Chương 6
“I’m telling you that somebody came onto your property after your wife disappeared, and then somebody sent you what appears to be a threat involving her.”
“I can lock a door.”
“So could your neighbor.”
I looked back at the house.
He was right.
I hated that too.
“Where do you want us to go?”
“We’ll talk when Shaw gets here.”
“What about Ryan Mercer?”
“An officer is with him.”
“He may be involved.”
“He may.”
“He says he isn’t.”
“People say a lot of things.”
That should have reassured me.
Instead it made me think of Claire.
Detective Shaw arrived in an unmarked dark SUV fifteen minutes later.
She was in her late forties, compact, gray beginning at her temples, wearing a navy polo and khaki pants that made her look more like a school administrator than someone handling a missing woman.
She shook my hand once.
“Grant.”
“Detective.”
“Show me the phone.”
Palmer had bagged it without my noticing.
Shaw took the clear evidence pouch and examined the screen through the plastic.
“Have you responded to any messages?”
“No.”
“Called from it?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes lifted.
“I called R before I knew R wasn’t Ryan.”
“You spoke to someone?”
“A man.”
“What did he say?”
I gave her the conversation as exactly as I could remember it.
She did not interrupt until I reached the address.
“You came here after that call?”
“Yes.”
“And Mercer was already there?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know you were coming?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Claire’s regular phone where you were going?”
“No.”
“Anyone else?”
“Mrs. Alvarez knew I was looking for Claire, not where.”
Shaw glanced toward the house.
“Tessa?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
She wrote something in a small notebook.
I had expected a tablet, maybe some official device.
The notebook irritated me because it looked too ordinary for the problem.
Then I realized that was probably why she used it.
“Did Claire ever mention someone named Philip Caldwell?”
“No.”
“Susan Caldwell?”
“Her aunt.”
“Not her mother?”
I looked at Shaw sharply.
“You know that already?”
“We spoke to Mercer.”
“Then you know about Philip.”
“I know what Mercer told us.”
“Which is?”
“That Claire believed Philip Caldwell may be connected to something that happened when she was a child.”
“Something?”
Shaw held my gaze.
“We’re not treating unverified family history as established fact.”
“So what are you treating as fact?”
“Your wife left home today.”
“Yes.”
“She failed to arrive at an expected meeting.”
“Yes.”
“Her known phone is currently off or unavailable.”
“Yes.”
“A second device associated with her received messages that suggest somebody knew her movements and household situation.”
“Yes.”
“A person came to your residence after that device changed hands.”
“Yes.”
“And you received a photograph that appears to show Claire under duress.”
“Yes.”
Hearing the facts lined up did something terrible to me.
They stopped being impressions.
They became a structure.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to identify the sender, confirm when and where the photo was taken, and build a movement timeline.”
“She drove.”
“We know.”
“How?”
“Traffic cameras.”
My head snapped toward her.
“You found the car?”
“Not yet.”
“But you saw it.”
“At 12:58 p.m., heading south on Broadway Extension.”
“Was she alone?”
“We’re working on better footage.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Tessa says a man got in.”
“We have that statement.”
“Then find him.”
Shaw’s expression barely changed.
“Grant, I need you to do something difficult.”
“I’m not in the mood for a breathing exercise.”
One corner of her mouth moved, not quite a smile.
“Good, because I wasn’t offering one.”
She closed the notebook.
“I need you to tell me anything Claire has done in the last three months that seemed unusual.”
I almost said nothing.
Then the hidden phone came back into my mind.
“Apparently everything.”
“Start smaller.”
I rubbed my palms over my jeans.
“She started taking cash out.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Estimate.”
“Maybe a few hundred at a time.”
“How often?”
“Three or four times.”
“Did you ask?”
“She said she was paying the babysitter and buying things at the farmers market.”
“Do you use a babysitter?”
“Sometimes.”
“Name?”
“Jenna Price.”
Shaw wrote it down.
“She’s seventeen.”
“Okay.”
“She hasn’t watched the kids much lately.”
“How long?”
“Maybe two months.”
“Anything else?”
I stared at the porch railing.
Claire had been sleeping with her phone under her pillow.
She had started closing the laptop when I entered the room.
She stopped letting Tessa use her tablet.
I had noticed each thing separately and assigned ordinary explanations because ordinary explanations were cheaper.
“She changed the password on our laptop.”
“When?”
“June.”
“Why?”
“She said Tessa kept downloading games.”
“Was that true?”
“Yes.”
“Could also be true.”
“Right.”
“Keep going.”
“She started going out on Wednesday afternoons.”
“Where?”
“She said therapy.”
“Was she in therapy?”
“I thought so.”
“You never met the therapist?”
“No.”
“Name?”
I searched my memory and came up empty.
That embarrassed me.
“No.”
Shaw watched my face but did not comment.
“Anything else?”
“She got angry when I moved a box in our closet.”
“What box?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe it.”
“Cardboard file box.”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
“What happened?”
“I was looking for winter gear.”
“In July?”
“My training facility has an indoor freezer room we sometimes use for scent work.”
Shaw paused.
“What?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Fine.”
“I moved the box, she came in, saw it on the bed, and got mad.”
“What kind of mad?”
“She asked why I was going through her things.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Did she believe you?”
“I thought she did.”
“Where is the box now?”
I looked toward the house.
“In the closet.”
Shaw’s eyes changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“Don’t touch it.”
Two evidence technicians arrived not long after.
That was when the house stopped feeling like mine.
They wore gloves in my bedroom.
They photographed the dresser drawer.
They opened cabinets.
They marked things.
May you like
One of them apologized before moving Claire’s shoes.
I stood in the hallway holding Miles while he chewed on the collar of my shirt.
