Chapter 1 #2
The police had warned me to be careful. But the detective suggested I press on the guy’s ex.
They hadn’t been able to get her to talk to them, but maybe I would have better luck.
Often, I was an annoyance to the police.
Fair enough. I got it—I was a civilian with a microphone getting in the way of actual police work.
But sometimes, like this case, they were willing to use me to get something they couldn’t, and I was more than happy to be used.
I wouldn’t make a good cop—I definitely got too involved emotionally. I wanted answers and justice for all of the women I investigated. But this one, Hillary Atkins, fifteen, dead far too young…
I wanted someone to pay for her loss.
And somehow, after long conversations and slowly built trust, I got the ex to tell me what she knew.
It wasn’t a smoking gun; she didn’t have proof or firsthand knowledge of what Troy Baker had done to Hillary.
But she mentioned a name, a friend of Troy’s.
And it turned out Troy had bragged to that friend.
And, like hopscotching stones to get across a river, I followed one clue to the next until we discovered where Troy had hidden the trophies he’d taken from Hillary after he killed her.
By the end of season three, Troy Baker was sitting in a jail cell, and I was a household name.
That was a year ago. The household name part didn’t last very long—better for me.
It’s hard to investigate when everyone knows who you are.
But it had been enough to propel me into a different level of notoriety and given me the ability to support myself through sponsors.
No more ramen, no worrying about selling plasma for gas money.
I wasn’t a millionaire, but I had enough to keep doing what I loved.
And I did love it, even on nights like tonight when I was frustrated and getting nowhere.
I pulled my sweater tighter around me and stretched my legs, grimacing when I bumped my desk.
I liked my little vehicular nest with everything I could need, but it was tight quarters.
I had a queen-size Murphy bed that folded up to one side.
When it was up, I could pull out my desk and swing out my wide monitor on an arm.
The monitor did double duty as a TV when I had the bed folded down.
Between the seats in the front and the bed/office area, I had a tiny kitchen and an equally tiny shower-bath.
I didn’t mind clocking my elbows on the wall when I washed my hair if it meant I had my own private bathroom.
Sometimes I stayed in campgrounds where I could hook up to utilities.
And sometimes, like tonight, I found a moderately legal parking spot and hoped I’d be able to spend the night in one place.
I was currently parked on a side street in Midtown Atlanta, grinding my teeth after another frustrating day of dead leads.
The closest campground was a haul outside the city, and in the cold, dark drizzle, I didn’t feel like making the drive.
My stomach growled. I leaned back to stare at the wood-paneled ceiling of the van, considering what exactly I was going to do about that. I’d been holed up in here for hours, debating what to do next, and had, as I often did, forgotten to think about food until my stomach was yowling for it.
I didn’t bother to check the Dometic fridge drawer or the cabinets above the small sink. Canned tuna. A half-empty jar of peanut butter. Probably some yogurt of questionable age. I didn’t want any of that.
I thought of a hot, greasy burger and fries with a strawberry milkshake. I’d passed a place a couple of blocks away. It would be a wet, dark walk in the rain, but I glanced at the clock: 7:48 p.m. Definitely still open.
Drawing in a breath, I let it out in a gust, staring at the monitor in front of me, the cursor blinking in my notes file. My very empty notes file. I’d come to Atlanta chasing a lead that had turned into a brick wall, as everything about Emily Shaw’s death seemed to do.
From the beginning, her murder had been smoke and mirrors: a freelance data analyst died when her car exploded in the driveway of her suburban townhome.
Cars didn’t just explode on their own, not like Emily Shaw’s car had exploded.
And the fact that she looked at data for a living left me wondering if she’d seen something she shouldn’t have.
It was all weird enough to catch my attention.
And interesting, because the news reports had been so vague about her professional background.
The lack of detail seemed deliberate. I couldn’t stop asking myself—who was Emily Shaw?
People died by murder all the time; I knew that better than anyone.
A gunshot, a stabbing. These were the crimes I ran into day after day.
But a car bomb? That was rarely a crime of passion or one of opportunity. A car bomb implied premeditation.
But if Emily Shaw was a simple freelance data analyst, what had she seen, and who would kill to keep her quiet?
And then the stories had disappeared from the media.
Nothing, not another word. No one knew what had happened, and it was over.
Unsolved, case closed. That had drawn me back.
Who had decided Emily Shaw had to die? And why?
A cold flutter in my gut told me this case might be more than I could handle.
The more I dug in, the more I was simultaneously attracted and repelled.
Attracted because I loved a puzzle, and repelled because there were too many pieces missing in this one.
Too many dead ends. It was either a waste of time or I was in over my head.
I was okay with wasting my time. That happened. Not every case that caught my attention could sustain a season of podcasting. Sometimes I had to move on because there just wasn’t enough. Maybe Emily Shaw was one of those. But something told me there was more. And I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
Emily Shaw had lived a quiet life in the suburbs of Knoxville, Tennessee.
She’d worked from home and hadn’t been living in her townhome long before her car had blown up with her in it.
But I’d gone to her prior address and found a neighbor who’d traded cookie recipes with Emily and had mail she’d left behind after the move.
She’d said Emily had planned to come back and pick it up, but she never did.
And in that mail, I’d found a bill from an unpaid Peach Pass toll, which told me Emily had been in Atlanta only a few days before she’d died.
I thought I might know why, because along with the bill, mixed up in the stack of junk mail, there’d been a handwritten note.
On it were the two scrawled letters, SS, a street address with no city or state, and a phone number with an Atlanta area code.
I’d looked up the phone number. It was the main line for a company called Sinclair Security.
Their website told me they handled high-end security, protection, and problem-solving.
I didn’t know what the last meant, but once again, I got the feeling I was in over my head.
It didn’t help that ever since I’d seen the neighbor, I’d been getting phone calls.
Hangups, always from unknown numbers. Twice, I’d gotten out of the van with a crawling sensation between my shoulder blades, as if there were eyes on me.
I’d received threats before; it came with the territory.
But nothing that had seemed legitimately dangerous.
This felt different. Emily Shaw’s murder had me spooked.
I didn’t want to give up on finding answers for Emily.
But if I couldn’t get anything out of Sinclair Security when I went to see them tomorrow, I might have to move on.
I had one more episode of my last finished season, the fourth.
I hadn’t found answers for the young mother I’d been investigating, but I had dug up a few things the detective on the case thought might get them a new search warrant for their prime suspect. My listeners were going to love it.
But season five was supposed to be Emily Shaw.
And if I couldn’t find anything solid in the next twenty-four hours, I was going to have to let this go.
There were a lot of great true crime podcasts out there.
If I couldn’t deliver a season five in time, my audience might move on, and I’d be back to ramen and wondering how I was going to pay for gas.
I rolled my shoulders back and stood, glad, as I often was, that I was only average height and build. If I’d been tall, the van would have been a nightmare. But as it was, I fit almost perfectly.
My stomach rumbled, clenching almost painfully on the nothing inside.
That was it. I couldn’t think straight without a burger and a milkshake.
I wasn’t going to figure out the course of the case or my career tonight.
I was going to eat a good meal, come back to the van, tuck myself in for a good night’s sleep, and start the day fresh in the morning by getting Sinclair Security to tell me why Emily Shaw had their number.
Grabbing my backpack, I shoved my phone in my pocket and pulled on my raincoat, flipping up the hood. Ready, I made my way to the front of the van, sliding into the driver’s seat and reaching for the handle.
I let out a huff of annoyance when I realized a big box delivery truck was double-parked beside me, blocking me in.
The passenger door wasn’t an option; a tree just on the other side that would stop it from opening wide enough for me to get out.
I eyed the space between the side of my van and the box truck.
It would have to be enough. I was starving, and they could be there for an hour or more.