Page 26 of Closer Than You Know

Maybe it was the whole idea of turning forty and never having been married, no kids, no traditional anything. The last time she’d been in love was when she was seventeen and was head over heels for Bent. The fact that her life had spiraled in reverse, landing her back in Tennessee, with no career and no love life and in the middle of a murder investigation involving her family had been plenty with which to deal.

Now she was about to be forty, her parents were gone, and both heryoungersisters were in relationships. Life was calm ... simple, for the most part.

That was the problem. There was nothing to distract her from the other.

The cold penetrated her coat, and she shivered again. Going into that big old empty house was maybe the issue tonight. It was late. She was tired and hungry, and the house was dark and empty. Eve had moved in with Suri, and Luna—the youngest Boyett sister—had gotten married.

That was enough to make a girl feel out of sorts.

She thought of how they’d found Nolan’s cell phone in that shed. How the hell had Owens gotten the phone? Had he found it somewhere? Or had Nolan been hiding in that shed while he pretended to be abducted? Certainly, someone had been using the sleeping bag in that shed, and there had been food remains lying around.

But if Owens found the phone somewhere ... why not turn it in when the news broke of Nolan’s abduction, assuming he heard about it? Were the man’s delusions driving him? There was no improvement in the last update from the hospital. Who knew when the guy would be able to answer any questions—if ever, for that matter. Long-term meth use could cause brain damage, among other terrible things.

The trouble was, if Owens wasn’t the Time Thief and Nolan wasn’t ... that meant they still had no true evidence in this case. How could four people go missing and no evidence be left behind? Either they had one hell of a good perp, or it was a hoax that had been planned very carefully. No evidence of that either.

Basically, they had nothing.

The only good thing to happen today was that she’d been able to call Liam Remington again. He’d sounded relieved that there were no intimate photos to be worried about. But the reality that there was still no sign of Nolan hadn’t been news he’d wanted to hear.

Still, Vera had been able to deliver on her promise to the man. He now owed her one. The thought of Teresa Russ and that voicemail she’d deleted had her nerves twitching again.

Finally, she reached for the door handle and got out of the car. The wind cut through her like a knife. She didn’t remember March being this cold when she was a kid. Hundreds of daffodils had formed yellow puddles all around the front yard. Tulips had already pushed their way through the soil but hadn’t started blooming just yet. Her mother had been a consummate gardener. The evidence bloomed all around the house from early spring until the dead of winter.

Vera had never fully appreciated all those blooms until the past few months. Considering all that had happened with the discovery of those remains in the cave, her mother’s sea of blooms had been a comfort all last summer, through one trauma after another.

She slid the key into the lock and gave it a twist. Inside, the sound of the alarm had her going straight to the keypad to disarm it before closing and locking the door once more.

She tossed her keys and her bag aside, shrugged off her coat, and hung it on the nearest hook. Then she headed to the kitchen. She needed something hot to drink. Maybe with a shot of whiskey. With her favorite oversize mug under the drip basket, she set the coffee to brew and went for the Jack under the sink. Her stomach rumbled, remindingher that she needed food too. The memory of having BLTs with Bent popped into her head. Along with Renae’s homegrown tomatoes.

Vera rolled her eyes. She’d have to go on social media and find this tomato-growing, salad-makingfriendof Bent’s. Not that she was jealous or anything. Why would she be? She and Bent were only friends. Sure, she was attracted to him. What woman—or man, for that matter—still breathing wouldn’t be? The man was ...

“Stop it, Vee,” she grumbled.

She poured a shot of Jack into the mug with the steaming coffee. Beyond ready for some sort of relief, she lifted the mug to her mouth and savored the heat and the taste of the promise Jack made with every damned drop—bottled right up the road in Lynchburg.

A sting of cold washed over her body. Was the heat off? It felt unusually cold in this big old kitchen. That was the thing with old houses. The heat or air-conditioning was never exactly right. Too many cracks and odd spaces—not to mention the lack of insulation—to keep the climate properly controlled.

Mug in hand, she trudged to the thermostat near the stairs. Seventy-two. It was warmer here by the stairs, but it certainly wasn’t seventy-two degrees in the rear of the house. She walked back into the kitchen. Why was it so cold near the sink? This was more than just drafty.

She checked the back door. Locked. She went still. As she stood by the door, a stouter breeze swept past her. She turned to her right and recognized the cold was coming from the laundry room/mudroom. She walked through the cased opening, flipped on the light.

The window over the washer and dryer was up—not just a little, either. It was up all the way.

“What the hell?”

She set her mug aside, grabbed the stepladder from the corner. Had Eve or Luna been over here today? But why would they open a window? She should call and ask before she overreacted.

Climbing onto the top of the washing machine, she lowered the window and tried to lock it. Didn’t work. Lots of these old windows nolonger locked. Damn it. The windows were the original ones and were slathered with more than a century’s worth of paint.

Once her feet were on the floor again, she put the stepladder away and picked up her mug once more.

The memory of this morning’s tracks in the snow just outside her kitchen nudged her. It was entirely possible the window had been opened by an intruder. A new wave of cold washed over her, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. They’d had alarms put on the doors, but they’d opted not to include the windows since there were so many of them and it was crazy expensive.

A lump thickened in her throat.

Had someone been in the house?

She dragged her cell from her back pocket and called Eve. She downed the rest of her coffee and Jack before her sister answered. It felt wrong to be drinking alcohol while talking to Eve, who was a recovering alcoholic.

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