Devil Smoke (9 page)

On one wall, she created a timeline with documented facts: where Charlotte was, who saw her or was with her. On the other wall she organized hypotheticals—unverified sightings before or after the day she vanished, the various “possible” leads that law enforcement, the private investigators hired by Tommy and Charlotte’s family, and Valencia had stumbled across—along with unanswered questions raised by the evidence: motives for her leaving voluntarily, reasons to question her mental health, motives for anyone to want to harm her, the stalled money trail she’d left in her wake, possible attempts to cover her tracks… There were so many questions that Lucy almost ran out of space.

When she was done, she stood back. No wonder both the police and private investigators had been so frustrated. Tommy was right. Despite the fact that they’d been able to discover a multitude of “facts” about Charlotte’s disappearance, you could twist them into any story you wanted.

For instance, following the money—a time-honored law enforcement tradition, mainly because it usually did lead to answers—told a story of a woman who bought disposable cell phones, who had multiple accounts separate from her husband, and who, on the day she vanished, maxed out those accounts’ ATM withdrawals. Cash in hand, she bought herself time by parking her car in a secluded scenic overlook, where it sat undiscovered for three days. Presumably she either met an accomplice or had another car waiting, then walked away from her life.

This was the story that seemed to please law enforcement the most. Lucy could understand why: it not only solved the case, but it had the most concrete, objective evidence to support the theory, and it meant that they hadn’t allowed a murderer to walk around free to kill again.

Only problem: no one had been able to document any motive or even a hint of unhappiness that might cause Charlotte Worth to abandon her life, including her husband and child.

The press had taken a different, more salacious view, following their own time-honored tradition of “if it bleeds, it leads.” They speculated at first about possible motives for killing Charlotte—despite the fact that Tommy had an ironclad alibi for the day of her disappearance—setting their “investigative teams” to search for possible “thugs for hire” and tracking down would-be assassins he could have reached out to via Craigslist and other anonymous internet sites.

Lucy had to give them credit. For a story with almost no facts, they’d managed to create the illusion of a much wider conspiracy, as if husbands and wives throughout Pittsburgh were busy searching for nefarious partners to help eliminate their spouses, leading one paper to do a series on “how to get away with murder,” while another online tabloid website tried to create a sting operation to snare potential hit men for hire. All of which no doubt brought much-needed eyeballs to their publications, but were of no help in finding Charlotte.

The last theory—suicide—was the least popular. And the one with the least concrete basis. But both Charlotte’s family and colleagues had mentioned that she was stressed during the weeks before she vanished. No one said why, only that she’d seemed distracted and at times distraught. She was in good health, and at the time she went missing she hadn’t been involved with any cases at work that would have been unduly stressful. Social workers rotated around various units at the hospital in an effort to avoid burnout, and when Charlotte vanished, she’d been working in the rehab department, one of the least stressful.

All of these hypotheses strived to create sense out of the devastation Charlotte had left in her wake. And odds were, none of them were right.

Lucy paced back and forth, her gaze darting from one wall to the other, letting the facts and questions whirl and spin, sparking off each other, without committing to any of them. Trying to be both neutral and involved, searching for what lay beneath the facts, seeking out new questions to ask.

Wash interrupted her with a knock on the door. “Found a few things on Sarah.” He wheeled forward into the tiny room. “Wow. Isn’t it kind of overwhelming? Seeing it all in one place like this?”

“It can be. Which is why I don’t want Tommy stumbling in here.” She glanced at the analyst to make sure he caught her meaning. “He doesn’t need more on his plate right now.”

“Sure, I get it. If you need me to help, just holler.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“So, what’cha think? Some crazy serial killer and she was in the wrong place, wrong time?”

The public always defaulted to random acts of senseless violence committed by strangers, but that was the least likely, statistically speaking. Especially with no evidence; most acts of spontaneous violence weren’t clean and neat. And there was no evidence of anyone stalking Charlotte, targeting her. Which meant looking to those she knew and loved.

“C’mon,” Wash continued when Lucy didn’t answer right away. “We know it wasn’t Tommy. And why would she run off, leave her husband and kid? Had to be some psycho.”

“What did you find on Sarah?” Lucy led him out of the room and locked the door behind her. They traveled down the hall back to the team’s main work area.

“Got her birth certificate. Unfortunately her parents are named Robert and Mary…”

“How many Robert and Mary Browns can there be?”

“A helluva lot more than you might think. But based on the address listed, I followed the real estate transactions, and I think I tracked them down.”

“Great. Where are they?”

He wheeled back in place behind his computer—Wash always seemed more comfortable with the computer and its screen serving as a barrier between him and the rest of the world—and clicked a key. The projection screen at the other end of the room lit up with two obituary notices. “Died in a car accident four years ago. I’m working on tracking the other relatives listed, but it’ll take a while. And then we still need to make sure they’re the correct Brown family.”

“Right. We can’t get Sarah’s hopes up without being certain. She’s been traumatized enough.”

“TK sent over a copy of her lease agreement. Turns out she’s a freelance photographer. I found several photographers named Sarah Brown with websites; I think this one might be hers.” The screen flipped to a website with a wide screen slideshow of nature photos. “There’s no personal profile picture, but the locations are all Pennsylvania and surrounding states, and it says the photographer is based in western Pennsylvania. The contact info leads to a Gmail account with a free phone number and answering system.”

“So basically untraceable.”

“Right. But, once we can prove that she is the actual owner of the Gmail account, we can ask them for access. Don’t hold your breath, though.”

Lucy knew that privacy reigned supreme when it came to tech companies, unless there were exigent circumstances like in a kidnapping or critical missing person—which was not the case here. Maybe since Sarah’s wallet and cell were presumably stolen when her car was broken into, she could ask Burroughs to report her as a victim of identity theft. That would allow them access without needing court orders—although it would still be a slow slog wading through the bureaucracies surrounding Sarah’s various accounts.

Lucy’s eyes blurred as Wash flipped through Sarah Brown’s photos, one image morphing into the next. “She really does have a thing for ferns and moss. Did the camera card’s GIS info give you anything to go on?”

“No. It’s all for the area around the trail she was found on. The first photo on the memory card is from earlier that same day, the trailhead sign—probably to help her organize her files when she downloads them.”

“If you were a professional photographer, wouldn’t you have a big computer and screen? They didn’t find any in her apartment.”

“These days, you can use your laptop, screencast to a hi-def TV, and the image is bigger than life, filled with all the detail she’d need to edit them. Same thing as what I’m doing here.”

“So she could have had everything in the car and lost it all in the smash and grab. I guess I was just expecting all sorts of equipment at home—lights and whatnot. But Burroughs didn’t mention anything.”

“Look at what she shoots.” He nodded to the image on the screen, which was filled with layers of thick, richly colored moss. “I’ll bet she does it all in the field with what she can carry with her.”

“Doesn’t help us much, then.”

Before she could ask anything else her phone rang. TK.

“Lucy? We have a problem.”

TOMMY HELD SARAH
much as he’d become accustomed to holding his daughter, trying to comfort her the best he could. But holding Sarah felt so different—and yet, so very familiar, in ways he fought to deny.

The scent of her shampoo, the feel of her hair, simply having a woman lean on him, need him… He closed his eyes, and for a fleeting, searing moment it was Charlotte he held, not a stranger. He wanted to savor, to etch this exact second of time into his memory so that he would not lose it as he had so many other moments with Charlotte.

But something inside him refused to allow him even that small measure of comfort. He didn’t push Sarah away in his need, but neither did he submerge himself in the intoxication of faux memory and denial.

Instead, as he’d done millions of times during the past 363 days, he relived those last moments with Charlotte.

He’d been pulling out of the driveway on his way to work. Nellie was waiting in the Pathfinder for Charlotte to drive her to school. Charlotte came out of the house, cell phone to her ear, her expression suddenly clouding, then growing—angry? Frustrated? Concerned? A mix of all three, maybe?

He hadn’t kept on driving. No. He’d stopped, half in and half out of the driveway. Had been poised to shift into park, roll his window down, and ask her what was wrong. But she glanced up when he stopped the car, shook her head, and waved him off.

And he’d gone. He’d left. Never to see her again.

The vision of those final moments—the entire encounter less than four seconds by his estimate—brought with it so many questions. And emotions. It used to be denial. It wasn’t his fault—he’d done everything he could. Then came anger, right on Kübler-Ross’s schedule. Why hadn’t she let him help? What had she been hiding from him? How could she have put herself in danger? What if something had happened when she had Nellie with her instead of later?

The questions raged on, unrelenting and never ending. Without answers, without even a body to mourn, he had gotten stuck in anger. Well, there was the occasional bargaining, and definitely some depression, but absolutely no acceptance. A maelstrom of grief consumed him from the moment he woke—when he did sleep—and followed him through the day and into his dreams.

And now, to have a woman in his arms once more. A woman who, for whatever reason, smelled like Charlotte, and who needed him, who was depending upon him.

A woman who had stopped sobbing and now was simply embracing him, her head nestled into his shoulder, hair hiding her face. The temptation was so strong—to steal this moment of comfort, transplant it over his own painful final memories of Charlotte.

No. He straightened, pulling his arm away from her shoulders. No. Sarah looked up, her expression wounded, as if he’d rejected her.

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her, using his best “I’m the doctor and know these things, trust me” voice. “Let me check with TK. We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

She blinked, her eyes still wet with tears. Blinked again as she weighed his words. Finally, she nodded.

Tommy stood and went into the bedroom where TK was talking with Lucy.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

TK held a palm up, nodded, then said, “Got it.” She hung up and pocketed her phone. “How’s she doing?”

“Okay, I guess. What did Lucy say?”

“They found Sarah’s parents. Dead. A few years now. Still working on locating any other kin.”

“Seems like rediscovering her past is the least of our problems. What are we going to do to keep her safe now?”

“Wash is scouring court records, seeing if she was ever involved in any domestic violence cases or requested a restraining order. Hoping to get a name for whoever is stalking her. But since nothing showed up when the police ran her name, it means going county by county through their local databases.”

“Maybe we should hand this back over to the cops?” Tommy might not like Burroughs, but the man was good at his job.

“Lucy is updating Burroughs. But it’s still not a crime—her feelings of being frightened when she saw someone’s handwriting is not evidence.”

“We can’t penalize her because she can’t remember who’s stalking her with creepy messages and anonymous gifts. There has to be something we can do.”

“Lucy is working on a place for Sarah to stay the night. In the meantime, we take the dress and card and everything over to Burroughs, and we watch over her.”

“It’s a start.”

They returned to the living room. Sarah sat curled up on the center of the sofa, the empty space surrounding her making her appear even younger and more vulnerable. She looked at TK, then at Tommy, saying nothing. As if resigned to her fate.

That’s when it hit him. Without her memories, Sarah had no idea who she could trust and who might be dangerous. She had no one. Except his team.

TK took charge. “I know you’re scared,” she said, surprising him with her empathetic tone. “But we’re going to protect you. I’m going to stay with you while we find a safe place for you to go.”

“You’re leaving?” she asked Tommy. Her expression made it seem as if she was close to tears again.

“He’s just going to take the evidence over to the police,” TK rushed to assure her. “But I’ll stay. All day and all night.”

To Tommy’s surprise, Sarah uncurled her legs and stood. “No. That’s foolish.”

She strode past both of them to the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards until she found a box of plastic sandwich bags. She handed them to TK. “To save the fingerprints.”

“Right.” TK exchanged a glance with Tommy before retrieving the card and carefully slipping it inside one of the bags. She was doing it more to appease Sarah than anything—they both knew there was little chance of any forensic evidence to be found, which was why Burroughs wasn’t leaving his real cases to come himself. But if it made Sarah feel more in control…