Page 22 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

TWELVE

My tires squealed as I rounded the corner and pulled into the police station. Okay. Maybe that was an overdramatic entrance, but I felt validated when Reuben marched from the building toward my car.

“Give me your phone.” He’d obviously received my voicemail, and he didn’t even bother to see if I was okay—although I didn’t expect anything else.

“I don’t know who it’s from.” I handed it to him as I crawled from my car. “It came in after I got home from work.”

“You went back to your apartment?” He gave me the side-eye.

“I had to at some point.”

He didn’t argue, only studied the photograph. “It’s the same species as the snake under the women’s windows.”

“I know.” I hugged my arms around myself and shivered, even though the heat index outside was quite high for a Wisconsin afternoon. “Can you trace the text?”

“Maybe.” Reuben motioned for me to follow him. I had no intention other than to do just that. The idea of being anywhere alone now or in the near future had been wiped clear off my wish list.

“Is this it? Just the text?” Reuben asked.

Did we want something more? No thanks. “That’s all. And the other text. The one that says, ‘don’t cry, I’m here’. ”

“Does that mean anything to you?” Reuben opened the door and cold air hit my face with a punch that awakened my sense.

I stopped. “I don’t—” Something nagged at me. This was the first time I had actually connected to Sophia’s case personally. Not just because of my own past experiences, but the killer—Sophia’s killer— knew me. Somehow.

“Is it him?” Reuben’s tone was grave. “The Serpent Killer?”

I didn’t miss the edge of hope in his question.

I shook my head. No. Then I reconsidered. Even I had questioned that very thing when the text arrived.

“I don’t know. I don’t— think so?” I knew I wasn’t very convincing. I could tell by the long look Reuben gave me. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

Change the subject. It wasn’t healthy, but it was a coping mechanism, nonetheless.

“I had another idea this afternoon,” I started.

Reuben waited and we stood facing each other in the police station lobby.

“What if it was someone small who connects the women?”

“Small?” Reuben’s eyebrows winged upward.

I waved his confusion off. “I mean—ok. I looked in the database at Archer’s and we’ve serviced both Lilian and Rosalie’s home in the past. What if our guy is a plumber, or a repairman, or painter, or cable guy?”

Reuben hefted a sigh and raked his hand through his hair. “We checked for as many of those relationships as we could find. We came up dry. There wasn’t anything to tie the three homes.”

I found that hard to believe only because I was trusting my theory so strongly now. But what had changed? What had changed in the last day to have it all suddenly now have me receiving texts and being tied into it also?

“How would they get my cell number?” I asked.

Reuben’s smile was thin. “There’s a lot of ways to get someone’s number.”

I paced ahead of Reuben, stopped in front of a framed American flag on the wall, and stared at the stars. I had nothing. My mind was blank. Sophia wasn’t whispering in my ear. I didn’t see Lilian or Rosalie. All I could hear was Reuben’s footsteps on the linoleum as he came up behind me.

“You’re tied to this, Noa.”

“No. I’m not.” I spun around and glared at him. “This has nothing to do with me.” I contradicted my thoughts a moment earlier.

It didn’t.

It couldn’t.

I was in denial.

Or was I?

I had locked my memories away in a vault, yes, but I knew enough to know when he was near. And this—this was different. Somehow it was different . But here I was again, going on feeling and not fact.

“The other night in my apartment, I felt him. I swear I could smell him, Reuben.”

Reuben’s eyes darkened.

“But that text? All of this? All I can think of is Sophia. Sophia and the other women. I keep seeing the lake, and the cattails, and the idea that Sophia wasn’t a planned kill.

Not like I was. I promise you. This isn’t him.

” I heard myself make that promise, and while I had no intention of ever admitting it to Reuben, I wasn’t as confident as I made myself sound.

“Then who is it?” Reuben countered. “It’s someone who at least knows of you. Knows you’ve been helping us. You’re a target now, Noa.” He waved my cell phone in my face. “He’s made contact with you.”

“What if—” I hated where my mind went. It replayed this afternoon at work. The spilled water. My search on the computer. The chaos that ensued and all the employees in and out of the office who would have seen my computer screen with Sophia’s home address emblazoned on the screen.

I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my mind now. It was far-fetched and stupid, but I had to ask.

“What if it’s someone at Archer’s?”

“What?” Reuben frowned.

“You said it has to be someone who knows me. Or at least of me. But really, the only people I know ” —it was almost traumatizing to admit it— “are the people I work with. And Livia. The pool of people around me is small, Reuben. And . . . there’s a chance they’ve figured out I’m looking for them.”

Don’t let it be Toby, don’t let it be Toby .

Reuben had turned my phone in to see if the text message could be traced. In the meantime, I knew he was humoring me. He pulled up what records he could on my coworkers and while he did, I sat beside him on a swivel chair tapping my foot.

“You said Archer’s didn’t service the three homes?”

“No, but we did service Lilian and Rosalie’s.”

Reuben sniffed. “So your theory is someone you work with serviced their homes, cased them, abducted them, and somehow did the same with Sophia.”

I nodded.

“You should write fiction,” he mumbled.

It wasn’t a bad idea. But then, the truth was stranger than fiction, they always said. So why not now too?

“Toby Jackson.” Reuben paused as Toby’s image flashed on his screen.

“He’s been arrested before?” My voice ended in a squeak.

“Two DUI’s.”

“That fits.” I hated to say it, but I knew Toby was no sweet tea drinker.

“Family background . . . I guess there’s a little bit in here on his file.” Reuben let his words hang as he searched. “Parents divorced. Three sisters and a brother. Nothing of importance to note.”

“He doesn’t fit the profile,” I said, relief mixing with my words. “And,” I held up my finger, “I remember now. He doesn’t even like snakes. There was one outside under his truck a year or two ago and he came running in like a little kid on his tiptoes.”

It was the first time I’d truly laughed in weeks.

Reuben assessed me. “You and he have a thing or something? ”

“Toby and I?” I laughed again, but it was one of those nervous laughs that almost sounded contrived.

I don’t know why I felt guilty under Reuben’s stare, but I did.

“No. He’s almost old enough to be my dad.

” I didn’t expound on it. The fact that I had any affection for Toby sort of surprised me.

I was relieved he was able to drop off my personal suspect list before he ever made it on.

Reuben gave a short nod.

For the next half an hour we went through the employees that I could think of.

Most of them didn’t have records outside of a speeding ticket, so there wasn’t much to go on.

That is, except for Elsie. I was quite impressed that her rap sheet included a high-speed chase from police in 1972.

I had a feeling she’d been a wild thing back in the day.

A lot of this info I could have searched on my own.

Wisconsin had a circuit court database that was public and with a little ingenuity, you could essentially do your own generalized background checks.

“Here’s another employee in the system.” Reuben tapped the eraser end of a pencil against his monitor. “Jesse Layson.”

“Jesse?”

He worked on the chimney sweep crew. He gave off the essential Mary Poppins chimney sweep vibes with his lanky form and knobby knees. I was hard pressed to see him as an offender.

“He might fit the profile. He has a few speeding tickets, a juvenile record for vandalism.”

“What about his family situation?” I prodded.

Reuben glanced at me. “We’d have to investigate further.”

“So aside from Elsie, who’s an obvious no, our only potential suspect from Archer’s would be Jesse.” My conclusion left me relieved.

“You know we’re looking at this backward,” Reuben stated. “If you wanted to do this right, we’d need to know who was on the crew who serviced Lilian and Rosalie’s homes.”

“I can look when I get to work tomorrow.”

Reuben’s expression was not encouraging. “No. That’s not how you go about gathering evidence the proper way. If there’s even a hint of credibility to your suspicion, information needs to be obtained legally. Not you snooping into the system and texting me through the back door. ”

I slouched in my chair. “So do it legally.”

“I need to run it by Dickson. See what she says.”

“Do that.” I pushed to my feet. “In the meantime, I have an idea.”

“Noa.” Reuben’s voice held warning. “You need to sit this one out now. You don’t want to place yourself in more danger.”

No. I didn’t. He was one-hundred percent right.

But I also didn’t want to have this gnawing feeling that was growing inside of me that everything was just a little too close to home.

Again. Once taken for a fool, that made me a victim, but twice?

As much I wanted to retreat into safety until it all blew over, I also wanted to put an end to it.

I had fought back and won once. I could do it again.

Elsie padded onto her screened in porch, two glasses of lemonade in her hands. Her husband was out for a walk with the dog, she’d said. So it was just the two of us.