Page 34 of Last Seen

Chapter Twenty-Two

Meredith marches Halley through the halls into the chief’s inner sanctum. She takes a seat on the hard metal chair facing Early, and Meredith closes the door and leans against the frame with his arms folded across his chest.

Early dwarfs his government-issue desk. He is clearly upset; his face is red, and he is on the phone with someone, his tone clipped and angry.

“I don’t care. Figure it out,” he says, then slams the phone into its cradle. He takes a deep breath and rubs a big hand over his face.

“Halley,” he says finally.

“Do I need a lawyer?” she blurts out.

Early blinks in surprise, then shakes his head. “No. That’s not what this is about. I’m so sorry to tell you this. There’s really no doubt that Kater was murdered. We have a lot of investigating to do, but we found her body off the highway about five miles north of here.”

“How? How was she killed?”

“She was stabbed.”

Halley tries not to let the emotion of that blunt statement overtake her. An awful lot of stabbing in the past few days.

“Suspects?” she manages.

“Not you, so you can relax. But we have a lot of people we need to talk to. There have to be fifty-odd people who came in and out of Joe’s last night while Kater was there. We need to track down her folks—”

“They moved to Boca Raton last year,” Halley says inanely, because of course the chief knows this; everyone does. It’s a small town, and they made a big fuss about retiring to warmer weather.

“We have the Boca PD reaching out to them right now. But I want to show you some footage from the feedstore, if you wouldn’t mind.

Tell me if you see anyone who looks familiar—as in, might be the stranger who talked to you.

” He swivels the screen of his desktop. Grainy black-and-white footage, snowy with interference.

“What time did you leave?” he asks.

“Probably around eight forty-five, nine o’clock?

No later than nine fifteen. I didn’t look at the clock, but I know I was home and settled before the local news started.

” He moves the time bar to 8:40 and hits play.

They sit in silence, watching the creeping darkness of the parking lot.

She can feel Meredith behind her, watching over her shoulder.

At 8:55 p.m., someone rounds the building and enters the parking lot. They make a beeline to her Jeep. The dome light flashes for a heartbeat, then the door is closed and they’re moving away. There is no sound, but in her mind, Halley hears the motorcycle vroom to life.

“That has to be him,” she says. “Right build, right time. Is there a better shot of his face?”

“No, but we might be able to ask for some help enhancing this video.” Early pauses the video, runs it back. They watch again. It’s really too grainy to see anything for sure. “What’s he doing with your Jeep?”

“I think he took my mother’s file from my bag, and my car keys.

He must have thrown the file into the front seat and then dropped the keys so it would seem like I did it in a rush.

I know for sure I had the file in my bag when I went in, and I would never not lock my Jeep.

” As she says it, there’s another flash of light.

The passenger door of her Jeep is opened again, the dome light shining for the briefest of seconds.

“Who’s that?” Early says. He squints at the screen. “It’s a woman. That you?”

“No, it’s not me,” Halley replies. “I was with Aaron and Kater. Whoever that is, she’s alone.”

The door is closed again, and there is darkness, but seconds later, another moment of light, as if a flashlight reflected off the Jeep’s door or a lighter was lit.

At that exact moment, the woman glances over her shoulder, and Halley feels the chill shoot through her body.

She is a stranger, and there is a look of madness, or desperation, on her face.

It’s hard to tell how old she is exactly, but she’s definitely older than Halley. Maybe in her forties?

“Who is that?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Will you play it back? Can you go slow?”

Early fiddles with the mouse, and the screen goes black, then grainy again. He hits play. “Half speed’s the best I can do.”

The flash of light. The hair. The shape of her face. Then her face, looking over her shoulder, as if startled. Determined. Frightened.

Early hits pause, and Halley shakes her head.

“I have no idea who that is.”

“You sure that isn’t your sister, back from the dead?”

“I don’t think so.”

“When did you see your sister last?”

Halley meets Early’s eyes. “When I was six years old. Probably right after she murdered my mother. And tried to kill me.”

“Halley, you’re absolutely sure this isn’t her? Twenty-eight years is a long time. People change.”

“I am ... ninety percent sure? I can give the sketch artist a description of her, just like I did with the man. I don’t know, maybe with age progression ... but I really don’t think it’s her.”

Now that she’s been reminded, Cat’s face comes to her easily.

Blond curls, cherub lips, clear china blue eyes.

Innocent. Charming. Lovely, when she wasn’t furious and dyeing her hair black and lining her eyes with kohl and sowing hate with her family.

Her natural coloring was the opposite of Halley’s; with her dark hair and eyes, Halley was a twin to their mother.

Cat took after her deadbeat father, something she never stopped crowing about.

A man who disappeared into the fabric of the universe after the divorce and never even sent a birthday card or called.

Her attachment to a practical ghost was epic.

No, the younger version of Cat, though, that’s what Halley is remembering now. There’s exactly zero chance anyone would look at that innocent girl and think she was capable of murder. But truth is truth.

“Run, Halley. Run.”

Not now. She shakes off the echoes of her past. Who was this person, and why was she here at this particular moment in time? Maybe it was someone Halley contacted who decided to get in touch. Maybe it was Alison Everlane, playing some twisted little game. The age is about right.

“I think we should assume that’s another stranger, Chief. Then the question becomes, Who is she and what was she doing in my car? Is she with this guy who was at Joe’s? Or is she after him for something? Maybe a jealous ex, thinking he’s been slinking around with someone else?”

“I have no idea. We did get that partial, and it’s still running in the system.

Maybe it’s female, not male. Let’s see what else we can find.

” Early hits play again, and five minutes later, Halley sees herself on the video, with Aaron and Kater by her side.

They find her keys, chat for a bit. Then she’s off.

When her taillights leave the lot, the video time stamp says 9:03 p.m.

The chief is talking, and Halley is trying to focus, but her mind is going a thousand miles an hour. Someone is paying attention in the most horrible way. She doesn’t like how that feels.

“What now?” she asks.

“Not enough to work with on the male, but the female—I’m going to call a friend in the BCI, see if their techs can help enhance this video so we can get a better look at them both. We need to know who we’re dealing with. And hit your Jeep, of course.”

“That seems eminently reasonable. Can I go now?”

Early shuts down the computer. He’s looking everywhere but at her: the paneled walls, the map of the city, the American flag in the corner, the photos of him shaking hands with President Bush and President Obama when they came through town for fundraising events.

Finally, his eyes land somewhere above her forehead, but at least they’re trained in her direction.

“There’s another reason I wanted you here. We found a note with Kater’s body. On her body. Shoot, Halley, there isn’t a good way to say it. It mentions you by name.”

A cascade of fear flows through her, so intense that the hair on her arms stands up.

Her heart thunders, and she shuts her eyes for a moment, practicing her square breathing, which is designed to tamp down the adrenaline rush that comes with the fight-or-flight response everyone has when faced with danger.

She’s been trained for this. You can’t walk into a bloody crime scene and not have your prehensile tail curl.

To know someone’s evil is directed at you?

“May I see it?” she asks finally.

Early shoots a glance at Meredith, then back at Halley. He opens his top drawer and pulls out a photo. Lays it on the desk gingerly.

Halley tries to process what she’s seeing, but it takes a moment. There is blood. So much blood.

The white carpet painted red. Mama will be so mad.

Gotta get it out gotta get it clean.

“Run.”

“Run, Halley Bear.”

Her mom called her Halley Bear. She hasn’t thought of that nickname in years. Focus!

She trains her eyes on the photo, prepared this time for its horrors.

The knife juts from what must be Kater’s sternum.

She recognizes the fabric of the shirt she’d worn to Joe’s, a blue-and-white swirl that merged into a peony on the back.

The paper is pinned between the knife and her friend’s body.

Ripped out of a spiral notebook—same size and color paper as the one she’s been using.

But no, that’s a bridge too far. Surely.

The notebook’s been with her since she picked it up off the desk.

It’s the words scrawled in thick black marker that make her want to crawl in a hole and never come out. They’re all capped and followed with a lopsided smiley face.

You’re Next Halley Bear