Missing Pieces (14 page)

11

SARAH RIPPED THE
headphones from her ears and tossed them on the passenger's-side seat. Jack was considered a top suspect in the death of his mother? Why hadn't he told her? Of course he would have some kind of excuse as to why he hadn't mentioned it:
the person who finds the body is always the first suspect, law enforcement always looks at the family first, the deputy didn't like me.

But Sarah couldn't get past the fact that Jack had promised, had
sworn
, that there was nothing else Sarah needed to know about his past, that there was nothing more worth knowing. More lies and secrets.

The notes scrawled at the bottom of the transcript said that there were inconsistencies in Jack's statements, that there were reports of frequent arguments with his mother. What inconsistencies? What arguments? Didn't every teenager have fights with their parents? God knew she did. What made Jack's dustups with his mom worth noting in the file?

Sarah flipped through the transcripts. There were pages of additional interviews with other family members, friends and townspeople. But this certainly wasn't the bulk of the case file. Margaret must have been only able to get this section for her. Sarah needed to see the rest.

She felt something shift in her mind, in her heart. When she first began to learn of Jack's secrets, she thought they were the closely guarded memories of a traumatized boy who found them too painful or embarrassing to share with even his wife.

But now, Sarah wasn't so sure. The sheer energy that Jack must have expended to keep the secrets hidden and the lies straight in his mind for so many years must have been exhausting. There had to be more that Jack wasn't telling her.
Don't ask the questions if you don't want the answers.
This was something that her editor, Gabe, had told her over and over again during her early years at the
Messenger
.
If she didn't want to ask the hard questions, if she didn't want to know the truth, she had no business in being a journalist.

But the stakes were so much higher if she dared to ask the questions that she couldn't quite let take shape. This was her marriage. This was her husband, the father of her daughters. Did she really want to keep asking the hard questions?

She stepped from the car. A westerly wind swept across the countryside, kicking up dust from the gravel road and covering her clothing with a thin, powdery layer. Three fork-tailed, cobalt-blue barn swallows dipped and swooped playfully in the hay field.
Yes
,
a quiet voice echoed through her head. She needed to know. Had to know.

* * *

She sent a quick text message to Margaret that innocently read,
Thanks for the recipe. Would love some more. Can we meet?
Jack had sent her texts of his own asking her if she had talked to Amy and for her to please call him.

Amy. Being so immersed in the tape recordings, she almost forgot about Amy sitting at the sheriff's department, probably already charged with first-degree murder.

Almost grudgingly she called Jack. He was a liar and possibly worse. She didn't want to talk with him, didn't want to put on the supportive-wife face because his aunt had died and his sister was in trouble, but she knew she would. It might be the only way she would get the answers she was searching for.

“Sarah,” Jack said the moment he answered. “Are you okay? Where are you? We thought you were going to meet us for lunch.” He sounded genuinely concerned about her. Was it authentic, she wondered, or was he just that good of a liar?

“I'm fine, but Amy isn't,” Sarah said in a rush. “Jack, Sheriff Gilmore is going to arrest her if he hasn't already. You need to get her...”

“Whoa, slow down.” Jack stopped her. “Where are you? Come back to Dean's and we'll talk.”

She didn't want to go back to Dean and Celia's house. She didn't want to see Jack. She was sick of his dysfunctional—and dysfunctional was a kind description—family. She wanted to finish listening to the audiotapes of Gilmore's interviews with the witnesses, and she wanted to connect with Margaret so she could read the rest of the case file. Jack had had his chance, had his opportunity to come clean with her, to tell her the full truth, and he hadn't. He had traded twenty years of marriage for lies.

“Jack, trust me on this. The sheriff has most likely arrested Amy. If there's any part of you that thinks she wasn't the one who killed Julia, you need to get an attorney over there right away.”

Jack was quiet on the other end of the line. “You think she did it?” Sarah asked incredulously. “Really?”

“No. I don't know,” he amended softly. “I hope not, but I don't think I really know Amy as well as I thought I did.”

“About as well as I thought I knew you,” Sarah shot back. “Forget it. I'll get her a lawyer if you won't.”

Sarah disconnected. She wasn't even sure as to how to go about finding an attorney for Amy. Hell, she wasn't convinced that Amy wasn't guilty. All the evidence seemed to be pointing toward her; even the presence of poison. Amy was the one who had spent the night in Julia's hospital room, who was most likely to have the time to poison her.

She pulled out her phone again and did a quick search of Penny Gate attorneys. Only two names popped up. Arthur Newberry and Dallas Hogan. She settled on Arthur Newberry—at least his name sounded like he was older than twenty-five. She called his office and left a message explaining who she was, why she needed his services and to please return her call as soon as possible. In frustration she tossed the phone back into the car and began to walk down the gravel road, her argument with Jack replaying over and over in her mind.

She heard the rumble of tires from behind her and a cloud of dust rose from the road. Sarah shielded her eyes from the sun to get a better look and realized that she had walked more than a football field away from her car. A large truck emerged from the dust and slowed as it approached.

A wave of uneasiness swept over her. She was all alone, miles from town. The haunting words from the audiotape were still fresh in her mind. She had left her keys and phone in the car.

Two men dressed in camouflage and wearing bright orange vests looked at her from the driver's-side window. “Everything okay here?” the driver asked, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, one arm hanging casually outside the window, close enough to grab Sarah if he wanted to. Sarah took a step back from truck and started slowly moving toward her own car.

“Yep, I'm fine,” Sarah said, trying to keep her voice light and easy, all the while measuring the distance to her car. Could she outrun them if she had to, or was she better off running into the cornfield and trying to lose them in there?

“We thought you might have had some car trouble,” the other man said, revealing a mouth filled with tobacco-stained teeth. “Not many people come out this way. You could have been broken down here and no one could find you for days.” Sarah glanced around. He was right. No homes were in sight, no other cars had passed by. Did she hear a taunting, leering tone in his voice? Or was she just spooked after listening to the tapes?

“I'm fine. Just taking a walk.” Sarah struggled to maintain eye contact. She didn't want them to know she was afraid.

“All right, then,” the driver said, slapping the side of his truck with the palm of his hand. “You take care.”

Sarah didn't pause to watch the truck drive away but started walking swiftly back to her own car. Seconds later, she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. She glanced over her shoulder to find the truck following slowly behind her. She quickened her pace and the truck sped up. Sarah sprinted the last twenty yards, flung open the car door and slammed it shut. Once inside she rolled up the windows, locked the doors and grabbed her phone. Slowly the truck rolled by and through the windshield Sarah could see the men having a good laugh over her distress before speeding away.
It's this place
, Sarah thought to herself. Everything about Penny Gate was off.

Breathing heavily, Sarah caught sight of a red-faced, copper-feathered pheasant striding through the cornfield next to her and shook her head. The men were just out bird hunting. Of course they were driving around the off-the-beaten-path gravel roads where the pheasants would be more plentiful. They were jerks, but most likely perfectly harmless; she was the one who was trying to conceal her whereabouts and what she was doing.

Once she caught her breath, she checked her phone in case she'd missed a call from the attorney or Margaret. She saw that Jack had tried to call her twice. She wasn't ready to talk to him just yet.

Sarah checked her emails and sighed at the sheer volume that she eventually would need to get caught up on. As she expected, she had dozens. Most were Dear Astrid letters, a few from friends back in Larkspur and one from Gabe, her editor at the newspaper.

Nothing that a Dear Astrid reader could throw at her seemed more bizarre than what she was living herself. She would have to go back to Dean and Celia's at some point. She wondered if the search at Hal's home was complete and if the forensic team had found anything.

Another message from Seller85 jumped out at her and she clicked on it expecting more nonsense.

Dear Astrid,

One blind mouse.

Blood, crimson and hot

Pulsing, pouring

Through my fingers.

See how they run?

Though Sarah was no stranger to receiving creepy messages and letters, the earlier emails were seemingly innocuous. But this one...this one felt a bit different, probably because it was the third email from the same sender in just a few days, she told herself. Trying to push the messages from her mind, she went on to scan through the other Dear Astrid emails. To think that so many people looked to her for support and advice when sometimes she felt as though she had no answers and in fact could use some advice herself. Sarah didn't have the energy to focus on the problems of others when she had such difficult ones of her own. She had plenty of Dear Astrid responses reserved for situations just like this one when she wasn't able to stay on schedule, but she hated getting behind in her work.

Her thoughts kept flipping back to the Seller85 emails. Three from the same sender was downright creepy. On impulse, she dialed Gabe's direct number at the
Messenger
.

“I've been trying to get ahold of you all week,” Gabe's warm voice came across the line. “You'd think you were some very busy, important, syndicated advice columnist or something.”

“I'm so sorry. It's been crazy.”

“Yeah, you use me for my editing skills and then discard me like yesterday's newspaper,” Gabe deadpanned.

Sarah didn't know where to start, but decided to give him the basics: she was in Penny Gate, Aunt Julia's death, the suspicion surrounding her death, the weird emails. She recounted each to him one by one.

“They are odd,” Gabe admitted. “But you've gotten strange emails before,” he reminded her. “What's different about these?”

“I'm not sure. Just a feeling, I guess,” Sarah admitted. “Journalistic instinct, maybe.”

“Why don't you send them to me. I'll see what I can find out.”

“Thanks,” Sarah said. “I'm sure it will turn out to be nothing,” she added.

“No problem. You're fired, though. I hired a new guy. I hear he returns phone calls.”

“You did not,” Sarah scoffed.

“Well, I'm thinking about it. I have the memo already written. Seriously, though, I'm so sorry about Jack's aunt. How's he doing?” Gabe asked.

“He's sad. Confused. He's trying to wrap his head around the fact that Amy is being questioned in her death.” Sarah hesitated before asking Gabe her next question, but they'd known each other for years. “Gabe, if I tell you something, can you respond to me as a reporter, not as my friend?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“I just found out that Jack's mom and dad didn't die in a car accident like he told me.” Sarah went on to explain all that she had learned since she arrived in Penny Gate. When she was finished she was met by a long silence.

Finally he spoke. “As a reporter, I'm intrigued. First, you've got this great guy, Jack, a family man, married for twenty years, who has maintained that his parents died in a car accident. Now you find out that's all been a lie. I'd want to find out what really happened and I wouldn't go to my original source for the answers. He hasn't been reliable. I'd dig deeper.”

Sarah took a deep breath. “That's what I think, too.”

Gabe's voice took on a softer tone. “But as your friend, I'd say, take care of yourself, Sarah. Watch yourself. And let me know if you get any more emails. If you're spooked, then I am. Be careful.”

Sarah thanked him and said goodbye, staring out across the flat landscape. So different than the mountains and valleys of Montana. How she missed Larkspur. As soon as the funeral was over she was going to leave Penny Gate whether Jack was coming with her or not. She should never have come here. It was poisonous.

Her telephone screen lit up with a text from Margaret.
Can you meet me at five o'clock at Delia's on Main Street?

She checked the clock on the dashboard. Two fifteen. Where had the day gone? She hadn't eaten anything since the night before and she felt shaky and sick to her stomach. She sent a message back to Margaret letting her know that she would meet her at five.

She reached over to the passenger seat and picked up the headphones again. She was ready to listen to the second audiotape.

Sarah slid the earphones over her head and pushed Play. She listened in rapt attention to all the interviews that Sheriff Gilmore, then a deputy, had conducted during Lydia's murder investigation.

First she listened to Gilmore interview a woman by the name of Victoria Dupree, who identified herself as one of Jack's teachers at the high school. No, Jack wasn't at school the afternoon his mother died. Yes, he did seem to have a bit of a temper, was sullen. She had seen Jack arguing with his mother after parent-teacher conferences. He had knocked the car keys out of his mother's hand and stomped away. No, she didn't know what the argument was about, but probably about Jack's grades. He wasn't doing well in school as of late.