Page 32 of The Whisper Place (To Catch a Storm #3)

I tackled Max, sending us both to the ground.

The blast came from the base of the hill, somewhere near Max’s car. I rolled over, crushing rows of young stalks, as Max searched for a weapon he didn’t have. The shadow of the oak tree and the cloudy sky hid the shooter from sight.

“Get down here if you don’t want to eat lead,” the voice barked.

We both hesitated. It was too far away for me to sense anything.

“Silas?”

Another gunshot blast answered the question, ringing across the open plain and echoing off distant barns. “I said now.”

“Don’t shoot.” Max lifted his hands, getting up as slowly as possible. “We’re unarmed and not causing any harm.”

We walked down the hill, hands raised, and met Silas Hepworth at the bottom. He reloaded his shotgun, braced his squat legs, and aimed at Max’s chest. Surprise and anger rolled off him when he recognized us.

Max started to explain, but Silas cut him off.

“I could shoot you right here. Nothing stopping me.” He would, too. I could feel the urge taking hold. Max shone his phone light on both of us, pausing on each hand.

“We’re not threatening you.”

“You’re on my land. Loitering, trespassing.

I got the right to stand my ground.” The shotgun didn’t waver.

The barrel was still fixed on Max’s chest. “Two guys hired to harass me, on my property after dark doing God knows what. Probably planting evidence, trying to frame me for that bitch’s disappearance. ”

“We’re not—”

He swung the gun on me. The clouds parted for a minute and moonlight cast the old man in eerie shadows. His forehead shone with cold sweat. His eye sockets were as black as the barrel of the shotgun.

“I’m going to call every damn lawyer in the state tomorrow morning. Now get off my land.”

Hands still raised, we got in the car and threw it in gear. I was braced, waiting for the gunshot I could feel simmering in his head, but it never came. Cresting the hill of the road, we left Silas, his threats, and his house behind.

Black sky met black land as the headlights cut gouges into the night. Max’s energy went from tense to angry to frustrated. The speedometer ticked higher and higher.

“Great stakeout,” he finally said.

“Textbook,” I agreed. “That’s why they’re banging down our door. I don’t know why you were ever worried about the business.”

“Christ.” Max wiped a hand over his head.

“At least we’ve got a lead on the body in the woods.” I pulled up the background check we’d run on Ted Kramer. His first wife’s name was Andrea.

“You really think he killed her?” Max asked.

“I do.”

When the Illinois cop said the body was a woman, I’d gotten a strange feeling in my gut.

It wasn’t psychic. It didn’t feel like the seeping invasion of the world pouring into my skin.

This was different, an opposite knowledge that started inside and moved out.

The cases—Kate Campbell’s disappearance and the woman buried in the woods—were connected.

It wasn’t coincidence, no matter how much Max wanted to spout about dumping grounds like he was browsing them on Zillow.

I had a better signal on the highway, but internet access wasn’t providing any proof of life on Andrea Kramer. No tagged photos on Google. No LinkedIn profiles or social handles. I couldn’t find her anywhere.

“She might’ve just left, like Theo said.” Max was in devil’s advocate mode.

I couldn’t argue the possibility. Maybe she had.

I’m sure women wanted to leave their spouses and kids daily.

The constant low-level hum of care, exhaustion, and irritation emanating off the mothers of the world could have powered a small country.

The fact that Shelley had put up with Max for all these years was honestly mind-boggling.

Then I found it.

On the Facebook page for their church, buried in a landslide of blessings and fundraiser posts, was a series of pictures taken at a picnic. One photo captured a younger Ted Kramer posed with a woman and a boy. Andrea and Theo. I zoomed in and went cold.

Andrea Kramer stood slightly behind Ted, half in shadow as she held her son by the shoulder. She wore a loose sundress and an ill-fitting smile, with the same short, brown hair, the same bird-boned frame and delicate yet sharp features I’d met two days ago.

“We need to call Valerie.”

“Why?” Max asked.

I swiveled my screen. He glanced at the photo, then did a double take.

“Holy shit, is that—?”

“Andrea Kramer.” Ted’s first wife could’ve been a doppelganger for his second.

Max digested the implications. “We can call her tomorrow. If we still have a company.”

“Silas wanted to shoot us, not put us out of business.”

Max snorted. “Oh, that’s comforting. If he does call a lawyer or lodges a complaint, we could lose our license.”

PIs weren’t allowed to trespass on private property during surveillance. Parking on the side of the road was fine, as long as we weren’t blocking, obstructing, or putting anyone in danger. But we’d clearly crossed that line, walking well within the bounds of his property. And we had no defense.

“I don’t like this guy at all.”

“What’s to like?”

“No.” Max pounded the steering wheel, frustration still chugging through him and seeping into the car.

“I mean for Kate. He has a confrontation with her, accuses her of stealing the money he blackmailed from Charlie, is out doing weird things in his outbuildings, and spends the rest of the night patrolling the perimeter of his property like some paranoid psycho?”

“To be fair, people are watching him. That’s not paranoia.”

“Fuck being fair to him. We need to find out what’s happening there.”

I looked at my phone, the woman frozen on the screen.

“We need to find out what happened to Andrea Kramer.”