Chapter 12

Jess

I'm having breakfast with my dad when the text from Shane comes in.

The dentals from the body don't match anyone in NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. It was always a long shot. There's no national database for dental records, and a medical examiner needs a PTB—presumed to be—before they can identify a person.

In other words, we need something to compare them to.

Still, it's a blow. It means that deadline of Christmas is looking less and less likely.

I tell my dad, who's scraping Marmite over his toast. In the background, an old Christmas song plays on the radio.

"Now that we know the blood on the backpack matches Ella Harper's, we've focused the investigation on the Harpers' disappearance last year," I say. "We know the body in the suitcase is linked to that. We just need an ID now."

I make a face as he licks Marmite off his fingers.

"How do you eat that stuff?"

"It's delicious. You should try it."

"I have. It's motor oil flavored with soy sauce. On bread."

He grins and pops a large bite of toast into his mouth. "You got anybody to compare the dentals to?"

"Unfortunately, no." I shake my head. "And the dude had no dental work done. Whoever he was, he took good care of his teeth."

I glance at the clock. I need to get going if I have any chance of swimming this morning. "We've been working our way through follow-up interviews with witnesses from the Harper case, but no mention of a man who's gone missing. It's slow going."

We interviewed the teenagers at the party and Maya's parents, Nancy and Dom Shepherd, who own the company in charge of cleaning the house where the body was found. We also interviewed the paramedic who found Alice, as well as Clarissa O'Brien, Alice's grandmother, who'd been staying with Jack and Melanie O'Brien the night the Harpers disappeared. But we didn't learn anything new.

"People forget pretty fast," Dad says, chewing his Marmite toast. "Life moves on."

"We did catch a break with Jack O'Brien. His lawyer told us to back off Alice and Melanie, but Jack set up a meeting with us at nine a.m. Friday morning." I take my bowl into the kitchen and drop a kiss onto my dad's balding head, a funny role reversal from when I was a child. "I really need to get going."

"It's fine, Bug. Been there, remember?" He grins wryly, twenty-five years as a detective shining in his whiskey-colored eyes. "Look, I gotta get home anyway. Think I'm going to head back to Atlanta tonight. There are some things I need to take care of."

"I'm sorry I haven't been around much while you've been here," I say, pulling on my boots and grabbing my backpack of swimming gear. "Let's meet for dinner tonight. I want to see you before you go."

I also want to ask him what's going on. I get the sense he isn't telling me something.

My dad and I have gotten closer lately, but we have a complicated relationship. With my mom it was easy, effortless, but my dad, I spent most of my childhood being mad at him. First, he was physically distant in the military, then mentally distant as a cop. And then there was the drinking. It always felt like he cared more about the victims than his own family. Now I get it, but then, to a kid, it made as much sense as quantum mechanics.

"Shall we say Sammy's, six p.m.?"

Dad looks doubtful. "A bar? Are you sure you want to meet there?"

I'm a recovering addict, which makes a bar the worst place to go. But I know Dad loves Sammy's fried chicken, and I say so.

"It's the best I've tasted," he admits with a grin. "Okay, if you're sure."

The good thing about my dad is he doesn't baby me. He lets me deal with things my way. I grab my cane from its spot on the coatrack and turn to go.

"Hey," he calls after me. "You better decorate this house for Christmas."

I laugh and head outside. As if.

By the time I've swum laps for an hour, the weather has turned, thick gray clouds spitting tiny white flakes, the ground slippery with ice. When I pull into my parking space at the police station, a couple of news crews are setting up. A reporter leaps forward as I dismount, shouting questions. A light pops. I feel a spark of anger that they've seen me, my awkwardness, how clumsy I still am. I unsnap my cane and turn away, cheeks burning, and hurry inside to where Shane is waiting.

"Morning, Jess. Here." He thrusts a paper cup at me. "Will said you take a skinny latte."

"Thanks. You see the press setting up?"

We look out from reception at the reporters filling the parking lot. Neither of us is inclined to get to our desks.

"Yeah. I've scheduled a press conference for tonight."

He sounds glum, and I chuckle. "You'll be fine."

Shane looks about eighteen in his wrinkled navy shirt, his faded jeans, and dark jacket. He's tall and gangly, all elbows and knees. If he isn't careful, the media will eat him alive.

I don't mind training, I just don't like it being sprung on me this way, as a punishment, a way to say, I'm watching you . Especially with such a big case. I could have gotten on board with Will leading, but Shane? But I figure I can solve this case whether I'm lead or Shane is. When you know how to handle a rookie, they don't slow you down.

"So, what's your plan, boss?" I'm not trying to be a bitch, but the stunned look on Shane's face makes me feel like one.

I clear my throat. "Pro tip. Don't get distracted by pointless shit. Focus. Act like you're in charge. Even if you don't feel like you are, fake it till you make it, yeah?"

"Yeah."

I watch as a news reporter fluffs her hair, swipes makeup under her eyes. A cameraman counts down with his fingers as she plants a smile on her face.

"Put a rush on a specialist postmortem, then ask the medical examiner to put together a DNA profile. We need to find out who that body is and how it's linked to Ella Harper." I cast a glance over his clothes. "This case is a headline grabber. Appearances are important. Get a tie."

I shift the weight in my leg to ease some pressure. "I wonder how long that suitcase was there. It's hard to believe a teenager would bring a suitcase with a body into the house, but I've seen crazier things. Maybe someone snuck it in."

Shane thinks for a moment. "There was a circle of dust around the suitcase. It had been there awhile."

"So we can presume the body was put in that suitcase around the time he died. Someone who had access to that house. Maybe the CSIs will find Laura's and Ella's bodies somewhere in the house as well."

"The body being found so close to Ella Harper's backpack means something."

"Agreed."

"Maybe Pete Harper killed whoever's inside," he theorizes.

"And then threw his own ID in there?"

"Could've been an accident. It slipped, fell in. Pete had been drinking more. Maybe he was just clumsy."

I'm not convinced, and I say so. In general, I don't believe in accidents.

"There were rumors Laura was having an affair," Shane tells me. "Their marriage was already rocky after her business went bust, plus his drinking. That's a lot of pressure on a marriage. He catches her having an affair, kills the guy, then his whole family."

I lift an eyebrow. "Laura was having an affair?"

"Nothing concrete, just rumors down at the bar."

It's only as we start talking about the case that I notice Shane's face relax. Rookie nerves are a bitch. I remember them myself.

I catch something in my peripheral vision and turn to see Pete Harper standing across the station's parking lot, staring in my direction.

Shane follows my gaze. "What is it?"

I drag my gaze back to Shane. That restless feeling is burning in me, like I've stuck my finger in an electrical socket. "I want to look at the original scene where the car accident happened. Can you send me the coordinates?"

"Sure. I'll send you the original report, too."

"Thanks."

I turn to go as Shane calls after me. "See you at the press conference."

"I'll be there. Don't forget to get a tie, Shane. And maybe an iron."

I get on my motorcycle and follow the coordinates Shane sent me to Killer's Grove. Some places have a feeling to them. A creeping, cold feeling. A sort of prickling along your spine. A tightening of your scalp.

I feel it the moment I enter Killer's Grove. I cut the engine as that cold, slithering feeling coats my arms and legs. A wave of dread, like vertigo, hollows out my stomach.

I unsnap my helmet, use my cane to climb off, and look around. I'm a little surprised there aren't any news crews here yet, but it won't be long. A body possibly linked to a family that went missing a year ago, the reporters will be salivating.

A weird type of cold skates over my scalp, the type of cold that goes deep into your bones. I can hear something, too. A faint humming. Familiar. Troubling. It makes the hairs on my arms bristle.

I can't really put my finger on what makes Killer's Grove so creepy. Maybe it's the light, the way it falls between the trees, the corners and edges too dark, the shadows restless, shifting. Or maybe it's the air, which feels wrong, like it's been replaced with something else, something heavier, making it hard to catch my breath. Or this weird sense of isolation, like I'm the only person in the world right now.

Or maybe it's none of that, only the stories people tell that leave their imprint on this place.

Hundreds of years ago, this land was considered cursed by the Native Americans. Now it's a place parents use as a boogeyman cautionary tale. Rumors veer between stories of it being a serial killer's dumping ground to it being haunted. I read a few years ago a trucker spotted a child floating like mist along the side of the road here, but when he stopped to help, the child disappeared. And there have been reports of a woman wailing in the dead of night, but nobody can ever find her. Plus there's Alice Harper's family, who disappeared on Christmas Eve, never to be seen again.

Most myths grow from a seed of truth, but sometimes they're fertilized with lies. And the more time passes, the blurrier the line between fact and fiction becomes.

Snowflakes fall softly, turning everything white. The trees are thick with it, their boughs pushing up over the road, forming a dense canopy. Farther into the forest, there are dangerous chasms and plunging gorges.

Plenty of places to hide a body.

After a moment, I hear an engine, and a truck pulls alongside me. A man peers out from the driver's-side window. Craggy face, shaggy hair, eyebrows that need a trim.

"You all right there?" he calls.

"I'm good," I say.

"You broke down?"

"No, just looking around."

"Lost?"

I pause to take the old man in again. Curious and helpful or suspicious and weird?

"You shouldn't be here." His thick eyebrows pull down. "It ain't safe. You know this road is haunted, right? Bad things happen here. Everybody knows it."

"I'll be fine, thanks."

He eyes me for a long minute, then tips his head. "You be careful now."

He rolls his window up and puts the truck in drive. I make a note of his license plate in my phone—just in case—and watch him leave. A gust of wind lifts my hair. I shiver, gripping my cane a little tighter.

I limp along the road in the direction the Harpers' car was traveling, eventually stepping into the dense brush at the side of the road. I lean heavily on my cane, eyes scanning, not sure what exactly I'm looking for. The ground has become slippery with snow, and the cold has gotten into my leg. Usually the pain is manageable, but right now it's a bottomless ache. I dig my knuckles into the muscle as I walk.

The bottoms of my jeans quickly become soaked. I tug my parka up higher and keep going. It's about fifteen minutes before the trees abruptly end and I reach a field. On the other side of the field is the house where we found the body.

I glance over my shoulder at Killer's Grove. The road isn't too far behind me. It wouldn't have been difficult to drag a suitcase from there to this house.

Next to me, I see Isla moving in and out of the trees. Her laughter tinkles on the breeze, faint, delicate, bringing a heavy dose of nostalgia.

Everywhere around me is now gauzy with snow, but there's something here, something I can't explain. Something intangible, ethereal. It isn't physical, it's more abstract than that, sliding up my spine. I can feel it, but I can't see it.

The old man's words float back to me.

Bad things happen here. Everybody knows it.