shower.
“Patrick’s here,” Luke said. “He has some stuff for you.”
“Probably some more clothes. My mom said she would send him over with it.”
They went downstairs together and Patrick handed her the stuff.
“What’s in the box?” Ellie asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “It was delivered today. I didn’t open it. You’d kill me if I did, anyway.” He turned and left.
Luke’s dad said, “Talkative, isn’t he?”
“He’s a jerk,” Ellie said. “He’s probably mad because my mother made him bring this over.” She grabbed the box and Luke took the suitcase, and they went back upstairs. In the room she put the box on the floor and Luke set the suitcase on the bed.
“Did you order something?” Luke asked.
“No. I don’t know what this is. Probably some swim team junk. Coach always sends me scholarship crap.” She tore open the top of the box and looked inside.
She started screaming. She didn’t stop for ten minutes.
Jaxon’s desk was piled high with documents and boxes. The desk next to him, which Victoria was using, looked the same. They had been perusing the old files for three hours and had little to show for it.
He felt tired and edgy, and she must be feeling the same because they had talked very little this morning. It was good they were comfortable together, but her presence was somewhat of a distraction. She was dressed in a skirt again this morning and a blouse which, though professional, showed off her cleavage in just the right way. A lot of the guys were walking by repeatedly and Jaxon knew why.
He was currently looking at the old file on Stewart Littleton, reading through the interviews of the family and neighbors from the time of his missing person’s report in 1984. Very dull. The investigator back then was one S. Holmes. He thought it was a joke, but the guy’s real name was Samuel Holmes. Jaxon wondered if he ever considered changing it to Sherlock. He told Victoria this and she laughed.
“His partner wasn’t a doctor was he?”
“Uh…” he leafed through the documents. “No-Jedediah Smith.”
They both looked silently at each other and then burst out laughing.
“You’re kidding, right?” She said.
He couldn’t answer because he was laughing so hard so he just shook his head. He handed the paper over to her and she looked at it and started laughing even harder.
“The chief back then probably had no choice but to put them together,” he laughed.
“Oh-right! How could you NOT team those two up?”
“The English investigator extraordinaire, and the brazen mountain man!”
They were laughing so hard that people were coming over and wondering what the hell was going on. They couldn’t stop to tell them. Jaxon just waved them away and they wandered off looking back over their shoulders at the two overworked and exhausted crazy people.
Jaxon was still trying to control himself as he looked over the papers in his hand for other unusual names associated with the case. He found one he recognized and at first it didn’t register anything other than being familiar. Then his laughter stopped suddenly and he sat up.
“Fuck me,” he said, and she said, “Not here.”
He looked up at her and she was still giggling. She saw his face and stopped. He handed her the piece of paper and said, “Third paragraph down, about midway through.”
She found it quickly and looked up at him. “We need to talk to June Littleton.”
As they were driving to June Littleton’s, Jaxon’s phone rang. He answered on the third ring and one of the officers at the Harrison house told him he needed to get over there.
“What’s going on?”
“The Pemberton girl got a package and it must be from the guy.”
“What’s in it?”
The officer told him.
“Shit. On our way.” He turned on his lights and made an illegal u-turn heading back to Annandale. He left the lights flashing but kept the siren silent.
“What’s going on?” Victoria asked after recovering from his violent maneuver.
“Ellie got a package delivered.”
“What?!”
“From him.”
“Is she ok?”
“She’s hysterical. We’re going there first. Call the Crime Scene Techs and get them over there.”
She took her phone out and got things rolling. If the traffic held up, they would get there at the same time.
After she hung up, she said, “Do you know what was in the package?”
He nodded. He told her and she turned and stared out the window. “Fucking bastard,” she said under her breathe.
“Yes.”
They got there a few minutes before the Crime Scene guys and walked into the house. Everyone was in the living room, crowded around Ellie who was still sobbing, holding on to Luke like her life depended on it. It sounded like she was saying, “Get it out of here! Get it out of here!” over and over again.
The officer took them to an upstairs room and showed them the box. Inside was the thawing head of a dog. The mouth was open with a greyish tongue lolling out and its eyes were open, but yellowed with the pupil’s bottom edge showing from beneath the eyelid. The brown, matted fur still had dried blood on it and Jaxon could even see raw flesh where the head had been severed from the torso.
“Is this her dog, Bentley?” Victoria asked.
The officer nodded. “She kept saying that name over and over again after she stopped screaming. The boy said it was her dog. Poor girl’s a wreck.”
“Have you touched anything?” Jaxon asked.
“You know better than to ask me that, sir.”
“Right. Sorry. How did it get here?”
“The brother brought it over along with a suitcase.”
“Do we know how the brother got it?”
“Lucas Harrison said the brother told him it was delivered this morning. I haven’t talked to the brother.”
“Ok. We’ll talk to him. Good job. I’m glad you called us.”
Jaxon took out a pen and used it to flip over the lid of the box exposing the shipping label. It was addressed to Eliana Worthington, not Pemberton. He showed it to Victoria who frowned.
Just then the Crime Scene Techs stomped upstairs with their stuff. Jaxon and Victoria let them do their work.
Walking into the living room, Victoria went to Ellie and touched her shoulder. She was huddled against Luke with her face buried in his sleeve. Natalie Harrison was trying to soothe her, but she appeared inconsolable. Victoria’s touch made her flinch.
“Ellie? It’s Agent Elliot, honey. It’s alright. Can you look at me?”
Ellie turned to her and said, “Is it gone?”
“It will be soon. They have to go over it for evidence.”
The girl’s face fell and a noise escaped her that broke Jaxon’s heart.
“Please, make them hurry!” Ellie said. “I can’t stand to think it’s in this house.”
“Let’s go outside,” Victoria said, standing and extending her hand. Ellie looked from it to Luke, but didn’t move.
“Luke can come with us. It’ll make you feel better. Just until they’re done, ok?”
Ellie nodded and reluctantly took her hand. Her other hand grabbed Luke’s and Victoria walked them out back
