Chapter Twenty-Eight Kaitlyn
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kaitlyn
By the time the phone call comes, Kaitlyn had nearly forgotten she requested it.
But still, when she sees the unknown number pop up on her phone, she answers it.
She has no leads on where Amanda may be, no hope of her sister contacting her, and no faith that—when and if she does turn up—she’ll even be the least bit sorry.
She has nothing to lose aside from a minute of her time, and her time doesn’t feel all that valuable these days anyway.
“It’s Roger,” says the voice on the other end of the phone.
“I’m sorry, who?”
“Your sister’s landlord.”
“Roger, hi.” Kaitlyn feels confident he never mentioned his name before, even when she handed over her number. Her phone screen feels suddenly clammy against her cheek. “Is everything all right?”
“Sure. I just wanted to let you know that lady came by again today.”
“The lady . . . ?”
“The one who’s been paying your sister’s rent. She brought me cash today to cover the month of August.”
Kaitlyn lets out an involuntary little gasp. “Did you get a picture?”
“She was in and out. I didn’t get the chance. Sorry.”
Her heart sinks. “Did you at least get a better look at her? See any noticeable features?”
“I can do you one better. I have her on video.”
Once again, her heart pounds madly; this back-and-forth can’t be great for Kaitlyn’s cardiovascular health. “How?”
“I recently installed a security camera in the lobby. The police have been sniffing around, and it’s making residents uneasy. They think something shady went down that I’m not telling them.”
“Why have the police been around? How recently?”
Roger’s voice becomes defiant. “Listen, this shit has got nothing to do with me. I run a clean, respectable property. I’m not in the business of getting into people’s business, you know what I’m saying? But it’s got nothing to do with me.”
Kaitlyn needs to de-escalate the situation or risk losing his help. “I didn’t mean any offense. I imagine this has been a stressful time for you.”
Roger grunts.
“If you’re willing, I’d love to come by and watch any security footage you might have caught of the woman who drops off the rent. Whenever you’re free, of course.”
A beat passes. Finally, Roger says, “I have some shit to do today, but I’ll be around tomorrow. Come by then.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Another grunt is offered in lieu of a goodbye, and then the call ends.
Kaitlyn sets her phone down and is looking around her small, stale, suffocating apartment—wondering how she’s going to possibly keep herself sane until tomorrow—when the phone rings. Once again, it’s an unknown number, and once again, she answers it.
“Is this Ms. Reade?” The voice on the other end this time is stern, authoritative.
“Speaking.”
“Ms. Reade, this is the Austin Police Department.”
“Oh.” A dozen thoughts race through her head: Townsend reported her. Talia reported her. The police think she’s a stalker. The police want to know why she requested her parents’ accident report. They found Amanda, and she’s alive. They found Amanda, and she’s dead.
“We’re going to need you to come down to the station.”
“Now?”
“If you’re able.”
It’s a Friday, and though Kaitlyn is technically working remotely today, her calendar is clear; the day stretches ahead of her without motive or agenda. Whether it’s good news or bad that awaits her, it’s almost a relief either way, just having something to do with herself.
“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” she says.
“We don’t know how to tell you this,” Detective Burrows says. He sits across a table from Kaitlyn in a drab office, with Detective Harris—the other officer Kaitlyn spoke to in June, back when she first reported her sister’s disappearance—at his side.
“Okay.” Kaitlyn remembers hearing these same words when she received a phone call two and a half years earlier, informing her that her parents were dead.
“It’s seeming more and more likely that your sister, Amanda, is not missing, as we’d initially believed. Now that it’s been nearly five months without contact, we’ve begun exploring the possibility that she is deceased.” Burrows pauses and then, almost seeming to mean it, he adds, “I’m sorry.”
Kaitlyn shakes her head. “That can’t be right. I spoke to her ex-boyfriend, Townsend Fuller. He said he’s been in contact with Amanda.” She reminds herself not to reveal too much; she doesn’t want to incriminate her sister if she’s been sending Townsend threatening messages, as he claimed.
“He shared those messages with us,” Harris says, “and we have reason to believe Amanda wasn’t the one who wrote them.”
“You think someone was”—Kaitlyn grapples for the right word—“I don’t know, posing as her?”
Burrows nods solemnly. “We do. And we think the same person may have hurt her.”
“Who would do that?”
The detectives exchange a look. “The investigation is ongoing, so we aren’t able to discuss names just yet,” Harris says. “But we wanted to do you the courtesy of letting you know that this missing person case is now being investigated as a potential homicide.”
Kaitlyn’s thoughts feel slow, sludgy. “You’re not looking for my sister anymore. You’re looking for her body.”
“I’m afraid so,” says Harris. And then, echoing her partner’s words from earlier: “I’m sorry.”
For months, Kaitlyn hoped against hope that her sister—her feckless, freewheeling, free-spirited sister—was still out there.
Getting by on cash and car rides and getting off on ignoring Kaitlyn’s messages.
But somehow, this news doesn’t feel like a surprise to her.
It feels like confirmation of something she already knew to be true but wasn’t ready to accept.
Kaitlyn thinks of the words her therapy chatbot had her repeat during one of their first sessions together: “Everyone will leave me. Everyone will leave me. Everyone will leave me.” The hope was that—upon hearing the phrase over and over—the words would lose meaning and her fear would seem irrational.
Silly, even. But instead, Kaitlyn found that the exercise just imbued the words with power, made her dread feel less like generalized anxiety and more like an active threat.
And now that horrible prophecy had come true yet again. Everyone always leaves her.
The tears will come later, she knows that. Right now, it’s anger she feels. Anger that makes her want to hurt someone else the way she’s hurting.
“Amanda’s landlord called me,” she tells the officers. “A woman has been paying her rent. She delivers cash once a month. According to the landlord, she claimed to work with my sister.”
This intrigues them. “Could he describe her?” Burrows asks.
“Not really. But . . .” Kaitlyn hesitates. Even though she knows it will only benefit her to offer up any information she has, she’s tempted to keep this last piece to herself. How satisfying it would be to watch the footage, identify that woman, hunt her down, avenge her sister.
“But what?”
She knows how to shoot a gun. She knows how to do it without leaving a mess too.
“Can you tell us the landlord’s name?”
Her anger has shifted, becoming something she doesn’t recognize and turning her into someone unrecognizable too.
She thinks, You know what? Fuck these police officers.
Kaitlyn doesn’t want to be a team player; she wants revenge, which means seeing that footage before the detectives can. “Roger something. I’m not sure.”
“Okay. Could you share his number at least?”
“I don’t have it.”
“You said he called you.”
“The number was blocked.” Kaitlyn stands. “Look, I need to go. I need to get out of here.”
“Wait.” Harris holds out a hand. “Please, just another minute.”
Kaitlyn sinks cautiously back into her chair as Harris produces a photo from the folder in her hand.
“Do you know her?”
Leaning forward, she studies the photo, a corporate headshot showing a dark-haired woman in a navy blue suit.
She looks familiar—broad shoulders, small hoop nose ring, thick brows, possibly Indian—but Kaitlyn can’t quite place her.
Didn’t Roger mention that the woman paying her sister’s rent had dark hair?
Maybe this is her. But who is she? “No. Sorry.”
Harris tucks the photo back into her folder. “If you come across any useful information, you’ll call us, yes?”
“Sure,” Kaitlyn says, not yet convinced that she means it.
Walking out of the police station, Kaitlyn feels as though the ground is shifting and tilting beneath her.
She needs to get to Roger to watch the footage.
No, she needs to tell the police the truth.
No, she needs to plan a funeral, because her sister is dead.
Oh, God, her sister is dead. Her sister is dead.
Her arms tingle with restless energy; maybe a trip to the shooting range will help her focus.
She always feels calmer after firing off a few rounds—not to mention that it’ll give her a chance to decide what to do next.
Her brain on autopilot, Kaitlyn makes the twenty-minute drive to the Range at Austin.
Once there, she pops open the trunk to retrieve her SIG Sauer P320, which she always keeps handy in its black leather-trimmed hard-shell case. Except . . .
This can’t be. Kaitlyn shifts around the tangle of jumper cables and spare indicator bulbs and reusable shopping bags—carefully at first, and then with an urgency bordering on frantic. It’s no use; the case is nowhere to be seen.
She may have a penchant for jumping to conclusions, but this time, Kaitlyn feels sure her gut is right: Someone has stolen her gun.
And the only person she ever told about that gun? Townsend Fuller.