Page 30 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
But I’m too tired to run down the memory. I close my eyes and turn onto my side. Within a minute, I’m asleep.
Nineteen
Tristan
* * *
I check the time and am surprised to see it’s mid-afternoon.
I missed lunch, working through the mealtime. My stomach growls as if it had been waiting for this realization to strike. So I gather my scribbled notes into a tidy stack, then go out into the kitchen.
I sent half the leftover lasagna with Emily to the cabin and kept the rest for myself. I remove the container from the refrigerator and pop it into the microwave. While it heats, I stand at the kitchen window and look out into our backyard. The storm’s not going to come this far north, or if it does, it won’t be anything major. But even so, it’s windy. The trees are waving their limbs. It looks like they’re dancing. And the few daffodils that have popped up in the garden have their heads bent as if they’re ashamed.
I glance over at the Simmons’ yard and my thoughts turn to Emily’s scare the other day. Then I remember my promise to her to let our neighbors know she saw, or thought she saw, someone. I’d meant to text Tyrone and ask him to check the feed on his security camera, but it had slipped my mind in my hurry to take Emily down to the cabin and get back home. I pull my phone out now and am about to thumb out a text when I think better of it.
I call instead. After three rings, I get Tyrone’s voicemail. I wait for the beep, then say, “Hey, Ty, it’s Tristan. Everything’s fine. Hope you and Lashina are having a blast. Would you mind checking your security footage for Friday, right around noon? Em thought she saw something in your garden. If there was an animal there, it didn’t cause any damage, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at the video feed. Talk soon.”
I end the call, wondering why I didn’t say Emily thought she saw a person. Is it because I truly don’t think she did? My wife may be skittish, but she’s not divorced from reality. Before I can probe my motivation further, the microwave dings.
I remove the plate of lasagna, stirring it with a fork to ensure it’s heated evenly, and pour a drink. Then I sit down at the kitchen island to eat my lunch. I’m a third of the way through the meal when my phone buzzes with a notification. I pick it up hoping Alex Liu has answered my message, but she hasn’t. Instead, I have a text from Tyrone:
Checked the feed. Emily saw something alright. But it’s not an animal. Sending the file.
There’s a link. I forward it to my email so I can view it from my computer and push the rest of my meal away, no longer hungry.
Back at my desk, I open Tyrone’s video and watch the fuzzy security camera footage. The Simmons’ camera is aimed not at his garden, but at the detached garage at the back of the yard where Ty keeps his vintage Indian Scout motorcycle. Still, the edge of the frame captures the part of their garden closest to our fence line, and I can see the clear shape of a man—not a bear, not a deer, but a human being positioned so he can see right into our house and watch Emily work.
My heart thumps as I magnify the video, but with the increase in size, the image loses all definition. It’s nothing but a blurry mass. I swear under my breath. If I were at work, I could send it to the technology specialists to enlarge and sharpen. But I’m not, so I can’t.
I slam my fist down on the desk. Being sidelined right now is worse than bad timing. My suspension is hamstringing me. I breathe through my nose slowly, trying to gain control of my frustration. I can hear my mother’s calm, soothing voice guiding me: “Getting mad almost never improves a situation, Tristan.”
My dad and Tate shared a vicious temper that Mom worked hard to train out of me. Tom Weakes punched his fist through the drywall and threw plates and bottles at the target of his rage. Tate stomped and stormed and swore and got into schoolyard brawls over the slightest perceived insult. But me? I had a pillow to scream into, a journal to write my thoughts in, and a glitter-filled calm down jar.
When I was very young, I thought my mother’s efforts to help me process big feelings nonviolently were stupid and embarrassing. By the time she and I moved to Arizona, I understood that, far from being dumb, the endeavor was crucial. Then she married Jon Rose and gave me a male role model who could control his emotions. I realized his quiet strength was more masculine and mature than any of my father or brother’s volatile explosions. I pride myself on being the man he raised me to be from the age of nine. I need to remember Jon’s example now.
I text Tyrone back to thank him for the video and assure him I’ll keep an eye out for the trespasser.
He responds immediately.
Seems like he’s more interested in your place than mine. Take care of that wife of yours.
I send a thumbs-up emoji and close the chat.
I run my fingers through my hair, leaving it standing up in little spikes. Emily always laughs when I do this. For a moment, I miss her so much I feel it in my body—a physical ache. I remind myself I need her to be gone now because I have to focus.
So I focus. I turn to the Giselle Ward evidence. I know damned well I didn’t contaminate a sample. I couldn’t have—I’m always so careful. But there’s no other explanation for it. The county crime lab isn’t a hotbed of careerist backstabbers or ambitious climbers. I doubt very much that anyone at work has set me up. I have good working relationships with the police, particularly the homicide detectives, and the DAs. My reputation is—was, at least—impeccable. No one in my professional life would want to sideline me during the Ward case.
Could I really have screwed up so monumentally?
I blow out a long breath, and the thought I had on the highway—the one I couldn’t quite wrap my arms around and chalked up to a caffeine buzz—suddenly rushes to the forefront of my mind. Alex, Dana, and Cassie were attacked seven years apart, all during storms. To be fair, Dana Rowland’s murder didn’t occur during a rainstorm or snowstorm. She was murdered during a haboob, a fierce dust storm. Created when a thunderstorm with high winds collapses over dry terrain, a haboob is terrifying. Imagine enormous, rolling walls of dense dust that blanket the sky and block out the sun.
The one that hit the day Dana died was massive, reaching over four thousand feet high and stretching more than one hundred miles wide. It picked up and hurled rocks, boulders, and debris, downed power lines and trees, and turned over cars. It was every bit as dramatic as a nor’easter, a blizzard, or a hurricane.
I suddenly shoot out of my chair. “Cassie isn’t the victim who breaks the pattern. Giselle is.” My words are loud and sharp, breaking the stillness of my quiet, empty house.
I don’t have to check the weather report to confirm. I have vivid memory of the day Giselle Ward’s roommate found her bleeding out in a sticky puddle in the hallway between her bedroom and the bathroom. It was the kind of day that makes March in Pennsylvania bearable. Warm sunshine, a light breeze, bright blue skies, and a temperature in the high 60s—it was a promise of the spring to come. There was no storm. Not even a drizzle of rain.
Just as quickly as I bolted from my chair, I slam back down into it with a thud and a sudden, sick realization: I’ve been set up. Giselle Ward, a redhead, stabbed to death seven years after the attack on Cassie, is a placeholder. Her murder is a red herring, a distraction to keep me busy while her killer puts plans in motion. This is payback.
