Page 128 of Secrets Along the Shore

“Take a look at this.” I spin my laptop around so they can see the screen. “It’s the last new photo post, made the same night she was last seen by the roommate that reported her missing. All the photos posted during the three weeks that follow—when the posting stopped altogether—are just reposts of earlier photos or other people’s material.”

The photo is a night shot of Kamden in what seems to be a parking lot. It’s a full-length view of her from the back as she looks over her shoulder toward the camera, a purplish glow highlighting her face, though it’s hard to tell whether that’s a filter or diffused light from a nearby source. Nothing in the photo identifies her location. The caption reads, “One more for the road.”

She’s wearing the same outfit we found her in this morning.

“One more what?” Tasha says.

“No idea.”

Keel leans in and squints. “Who took it?”

“Again, no idea. I’ll ask Goat to try to pin down the location, and I’ll go check it out.”

“He didn’t try to figure that out already?”

I shake my head. “Goat’s not going to take it any further than I’ve specifically asked. He’s too expensive to have him chasing rabbit trails I might not want him to go down. I’ll put him on this, though.” I fire off a quick text to him, doing exactly that.

Tasha picks up her own phone, checks something, then sets it down again. “Tommy says Fogerty’s still in the hospital.”

A picture of the convicted killer, handcuffed to a hospital bed with an IV line running into his arm, flashes in my mind.

“He’ll let me know when he’s being transported back,ifhe gets transported back tonight at all.” Tasha frowns, her eyes flitting to theceiling as she gives a toss of her head. She’s clearly as frustrated as I am about the situation.

IneedFogerty to go back to the jail tonight. Because I need to go back and rattle his cage with this new information. I want to shove a photo of a living Kamden Avery—with her gorgeous dark curly hair and toothy smile—in his face and watch what happens. I don’t believe for one second he didn’t do this, and I’m dying to wrangle a confession from him, or at least a statement or slip-up that tangles him up with her to the point where denial isn’t possible.

Maybe it won’t even be necessary. Maybe now that we have her name, we’ll be able to present a solid connection to Fogerty’s attorney that will convince Fogerty he should take a deal.

We spend the next hour scouring every online resource related to Kamden, hoping to stumble on something linking her to Fogerty. While we don’t get that, what we do get is a picture of a woman who liked to party, lived paycheck to paycheck, occasionally landed in trouble with the authorities, and who, at least on occasion, indulged in controlled substances. We’ve also unearthed her roommate and a last known employer.

So I guess I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

And I’ll be doing it in Birmingham.

CHAPTER

TEN

Tasha rushesme out of the office when she realizes it’s already well past four o’clock. She’s aware of my dinner plans with James’s family and refuses to let me sacrifice another personal engagement on the Kurt Fogerty altar.

“I think we’re done here until we get more information, anyway. You staying is overkill. Go see James.”

She’s right. We’ve probably done as much as we can without the coroner’s report and whatever we can glean from talking to people, to try to pin down how Kamden crossed paths with a serial killer.

In the meantime, I have a fiancé waiting for me.

I go home long enough to shower, change, and feed Bilbo. Then I race off to the Riverview Hotel, the only hotel in town. It’s uptown, same as my house, but on the opposite side of the plateau. Still, it only takes eight minutes to get there. I pull up to the covered roundabout, and the valet is at my door before I can step out of my Jeep. I hand him my keys, and he steps aside to allow me to pass.

“Enjoy your evening, Ms. Walsh.”

I’m used to the staff knowing my name now, but initially it caught me off guard. The first time it happened, I asked James about it and he laughed, explaining that his father, Edward Calder, made certain everyone at the hotel knows who I am, and that I am “one of the family.” Though I’m not impressed by social status, and couldn’t care lesswhich side of the tracks James comes from, for many that is a coveted designation. Edward is the patriarch of the most well-connected, wealthiest, longest-standing family in Mitchell County. And he also happens to own the Riverview Hotel.

The stone-clad structure I’ve just walked into is reminiscent of a Tuscan beauty. It stretches three stories high with balconies connecting the wings flanking its left and right. Lights beam up from the ground, illuminating the rustic facade and manicured landscaping. The doorman opens the lobby door for me, and I walk inside, taking in the blue velvet couches and floor of sparkling white tiles joined by tiny black diamond ones. Dazzling crystal chandeliers split the light into a rainbow of shards, my heels click-clicking as I make my way into the heart of the hotel.

I cross the threshold onto the hallway’s plush navy-and-gold carpet and scan the portraits of James’s ancestors—six in all—lining its walls. The Calder family has been in Mitchell County since a few years after the Civil War, when James’s great-great-great-grandfather established a textile mill on the southern bank of the Tennessee River just west of Willow Peak. It was the perfect location, the river making the transport of raw materials in and finished goods out easy. The mill became the cornerstone of the local economy, birthing an entire community.

Eventually, people migrated to the plateau at the top of Willow Peak, the Calders among them. Over more than a century and through several generations of Calders, the mill evolved into a global entity, specializing in high-tech textile and advanced materials with clients including the U.S. military, state, local, and foreign governments, and private sector organizations all over the world. Though the corporate offices reside in Huntsville now, the modern production facility remains here, built over the spot where the original mill once sat.

The Calders have watched over and supported this community since it started. They’ve funded scholarships, art institutions, and hospitals. They’ve held just about every political office related to the county that there is to hold—James is the second Calder to serve in the Alabama House of Representatives. He’s the first one to run for the U.S. House, though. His campaign is in the early stages, but come nextNovember, I might have to make a bigger move than out of my house and into James’s.