Chapter 29
BAILEY
A bell chimes as I breeze through the door of the Magnolia Café.
The place is all black and white tile and kitschy art.
There are posters of pastries on parade mounted on the wall, full of smiling pieces of toast and slices of pie marching with cartoon legs.
An oversized set of forks, knives, and spoons hangs above the host stand, directly over a freckled hostess who’s smiling my way. “How many?”
“I’m meeting someone, actually,” I say as a bald man waves at me from a corner. “Thanks.”
Zane Jenson rises as I near, towering over me by at least a foot and a half.
He has a wide nose and a prominent brow and is dressed in blue jeans and a charcoal blazer.
He stares down at me with dark eyes, appraising me with a clinical sort of intelligence.
I can feel him cataloging me, pulling open an empty file drawer in his mind and slotting me in.
Paula’s voice fills my mind: He’s the best investigator I’ve ever met.
He gets things done. I don’t know the man, but I can already see it.
“It’s Bailey, right?” he says, offering his hand. I take it and watch mine disappear in his as we shake. “You find the place okay? Google always sends people across the street.”
“I did. How’d you recognize me?”
“Lucky guess.” He sweeps his arm toward the booth. “Please.”
I slide into one side, and he settles into the other. I can’t help but take note of the accordion file resting on the table near the edge.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I say.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Paula. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. As you may have guessed, when Paula Nash calls you answer.” A smile cuts across his broad jaw, and he chuckles. “You didn’t give me much choice, either.”
Exactly three days had passed since Ben and I walked out of Paula Nash’s house in a daze, and I’d spent every minute since thinking about Adrian Wallace.
Before I left, Paula had pressed a business card into my hand with the words Jenson Investigations printed on the thick white stock along with a phone number.
I’d called it five times before he finally answered.
“Listen,” Zane says. “Before we begin, I want you to know how sorry I am for your loss. What happened to your family is tragic. I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been.”
The statement sparks a flash of irritation I have to mentally tamp down.
I hate when conversations start this way.
Since the wreck, it happens all the time—an inane condolence followed by some version of what Zane had just said.
Something to the effect of “you poor thing,” or “they’re in a better place now,” or “time heals all wounds.” The worst ones are when people personalize my tragedy and tell me how they have kids, and losing them is their worst nightmare, like that will somehow help lessen my pain.
It doesn’t. Someone telling me about everything they have only reminds me of everything I’ve lost.
“It’s why I’m here,” I say, inclining my head toward the file. “Is that him?”
“Yes—what I have, anyway.”
Before I can ask to see the file, a waitress in a short skirt appears next to the table, her fingernails and lips both matching shades of crimson. She smiles, sending a spray of cigarette lines shooting from the corners of her mouth.
“Coffee?” she asks, holding up a yellowed carafe.
“No, thank you,” I say. “Water’s fine.”
“Sure thing, I’ll bring a round for the table.” She turns to Zane. “How about you, hon?”
He shifts his mug toward her in answer. She fills it and then strides away in a cloud of peach perfume.
Zane takes a drink, and I consider how to start. I’ve only been around him for a few minutes, but he strikes me as the direct type. I stare at the file.
“Paula said Adrian killed my family.”
“That’s never been proven.”
“Paula seemed pretty convinced.”
Zane nods. “She has good reason. The autopsy wasn’t conclusive, but the injuries Evelyn sustained were … questionable.”
“What do you mean?”
“Evelyn had significant head trauma to the right side of her skull, and her torso was twisted in a way that didn’t make sense. The impact should have been more direct. She had minimal damage to the center of her forehead, no burn marks.”
“Burn marks?” I ask, confused.
Zane grunts. “Airbags get hot when they inflate. There are chemicals released and sometimes fragments that can damage the skin. Evelyn didn’t have those. And her neck was fractured laterally.”
I set my elbows on the table. “Why does that matter?”
“It matters because it indicates she’d been looking to her left at the time of the crash instead of at the road—like she was talking to someone. Not to mention the position of the vehicle’s steering wheel was much too high for her, and her legs didn’t line up with the pedals.”
My shoulders tighten. “Okay. Give me your opinion. What do you think happened?”
Zane readjusts himself, his eyes never leaving mine. “I don’t think Evelyn was driving that day. There’s no way. I believe Adrian was the one behind the wheel.”
The room swims. If what he and Paula are telling me is true, I’ve spent the last two years hating the wrong person.
The waitress returns with our waters and takes our orders. A hamburger for Zane and a Caesar salad for me. I wait for her to leave before I speak again.
“If that’s true, then why wasn’t any of it in the police report? Why didn’t they investigate further?”
“They didn’t have a reason to. Evelyn was in the driver’s seat. She’d been drinking. They had a toxicology report that showed she was well over the legal limit at the time of her death. And there weren’t any witnesses. No one was around to question what happened.”
“Including Adrian?”
He nods in agreement. “Including Adrian.”
“Did the police look for him?” I ask.
“They did.”
“And they never found him?”
“No.” Zane takes another pull from his coffee and returns the mug to the table, then taps the file. “But it’s not entirely their fault. It’s hard to find a ghost. What else did Paula tell you about our friend here?”
I scratch my arm. “Not much. She said he took advantage of Evelyn, but she mostly talked about the accident.”
One of Zane’s eyebrows quirks higher. “Oh, he did much more than take advantage of her. He stole a couple million.”
I’m about to take a drink of water and nearly choke. I set the glass down. “Paula didn’t mention that.”
“Evelyn’s loss is a difficult subject for her. She doesn’t like talking about any of this.” He crosses his arms. “Let me ask you a question. What do you think killed Donald Nash?”
“A heart attack,” I reply.
“Go deeper.”
Paula’s voice whispers in my ear. He’s been dead for years. “The death of his daughter.”
“Yes. I’ve known Don for a long time. I worked a lot of corporate cases for him early in his career. He was one of the most focused individuals I’ve ever met. Calm. Cool. Levelheaded. That all changed when he hired me to investigate Adrian Wallace.”
I lean in. “How so?”
“Don’s a man who’s used to getting results.
He was always the kind of guy to throw money at a problem until it got solved.
Well, that didn’t work in this case. Besides me, I’m guessing he hired a half-dozen other investigators to track this guy down, but no one could.
I’ve never seen someone vanish so completely. Literally no trace.
“Anyway, after a few months of this, Don went nuclear. He turned up at my office unannounced, demanding answers I didn’t have.
He was red-faced and pissed off, pacing around the room covered in sweat, asking where the fuck Adrian was.
Telling me I’d better find him or else. Threatening me.
Saying he’d end my career if I didn’t. I kid you not, every time Don came in after that, I could feel my blood pressure rising.
He wanted nothing more than to make Adrian pay.
Don loved his daughter. Evelyn meant the world to him. She—”
He stops suddenly and pulls a buzzing phone out of his pocket. “Give me a second, will you? I have to take this.” He punches a button and brings the phone to his ear as the waitress returns with our meals. I pick at my salad and listen to Zane’s one-sided conversation.
“She fell again?” Pause. “How bad is it this time?” Pause. “Okay, good, but you should still take her in to be safe. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m almost done.”
He ends the call and runs a hand over his face.
“Do you need to go?” I ask.
He considers it. “In a bit. I’ll eat first. Unfortunately, this happens a lot.
My daughter’s sick. She falls sometimes.
But this one doesn’t sound too bad. She’ll be okay.
I’m not so sure about my wallet, though.
” He shakes his head. “Health insurance isn’t cheap when you’re self-employed.
” He picks up his hamburger and digs in. “Where were we?”
“You were about to tell me what happened to Adrian.”
“Right. After a year of searching, I finally turned up a few leads. I put my other cases on hold and went all in. When I finally located Adrian, the first call I made was to Don. The guy lost his mind. He said he was packing his bags. Told me we were leaving that night. He said he’d kill Adrian himself.
Said he’d strangle him to death.” Zane picks up his hamburger and takes a bite, chews.
“It sounded like he was having an aneurysm. I’d never heard him so angry before.
He died two hours later. He never made it to the airport. ”
“And then what?”
“Then nothing.”
I do the math. Donald Nash died a week ago. Which means finding Adrian is recent. My pulse ticks higher. “Paula isn’t going to go after him?”
Zane laughs. “Seriously? The woman is in the middle of burying her husband. And no. The case is officially dead. She told me to drop it.”
The answer leaves me cold. “Why would she do that?”
Zane sighs and returns the hamburger to his plate.
“Put yourself in her shoes. Evelyn wasn’t her kid.
Sure, they mostly got along, but it was Don she really loved.
It took years to get Evelyn on her feet.
Once they did, she and Don had a normal marriage for a while.
They were happy. But then all this shit with Adrian happened and she lost him again.
First, she watched him deteriorate in real time, and then she had to watch him die.
She was there when he had his heart attack.
It happened in their living room. She gave Don CPR for twenty minutes before the paramedics showed up. ”
Jesus. I imagine it. Paula crying, spilling tears in between breaths and chest compressions. Come back to me!
“That’s terrible. But I still don’t understand why she’d let Adrian get away with this?”
Zane shrugs. “People process grief differently. And she saw what happened to Don. He was hellbent on making this guy pay. Obsessed with it. It poisoned their marriage. It poisoned him. Then it killed him.” Zane drags a fry through the ketchup on his plate and pops it into his mouth, chews.
“I mean, sure, maybe she’d be able to make a case with the evidence I have and bring Adrian to trial, but that would mean she’d have to testify.
She’d have to see his face every day in court.
On the news. Cases like this can take years.
Paula just wants to move on. Sometimes justice doesn’t mean much when you’ve already put everyone you love in the ground. ”
My vision blurs, a tear breaking free before I can stop it from rolling down my cheek.
I wipe at it angrily and look away. Someone laughs nearby.
Dishes rattle. The noise of the restaurant muffles to a din.
I’ve put the people I love in the ground.
But unlike Paula, I can’t just walk away from this.
There’s no moving on for me. I have no life without Noah and Ethan. That future doesn’t exist.
“Where is he?” I ask, attempting to regain my composure.
Zane wipes his mouth with a napkin, then pushes the folder over. “It’s all in here.”
I peer at it, zeroing in on the name printed on the label. “Who’s Reed Aldridge?”
“That’s his real name,” Zane says. “Adrian Wallace doesn’t exist.”