Page 14 of Last Seen

Chapter Eight

Halley forces herself to spend the rest of the morning at the hospital, talking to doctors and nurses and therapists, listening with half an ear to the plan for her dad over the next few weeks, trying, and failing, to wrap her head around the story her father shared.

Her mind veers away whenever she tries to think about the reality of her mother’s death. The crash is always there; it always has been. It’s a sudden thing, the pain, the blackness, the sirens. A sense of panic. There is nothing else.

She’s never remembered any details, only fragments.

Now she knows why. She knows there are neural pathways that are rebuilt after trauma.

She knows people can rewire themselves to not feel pain when thinking about painful situations.

Was she able to manipulate her own brain to protect herself from the emotional upheaval the truth would bring?

According to her dad, she hadn’t told him she saw her mother murdered, only that she woke up to find her dead.

So maybe Halley was unconscious when the act occurred.

With any luck, she will never access that memory.

She doesn’t want to relive it. She heard the agony in her dad’s voice when he said no one should have to see what he did.

But.

“She tried to kill you, too.”

She can’t leave it alone now. There is a rabbit hole for her to go down.

There will be crime scene photos, maybe even video.

Definitely drawings. Evidence collected.

Blood-spatter analysis. All the things she’s been trained to examine, divining truth from the heavens with an analyst’s eye.

There have been a lot of changes in forensics since 1989, too.

And there will be an autopsy report.

God, can she even? Her own mother’s autopsy?

She had considered, for a moment, becoming a forensic pathologist. A noble and interesting occupation, for sure, gleaning answers from the dead.

But it was not her path. She made the decision not to go on to med school her sophomore year, after her pathology class spent a week in the DC morgue.

It was oddly too static for her taste. Halley knew then she wanted to solve the crimes through the science of the case, not by determining cause of death.

Her talent lies in the detailed aftermath, not in the biological truth.

She needs to be removed from the situation to see the evidence presented clearly.

She’d moved away from evidence collection to run the lab itself, but there was a time, early on, when that was her total jam.

The bloodier, the better. She had a discerning eye, could always find the truth, then use the lab to back it up.

You’re removed from this situation, for sure. God, Cat tried to kill me, too?

If there was a trial, there would be transcripts. But if Cat pled guilty, there might have been just an arraignment and sentencing. No matter; there will be legal and forensic documents. Her mother’s murder, and the fallout, will be findable.

Will Halley be able to analyze her own mother’s crime scene with any sort of impartiality? Read the horrific details about the murder and not come apart at the seams?

Impossible to predict, her empirical mind provides. It could be fascinating. It could leave such deep scars you’ll never recover. The chances of the latter are high. But you might get answers. You might remember.

And then, the light bulb: Is this why you are obsessed with forensics? Because your first traumatic event, the moment that shaped your life forever, was a murder scene?

Why had her father not said something?

Her head gives a familiar throb, and Halley decides she needs to take a break. It’s lunchtime, and her dad has had another decent dose of morphine. He is out cold for the next hour, at least. She decides to head to campus and retrieve the insurance information.

Campus is still bustling with fresh-faced girls taking their finals.

At first glance, with long straight locks parted down the middle, they are only distinguishable by their hair color.

They wear their Goode School uniforms like pajamas in the way only teen girls can manage, slouching and unkempt—their blazers and skirts, white shirts and ties coupled with Birkenstocks and white crew socks.

They wander the quad, strolling on the grass between the elaborate redbrick paths calling like blue jays, laughing and strutting.

The bells start to ring; the enormous white bell tower above Main Hall shakes with the effort, and they scatter like quail flushed by pointers.

Halley shakes her head with wonder. Was she ever that young?

Obviously, then, she’d been incredibly naive, immature, and introverted.

She now wonders if that was trauma related.

Did her father homeschool her so long for her sake, or for his?

She will have to readjust every memory, every conversation.

The trust that’s always lain thick between them is broken.

Of course, she finds the insurance letter and card on her dad’s desk, right where he said they would be. If she’d thought to come here first, she would still be in the dark. She wouldn’t know the truth.

Ford Westhaven, the young dean of the Goode School, spots Halley descending the brick stairs of Old East—the same stairs her father fell down—and makes a beeline to her.

She is totally pulled together in a chignon, suit, hose, and pumps.

Halley has never seen the woman with a single hair out of place.

She is elegant and smart, the perfect combination for running this institution.

She took over for her mother, Jude, after the murder. The PR nearly ruined them.

“My dear Halley.” She is enveloped in an effervescent Chanel No. 5 hug. The scent triggers a memory of her mother getting dressed for a faculty dinner. Long blue satin. Beaded bodice. Red lipstick. White carpet. All disjointed, unframed.

Interesting. She usually avoided the dean because Ford wore the same perfume as her mother. Now, she wants to linger and see if more memories fight their way to the surface.

“How is your father? I’ve been worried sick.”

“He’s doing okay, Dean. It was a bad break. They put in a rod and stabilizers, and he’s probably in the hospital for a week or so, minimum. But he’s in good spirits.”

It’s not really a lie. Had Halley not discovered the article, he would be in good spirits. Now, everything is complicated, blurred. All the lines of her life have been plucked like the strings of a poorly tuned harp, the twang resonating and making your skin crawl in its wrongness.

“Well, Quentin has my support. Anything he needs, don’t hesitate to ask. We’ve scheduled the rest of his finals for him, and I’ll act as TA and grade them myself.”

“I’m sure he will appreciate that, Dean. I’ll let him know and get word to you, okay?”

“Do that, my dear. And how are you? You seem ... distracted.”

How am I? Peachy keen, lady.

“Yeah, I suppose I am. There’s a lot going on. I have a couple of weeks’ vacation saved up, so I can take care of him while he gets back on his feet.”

The dean looks enchanted by this. It’s something Halley always remembers, Ford’s enthusiasm for the success of her students.

Most go on to Ivy League schools and make news in a variety of ways, from headlining companies to marrying well.

Halley had chosen a different path, of course.

She wasn’t like the other girls. Now she understands just how different she actually is.

A small part of her heart thaws—her father made one hell of a hard decision, but look what he helped her avoid.

To be the daughter of a murdered mother in this world?

Would she have the strength and verve she does now?

Or would she have collapsed under the weight of the world’s piteous empathy?

She might not have fit in here, but if they’d known the truth?

Girls can be incredibly cruel in their lack of concern.

“Give your old dean a hint what you’re up to?”

Halley’s glad to have her attention pulled back.

She’s hardly going to admit defeat at this moment, in front of the woman who was so kind to her growing up.

“I work in forensic science. A high-end lab where we run samples that are sometimes decades old and degraded, that other labs aren’t sophisticated enough to handle.

We also do very specialized government work from time to time.

Second opinions on high-profile cases, that sort of thing. ”

Dean Westhaven is nothing if not a diplomat.

This is definitely not a typical career path for a Goode girl, but her enthusiasm is not deterred in the slightest. “But how exciting! To have your finger on the pulse of such things. Quentin must be very proud. Though, however did you convince him not to add you to the astronomy faculty?”

They share a genuine laugh this time; her dad’s passion for the stars is well known and much respected.

“Speaking of my dad ...” Halley waves the envelope in her hand. “The hospital needs this. I better get back. It was lovely to see you, Dean.”

“Oh, call me Ford. You’re not a student any longer.”

“Ford. Have a great day. I’ll have Dad circle back about finals.”

She walks the bumpy Chilhowie path back to Main.

She could have gone from the interior of Old East—the buildings are all connected by white wood-and-glass enclosed walkways called trolleys so the girls of Goode aren’t forced outdoors in inclement weather—but she left the Jeep parked in the gracious circular drive in front of Main, and this is the quickest path.

She stands by the Jeep and stares at her alma mater, admiring the symmetry of the redbrick entrance, the wide stairs and double doors leading to the grand foyer, blowing out a breath.

You never feel quite so ancient as when you visit your former high school.

The exchange with her old dean was nice—almost too nice.

She’s going to be seeing shadows everywhere now, she knows.

Second-guessing everything. Because everything seems different.

Will she spend the rest of her life wondering who knew about her real past, and who helped her dad hide it?

Surely the dean is aware of some of it. Her dad’s been spinning the car-accident narrative for a long time.

Was he lying to his employer as well? How did he change their names?

She knows her birth certificate says James on it, not Handon.

God, every thought brings a hundred more questions. Halley feels very alone right now. Who can she ever tell? And without facts, she’s just reacting.

It’s normal to react, Hal. You’ve had a terrible shock, and it’s okay to be upset.

See, all that therapy did help.

But she needs to do research, more research than she was able to do last night. She needs to get deep into the files on her sister, and that, she knows, could be very difficult. If she was charged as an adult, no problem, but as a juvenile, those files could be sealed.

As much as she hates to admit it, she needs Theo.