Chapter 5

Thursday, March 11

5:00 p.m.

Home, sweet home.

Leigh pulled her rental into the descending driveway of the last house on Guyer Street that'd once been her entire world. Light blue siding and white trim had weathered more than she'd expected, but that was nothing compared to the graffiti spray-painted across the boards protecting the windows.

Murderer.

No matter where she looked, the vulgarities followed. She could get a hotel room. She could turn around, drive farther into town, and never set foot on this property again, but the truth would follow. There wasn't going to be a homecoming. No parades. No potlucks from the neighbors or "Welcome homes". Just… this.

Leigh hiked toward the covered front porch with her overnight bag, leaving the groceries she'd bought in the back seat for now. The grass had died. Nothing but a wasteland of dirt and dried weeds while the rest of the street thrived. Good. The neighbors deserved to lose some of their home value after what they'd done.

Plywood had been installed over the front porch window and door. She pried her fingers beneath one corner and ripped it free. The wood groaned before giving up the ghost. She tested the screen door—locked—and dug for the keys she'd kept all these years. The property had passed from her father to her mother then to her after the death certificate had officially been issued, but this didn't feel like home. Not anymore. Leigh shoved her first house key into the small, beaten, rusted-out screen door, and turned. "First time's the charm."

The screen door swung open, and she stepped back into another time. Everything was still there. The circular table her parents sat at every morning for coffee. The floral picture frame, slightly askew, on the wall. A thick layer of dust had settled over everything, but that was to be expected. She pushed through the door into the main house and hit the light switch off to her right.

No power.

"That's not creepy at all." Sunlight penetrated around the edges of plywood throughout the living room, but it wouldn't do a damn bit of good come nightfall. Leigh worked her way back outside. Summers in this house meant window-box air conditioning competing with the outdoors and blowing the breakers any chance it got. Making her way to the side of the house, she dug through the layer of overgrown bushes until the edges of the breaker box came through. As she reset the power, a low electrical buzz hummed up through the lines going into the house. She couldn't believe the power company hadn't severed the lines out of spite.

The woods whispered behind her, low and inviting. She and Troy had spent hours out here the last summer of his life trying to catch grasshoppers just to figure out how they sang or playing in the abandoned mill on the river less than a half mile from here. Despite the differences in their age, they'd had that in common. The need to test the truth for themselves, to search and ask questions no one else would think of. It was why she'd gone into law enforcement in the first place. Not just to somehow prove that Chris Ellingson had taken and killed her brother but to honor his memory. To keep what they'd shared alive. "Great job you're doing so far."

Leigh retraced her steps and hit the switch a second time. The overhead dome light flickered a split second before holding strong, but no amount of darkness could've prepared her for the reality inside. "Bastards."

Her childhood home had been ransacked.

Furniture slashed and turned over. Floorboards ripped up, exposing the interior of the home to the great outdoors. Her mother's wedding china lay in pieces around the room while the cabinet that'd housed it looked as though it'd been set on fire. Shit. Leigh leaned against the doorframe. This was the house where she'd been born. This was the house where her brother and mother had died. This place… It'd been more than a roof over her head, and the people of this town had done whatever they could to erase it. She scrubbed both hands up her cheeks.

But she wouldn't let them have the last word.

Unless she secured the house, she'd only be asking for more problems. Leigh located the spot where the vandals had broken in.

Troy's bedroom.

She took in the collection of mutant action figures lined up with perfect military precision along his dresser. Spiderwebs and dust competed for valuable real estate. Dust particles danced in glittering streaks, and for a second, he was right there with her, screaming for her to get out of his room and throwing his bed pillows as she ran away. They'd always bickered over the stupidest things, and her heart pinched in her chest. "I'm going to fix this. All of it. I promise."

Neither the window nor the board that'd been protecting it could be saved, but her father had taught her to work with her hands. She could use the plywood she'd taken from the screen door as a temporary fix. But after locating her father's old toolbox on the back porch, she realized there was no piecing it together. Not unless she wanted to advertise Vandals welcome, you forgot to burn the place down.

She'd have to make a trip to the hardware store.

And she had the perfect place in mind.

After unloading the groceries from the back seat, she headed back into town, Leigh kept her gaze straight through the windshield as the sun arced into the west. City Hall's grand clock tower lit up and guided her toward the center of town as easily as a lighthouse beckoned lost sailors. So many things had changed since she'd left. The small automotive store off to her left had since been taken over by a larger brand name franchise, but the sandwich shop up ahead looked the same. A bit more battered but still standing.

Leigh signaled to cross the Mascoma River and drove straight for the heart of town. Livibility.com—whatever the hell that was—had once ranked Lebanon the best small town in America. Once upon a time, she might've agreed. But, as she studied the faces out her window, all she saw was a bunch of scared people trying to keep the safe little bubbles they'd created from popping.

She followed Park Street along the southern edge of Colburn Park with its vibrant acres of rich green grass, century-old trees, and ancient bandstand until she was forced to turn south. Swathes of low-hung power lines crisscrossed over and along the road as she pulled in front of a seafoam-green home painted with a light pink trim.

Rathe's Hardware wasn't at all typical for a growing city like this, but locals had been coming to Henry Rathe for help with home projects long before Home Depot and True Value had started moving in. The small sign out front said nothing had changed in that regard, and Leigh shouldered out of the car. A long driveway cracked and peaked along the right side of the house Henry and his wife lived, leading to a separate renovated, fully stocked garage-turned-store in the back.

According to the sign out front, Henry Rathe would be packing up soon. So how had Chris Ellingson made two runs to the hardware store at eleven and midnight if the owner had closed several hours before? A small bell jingled overhead as she stepped inside, and an all-too-familiar scent of wood and glue filled her lungs.

It looked the same since her father had dragged her and Troy in here every weekend to fix something that'd gone wrong at home. From a loose floorboard in the kitchen to hanging planters outside for her mother—she'd come to think of Rathe's Hardware as a second home.

"I'll be right with you," a strained, gruff voice said from narrow, over-packed aisles.

"Thanks." Sweat built under her thick coat from the vast difference in temperature inside. The soft bite of lumber in the air directed her toward the back. Large panels of plywood set against the far wall, and she sized up the first piece she could get her hands on.

"Looking for anything in particular?" A full face of sun damage penetrated her peripheral vision. White eyebrows and tufts of clinging hair around his ears put the man far into his seventies. Henry Rathe's large, elephant-sized ears connected to a loose jowl wobbling beneath his chin. Her brother had always had something to say about those ears every time they'd been pulled into the store, as though Henry Rathe were the one responsible for forcing him to leave the house. She'd liked them. The old man used to move them on command to make her laugh. "Got a project you're working on?"

He didn't recognize her. "One of my windows got broken, and the plywood I had is too damaged to fit. I need a new piece until I can get someone out to replace the glass."

"All right. Let's take a look." Henry Rathe set a pair of thin glasses secured by an adjustable chain over his nose. "You know the dimensions you need?"

Leigh pulled a piece of paper from her coat and handed it off.

"Okay, then." He unpocketed a tape measure from his worn overalls and slipped the tape a few feet in front of him. Measuring the first piece of plywood, he retracted the tape measure with a metal screech and made notes on the board itself. Henry Rathe hauled the board from its place with a strength she hadn't expected. "This one should do the job. You got a drill?"

"No." She scanned what little she could see of the rest of the store. "Just an old toolbox that came with the house. Looks like it's from the 60s."

"This way then." He shuffled along the cement floor, one hip angling higher than the other, with the plywood gripped between both hands. The effect curved his spine to one side, and it was then Leigh realized just how much she'd missed this place. The man she'd known—who'd made her laugh with his giant ears—didn't exist anymore. Not really. No matter how many patch jobs had been done or new structures had been added, time had ravaged him the same as it'd ravaged this town. "Got every kind of drill you might need, but I'd hate for you to spend that kind of money when I have a perfectly good drill sitting in my office. If you're looking for help, I can follow you back to the house with the supplies to install it."

"Oh, no. That's okay. I saw from the sign out front you're getting ready to close," she said.

He waved her off. "That sign doesn't mean anything. My wife made it a few years ago to convince me six o'clock was the end of the workday. After she died, I didn't have anyone to tell me what to do."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Leigh hadn't met his wife more than a handful times, but from what she remembered Caroline Rathe had always been nice. "Actually, the house this is going to belongs to a friend of mine. He lost his mother a few months ago. Now he's trying to fix up the place and recruited me to help. Maybe you know him. Chris Ellingson?"

Henry Rathe manually rang up the plywood on a vintage cash register she recognized from her visits as a kid. "I know Chris. He's been in and out of here the past few weeks. Hell of a job. First the mold and structural rot in the bathroom. Now the furnace. I told him to hire a contractor. Wasn't interested. Said he liked to work with his own two hands."

"I didn't realize the furnace had gone out." A lie. Leigh fished her wallet from her coat and handed off her credit card. "Was that recently?"

"Must've been last night. Called me, asked me to open the shop. I don't sleep much anymore anyway. Luckily, I had the supplies he needed." After swiping her card for the purchase, Henry ran his thumb over the raised block lettering of her name, and her jaw tightened.

"Oh. Chris told me he'd gone to a few different stores. What time was he here last night?" she asked.

"Leigh Brody. I know that name." Her name left his mouth as a growl. Color drained from Henry's already anemic complexion and intensified the spots marring his cheeks and bald head. Dark eyes narrowed impossibly further. "You're Joel's girl." The old man's features hardened. He thrust her card back at her. "Get out of my store."

"Mr. Rathe, I'm not interested in making any trouble for you." Leigh raised her hands in surrender, her card pressed into her hand. "All I need to know is what time Chris Ellingson visited your store last night."

"Why? So you can try to pin another murder on him? I heard about what happened to Michelle Cross. Chris is a good boy. He doesn't deserve what you and your family did to him, and this town has been through enough." Henry Rathe reached for the ancient phone on the other side of the register and started dialing. "Now I said get out. Before I call the police."

Apparently, that hadn't been an either/or offer.

"Thanks for the plywood." Raw edges of wood dug into her fingers as she hauled the board out the door and toward her car. Leigh stepped out into the night. The shock of cold slapped her across the face as efficiently as Henry Rathe's words and dulled her senses.

"Agent Brody, I thought I might find you here." Chris Ellingson stepped away from her car, a dark outline of something bulky in his hand. "You accused me of Troy's murder. After what happened to Michelle this morning, I thought it was high time you and I set the record straight."