Page 33 of The Missing Half

Chapter Thirty-two

Three days later, I walk through the front door of the Grand Rapids police station. It’s quiet today, the lobby empty except for me and the receptionist behind glass. I give him my name, and he calls Detective Aimes to let her know I’m here. A moment later, a voice rings through the lobby.

“You must be Nic.”

I turn to see a woman standing in the doorway that leads to the offices in the back. She looks to be in her midforties with brown eyes and matching hair, cut into a chin-length bob. She’s wearing plain clothes, a white button-down and slacks, which puts me at ease. I know I’ve brought all my legal shit down upon myself, but still, I’ve had enough uniforms to last me a lifetime.

I step forward to take her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “Why don’t you come on back to my office.”

Her office is a glorified cubicle, made up of one true wall and three partitions. Boxes and picture frames lay scattered around her computer. Folders of paper burst at the seams.

“It may look like I’ve just moved in,” she says, settling behind her desk and gesturing at the chair opposite her for me to sit. “But this is the organized mess of four long years.”

She smiles, and I return it. I’m determined to make a good impression. Without Jenna to smooth things over for me, I know I’ll have to play nice.

“How can I help you, Nic?”

I’ve prepared for this—I had the weekend and a two-hour bus ride to think about what I want to ask—but without Jenna here, I feel jittery and unmoored. “Detective Wyler may have told you,” I say, “but I’ve been looking into my sister’s case.”

“He mentioned it.”

“And, well, I was wondering if you’ve uncovered anything new since you took over.”

Detective Aimes stares at me for a moment. Then she leans back in her chair, clasping her hands across her middle. “Let me ask you something, Nic. What do you think happened to your sister?”

In all the years since Kasey went missing, I have been asked countless questions by countless members of law enforcement, yet never before have I been asked what I believe. The question is so unexpected, for a moment I think I must have misheard her. “I don’t know,” I say eventually.

“I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Well, I guess I’ve always assumed what the police told us from the start. That whoever took Jules Connor took Kasey.” I see Wyler sitting on our couch, telling us to give up hope that we’d ever find Kasey alive. Even after all this time, the memory still forms a lump in my throat. “And I think whoever took them killed them too.”

Detective Aimes nods. “Any theories about why? Why the two of them, I mean.”

My mind flashes to that conversation with Jenna in her truck last week. “I think there’s a chance Jules and Kasey were involved in something that made them targets.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“What makes you think that, then?” she says.

I hadn’t been planning on telling her any of what Jenna and I have discovered over the past month. I know I accused Brad and Sandy of complicity in murder for doing just that, so I suppose on top of everything else, I’m also a big fucking hypocrite, but after that conversation with Wyler, I lost my faith and trust in the police. And yet, Detective Aimes has already proven herself to be vastly different from him. Perhaps she’ll continue to.

So I tell her. I tell her about how Jules and Kasey both went through periods of acting unusual. I tell her about Jules moving to Osceola and Kasey asking for money the night she disappeared. “I think it’s possible,” I say when I’ve finished, “that whatever they were wrapped up in could have involved Steve McLean. Jules worked with him right before she started acting off, and Kasey worked near him just before she did. Plus, I know he has a track record.”

“Back up,” Detective Aimes says. “How do you know your sister was asking for money? This is the first I’m hearing of that.”

I hesitate. I don’t have any lingering loyalty to Brad or Sandy at this point, but I can’t quite get myself to believe that they’re directly responsible for Kasey’s disappearance, and I’m not ready to take away the only people my dad has left in his life. More important, I want Detective Aimes focused on why Kasey needed money, not the affair. So I tell her I know about the ten thousand because Kasey asked our family friend for it. When Detective Aimes asks for the family friend’s name, I tell her the truth.

“And you think that this all points to Steve McLean?” she says.

“Well…it doesn’t not point to him.”

She cracks a half smile. “Wyler told me you’d bring him up. McLean.”

“I know Wyler doesn’t think it was him,” I say, heat blistering my neck. “I know he thinks McLean’s alibi is—”

“Nic—”

“I know he thinks it’s solid,” I continue over her. I realize that I’m no longer playing nice, but I don’t care. I’m sick of the police not listening to what I have to say about McLean, sick of the way they defend him for seemingly the flimsiest of reasons. I don’t know that he’s the one who took Kasey and Jules, but I at least have the right to voice my suspicions about him. “I know Wyler ruled him out a long time ago—”

“Nic—” she says again.

But I barrel through. “If you’d just—”

Detective Aimes holds up a hand. “Nic. Please. Listen. Wyler may have ruled out McLean, but I haven’t.”

“Oh.”

“As you know, all the evidence points to a man who knew Jules and Kasey both. And you’re right. McLean fits. His alibi isn’t airtight, but it’s enough that in order to be sure of anything, in order to prove anything, we would need far more evidence against him. So I’ll look into everything you’ve said. The money is a good lead. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“I…sure.” This conversation is going so far in the direction opposite to the one I expected, I can’t seem to find the words to keep up my side of it.

“And to answer the first thing you asked me,” Detective Aimes says, “no, we haven’t uncovered anything new since I inherited the case from Wyler.”

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

“However, there is one piece of evidence I don’t believe he ever told you about. Now, before you get upset, he wasn’t hiding it for the sake of hiding it. He was doing what he thought was best for the investigation. I probably would’ve done the same in those early days. But as you obviously know, a lot of time has passed, so I’m planning to release this piece of evidence to the public soon to get people talking again. If you can assure me that you’ll keep it to yourself until we issue our press release, I’m happy to tell you now. Does that sound okay to you?”

My heart grows wings and starts to flap around my chest. A new piece of evidence? It’s what I hoped for, of course, but it’s far more than I ever expected. “I, yes, that sounds good. What is it?”

She leans forward, resting her forearms on her desk. “When they processed Kasey’s car after she went missing, they found something. One of Jules Connor’s hairs was in the driver’s seat.”

“I don’t understand,” I say slowly. “Jules was in Kasey’s car that night?”

“Until we know one hundred percent what happened, anything’s possible, but I don’t think that’s how it got there. More likely, it was there from some kind of transfer. As in, when whoever took Kasey actually took her, he was wearing an item of clothing he also wore on the night he took Jules. Jules’s hair got caught in the fibers of a jacket or a T-shirt on August 4th, and it was still there on August 17th. It’s why we’ve been so convinced all these years that the cases are connected.”

I think of McLean and that lecherous smile he had as he talked about Kasey, the cagey way he spoke about Jules—he’s the one person we’ve been able to connect to them both.

As if reading my mind, Detective Aimes says, “It doesn’t point to anyone in particular, but it doesn’t rule out McLean. I will look into him, Nic, I promise.” She gives me a somber smile. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”

I open my mouth instinctively, but realize I already got everything I came for. “No,” I say. “I guess not.”

“In that case, I’ll do my best to keep you updated, but feel free to email me anytime. Now, why don’t I walk you out?”

As if in a trance, I rise from my chair and sling my backpack over my shoulder. I’m so used to being disappointed, so used to my opinion being ignored, that I feel oddly whiplashed from the conversation. I thank her for meeting with me, and then together we retrace our steps back to the lobby and out the front door.

“By the way,” she says after shaking my hand goodbye. “I meant to ask earlier but forgot. What happened between you and Jenna Connor?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, your email made it seem like the two of you were working on your sisters’ cases together, but you met with me separately.”

“Wait,” I say. “Jenna came to talk to you?”

She nods.

“When was this?”

“Let’s see, it would’ve been…Saturday afternoon. Not this past Saturday but the previous. I told her what I told you, about the hair.” Detective Aimes must see how much this throws me, because she says, “I didn’t mean to overstep. I just hope everything’s okay. I thought it was smart, the two of you teaming up like that.”

I force a smile, tell her that everything’s fine, but I feel as if she’s reached forward and pushed me off the edge of a cliff. Saturday was the day Jenna bailed on me when I went to talk to my dad, the day she told me she wanted to step back from our investigation to take care of her mom. She made me feel so insensitive for accusing her of using that as an excuse, but now I know I was right. Jenna is lying to me—I just don’t know if that should make me angry or scared.