Eighteen Detective Olivia Newhouse #2
Inside I lock the door and reset the security system.
I’ve never been afraid here, but the last thing I want is some reporter walking in while I’m digging around in old files.
Though I haven’t experienced a reporter invasion, Walt has.
He told me about one joining him and his wife in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon.
Walt was grilling steaks. His wife was setting the table on the patio, and all of a sudden a reporter from Nashville’s biggest newspaper strolls around the end of the house and shouts a hello as if he’d been invited to lunch.
On top of not wanting a reporter to bully into my house, Fanning is still missing.
If he had some relationship with my father, he could show up here.
As much as I consider him the scum of the earth and not worth the cost of a bullet to his head to stop him, I don’t want to have to deal with an Internal Affairs investigation about my father’s potential involvement with the man and me shooting him.
I put the snacks away, grab myself a stick of cheese and a bottle of water, before I head to my father’s office.
I sit in his chair and consider his desk.
Might as well start at the top and work my way down.
Putting aside my disbelief and dragging my objectivity back to front and center, I start with his calendar notebook for this year.
Since he died on February 6, there’s not a whole lot to look at.
I find the dates the warden mentioned. All are marked with CF.
I shake my head. “What in the world were you doing, Dad?”
I round up an organizing bin, one of the many lining the shelves in the credenza behind his desk, and place the calendar there.
Whatever I find that is relevant in some way to the investigation, I’ll put in the bin for Walt and me to dissect.
Part of me feels guilty for looking through my father’s things with the intent of finding evidence.
But that’s not exactly what I’m doing. My goal is to find no evidence.
I need to discover that this was some sort of step taken in support of Sanchez.
My father doing what he always did, being the man who saves the day.
There are no other notes on his desk. I open his laptop and scroll through the files there.
My father wasn’t big on electronic files.
He preferred the old-fashioned way, so most of his files are paper.
I peruse his contacts list, his sent and received emails.
Nothing jumps out at me. No exchanges between him, the warden, the lowlife attorney, or any other representative of Carl Fanning or his victims.
I close the laptop and move on to the desk drawers.
I find a bag of my father’s favorite snack—Reese’s candy.
I open one and pop it in my mouth. The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is instantly soothing.
A smile touches my lips as I think of all the times as a kid that I came into his office and shared a Reese’s with him.
My continued search reveals no notes or business cards or anything else in the drawers that suggest collusion with the enemy in this case.
I stand, stretch my back after being hunkered over the desk for so long.
I stare at the row of steel five-drawer filing cabinets—the kind that are supposed to withstand the typical house fire for an extended period of time.
I’ve fingered through the rows of file folders already. Didn’t spot a single name on our list.
No matter, I walk over to the cabinets and open the top drawer on cabinet number one.
Another look can’t hurt. I begin with the first name on the list and go through it once more.
Drawer after drawer, I drag it open and search.
Then move on to the next cabinet. Nothing.
Not a single file related to one of Fanning’s victims from before he went to prison is here.
I double check for Sanchez, even check the files on either side of where Sanchez would be.
Nada. Finally, I open each file and read the name there to ensure it’s not some variation or alias that was used. Nothing.
This makes no sense.
I scour the credenza and the rows of bookshelves and find the same. Not one thing. Then I go to my parents’ bedroom.
“This is a true low point, Liv,” I mutter.
Guilt piling higher and higher on my shoulders, I search my parents’ things. I go through all my father’s clothes, check pockets, look under stacks of neatly folded clothes. I find a few coins and a gum wrapper but nothing else.
Finally, I collapse on the carpeted floor of the massive walk-in closet.
I close my eyes and inhale the scent of my father.
My mother’s scent faded years ago. Unless I open one of the boxes with her favorite handbags tucked neatly inside, then I can smell her perfume.
She always carried a tiny bottle in her handbag, along with breath mints and tissues.
I miss them both so much.
That distant ache is building. I haven’t seen the dots in the last hour or so, but I fear they’re coming.
I need to finish before the headache hits.
There is only one other place my father might store files.
Searching his bedroom for clues of a meeting with Fanning, the warden, or the lawyer was a logical step.
He might have left a card in a jacket pocket, or perhaps even a sticky note.
But my father would never, ever conceal sensitive files any place someone else might easily access. Like his bedroom or the library.
No way. Any patient files would be under lock and key, which leads me to the only other place where he kept any sort of files.
I walk down the hall from my parents’ bedroom toward his office.
I enter the laundry room across the hall.
The laundry room is quite large. There’s a door to the portico that leads out to the detached garage, and there’s another door, this one hidden behind a tall cabinet.
I open the double cabinet doors and step into the empty space.
Before me is the steel door and keypad that lead to the panic room.
I enter the code and the steel door slides away.
It doesn’t open out or into the room but disappears into a slot in the wall.
The panic room has its own heating and cooling system as well as a fresh-air input of some sort.
A two-piece bathroom. The main part of the room is ten by twelve.
The small bathroom and an equally small storage room stand side by side at the farthest end.
There’s a set of pull-down beds against one wall.
The lower one works as a sofa as well as a bed.
On the wall above it is a second pull-down twin-size bed that serves as an upper bunk.
There’s a small table surrounded by four narrow chairs.
A refrigerator, microwave, and a television.
The electricity in the room is powered by thermal and solar energy.
If the grid goes down, this room will operate.
Another filing cabinet stands in the storage room.
This one doesn’t have the typical lock. It’s biometric.
I place my thumb there and listen to the locks release.
Inside are the most private files of the Newhouse family.
The deed to the property is here. My parents’ last will and testament was stored here until I retrieved it for settling the estate.
Birth certificates, social security cards, passports, and a handful of files related to upgrades and maintenance to the property.
The six most recent tax year files. All of this I find in the top drawer.
I pull open the bottom drawer. Inside, I find another row of files.
I lower onto the floor, folding my legs into a comfortable sitting position, and pull out the first file from the bottom drawer.
The folder is marked only as “The Child.” There is no name, just a long history of abuse and neglect about a young child.
The words, written by my father, are disturbing.
I shudder and reach for the next file. As I read the name on the tab, those damned black dots appear in my line of vision.
My pulse trips with disbelief. I toss the file aside and move to the next one, and the pain in my skull ramps up, rising to a crescendo.
Shelley Martin, Melanie Hardeman, Janie Hyatt, Dana Reeves, Patricia Shelby, Andrea Donnelly, and Mario Sanchez, as well as a half dozen others. They are all here.
Every single known victim, dead or alive, of Carl Fanning.