CHAPTER 36 - Cedar Creek, Nevada Wednesday, July 31, 2024

CHAPTER 36

Cedar Creek, Nevada Wednesday, July 31, 2024

SLOAN STOOD IN THE BACKYARD OF ERIC’S CABIN WITH THE PEAKS OF the Sierra Nevada Mountains staring down at her. The revelation that Annabelle’s blood had been discovered in her home, and what it meant for her birth mother’s fate, had rattled her. The information Dr. Cutty had delivered about Sandy Stamos’s cause of death had turned Eric’s world upside down. There was some part of him, Sloan now understood, that had been skeptical of the stories his ailing grandfather told before he passed. They were tales of corruption and cover-ups that involved his father having discovered something sinister enough during his investigation into Baker Jauncey and the missing Margolis family that it led to his death. Eric had been chasing answers to satisfy the wishes of his dead grandfather. But now, with Dr. Cutty’s interpretation of Sandy Stamos’s autopsy, it was clear that Eric’s grandfather’s decades-long search into his son’s death had not been a dying man chasing a conspiracy theory.

They both needed to clear their minds and settle their nerves. When Sloan mentioned a workout—the usual way she recharged her brain—Eric showed her his backyard. He had erected a CrossFit course complete with a torque sled, battle ropes, pull-up bar, kettlebells, and free weights. Just the sight of the equipment allowed Sloan’s mind to drift from Annabelle Margolis’s likely fate.

Wearing shorts and a tank top she had in her car, Sloan approached the giant tractor tire that rested in the middle of Eric’s backyard. The sun was high in the cloudless sky and on a westward pitch that cast the Sierra Nevada Mountains in a bright amber glow. She crouched into a squat, reached her hands under the edge of the tire, and engaged her quads and glutes as she flipped the tire over. It landed a few feet away and Sloan jogged back to it, squatted again, and repeated the process—lift, pull, push, lift, pull, push—until she completed twenty-five reps. Once she finished, Eric attacked the tire. Sloan jumped rope to keep her heart rate up while Eric completed his reps. Her watch beeped just as Eric finished the last rotation. Sloan hustled over to the tire, and they swapped spots.

After fifteen minutes they were both breathing heavily and unable to talk. Eric pointed to the battle ropes—two thick cords, each twenty feet long and secured to eyelets screwed into the ground. Sloan grabbed the free end of each rope and began swinging in an up-and-down motion—right arm up, left arm down, zigzagging the ropes for two straight minutes until her shoulders burned and her chest heaved. Eric took over as Sloan recovered. They took turns, back and forth on the battle ropes in two-minute rounds until they completed ten reps and collapsed onto the ground.

They gulped from water bottles before heading to the kettlebells to complete a killer circuit of snatches and cleans. When they finished, they walked around the yard with hands on their heads and heaving for breath.

“I see you handle stress about as well as I do,” Sloan said.

“It’s either this or the bottle,” Eric said. “And this is a lot healthier.”

Eric had sweated through his shirt so that the fabric stuck to his skin, revealing the sculptured physique of his shoulders and chest.

“I take it you’re not a drinker either?” Eric asked.

“Only Diet Dr. Pepper and the occasional glass of wine. Otherwise, I burn off my anxiety at the gym. Thanks for letting me crash what I assume is usually a one-man show.”

“Are you kidding? This was great. You pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself. And it got my mind off of what your boss told me about my dad.”

Sloan took a sip of water.

“So if the same coroner who performed Baker Jauncey’s autopsy also did your father’s, and both reports were blatantly inaccurate, the guy was either a hack or . . .”

“Or someone was in his ear telling him what they needed the reports to say.”

Sloan took another swig from her water bottle. Sweat poured from her body, causing her shoulders and arms to glisten in the sun.

“So we have confirmation that someone killed Baker Jauncey and then tried to make it look like a hit-and-run. The fact that Annabelle’s car was planted at the scene indicates that whoever killed Baker wanted Annabelle to take the fall. The discovery of Annabelle’s blood at her home, and the attempted clean up, proves foul play was involved.”

“And,” Eric continued, “someone injected my father—the man investigating both crimes—with enough heroin to place him in a coma, or close to it. A second dose killed him. Then, if I’m figuring things correctly, they pushed his car into Cedar Creek so that it would look like an accident.”

“Which it did to everyone except your grandfather.”

“And your boss.”

Sloan nodded. “So we’ve got three murders—Baker Jauncey, Annabelle Margolis, and your father. Someone wanted Baker Jauncey’s death to look like a hit-and-run, and your father’s to look like an overdose. And since your father was investigating the disappearance of my birth parents and me at the time, it’s logical to conclude that all three crimes are linked. The question is how.”

A bird crooned loudly and both Eric and Sloan looked up to see a black-tailed Cooper’s hawk perched on the roof of the cabin. As soon as they spotted it, the hawk took flight, soaring overhead before diving down into the gorge behind the cabin.

After the workout they each showered and got back to work at the long oak table. For hours they pored through the case files looking for any hints the pages might hold to help them piece together the mystery. They worked until midnight without a break, reading page after page of detective’s notes, reviewing interview transcripts, and combing through the list of evidence collected from Annabelle and Preston’s home. They looked through crime scene photos of the house, images of Sandy Stamos’s squad car dripping water after being freshly pulled from Cedar Creek, and snapshots of Annabelle’s car and Baker Jauncey’s body taken by accident investigators with the Nevada State Highway Patrol. Despite their efforts, when midnight came they were no closer to finding answers than when they had started.

Sloan looked up from the report she was reading.

“Anything?”

Eric shook his head. “No. And I think I’ve hit a wall. I’m not even sure what I’m reading is making it into my brain at this point.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty spent myself.”

Sloan looked at her phone.

“Oh my God, is it midnight already?”

Eric checked his watch. “Damn. Time flies when you’re trying to solve three thirty-year-old crimes.”

Sloan smiled. “This is not the most pleasant of topics, but I can think of worse ways to spend the day. It’s been eye-opening.”

“To say the least.”

She stood and stretched.

Eric stood as well. “Thanks again for getting your boss’s help on my dad’s autopsy.”

“Sorry it confirmed what you feared.”

“It’s better to know than to live in doubt.”

Sloan nodded and offered a dejected smile. “I guess that’s true. I better get going.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you drive those mountain roads this late at night. None of them are lighted and it gets dicey in the dark.”

Sloan looked out the window and imagined herself attempting to navigate the steep, winding roads this late at night.

“I can drive you back to town,” Eric said, “but you’d have to leave your car here and grab it tomorrow. Or . . .” he paused. “You can stay the night. The extra bedroom’s all set—sheets are clean, and you already know I’ve got clean towels in the bathroom.”

Sloan looked back from the window. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

They cleaned up the table and stacked the boxes full of the notes they had spent all night reading. Eric walked her up the stairs and showed her the guest room. He grabbed two extra pillows from the top shelf in the closet and stuffed them into pillowcases. He fluffed them on the bed.

He pointed at the bathroom. “Bathroom’s there, obviously. There’s water in the fridge downstairs. And I’m across the hall if you need anything.”

Sloan smiled. “Thanks. And thanks for letting me crash.”

“Sure thing.”

“I’m sorry again,” Sloan said, walking over to him. “About your dad. I know it was a long time ago, and you were a kid, but I’m sure it’s not easy to hear those things.”

Eric nodded. “Not easy, but that’s why I’m looking for answers. My grandfather would be proud I got this far.”

“I’m looking with you.”

“I know. And I appreciate it.” Eric leaned in and kissed her cheek. “And I’m going to keep looking until we both have answers about what happened that summer.”

Sloan put her hand on his chest. In a different moment in time, one where they had not spent the night looking through case files that dealt with the death of Eric’s father and the disappearance of Sloan’s birth parents, something more might have happened between them. But on this night, they were partners with a common goal. Nothing more.

“Good night,” she finally said.

“See you in the morning.”