Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Sunday, September 22

6:14 a.m.

The warrant request for Elyse's last GPS location had come through an hour ago.

The sun had yet to make an appearance, but trying to make up for the hours of broken sleep proved a waste of time. Leigh thanked her ride-share driver and shoved free of the small four-door sedan that smelled slightly of french fries. The odor clung to her black jeans and tank top. Too hot for the blazer she usually wore, and she was pretty sure the sweat stains had yet to dry from yesterday.

A mouthful of humidity clogged her throat as she faced off with the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail sign. The last registered coordinates of Elyse's cell phone pulled her to the left, through a row of mostly empty parking stalls, and to the head of the asphalted trail. Trees stood tall as giants, demanding attention from either side of the path. The sedan's headlights cascaded over her as the driver pulled out of the parking lot, leaving her to fend for herself against whatever waited at the end of the trail.

Leigh faced off with the darkness and tapped the flashlight feature on her phone. It didn't have a whole lot of range, but it was better than going in blind. Details of Elyse's incident report, of the morning of her claimed assault, held on to the edges of her mind as she followed the trail. Elyse had been dressed in workout clothing, tied into her running shoes. Sand had been collected from her socks and underwear. It was plausible her friend had, in fact, fallen during an early morning run, but why wouldn't anyone have noticed? Why hadn't Detective Moore requested the last coordinates of Elyse's phone from the cell phone company to follow up?

Leigh wanted to give the detective the benefit of the doubt considering the circumstances of this week, of having to search for her missing niece, but Leigh couldn't ignore the knot of dread in her gut either. The one that said there was something more going on than what Detective Moore had written in her report.

Insects halted their early morning calls as she walked the trail, a few scurrying across the asphalt in front of her. It was another ten minutes before sunrise, and the shadows seemed to set in around her. As though they'd never lift. Elyse would've needed to run with a flashlight or headlamp to navigate this kind of darkness. To ward off anything looking for its next meal. Leigh checked her phone's screen. The last location Elyse's cell phone had pinged was up ahead. Near the shore. The trail curved to the right ahead, but the GPS coordinates told her Elyse had ventured off the path.

Leigh pulled up short of rolling dunes. Dozens of them in the limited light. But on the other side, a house. Grand and dark and isolated. There wasn't another neighbor in sight, and instinct pulled her off the safety of the asphalt. Her ankle nearly rolled as the landscape changed from solid to unsteady. She threw her hands out for balance to get her bearings. Only she recovered faster than she'd expected. Her phone's flashlight highlighted divots in the sand, creating a well-worn path around the base of the dune ahead, and within a minute, she'd made it to a stretch of flat land. Weeds grabbed at her shoes as she pushed through to the front of the house.

This was it. Right where Elyse's phone had stopped pinging on Monday morning. No vehicle parked beneath the stilted structure. No signs of a resident. It was still early. Glimmers of sunlight crept across the sky and outlined a wraparound deck. No single entry point, but multiple double glass doors stationed on two sides of the house. The wood slats acting as a path thudded with her every step. Like a warning signaling her arrival. Except no lights came on inside. No one moved through the windows. The guardrail sucked moisture from her hand as she headed to the main level of the home. And faced off with an in-deck pool mere feet from the top of the stairs. If she hadn't been paying attention, she might've fallen in. A trap for unwanted guests. According to the coordinates revealed by the phone company, there was no doubt Elyse's phone had last signaled from this house. "What were you doing here?"

The question went unanswered. Leigh scanned the expansive deck. In the daylight, she could imagine a breathtaking view of the ocean instead of the velvet blackness stretching from one side of her peripheral vision to the other. It was intimidating. Unknown. Hiding secrets she couldn't even begin to unravel. Everything looked in its place. A dining set, multiple lounge chairs with side tables for drinks, snacks, sunscreen, and towels. She craned her head upward, toward the balcony overhead. And caught sight of a broken security wire from the guardrail. Raising her phone's flashlight, she noted the others above it weren't pulled tight as they should've been. Like something heavy had weighed against them.

Leigh approached the first set of double doors and knocked. Then waited. Her phone's flashlight couldn't penetrate through the glass. She listened for sounds of movement, but all she noted was the unending roar of the water charging up the shore. She knocked again. No answer. "Hello? This is Agent Brody of the FBI. I need to ask the homeowner some questions."

She waited. One breath. Two. One hand on the door handle, she pressed down.

The door swung inward. Her fingers itched for her sidearm as she faced off with the potential of an angry homeowner charging down the stairs with a weapon of their own. "Hello! FBI. Is anyone home?"

Stepping inside, Leigh realized she couldn't hear the ocean from here, even with the door still ajar. It was like the house had been soundproofed. She scanned the ceiling, looking for a clue to sure up her theory. An upgrade like that could cost tens of thousands. Why would anyone do that?

Leigh closed the door behind her. No reason to alert anyone she'd come inside. The furniture took shape as her vision adjusted. Sharp corners of the coffee table, softer angles on the couches. Two fans demanded attention from overhead. Clutter didn't exist. Everything had been meticulously maintained, and for a moment, she wondered if she'd stepped into a rental or a model home. Houses like this—presumably in the millions—were hard to afford on one or two incomes alone. She certainly never could on her federal salary. Homeowners used platforms such as Vrbo and Airbnb to supplement their income, paying cleaners to wipe away any evidence of visitors between stays. She'd have to run property records on the address to confirm, but if Elyse had been here, there had to be a reason. Did she know the homeowner? A guest?

A hint of lemon drove into her nose as she moved into the kitchen. Vinegar too. Familiar and assaulting. She crouched behind the kitchen island and pried the cabinet door open, finding an unlabeled bottle. One sniff confirmed the homemade concoction inside. It'd been used recently, from what she could tell. Which meant someone had been here. Within the past few hours as cleaners didn't usually leave a long-lasting scent.

Leigh replaced the bottle and closed the cabinet. Six plates, six glasses, six chairs at the indoor dining table. Six sets of utensils and steak knives. All matching. Not a single outlier or novelty cup stored at the back of the cabinets. Again, meticulous. She memorized the layout of the main floor, targeting the stairs tucked into an anteroom off to her left. But it was the fireplace that held her attention now. She turned the phone's flashlight back into the living room. "One of these things is not like the other."

Ash coated the inside of the gas fireplace. Installations like this weren't supposed to be used to burn wood or papers. Leigh had learned that the hard way in her first apartment she and Chandler had shared. Right after she'd graduated high school and moved them to Concord. Up to that point, he'd been living in an abandoned mold-ridden water shed off the Mascoma River. Hiding from his would-be killer. He'd gotten sick—dangerously so—and the wounds he'd sustained during his abduction had stopped healing. So Leigh had gotten an on-campus apartment, hiding him there until she graduated with her criminal justice degree. They'd burned the parts of her brother's old life in that apartment. Anything with Troy Brody's name that could be used by his abductor, and in the process, they'd lost their rental deposit for damaging the fireplace.

Seemed whoever'd used this fireplace wasn't aware gas fireplaces didn't have the same burn power as wood. Leigh pulled one of the bi-fold doors outward and angled her flashlight in. The ash had collected beneath the blackened faux-wood logs, at least a half inch deep. There was no saving any of it. No telling what the user had burned. But she caught a glimpse of some kind of reflective paper gleaming from behind the logs. And something else. Something larger.

Grabbing for the decorative fire stoker positioned near the fireplace, she used the end to manipulate the debris from the back. There was certainly going to be a hefty fee for this kind of damage. "What was so important for you to get rid of you'd risk a fine?"

A black brick clattered against the tile.

And Leigh froze. Light bounced back at her from a brilliant burst of broken glass. The silicone case had fused to the backside of the device from the heat, but there was no mistaking what the brick used to be.

A phone.

Elyse's phone?

Leigh discarded the fire stoker to one side. The ping of metal and tile scorched down into her nerves as she reached for the device. Turning it over in her hand, she tried to peel the case free to get better access to the power button, but there was no use. The damage had been done. Besides, modern phones no longer carried physical SIM cards that could be transferred from one phone to another. They held eSIMs. Virtual data which was inaccessible as long as the phone was out of commission, but there was a chance the IT officers in Gulf Shores PD could save it. She just had to get it to them. "You were here, weren't you?"

She shoved back from the fireplace and thumbed through her phone's contacts for Detective Moore's name. Hitting the call button, Leigh studied the rest of the house to keep herself from spiraling into all the potential scenarios in which Elyse would've been in this house. The line to the detective's personal cell connected, and she didn't wait for Moore to identify herself. "I think I found Elyse's phone. At a beach house off the backcountry trail. Someone tried to burn it in the fireplace."

"The beach house on Mobile Street?" The detective seemed so much farther away than she should've been. Detached.

A sinking sensation suctioned Leigh's stomach to her spine. "How did you know that?"

"There was an incident. The day after Elyse's assault. She accused the homeowner of attacking her. He didn't want to press charges considering Elyse had suffered a concussion and obviously been through a lot, so there was no official report filed, but we're going to have to come back to that," Detective Moore said. "I was just about to call you."

Leigh gripped the burnt phone too tight. To the point the broken star-shaped glass nicked her palm. "You found her?"

"No, but the forensic techs were able to compare Elyse's DNA from the scene at the Portman house to the blood found in the living room. It's a match, Agent Brody." Detective Moore's voice warbled in Leigh's ears. "I'm sorry. The blood belongs to Elyse."