“For what?”
“You know. I acted like a jerk when you told me about your eyes.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “You didn’t act like a jerk, you were just a little unnerved. I can hardly blame you for that, since I am too. And I’ve had months to get used to them.”
“Still, it was a lousy way for me to act. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
Caleb moved half-consciously in his chair. “Then why do I get the feeling I’ve damaged… something… beyond repair?”
Having watched Isabel and Rafe circling each other like a couple of wary cats, Hollis was in no mood to play games. “Caleb, you seem like a nice guy, with a nice, satisfying life here in Hastings. And I hope that after we’ve done our job and gone away, you get your nice little town back again. I hope we can offer you some sense of closure in Tricia’s death by finding the animal who killed her.”
“But?”
“But nothing. There isn’t anything else. There never was, really.”
“There might have been.”
Still being honest, she said, “I sort of doubt it. Not because of anything you said or did, but just the timing.”
“And there’s no use even trying?”
“I think… that right now my life and your life are so different we could never even find a bit of common ground to stand on. Honestly. You don’t know me, Caleb. The little bit you do know is just the tip of a pretty dark and unsettling iceberg.”
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Yeah, I was afraid you’d say something like that.”
“Admit it. You’re relieved.”
“No. No, not relieved. In fact, I have the distinct feeling I’m missing out on something I’ll regret one day.”
“Nice of you to say so.”
He smiled a bit ruefully. “Look, there’s something else I came here to tell you. Show you. Something that could possibly be related to Tricia’s murder.”
Hollis had no problem in shifting from the personal to the professional-which told her a lot. “What is it?”
“I found something in the desk. My desk, not hers. It was in a drawer I never use because it’s in an awkward position in the desk layout, and apparently she’d been using it to store work-related things she no longer used. Mostly old notebooks. I went through all of them, and they were all the shorthand notes she’d taken. Dictation, notes about schedules and appointments, that sort of thing.”
“What was unusual about that?”
“Nothing. But when I was going through the last notebook-which was actually the one that had been on top, by the way-a slip of paper fell out. I’m guessing it was something she wrote down during a phone call, and the date puts it just before the murders began.” He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, adding, “My prints are all over it, but I figured it didn’t really matter. It’s clearly a private note, since it doesn’t match anything in my schedule, and I doubt it has any value as evidence-except to maybe point the investigation in a different direction.” He placed the small piece of paper on the conference table and pushed it across to her.
Out of habit, Hollis nevertheless used the eraser of the pencil she was holding to draw the paper closer so she could study it. “Looks like her handwriting,” she said.
“I’m no expert, but I’ve seen a lot of her handwriting over the years. She wrote that. Plus, that’s the sort of doodling she tended to do when her mind was on something else.”
The “doodles” were clear enough. A little cat face; a couple of hearts with arrows through them; stairs leading to nowhere; a sun setting off the edge of the paper with its rays beaming; a female eye, with long lashes and carefully detailed iris; and two circles connected by a series of smaller circles.
The paper was clearly from a notepad; it was a neon green, and across the top was printed: It works in practice, but not in theory.
“There were other notepads like this one in her desk,” Hollis remembered. “The kind with preprinted cartoons or funny sayings on them.”
“Yeah. She said they lightened up the serious tone of a lawyer’s office, but she only used them for personal or throwaway notes.”
Hollis nodded, and studied what Tricia had written in the center of the notepad.
J.B.
Old Hwy
7:00 5/16
It was followed by two large question marks.
“Did Tricia know Jamie Brower?” Hollis asked.
“She never mentioned it, if she did.”
“How did she react when Jamie was murdered?”
“Shocked and horrified, just like the rest of us.” Caleb frowned. “She did take a few vacation days unexpectedly, now that I think about it.”
“Did she leave town?”
“She said she was going to. The time off was because her sister had had surgery, and Tricia needed to go to Augusta and help take care of the kids.”
Hollis pushed the note to one side and hunted through the folders stacked on the table until she found the one she wanted. She looked through several pages, frowning, then paused. “Okay. According to her sister’s statement, at the time of Tricia’s death she hadn’t seen her in more than three months. I thought I remembered reading that.”
“Tricia lied to me?” Caleb was baffled. “Why? I mean, it’s not like I even asked her why she needed the time off. She had so much vacation and sick time accumulated, I remember telling her to take a week or two if that’s what she needed. But she came back to work about… four days later.”
Hollis looked through the folder for several more minutes, pausing here and there, and finally closed it. “We’ve backtracked every victim’s life for about two weeks prior to their murders, which means we have information that starts tracking Tricia just a few days after Jamie was killed.”
“So you don’t know if she was here in town or went somewhere else.”
“No. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find out, though. Her apartment manager has been very cooperative, and Tricia was a friendly neighbor, so her neighbors noticed her.”
“A lesson to all of us not to become too isolated, I guess.”
“One way to look at it.” Hollis hesitated, then said, “Did Tricia ever show up to work with unexplained bruises or burns, anything like that?”
“No. I told you her former boyfriend showed no signs of abusing her. I never saw a bruise, and since she seldom wore makeup I think I would have noticed.”
“True enough.” Hollis smiled. “Thanks for bringing this in, Caleb.”
He took the hint and rose to his feet. “I only hope it turns out to be helpful.”
“I’ll let you know,” she promised. “That closure we were talking about.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He hesitated just an instant, then turned and left the conference room.
Hollis was just about to call Ginny in and find out if the younger officer wanted to share a pizza and do some brainstorming when she felt a sudden chill, as if someone had opened a window into winter.
She watched gooseflesh rise on her arms and had to force herself to look up, toward the doorway.
Jamie Brower stood there.
“Oh, shit,” Hollis murmured.
She wasn’t solid flesh, but neither was she a ghostly, wispy thing; she was definitely clearer and more distinct than Hollis had yet seen her. In this form, anyway.
Her expression was anxious, worried; Jamie said something-or tried to. All Hollis heard was that peculiar hollow silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to hold her own voice steady. Trying not to feel terrified. “I can’t hear you.”
Jamie moved a step closer to the table and Hollis. Or rather-and very eerily-floated closer, since she didn’t seem to actually take a physical step.