Page 94 of Haven't Killed in Years
“What kid?” The question was guttural. I had been so desperate for answers, but now I only felt queasy.
“Evie’s son. Mitchell had adopted him before she died. He was a few years older than mine, but he wasn’t smart like Dominic. He was a bizarre kid. Seems okay now though. The boys are still close.”
“What was his name?” I asked even though I had a good guess.
She coughed again. “Jacob,” she choked out before more coughing prevented her from saying anything else.
Fifty-Four
I took the picture ofOswald Shields with me. I shoved it in my pocket and left Barbara. Hopefully Marissa’s actual replacement would be there soon. I had turned the Game Show Network on for her and apologized. Maybe in the morning she would think it had been a fever dream. There were a bunch of pill bottles next to her bed that could explain that sort of thing.
It was hard to concentrate with all the freaking out. I used to be so calm and calculated about everything. I guess it was because I didn’t really have much to deal with. I had crafted a life with precision to explicitly avoid this sort of emotional investment and subsequent breakdown.
Jake’s mom had known Oswald Shields. Okay. So what? Did that mean she’d known Abel? Abel had barely known Oswald. Dominic said it was James Calhoun who’d known Oswald. Was Dominic a reliable source? At the mention of Jake’s name, I had acquitted Dominic, but Dominic was only one more degree of separation from Oswald Shields than Jake.
Dominic didn’t seem the type—a little goofy, always nervously tugging at his stupid hair, rocked to the core when he saw my scars—but it could have been an act. I was an act. Why couldn’t he be? That hair. The incessant touching. I reached to my own head and gave my hair a tug. Didn’t do anything to calm me down. Then I thought of someone else. Natalie. Seconds from death. Using her last ounce of energy to reach for her hair when I asked her what happened. Was she trying to tell me something about her killer? Like maybe he kept pulling on his hair?
What if Oswald had told them about me? Bragging about his one claim to fame like a good old drunk. It would have appealed to Jake and Dominic, two floundering young men on the fringe, looking for a purpose. Their proprietary relationship to Oswald turning them into Abel Haggerty sycophants, obsessed with anything and everything he had touched. All I knew was that I was pretty sure I had narrowed down the search for Wesley to two.
But I wasn’t the only one Abel had left behind for them to salivate over.
I had to get back to Elyse.
- - - - -
I pounded on Elyse’sdoor. My almost-three-hour drive back from New Hampshire had me imagining all sorts of twisted scenarios. If Barbara had called Dominic after I left, if he had answered and she had told him about me and about the picture, Elyse could be dead, waiting for me on the floor of her apartment just like Natalie.
I couldn’t breathe until the door opened, but even that was short-lived.
Jake stood on the other side. “Hey?” He held his position like he wasn’t so eager to let me in.
Of course he would be there now. Not any of the other times Ihad shown up there unannounced, but now, the worst possible time for him to be there. It was hard to deny that it was probably another really bad sign.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“At work, should be home soon. Do you want to come in and wait?” He backed up to allow me the space to enter and I slid past him.
I wanted to believe he was telling the truth, but I wouldn’t be content until I saw her alive. I moved farther inside without taking my eyes off him. He closed the door and followed.
“Have you heard from Dominic?” he asked. “Kevin said you were looking for him.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure of the best approach. I had raced there to make sure Elyse was alive, ready to tell her what I’d found—then we could make a plan together. I was not prepared to confront Jake. Not now, not alone. “When did you say she’ll be home?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Is everything all right? You seem kind of anxious.”
“I’m fine,” I said, not very convincing. “Will you call her? She isn’t answering me and I really need to talk to her?”
“About what?”
“It’s nothing.” I was aware that I wasn’t making much sense.
“Wouldn’t be about something you saw at Barbara’s, would it?” He smirked as he crossed his arms.
She must have called Dominic just like I worried. He must have told Jake.
“You knew Oswald Shields,” I accused him without any grandeur since it was now implied that he knew I knew.
“My mom did.” His tone was trying to deflect, but the smirk was intensifying and having the opposite effect.
