Chapter 31

Jess

Shane has gone to Boston to speak to the BPD detectives about Theo Moriarty.

The past two days, ever since he caught me speaking to Alice and Melanie, he's been weird with me. I'm sure by the looks Galloway has been shooting me, she suspects something is up, but Shane obviously hasn't told her anything, otherwise I'd be in far more trouble.

I wanted to explain that I wasn't intentionally trying to speak to her behind his back, but I knew I could've texted him anytime. I should've. And I did talk to her behind his back last week. The anger and hurt on his face made me shiver.

"Do you think this is some way to prove yourself?" Shane asked, voice tight and hurt. "To make yourself look better? It isn't a competition. We're partners , for Christ's sake!"

"I know!"

"Then what were you doing?"

"I was driving through Killer's Grove when I saw Alice running."

"Why the hell were you even in Killer's Grove?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because I had been driving through Killer's Grove to get to the River Rothay, to the place where Isla died. And that was something I couldn't bring myself to talk about.

Shane had tired of waiting for me to answer and turned to leave.

"Shane, wait." I reached out to stop him. "Melanie told me Laura Harper was stealing money from Jack's company. I think that's where the cash came from."

"So Laura was embezzling money from her brother, and he found out."

"Money's a big motivation for murder."

"True. Money and greed are two of the biggest motivations for violence."

"And love. There's a fine line between love and hate. Sometimes people confuse the two."

I told him then that Alice had admitted going back to the scene, seeing Pete crouched over someone. How she'd heard a gunshot.

Shane cursed. "That confirms everything we've been saying all along. Pete Harper killed them."

I shook my head. He was jumping to conclusions. "She didn't witness it; she just heard a shot. There could've been somebody nearby, or maybe the person on the ground fought back. We don't know for sure. We need her to give an official statement."

"Will she?"

"I doubt Melanie will let her without her lawyer. There's something else."

I told him that Theo Moriarty and Laura Harper had dated in college, that they worked together for Jack's company, and that Alice had found Theo's paycheck in a false bottom of Laura's desk.

"Maybe she picked it up to make it look like he'd left town," he said.

I pulled the paycheck out of my pocket. "It looks like a bank account number is written at the bottom."

"Why don't you track down the bank account and go through their finances?" Shane's eyes had gone hard. He was testing me.

"Sure, no problem." I hated how eager I was to make it up to him, to prove I was a team player, that I hadn't been trying to steal the case from him.

"I don't like that Jack didn't tell us any of that when we spoke to him," Shane said. "What else is he hiding?"

"We should bring him in. Talk to him again."

"He's on a hunting trip at his property in Connecticut."

"He's left town while we're conducting a murder investigation? That doesn't look good."

"No, it doesn't," he admitted. "I'll try to get him back here."

Shane turned to leave but stopped, tilted his chin in my direction. He wanted to say something, but even then he was uncertain. "Don't take this the wrong way, but we never exactly cleared Alice as a suspect. You looked awful cozy in there with her."

"I w-wasn't . . . ," I spluttered.

"Liu always thought she was hiding something. Might want to remember that. Not get so ... emotionally invested."

"She had no motive to kill her family."

"Not that we know." He turned to leave but again stopped. "Look, I know you like working alone. I know you think I'm too young and too inexperienced, but this is how it is. We've been assigned to this case, to each other. We only have a week before it gets kicked off to the FBI. Maybe we should just make the best of it while we have it."

The words hung between us, bright and hot and acerbic as a burning match, and then he turned and strode away.

Now, I pull my motorcycle onto the gravel at the edge of the River Rothay. I yank the side stand's lever and climb off clumsily. I drape my helmet over the handlebars, still thinking of my conversation with Shane.

Part of me wonders if he's right. Have I become too emotionally invested? Have I lost my impartiality? I want to solve this case because of Alice. For Alice. Because I know what it's like to lose your family, to have no way back to the life you used to know.

But the other part of me thinks, to hell with him. I'm good at my job. Not just because I can read a witness, a suspect, a scene, or even because Isla tells me things others might not know. I'm good at my job because I care. And I won't stop caring. I want the truth for the victim, and I will get it.

The problem is, who exactly is the victim here? Things in this case are less and less what they seem.

I limp along the river walk. Someone has salted the pavement, but the ground is still slippery with snow. I feel unbalanced and grip my cane tighter. Ice is crusted along the river's edge. A freezing gust of wind lifts fresh snow off the trees, swirls it around. I continue until the paved walkway disappears, turning to muddy slush.

I think about the crime report, the milfoil found on Theo Moriarty's clothes. Was he in this river? But why pull him out, then, just to hide his body?

After a few minutes, I reach the embankment where my truck went off the road. My whole body is vibrating, my muscles bunched under my winter clothes.

I'm one of those people who thinks best when moving, otherwise I'm too high-strung, too tense. Even before my life fell apart, I was restless like this. Mac was the opposite, calm and peaceful. It was one of the things I loved about him, how his stillness could seep into my soul, calm my wild, restless being.

I look out across the river, the night that is coming in. Snow has gathered in between the rocks. The water is roaring just beyond my toes, rushing fast, just like it did the night I crashed.

My throat burns, that familiar fire. I want a drink more than I have since I got out of rehab. First I drank to numb the pain; then I drank because I didn't want to live anymore. But now I've found a way past it, clawed myself back up to the edge of that cliff. I can't fall back down it again.

"One little drink," I mutter to myself.

Galloway's words come back to me.

There was no proper investigation. No urine, no bloods taken, no witnesses. Just a rainy day, a random deer, and an old man who was a less-than-reliable witness.

An old man.

This confuses me. I don't remember a lot about the accident, to be fair. After the crack of the truck hitting the deer, it flipped, landing on the muddy riverbank. I'd blacked out. When I came to, the pain in my leg was worse than anything I'd ever felt. But it wasn't a man's voice I heard.

It was a woman's voice.

We have to move her, she was saying.

Where's Isla? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't open my eyes. I was diving under a black fog wrapping itself around me.

And then Isla's thin arms were tugging at me—ice-cold but solid and reassuring. I screamed as pain ripped through me.

Mama, please! Isla's voice was urgent, scared.

Her voice in my ears was clear, a fine thread pulling me toward consciousness. And then I was on the riverbank, a few feet from the truck, rain battering my head, my skin, until finally, mercifully, blackness descended again.

I stare at the swift-moving water, letting its roar fill my head. That's when I feel it: that needle-fine vibration. It starts in my temples and creeps down my arms to my knees, deep into my bones.

"Hi, Mommy." Isla is standing next to me, her blonde braids moving gently in the icy wind.

"Hi, baby." I smile and touch her cheek with my gloved hand. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

I lean my forehead against my daughter's, feel the soft brush of her blonde hair against my cheek, smell the strawberry scent of her shampoo. She feels real to me. As real as the mud under my feet.

"Isla." I pull away, study her face. "Who was there that night? Who found us?"

But she doesn't answer.

Something is forming, a wisp of a thought. I dial Mac's number, Isla sitting on the rock beside me. He answers on the first ring, Christmas music floating gently through the speaker. I wonder where he is, who he's with, then cut off the thought.

"The night Isla died, who found me?" I burst out.

There's a beat of silence.

"Mac?"

"Um ... it was an elderly guy. Calvin Stevens."

"Not a woman?"

Another beat of silence.

"No," he says slowly. "But initially Calvin said there was a woman there. He said she flagged him down and told him you'd hit a deer."

"Who investigated?"

"It was Bill Liu."

My heart jumps straight into my throat. " Liu investigated?"

"Yeah. It's in the accident report."

No wonder Liu had seemed to look at me so intently when we spoke the other day. He saw the state I was in.

"What happened to the woman?"

"She didn't exist. It turned out Calvin Stevens had a touch of dementia. He wasn't even supposed to be driving. Liu wasn't able to confirm most of his statement."

I stare out at the thrashing river. "I need to talk to him."

"Babe, I already did. He's not a reliable witness."

I pause, surprised. "You spoke to him?"

I hear Mac exhale down the phone and imagine his face, the way a muscle in his jaw twitches when he's debating his words. "Something didn't feel right. When Liu let slip who the guy was, I tracked him down. But Liu was right, he wasn't reliable. The woman he thought was there? He said she was Boudica."

"Who the hell is Boudica?"

"You know, the ancient Celtic queen. Led an uprising against the Roman army."

He says it like I should know, but history was never my best subject.

"Long red hair, always had a spear in her hand?" He continues. "Jess, why are you asking this?"

Before I can answer, call waiting beeps through.

"Mac, I gotta go."

"Jess, wait—"

I switch over to Khandi on the other line.

"Heya, Jess!" She sounds ridiculously cheerful compared to the turmoil whipping in my head. "You with Shane? I got the ballistics report for you guys, but I can't seem to get through to him."

"Umm ... yeah." I make a calculated decision and lie. I need to know what's in that report. I'll call Shane with the update myself. "What's it say?"

"So, striations from the bullet we found in Theo Moriarty match the gun you found in Laura Harper's painting, but this is where it gets interesting. The gun was registered as stolen from a sports store the summer before the Harpers went missing." Khandi's voice has increased with excitement. "And I did a little digging. Want to know who worked there at the time of the robbery?"

"Who?"

"Maya Shepherd. The girl who found the backpack."

"Alice's best friend?"

"Yep. I have a friend who's a serious marathoner, so she shops at the sports store a lot, and she told me there were rumors going around that the manager was in deep with, get this, a drug dealer."

"Theo Moriarty."

"No names, but possibly. She said everybody thought he'd roped in a few of the teens who worked there, including Maya, to carry out the robbery. But no evidence was ever found, so no charges were ever filed."

"Maybe Maya stole the gun from the sports store, and Laura stole the gun from her."

"Maybe Laura killed Theo, then hid the gun in her painting."

"Or maybe Pete killed him and hid the gun."

"Or anybody in that house, really. They all had access."

"It's a lot of maybes," I say.

Alice.

The thought hits me like a bullet. Could she have learned her mother was having an affair with Theo, stolen the gun from her best friend, and killed him?

"Okay, thanks, Khandi."

We arrange to get dinner after the case has finished before hanging up, even though I know I won't follow through. I'm not very good company anymore. I can't celebrate a friend's husband getting promoted or sympathize when their nanny leaves or bring myself to give two shits when their child only gets into their second-choice school.

I stare out over the river, trying to wrangle the thoughts pinging around my mind. Bill Liu. The milfoil on Theo Moriarty's clothes. The cash. Maya Shepherd and the ill-fated gun. Boudica, the red-haired woman.

Red hair.

But there are a million red-haired women. And the timing doesn't match. My accident happened nearly a month before the Harpers disappeared. It makes no sense for Laura Harper to have been there that night.

I think of what Will told me. The worst thing a detective can do is make the case about themselves. Don't make it personal.

And here I am doing exactly that.

I huff, disgusted with myself, and dial Shane's number. He doesn't answer, so I hang up, making a mental note to call back later. And then I return to my motorcycle and head back to town.