Chapter 26

Tuesday, March 16

12:00 p.m.

Baby teeth?

A Lebanon PD officer—she didn't know his name—watched Leigh as she hauled two paper boxes full of Michelle Cross's belongings from the newly secured station evidence room. Still no sign of the original investigation files, autopsy reports, or evidence collected during the case twenty years ago. Why someone had taken them was anyone's guess.

The APB issued for anyone who'd come into contact with Gresham Schmidt hadn't issued any results. There hadn't been any activity on his financials since his disappearance, and the only calls that'd come through the detective's phone had been from the hotel. Last Leigh had heard, Scotland Yard had dispatched two officers to Schmidt's flat but had come back with little to report. Evidence said the former detective had simply walked out of his hotel room and vanished before turning up dead in the orchard, taking anything he knew about her brother's case with him to the grave. How was that possible?

Leigh shouldered into the conference room where Boucher had set the unit up, her escort taking position at the door. "You don't have to stay."

"New protocol handed down from the chief himself, Agent Brody. Where the evidence goes, I go," he said. "Nothing personal. It's my job to make sure nothing else goes missing. I'm sure you understand."

Right. And it certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact Chief Maynor wanted her off this investigation and on her way back to Clarksburg at her earliest convenience.

"Then I hope you wore comfortable shoes." Unloading both boxes onto the table she'd sat at a mere five days prior, nervous, out of place, she rummaged through the boxes and personal effects taken from the Cross home. Everything was there. The surveillance photos, the scribbled notes, newspaper articles. They would've noticed a set of baby teeth during the search. Then again, it was entirely possible Michelle Cross had hidden them as well as she'd hidden her personal investigation into Chris Ellingson. Leigh ran through the evidence log, ensuring she hadn't missed anything.

No baby teeth. And there hadn't been any recovered with the body. Would Michelle Cross's killer have taken them?

"What the hell would you need with baby teeth, Michelle?" Her mother had kept hers and Troy's baby teeth. When Leigh had found them one day after trying on all her mother's jewelry from the ballerina box on the dresser, she'd wondered if her mother was a whack job who liked to keep trophies of her children. Like in that Edgar Allan Poe story about Berenice's teeth she'd read for her English Literature class.

But that hadn't been it at all.

Later, Leigh had learned about her mother's anxiety. About how she'd spend days imagining all the horrible and violent ways her children would die. About how she couldn't get herself out of that downward spiral without cleaning the kitchen counters until the finish wore thin. About how she held on to Leigh's and Troy's teeth in case they ever went missing and the police needed DNA to compare to a body.

And when one of those violent thoughts had finally come to fruition, her mother had broken, fully believing Troy's death had been her fault. That she'd manifested his final moments. No matter how many times Leigh had tried to tell her otherwise.

"Baby teeth have DNA." If Katherine Garrison was right and Michelle Cross had stolen her son's baby teeth while she was playing hostess, she'd known they'd existed in the first place. She would've known where Katherine Garrison had kept them and arranged her visit around that goal, maybe even inquired if the grieving mother had kept anything of her son's.

But why? Derek Garrison was dead. His body had been left for his parents to find in his backyard shed, and there was no changing that reality. Not even for a true crime book deal.

Leigh stared at the victim's handwritten notes long enough for the script to burn into her brain and follow wherever she directed her attention. "Okay. You got the baby teeth for Derek's DNA. You would've needed a sample to compare it to, and someone to execute the testing, but why bother? Police already matched the victim to his dental records."

Unless Derek wasn't the only victim Michelle Cross wanted to know about.

Leigh unpocketed her phone, scrolling through the mass of emails she'd collected over the past few days. She accessed the latest update from the fire marshal in charge of the investigation into the destruction of her home. The entire scene had been photographed in an effort to identify the arsonist, and a link to the photos had been embedded into the marshal's last email. A professional courtesy that could provide answers in this case. She swiped through each image as the photographer seemingly progressed through the home.

Until she found it.

A photo of her parents' closet. Black wood, hose water, and light ash combined into a mudslide around the hatch where she'd discovered the remains of a boy meant to pass as her brother. And there, set against the collapsed shelf, her mother's jewelry box splayed open. The contents had spilled onto the floor. Family heirlooms and jewelry had melted together in bright patches under the photographer's flash. Leigh enlarged the image with a widening pinch across the screen. Everything was there. The ring she'd envied and hoped to inherit one day. The brooch her grandmother had gifted on her mother's high school graduation day. "Where are they?"

She turned the phone onto its side to widen the photo. Bone was one of the most resilient and indestructible components of the human body, but there was no sign of the baby teeth her mother had kept. Leigh reviewed the notes and evidence spread on the table in front of her. "You took them, didn't you? Just like you took Derek's."

Had Michelle Cross been the one to break into Leigh's home? Had she gone through Troy's bedroom in hopes of learning more about one of the victims in the original case and come across something far more useful in a set of baby teeth? A sinking feeling knotted in Leigh's gut. Had Michelle Cross suffered from the same intrusive thought surrounding the case as Leigh had from the beginning?

That Troy and Derek most likely hadn't been Chris Ellingson's only victims back then. That police had missed something far worse than putting the wrong man behind bars.

That it was possible one of Chris Ellingson's hostages escaped.

Her phone dinged with an incoming email. She focused entirely on the top message. Her request to identify the commenter on Michelle Cross's social media post had gone through. Hallelujah, it was a miracle. "Got you."

The username belonged to Officer Donavon Pierce.

He hadn't just threatened her. He'd threatened one of the victims. That, coupled with the Lego figure Ellingson had given her and DNA recovered at the scene of the house fire, shoved him to the top of her most wanted list. Confrontational. Aggressive. Controlling. Problems with authority. All traits that fit the markings of a killer.

Now she just needed proof to tie him to the murders.

Leigh restacked the files taken from Michelle Cross's home and fit them back into their respective boxes. With the original case files stolen from the evidence room—along with all DNA samples and lab reports—and external access outside of the department on hold, she'd have to go to the source.

The chief.

Her phone tri-toned a new message from her blazer pocket. Elyse. Her heart rate picked up as the screen read her face ID and took her straight to the message. But excitement died as quickly as it'd exploded.

Consulted best OB/GYNs. Surgery is the only guarantee of success.

She didn't bother reading the message again. It'd engrained into the front of her mind and had her shoving files back into their boxes harder than necessary until a numbness took hold. This was it. This was the moment. Where doing nothing and pursuing treatment ended in the same result. Where a life she never got to live flashed before her eyes.

There wouldn't be any pregnancy progression photos or late-night Braxton-Hicks—whatever the hell those were. No registering at Target for tiny clothes and diapers and the perfect crib. No one would throw her the baby shower she'd collected Pinterest pins for over the years, and there wouldn't be any reward at the end of a nine-month balance of discomfort and radical joy.

She wasn't going to get to experience any of it.

"Thanks for the company." She turned over responsibility for both boxes she'd borrowed from evidence to the officer stationed outside the conference room door, mentally mapping out the fastest way to get to City Hall.

Only she didn't even make it to the parking lot.

"Ms. Brody, just the person I was hoping to see." Chief Maynor finished signing something at the front desk and turned toward her in expectation, his service cap wedged under his arm. He addressed another officer, presumably his deputy, over his shoulder. "Go on ahead without me. I won't be long."

"Chief. What a coincidence. I was on my way to your office." Her defenses spiked with the lack of antagonism rifting between them. Or maybe she wanted a fight. Maybe she wanted to feel something other than this hollowing numbness spreading through her. "Thanks for saving me the trip."

"Don't thank me yet." Maynor took a step toward her, those well-polished shoes reflecting the overhead lights. "I believe I've made my position about your assignment to the BAU clear. Since you stepped foot back in my town, the bodies of four good people have turned up, not to mention Boucher's son has gone missing, and the best lieutenant I've ever had the pleasure of serving with just turned in his resignation papers."

"Boucher resigned?" This was news to her.

"Just now." He took another step, penetrating her personal space to the point his aftershave burned her nostrils. "Twenty years, Ms. Brody. The people of this great city were finally moving on. We were healing. What happened back then was finally not the first thing we thought about when our feet hit the floor in the morning and the last thing we considered when we went to sleep at night. Now look where we are. Look at what your accusations, denial, and anger have done to the very people who tried to help you."

There were so many things wrong with that statement, Leigh didn't know where to start. Categorizing Chris Ellingson as a good man. Claiming this town had tried to help her when she'd needed them the most. Bullshit. The man was delusional. About all of it. What she did know? She didn't have time to get into a feud with the chief of police. And neither did Carter Boucher. "I take it your conversation with Director Livingstone didn't go as you'd hoped. Considering I haven't been told I'm being recalled back to Clarksburg, I'm requesting an exhumation order for Derek Garrison's remains."

"Denied, Ms. Brody, and I'll tell you why." He grabbed for his service cap. "The Garrison family has been harassed enough. By Michelle Cross and you. There is no amount of accusations, lab tests, or interviews that is going to undo the evil your father left at our feet, and frankly, I'm tired of defending myself against the likes of someone who flat out lied on an official police report before she applied to the police academy and the FBI."

That… He couldn't know that.

Leigh fought the urge to swallow through the discomfort prickling in her chest. It was true. Her father had taken credit for discovering Troy's body under the house. She'd lied on her application to Concord Police department and through the psychological exams when they'd asked about anything that could undermine her ability to do her job. It'd been easy convincing herself the past had belonged to someone else, that it was another lifetime that didn't apply to her.

And she'd gotten away with it.

Once she'd signed on with the FBI, it didn't seem to matter so much. She was where she was meant to be. And no one—not even an egotistical chief of police—was going to take that from her.

"You knew." What else had he done behind her back? Who had he told? If CJIS got even a whiff she'd lied to get into her position, she would lose more than the ability to conceive the life and family she'd dreamed of all these years.

"Of course I knew, Ms. Brody." Chief Maynor looked her up and down. "Did you really think that I would just let you come in here and take over this investigation for your own agenda? This is still my town, and this case is still under Lebanon PD jurisdiction. So as of this moment, you are no longer permitted to step foot inside this station. You will no longer have access to our servers, my officers, evidence collected on this or any other case, or any other damn thing I can think of. You are done."

He pushed past her, knocking her shoulder on the way.

"You just can't admit you were wrong, can you?" Stillness eased through her. For the first time in years, her anger wasn't taking a front seat. It wasn't calling the shots. She could yell at the man who'd failed her family and this town from sunrise to sunset. She'd never get through. He'd built a wall between her teenage toolbox of hatred, rage, and tears. But he didn't know her now. "All that time I spent trying to get you to see the truth? It wasn't a personal attack, Maynor, and I'm sorry if that's what you've internalized all these years. I was trying to save what was left of my family. Because that was all I had. But now I see you're so determined to prove yourself right—afraid to confront the fact you sent an innocent man to prison—you let a child murderer walk free."

Chief Maynor quarter-turned. "Ms. Brody?—"

"It's Agent Brody, and I wasn't finished." Leigh was the one to take a step forward this time, the pieces she'd turned over in her head for days finally sliding into place. "You gave him the investigation file to make your case stronger, didn't you? You knew Chris Ellingson would back you up with all kinds of psychological bullshit during the trial, and he followed through. Just as you wanted, but to make that decision, at some point you must've doubted your own conclusions. You started believing me. But the mayor was up for reelection that year. People needed to feel safe. They were calling for a new chief of police, and there you were. Working the highest profile case Lebanon had ever seen. You had the power to make it all stop, to give them what they wanted. And you did."

She should've felt a sense of victory at the realization. Instead, there was nothing but hollowness. So much time wasted. So much time lost while all Maynor had needed to do was stand up for her brother and Derek Garrison. "You gave in to the pressure. You tainted the investigation with your personal agenda, and you let the real killer influence the case so you didn't have to think about the consequences."

The chief's pinky finger shook slightly at his side. A crack in that defensive mask he'd worn as long as she'd known him widened. Hints of a man who'd carried the weight of this town on his shoulders for two decades bled through. Not the detective she'd resented as a teen. Not the chief determined to ruin her now. The man he once might've been, a resident of this town, someone who had something to lose. "I did my job."

"Is that what you tell yourself at night to keep the nightmares away?" Leigh didn't have the energy to do this anymore. To try to make people see the truth. To keep giving bits and pieces of herself to those who'd never asked for them or would appreciate them. To make the vision of what she'd imagined her future to look like come to light when the entire world seemed to be fighting her at every step. None of it had done a damn bit of good, and it certainly wasn't helping to find Carter Boucher.

"I'm sure living with what you've done is worse than anything I could ever say to you, but I wanted you to be one of the first to know." Sleepless nights caught up with her then, taking the emotion out of her voice. "We've been able to tie Chris Ellingson to the disappearance of a five-year-old boy in a town called Fruitland, Montana. He used an alias to work his way into the boy's life as an elementary school psychologist, gained his trust. Just as he did with my brother and Derek Garrison. Even volunteered his services to police during the search. Seems old habits really do die hard. So you can ban me from the station, you can get me kicked out of this investigation, and tell the FBI what you think you know about me, but none of it will relieve you of that guilt you carry. You're going to have to live with that the rest of your life."

She only caught a glimpse of color draining from the chief's face, his jaw and neck slack as she headed for the lobby doors, but the satisfaction never came. Just cold. She'd given him enough details to confirm what she'd said for himself. What the chief did after that was up to him. In truth, she didn't need Chief Maynor's permission for an exhumation order to follow Michelle Cross's theory.

That was up to the victim's next of kin.