Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Sunday, September 22

7:51 a.m.

The blood had come from Elyse.

The forensics didn't lie, and the amount left behind in the Portman living room could only mean one thing: Elyse had suffered. She'd bled out. She hadn't walked out of this house as Leigh had hoped. Her body had been disposed of. Gulf Shores PD's urgency had been reprioritized. They were no longer looking for a missing person. They were looking for a dead woman. And her killer.

Leigh stared at the stain etched into the tile right there in the living room. Replacing the floor would be the Portmans' only option. She'd tried moving from this spot. Multiple times, but the loss held her hostage in every respect. Physically, mentally, emotionally. The first friend she'd made in years had been taken away. Just as everyone else in her life had. Her brother, her father, her mother. And while she'd recently gotten parts of her family back, Leigh couldn't see how Elyse could have survived whatever had happened here.

"Do you know who owns the beach house?" The question felt dry—emotionless—when all Leigh wanted to do was scream. She'd bagged the phone recovered from the fireplace. The tech guys were going to have a hell of a time connecting it to Elyse considering the damage, but Leigh had no doubts. Her friend had been in that house. And she wanted to know why.

"His name is Samuel Thornton." Detective Moore passed off a file. Thicker than Elyse's original incident report taken in the hospital. She looked better than the last time they'd spoken in person. Driven. Grief never played by the rules. "I have uniforms looking for him now and an APB out statewide. He owns a red pickup truck. The license plate is in there. He can't hide forever."

Leigh thumbed through the report. The first page featured a full color photo taken from Samuel Thornton's Alabama state driver's license. Naturally highlighted, ear-length hair and a peppered full beard worked to hide the fine lines around the man's jaw and mouth, but the eyes were crystal clear. His birth year put him in his late forties, but either genetics or professional work made him seem younger. Thornton was fit. The kind of man who liked to work with his hands. A rancher type, dressed in one of those polyester work shirts thick enough to stop a blade from cutting through in the field. Out of place in a beach town like Gulf Shores. "If I didn't say it before, I'm sorry about your niece. I know what it's like to lose family. It's not something I would wish on anyone."

The detective pulled her shoulders back, as if bracing herself for the pain that might come at the mention of her niece. "Ruby's remains were delivered to the medical examiner in Mobile this morning. The coroner asked for the autopsy to be expedited. With any luck, I'll find out what happened to her in the next couple of weeks, and who… did this to her."

But there was no guarantee. That was the problem with homicides. Even with the advancement of forensic technology and investigative techniques, some questions went unanswered. But Leigh didn't have the heart to drive that hard lesson learned home now. "The beach house didn't look as though anyone had been there in a while. Your forensic team might have better luck, but I'm betting Thornton made sure we couldn't connect him to any of this. I could smell hints of cleaner."

Detective Moore turned into Leigh. "There was an incident. Between Thornton and Elyse Tuesday morning. Elyse called me. Told me she remembered where she'd been attacked and that she would meet me there. When I got there, Samuel Thornton claimed he had no idea who she was, and I had to stop her from attacking him."

A flood of heat coursed up Leigh's neck. This was the first time she was hearing of it. "None of that was in the report you gave me."

"I didn't file a report. For Elyse's sake. She claimed Thornton was the one who attacked her, and that she could prove it. She started digging on his property, yelling like a mad woman. Except there wasn't anything there. Concussions are known to play tricks on the brain. It was obvious she hadn't slept, and she'd lost a good amount of memory concerning the assault. She wasn't exactly a reliable witness. So I convinced Thornton not to press charges against her and let it be. I also had other things on my mind. I couldn't let… distractions get the best of me." A composed sadness creased into the detective's expression as she faced off with the bloodstain on the floor. "A lot of good it did."

Leigh didn't have an answer for that. She wasn't going to try to comfort the woman beside her. Elyse had suffered—possibly been murdered—because the detective assigned her case had let a distraction get the best of her, but, at the same time, Leigh was the last person who could hold it against her. "Elyse's social media profiles are gone. The daughter's too. Did Gulf Shores PD have them shut down?"

"No." Confusion deepened the thin lines between Detective Moore's perfectly shaped eyebrows. "Social media is a tool we use to gain insight into victims' lives. There isn't any reason we would have profiles deactivated. You said it was Elyse's and Ava's? What about Wesley Portman's?"

"Still active. Though he's not posting nearly as often as he usually does." There was something there. In the back of her mind that she couldn't ignore. A pressure she'd come to trust over the course of her career. "Have you heard back from your forensic techs on the swab they took from the cabinet over the dishwasher?"

"Not yet, but I can follow up now." Detective Moore hiked her hands to her hips and unhitched her phone from the case clipped to her utility belt. She tapped across the screen. "You're thinking Wesley might have something to do with Elyse's disappearance? If that's the case, how would Samuel Thornton fit in?"

"I don't know." But she had a feeling there was more going on here than met the eye. "What I do know is ninety-two percent of women murdered in the United States know their killers; sixty-one percent of those female victims are killed by their partners."

They parted to let one of the techs through.

"I sent the lead forensic tech a message. He should be able to tell us if Wesley Portman was telling the truth about the scratch behind his ear," Detective Moore said. "And there's something else. The warrant on the Portmans' financials came through a little while ago. From what I can tell, the family was broke."

Broke? No. That didn't make sense. "How is that possible?"

"According to the family's bank statements, they've liquidated everything in the past month. A sports car in Wesley Portman's name, a trust set up for Ava, savings, checking—it's all gone. Everything except this house." The detective motioned toward the ceiling.

"What about the house in Clarksburg?" Leigh couldn't imagine Elyse agreeing to move to Gulf Shores permanently. She hated this place. Hated the heat, the sand, the isolation. Then there was the matter of her job at the OB/GYN office, even Wesley's job and Ava's schooling. She wouldn't have just given it all up. Not after years of working to get her life back after the cancer.

"Sold to a corporation two weeks ago," Detective Moore said. "I haven't had a chance to dig through the paperwork yet, but corporations aren't usually in the real estate business unless they intend to flip and resell. Elyse never mentioned anything to you about their money problems or where it was all going?"

"No." And the thought that Elyse might not have known about any of it wedged in. "But it sounds like it's time for another conversation with Wesley Portman."

In that moment, Leigh saw past the blood and the crime scene and the pup tents marking potential evidence. There were signs of a life well lived, of family photos on vacations and of a little girl aging year by year, of personal items and hobbies and family game nights and love. This. This was what Leigh had wanted, what she'd always admired and envied about Elyse. A family. People who she could love and who loved her back. Who would help her hold on to all the good instead of focusing on the bad if Elyse wasn't here? Christmases and birthdays and dinners out for A s on report cards—all the things that'd gotten eaten up by one bad man. Every family had its issues and its heartaches, its secrets, but the fact Elyse might not ever call again, or be there during Leigh's follow-up appointments, solidified a sharp pain in her chest. Tears pushed into her eyes. Followed by embarrassment.

"Excuse me." She retraced her steps out of the living room and into the hallway just before the entryway without waiting for Detective Moore's answer. To the small bathroom tucked off to one side. Locking the door behind her, Leigh turned on the faucet to cover the gasp of a sob escaping free from her control. She'd held it together. All yesterday and this morning. But she'd hit her limit on loss.

Pain laced both sides of her throat as she lowered her face over the sink. Handfuls of cool water—she'd lost count of how many—worked to calm her nervous system. Until she could face herself in the mirror. The water hadn't helped rid the sadness from her face. Not even time would manage that feat, despite what so many people had said to her as a teen. Time heals all wounds. It'll just take time. Things will get better, you just have to give it time. Except they were all a lie. Time didn't heal wounds. It just allowed them to scar over. They were still there, underneath the surface. Reminders of her failures.

Her gaze caught a framed photo in the slightly crooked medicine cabinet mirror as she dried her face with a hand towel hanging off the wall to her left. Of Wesley, Elyse, and a younger version of Ava—maybe five or six—on a cruise ship. The sky was a brilliant blue behind them with the ocean spreading wide from one side of the frame to the other. Their wide smiles seemed almost contagious. Enough to pull Leigh's mouth at one corner as she traced the family's faces through the glass. A rush of joy chased back the hole digging deeper throughout this case. A palpable longing for more than a life of moving from one investigation to the next, of witnessing the worst mankind had to offer. It was pictured so perfectly right here, in her friend's face.

But had any of it been real? Leigh dropped her hand away, accidentally brushing against the surgical wound across her belly. Pain thrust her back into her body, and the images of a future with a family of her own vanished as quickly as they'd appeared.

A knock jarred her back into the moment. To the fact she'd broken down in the middle of a crime scene. She hadn't done that before. Even faced with the possibility her brother's abductor had become active again. Lack of sleep, the surgery, the addition of pain killers, this case—it'd all combined to erode her usual defenses, but she had to keep it together. For Elyse.

Leigh replaced the hand towel then twisted the old metal doorknob to face Detective Moore on the other side of the thin wood. "You got something?"

"You were right before. My techs swabbed the kitchen cabinet where the husband claims he got the injury behind his ear." The detective handed off her phone with a page of forensic results filling the screen. "There was no DNA. Wesley Portman lied to us."