She didn’t want him to die. Not like that.
What do you want? Him to die by lethal injection? Does that make it better?
She had time before she had to meet her vet. As always, Claire’s curiosity bested her. She tried the private phone number Oliver Maddox had left her four months before. Voice mail picked up.
“Mailbox is full. Please try your call again later.”
The Port of Sacramento was halfway between the Rogan-Caruso offices downtown and UC Davis. She might as well head to the university and try to track down the law student. Maybe find out that he was no longer a law student, that he’d moved cross-country and taken up medicine.
For fifteen years she’d believed her father had killed her mother. And the guilt remained after all these years. That it was her phone call to her father about her mother’s affair that had started the time bomb that ended with two dead lovers and a man on death row.
She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.
Claire stifled a sob as she pulled in to a parking space in the UC Davis visitor parking lot ten minutes later. She slammed the Jeep into park and banged her head on the steering wheel as if that could force the memories from her mind and the stench of blood from her senses. If she hadn’t called her father to rat out her mother’s infidelity, her mother would be alive and her father would never have gone to prison. They might have divorced, they might have hated each other, but they would both still be in her life.
When Oliver Maddox came to her to ask her to help with an appeal of her dad’s case, she rejected him immediately. She’d been at the trial. She’d walked into the house only minutes after her father killed two people. Maddox said, “There’s a chance your dad was framed. And I think I can prove it.”
Was she willing to go through it all again on “a chance”?
She’d be lying to herself if she said Maddox’s visit hadn’t given her more than a few sleepless nights. What did he know? Why was he doing this? But when she found out he wasn’t working with the Western Innocence Project, was just a law student, she’d discounted everything he’d said. One more lying fraud in the world, why was she surprised?
She banged her head one more time and wished she could just forget she’d seen her dad.
He’d looked old. Sad. Defeated.
She couldn’t be wrong about that day. She wasn’t wrong. She’d heard her mother and Chase Taverton alive having sex, called her father, and less than twenty minutes later walked in and they were dead. Who else could have gone into the house and killed them during that short time? Without her or her father seeing anyone? Without leaving any evidence?
She’d been a coward. If she had walked in on them, her mother’s lover would have been long gone before her father came home. If Claire had had the courage to confront them herself, she’d never have had to call her dad.
She jumped out of her Jeep and started across the UC Davis campus. She was a proud college dropout after three semesters. College hadn’t been one of Claire’s wisest choices. Not because she couldn’t make the grade-she’d dropped out with a 3.7 GPA-but because she’d hated college almost as much as she’d hated high school. The interpersonal drama irritated her and she tended to get into trouble because she shined the light on truths that people preferred to keep hidden. “Playing nice with others” had never been high on her to-do list. Why play nice when everyone lied?
Five minutes later, after a brisk, head-clearing walk, she stepped into the main administrative office building and said to the secretary, “My name is Claire O’Brien and Oliver Maddox contacted me about an appeal he’s working on.”
Everyone lied. Even she did. She was quite good at it when she was searching for the truth.
The secretary’s eyes widened. “Recently?”
“A few months ago.”
Her face fell. “Oliver is no longer here.”
“He transferred?”
“No. He’s missing. No one knows where he went.”
“When?”
“End of January. I don’t know the exact date. His girlfriend filed a missing person report with both campus security and Davis police.”
Oliver had been missing since January? Claire asked, “Do you know where I can find her?”
The receptionist frowned. “We can’t give out private information.”
“What about her name? I’m an alumna, I can get her contact information from the student directory.” She showed her Davis ID, glad she’d always kept it in her wallet.
“Well, since you’re an alum.” She walked over to a file cabinet and flipped through some folders. Pulled one, wrote information on a sticky note, and handed the note to Claire.
Tammy Amunson, Clark Hall #25A.
Beneath was a phone number.
“She lives on campus?”
“Yes.”
Claire glanced at her watch. She might have time to talk to her, if she could find her now. Clark Hall wasn’t far. “Did Oliver have an advisor?”
“I’m sure he did, but I don’t have those records here. I can have someone call you with the information later today.”
“That’s okay, thanks.”
Claire didn’t push it. Oliver’s girlfriend might know, and if she didn’t Claire could go to the law school herself. The fewer people who knew she was looking for Oliver, the better.
She left the administration building and walked briskly while dialing Tammy’s number. A sleepy voice picked up. “ ’ello.”
“Tammy?”
“No, it’s Jennifer. Who’s this?”
“Claire. I’m looking for Tammy.”
“Wednesday. . she has biology at some god-awful hour. She’s out at 10:30.”
“At Messenger?” It helped having a familiarity with the campus.
“Yeah.”
“Who does she have?”
“Oh, God, I-Thompson.”
“Thanks.”
It was nearly 10:30 now. Claire had no idea what Tammy looked like, but she hightailed it to Messenger Hall where the science labs were. She put her blazer back on to look more professional, even though it was far too hot for a jacket. She brushed her hair as she walked, glad that she’d left her backpack in the car. Backpack said student, not private investigator.
Claire mentally thanked her boss at Rogan-Caruso for urging her to get her PI license. With it came official-looking documentation, when all being a PI really meant was using common sense.
The first student she asked about Professor Thompson’s class gave her the room number, and Claire walked into the classroom three minutes before class was over. She marched up to the front and the professor-an older, gray-haired woman with a stern face-frowned at her. Claire didn’t falter. She showed Professor Thompson her PI license and whispered in her ear, “Name’s O’Brien. I’m looking into the disappearance of a student here, Oliver Maddox. I was told his girlfriend Tammy Amunson was in this class.”
The stern face softened, and the professor glanced at a blonde in the front row. “Tammy, you may leave with Ms. O’Brien.”
Tammy looked skeptical and a bit skittish, but she gathered her things and followed Claire from the classroom.
“Hi, Tammy, I’m Claire, a private investigator looking into Oliver’s disappearance. You filed the missing person report, correct?” She showed her the license, but pocketed it quickly. If Tammy knew what Oliver was working on she might connect Claire’s name with her father and become suspicious.
“You haven’t found him yet?”
“No. Let’s go outside and talk.”
They sat on a bench a ways from the main doors and Tammy said, “I’m so worried about Oliver. Something was wrong, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”