Page 9 of Memory of Murder (Colby Agency: The Next Generation #3)

Johnsburg

Water’s Edge Hotel

Chapel Hill Road, Noon

The rooms were on the second floor and had balconies that overlooked the water. Not such a bad way to spend the next few days. The community of Johnsburg was one of many smaller ones that surrounded Crystal Lake.

Anne wandered from the closed sliding door that led onto the balcony back to the queen-size bed that stood in the center of the room. She opened the small suitcase she had tossed there. She had packed for a stay through the weekend. Being home by Monday was, in her mind, a hard deadline.

Not that she couldn’t nudge it deeper into next week if necessary, but she preferred to be home by then. Since going out on her own she had never spent more than a day or two from work. Lisa would handle things. No need, really, to worry about the business, but somehow she couldn’t help herself.

Jackson Brenner had been right, she realized.

He’d given her a lot to think about on the drive here.

It hadn’t taken that long. Just over an hour.

She’d spent that time wondering why none of her mother’s supposed closest friends had checked on Anne after she was moved into foster care.

She imagined it was possible one or the other had attempted to take her in and had been turned down.

Anne couldn’t see any reason that would have happened.

The more likely scenario was that no one had tried.

None testified on Mary’s behalf. Given their testimony, why in the world would any have wanted to welcome her child into their lives?

Eve Redford (now Langston) and Kevin Langston had been called as defense witnesses, but their testimony had been damaging rather than helpful.

Carin Carter, now Wallace, had been out of the picture by then.

Was the lack of support from close friends because Mary had been guilty?

Apparently so—in their minds anyway.

Anne pushed the thoughts away for the moment and removed the clothes from her bag.

She hung up the tees and jeans along with the two more businesslike blouses she had added at the last moment.

One pair of dress pants and two pairs of jeans.

She’d worn her favorite sneakers and packed a pair of leather loafers to go with the dressier attire.

Her cosmetics bag she stored in the bathroom.

Not that she wore that much makeup. Mascara and a very basic foundation.

Occasionally she added a little blush, so she’d brought that too.

Makeup and nail polish weren’t her things.

She preferred simple and easy to maintain.

A hairbrush and deodorant along with a toothbrush and paste were necessary.

The skin lotion she used at night was her only fragrance. And it was so subtle no one ever noticed it.

But that was Anne. Simple. Basic. Rarely noticed beyond her design skills.

She thought of the man in the next room.

He was tall, broad shouldered. Very nice eyes.

They were kind, expressive. He had a nice smile too.

Most important, he seemed really good at his work.

She supposed the next few days would tell the tale on that one.

She had no reason to expect otherwise given that the Colby Agency had such a prestigious reputation.

She’d actually been surprised at what a big deal the agency was.

The fact that they had taken up her mother’s case was almost shocking.

Anne felt confident it wasn’t for any sort of accolades—and certainly not for money.

Maybe it was because they liked championing the underdog.

A soft knock on the door drew her in that direction. She checked the viewfinder. Her partner for this endeavor. Time to get this show started. She took a deep breath and opened the door. “Let me grab my purse and I’m ready.”

“Lunch first, or straight into the tour?”

Brenner waited in the door while she grabbed her shoulder bag from the desk. Her stomach said eat, but her brain wanted to get on with what they’d come to do. Her brain generally won out in these sorts of debates, which was why Lisa was constantly after her about forgetting to eat.

“If it’s okay,” she said as she approached the door once more, “we can start the tour and eat a little later.”

“Absolutely.” He held up a hand, two protein bars fisted there. “I thought you might say that.”

She accepted one of the bars. “Thank you.” She opened the wrapper as they walked to the stairs. Her stomach had decided to remind her that she actually was hungry.

By the time they reached the lobby she had scarfed down the bar. Brenner grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the machine in the niche near the exit and tossed one to her. Funny how quickly she was beginning to really like this guy.

In the lot he opened the passenger-side door of his car and waited for her to climb in. Once he’d closed the door and settled behind the steering wheel she asked, “What should I call you? Do you prefer Mr. Brenner or Jackson?”

Seemed like she would have asked or he would have said before now. But it had been a strange twenty odd hours. Maybe he had and she’d simply forgotten.

“Most people call me Jack,” he said as he backed out of the parking slot.

“Jack it is, then.” She watched as he navigated from the lot and onto the road. “Everyone calls me Anne. My name is actually Marianne but I’ve never gone by that.”

“So, Anne.” He glanced at her, smiled. “What made you decide to keep your first name when you changed your last name?”

She considered the question and the passing landscape as he drove. “It was the last name and all the baggage it carried that I wanted to get away from. The other didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

“You could have used your father’s last name.”

A valid point. “The newspapers and online articles all quoted Mary’s friends as saying that Neil Reed was her longtime boyfriend and future husband and, of course, my father, but he wasn’t named on the birth certificate.

I don’t know if it was an error due to the circumstances.

” She shrugged. “I mean, being born in a prison isn’t exactly an ideal situation.

But, in the end, I opted for something completely different.

I read a book once with a character named Anne Griffin and…

” She shrugged. “I guess it stuck with me and it certainly took me out of the situation altogether.”

“I get that.” He flashed her a smile as he turned onto Big Hollow Road. “I’m sure, as you say, the birth certificate was an error. Mary never deviated in her certainty that Neil Reed was your father.”

“No one else questioned it either, to my knowledge. I’ve always assumed that made it true.” She turned her attention to the landscape then. They were nearly there …to the place where her parents had lived before disaster struck.

Mostly trees and houses dotted both sides of the road until they reached the little town of Round Lake. Johnsburg, Round Lake—they were all bedroom communities near Crystal Lake. All within a few minutes driving distance of each other.

He made the turn onto Washington Street and then onto Fairlawn Drive before he started to slow. “This is the place.”

If they had turned in the opposite direction on Washington Street, Fairlawn would have taken them to the waterfront homes on Lake Shore Drive.

But this was no waterfront home, and it was nothing like Lake Shore Drive.

This was a little house built eighty or more years ago. It looked like a rehab special that no one had decided to tear down but obviously should have. The narrow lot was overgrown. It was easy to see why anyone would just pass it by and never consider a rehab or rebuild.

This was where the woman who had given birth to her had lived when her life went to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

“Wow. Looks as if no one has lived here in decades.” A real dump. The photo from the newspaper back then hadn’t shown it this way. It had been a neat little cottage surrounded by blooming flowers and mature trees. The tiny lawn had been well kept. The paint hadn’t been peeling.

“I spoke to a clerk in the property office,” Jack told her, “and she says the place was and still is owned by Neil Reed’s father. They’ve sent warnings about the condition of the property, but he never does anything. Just last week they labeled it condemned.”

“Why haven’t they razed it? Don’t cities do that in extreme cases where owners refuse to take the proper action?

” In her line of work, she had heard about those sorts of situations, especially in neighborhoods being gentrified.

Or under consideration for gentrification.

Failure to pay taxes and/or to properly maintain a property often resulted in the city taking action—sometimes extreme action.

“Apparently,” Jack explained, “Preston Reed, Neil’s father—your grandfather—has an in with someone on the city’s hierarchy and action is never taken.

This isn’t the first time it’s been listed as condemned and then later removed from that status.

I suppose Mr. Reed has his reasons for wanting to leave it as is. ”

Grandfather . At some point Anne had read that her purported biological father had a living father. But she had assumed since he hadn’t taken her in as an infant that he wanted nothing to do with her either.

She stared at the house where Mary had lived the last two years of her freedom.

There was no reason to believe that because Mr. Reed had kept his son’s home for all those years that he cared one iota for his grandchild.

Hanging on to the house might’ve only been related to it being the last place where his son lived.

As for why he would ignore Anne, maybe he had reason to believe Mary had cheated on Neil.

If she murdered him, she was certainly capable of other atrocities.

Anne dismissed the thoughts. Really, she had no idea what sort of people her biological mother and father and grandparents were.