching them move and even in his grief, his body responded as it always did.
Now was not the time for distractions.
Caroline tilted Rivers a sly glance. “Do you tweet, Ms. Rivers?”
His lips twitched.
“. . . who doesn’t?” the blond reporter replied, looking a little like a mouse facing a cat.
Caroline smiled confidently. “We don’t.”
Jack broke into a smile for the first time all day.
“She don’t look much like her mama, but she sure acts like her,” the bartender remarked, grabbing a hand rag and starting on the mugs still in the sink. He waved at a customer walking out the door. Jack heard the door close, then the small barroom was empty.
“Mind if I turn this off while I finish my beer?” Jack asked.
“Take your time,” the guy said, moving out from behind the bar, going to the door to lock up. That’s what Jack liked most about him. He wasn’t a huge talker and he didn’t mind a little silence.
Jack clicked off the TV, bathing the dimly lit barroom in easy silence.
He wanted to call Caroline, but didn’t know what to say. He stared at the blank screen, replaying the events of the last two days over in his head.
The game seemed to have changed. Once again, he thought that Kelly’s murder felt personal. And Pam Baker’s disappearance was too close for comfort. However, without a body, there was no murder. She was just another missing person.
What if they weren’t meant to find more bodies? What if the sole purpose of planting Kelly’s was meant to confirm their worst fears and remove Jack from the case in one fell swoop?
Where was their guy stashing the bodies?
Did they have another Dahmer on their hands? Were they stuffed in someone’s deep freeze? Was he burying them somewhere? Where?
There was another aerial search planned for the morning.
Not often, but whenever a gator took prey—mostly dogs—they found some underwater burrow to stash the meal until the meat was soft and ripe enough to eat. Could that be what the killer was doing? Burying them somewhere in the swamp where the tide couldn’t carry them to the surface? If that were the case, the state of South Carolina had more than four million acres of wetlands, and even if they concentrated a search on the greater Charleston area, it was impossible to comb every inch of that boggy land. Over much of that wet terrain, even dogs wouldn’t be able to track a scent.
To top it off, Caroline’s note was clean—not a single print to be found—but that didn’t surprise Jack. Why should the slip be different from the rest of the forensic evidence? The guy was meticulous. What it did affirm, however, was that it wasn’t a calling card for some church salesman. There was no way the slip would be so clean if it had been handled by some Holy Roller.
The guys in the lab had made one connection Jack didn’t—not until he saw the pink slip on Pam’s car. They were carbon copies. Without another piece of carbon-laden paper, a single sheet wouldn’t look or behave any differently from a normal sheet, but combined with another piece of carbon-laden paper, they made copying possible. Not that it mattered—because there were no prints—but if they had used conventional fuming techniques, it would have turned the paper black and any retrievable prints would have been irrevocably lost.
But unlike carbon copies of the past, there would be no black residue on the hands of someone using it, though there might be chemical residue. There were a slew of chemicals used to make the sheets—enough that their safety in everyday use was being questioned. Some of the chemicals included phenol-formaldehyde resins, Bisphenol A, AZO dyes and others. How long would traces of these chemicals remain on the skin?
It was a moot point if he couldn’t find probable cause to connect Patterson to the slip.
It seemed impossible to commit two crimes so close together and not leave loose ends . . . somewhere. At some point, the guy must have made a mistake and Jack was going to find it and nail him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, piecing everything together. Today was Wednesday. Kelly’s body had been discovered Tuesday evening. Provided the killer had, in fact, been the one to nab Baker, when would he have taken her? Over the weekend or sometime Monday . . . but the streets were mostly flooded Monday and Tuesday. If he didn’t nab her straight from work, he would have had trouble getting the car back into the garage . . . which meant he must have snatched her sometime before the rain began . . . with enough time to get the car back into the garage.
Baker’s laptop was being scrubbed, along with her Honda, but the car was spotless—not a watermark on it so it probably hadn’t been driven through the rain and probably wouldn’t yield any prints. But he doubted the killer would leave a laptop if it might contain evidence. . . which told Jack there probably hadn’t been any previous contact between them. Baker’s cell phone was missing among her belongings. Jack had already contacted her provider to ask about GPS tracking. He had also subpoenaed her phone records.
What were the chances both girls had been in the wrong place at the wrong time? More importantly, where was the wrong place?
Everything had happened so quickly, they hadn’t even had time to wonder about Kelly’s Jeep. After the discovery of Baker’s car in the Meeting Street parking garage, they’d sent a patrol car out and found the Jeep missing from her house so they sent out an immediate bulletin. If her Jeep were a newer model, they might have had the benefit of GPS tracking, but no such luck. First thing in the morning, with fresh new light, he was going to see if they’d let him go up in one of the choppers.
Unless . . .
A thought occurred to him, and he jumped up. “Hey
Kyle, can you unlock the door please?”
Almost as though he had forgotten Jack’s presence, the bartender stopped in the middle of cleaning his mug, blinking, but, seeing the look on Jack’s face, he didn’t say another word. He hurried out from the bar to unlock the door. Jack slapped a twenty on the countertop and grabbed his keys and cell phone.
No cop wanted to assume something so shitty could happen on his own doorstep—and because the kid had witnessed a swimmer, they’d all surmised the body was transported and dropped at Brittlebank Park, but what if Kelly was taken straight from work? No one had even considered checking the Lockwood parking lot for Kelly’s car.
Chapter Thirty-Six
All you can do is start out with the best motives....
Caroline spent the entire night hearing Savannah’s words bounce around her head. She tossed and turned, trying to figure out what she might have done differently.
She was missing something. Brad had been the one to talk to Jennifer Williams’s mother, but what if Brad had handed Pam the baton, knowing he wasn’t going to get the limelight for the story, and what if Pam were pursuing some lead they didn’t know about?
She probably could have called, but rather than take the chance of being turned away, Caroline got in her car the next morning and instead of driving into the office, she made the hour-and-a-half trek to Murrells Inlet to talk to Jennifer Williams’s mother. Some interviews were better done in person. Although she had promised Frank she wouldn’t write another story, this wasn’t about seeing her name in a byline, or about needing to control the paper, it was about locating a young woman Caroline felt responsible for.
Amanda Hutto had never been found. Jennifer Williams was still missing. Was Pam still alive?
If there was something—anything—Ms. Williams might tell her about her daughter’s disappearance or about Ian Patterson, it was worth the drive. She called Frank to let him know where she was going. He surprised her by not offering a single objection.
The trip, however, yielded nothing, except to highlight the ambivalence of the woman’s faith in Patterson’s innocence. It seemed to Caroline that the woman’s guilt over the falsified charges was keeping Ms. Williams from looking at circumstances clearly.
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