Page 5

Chapter 5

Donovan

A fter two days of working the Perez case, we’d hit a brick wall. Sitting together in our cramped office, Will and I pored over the notes we had, sparse as they were. For all intents and purposes, Rebecca Perez had walked out her front door and disappeared from the face of the Earth. Not a single person in town had seen her, no trace of her had turned up anywhere despite numerous searches, and her parents hadn’t received any word from her. Eva Perez called almost on the hour, not that I blamed her, and having to tell her we hadn’t made any progress didn’t get any easier.

“We had to have missed something,” Will said, running his hands through his blonde hair, which was already a mess. He pulled a picture of the path between the two houses closer, staring at it. We’d walked that path countless times in the last two days. We’d gone together, separate, with Rebecca’s parents, with Landon and Amelie DeVor, and still hadn’t found a trace of Rebecca. The chief organized the patrol officers into a search yesterday and together, we’d all walked the length of County Road 4 for miles. Still, we’d found nothing, not even a single thing we could trace back to Rebecca Perez.

“She might still be off with that boyfriend,” I pointed out, but the chances of that grew slimmer with every passing hour. We didn’t even have a name for the guy she was dating. Amelie told us he went by Striker and that it was a nickname, but Rebecca had never called him anything else in front of her. Lowery’s Crossing was hardly a hub of gang activity, so we couldn’t trace where the nickname came from. No one had ever seen Striker, so we didn’t even have a description of him or what kind of vehicle he drove.

“The parents say she’s never been gone for more than three days before. That’s tomorrow morning.”

“I know.” I knew the odds and statistics, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up on Rebecca just yet.

“She wasn’t a half-bad student, considering how many classes she’s skipped. Maybe she just wanted a few days off and now that we’re getting into the weekend, she’ll be ready to come back?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I shrugged, but neither of us believed it. He was grasping at straws just like I was. Truth was, we had absolutely nothing to go on and until we either got a tip or found Rebecca, we were completely stuck.

“Parker? Dodd?” The chief knocked on the open door, glancing at the case notes on the desk, then back up at us. “Any news?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. We’d been running down everything we could find and weariness bled into my words. “Nothing but a lot of dead ends.”

She’d been keeping abreast of the case, helping with the search effort, so there wasn’t much need for a long-winded update.

“Go ahead and pack it in for the night. We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

“We’re fine to keep going,” Will protested. “I just need to find a fresh angle.”

“It’s 8:00. You’ve both been here all day. You’re no use to me and to Rebecca if you’re too tired to think straight. Go home, sleep, and come at it again in the morning.”

“It just feels wrong to go home and sleep in my bed when we don’t know where she is,” he admitted. His eyes drifted to the missing person poster, where a picture of Rebecca Perez stared up at us, smiling and happy.

“I know. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s part of the job. I know you want to find her. We all do, but we’re also human, which means we need to rest if we’re going to function.” She lightly clapped him on the shoulder. “Night shift is already on duty. If anything changes, they’ll call you. Go home, William.”

Neither of us spoke as we packed up and left the station, the silence following us out onto the street.

“This doesn’t feel right,” he said finally, pausing on the sidewalk beside me.

“Believe me, I get it. Cornell is right, though. We have to eat and rest and give our minds a break if we’re going to find her.” I knew Will, though, and I doubted he’d take much of a break when he got home. That sparked an idea, though. “Why don’t you come over?”

“Come over? Where, to Alex’s place?” He still didn’t quite look at me, but I knew he was ready to refuse. Ever since the McAvell farm, he’d been awkward around Alex. I’d need to deal with that eventually and make sure Will really was okay with Alex and what he could do, but that was a problem for another time. I’d seen too many officers go down the road Will was on, obsessing over a case until it burned them out. I didn’t want that to happen to him.

“No, over to my house. We can order some pizza, maybe catch a replay of a game or something, and just chill out a little.” I did want to see Alex, but right now, Will needed me more. He lived alone and I just knew he’d go back to his apartment and spend the entire night awake, thinking about the case.

He still hesitated, but in the end, he nodded. “Yeah, sure. Just for a little while, I guess.”

I shot off a quick text to Alex as we walked, letting him know I might not make it tonight. He reminded me that I had a key and to come by any time if I wanted. Depending on what time Will headed home, I might just take him up on that.

My little rental house sat between two nearly identical houses about half a mile away from the station. An old fence had once surrounded the single-story property, but I’d removed it for the landlord in exchange for half-off my first month’s rent. Like most houses in Lowery’s Crossing, it was old and a little run-down, but it had solid bones and the roof didn’t leak, so it worked for me.

“You’ve lived here almost a year?” Will asked once we were inside and getting settled. He glanced at the cardboard boxes still in the corner of the living room, gathering dust. I’d mostly unpacked, but a few still lingered.

“You know I spend most of my time at Alex’s house. That’s mostly old, sentimental stuff that I haven’t found the right place for.”

A plush couch sat against one wall of the living room, facing the big TV I’d brought with me from Chicago. It perched on a short stand, with my old DVD collection on a shelf beneath it. A coffee table and a lamp made up the rest of the furniture in the room. A calendar hung on the wall by the kitchen, still showing December of last year.

“I’m surprised you haven’t just moved in already. You might as well, at this point, right?”

“We just haven’t talked about it,” I shrugged. I thought about it almost every day, but if Alex did, he hadn’t said anything. Something about the timing just didn’t feel quite right yet, which made no sense, and yet I couldn’t shake that feeling.

“My sister moved in with Raina after three dates or something like that. Trust me, compared to them, you guys are a glacier,” Will snorted, a hint of his old humor coming back.

“Hilarious. Here.” I tossed him the remote, snorting on a laugh when he fumbled it, but caught it before it hit the floor. “Find something to watch while I call Martinelli’s. What kind of pizza do you want?”

“From Martinelli’s? It has to be the traditional Sicilian.”

“No argument from me,” I agreed. There were two pizza places in town, but Martinelli’s was by far everyone’s favorite. “Pepperoni and spicy sausage?”

“Hell yes,” he agreed immediately.

I left him to channel-surfing while I called it in. Luckily, since it was Friday, they actually had a few delivery drivers working. On weeknights, it was pickup only, unless Paula Martinelli’s oldest son was willing to run deliveries. It was an eighty-twenty shot. Considering the entire town was only a few miles across, it wasn’t exactly a hardship for most. Weekends were busy enough for her to justify paying whatever local teenager wanted to make a few extra bucks to deliver pizzas.

“Twenty minutes or so,” I reported once I hung up. “Water or soda? That’s all I’ve got in the fridge right now.”

“Water’s fine. Seriously, though, you’re wasting so much money even keeping this place.”

He caught the water bottle I threw at his head a lot easier than he’d caught the remote.

“Anyway. Moving on.” I sat down on the other end of the couch, getting comfortable while we waited. “What’d you find?”

Will hit ‘play’ and pulled up a replay of last night’s NCAAW basketball game. That same tense silence from before blanketed us as we watched the game, waiting for the food to arrive. To make matters worse, when I opened the door to the delivery driver’s knock, Landon DeVor stood on the other side. He looked tired, worry and strain making him look older than he was.

“Hi, Detective Parker. I didn’t realize this was your house.” Like every other time I’d talked to him, he was soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, but in a quietly confident way that gave me hope for the kind of man he’d grow into.

“Hey, Landon. Thanks for bringing this,” I said, taking the box from his hands and putting it on the floor by the door.

Landon noticed Will and from the sudden silence in the living room, Will had also realized who was at the door.

“No problem. I sometimes work for Mrs. Martinelli for extra gas money.” He fidgeted while I quickly counted out money, including the biggest tip I could manage with what cash I had on hand. He pocketed it with a murmur of thanks, but didn’t take a step back. I knew why he lingered, of course, and I couldn’t blame him.

“We’re still looking for her, Landon,” I promised. “We’ll find her.”

“And maybe she’ll come home soon on her own. She did before,” he agreed, but he didn’t believe his own words even as he said them.

“That’s what we’re hoping.” I gently gripped his shoulder, an even weaker comfort than my words, but it was all I had.

“Yeah.” He took a shuddering breath, forcing a tiny smile when he looked back up at me. “I’ve gotta get back. Thanks, Detective Parker.”

Once he left, I took the pizza box back to the coffee table. It smelled amazing, but my appetite seemed to have left with Landon.

“Donovan…” Will leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands buried in his hair. “We’re going to find her, right?”

“One way or another, she’ll likely turn up, yes.” I slumped on the couch, turned slightly to face Will.

“But if she doesn’t come home by the end of the weekend, it’s not looking good, is it?”

I couldn’t give him hopeful lies, like I had with Landon. “No, it’s not.”

“I just keep hoping that, since Alex hasn’t seen her, that she’s okay somewhere. Is that messed up? I’m a detective. I trained for years for this, and now I’m sitting here hoping a psychic doesn’t end up doing my job for me.”

“Believe me, I get it, Will. This isn’t something they covered in any training manuals,” I agreed. “Listen, I know we never really talked much about what happened that day at the farm with Alex.” Beside me, he tensed up and for a moment, he didn’t even breathe.

“What about it?” he asked carefully, without looking at me.

“It was a fucked up night,” I said, and he snorted.

“That’s an understatement.”

“A lot of really weird crap went down, and I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, I guess.”

“It was crazy, but it is what it is. I’m fine.”

“That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard since Carly Pearson tried to convince us she was only holding that beer for a friend.” Honestly, no one had more audacity than a drunk 17-year-old trying to get out of trouble.

“Last I heard from her mom, she’s still grounded,” he said, and his smile probably would have convinced most people it was genuine, but not me.

“Good. Maybe she’ll learn a lesson. I’m not getting distracted, though. Tell me what’s wrong, Will. Please?” I tacked on when he got that stubborn look on his face, like he was going to shut down on me.

He grabbed a piece of pizza and took a bite, clearly stalling, but I could be as patient as he could be stubborn. He choked down another bite, then put the slice back in the box. When he finally spoke, his voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it and he curled in on himself, shoulders hunched.

“I fucked up and I don’t know how to fix it.”

That wasn’t even on the list of things I’d been anticipating. “What are you talking about? What do you think you fucked up?”

“You both almost died because of me. There’s no way to undo that, Donovan. I don’t understand how you guys don’t hate me.”

“Will, I’ll be honest here. I have no idea what you’re talking about. You restrained Nate and kept him from hurting anyone.”

“Alex or Thomas or whoever nearly got his hands on that gun because I fucked up and didn’t secure it like I should have. What would have happened if you hadn’t been able to hold him? We’d all be dead right now.”

Everything finally clicked, and memories of that day rushed back. Alex, possessed by Thomas McAvell, holding the gun to his own temple. Alex fighting not to pull the trigger and me tackling him to the ground. The gun had fallen and I’d counted on my partner to secure it so I could focus on Alex. Except… Will hadn’t, too stunned to react until I yelled at him.

“Fuck, Will,” I breathed. “I’m not mad at you about that.”

“How could you not be? It’s basic training for every officer. If a weapon is loose, that’s our top priority. But instead, I froze like an idiot and he almost got his hands on it again.” He finally looked up at me, blue eyes dark with recrimination and guilt.

I shifted around on the couch until I faced him. “We walked into a situation that no amount of training could have prepared us for. You got the perpetrator restrained and still tried to help me get the gun from Alex. Yes, it should have been secured when it hit the ground, but all things considered… we did the best we could. They don’t exactly cover ‘dealing with ghost possession’ in training. You grabbed it before anyone else got hurt, and that’s what matters.”

“If I’d been a second later—”

“But you weren’t,” I interrupted before he could go further down that road of self-loathing. “You did your job. Every single one of us has fucked up at some point in our careers. What happened at the farm is barely a blip on the radar compared to some of the shit that I’ve seen.” I grasped his forearm. “Will, I’m not mad at you and I know Alex isn’t, either. You showed up, you handled the situation, and you’ve kept Alex’s secret. You’ve gone so far above and beyond the call of duty that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

Shock, confusion, and doubt roiled in his eyes before finally melting away into relief so profound it almost hurt to see. “You’re seriously not upset with me?”

“It never even crossed my mind to be mad. I just wish I’d known what was bothering you sooner, so you didn’t have to suffer.”

“Suffering in silence is kind of a Dodd family trait,” he said, and finally I saw a glimpse of the old Will peeking through. “Camille and I have mastered it over the years.”

“I get it, but we’re partners. You can talk to me about this shit, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed. He still didn’t look entirely convinced, but the haunted look in his eyes eased. It would take time, but that was one thing we had.

“Good. Now, let’s eat before it gets cold.”

Will grabbed his slice with more gusto and we settled in to watch the game. It’d been awhile since Alex and I spent an evening apart and while I didn’t want it to become a habit, spending time with Will wasn’t a hardship. Slowly but surely, my life here in Lowery’s Crossing was coming together.

***

Will stayed until well after midnight, both of us just trying to relax and let go of some of the tension we’d been carrying since Rebecca went missing. Clearing the air about the McAvell incident had gone a long way toward easing Will’s mind, and when he left, I knew he’d be okay, at least for the night.

The smartest thing would be to go to bed, myself, and get some rest. We’d both be working tomorrow, searching for any leads and hoping Rebecca came home on her own. I’d already told Alex I might not come by that night and it’d been weeks since I slept in my own bed.

When it came to Alex, though, I didn’t want to do the smart thing. I wanted to sleep in his arms, even if only for a few hours.

I didn’t text him before I locked up and left my house. He might be awake, lost in a book, but it was more likely he was asleep and I didn’t want to disturb him.

The drive to Alex’s house was a short one and I parked in my usual spot, beside the little hatchback he rarely drove. Everything he needed lay within walking distance of his home, after all.

The house was quiet, lit only by the soft glow of the streetlights through the window. Louis, Alex’s fat old ginger cat, blinked one golden eye open when he heard me walk in, but otherwise didn’t move from his cozy perch on the back of the couch. He even deigned to let me scratch his head as I passed by, something he only did when he was well and truly comfortable. The two of us had a tentative truce, but he still made it a point to startle me at least once a week. For a cat his size, he could squeeze himself into some pretty small spaces if it meant he could scare me.

A whisper of sound caught my ear while I pet the cat and we both went still. His ears twitched toward the back of the house, where the bedroom was, but whatever he heard, it wasn’t odd enough for him to go investigate. Maybe Alex was still awake?

I didn’t call out, just made my way down the short hallway. Years of police training were hard to undo and after the incident with Nate Applebaum, I couldn’t help but worry.

The bedroom door opened before I could reach it and Alex stepped out, fully dressed and pulling his thickest hoodie on over his head. He went stock-still when he saw me, clearly surprised to see me standing there.

It didn’t take a genius to see the signs and realize what was happening. Even in the darkness, I could see that Alex had gone pale and his hands shook as he hurriedly tugged the hoodie down. His eyes kept darting to a spot just behind me, focusing on something in the empty space.

There was clearly a ghost standing just a few inches from me, and just as clearly, Alex had dressed to leave the house and help them. My phone sat in my pocket, with no missed calls or texts from him waiting for me, so he’d planned to go alone.

“Donovan…” His voice came out a cracked whisper, a plea, but I shook my head.

“Don’t. I’m going with you. It’s cold out, so grab your jacket.”

I went back into the living room to wait by the door, anger and anxiety roiling inside me. Were we about to find out what had happened to Rebecca Perez? As much as I wanted to find her, I didn’t want it to be like this. Who else could it be, though? This was a small town. Unusual deaths were pretty rare.

I had to focus on the mystery at hand or I knew I’d lose myself to my anger. Alex had promised, he’d promised , that he’d never go out after a ghost alone again. He had me, Raina, Camille, and Will all saved as his emergency contacts for this very moment, but I knew just as surely as I knew my own name that he hadn’t called any of them, either. If I hadn’t missed him enough to come back tonight, would I have ever known about this?

“Donovan,” he whispered again, closer now, and I turned to see him standing behind me, wearing his thick winter coat. “I have to help her.”

“I know. Let’s go.”

“It’s late and you have to work in a few hours. You don’t have to come with me. I can handle it.”

He was testing me, even if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. No matter how many times I’d vowed to come with him, this would be the first time I’d faced the reality of it. The only other time I’d seen him deal with a ghost had been at the McAvell farm, when he’d been kidnapped, and we’d been swept into the chaos.

As angry and frustrated as I was with him at the moment, I understood. I could tell him I’d be there until I was blue in the face, but sometimes, words weren’t enough. How many times had his own family failed him when he’d asked for help? How many hours had he spent alone in a psychiatric ward as a terrified twelve-year-old, trying to tell the truth and being told he was sick? That he was crazy? That kind of wound couldn’t be healed with vague promises.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an argument. I’m coming with you. End of story.”

The night air held a crisp chill to it, winter still clinging to the mountains, no matter what the calendar said, bringing with it an icy breeze. The sky remained clear, though, and an endless array of stars spanned overhead, sparkling in the midnight darkness. Lowery’s Crossing lay silent around us, the peace of the night undisturbed.

“What now?” I asked when he hesitated on his front porch.

“Now we follow her.”

My heart stuttered in my chest. ‘Her’, he’d said. We had to follow ‘her’.

Please don’t let it be Rebecca .

“I know. I’m coming,” he whispered to whoever stood in the emptiness beside him, and we started walking. Neither of us spoke, keeping the delicate truce between us. The inevitable argument would have to wait until we dealt with this.

We walked in silence, heading toward the east end of Lowery’s Crossing. Alex and I had walked this town end to end together on our date nights, talking and getting to know each other. It had always been one of my favorite ways to spend time, just the two of us and the town we both loved.

Now the darkness slid between us, burrowing into the cracks I’d never known lay hidden in our foundation. The silence that was usually so comfortable was now riddled with tension, guilt and anger overriding the calm security we’d wrapped around ourselves.

Frustration hounded my every step, my thoughts running in circles, asking why . Why hadn’t Alex called me? Why had he broken his promise? Why didn’t he trust me? Corralling those words and holding them back took almost more willpower than I possessed, but they had to wait until we were done here.

“Do you know who it is that we’re following?” I asked after a few blocks and he stumbled, like he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.

“She looks familiar, but I can’t remember her name. She hasn’t said anything except asking me to help her. I don’t think it’s fully sunk in for her that she’s…” He didn’t finish the sentence, glancing at the empty air ahead of him.

“It’s okay. I get it,” I said, hating the tiny surge of relief that washed through me. I’d talked about the case with Alex and showed him Rebecca’s missing persons flyer and he’d told me he knew the family. Someone in our town was dead, but it wasn’t her.

Just like every town, there was a rougher side to Lowery’s Crossing. The houses here showed more signs of neglect, with overgrown yards and sagging fences. Here and there, a few determined people kept immaculate houses, but that only made them stand out like a sore thumb.

The home Alex took us to was one of those. Whoever lived here had clearly tried to make this place cheerful, with pretty floral designs painted on her wooden porch. Flower beds sat dormant along the front, but once spring finally hit, they would likely be a riot of color. Lacy curtains hung in the windows and sparkling wind chimes danced in the night breeze, tinkling and spinning. Children’s toys were scattered across the deck, protected from the elements by the simple metal roof overhead.

The sight of those toys gave me pause, my heart sinking.

“It’s not a child, is it?”

“No. I remember her now. It’s Jaime Smalls.”

No wonder this place looked so familiar. I knew Jaime. She’d been one of the first arrests I’d made as a new member of the LCPD, ending up in cuffs for public intoxication. If my memory was right, she’d done court-ordered rehab and seemed to have turned her life around. I’d seen her waiting tables at one of the restaurants on Broad Street, looking happy and healthy.

“This is where she lived,” Alex murmured.

“She still hasn’t said anything?”

Alex shook his head and he looked so tired that I wanted nothing more than to call this off and take him back home, where I could put him to bed and hold him until the cold went away. As mad as I was, I hated seeing him like this. It reminded me too much of the day he’d found Andre Marcel’s body and he’d ended up in the hospital, sick and freezing.

Alex shivered, staring up at the house. “She’s scared.”

“We have to keep walking, maybe look for a back entrance. If someone else is in there, they’ll see us and the last thing we need is a fight.” I tried to urge him on, but Alex planted his feet. “Alex, please.”

“She wouldn’t bring me here if it wasn’t safe,” he insisted.

“We can’t know that for sure. Please. We’ll go further down the block and call the police.” I cursed myself for not thinking to grab my holster out of the lockbox in my car. I hadn’t expected to need it when going into my boyfriend’s house.

Still, he didn’t move. “She’s scared , Donovan. She’s running out of strength, but she doesn’t want to let go until she knows she’s been found. I can’t leave her.”

Every instinct I possessed, both as a detective and as just a cautious person, insisted that we don’t go into that house. We were unarmed, no one knew where we were, and anybody could be in there. Could I really take the word of a dead person who I couldn’t see? Try as I might, I couldn’t pick up even the tiniest flicker of the woman who supposedly stood three feet in front of us.

“Alex…”

“It’s fine. I’ll go by myself,” he snapped and actually made it to the door before I caught up to him. The anger in his voice caught me by surprise, even though it probably shouldn’t have, but there was no way in Hell I was letting him go in there alone.

Alex went to one of the chimes hanging on the porch, reaching into the thin metal tube and pulling out a hidden key. Not a bad hiding spot and one he wouldn’t have been able to find so easily without Jaime’s guidance.

“Alex, wait.”

He paused on the front step, key in the lock, but didn’t look back at me. “I’m going to help her.”

“I know. I’d feel better if I went first, but I’m more worried about those.” Finally, Alex glanced at me and I nodded toward the toys on the porch. “Are her kids in there?”

Alex paled, the connotations of those toys finally sinking in. He looked to his right, where I assumed she stood. “Jaime? Are Misty and Levi inside?” He waited a moment, then closed his eyes, pain written all over his face.

“They are, aren’t they?” I asked, and he nodded. This made things so much more complicated.

“Levi is fourteen,” he whispered. “She got pregnant our senior year. Misty is only three.”

“We can’t just go walking in there. If we wake up the kids, we don’t have a good explanation for why we’re here. If he calls 911, we’re fucked.”

“If you’re that worried about getting in trouble at work, you could have just stayed in bed,” he hissed, and I’d never heard such anger in Alex’s voice. Not directed at me, anyway. “She needs me, Donovan. She doesn’t want her kids to find her like this, and I’m not going to let her down. I’d rather scare them for a second than let them live with the trauma of finding their mother dead.”

“I’m not saying we won’t help her, just that we need to think about this and come up with a plan.”

“I have a plan. I’m going to help her.”

Before I could stop him, Alex had the door unlocked and he was past the threshold. I could either stand out here spinning my wheels or follow him inside, protecting him like I’d promised I would.

I made sure to close the door behind me when I stepped inside.

Even in the darkness, Jaime’s touch could be seen in the small home. Bright paintings hung on the walls and soft blankets covered the worn couch, adding a touch of warmth to the space. Shelves dotted the walls between paintings and I could just make out the shapes of crystals and little statues. A tiny child-size table sat tucked against the half-wall separating the kitchen from the living room, covered in paper and crayons. The kitchen itself was neat and organized, with only a few dishes in the sink.

From the door, a small hallway went right, leading to three doors. One stood open and I could make out hints of a bathroom. The other two were closed. One had a giant needlepoint sunflower hanging from it, while the other held a poster of some band I didn’t recognize. Those had to be Levi and Misty’s bedrooms.

Alex silently made his way left, across the living room, to another small hallway, and I followed. There were only two doors down this way, one of which was another bathroom. The door at the end was also closed, displaying the delicate ivy painted on its face. He didn’t wait for me to catch up, just opened the door and slipped inside, leaving me with no choice but to do the same.

The smell hit me the second I stepped into the small bedroom. During my years working up the ranks in Chicago, I’d seen my share of drug overdoses. Death is never pretty, but overdoses were always especially ugly. Jaime Smalls was no exception. Her final moments had been frantic and messy and I could only hope whatever drugs she’d taken dulled the pain of her passing.

“I won’t, I promise,” Alex murmured. He didn’t look at the bed where Jaime had breathed her last. Instead, he addressed her ghost, who must have been standing near the window. “They’ll be alright.” He paused again, then smiled, so sad it broke my heart. “I don’t know what comes next, but I think it will be beautiful.”

For a moment, I could have sworn I saw a faint pulse of light, just a brief flicker, then Alex turned back to the bed. He’d gone pale and there was a faint blue cast to his lips that I didn’t like. As angry as I was, my worry for him came first. When I reached for him, though, he neatly sidestepped me to go to the nightstand.

“Don’t touch anything,” I warned when he reached for the drawer beneath it. “If this gets investigated, we don’t want your fingerprints anywhere on the house.”

“Too late for that.” He pulled open the drawer anyway, carefully withdrawing an envelope buried inside. “She wanted to make sure her dad got this letter.” Alex put the envelope on top of the stand and up close, I saw an address written in neat cursive. Creases marred the letter, the ink faded, as though it’d been handled over and over. “Besides, you and Will would be the ones investigating. Are you going to arrest me?”

The sarcasm in his words reignited my banked anger, battling with my concern for him.

“Of course not, but any officer can look at evidence. What do you think will happen if someone gets bored and looks through the files and sees that I ignored my boyfriend’s prints at a scene he shouldn’t have been at?” I shot back, barely remembering to keep my voice down. The kids’ rooms were on the other side of the house, but the walls were thin.

“I told her I’d make sure it got to her dad and I am. Would you rather I mail it and have people wondering how she sent a letter after she died?”

A truck rumbled to life, breaking the tense silence that followed. Now wasn’t the time to fight about this.

“We’ll talk about this later. We need to get out of here before someone finds us.”

“Fine, but we’re only going outside. I promised her I wouldn’t let her kids be the ones to find her like this.” Alex finally peeked at the bed, eyes shuttering with grief. “She’s my age. We went to school together.” The words were little more than a whisper. Before I could respond, he walked out, leaving me with no choice but to follow, carefully closing the door behind me.

All thoughts of our argument fled when I walked into the living area just behind Alex and found a teenage boy standing there, fear in his eyes and a rifle in his hands.

“Who the hell are you? What did you do to my mom?”