Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Do I like Grant’s story? Of course not. Even if he’s telling the truth, it means he heard Lynn had last been seen with Thierry, concluded she was screwing around, and went home. During a snowstorm. When she didn’t return by morning, he just continued on with his day. Presuming she was still screwing around. In the aftermath of a snowstorm.
I’m not saying Lynn wasn’t screwing around during a snowstorm, but there is another explanation, one that should be worrying Grant at least enough to have checked on his suspicions. Someone saw Thierry escorting Lynn from the store, apparently taking her home. Grant said it went from a flurry to a whiteout in minutes. Imagine Thierry starts to walk her home, and they separate once her goal’s in sight. Only, within seconds, that goal could have disappeared, leaving her wandering into the forest instead.
Did Grant really never consider this?
Or is it that—despite his insistence he’s fine with her marital bookkeeping—he’s so furious that he’s decided he doesn’t give a shit what happened to her? Got lost heading home after walking with Thierry. Got lost heading home after being at Thierry’s apartment. Whatever. She fooled around, and so she deserves what she gets.
I cannot fathom that sort of thinking about a life partner, even if it’s someone you’ve fallen out of love with. You might not be willing to cook breakfast for them or wash their laundry or all the dozens of small things couples do for each other. But to presume if they didn’t come home during a blizzard they were just screwing around… and not check? Even the next morning?
I don’t like it on a visceral level, the one that whispers there’s more to this story. Grant establishing his alibi? God, I hope not.
Before I analyze that any further, the obvious next step is to interview Thierry. I don’t have Dalton bring him by. My danger meter is too high for that now, and it really is starting to feel as if I’m just lounging around, casually investigating while a resident is missing.
Dalton must sense my unease, because he doesn’t argue when I want us to find Thierry together. We track him down outside the now-fixed kitchen complex, where a lineup awaits the first hot meal of the day.
We don’t even get as far as that line. Thierry sees us and comes over at a lope, his face drawn with concern.
“Lynn hasn’t turned up?” he says when we draw near.
I shake my head and motion for him to join us. We walk around the building and find a sheltered spot to speak. Snow continues to swirl around us, still threatening a storm but not delivering on the promise.
“When did you last see her?” I ask. “I know you said yesterday, but you’ll need to be more specific.”
“At the store. When you were there.”
“Then I left, and Grant showed up.”
Thierry’s cheeks color. “Um, yes. He popped in to tell Lynn that he was going to the Roc that night with some guys, and he’d probably skip dinner. That was before the storm, of course.”
“Then he left?”
Thierry nods.
“Did Grant speak to you?”
More flushing. “No. He doesn’t, really. He’s…” Thierry shrugs. “That type, you know? Very high-school.”
I lift my brows. “High-school?”
“There are guys he talks to and guys he ignores. I’m one of the latter.”
I want to press, but I need to get back to the more important part of what he said.
“What time did you leave the store?”
“About… eleven forty-five?” he says. “I talked to Lynn for a bit and then I had lessons with the boys.”
“Did you see her again after that?”
He shakes his head.
“Are you sure?” I press.
That flush returns, but his tone is measured. “I’m sure. I heard someone apparently thought she was with me later, but she wasn’t. I left the store and went to Dana’s house to teach the boys. We were finishing up when the storm hit. I stayed with the boys until Dana came back. Then I headed out. I saw people closing shutters, and I offered to help, but they had it under control. I returned to my apartment.” He meets my gaze. “Alone.”
I hold his gaze. “And if someone says they saw you escorting Lynn from the store during the storm?”
He hesitates. Then he exhales, relaxing back in his seat. “Is that why someone thought she was with me? No. I did not escort anyone home. If I’d seen someone struggling, I’d have stopped to help, but by the time I made it to the residence, I could barely see two feet in front of me.”
“The last time you saw Lynn was at the store, hours before the storm started.”
“Yes.”
I ask more questions. I need to nail down Thierry’s timeline. The most important part is when he started giving the boys their lessons and when he stopped. That can be verified. I also ask who he saw closing shutters, and the answer is Brian and Anders. Again, easy to confirm. And after that? Did he see anyone from that moment on? In his residence building? Outside it?
No. After leaving Brian and Anders, he made his way through the whiteout and into his building. No one was in the halls. His apartment is on the second floor, right off the stairs. He went inside, where he remained until morning.
Under the circumstances, he did exactly what we’d want all our residents to do during a blizzard. He got someplace safe and stayed there. The problem, of course, is that it doesn’t provide him with an alibi.
Does he need an alibi?
I hope not.
With this interview, the search changes. Lynn did not come home last night, and it’s past noon the next day. It’s still possible she’s lying low after spending the night with a man, but that’s seeming increasingly unlikely as time goes by.
And as time goes by, we become increasingly negligent if we don’t start looking at other answers—namely that she might have gotten turned around during that whiteout. Multiple people have mentioned how bad it was, and Dalton can confirm. In retrospect, we probably should have conducted a door-to-door search last night and been sure everyone made it home.
We need to institute a buddy system for storms. When one hits, you must check on your neighbor and make sure they got in okay. These are all things we should have been doing even in Rockton, and maybe it’s a miracle that we haven’t lost anyone before, but we haven’t even had a close call, so it hasn’t occurred to us. Until now.
We find Anders joining the line to grab food. I hate pulling him out of it, but the truth is that we don’t need to wait in line—we only do it because cutting to the front is awkward.
“We have to start looking for Lynn,” I say as we take Anders to the same spot where we’d spoken to Thierry.
“Shit.”
“At this point. we don’t even know who saw her last,” I say.
“It wasn’t Thierry,” Dalton says. “And it sure as hell wasn’t her husband.”
“We have a report that Thierry was seen escorting her,” I say. “But he says he didn’t.”
Anders looks back toward town. “Who made the report?”
“Grant says someone hailed him,” I say. “Male. That’s all he knows. Also, Thierry says he spoke to you and Brian while you were closing external shutters.”
Anders nods. “He offered to help, but we were finishing up.”
“Right now, though, straightening all that out is secondary,” Dalton says. “Our main concern is that we have a missing resident.” He looks into the darkening sky. “And a storm that’s going to hit at any moment.”
“Organize a search team?” Anders says.
“Militia only for now. Everyone in pairs. No one goes more than fifty feet from town. Get their asses back as soon as that snow hits.”
Anders gives a humorless smile. “Or we’ll be looking for multiple missing people.”
“Exactly.”
“I presume you’re taking the pup out?”
“Yep.”
Anders gives a quick glance my way.
“Casey will be with me for as long as we can stay out,” Dalton says. “I’m not even going to try to make her stay behind. Storm works best with her, and we need to know we did our best to find Lynn.”