Chapter Fifty-Four
Fifty-Four
I took the picture of Oswald Shields with me.
I shoved it in my pocket and left Barbara.
Hopefully Marissa’s actual replacement would be there soon.
I had turned the Game Show Network on for her and apologized.
Maybe in the morning she would think it had been a fever dream.
There were a bunch of pill bottles next to her bed that could explain that sort of thing.
It was hard to concentrate with all the freaking out. I used to be so calm and calculated about everything. I guess it was because I didn’t really have much to deal with. I had crafted a life with precision to explicitly avoid this sort of emotional investment and subsequent breakdown.
Jake’s mom had known Oswald Shields. Okay.
So what? Did that mean she’d known Abel?
Abel had barely known Oswald. Dominic said it was James Calhoun who’d known Oswald.
Was Dominic a reliable source? At the mention of Jake’s name, I had acquitted Dominic, but Dominic was only one more degree of separation from Oswald Shields than Jake.
Dominic didn’t seem the type—a little goofy, always nervously tugging at his stupid hair, rocked to the core when he saw my scars—but it could have been an act.
I was an act. Why couldn’t he be? That hair.
The incessant touching. I reached to my own head and gave my hair a tug.
Didn’t do anything to calm me down. Then I thought of someone else.
Natalie. Seconds from death. Using her last ounce of energy to reach for her hair when I asked her what happened.
Was she trying to tell me something about her killer? Like maybe he kept pulling on his hair?
What if Oswald had told them about me? Bragging about his one claim to fame like a good old drunk.
It would have appealed to Jake and Dominic, two floundering young men on the fringe, looking for a purpose.
Their proprietary relationship to Oswald turning them into Abel Haggerty sycophants, obsessed with anything and everything he had touched.
All I knew was that I was pretty sure I had narrowed down the search for Wesley to two.
But I wasn’t the only one Abel had left behind for them to salivate over.
I had to get back to Elyse.
- - - - -
I pounded on Elyse’s door. My almost-three-hour drive back from New Hampshire had me imagining all sorts of twisted scenarios.
If Barbara had called Dominic after I left, if he had answered and she had told him about me and about the picture, Elyse could be dead, waiting for me on the floor of her apartment just like Natalie.
I couldn’t breathe until the door opened, but even that was short-lived.
Jake stood on the other side. “Hey?” He held his position like he wasn’t so eager to let me in.
Of course he would be there now. Not any of the other times I had shown up there unannounced, but now, the worst possible time for him to be there. It was hard to deny that it was probably another really bad sign.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“At work, should be home soon. Do you want to come in and wait?” He backed up to allow me the space to enter and I slid past him.
I wanted to believe he was telling the truth, but I wouldn’t be content until I saw her alive. I moved farther inside without taking my eyes off him. He closed the door and followed.
“Have you heard from Dominic?” he asked. “Kevin said you were looking for him.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure of the best approach. I had raced there to make sure Elyse was alive, ready to tell her what I’d found—then we could make a plan together. I was not prepared to confront Jake. Not now, not alone. “When did you say she’ll be home?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Is everything all right? You seem kind of anxious.”
“I’m fine,” I said, not very convincing. “Will you call her? She isn’t answering me and I really need to talk to her?”
“About what?”
“It’s nothing.” I was aware that I wasn’t making much sense.
“Wouldn’t be about something you saw at Barbara’s, would it?” He smirked as he crossed his arms.
She must have called Dominic just like I worried. He must have told Jake.
“You knew Oswald Shields,” I accused him without any grandeur since it was now implied that he knew I knew.
“My mom did.” His tone was trying to deflect, but the smirk was intensifying and having the opposite effect.
“Does Elyse know that?”
“Why do you care so much?” he asked without answering.
“Does she know?” I repeated. “Does she know her boyfriend is connected to this whole thing?”
“Jeez.” He chuckled, still not answering. “You’re worse than Dominic. Yeah, she knows. It’s not a big deal.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Was I overreacting? Elyse knew Jake had a connection to Abel Haggerty and to the arms?
It didn’t bother her? Jake had casually offered up that information to her but not anyone else?
I had been there when they’d found out about the body being discovered, surrounded by his overeager friends.
He’d said nothing. It didn’t make any sense.
“No.” I shook my head. “You and Dominic are sick Abel Haggerty worshippers and now I’m supposed to believe your connection to Oswald Shields is a coincidence?”
“Okay, ouch.” He laughed. “But you’re right about Dominic.
” He uncrossed his arms and slid them into his pockets.
“He does know an awful lot about Abel Haggerty…and his family. He talks so much about them, you know? Can’t keep anything to himself.
” The corners of his mouth curled. Even if Jake hadn’t known my real identity this whole time, he certainly did now that Dominic had found out.
I didn’t know what to say. I was in no position to keep pushing Jake about his involvement. I was alone. No one knew I was there. I had no way to defend myself, no kitchen knife slipped in a sweatshirt pocket.
I took my phone out and checked the time.
He just watched me. I bobbed my head from side to side, antsy, pretending to be considering the time, pretending I hadn’t picked up on what he was trying to say.
“Ugh, I have a work thing. I’m supposed to be there in twenty minutes.
Will you have Elyse call me as soon as she gets home?
” I wasn’t sure if there was any way he was going to accept my sudden flip to the casual, but I had to try something to get out of there.
“Sure…” he said, looking at me like I was crazy, and I was starting to feel that way.
I was learning through all this that it was stressful to make assumptions about murderous psychos.
If you’re right, you can’t trust anything they say or do; if you’re wrong, you end up looking like the crazy one.
I was happy to be the crazy one in that moment if it meant I could get the hell out of there.
“Thanks,” I said as I headed toward the door.
Once I was past him, I exhaled—a temporary consolation that he was letting me leave, not symbolic of any real relief.
I still had no idea where Elyse was or if she was even alive.
I had no idea the extent of Jake’s involvement or Dominic’s or freaking Wesley’s or what I was supposed to do about it.
All I could be grateful for was the opportunity to go and figure it out.
I reached for the door.
Then something struck me in the back of the head and everything went black.