Her first case ended with Clare taking a bullet to the shoulder. The wound is now settling into being only a nuisance, an unsightly scar. The pain still comes and goes, though Clare has stopped taking medication for it. It is better to endure the ache than to risk the urge those pills bring her.
Chance is a funny thing. Fate.
Had Clare turned just slightly to the left as the bullet came at her, it would have hit her heart and not her shoulder. You’re here and then you’re not, Clare’s mother used to say from her hospital bed, inuring herself against her own impending death. It often comes down to chance.
This hotel room is soothing in its blandness. The carpet, the faded comforter, the landscape paintings on the wall. The cheapest place to stay near the center of Lune Bay, a relic from before the Westman money flowed into town. The walls of her room are thin enough that Clare can discern the dialogue from the sitcom playing in the next. In less than an hour, Clare has managed to overtake the entire space, her belongings scattered, the desk covered with papers and photographs, the details of Malcolm’s file. Her cell phone rings at full volume. Clare yelps, startled. She collects it from the dresser and swipes the screen to take the call.
“Somers,” she says, breathless. “Hi.”
“That’s Detective Somers to you.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You all right?” Somers asks.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Somers says, unconvinced.
In the silence Clare tries to evoke an image of Somers, her exact looks. Her braided hair pulled half up, glasses only when she needs to read. Clare lies on the bed.
“I went to Malcolm and Zoe’s house as soon as I got here. Seemed like a logical first stop.”
“Don’t tell me you—”
“The back door was open.”
“Jesus, Clare. I told you, nothing risky. Don’t be stupid.”
“Yeah. Well, Zoe’s sister, Charlotte Westman, showed up with a gun.”
“Oh Christ,” Somers says. “I’m about to pull you off this case.”
“No, no. I was able to talk her down.” Clare will withhold the details, the gun held at point-blank range, the wrestling match it took for Clare to retrieve it. “She’s very angry. You remember her from the file? She lost custody of her daughter. Drug problems, I think. She was with her dad when he was murdered. Seems to me like she’s lost everything since then.”
Through the receiver Clare can hear Somers flipping papers. Writing things down. She feels a surge of something she cannot decipher, a sense of authority. She feels useful, in control.
“She mentioned the cops on the case,” Clare continues. “There’s been a string of them. I mean on her father’s murder case, which seems to have been merged with Zoe’s disappearance, even though they happened almost three years apart. I get the murder happened five years ago, but Zoe’s only been missing eighteen months. Feels weird that they’re lumped together.”
“They’re lumped because they’re connected,” Somers offers.
“Right. But there doesn’t seem to be much focus on either anymore. Apparently, the current detective is a rookie.”
“That’s not good,” Somers says. “There are two reasons cops stop working on a case. One, it’s truly gone cold. No eyewitnesses, no hard evidence, no DNA, no weapon. You nudge those cases to the back of your desk and hope someone walks in one day and confesses.”
“And the other kind?” Clare asks.
“The other cases get nudged to the back of your desk for you. You’re given no choice in the matter. You understand?”
“Right.” Clare sits up and twists a finger through her damp hair. “The detective’s name is Patrick Germain. I looked him up after I checked in to the hotel. From what I can see he was a beat cop this time last year. My plan is to give him a call.”
“I don’t recognize the name,” Somers says. “I’ll do some recon.”
“There’s one reporter who keeps writing about the Westmans. A rogue freelancer. A guy named Austin Lantz. I emailed him—”
“Listen,” Somers interrupts. “I know you’re in the thick of it down there, and I appreciate what you’re doing. But I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
Something in Somers’s tone tightens a vise around Clare’s chest. “A heads-up about what?”
“I’ve been getting calls at my desk.”
“What kind of calls?”
“Hang-ups, mostly. A couple of times a woman said hello and then hung up. I’m pretty sure it’s been the same woman every time.”
“So? What does that have to do with me?” Clare asks. “Can’t you trace it?”
“The calls come from a blocked number, but after the third or fourth time I asked a guy in tech to set up a tracer on my phone. Over the years I’ve had a fair number of threats against me. Some donkey I put behind bars gets out and thinks it’s a good idea to make a few crank calls, scare me. But sometimes the calls feel… different.”
“And?” Clare prompts her. “Why are you telling me this?”
“My tech guy was able to triangulate a general area. These calls were coming from east of here. A long way east of here. Cell towers within a small radius of each other. One was even from a pay phone.”
“Where?” Clare asks, though she suspects the answer.
“Your hometown.”
Clare blinks fast. She tries to picture the stretch of her hometown’s main strip where the pay phone still stood, the very one she’d use to call her mother to come pick her up after
