Page 15 of Last Seen
Chapter Nine
Exhausted after an afternoon of watching her dad alternately sleep and grimace in pain, and dealing with the hospital and insurance company, Halley picks up a pizza, changes into her pj’s, and collapses in the living room.
She eats, but her heart isn’t in it. She’s just watching the clock, waiting for Theo to wrap up his workday before she reaches out to ask for a huge favor.
He hasn’t called her back, which means he is probably out in the field, serving warrants or some other fun thing.
He’s been training a junior agent so has a lot of scut work teaching the newbie the ropes.
Or maybe he hasn’t called back because she’s walked out—again, technically—and he’s coming to grips with that.
She has rehearsed what she’s going to say, how this is a professional ask and she will be in his debt for life, et cetera, but the moment Theo’s face comes up on the screen, and his deep voice greets her with a confused “Hals, you okay?” the floodgates open.
It takes a solid five minutes for her weeping to stop, and by the last hiccupy tear, Theo has heard the whole sordid story.
He gives a lot of nonjudgmental comfort, which makes her feel gooey and warm inside, and Halley realizes she might be a little more broken up about leaving him than she’s been letting on.
She hates seeing her marriage collapse. They used to be so good together, as friends and as lovers.
But she can’t help it; she wants a child more than anything.
And he’s been crystal clear that it won’t be on his watch. That makes everything impossible.
She hardens her heart again, protecting it, shielding it. She left for a reason. She will not be drawn back into this man’s web just because he’s giving her a shoulder to cry on.
“This is a professional ask,” she says, and Theo nods, his own face shuttering.
“Understood. Can you tell me more? I need details if I’m going to dig into the databases for you.”
Halley gives him everything she’s found thus far and can hear him typing in the background.
Finally, the words she’s been hoping for and yet dreading come. “Yeah, your mom is in the system. I have her autopsy here. Do you want to hear the details?”
“No. But go ahead. I think I have to.”
“It was a straightforward stabbing, with six wounds, midsternum and thoracic. Cause of death was exsanguination due to multiple stab wounds. It’s been closed since 1989, since your sister admitted guilt and was incarcerated.
She was in the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center, then Central State Hospital from 1989 to 1991.
She was released on her eighteenth birthday. ”
“And then?”
“She met the requirements for parole and exited the system in 1993.”
“So she murdered a woman and only spent two years behind bars? And two more on parole? That seems ... lenient. Then where did she go?”
“Unknown. There’s nothing in the files. There was a psych consult, but I don’t have the transcript here.”
“My dad mentioned Cat was psychotic. Hearing voices. But she was diagnosed with borderline personality, not bipolar or schizophrenia.”
“You’ve got to think about the time frame.
There were many incorrect diagnoses in the eighties and nineties.
They didn’t know what they didn’t know, especially for juvenile patients.
They just thought everyone had ADD and put them on meds.
That she went to Central State—they had a juvenile psychiatric program.
Must have been something happening with her mental health. ”
“Fair. So here’s something else odd,” Halley says. “I found a missing persons report dated 2002. From Boston.”
“I see it. Do you need me to pull the details?”
“Could you? Especially who submitted it?”
“Of course. And I’ll have a look at the rest of the case file, too, see if there’s anything relevant. Can I get back with you later?”
“Um—”
“It’s just that ... Charlie misses you. He’ll want to see your face. But I have to get out of here before someone questions why I’m at my desk and gives me another case to manage.”
“Of course. Take your time. It’s been fifteen years. Another couple of days isn’t going to matter.”
“Sage thinking,” Theo says. “You hang in there.”
And then she’s alone again.
It gets dark at night in the mountains. The winds blow hard through the trees.
Shadows grow where there were once empty spaces.
And this late spring night is chilly, so the fire’s backdraft keeps pushing smoke into the room.
It smells like rain. She’s set up the iMac on the kitchen table, spread out all her notes and files.
Her little room upstairs isn’t big enough for all this.
Theo FaceTimes her at 9:00 p.m., and she answers the call with trepidation. Until yesterday, they haven’t spoken much since she left, and she hasn’t seen him in person, either.
He has a nice face to look at. Square jaw, beard scruff, thick hair that has been recently shorn into a much more professional look than when she first met him.
They’d slammed into one another at the 9:30 Club, literally slammed, dancing to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
It was her first show back in her last year of grad school, and she’d practically fallen into the arms of this huge man with a thick shock of shaggy black hair and vivid blue eyes.
Her first thought: musician—which he was, a bassist, lapsed—but he was just there to enjoy the show.
They hung out all the rest of the night, avoiding the sticky spots, playing six degrees of separation, the DC version—do you know X, no but I know Y knows her, and she knows Z, hell, Z is my roommate—and things took their natural course from there.
He was a year older and had just gotten started at ATF as a junior agent.
Luckily, he was stationed in DC. And his GS-7 salary meant they were able to have some fun.
They dated their way through the shows, and she saved each ticket in a special envelope, knowing that this might be an important relationship that she would want markers for.
She had every ticket from every show she’d ever seen in a scrapbook on the shelf in her empty room in DC.
Music is her passion, almost as important to her as evidence collection.
They both took levels of excellence and precision that many people didn’t have the patience for.
“Hey—” She bites back the babe that normally follows. She has to keep this professional, or she’ll fall right back into his arms and spend the rest of her life seething with resentment. That won’t be good for either of them.
“Hey,” Theo says, then clicks his tongue. “Charlie, c’mere, boy.”
The blue-eyed husky traces onto the screen. Seeing her face, he turns in happy circles, baying hello.
“Hi to you, too, Charlie.”
“You okay, Halley? You look tired.”
“I am. It’s been a rough twenty-four hours. Are you okay?”
He smiles, a quick flash of white in his tanned face, and she sees a deep scratch on his cheek. He gestures to it. “It’s nothing. A fifty-cal kicked back on me. I’ll tell you all about it later. Let’s worry about you first.”
Interested in the commotion, the cat leaps onto the desk and sticks his nose in her ear. “That cat has gotten even bigger since I saw him last.”
“I don’t disagree. I think he has some Maine coon in him, but Dad’s clearly been indulging him.” She tries stuffing him into her lap, only manages to get half of him, so he has his paws on the keyboard like he’s typing. “Ailuros likes to be seen. Hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s good to see you ,” he says softly.
This is why it’s taken her so long to leave.
Because he gets that look in his eyes. It would be so much easier if he’d cheated on her or beat her.
Wasted their money on booze or gambling.
Anything else but this tearing apart of her soul because they can’t agree on the most basic covenant of their marriage.
His reasoning—his job is too dangerous, he doesn’t want to orphan a kid like his dad orphaned him—has never felt completely right to her.
Like he’s hiding something, holding back the whole truth.
Maybe it’s just that some dreams are harder to give up than others.
Keep it business, Halley. Don’t do this to yourself, and don’t do it to him. You settled this mess when you left. He isn’t going to change his mind.
“Don’t. Please. Not now. I don’t want to fight. Were you able to get anything?”
He shifts in his leather desk chair, which makes a familiar squeak of protest. Charlie flops on his fleece bed on the other side of the office; she can see his tail wagging. It is surreal to be a voyeur into her own home. Not your home anymore, Halley.
Theo taps his hand on a file. “I was. How much do you want?”
“I want it all.”
“There’s autopsy photos and crime scene stuff. I don’t know—”
“I’ve seen my fair share of those over the years.”
“This is different. It’s your mom. I’m not saying you aren’t professional as hell, but it’s ... it’s not pretty, Hal.”
“I expect it’s pretty horrible. But how else am I going to figure this out? I need to repopulate my memory. I can’t explain the dislocation I’m feeling right now. Everything I’ve thought and believed about myself is gone. I’m a stranger.”
“You’re you, Halley. That will never change. You’re just filling in some blanks, that’s all.”
“Seeing the crime scene photos will do that, I think. Don’t you? It could trigger some memories. I don’t have anything accurate from that day.”
“Maybe.” He sighs. “I’ve pulled together a package for you, including the postmortem report and some of the notes.”
“The murder book?” Halley asks hopefully.
“I can’t get the murder book. You’ll need to go begging to the Nashville police for that. There’s quite a bit of information in the postmortem report, though. I’ll email what I have here, and FedEx the rest. You’ll have the hard copies in the morning.”