Page 51 of Last Seen

Chapter Thirty-Five

She hasn’t lied to the sheriff about her emotional state.

She is outwardly calm, but inside, everything is surreal, as if Halley were in a dream, departed from her body and watching from above.

The anger and fear fuel something deep inside that shuts off her senses, and she enters some sort of fugue state.

It happened when she was fired. It happened when she found out Cat murdered her mother.

And it’s happening now, again, in front of witnesses.

She is present, but not. She watches the scene being processed and enacts her own role in the play— move over there; what is that?

Look down; there is blood on your shoes —but doesn’t feel anything.

There are no sensations but horror, playing on a loop.

Does this strange state emanate from the original murder?

The head injury she sustained during her mother’s death?

Is there now a lack of control in her prefrontal cortex?

Is she a toddler having an emotional-meltdown tantrum because her brain stopped developing at six when she was lashed with unassailable trauma?

Is she simply in shock, the reality of the situation settling in? Three women dead. Three innocent people who did nothing but lend an ear to a friend and stranger.

Is it because she knows, deep in her heart, she is close to the murderer?

She is responsible for their deaths, just as surely as if she’d held the knife in her own hand.

She watches and waits. The killer is here. He is nearby. If she is careful, sentient, she will catch him out. If she steps wrongly, she will be at the receiving end of his knife.

She wonders now if the motivation behind the murders even matters.

What will she do at the end? Try to reason with them?

Ask questions and demand answers before she submits to the fateful cut?

Of course, it won’t be like that. Whoever is doing this is playing a game, a sick and twisted game, and she is the chess piece they most covet.

She is the queen, and all the moves are designed to fell her.

The knowledge of this, the understanding of her own futility, is almost a relief. There is an inevitability to this game.

But what if there is a stalemate?

In too many games, there can be no tie. There is always a winner, and there is always a loser. But in this one, perhaps there is a way to come to a draw. She just has to find it.

Noah Brockton arrives on the scene moments after his father, flour in his hair and a wild look in his eyes. He makes straight for Halley. “Are you okay?”

She nods.

“Thank God. Don’t move. I need to talk to Cam.”

He disappears into the cabin. On his heels, first responders and a contingent of townsfolk.

They are bees in a disturbed hive; everyone seems to have a job to do—even the onlookers, standing in a knot at the base of the drive to the cabin, faces ashen and aghast, murmur incessantly.

And lo, a slew of deputies appear, who Halley learns are all volunteers with their own specialized skill sets.

Like firefighters in a rural area, trained well and on call as necessary.

She waits, but not as long as she should.

Tammy’s body is being transferred much too soon for Halley’s liking.

When she worked cases, years earlier, it could take hours before a homicide scene was fully processed and cleared for the victim to be moved.

They are less than an hour in here, and she thinks the sheriff is being pressured to make it all disappear.

The sheriff is not interested in her help, nor her opinions.

Instead, she is forced to sit by Noah in Miles’s golf cart, watching and being watched by the growing crowd, until summoned for processing by one of the sheriff’s volunteer strangers.

On display to everyone, she is fingerprinted, her shoes confiscated, and, in a horrifying move that brings the sheriff running when she pitches a fit, her bag, containing her laptop, her gun, and her phone, is taken as well.

And the note. They’re going to see the note.

Knowing another might be in danger pulls her back to herself at last.

“You can’t take my bag,” she says to the sheriff.

“Come on, Miss James. You know the drill. They will process everything and get it back to you shortly.”

“You have to at least let me keep my phone. It never left my bag. None of the contents did.”

Just let me get my hand in there. Let me slip out that note.

She can tell he’s wavering, but his father is watching, along with much of the rest of town. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he straightens. His tone brooks no arguments.

“This is procedure. Don’t make a fuss. I’ll return them to you myself.”

He ignores her retort—“Procedure my ass”—and disappears back into the cabin.

Frustrated, she turns and sees the people of Brockville watching her.

Theirs are not friendly faces. As if she did this.

As if she were the murderer. Cunning glances her way, openly accusatory looks, the muttering of the crowd.

Sweat breaks out on her forehead. Their frustration is growing.

All they are missing are pitchforks and lit torches and cries of “ Kill it, burn the monster! ” In the sea of anger, there are faces she’s beginning to recognize.

The four kids from the General Store are there, whispering behind their hands.

The friends Tammy ate with, her round table of compatriots, noses red and cheeks streaked with tears.

The people Halley passed on the street as she entered the town; the female jogger with her deluxe side-by-side double stroller and those cherubic blond angels within.

It’s like the whole cast from a movie being gathered in one place for an announcement.

They shuffle and stare and titter. She is exposed and raw.

All she needs now is the news showing up and trying to interview her.

That will set Theo off. And her dad. Any reporter worth their salt will ask about her dismissal from the lab, too, and then she’s tarnishing their reputation and all that she’s built, and it will ruin her chances to sue for her job back, or at least get a proper severance, and Tammy’s face, so slack and empty, the flood of crimson . .. Oh, God, this is bad.

She drags in a breath and the scene begins moving again. No one has noticed her freak-out. And she realizes that is what’s missing here, so stark in its absence.

There is no media.

This is a completely controlled scene, populated only by Brockvillians, and there is no one to report on the story of a dead body found in this small, isolated, exclusive mountain town.

It feels very odd, and very uncomfortable. Though she hasn’t been looking online at the news about Kater’s murder, or Dr. Chowdhury’s, she knows stories are being done. They must be. Two murders in a small town are catnip to reporters.

But here? There is nothing. No one. No news trucks with satellite dishes, no cameras, no field reporters. Their absence feels almost sinister.

Will the townspeople allow word to get out that one of their brethren has fallen? Or will this be hidden away, become part of the lore of Brockville?

Is that why they’ve taken her phone and she is being guarded by the founder’s son?

Halley is starting to spin out again. She needs to get herself together. Now. Her life depends on it.

With no real recourse, and not wanting to face the sea of fury lining the drive of the writers’ retreat any longer, she agrees to be given a ride back to her cottage to change and shower.

Noah, pale and serious, follows in his own golf cart.

He has become her unofficial bodyguard. Who knows, maybe he is the official one.

The way Miles controls his sons is disturbing.

She watches them all talking, sees the other two brothers who also worked for the town for the first time.

They are uncannily alike, the four of them.

All variations on a theme of their father.

None of them are the man she met in Marchburg.

So where does the stranger fit into all this? The man who, for the briefest of moments, she saw in Miles Brockton’s face?

She isn’t sure she wants Noah near her, not sure she wants any of the Brocktons near her, but at the same time, she is strangely grateful for his company. He feels like he’s on her side. They have a strange connection, the intimacies of their overnight confessional coupled with ... something.

When she comes from the shower and sees him slumped in one of the chairs in the cottage’s living room, in a position not unlike the one she found Tammy’s body in, a streaking thought flies through her mind. Is he the murderer?

No, of course not. He would have his hands around her throat by now if he were.

Then another. Why is it only the women she’s talked to have died?

And one more. Why has the murderer not tried to kill her yet?

He will, soon enough.

She needs to alert Baird Early about what’s happened here. It’s time for her to raise the red flags and have someone drag her from the undertow. Because she is sinking; she is drowning. She is afraid. She is no longer in control.

But she needs to keep her head about her. Someone here asked for her help, and she is loath to leave before finding out who.

There is no way to send a text message from the landline, but she can make a call out.

There’s only one problem. Any 9-1-1 call she makes from here is going straight to the Brockville switchboard.

Which means her only chance to reach Early directly is calling the Marchburg police station, and she has to look up the number. She has no way to do that.

She has another option. Make for the kitchen and dial Theo.

He will come running, this she knows. He will send the cavalry. But to what end? Does she need saving? Rescuing? If this killer wanted her dead, she would be.

She makes a pretense of banging around in the kitchen and lifts the receiver. The phone is dead. Was it never hooked up? Or has the line been cut to isolate her further?

Noah has a phone. She can just use his.

Her hair is wet, and she is bone weary, but she takes a seat opposite the chef. He doesn’t look up.

“You okay?”

“Bad morning,” he replies.

“Yeah. You were friends?”

“I’ve known her a long time.”

“I’m sorry.”

They sit in silence for a few moments. Finally, Halley blows out a breath.

“Do you have any pictures of your family on your phone?”

Noah nods. “Of course. Why?”

“I was just curious about them. It’s unusual these days for a family to have the kind of proximity yours does. Everyone working for Dad, living where you grew up, that kind of thing. There’s usually at least one who goes off to be a monk or something.”

He laughs weakly. “I guess that would be me. I left but came back.”

“Do you have cousins?”

“Sure. My dad’s little sister, MaryEmily, has three kids—two boys and a girl. I think the girl is a doctor, and the boys ... one is a park ranger, and the other works IT for some company in Silicon Valley. They’re all very different from us.”

“Did they grow up here, too?”

“Oh, no. We’re not close. Dad and MaryEmily had a pretty bad falling-out after he came back from Maine. She was pretty pissed at him for disappearing without word for so long.”

“What was he doing in Maine?”

Noah eyes her searchingly. “Why all the questions, Halley?”

“I’m just trying to figure out some stuff.”

“Then ask me directly. I have nothing to hide, and after today, I’m not responding well to subterfuge.”

“All right. I’m looking for someone. He was in Marchburg, and I think he’s involved in all of this, deeply. For a second, when your dad was angry, I recognized something about him. I’m wondering if he’s related to you or the family in some way.”

“Well, there’s only the four of us.”

“The cousins, maybe? Any pic of them?”

“That’s a stretch. Maybe my aunt has some on her Facebook? I don’t know, I haven’t seen them in years. But I can’t imagine one of my cousins being a killer. They’re ... normal. Probably more so than any of us, considering.”

“Maybe your dad had an affair, and—”

“Halley. Stop. Okay? I don’t have it in me right now. Can we pivot?”

“All right. Sorry. Pivoting. I need to get in touch with some people. Your brother has my phone. And the house phone here is dead.”

“And? You want me to get it back?”

“Well, yes. But in the interim, I was hoping to look up a number?”

He pulls out his phone. “Tell me.”

“Chief of Police Baird Early. Marchburg, Virginia.” She holds her breath but Noah doesn’t hesitate. He searches for a minute.

“Main number okay?”

She nods, and he dials the phone. Puts it on speaker. Halley relaxes a touch. She is not a captive after all.

Early is on the line a minute later, anger simmering in his voice. “Brockton called me, told me what was happening. You okay?”

“He called you?”

“Yeah. Said you had yourself another close call. What exactly is going on, Halley? Where are you now?”

“I’m in a cabin in Brockville. Noah Brockton, the sheriff’s brother, is with me. I’m fine. I’m safe.”

“Not when there’s a murderer on the loose. Brockton tells me you spoke with the victim before her death?”

“Yes. Just like all the rest.”

“Halley. You need to come home.”

Noah clears his throat. “Sir, I think it’s better if she stays here for the time being. We’re in an isolated area, and now everyone’s on their guard. We can keep her safe. Much safer than if she headed out on the road.”

“Which I tried to do before my tires were slashed and my engine tampered with. I want out of here, too, Baird. I need—”

“Then I’ll come get you myself,” he says with finality.

“I appreciate that. But I was about to say I need to stay here for the time being. I’m close to figuring all of this out, and whoever is killing these women is trying to stop me from learning the truth.”

“Plenty of truth to be learned from right here in Marchburg. You’ll be safe here.”

“Kater wasn’t safe. Dr. Chowdhury wasn’t safe. I don’t think I’ll be safe no matter where I am, Baird. The killer is trying to get my attention. He has it.”

“So what, you’re going to sit there and wait for them to show up? It may not be a him, Halley. We know that now.”

“How?”

“How do you think?”

“You have DNA?” She turns away from Noah’s searching eyes. She can’t bear to watch him deflate with this reality. Noah seems too innocent by half. A chef, looking to create beautiful things, to evoke wonderful emotions. There is no darkness in him. At least not this kind.

“We do. From both scenes. Like the killer was cut during the attack. But here’s the part that is going to blow your mind.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a match in CODIS.”

“A match? So you know who the killer is?”

“I can’t say that definitively. But I do know who the blood at the scenes belongs to.”

“Who?” she asks, dread building in her gut.

“Your sister.”