Deceit (5 page)

“Do you like living here, Melissa?” he asked.

“Yes.”

His face softened. “Good. I want you to be comfortable. I hope in time you’ll see you can trust us. You don’t have to be on your guard here.”

Melissa felt herself go numb. No response, not a single word would form on her tongue. How did he see her so clearly? And who talked like that anyway—just saying something right out? Words were meant to be shields. Words were meant to be dances.

She lifted a shoulder. “I’m just fine.”

He opened his mouth as if to say more, then nodded.

Linda saved the moment by entering the kitchen. “Hey there, Melissa, you look terrific.” She was rubbing lotion on her hands. Melissa smelled roses. Linda wore cream slacks and a green silk blouse. She looked perfect. Melissa’s heart swelled. Why couldn’t somebody like this woman have been her mother? Why had God given Linda no children and let Melissa be born to a ratty alcoholic?

Baxter crossed to his wife and drew a finger down her cheek. “And so do you.”

Linda swiped her hand through the air. “Oh, you say that to all your wives.” She turned and grinned at Melissa. “Okay, let’s go!”

On the way to church Linda babbled about the girls Melissa would meet. Heather and Christy and Belle and Nicole. Other names Melissa couldn’t begin to remember. “They’re really looking forward to meeting you.”

Melissa stiffened. “They know I’m coming?”

Baxter glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Sure they do. Last Sunday we told everyone we’d be picking you up in a few days. Linda was too excited to keep quiet.”

Only Linda was excited?

The thought plucked at her. Melissa pushed it away.

Terrific
, she told herself. A whole church just waiting to see what she looked like. Probably been talking about her all week.

By the time she, Linda, and Baxter slid out of the Mercedes, Melissa had checked the wall around her heart for loose bricks. She’d be polite to the adults and grimace later. As for girls her age, she didn’t need them. Friends wanted to know things about you. Friends could hurt you.

No one who knew the real Melissa Harkoff, who knew the slummy life she’d come from and the things she’d done, would ever want to be her friend.

EIGHT

FEBRUARY 2010

Fifteen years ago I’d forged my way into skip tracing while working in a private investigator’s office in San Jose. The work is exciting. But unlike the portrayal on trumped-up TV shows, most skip tracing is done online. I could stay warm and dry in my house while I chased Melissa through the teeming, winding halls of cyberspace. Sitting at a computer may not translate well into television, but I find it as exhilarating as a street car chase. It
is
all about the hunt. The rush of stalking down pieces of the puzzle, the adrenaline surge of closing in on the skip. Mere fingers on keys, hunched shoulders, and eyes glued to the screen can’t begin to portray the real-life drama that hinges on the outcome of a search. A skip located can completely change lives. It means a criminal apprehended, a child reunited with birth parents, the recipient of a surprise inheritance, money for the impoverished children of a deadbeat dad. It forges justice, dredges tears, spews anger, builds hope.

My first task in finding Melissa: list the few pieces of information I knew about her. Name: Melissa Harkoff. I didn’t know her middle name. Age: twenty-two. That was it. No Social Security number. No last known phone number or address. I didn’t even know if she was still in California.

Social Security numbers are important to garner the most reliable information. More than one person might be named Melissa Harkoff. I needed to hunt for her SSN by running her through credit headers—information from credit reports that includes name, past and perhaps current addresses, SSN, and date of birth. The actual credit information is not included. Credit headers are my most important source of data, and they aren’t openly available online. Skip tracers and others who qualify can buy restrictedaccess commercial data services, which are the source of these credit headers. I subscribed to two such services.

I opened Skiptrace One and typed in Melissa’s name and assumed state—California. Hit enter.

My window rattled. I jumped and jerked my head toward the sound.

A second rattle.

Just the wind.

I took a hard breath, willed my nerves to settle. Ate a Sizzling Cinnamon Jelly Belly, followed by a Cappuccino.

When I looked again at my monitor, fourteen results filled the screen.

Three different Melissa Harkoffs. One date of birth was too long ago. Surprisingly, the other two were 01/27/1988 and 09/13/1987. I leaned back in my chair, trying to remember if Melissa’s birthday had already occurred in June of 2004. No way to know. Either birth date might be hers.

This complicated things. I’d have to run down both birth dates, and even when I established a current address and phone for each, I wouldn’t know which was the right Melissa. If I got lucky I might find the two women’s photos online through a simple Google search. Or I may have to watch the residences and see for myself who lived there.

For all I knew neither date of birth was my Melissa because she’d married two years ago and now had a new last name.

I cut and pasted the fourteen address results in my HM file, lining through the four listings for the birth date I’d thrown out.

In skip tracing I’m like a hungry cat.

You’ve seen the stomach-to-the-ground pursuit of a feline with a bird in its sights. It plays out each cunning move, now creeping forward, now poising to pounce. If the prey flutters to safety the cat returns to where it started, hiding in the grass, seeking the next victim.

But my usual logical pattern wouldn’t work tonight. I’d have to hunt both Melissas at once.

My HM file would keep track of every step so I wouldn’t lose my place. I would rely on my memory for nothing. You never know when an unexpected event will pull you away from the computer, erasing the next intended move from your brain.

A fierce gale spit raindrops through its teeth. They hit the window like shells breaking.

Chicago sang “Chasin’ the Wind” as I typed the Social Security number of 01/27/1988 into Skiptrace One’s search by SSN page. Three addresses popped up. The most recent was in San Jose, but the report date read 11/09/2006. Over three years old.

Melissa, is this you?

The lack of a fresh address on a skip can mean two things. One, the person has ruined her credit and just isn’t using it, waiting out the seven-year period until delinquent accounts fall off the report. In that case Melissa could have moved in with a boyfriend and her current address wouldn’t show up on the credit header. Two, the skip does live at the most recently listed address and simply hasn’t applied for any new credit in the past few years.

Or this most recent listed address could be plain inaccurate. Wrong addresses end up on credit headers more often than you’d think. Maybe Melissa intentionally gave a false address to a creditor. Maybe she bought a used car and the salesman made a mistake in writing down her address. Or a data entry error could have been made at some credit bureau.

I noted the three addresses in my HM file.

Backing up, I sent the Social Security number of 09/13/1987 through Skiptrace One’s search by SSN page. Four addresses appeared on my screen, the most recent dated just six months ago in Gilroy, “Garlic Capitol of the World.” Gilroy was only about fifteen minutes away, up Route 101.

Would Melissa stay that close to Vonita? She’d been a runaway from the social services system. To my knowledge she had no relatives in the area to whom she could run. You’d think she’d leave the area to make a new life. Maybe even the state.

But people can surprise you.

I now had a Melissa Harkoff in San Jose and one in Gilroy. Time for a Google search. If I got real lucky I’d find a picture, perhaps attached to a wedding announcement or business or church. I’d also check social sites like MySpace and Facebook.

The wind groaned like a wounded beast. Rain smashed against my house.

Just a winter storm. Nothing to fear. But my nerves zinged.

I turned up the volume on Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” shoved two Sizzling Cinnamon Jelly Bellies into my mouth.

At Google I typed in “Melissa Harkoff” + Gilroy. Hit enter—

The electricity smacked off, and my world plunged into darkness.

Somewhere in the distance a door slammed.

NINE

For a long piercing second I froze in the darkness, my fingers clawed above the keyboard.

The garage
. That muted slam had come from the garage—the door leading to the backyard.

I pushed back my chair, heart in my throat. My mind spun through a terrifying scenario. Hooded Man was in my house.

Where was my cell phone?

My landlines wouldn’t work because they were on plug-in phone systems. My cell phone was…in my purse. On the kitchen table. Near the door an intruder would sneak through from the garage.

Rain and wind lashed the house. Their noise was loud enough to mask cautious footsteps, the easing open of a door. Even so, I cocked my head toward the kitchen and listened for a swish of clothes, a whisper of breath.

Nothing.

I stood up, eyes straining to see. Stillton is a rural road, no streetlights. When electricity goes at night, the house caves in on itself, hording the blackness. Usually the moon can lighten my way, the pinpricked stars. But they’d fled the broken sky long ago.

In the kitchen in a drawer lay Tom’s powerful flashlight—the kind he’d carry when we went camping. And candles and matches.

Had someone cut my electricity? Or had the wind knocked a tree into a power line?

Breath on hold, socked feet moving like an inward sigh, I crept from my desk and to the hall. At the threshold I placed a palm against the doorjamb and leaned my head forward, tilted toward the kitchen. In my mind I saw Hooded Man’s waxen cheek, the jagged blood. Heard his raw-toned voice.
“Baxter Jackson will kill you if he finds out.”

The darkness was too thick to make out any movement.

I eased into the hallway, one hand trailing along the wall. My muscles balled up, ready to spring my body away, fight back. My ripping heart pulsed at odd points in my body. An ankle, the back of one knee, my left shoulder—as if my ribcage couldn’t contain it. I could
taste
my terror, a bitter sludge at the top of my throat.

I’d checked every door when I got home. Dripping wet and chilled to the marrow, I’d
checked
. Windows too.

One foot lifted, I then stepped toward the kitchen. I managed a second step.

Was Hooded Man there, smugly watching the hulk of my shape walk right into his grasp?

I pushed myself forward, chanting a mantra that I was being foolish. A power line was down, and wind had slammed my back door.

My
locked
back door.

A vision of myself flashed into my head—getting out of the car earlier that evening, carrying my purse. I’d headed straight for the entrance to the kitchen. Hovered my hand at the knob, too afraid to turn it.

I
hadn’t
checked that rear garage door. Of all stupid things. I hadn’t even thought of it.

Maybe I’d left it slightly ajar. The wind hadn’t been howling when I arrived home. When it rushed from its lair in anger, it had seized the door, swung it open, then slammed it shut.

The kitchen was five steps away. My legs shook, both lungs burning for air. I arched my shoulders back, giving myself breathing room. The wind bulleted rain against the kitchen windows and sliding door. Almost as if it were following me. Minutes before it had been attacking the front of the house.

I reached the threshold of the kitchen. My right hand trailed high on the wall—across Billy Bass.

I squinted into the maw of the kitchen. The flashlight drawer was straight across the room on my left. Heat singed my nerves. Every second was agony. I couldn’t stand to inch across the floor, waiting for arms to grab me.

My toes hit linoleum. A firework burst in my chest, and I stumbled as fast as I could toward the drawer, left hand skidding across cabinets.

A handle bumped my fingers.

I whirled left, yanking at the top drawer, no longer caring how much sound I made. The contents rattled and rolled. If Hooded Man had come, he knew where I stood. He was toying with me. If he came at me I’d rip off that mask, shine the flashlight into his face.

My hands scrabbled in the drawer, seeking the chunky feel of cool metal. I found it, and a small cry escaped my throat. I jerked out the flashlight, pushed the
on
button. A large, beautiful beam rent the blackness.

I turned, swinging the beam around the kitchen. It lit up the refrigerator, the sink, cabinets, the table, my purse. No Hooded Man. No Baxter. I yanked it toward the base of the door leading into the garage, checking the floor for footprints and water.

Clean.

I lurched toward my purse, pulled out my cell phone. It was still on. My hand clutched it, thumb arching in to hit 2, the speed dial number for Dineen. Not until the phone began to ring did I realize she was probably asleep. Dineen always went to bed early.

The phone rang twice. Three times.

“Joanne?” My sister’s voice sounded thick.

“Is your electricity off?”

She hesitated, as if her mind couldn’t catch this sudden conversation. “No. Is yours?”

“How do you know? Aren’t your lights all turned off?”

“My phone’s working.”

Oh. Stupid me.

She made a sound in her throat. “Besides, I see streetlights.”

“Mine’s off.”

“Oh. Probably the wind.”

“What if it’s not? What if somebody’s
here
?”

Sheets rustled over the line. I could visualize her bed, her room. So close-sounding over the telephone, yet so very far away. I wanted to crawl through the wire, come out in her house. I wanted to hide there from Vonita, the world. I hadn’t meant for the whole town to hear my accusations against Chief Eddington. And as much as I wanted Baxter Jackson caught, I hadn’t asked for a scarifying Hooded Man to leap in front of my car. I just wanted it all to go away.