Page 45 of The Girl Who Was Taken

After an hour of research, she turned her attention back to Casey Delevan. In a defunct website from 2015 that had not been updated for some time, Livia found an advertisement for Two Guys Handyman Service. Listed were Casey Delevan and Nathaniel Theros. There was a phone number and address. Livia wrote both down just as Kent Chapple poked his head into her office.

“We’re done for the day, Doc. Any calls after threeo’clock go to the second shift. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Kent,” Livia said.

She ripped the sticky note containing Nathaniel Theros’s information from the pad and left the office. Mr. Theros lived on the west side of Emerson Bay, not quite a two-hour drive from Raleigh. Her brakes squeaked when she stopped in front of his house—a single-story ranch with overgrown shrubs, unkempt grass, and weeds pushing through the sidewalk cracks. Nathaniel Theros’s house sat in a crumbling neighborhood of other dilapidated homes that made up the ruins of West Emerson Bay, where industry had died over the last few decades as factories shut down and moved overseas. The years had seen a great transformation take place in Emerson Bay, when shipping and port industries spread to the north and south, as if a drop of detergent had fallen onto Emerson Bay and pushed away the greasy factories and grimy shipping yards, leaving behind the squeaky-clean waterfront community of East Emerson Bay, called East Bay by locals, which was hip and young and booming. The waterfront homes attracted the wealthy, and tourism was rampant. Restaurants, shops, and galleries prospered as local residents and tourists walked the cobblestone streets and ate on verandas while staring at the bay and watching restored steamboats chug up and down the waterway.

But when tourism took root and sprouted to become the major economy in Emerson Bay, the west side suffered. Without the factories or the shipping yards, and without the benefit of a beautiful waterfront, West Baybecame the dying side of town with crumbling shells of old refineries, and train yards that made for noisy living. What used to be a place where hard-working folk retreated after a day on the docks or in the factories, a place where a small yard for your kids and safe streets in the neighborhood were enough for a pleasant existence, West Bay now was somewhere only visited when necessary. And for Livia, today there was no way around it.

One last check of the address, then she walked up the steps and rang the bell. Dogs barked incessantly and clawed the door from the other side. There was some yelling and corralling before the door finally opened.

“What’s up?” the man said.

“Nathaniel Theros?”

“Only if I’m in trouble. Nate, otherwise.”

Livia smiled. “No trouble. My name’s Livia Cutty. I wanted to ask you a weird question.”

The man was bent over, holding a large Rottweiler by its collar. Faded tattoos crept from under his T-shirt, down his arms and up his neck. He pulsed his eyebrows. “I like weird.”

“You used to know a guy named Casey Delevan?”

Instant smile. “Oh, yeah. While back.”

“Mind if I ask you some questions about him?”

“He in trouble?”

“You could say that.”

“You a cop?”

“No, I’m a doctor.”

Nate made a strange face. “Gimme a sec. I’ll put Daisy away.”

Livia waited on the porch while Nate disappeared into the house, dragging Daisy reluctantly with him asthe Rottweiler growled and barked. She heard the rattle of a cage, then Nate was back. He pushed through the screen door and walked onto the front stoop, sat against the railing opposite her, and lit a cigarette that glowed in the October dusk. “So why’s a doctor asking about Casey Delevan?”

“Curiosity, mostly. I work over at the OCME.”

“What’s that?”

“The Medical Examiner’s office in Raleigh. I’m a fellow finishing my training.”

“Oh, yeah? Like CSI stuff?”

“Sort of.”

“Shit,” Nate said with a smile. “What sort of trouble is Casey in?”

“There was a body pulled out of Emerson Bay a few weeks ago. You hear about that?”

Nate nodded his head. “Heard about it.”

“ID came back as your pal, Casey.”

Nate smiled as though Livia were putting him on, then put his cigarette to his mouth. “You telling me Casey’s dead?”

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