by LENA DIAZ,
Their huddle broke apart and Tessa’s father offered his hand to Matt.
“You must be the PI my little girl mentioned on the phone, Mr. Buchanan.”
“Call me Matt, please.”
“Matt. You can call me Pete. Come in, come in.”
Tessa’s mother didn’t meet them in the entryway. Instead, she was waiting in the adjoining living room, demurely sitting on a white couch, dressed in a pair of dark blue slacks and a tucked-in white cotton blouse. She rose when they entered, her actions graceful and contained. But in spite of her decorum, her obvious joy at seeing her daughter shined in her eyes. When she hugged Tessa, Matt noted her gray hair was pulled back in a long braid down her back. Like mother, like daughter.
She surprised Matt by hugging him too. “Mr. Buchanan, please call me Emma. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Tessa has told us a lot about you over the years.”
“She has?” He glanced at Tessa over the top of her mother’s head. “I’d love to hear what she had to say.”
Tessa cleared her throat. “I may have mentioned how annoying you were at Madison’s wedding.”
Her mother shot her an admonishing look. “I’m sure that wasn’t what you said at all. As a matter of fact, I remember you saying—”
“Mom,” Tessa interrupted. “We’re on a tight time frame. Do you have the photo albums I asked about over the phone?”
“Well of course, dear. They’re right over here.” Emma led Tessa to a rolltop desk beside a bookshelf.
Matt would have paid a small fortune to hear whatever Tessa’s mother had been about to say before Tessa cut her off. Instead, he followed her father to one of the two couches separated by a coffee table. Tessa and her mother placed four thick albums on the table in front of the men and sat on the other couch.
Tessa briefly, and vaguely, explained that she and Matt were working on a case, but she didn’t give her parents any significant details. She also neglected to mention that she’d been suspended.
“So, you see,” she concluded, after giving a sanitized version of the investigation, “we believe the man who wrote those letters could be someone I used to know when I was little. But since I don’t remember much of my past, we hoped you could fill in some gaps, or provide a starting point so we can go from there.”
Pete frowned. “Well, I guess that explains why you’re suddenly interested in these albums when you’ve never wanted to look at them before. But I reviewed the albums with the FBI when they did your background check years ago. Wouldn’t all that be in their files?”
“The FBI doesn’t let us look at our own background checks. That’s all confidential.”
Her father’s frown deepened. “But if the information might help with an investigation, wouldn’t they make an exception?”
Matt waited to see if she’d admit she’d been suspended.
“Um, yes, that’s true,” Tessa said. “But getting the personnel files on an old background check takes a long time. I was hoping we could save time.”
She fidgeted and wouldn’t look her father in the eye. She obviously wasn’t used to lying to her parents, because she was doing a lousy job.
“Honey, are you in some kind of trouble?” her father asked.
She cleared her throat. “Of course not. Why?”
His brow crinkled. “I get the feeling something is worrying you and you aren’t telling us everything.”
Tessa gave Matt an imploring help-me look.
He pulled the first album toward him and flipped it open. “Mr. James, would you mind walking me through these pictures? Can you tell me the names of all these people?”
“Of course, of course. But call me Pete.”
“Yes, sir. Pete.”
Pete’s brow smoothed out and soon he was animatedly describing every major event in his daughter’s life, with all the enthusiasm of a proud and loving father.
Tessa mouthed a silent thank you.
Matt gave her a quick nod and turned his attention to the albums. He couldn’t help noticing that Tessa completely ignored the albums and spoke quietly to her mother while her father spoke to Matt.
Had she really never looked at the albums? Was she afraid of what she might see?
When Pete finally paused long enough to give Matt an opening, Matt flipped to the first page again and pointed to the black-and-white photo. It showed a group of adolescent girls lined up in front of a white, two-story building. They were all wearing plain, identical dresses. And the name of the building was engraved in an archway above them: JESSAMINE MANOR.
“Tessa said she was adopted,” Matt said, “but she didn’t mention she was in a group home.”
Pete glanced at Tessa, who appeared to still be in deep conversation with her mom, not paying attention to the men. He leaned in close to Matt.
“She knows she was in a group home, but she remembers next to nothing about it. Talking about her past, before she came to live with Emma and me, has always been uncomfortable for her, so she avoids it.”
He pointed to the picture. “She’s the fifth young lady from the right,” he said, his voice raised again so Tessa and her mom could hear him if they were interested. “We knew as soon as we met her that she was going to be our daughter. All that red hair and those green eyes.” He pointed to his own red hair, as if to help Matt connect the dots. “It was a sign.”
His wife took Tessa’s hand in hers, and Matt realized from the way Tessa glanced at him that she hadn’t been tuning out his conversation with her father nearly as much as she’d pretended.
“It wasn’t just her resemblance to my husband that made us want her,” Tessa’s mom said. “It was the look in her sad eyes that just about broke our hearts. We’d planned on adopting a younger child, but there was something about her that spoke to us. We filed for adoption that same day, took her home a few weeks later.”
Matt took out his computer tablet and tapped a few quick notes, including the date in the far-right corner of the picture and the name of the girls’ home.
“Is the group home here in Georgia?”
“No, it was near Greenville, in South Carolina.”
South Carolina. Where the two most recent victims had been murdered. That thought sent a chill of dread through Matt. Was the killer sending a signal with those two kills? Was he letting Tessa know he was coming for her next? The killer had no way of knowing Tessa didn’t remember her past, that she didn’t know the significance of anything in the letters. What if the killer assumed all along that she remembered him? Was the name on each successive letter supposed to mean something to her?
“Tessa, what do you remember about Jessamine Manor?” Matt asked.
She shook her head. “Not much. Just impressions. A white house, dormitory-style rooms. White uniforms. Everything was so . . . bland.” She twisted her hands together.
“How did you end up there?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t remember. Daddy knows more about it than I do.” She stood, rubbing her arms as if she were chilled. “Mom, do you have anything to drink around here?”
“Of course, dear.” Her mother rose and patted Tessa on the shoulder. “Where are my manners? I should have offered refreshments as soon as you two arrived. Let’s make everyone some sweet tea.”
Pete shook his head and opened the second album. “I told you Tessa doesn’t like to talk about her past. She never has. I think she remembers more than she wants to admit, and whatever she does remember is too . . . disturbing . . . to talk about. We took her to a therapist when we first adopted her, but it seemed to cause more harm than good, so we stopped.”
“More harm than good?”
“The more she went, the more agitated she became. It was the therapist who recommended we stop the sessions. Turns out that was good advice. Leaving her past in the past was the best thing we could have done. She was a much happier child after that. Did Tessa tell you she didn’t speak for a whole year after she was transferred to that group home?”
“No, sir. She didn’t. Where was she transferred from?”
“Another group home, can’t say I remember the name. She was about seven years old. No one knows what happened to her biological parents. We don’t even know her original last name.”
“How is that possible?”
“The home’s administrator said Tessa’s records, and those of some of the other children, were lost during the transition from the previous home to the new one.”
Matt couldn’t imagine something like that happening. There had to be more to that story.
Tessa and her mother came back into the room, each of them carrying two glasses of iced tea. Matt murmured his thanks and took a glass from Tessa.
Pete narrated the rest of the albums while Matt made notes. Unfortunately, he didn’t think anything he’d learned was going to be particularly useful, other than the name of the home where Tessa had been. Tessa, it seemed, had never made many friends, so the people she’d known comprised a short list.
Half an hour later, Pete closed the last album. “If you want to take these with you, you’re welcome to them.”
“As long as you bring them back,” Emma added.
“Of course, ma’am. And yes, I’d like to take these and look through them again.”
Tessa set her glass down. Matt took that as his cue. He stood and shook Pete’s hand.
“Thank you for your help. Both of you. It was nice meeting you.”
“I’ll get some bags to carry the albums.” Emma hurried into the kitchen while Pete led Matt into the entryway.
Pete leaned in close again. “Be honest with me, young man.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Is my little girl in danger?”
“I’m perfectly safe.”
They both turned to see Tessa standing in the doorway between the family room and the entryway. Apparently she’d been paying more attention than either of them had realized.
Her mother hurried into the entryway and Matt took the bags of albums from her.
Tessa proceeded to give both of her parents the standard FBI party line about investigations covering every possible angle. She told them any link to her past was only theoretical and highly unlikely to pan out into anything useful for their case. She insisted she wasn’t in any danger.
Matt had to grit his teeth to keep from contradicting her. Was there any danger to Tessa? Hell yes. A serial arsonist had sent letters bragging about his murders to the same FBI office where Tessa worked. And her fingerprint on the notes made it glaringly obvious the killer knew her. Those two facts, when combined together, made it pretty damn likely the killer was specifically targeting Tessa. Why would she keep that from her parents?
Then again, maybe she had a completely different relationship with her parents than he had with his dad and brothers. There were no secrets in the Buchanan family. He’d grown up in a household where law-enforcement officials were a constant fixture, parading in and out of the house, having brainstorming sessions with his father over the many cases he litigated.
By the time Matt was an adult he was well aware of the kinds of dangers that existed in the “real” world, which had probably helped form his decision to become a private investigator. He would never consider hiding the truth from his father, but Tessa was busily sheltering her parents from worry by denying the obvious truth. He didn’t agree with her approach, but it was her choice to make and none of his business to say otherwise.
They said their good-byes and headed outside, but Matt paused on the top step as another thought occurred to him.
“Pete, Emma, if Tessa didn’t remember anything about her past, and her records were lost, how did you know her age when you adopted her?”
“Because of the bracelet.” Emma smiled at Tessa. “You remember, dear. The little pink bracelet you used to wear? The administrator said Tessa had it on when she arrived and never took it off. Give me a minute and I’ll get it.” She disappeared back inside. When she came out again, she placed something in Tessa’s hand.
Tessa held her palm out to Matt. In the middle was a small, cheap bracelet, the kind a child might make from a craft kit from a superstore. Braided pink plastic strings were threaded with little white cubes, each with a letter or number on it, spelling out Tessa’s name and her birth date.
“I’d forgotten about this.” A wisp of a smile curved Tessa’s lips. She held the bracelet up and examined it more closely. Her breath caught and her eyes widened. She curled her fingers around the keepsake, shutting it in her palm.
“Mom, do you mind if I take this with me?”
“Of course not. It’s yours.”
Tessa rushed through another round of good-byes, and soon she and Matt were driving down the street in his car. As soon as they rounded the corner out of sight of her parents, he pulled over and cut the engine.
“Mind telling me what freaked you out back there?”
She uncurled her fingers.
Matt scooped up the bracelet and studied it the way she had back at the house. Then he saw what she must have seen. On the last little square cube—faded, but still clear enough to see—was the same little curlicue the killer had signed to all the letters.
HE STUFFED THE body into the toolbox of his truck and flipped the lid closed. He’d chosen his location well. Here at the back of the apartment complex, behind the maintenance shack, the only witnesses were a couple of squirrels perched on the branch of a pine tree at the edge of the woods.
The kill had been pathetically easy. One crack of a tire iron and the man had crumpled to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head. No fight, no challenge, no fun.
He fingered the box of matches in his pocket. The thrill of the burn was what he really wanted. But that wasn’t the plan. This kill was just a means to an end, and he couldn’t afford to draw attention by starting a fire.
Not yet.
He smoothed the tan maintenance uniform with the name Earl monogrammed on the right breast pocket. Earl. He liked that name. Big, strong, like him. If he had more time, he might have chosen to use that name for himself. But time was the one thing he no longer had.
He hefted the ring of keys the real Earl had been carrying and headed across the parking lot. When he reached his destination, he glanced casually around.
It was the middle of the day. Most of the people in the complex were at work. Again, no witnesses. Perfect.
He shoved the master key into the lock and stepped inside Apartment 121.
It was small, just one open room, really. A red couch, a TV, a bookshelf. A round table with two chairs to his right, the kitchen behind that. The bedroom must be straight ahead, down the hallway in front of him.
He was surprised she lived this simply. Maybe the FBI didn’t pay as well as he assumed it did.
He fingered the box of matches in his pants pocket again, rubbing his thumb across the rough magnesium strip on the side in one long, slow caress. He ran his other hand over the deep red fabric of the couch, enjoying the way the soft texture teased the scars on his hands. The floor was formed by planks of dark, polished wood, lying side by side like giant matchsticks, waiting for a spark to bring them to life.
A shudder ran through him and he stroked the box of matches again, faster. No, not yet. He drew a deep breath. He had plans for his girl. Since she hadn’t come to him, he was going to take her back home himself. Everything was ready, waiting for her. When he was through, she’d beg for her life.
Not that it would do her any good.
TESSA HELD HER apartment door open so Matt could carry in the heavy photo albums.
“You can set those on the table. I appreciate you taking the detour here before we go to the lab to follow up on that botanist idea. I didn’t want to leave those old pictures in a hot car. Mom will kill me if something happens to them. I’ll get some dental floss.”
“Dental floss?”
“To run behind the photos you want to copy. Unless you have a better strategy for removing old glued pictures from an
album without tearing them.”
He plopped the albums on the table. “Dental floss it is.”
Normally, he would have relished the sway of her hips as she walked away from him, but he was too busy noticing how pale she looked. Seeing that little curlicue on that bracelet had shaken her, but she’d insisted she still didn’t remember anything and that she was fine.
She disappeared into the bathroom and came out a moment later with the floss in her hand. After tossing the dispenser to Matt, she headed into the kitchen.
“Beer? Wine?”
He glanced at his watch. It was only a little past noon. “No thanks. Maybe I can take you to the Wilkes House for a good old-fashioned Southern lunch when we leave.”
She laughed and twisted the top off a beer. “Good luck getting in. Or did you bribe some tourists to stand in line this morning to try to get us a spot at a table?”
He crossed his fingers and held them up in the air. “Me and Mrs. Wilkes are tight. She’ll let us in.”
“Right. I’m not buying it. Besides, we ate breakfast not too long ago. What, are you worried I’m going to get drunk again?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
He shrugged and worked the dental floss under the edge of the picture of Tessa standing in front of the group home.
“Fine. You win.” She poured the beer out in the sink and tossed the bottle in the recycle bin.
Matt popped the picture out of the album. “The floss worked.”
“You only wanted the one picture?”
“It’s the only one that seems relevant right now. Is there anything else you needed while we’re here?”
“No, I—” Her phone rang and she dug it out of her purse. Her eyes widened when she saw the screen. “Casey, hello.” She held up her hand, letting Matt know she’d be right back and went into the kitchen to talk.
Matt decided to put the albums in the bookshelf in the living room. It seemed like the obvious place for them. Tessa could always move them later if she disagreed.