Page 16 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

Sixteen

Tristan

I try my damnedest to focus on the cold case file I smuggled out of the office. But my mind keeps going back to the Giselle Ward case. I still can’t quite believe I’ve been suspended. In fact, I didn’t believe it.

When I woke up, I started automatically getting ready to go into the office.

Even though it’s a Sunday, I’d planned to go in to work on the Ward case.

I was halfway through brushing my teeth before I remembered I don’t have a job to go to, at least not right now.

I can’t accept that I contaminated evidence.

I’m always so careful. And of all the times to screw up, this is the worst. I need to work this case so I can make the connection between Giselle’s murder and Dana Rowland’s in Arizona.

My thoughts turn to Emily. I glance at the clock.

It’s still a bit early to call, and since I can’t reach her directly, I’ll have to go through Alex.

I worry about Em being up on that mountain when the storm hits.

The Weather Channel map has the Blue Ridge Mountains as the dead center of the storm.

It could get wild up there. Then I remind myself that Alex is there.

She’s clearly self-sufficient. She’ll be able to take care of Emily.

I’d like to get my hands on the police files from the attempt on Alex’s life to see what evidence the authorities gathered back then.

If I hadn’t just been suspended, I could request them through my office, no problem.

But I have been, so I can’t. The other option would be to rely on personal connections with someone up in Windy Rock to get access to the records in an unofficial capacity.

But we left Windy Rock when I was nine, and I haven’t set foot in the town since, so that’s not going to work either.

I chew on the inside of my cheek while I muse, then I open a browser window and search “Alexandra Lincoln stabbing Windy Rock.” The hits come back quickly. I’m surprised at how many results there are given the age of the case. I scan the media reports.

I didn’t know much about the stabbing when it happened.

I was just a kid and our parents and teachers limited our access to information about what happened, which was surprisingly easy to do in the pre-internet, pre-smartphone days.

I heard things here and there, snippets of conversation between adults who didn’t realize we were listening, but not enough to piece together details.

Lexi had been attacked. She was in the hospital in Bangor, and she couldn’t remember who’d done it. This was the sum total of my knowledge.

Then my dad threw himself off the cliff into the ocean, my world tilted, and I forgot all about Lexi Lincoln.

My throat tightens as I think of my father and the immediate aftermath of his death.

My mom hurried us out of town so fast that the closeness in time between his suicide and the attempt on Lexi’s life never clicked for me until years later.

Back then, when it happened and mom told me we were moving, I was devastated Tate wasn’t coming with us.

I’d expected her to fight him on staying behind to finish out his senior year, but she didn’t.

She was so focused on getting out of town that she just let him stay.

I wonder now if that’s all it was or if she knew more than she let on.

We’ve never talked about it. We’ve talked around it, but we’ve never talked about it.

I close the browser, stand up and stretch, and go out to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

Is it finally time to have the conversation that my mother and I have been putting off for two decades?

The thought alone makes my gut seize and my throat clench, so I decide the answer is no, this is not the time.

I need to focus on the investigation. But it’s no surprise that this case, the Rowland case, and, especially, crossing paths with Lexi/Alex is dredging up old emotions and fragments of memories, bringing all that detritus to the surface.

I shake my head to dislodge the thoughts, and promise myself I’ll talk to Dr. Wilde about it during our next call in September. After that, maybe I’ll be ready for a long-overdue heart-to-heart with my mom.

I drain the coffee in three long gulps and return to work.

I have the files from Arizona spread out on my desk and the pictures I took of the Ward file up on my phone.

I look at Dana Rowland’s photo, then Giselle Ward’s photo, Dana, then Giselle, back and forth.

They were both willowy redheads and both extremely fit—an equestrian and a ballet dancer, stronger than they looked.

Alex is a redhead, too. Shorter than the others but she’s more substantial-looking, muscular and sturdy.

The image of her hefting the armload of firewood one-handed pops into my mind.

Cassie doesn’t fit the type at all. She was a curvy blonde. But then, there’s no reason why Cassie would fit the type. She wasn’t the intended victim the night she was killed.

Emily was.

I wonder, as I often do, if my wife knows.

Sometimes I think all her fear and anxiety are the understandable result of finding her roommate butchered in her bedroom.

But sometimes, I think it’s more than that—that she must know.

Her reaction to the scent of sandalwood, her insistence that someone was watching her from the Simmons’ garden, and her flat refusal to do any publicity for her books—these all suggest she believes she’s still in danger.

If that’s what she thinks, she’s right.