CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
An exterior walkway started on ground level and stretched up to the second floor But Kate could see that it led to a secondary door, with a card-reader built in near the frame.
They made their way to the front doors—twin glass-paneled models that were slightly glazed so it wasn’t easy to see inside.
They tried the door and found it unlocked. When they stepped inside, they were greeted by a small foyer. Three banks of mailboxes were installed into the wall to the left. Low, fluorescent lighting gave the area a dreamlike feel.
The hallway stayed quiet. “She might be asleep, naturally,” Sloane said with a shrug.
“Could be.”
Sloane nodded and knocked again, a bit harder this time. When there was still no answer after twenty seconds, Sloane pulled out her phone. "I'll get the manager," Sloane said, already scrolling on Google for the building's contact number.
Kate looked up and down the hallway as Sloane called and, a few seconds slater, started speaking to someone. The hallway was quiet. She could just barely hear the muttering noise of a TV through the walls but that was all.
In the quiet of the hallway, her thoughts turned to Allen.
She had texted him from the car on the way over, just a quick heads up that things had extended much further than expected.
He had replied with a thumbs up and nothing else, which was either a sign that he was fine or a sign that he was already asleep and had responded on autopilot.
She hoped it was the latter. Michael had a half-day at preschool in the morning and Allen would handle it, because Allen always handled it when he needed to.
And he usually did it without complaint.
But then again, one of the facets of this new agreement about her returning to work on a consultant basis was that late nights would be exceptionally rare, to the point of virtually non-existent.
He said he was okay with it. He had always said he was okay with it, even back when okay had clearly been a generous characterization.
She believed he meant it now more than he ever had before, that the years had genuinely settled something in him about who she was and what the job asked of her.
Even now, with fewer hours and much less danger.
But there was a difference between being okay with something in principle and being okay with it at midnight on a Tuesday when you were alone in the house with a three-year-old and no clear sense of when your wife was coming home.
She made a mental note to do something about that this weekend. Something intentional. She smiled at the idea of it, of maybe getting away for the entire day and doing something special as a family.
"He's coming," Sloane said, pocketing her phone. She leaned against the wall beside Kate, staring at the door. “He was pissed at the late call but then seemed very helpful when he understood what was going on.”
“Most landlords do,” Kate said. “Having a potential murderer renting from them doesn’t exactly look great.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Kate eyed the door, thinking of trying to knock again. Before she could give it much thought, Sloane spoke up.
"DeMarco's going to want an update tonight," Sloane said, looking out at the lot. "I keep meaning to call her and then something moves."
"She'll understand. She’s been where you are many times. She knows how it goes."
"You think she's settled into it? The director role?"
"More than settled." Kate considered it for a moment, wishing she’d been around to watch the day-by-day progression of DeMarco and her new role. "She was ready before they gave it to her. Probably before she knew she was ready."
"You two were partners for a while, right?" Sloane asked.
"Right. For nearly three years," Kate said. "She was sharper than me, honestly. I’d like to say it was because she came on young while I was aging, but it wasn’t just that. She was damned good at her job. I wish I’d had more time with her, honestly.
" She smiled slightly at the memory of standing in hallways just like this one in the middle of the night, assured that she was safe with DeMarco as her partner.
Sloane laughed quietly. "You know, she mentions you quite a bit."
“Oh, does she?”
“Yeah, she really respects you.”
“Well, I assure you, the feeling is mutual. I hope you get to work under her for a long time.
This was true. Even from just the limited time she had spent in the field office, she could tell that DeMarco had built something in that office that didn't exist in a lot of field divisions — a culture where people were supported when the work got hard.
Kate had spent enough years in environments that operated differently and far too well what a rare thing that was.
Sloane nodded slowly, looking out at the lot. "Yeah, I do to."
Footsteps on the staircase announced the building manager before he appeared on the walkway.
He was heavyset and in his mid-fifties, wearing a quilted vest over a sleep shirt.
He looked like he was till half-asleep. He stopped a few feet short of them and looked them over with an expression that was equal parts worry and fear.
"You the ones who called?" he asked.
"Special Agents Wise and Sloane," Sloane said, holding up her credentials. "We need to get inside this apartment."
“She done something awful?” he asked.
“We don’t know yet. But we’ve knocked several times and she’s not answering.”
“This is Ms. Calder. She… well, she seems sweet.”
“Do you know her well?” Kate asked.
“No, not really. But I’ve never had any trouble from her.” H then shrugged as if it really didn’t mater and started working his way through a series of keys on a big ring.
"This is going to be a whole thing, isn't it," he said. It was not really a question.
"We'll be as quick as we can," Kate said.
"That's what the last person said who woke me up at midnight. But a clogged toilet and eleven grand in ceiling repairs later, it was a different story." He found the key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. He then stepped back to let them through. "I'll wait out here, I guess."
"Please," Kate said. "That would be helpful."
She stepped inside first, her hand at her hip, and reached for the light switch just inside the door.
The overhead came on to reveal a small and well-kept apartment.
The kitchen and living area were joined; the kitchen was featureless with just the basics, and in the living room a single couch faced a dark television.
The kitchen was clean and orderly, one mug drying in the rack beside the sink.
A small dining table sat against the window, and on it was a laptop, closed, its charging cable running to the baseboard outlet.
Kate crossed to the table and opened the laptop lid. The screen woke immediately to a login prompt. A gray coastal landscape filled the background behind the password field. She was not surprised to find it locked.
Sloane had already moved through the rest of the apartment. She came back from the bedroom in under thirty seconds. "Clear. She packed something. Closet door's open, empty hangers on the floor." She nodded to the laptop and said, “Any luck with that?”
“Locked. We're not getting into that tonight," she said.
Sloane stopped to think about something.
After a few seconds, her eyebrows raised and her expression shifted.
"You know… It’s actually not that big of a deal.
We may not even need to get into it. If we’re just concerned with seeing when and how often she’s logged in within the past day or so, all platform logs session data server-side," she said.
"We don't need to get into the laptop if Dave can pull her activity directly from the backend. "
She already had her phone out and was dialing before Kate could respond. The look on her face was trapped somewhere between amusement and embarrassment—as if she strongly felt she should have thought of this first.
"Hey, it's Sloane,” she said as Dave answered.
“I need you back on Fresh Horizons." Kate could hear the eagerness in Dave’s response, even though the phone was not on speaker mode.
“We need Ruth Calder's session data from the Fresh Horizons platform.
Last login, last page viewed, duration. Her laptop is here but it's locked. "
At this point, Sloane did place it on speaker mode so Kate could listen in.
“…and it’s already in the backend," Dave was saying.
The typing started immediately, a clicking clatter in the background.
It took less than twenty seconds before Dave started speaking again.
"Okay so it looks like Calder logged in at 9:48 tonight, and she was on for fourteen minutes. And…let’s see here…
looks like the last page she visited was a member profile. Diane Marsh."
Kate straightened. "Can you see what she accessed within the profile?"
"Platform logs page visits, not specific field interactions,” he said.
He recited it all off as if he was simply discussing a movie or a book he was currently reading.
“She was on Marsh's profile for nine of those fourteen minutes, but I can't tell you which sections she was reading. I’m not that magical.
" He continued without being prompted. "What I can tell you is what's visible on Marsh's profile to any registered member. Want me to pull it?"
"Yes."
As they listened to more typing, Kate noticed the building manager peeking in through the door.
"Marsh filled out most of the optional intake fields," Dave finally answered.
"Display name, bio, general neighborhood listed as Carytown. And she put her cross-street in the community matching section; that’s apparently an optional field, meant to help the program pair members geographically. Jesus… whatever happened to privacy?"
“Can you give us that location?” Kate asked.
“Sure thing.” He read it off. "Looks like it’s near the intersection of Ellwood and Auburn. Cross that with a basic people-search and you'd have a specific address in under two minutes." He said it without editorializing, which somehow made it worse.
"She has the address," Kate muttered.
"Or close enough that it wouldn't matter," Sloane said.
"I want to go on record as saying that optional field should not exist," Dave said with a bit of humor in his tone. “It’s like these people are looking for trouble.”
“No, they’re just desperate and hoping to start over,” Kate said again reminded of how closely she had identified with Carol Paige when this had all started.
"When exactly did her session end?" Sloane asked.
"10:32. She was Marsh's profile from 10:21 to 10:30. The session closed two minutes after that."
Kate checked her watch. 11:51. Ruth Calder had closed that laptop nearly an hour and a half ago.
She looked around the apartment one more time—at the orderly kitchen, at the small bookshelf near the television held a modest collection: a few novels, some nonfiction, and on the lower shelf a short row of poetry collections with cracked spines, read and re-read by the look of them.
"Dave run that search for us you mentioned. We need an address for Diane Marsh. And the phone number, too.”
“Oh, I have that right here,” he said, and gave it to her.
As he recited it, Kate punched it into her phone right away and place the call. She wasn’t yet sure what she would say. Maybe she’d just tell her to lock the doors and stay put until she and Sloane arrived. But in the end, none of that mattered. The phone rang four times and went to voicemail.
“Got that address,” Dave said.
He started reading it even as Sloane and Kate were already moving to the front door.
Kate felt a sudden, building sense of urgency.
If Calder was their killer, she had an hour and a half head start and, if Kate was being honest with herself, could have probably already killed Marsh. There was literally no time to waste.
"We don't know she moved immediately," Sloane said, as if reading Kate’s mind. "She may have spent time confirming the address. Watching the house first."
"Maybe," Kate said. But she knew she didn’t sound very convincing.
As they hurried out by the building manager, he straightened up and followed after them. "Hey," he said. "Should I be worried? About the building, I mean. My other tenants."
Kate looked at him, not sure how what he needed to hear—or what the right answer might be.
“I think you and your tenants are safe. But if you could keep an eye on this apartment for the next few hours, call me directly.
" She handed him a card, which he took with both hands and looked at as though he wasn't entirely sure how he'd ended up here.
She tried Diane Marsh one final time as she and Sloane made the stairs. She got the same thing as before: four rings, ten straight to Marsh’s voice mailbox.
She put the phone in her pocket and they reached the car at the same moment.
Sloane was already on with dispatch, reading out the Ellwood Terrace address in a clear, measured voice and requesting a backup unit.
Kate got in, pulled the door shut, and looked straight ahead through the windshield at the quiet parking lot and the darkened windows of Apartment 14C above.