Page 40 of Closer Than You Know

The message on the mirror above the sink was short and to the point.

See you soon.

Bent’s gut tightened. He gave himself a moment by stepping over to the shower and turning off the water there and then at the sink. Vee stood as still as stone, staring at the words.

“We need to know,” she said without taking her eyes off the mirror, “if anyone has been in this apartment—besides law enforcement—since Nolan went missing.”

Bent braced for the answer he didn’t want to hear. “You believe this message wasn’t meant for Nolan.”

“I can’t be certain.”

The brittleness in her tone told him otherwise.

“The primary problem is,” she said in that same rigid tone, “the Messenger never took a male victim. Only females.”

Bent nodded slowly. “You said something earlier about him doing little things to make the victim wonder.”

She pulled her cell phone from her jeans pocket and snapped a photo. He should have done that already. Then she turned to him. “Like moving something a victim used every day to make her think she’d forgotten or that she was losing it. Changing the temperature setting on the thermostat while she slept. Taking a piece of mail out of the mailbox and putting it back on the table when it was meant to go out that day. Little things to make her wonder.” She turned away from him so he could no longer see her eyes. “Like leaving footprints in the snow leading right up to your window. Or leaving a window up.”

Son of a ...“I’ll check the windows just in case someone entered that way.”

Vee nodded, still staring at the message as the letters started to run.

Bent checked the windows. None were unlocked or appeared to have been tampered with. There were two doors—the one accessed from the stairs in the garage and one in the bedroom that led out to a balcony overlooking the backyard. The locks showed no indication of having been tampered with. Conover had gone through the place thoroughly the morning after Nolan’s disappearance. It was unlikely they had missed anything as blatant as an insecure or compromised lock on a window or door.

But the bastard got in somehow.

“Anything?” Vee asked as he joined her in the living room.

“All secure.” Another thought nudged him. “Is it possible,” he began, “since a month has passed and nothing really big has come of this Time Thief business ...” The idea might seem a little far fetched, but at this point, he was just about ready to believe anything. “Maybe Baker did some digging into the Messenger case and decided to evolve this thing into ... something bigger.”

Vee considered the idea for long enough to have him second-guessing having even put it out there. Then she said, “It’s possible, sure. But thatwould mean he did some serious digging and took some major risks. Peeking in my windows only hours after allegedly being abducted. Coming inside and leaving a message on my bathroom mirror.” She shook her head. “That’s a lot for a missing guy to get done alone—in the snow.”

“When you lay it all out like that,” Bent confessed, “it doesn’t really work.”

“You want it to work,” she said, understanding him better than he understood himself. “I want it to work. Having Nolan Baker do something stupid like this is a lot easier to deal with than the alternative.”

“No question.” No more beating around the bush. “We should get this next part over with.”

“The sooner the better,” Vera agreed.

When they reached the door of the Baker home, Elizabeth was waiting. “Did you find anything?”

“We need to ask you a few questions,” Bent said, bypassing her question.

“Come in.” She moved away from the door and led the way to the living room. She settled on one end of the large sectional sofa and clasped her hands in her lap. “Sit wherever you like.”

Bent waited until Vee sat down, and then he did the same.

“Maybe,” Bent offered, “you should call Carl to join us.”

Her face crumpled, and the howls of agony that emanated from the woman were gut wrenching. “No. No. No. He has to be all right. Please, please.” She looked to Bent then, her face twisted in pain. “Please tell me you’ve found him and he’s okay. Please, please, Bent ... I can’t bear it.”

Bent shared a look with Vee.

“Elizabeth, we haven’t found Nolan,” Vee assured her. “We’re not here to tell you anything like that.”

A shudder rocked through Elizabeth, her whole form quaking with it. “You’re not here to tell me he’s ... dead?”

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