Page 13 of Silent Home (Sheila Stone #13)

Sheila held her phone up for Carl Washburn, waiting patiently as he studied the photo.

The taxi stand outside Peak Valley Transit's main office was nearly empty at eight PM. Most of the company's cabs were downtown, ferrying festival-goers between venues. But Carl Washburn's yellow Crown Victoria sat idle, its engine ticking as Washburn leaned against the driver door.

"Yeah, that's her," he said, a cigarette bobbing between his lips as he spoke. "Pretty girl. Picked her up at the Mountain View three nights ago."

"What was her state of mind?" Sheila asked.

Washburn took a long drag, considering. "Upset. Crying. But trying not to show it, you know? Kept checking her phone the whole ride."

"Did she make any calls?" Finn asked.

"Nah. Just kept looking at it like she was expecting something. Or afraid of something." He flicked ash onto the cracked pavement. "Listen, I don't usually remember fares this well. But she reminded me of my daughter—same age, same kind of dreams about making it big."

A train whistle echoed in the distance. The parking lot's sodium lights cast everything in sickly yellow, making Washburn's weathered face look jaundiced.

"Where did you take her?" Sheila asked.

"That's the thing." Washburn straightened up. "She wanted to go home at first. Had an address over on Maple. But halfway there, she changed her mind. Said she needed to check something at the theater."

Sheila and Finn exchanged looks. "Which theater?"

"The Coldwater. Where they're doing the festival now." He dropped his cigarette, grinding it out with his boot. "Dropped her at the back entrance. Staff door, I think. She said she had keys."

"What time was this?"

"Around nine-thirty. End of my shift, so I remember." He pulled out his phone, scrolling through something. "Yeah, here it is. Nine twenty-eight PM. Fifteen-dollar fare."

"Did she seem afraid?" Finn asked. "Like someone might be following her?"

Washburn thought about it. "Not following, exactly. But she kept looking over her shoulder. And when we got to the theater, she waited in the cab for a few minutes, watching the street." He shook his head. "I asked if she wanted me to wait, but she said she was fine. Said someone was meeting her."

"Did she say who?"

"Nope. But she didn't seem happy about it." He met Sheila's eyes. "Look, I got a daughter trying to make it as a singer. I know how rough the entertainment business can be. If something happened to this girl..."

"What else can you tell us?" Sheila asked. "Anything at all?"

"Just that she was carrying something besides her purse. One of those bubble mailers, like for mailing documents? Yellow, about this big." He held his hands about a foot apart. "Held it real close the whole ride, wouldn't put it down even to check her phone."

Finn made a note. "Was she planning to mail it?"

"Don't know. But whatever was in it, she didn't want to let it out of her sight."

A dispatcher's voice crackled over Washburn's radio, calling him for a pickup. He held up an apologetic finger and responded, then turned back to them.

"That's all I got," he said. "Wish I could tell you more. She seemed like a good kid, you know? Sometimes you can just tell."

Sheila handed him her card. "If you think of anything else..."

"Yeah." He pocketed the card and opened his car door. "Hope you find whoever did this. Really do."

They watched his taillights disappear into the night. The train whistle sounded again, closer now.

"Three nights ago," Finn said. "Right after she tried to get more money from Greenwald."

"And whatever was in that envelope scared her enough to make her want to run." Sheila checked her watch: 8:15 PM. "The theater will still be full of festival people."

"Good time to search her locker without drawing attention."

Sheila nodded, already heading for their car. Whatever Jessica had found at the theater that night, whatever she'd been carrying in that envelope—it had been important enough to get her killed.

And somewhere in that building, those answers were waiting.

If they could just find them in time.

***

Jessica's locker in the employee break room was a standard metal box, identical to dozens of others.

The combination from Carl Rider's employee records worked on the first try.

Inside, they found the expected things: a spare uniform shirt, hairbrush, breath mints, a well-worn copy of "The Glass Menagerie" filled with post-it notes and highlighting.

"Look at this," Finn said, carefully removing a small notebook. The pages were filled with Jessica's neat handwriting—names, dates, times. Most entries were mundane: work schedules, audition notes, phone numbers. But the last few pages were different.

"She was tracking something," Sheila said, studying the cryptic notations. "Meeting times, locations..." She pointed to one entry: MV Hotel—3rd floor—8:45 PM—saw it again. "But saw what?"

They found other oddities: a receipt for a high-end video camera she shouldn't have been able to afford, a business card for a private investigator in Salt Lake City, a torn piece of paper with what looked like a computer password.

But nothing that explained what she'd discovered. Nothing worth killing over.

"Looks like a dead end," Finn said, carefully returning the notebook to the locker.

Sheila shook her head, frustrated. "There's something here. The private investigator, the camera receipt, these notes... she was building toward something."

"But what got her killed? And where's that yellow envelope the cab driver mentioned?"

"Probably wherever the killer stashed her phone." Sheila closed the locker, letting the metal door click shut. "We need to think this through. Jessica comes here three nights ago, after trying to get money from Greenwald. She's carrying evidence of something, but she's scared."

"Scared enough to want to run."

"Right. But instead of running, she comes here." Sheila looked around the mundane break room with its coffee maker and outdated notices. "Why here? What was so important?"

"Maybe we should walk the building," Finn suggested. "See it how she would have seen it that night. Something made her choose the theater instead of going home."

Sheila nodded. "And we should check the festival crowd, see who's still around from 'The Winter Palace' production. Someone here knows what Jessica found."

They headed for the exit.

Outside, the festival had transformed as night fell.

String lights crisscrossed Main Street, casting warm pools of light between deep shadows.

The crowds were different too—more industry people now, fewer tourists.

Filmmakers huddled in intimate groups, pitching projects in urgent whispers.

Crowds spilled from the theaters, arguing passionately about the latest screenings.

"I don't hear any talk of a shutdown," Sheila said as they walked, their footsteps clipped on the brick sidewalk.

"I'm starting to think Rider was just leading us on, buying as much time as he could.

" The thought filled her with anger. If someone else died because the festival hadn't been shut down, Sheila would carry the guilt with her, regardless of what Rider had promised them.

"Or that event he mentioned hasn't happened yet," Finn said. "Either way, we should use this opportunity to look for the killer."

Sheila glanced sharply at him. "You don't think the festival should be shut down?"

"No, I think you made the right decision. But clearly it's still running, which means there's a good chance the killer's here. Someone who knows the theater, knows the film industry."

Sheila watched a group of young actors pass by, their laughter carrying on the cold air. "Someone who could be any of these people," she said, following Finn's train of logic.

A street musician played something melancholy on a saxophone, the notes floating up to mix with fog gathering under the string lights. The Mountain View Hotel loomed ahead, its windows warm against the darkness. Somewhere in that building, Bradley Greenwald was preparing for his premiere.

But Sheila's eyes were drawn to the shadows between buildings, the quiet corners where festival crowds didn't venture. Perfect places to watch without being seen.

"Jessica found something," she said quietly. "Something specific to this festival, this place. The staging of her death wasn't just artistic—it was personal."

"You think she interrupted something? Saw something she wasn't supposed to?"

"Maybe." Sheila stopped walking, watching another crowd exit a theater. Everyone looked normal, excited about films they'd just seen. But any one of them could be their killer. "Or maybe she went looking for something specific. That private investigator's card, the video camera receipt..."

"She was gathering evidence," Finn finished. "Building a case."

"But against who?"

The saxophone player switched to something darker and more discordant. The fog was thickening, turning the string lights into halos. Perfect atmospheric lighting, Sheila thought. Like something from a film noir.

Except this wasn't a movie. And somewhere in these festival crowds, a killer walked free.

They just had to figure out why before anyone else died.