Chapter 46

Jess

I go directly to Shane in the bullpen.

Maybe he isn't the partner I want, but he's the one I've got. I need him.

"I'll get a team on standby," Galloway says from behind me. "Call me when you're ready."

I fill Shane in on what Khandi told us as we head to the cruiser.

"Hurry. We're running out of time," I say urgently.

Shane flicks the lights on, pointing the car toward the O'Briens' house.

I peer through the whirling snow as I tell him about the beep Alice heard the night her family went missing. "It's been bothering me. And then I remembered something Alice told me the day I found her in Killer's Grove, when we were at Bea's Teas. Melanie O'Brien met us there, and Alice said Mel had a pacemaker fitted after a difficult pregnancy a few years ago."

The windshield wipers batter the glass, barely able to push the snow out of the way.

"What does Melanie O'Brien's pacemaker have to do with this case?" Shane whips around a corner. The rear tires spin, working to get a grip. His fingers are tight on the steering wheel, so tight they've gone white.

"Alice said that Mel had a checkup to make sure her pacemaker was working properly. Most pacemakers issue an alert if there's something wrong, like an electrical lead has come loose, if the battery is dying, or if the user is too close to a magnetic field, like a store's security system. It starts beeping. I once took a call out on a farm and a cop I knew, his pacemaker was set off by the electric fence. That's what Alice heard that night. Mel's pacemaker was beeping."

Isla set it off, I think, but I don't say it out loud.

"Shit." Shane turns the car into Killer's Grove.

"The list of people who gave DNA samples? Melanie wasn't on that list. We don't have her DNA on file, so she wouldn't match any of the evidence we have."

"She was in the hospital for observation for a heart problem." Shane glances at me. He's gone sheet white. "We thought she was sick. We had no reason to suspect a woman with a heart problem would be the killer."

"It was a good alibi. I didn't question it either at first. But Mel wasn't having heart pain. She went to the hospital because her pacemaker was acting up. Mel O'Brien and Laura Harper killed Theo Moriarty; then Mel killed Laura to keep her quiet."

"And now you think Alice is in danger."

"I'm sure of it."

I look out my window at the snow swirling around us. And then I see it. The scarred tree that the Harpers hit. And standing in front of it is Isla.

"Stop!"

Shane wrenches the steering wheel and pulls onto the shoulder. I throw the door open and slam my cane into the road, heaving myself over the snowy ground to the tree.

But Isla is no longer there.

I look to my left and right, peering into the black shadows. Snow has turned the world to static. The only sound is the howl of the rising wind, the low rumble of the car's engine, the beating of the windshield wipers.

Shane comes up behind me. His eyes are wary, but he doesn't speak.

I don't feel anything. Alice isn't here. Neither is Isla.

The road is empty. It's just a road, after all. Haunted by nothing but me.

"We're running out of time!" I spin in a circle, my heart revving. "Which way do we go, to the O'Briens' or to the Harpers'?"

"We split up," Shane says decisively.

I hesitate. "Are you sure?"

"I trust you."

"Why?" I don't deserve his trust.

"Because we're partners. Partners trust each other."

There's a flicker in my peripheral vision, something moving deep in Killer's Grove. I nod. "Okay. I'll cut through here and go to the Harpers'."

"I'll go to the O'Briens'."

We agree to call each other as soon as we arrive at our destinations and know more; then Shane gets in the cruiser and floors it, engine roaring.

I limp through the frozen forest. The wind and cold make it slow going. My leg is aching, a steady, hot thrum that gets more and more painful with every step. My jeans quickly become soaked. I huddle in my winter parka, freezing wind and snow battering my bare cheeks as I lean on my cane, driving it hard into the ground.

My breath is huffing out of me in great gasps, the cold slicing at my lungs like glass. I finally reach the house where we found Theo Moriarty. I hurry across the field to the paved road, moving deeper into the neighborhood, in the direction of the Harpers' house.

My phone rings. It's Shane.

"Jess, neither Melanie nor Alice is here!" he shouts. "Clarissa O'Brien said Alice's room is empty. Melanie isn't there, either."

I round the final corner, and there's Alice's bike slumped on the snowy front lawn. Parked on the curb is Melanie's sleek black Jaguar.

"They're here," I say. "At the Harpers' house."

"Galloway has a team ready. I'll tell her to send them to the Harpers' now. Do not engage. Do you hear me? Melanie is likely armed and dangerous."

"They won't get here in time," I say.

My heart is pounding urgently, worry and fear pinging every nerve ending. "Alice is inside with her!"

"Jess, listen to me. Just wait—"

But I've already hung up.