Page 31 of Last Seen

She has to pass Kater’s house to get to the highway; it’s right at the crossroads.

West, you head into Jasper. East, the highway.

The rain is letting up as she reaches the drive.

It used to be Kater’s grandmother’s place; she left it to Kater, who moved in after she passed.

It’s a sweet little cedar shake saltbox with flower boxes in the windows and black shutters.

A white picket fence. She parks the Jeep, walks to the front door, rings the bell.

No answer.

She walks to the back through a tidy garden, pink azaleas in bloom, grateful for the flagstone path.

It’s muddy out here after the storm. Kater’s car is in the carport, and Halley shakes her head in rueful amusement.

She can’t imagine Kater being so hungover that she couldn’t get up and go to work, but clearly she’s still zonked out.

She glances in the car as she passes, just to be safe. Nothing.

The back door has a glass-panel inset with a curtain over the bottom half, so she has to get on tiptoes to look over it. It opens into the kitchen, and there’s a mess. Kater’s purse is on the table.

Halley pulls out her phone and calls. Hears the phone ring, ring, ring. It’s in the purse; the brown leather is shimmying on the table. She waits for Kater to come, bleary eyed, to the table to retrieve it, but nothing. There is no movement.

She puts her hand on the knob, and it turns easily. She steps into the silent kitchen.

“Kater?” she calls loudly. “You in here?” Nothing. She moves farther into the house. “Kater?”

The living room has an open book on the couch and an afghan wadded up. A half-full glass of water sits on the side table.

Halley gets the strange sense that she’s walked into a scene interrupted.

It seems Kater came home, threw her stuff on the table, grabbed some water, and curled up on the couch to read.

A normal night, probably. Says she wasn’t too drunk to drive home and settle in with a book, so that’s good. But something feels off.

She calls down the hallway. All the doors are closed. This is a small house: kitchen, living room, two bedrooms that face the front driveway, and a bath at the end of the hallway. She opens the first door. Nothing. The second. This is Kater’s bedroom, and it looks like a bomb went off. No Kater.

The bathroom door is shut, but she can hear water running. Halley feels a chill, but knocks. “Kater?” No reply. She tries the knob. The door opens. The water in the sink is turned on. Kater’s neon-pink toothbrush lies in the sink, the water rushing over it frantically. The small bathroom is empty.

Halley carefully turns off the water. Now she’s really starting to freak out. Something is very wrong. Her analytical, forensically trained brain says, “ Photograph and catalog .” She doesn’t have a camera, and her notebook is in the car.

The second voice says, “ Call the police .”

So she does. She backs out of the house, stopping at the kitchen door to look closely at the lock. There are scratches in the paint by the brass plate. Someone forced the lock. Heart pounding, she calls 9-1-1.

A soft southern voice answers the call. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“My name is Halley James. I need someone to come out to 6542 Travis Lane. My friend Katie Star didn’t show up for work this morning.

I’m at her house now. All of her things are here, her purse, her phone, and her car is in the drive, but she’s not home.

Water was running in the bathroom sink, there are scratches in the paint by the back door like someone jimmied the lock. Something is wrong.”

“I’ll send the chief right now. Halley James? You remember me? Jessie McGraw? I gave you a tour of the department when you interviewed.”

“I do remember, Jessie. Hi. It’s been a while.”

“You think something happened to Kater?”

The nickname instead of a formal query: this is the joy of a small town.

“She missed her shift this morning, so I stopped by. We were out together last night. Everything here feels ... off. Water was running in the bathroom. Even if she got distracted and went for a run, would she have left the back door unlocked?”

“I don’t know, hon. Chief’s on his way. You stick close and keep your eyes open. Want to stay on with me until he gets there?”

“No, I’m okay. Thanks, Jessie.”

“You ever think about joining the force? I know there’s an opening.”

Halley cringes. Does everyone know she got fired? But no, there’s no way. Jessie’s just making conversation.

“Yeah? I will take it under advisement.”

“We’d love to have you. Smart young thing like you could really rattle some of the good old boys’ cages around here, you know?”

Despite her concern for Kater, Halley is amused. “You know these calls are recorded, don’t you?”

“Oh, what’s Baird Early gonna do, fire me for telling the truth? Besides, I turned it off after you said you were okay. No one here in the room but me.”

They chat for a bit about the crime in the area, mostly petty stuff, and Halley gets the sense this is the most excitement Jessie has seen in months.

She hears the faint wail of a siren. “Sounds like the chief is nearly here.”

“All right. You take care, now, you hear? Think about it. Marchburg could use a bright light like yourself.”

“Thanks, Jessie.” She flips her phone closed as the Marchburg police chief pulls into the drive, his tricked-out black-and-white Ford Expedition effectively blocking her in.

Baird Early is a large square-faced man in a tan uniform and a green trooper’s hat.

Everything about him is slow—his walk, his speech—but his mind is as sharp and intense, the finest of any law enforcement individual she’s ever met.

He is a transplant from Richmond who followed his wife to town when she came home to care for her ailing father.

Like you have, Halley thinks. Only Mrs. Chief Early got it in her head that it would be a good idea to stick around, and now they are never going to leave.

And they say you can never come home again.

“Chief. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Hello, Miss James,” he drawls. “It’s good to see you. Sorry to hear about your daddy. Glad he’s gonna be okay.”

“Thank you. And you can drop the good old boy with me, Chief. I know better.”

He laughs. “You never do miss a trick, do you, Sass?” He called her sassy pants when she was younger, and won’t give it up. “You say Miss Star is missin’? Why would you think that?”

“There was a stranger at Joe’s last night. He creeped me out. I’ve never seen him around, but there was something about him that felt familiar. He asked her about me, but she told him to take a hike. He had a motorcycle, I don’t know what kind. Are there cameras at Joe’s?”

“Nope. But there’s a security camera pointing toward that lot from the feedstore across the way. They put it in last year, someone was stealing the bags of grain from the stack out front. I’ll have a look. So this stranger, he was paying attention to you and Kater? Did you get his name?”

“No. Kater chased him off. God, you don’t think he was pissed and took it out on her?”

“Any idea why he would do that?”

“Maybe. Some men don’t like to be told no. Chief ...”

“What?”

“Do you know anything about my mother’s death?”

He scratches his thigh, the thick fabric bunching beneath his big hand. “Car accident, wasn’t it?”

There is something in his tone, or maybe how he’s looking over her shoulder instead of at her face, that makes Halley take a step back.

“You know the truth. Dad told you about my sister. When? Recently? Or when we moved here?”

He holds up both hands. “It was after I became chief of police. Listen. Your dad was only trying to protect you. He just told me to look out for your sister in case she made a move on you, and I have. She’s never shown up here as far as I know.”

Halley breathes in deeply through her nose, trying to contain the fury. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I can’t believe he didn’t. It’s completely unfair. How am I supposed to trust any of you?”

“An excellent question, but not one for this moment. Right now, we need to worry about Kater.”

“Fine. Yes. But we’re not done with this discussion, Chief.”

Early’s relief is palpable. “Yes. Absolutely. Let’s go inside. Tell me everything you touched. I’m gonna have to print you for exclusion.”

“Of course.” She leads him through her steps, from front door to carport to back porch and door, inside, all the way to the bath. “I turned off the water with my knuckle. That’s it. I stepped out, checked the lock, saw the scratches, and called you immediately.”

He lumbers around the place, harrumphing. “You think she was interrupted brushing her teeth?”

“I do. I think the stranger followed her here. The question is why.”

“You’re asking questions about your mom’s case. Could be you rattled someone’s cage. Tell me what this guy looks like again?”

Halley gives the best description she can of the stranger, and the chief gnaws on a toothpick, looking for all the world like the country bumpkin he pretends to be to disarm people into saying and doing more than they’d like. He gets more confessions than anyone she’s ever seen.

He wanders outside, doing three perimeters before stopping at the edge of the long grass where Kater’s yard meets the meadow. He calls her over. “Get the camera from the back of my cruiser, wouldja?” He tosses her the keys.

“You found something?”

At his implacable look, she hurries to the cruiser, bringing back a Nikon D7200 DSLR camera. She takes off the lens cap and hands it over. He shoots toward the toe of his right boot with an audible click. Then farther, toward the drive. She cranes her neck, but his bulk is blocking the way.

“What is it?”

He glances over his shoulder at her, his face set. “Blood.”