Page 110 of Last Seen
But the idea of someone else loving her, fingering that crazy streak of white in her otherwise dark hair, listening to her breathy snores ... That he’s lost her makes him sick. That she’s accused of murder and a number of other felonies doesn’t help. She doesn’t want him, she’s made that clear, but he can’t let this lie. He has to find her, and he has all the skills and power to do so.
He fumbles an antacid pill into his mouth and dry swallows it. He is low on sleep, low on patience, and high on frustration. Not the best formula for his system.
He hasn’t heard from Halley since the text with the photos telling him she was heading to Nashville a week ago. When she didn’t answer his texts, he got worried. When the sheriff of Brockville tracked him down and told him Halley had shot his brother Noah, he was in disbelief. When her Jeep showed up in Nashville, but with no trace of her anywhere near it, Theo took a week’s personal leave, got Charlie settled at the neighbor’s, and got on a plane. None of this makes sense, but he knows his wife. He doesn’t think her capable of these crimes. He’s worried about her. She might have had a break, yes. That’s what the Brockville sheriff wants him to believe. That she was unstable. Upset. Irrational.
But he’s inclined to believe something else could be going on.
Which is why he’s here. He’s going to get to the bottom of this. He’s going back to the beginning.
Theo badges the girl at the front desk. “I have an appointment with Sergeant David Lemke.”
The woman nods and presses two buttons on her phone. “An ATF agent is here for you. Okay, thanks.” Then to Theo, “Have a seat over there. He’ll come get you.”
He grabs some pine. A door opens a few minutes later, and an older man with graying hair and beard waves him over. “Lemke.” He sticks out a hand. “You’re Donovan?”
“I am. Thanks for making the time.”
He follows Lemke through an institutional labyrinth. The hallways are lined with boxes.
“Temporary digs,” he explains. “We’ve been moving around facilities. Total shit show. They tore down our old place before the new one was built, so we decentralized most of the divisions of HQ, and only the brass and some admins are here.”
“Been there. Moving desks is a pain.”
Lemke leads him to a generic interior room with glass walls on three sides that looks like something straight out ofThe Office, only with the requisite photos of the chief of police, the governor of Tennessee, and the president of the United States hanging on the one solid wall. An American flag stands sentry in the corner. The desk is clear of detritus, but a thick file sits in its center.
“Have a seat. Your wife’s in quite a bit of trouble.”
Theo nods. “That she is. But like I said on the phone, I can’t see her for this. Attempted murder is not her style.”
“But it is her gun, with her prints on it, and on the bullets, according to the forensics. They dug the slug out of Noah Brockton, and the ballistics are solid. No questions there. That’s why they put out the warrant for her.”
“You’ve been doing this long enough to know nothing is a fait accompli. I know Halley. She could no sooner shoot an innocent man than she could hurt an animal.”
“Then why have the gun in the first place?”
“You know the answer. Protection. Someone was killing people connected to her mother’s case, and she wanted to be able to defend herself.”
“Then this isn’t a stretch at all. What if Noah Brockton isn’t so innocent?” Lemke asks. “What if he is the killer? What if he attacked her? She shot him, panicked, and ran?”
“More likely, but I’m still not convinced. We won’t know for sure until we find her, or he wakes up. Take a look at this,” Theo says. He hands over his phone. “She texted me from Brockton’s phone minutes before she went dark. Wanted me to run the faces. Said this was the killer. I got a match to the woman, she was in the juvenile system. That’s Catriona Handon. Halley’s older half sister. It’s the other one, though, I can’t land on. He’s tied up in this. Halley was convinced that he’s the killer, and I’m inclined to agree. I talked with Baird Early in Marchburg, sent him these pics, and he matched this guy up to a video feed he has in Marchburg. That’s where two women were killed.”
“And let me guess. Noah Brockton was in Brockville the whole time.”
“According to one hell of a lot of witnesses, yes. This man, though, wasn’t. I’m hoping you can help me ID him.”
“That’s why you wanted the Handon murder file? It was twenty-eight years ago. We don’t have much in the way of visuals. Just a few shots. Lost the video years ago. The floods. All that’s really left is up here.” He taps his temple.
“Anything could help. I’ve seen parts of the file—autopsy report, the crime scene stills, but if I could look through the whole thing ...”
Lemke watches Theo. “You really don’t think she did this.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay. Let’s play this your way.” Lemke sits. “The Handon murder was pretty awful. We don’t have a lot of home invasions with women being stabbed here. Especially back in the late eighties. I was new to plain clothes, just moved to violent crimes. Wasn’t my first case, but it was close to it. It helped that the daughter copped to the murder. We found her at the bus station three days after, completely fucked up. I’m talking she looked like she’d been run over by a bus. She was meek. Didn’t fight, came into custody like she was relieved. That happens, obviously. It’s hard to fight the energy of a homicide investigation, and we were on it hard.”
“What did she say happened?”
“Mom wanted to send her back to a wilderness camp she’d gone to. She’d had a bad time of it there and didn’t want to go. They argued,she got the knife, she stabbed her. Beat her little sister in the head and ran. Public defender managed to get her declared unfit to stand trial because she had some deep psychiatric problems, so she pled out, took a sentence to the juvenile psychiatric facility at Central State.” He stops. “That’s all in the file. I’m sure you’ve read it.”
