Nearly Found (12 page)

I
DUCKED INTO THE FORENSICS LAB
that evening just before dusk. The supply cupboard where Raj had tracked the Croc prints contained rows of boxes containing plastic spray bottles. The crystals rattled inside as I held one under the red emergency exit light to check the label. I took a deep breath and stuffed the luminol deep in my backpack.

It was the right thing to do, I told myself. I would order a replacement bottle when I did inventory next week. And if I’d learned anything this week, it’s that even if Raj noticed, he wouldn’t suspect me. Because he already suspected someone else.

Heart still racing, I reached into the box of fingerprint cards and felt the evidence bag containing Lonny’s cell phone. Still there. I hadn’t yet gathered the nerve to open it, to see the photos of Adrienne’s body that Raj had insisted were there. But if Bao came through—if the video from Bui’s exonerated Lonny—maybe I would never have to. I covered the phone and slipped out of the lab, pulling the door shut behind me.

“Hey, I thought I saw you walk past the break room. Didn’t expect to see you on a Friday night. Don’t you have a hot date or something?”

I hid my backpack behind me. “I . . . um . . .”

“You don’t have to explain,” Raj whispered conspiratorially. “I wasn’t one of the cool kids either. I probably would have preferred to spend my Friday nights in a lab when I was in high school too. But if it’s any consolation, your timing’s great.” He held up a lab report. “We’ve got a list of missing persons that could be possible matches for the Golf Course Corpse. Doc wants me to cross-reference them against the DNA database for any existing records. Want to help?”

My breath rushed out. I was only half listening, my panic-addled mind unable to register anything but relief that this had nothing to do with the luminol in my backpack, or Lonny’s missing phone. That I hadn’t been found out.

Raj waved the printout in front of me.

A list of possible matches
 . . . that’s what he’d said.

I snatched it from his hand and skimmed the search criteria. Adult males, ages twenty-five to forty reported missing or wanted by authorities during a set of dates.

Five years ago.

Five men.

Five names. Rodriguez, Miller, Nguyen, Brown, and . . .

Boswell.

I grabbed the nearest chair and dropped into it. Everything else slipped away.

I shook my head, unable to look away from the name. David Boswell.

This didn’t prove anything, I told myself. It only meant he fit a very broad description. It only meant he was missing. And I already knew that. There were four other names. Four other people’s fathers it could have been. It didn’t have to be mine. It couldn’t be.

Raj peeled the page from my hand, his smile gone. He looked at the names on the list and paled.

“Oh, man. Is that . . . ?” He swallowed, tripping over his words. “I had no idea. Boswell. Shit. I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry. I should have looked at it first. I was just so excited to . . .”

Raj straightened, his tone assuming a more professional distance. “Did you know David?” he asked. The question felt loaded, like he just needed the right trigger to set something in motion. The same way it had felt when Nicholson had asked me if I’d had any contact with my dad.

The sad part was, I didn’t really know the answer. “He’s my father.”

Raj folded the paper, tucking it out of sight. “Then I have to tell Doc. He’ll want to . . . you know . . . recuse you from any involvement in the case. At least until . . . until we can rule out David Boswell as a match.”

I touched the ends of my hair. It was long, with impulsive curls like my mother’s. Yet somewhere inside it was a piece of my dad. I plucked a strand.

“It’s not enough,” Raj said, taking my hand as if reading my thoughts. He was salty and sweet and I almost gagged on his sympathy. “Mitochondrial DNA is passed through the mother. You would have to be maternally related to the victim for a hair sample to work.”

I held the strand between my fingers, unable to let it fall. “Let me know if you find him.”

• • •

The bus ride home that night was taking longer than usual. Traffic backed up for miles heading south on Route 1. Ahead, blue lights flashed and sirens blared. As we neared my stop, the bus crawled to a standstill. I slid up the aisle and tapped the driver’s shoulder.

“Can you let me out here? I can walk the rest of the way.”

“No, sugar,” she said. “I can’t let no one out in the middle of the street. I’ll lose my job. Sit down and get comfortable. Looks like we’ll be sitting awhile.” The driver pointed out the front window, over the line of cars ahead of us.

Smoke clouded the night sky, engulfing the strip mall across the street from my house. I straightened, gripping the handrail as the bus inched forward, searching the fire for its source. Neon lights flickered from the windows of Gentleman Jim’s, the club I’d always secretly wished would burn to the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief it was still standing and safe.

Farther down, ambulances and fire trucks fanned out from the Bui Mart. I scrambled down the bus steps, peeling the door wide enough to slip through, ignoring the shouts of the driver. I darted into the highway, between stopped cars.

The air was thick and choking, warmer the closer I got to Bui’s. People crowded the parking lot, and I pushed through them, searching for Anh and Bao. An ambulance eased slowly out of the lot with its sirens on and my heart climbed into my throat.

I searched the crowd for their parents. For anyone who could tell me what had happened. Butch’s head stood taller than the others, close to the smoking remains of the store, and I pushed my way toward him, calling his name. His arms rested around my mother’s shoulders. She turned at the sound of my voice. Black streaks trailed down her face and I couldn’t tell if it was makeup or soot. Until Butch turned too. He was covered in it, his skin glistening with sweat and filth.

“What happened?” I asked, breathless, my mouth dry from the smoke. “I can’t find Anh or Bao.”

“Anh’s fine. She wasn’t here when the fire started,” my mother said, taking my hand in hers. It was hot and slick. She tasted like cool salt water, sadness, and relief.

“What about Bao?”

“No one’s really sure,” Butch said. “I couldn’t talk to Mr. Bui. He wanted to ride with Bao.” He waved away a paramedic. People rushed around in every direction, radios and lights and noise.

“Ride with Bao where?”

Butch wiped a streak of black sweat from his brow. “By the time I got in there, the store was already engulfed. I don’t know long how Bao stayed inside, trying to put it out.”

The fire was extinguished for the most part, the crowd beginning to thin. We crossed the parking lot to get some distance from the smoke. I crumpled onto the curb beside them and rested my head on my knees, still clutching my mother’s hand. Butch made her feel safe, secure, with his strong arms around her. I held on to her tightly, stealing those reassurances and making them my own.

I tasted it, a heartbeat before I felt the shift in my mother’s posture. An acidic burn that tightened my throat.

“What is it?” I lifted my head, sharp and alert, following the direction of her stare.

Across the parking lot, Billy Wiles stood in a crowd with his hands in his pockets, staring at the remains of the fire. As if he could feel us watching, he turned in our direction.

“Nothing.” My mother’s shoulders relaxed. The burn subsided as Billy walked off into the shadows. “In the dark, he looks so much like his brother. For a moment, I could have sworn . . . oh, never mind.” She pulled me closer. “It must have been the smoke in my eyes.”

• • •

The next morning, I sat in the shade of the bus shelter on the corner of Route 1, watching the fire marshal and arson investigators disappear inside the cooling skeleton of the Bui Mart. After a few hours, the yellow caution tape began to sag, the white trucks were loaded back up with equipment, and the parking lot slowly emptied. Mr. and Mrs. Bui were not there. When I’d called Anh that morning, she said they hadn’t left Bao’s side. His condition was critical.

I couldn’t fight the suspicion snaking through me. That this had something to do with me. I’d just been in Bao’s store, looking through security footage that would exonerate Lonny, and allow the police to focus on finding Adrienne’s real killer. Now the videos were probably destroyed, and I had the sinking feeling that none of this was a coincidence.

T
HE NEXT WEEK
was a blur. I tried to focus on classes and homework, but it was hard to keep my mind off the arson investigation and the tests being run on the golf course bones. It was hard to keep my mind off of Reece. At least I hadn’t gotten any more cryptic notes since I’d changed the locks on my trailer, and neither had Jeremy or Vince. I spent every afternoon with Raj after school, trying to stay busy, listening to conversations in the break room, and watching reports and evidence boxes go in and out of the mailroom. Raj had laughed when I asked him what was taking so long, and why things couldn’t happen more quickly, the way they did on TV. By the end of the week, I was no closer to knowing if the bones were my father’s, or who had started the fire at Bui’s.

The following Tuesday, I was back on the bus for the long ride to the lab. I curled into my seat and thumbed on my phone. It was full of messages, mostly texts from Reece. I’d answered the urgent ones that came in the late-night hours after the fire, letting him know I was okay and that I hadn’t been involved. But then came the others, saying he wanted to see me, that we needed to talk. The longer I put off responding to them, the more awkward it felt to try. He began every text with an apology. But to forgive him seemed too easy, and to confess to missing him made me feel weak. I didn’t know what else there was to say.

Instead, I texted today’s homework to Anh. She had been excused from school to stay with her brother at the hospital, and I’d offered to check in with her teachers each day and communicate her assignments back to her, hoping the small gesture would alleviate some of the nagging guilt I still felt about the fire, and keep me posted on Bao’s slowly improving condition.

My phone buzzed. Gena’s number flashed across the screen, and I sighed before picking it up.

“I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you,” she started in, “but whatever it is, don’t you think you’re being a little hard on him?”

“Hard on who?”

“You know who,” she said, sounding snippy. “Come on, Leigh. The boy’s a mess. I’ve never seen him like this.”

Whatever. I shouldn’t care. I told myself I didn’t want to know. “What do you mean?”

“He’s like a lovesick puppy with a hair-trigger temper. All he does is whine about how you won’t talk to him.”

“He should have thought of that before he—” I bit my tongue. She would only defend him. “Can we talk about something else?” If she said any more, I might break down and cry. Or actually call him. And I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Fine,” she said through a long exhale. “How’s school?”

“Fine. How about for you?”

“Good,” she said.

“Good.”

“Great.”

“Fabulous.”

I could hear her drumming her nails against the receiver. “Is there anything else you want to talk about?” she asked.

Like how someone had broken in to my house and was stalking people I knew, and I was pretty sure it was Reggie Wiles even though no one would ever believe me. How someone had burned down my friend’s store less than a day after I’d been there looking at security footage that no one else knew existed. How a girl from my neighborhood had been murdered, and I was blowing my internship to prove Lonny Johnson wasn’t a killer. How my father might have been dug out of a hole on the ninth green of the Belle View Country Club golf course. It all sounded ridiculous, even to me. “Not really.”

“How’s Spanish class?”

“I can count to ten and say
good-bye
. Want to hear?” I asked flatly.

She muttered something in Spanish under her breath. “I get it. Call me later, when you’re not as cranky as Reece.” She hung up.

When I got to the lab, I found Raj in the mailroom, packaging evidence returns. He lifted his head from a bin.

“Hey, I was going to call you a few hours ago, but then I remembered you were in class. I’ve got good news.”

“Good news?” I asked skeptically. I’d had nothing but terrible news for the last few weeks.

“We got the DNA results back on the golf course bones. It wasn’t your dad.” A relieved breath rushed out of me. He handed me the report. “It was some dude named Karl Miller.”

Karl Miller. From Belle Green. Eric Miller’s father.

I’d seen Eric in computer class that morning, but then I hadn’t noticed him in the halls the entire rest of the day. I wondered if he already knew. Maybe someone from the lab had broken the news to his family while I’d been at school.

“Are you okay? I thought you’d be happy.” Raj’s voice shook me from my thoughts. He looked concerned. And I couldn’t afford to set off any alarms. This was the second body in less than a month that I had some kind of connection to. Karl had been in the poker club; he had been a friend of my parents. My mom had called him a good person. A loyal one. I smiled, trying to make it convincing.

“I am happy. Thanks for letting me know.” I gave him back the report.

“I’m just packaging up the personal effects to be returned to the detective on the case. The guy was buried with his wedding ring, but his wife doesn’t want it. She said we can burn it for all she cares. I guess she didn’t like him very much.”

Something didn’t add up. My mom said Karl Miller had left his family for another woman. It was the same story Eric had been telling everyone since middle school. So why was Karl still wearing his wedding ring when he died? And what was he doing on a missing persons list?

“Here.” Raj tossed me the bag containing Karl’s ring. “Box this up and get it ready for the courier. He’ll be here in an hour.”

I turned it over in my hands, remembering the day my own mother had tossed my father’s bag in the trash.

How was it possible that Karl Miller and my father both disappeared at the same time, and one of them turned up dead? Who would have wanted to kill him?

When Raj left the mailroom, I put the bag in my pocket. Instead of going home, I took the bus to Belle Green.

Eric and I had never had much in common. But standing on his front stoop, I almost felt connected to him. We’d both lost a father five years ago, had both stayed up nights wondering if we were somehow the reason he’d gone, or worse . . . if maybe we weren’t enough of a reason to return.

I pressed the doorbell. Listened to his mother’s high heels click on the hard floors as she came to the door. When it opened, her eyes were red-rimmed and her makeup was smudged, her expression hard and impatient.

“I don’t want whatever it is you’re selling.”

“I’m not selling anything,” I said quickly as she began to shut the door. Her eyes drifted to the lanyard around my neck. I’d forgotten to take it off and she stiffened—either at the words
forensics lab
or at the sight of my name, I couldn’t tell.

“What do you want?” she asked through the narrow opening.

“I came to see Eric.”

I fingered the ring in my pocket, reminding myself why I was here. She shut the door in my face. From inside came the muffled sound of an argument, followed by the snap of her high heels as they retreated from the door.

I turned and started down the steps. The door clicked softly open.

Eric looked cautiously up and down the street, like he was checking to see who’d dumped me there. The way I had when someone had left a burning bag of shit on my porch.

My face felt hot. It was hard to look in his eyes, but I made myself do it anyway. “I heard about your dad,” I said, gesturing to my lanyard. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could eat my words. I’d always hated it when people said they were sorry that my dad was gone. They weren’t sorry. It wasn’t their fault. They just didn’t know what else to say. I shook my head. Started over. “What I mean to say is that I think I know how you feel right now, and that sucks, and . . .”

And what? We weren’t friends. We never talked outside of class. I didn’t really know him, and I didn’t really know how he felt because
my
father might still be alive. How could all this not sound totally disingenuous, even if I meant every word? I shut my mouth and pulled the bag from my pocket. I held it up so Eric could see the ring inside. “Your mom said she didn’t want it, but I thought you might want to have it.” He stayed where he was, wedged in the open the door, staring at me with narrowed eyes as if an ocean existed in the space between us.

I set the bag gently at his feet and walked away.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Eric’s breath hitched and when I turned, he kicked the bag with the dirt-caked toe of his sneaker. A long tear slid down his cheek and he brushed it away.

I didn’t know how to answer that. What had I done with mine, except hope? And there was no hope of finding Eric’s father alive. Maybe it had been a mistake, to think he would want it. But it was too late to take it back. Too late not to be standing in his front yard with nothing to say.

I shrugged. “I keep mine under my mattress. Sometimes, when I miss my dad, it helps.”

Eric came out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. He bent slowly and picked the bag off the porch floor. Head down, he mumbled, “She lied about him. My mom thought he left us for another woman. That’s what she told me.” He shook loose another tear with the gentle shake of his head. “I hated him for it. All this time, I hated him. And I can’t take it back.”

“Maybe you can’t take it back,” I said, thinking of all the anger I’d felt toward my father since I discovered who he really was. What he’d done. “But maybe it’s not too late to stop hating him.”

Eric went back inside, and I walked to the foot of his driveway and looked down the street toward Jeremy’s house. He hadn’t been in school for the last two days. I’d assumed he’d ditched class to be with Anh at the hospital, but his car was parked in his driveway and it left me feeling uneasy. Jeremy was always
somewhere
after school, photographing a sports game or school event, or working on the school paper. I walked closer, shielding my eyes from the sun and finding the window to Jeremy’s room. His blinds were closed. I peeked inside the garage window, but his parents’ cars were gone.

Six months ago, I would have found the key under the rock in his flowerbed and let myself in, but the key he used to keep there for me was probably long gone now, and it felt strange knocking on Jeremy’s front door. No one answered. He probably didn’t want to see me. It had been stupid to think he would let me in anyway. I was almost at the end of the driveway when Jeremy’s bedroom window slid open.

“You’re the last person I expected to see.”

“You weren’t in school, and I . . .” I wasn’t really sure what else to say. I didn’t want to tell him about Eric’s father, it wasn’t my news to tell. “I guess I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Jeremy was quiet for a moment. “Use the key in the flowerbed.”

“The flowerbed? But I thought—” The window slammed shut. Before he could change his mind, I dug the fake rock out from under the shrubbery. The key inside it was old and scratched. It looked like the same one I’d always used.

I climbed the stairs to Jeremy’s room and found him staring out the window.

“I thought we agreed to change our locks. I even gave you a copy of my key. Why haven’t you changed yours?”

Jeremy’s voice sounded strange. Like he hadn’t used it for days. “I wasn’t going to. I knew he’d be angry. Instead, I stopped putting the key in the flowerbed, and I thought maybe that would be enough. But I wasn’t sleeping. I started worrying. What if someone had made a copy of my house key? Maybe that’s how he got in to your trailer? By coming in and swiping your key from my dad’s office? And if that’s what happened, what’s to stop him from doing it again? And I was worried about . . .” He took a deep tremulous breath. “I was worried. So a couple days ago I told my dad about the key in the flowerbed. I told him I thought someone was using it to get into the house.”

I didn’t like that Jeremy wouldn’t look at me. That he wouldn’t turn around. “What happened?”

“He was furious.”

I walked slowly to Jeremy’s side. Green and golden bruises covered his arms. The bridge of his nose was scratched and swollen. There was a dent in his glasses.

Anger boiled up inside me. “Why do you let him do this to you, Jeremy? Why don’t you stand up for yourself!”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to hit him back! I want you to defend yourself!”

Jeremy grew quiet and lowered his eyes to the floor. “Do you remember that day back in June, in the hallway at school when we were arguing?”

“I remember,” I said. Jeremy had stopped taking his prescription medications, and had been experimenting with street drugs. It had been the only time in my life I had ever been afraid of him.

“I said terrible things to hurt you. I shoved you. I wanted to hit you. And I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”

I cringed at the memory of his face and the tone of his voice. I’d hardly recognized him that day. “It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “You weren’t yourself.”

“Because I was him!” There were tears in Jeremy’s eyes. “I was my dad! There’s a piece of him inside me. It’s always been inside me! And I have to keep pushing it away so I don’t become someone like him!”

I wanted to tell him that would never happen. That he would never be like his father. But I wasn’t so sure either of us had a choice.

He stared out the window. “I can suck it up and take it for one more year. Then I’ll be gone and I can forget he ever existed.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wanting to touch him, but too afraid of what I might feel.

“It’s not your fault,” he said quietly.

A tear welled in my eye and I blinked it away, certain that if I let one escape, the rest would all follow. I held out his old house key. Our fingers brushed, and it wasn’t so bad. Sweet and familiar. Like maybe we were finally okay.

“I don’t get it,” I said, wiping my eyes. “If your dad knows about the break-in, why is the key outside again?”

“He refuses to change the locks. He’s determined to catch the guy and turn him in.” Jeremy picked a box off his bed and tossed it to me.

Do-It-Yourself Home Security Kit? “This is his answer? A nanny spy cam?”