Chapter 23
Leroux sinks deep into the couch, granting himself just one moment of pure inertia—no interrogations, no unanswered questions. His punch card is full.
Before he can truly fall into the void, his phone vibrates in his pocket, a familiar and irritating reminder that his workday never ends. He ignores it for a second before finally surrendering to the responsibility, pissed at himself that he can’t truly disconnect.
“Leroux,” he says, irritability dripping from his voice.
“He’s not here.” Hart’s words cut through the air like it’s a fact he knows instead of speculation.
Leroux snorts softly, unwittingly. He’s seen this before: A young rookie detective gets ahead of himself and rides a high of bravado. He sees one thing and thinks he’s cracked the case wide open. Hell, Leroux was that guy up until about a year ago. He can almost see himself in Hart.
He decides to come at this from a supportive place, saying, “Listen, I know you’ve been doing a lot of digging, but we have the tracker’s record that says—”
“Forget the tracker! I followed it, Leroux. I followed the tracker to its last-known location, thinking I was going to find something, and I sure as shit found something.” Hart’s voice is laced with excitement and something else: fear. Suddenly Leroux is all ears.
“Well, don’t be shy, Hart. What did you find?” he says, eager to be proved wrong.
Hart is a bundle of nervous energy, even stumbling over some of his words and executing a verbal blitzkrieg of sorts.
“That location led to a really remote cabin in the hills. I’m telling you, it had a weird fucking vibe.
It was all run-down and dilapidated, but it was clear someone has been using it.
” Leroux can hear him take a gulp of something that he can only assume is liquid speed.
The buzz of adrenaline is palpable through the phone.
“The paint was peeling, and weeds were starting to overtake it a bit, but you could just tell someone had been there recently, like there was a presence, you know?”
“I know what a cabin looks like, yes,” Leroux responds dryly, pouring himself a glass of bourbon and hoping it will make some sense of this chaotic conversation. He would give anything to just clock out for the day at five p.m.
As Leroux walks to the sitting room, Hart continues his torrent of information. “Okay, I know you’re being an asshole right now, but listen to this: I looked in the window, and there was one single chair sitting in the middle of the room.”
Leroux sighs, his curiosity turning into irritation.
“Hart, you better give me a damn good reason why this chair is interesting.” He sips his drink, savoring the velvety warmth of that first taste.
Notes of dark caramel followed by a ghost of vanilla create an instantly comforting feeling.
There is a warm spice that opens up just as he swallows.
Normally, on days when someone isn’t reciting the Gettysburg Address to him, this bourbon instantly relaxes him.
Hart’s voice suddenly slaps him from his bourbon-soaked reverie. “The chair was nailed to the floor.”
Hart drops the detail like a bomb, and it detonates, igniting a million different pathways in Leroux’s mind.
“Shit.” A chill moves through him. He places the glass down on the coffee table.
“Yeah, and there were definitely some stains, and from where I was standing, they easily could’ve been blood. I took pictures. I’ll send them to you.”
Three photos come through, one after the other, lighting up Leroux’s phone like a switchboard.
Although the clarity isn’t perfect—a dirty old window reflecting sunlight in the woods isn’t exactly an ideal photography setup—it’s clear that the chair is nailed to the floor.
Upon closer inspection, he sees the ominous staining.
Aside from the undeniably questionable chair, the room itself has a really oppressive look to it. It’s grimy and depressing, with sparse decorations and almost no other furniture. There’s something about even that small glimpse that makes a creeping sense of unease take root under his skin.
“You know, he’s a lot more like Jeremy Rose than he would care to know or admit,” Leroux mutters, walking down a dark path in his mind.
Hart sounds surprised: “Jesus, how so?”
“We found a similar chair setup in Rose’s house.
” Leroux remembers back to the house Rose had taken from his mother, the one he had turned into his own personal torture chamber and a display for what he considered to be his macabre accomplishments.
The chairs he used for his makeshift experiments were caked in dried blood.
Leroux too vividly remembers seeing them and trying to look away, but he recalls how he’d found himself anchored to his spot, just staring at the place of suffering and pain.
He’d had nightmares for weeks after that discovery, and it takes a lot for a case to follow him home. Something about the way those chairs sat unmovable, uncleaned and ready for investigators to find. They reeked of suffering in a way he hadn’t seen before.
“God, how do they even think like this?” Hart whispers, lost in his own mind as well.
A silence settles over them, wrapping them up as they each retreat into memories they would rather forget.
“Now for the big reveal,” Hart says suddenly, his sharp tone yanking Leroux back to the present. “Look closer at the pictures. See anything interesting on that side table?”
Leroux looks at the photos again, zooming in and trying to see past the grime and the reflection. It’s the third photo, the clearest one, that gives him what he’s looking for. On the table is a Bible, a cracked relic, and engraved in gold on the bottom is the name Philip Trudeau.
“Holy shit, this is actually his cabin. Holy shit, Hart.”
It’s one of those moments that’s hard to describe, when things just start to click together. He almost feels like he should pinch himself to make sure he’s not sleeping. After all, he’s exhausted to the point where a full-blown hallucination like this wouldn’t shock him that much.
“I also found a firepit and a freshly dug spot near a garden on the property. I already have someone digging through all that, because there was an unmistakable decomposition smell.”
Leroux’s suddenly snaps to attention. “You found the promised land, my friend.”
Hart’s voice gets faster as he spills the information in waves.
“I got it out of his secretary, Margaret, that she noticed a loyal congregant named Stephanie Bellows went missing from services in the past couple of weeks. She fits the profile of the other missing young women I think are tied to him.”
“This is really great investigative work, Hart,” Leroux says, his voice trailing off as his mind races.
“I can’t believe we got him,” Hart answers, a chuckle coloring his voice.
Leroux clears his throat, steeling himself away from daydreams of neatly catching the bad guy in a perfect Hollywood ending.
He tries to keep his expectations somewhere he can manage them.
“Well, we still have to prove it, but with this and the information from Kathryn, it will be hard for the KPD to ignore it now.”
“You’re damn right. I went straight to the chief. Told him that news of this murder cabin in his jurisdiction might end up with the press if he didn’t make a move. They’re going to test the partial prints on the syringe.”
It’s as if the room explodes around Leroux in that moment, like the world comes into focus for the first time that he can remember. He can’t fathom how Hart held this piece of information in for their entire conversation.
“I’m sorry, what the hell did you just say?” he asks, his voice a mix of shock and excitement.
Hart chuckles. “Kathryn got us over the hump, my friend. They can’t push back anymore. They at least have to make a show of looking into it.”
“Hart, you did the impossible. I can’t believe it,” Leroux says, exhaling a laugh that borders on the edge of hysteria. “But the question remains: Where is he?”
“It looked like the cabin had seen some recent activity, but he hasn’t been back since I discovered it. I’m also waiting for a couple of contacts to get back to me from some of the municipal airports in the area.”
Leroux rubs his head, still registering everything. “I didn’t even consider that he could probably charter a flight.”
“His father’s contacts are vast. He has access to a lot of resources that neither of us have considered,” Hart reminds him.
Leroux sits back, taking another sip of his drink. “Listen, I’m trying to live on this shot of adrenaline you just gave me, but I have to try to get some sleep at least for a few hours before I die. Keep me updated as things happen, okay?”
Hart lets out a laugh. “Got ya. I’ll let you know if I hear back.”
They hang up, and silence falls back over the house. Leroux opens a window, letting in a cool breeze, and the hum of a million cicadas begins to lull him into a comfortable stupor. Before allowing himself to truly check out, he taps out a text to Wren.
L: Hey, you okay? We have a couch, ya know.
W: Thanks, i’m ok. Going for a run.
L: Well that’s stupid.
W: You always know what to say.
L: Take your mace!
W: Yes, dad.
W: Go to sleep already.
L: Yeah, yeah. Text me when you get home from your run.
W: Aye aye, captain!
He can’t stop the nagging sense of worry that’s making the back of his mind itch.
With Philip MIA, Leroux doesn’t like the idea of Wren being alone or distracted, but he also knows she’s a grown and capable woman.
As much as he would love to wrap her in steel, he has to let her live.
It’s not easy caring about someone, which is why he keeps that shit to a minimum.
A part of him wants to let her know about Hart’s update on the partial prints, but until the forensic test happens, there’s no reason to give her false hope.
He decides to let the worry go and allow her the escape she desperately needs and certainly deserves.
His eyes burn with exhaustion, and his eyelids feel heavy.
As he climbs the stairs to the bedroom, he can almost feel it all coming together.
He can feel the end of Philip Trudeau, the final gasp of his dark secret being thrust into the light—and with it, justice for Richard.
The end of this nightmare is close. He can just feel it.