“You said this new blood sample proves someone else was involved,” he said quietly. “Until I hear otherwise, she could have still been responsible. She could still be a murderer.”

  “You want her to be, don’t you? Then it’ll get her out of your hair. And your mother’s.”

  “You sound insane,” he said, his voice still low and calm now. “And you know what? My folks have been trying to get me to see it for a while now.”

  “See what, Steven?”

  “Your loyalty to your sister, no matter what. I know you two have been through some shit, but this is crazy. And Chloe…maybe this is a mistake. The engagement, the wedding. They were right, I think…we’re not right for each other.”

  “Because I am loyal to my sister?” she asked. She wasn’t hurt so much as she was confused and livid.

  “Because there’s just too much baggage there. And yes…partly because you’ll constantly choose your delusional sister over me. And if that’s the way it’s going to be during our marriage, I want no part of it.”

  So it’s finally come to this, Chloe thought. He’s essentially asking me to choose between him and Danielle.

  She loved him. She had no qualms with admitting that.

  But there was an image of her sister, nearly catatonic while she sat on those apartment steps with a cop by their side. She remembered that day clearly and knew that no matter what life dealt them, she would always see her sister as that little girl. And she would do everything she could do protect her.

  “I’m sorry, Steven,” she said. “I’m not going to cut Danielle out of my life.”

  Without missing a beat, Steven said: “Then the wedding is off.”

  With that, he turned his back and headed for the door. There was no goodbye kiss, no hug, and barely even any eye contact. He went straight for the door and slammed it hard when he made his way out.

  Chloe stood there, dumfounded. Her day had gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in less than ten minutes. And all she was left with was this big house, now empty except for her. She looked slowly around the living room, taking in the absurdity of it all, before sinking to her knees and crying.

  She was no stranger to weeping; she’d done plenty of it in the weeks following her mother’s death and then again at the age of seventeen when the sense of not having a mother had really started to sink in as she ventured into the college years. But this weeping was some something new, something physically painful that seemed to grow inside of her stomach.

  She wept on the couch, wanting to stop and get control but also knowing that it would be best to just let it all out. And when she thought of Danielle and the impossible situation she was in, she cried even harder—a sound that came back to her in small echoes that the large house sent right back to her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Sleep was incredibly fragmented that night. There were some moments where the knowledge that Danielle would be freed tomorrow had her excited and unable to sleep. Then another minute would pass and she would start to feel the weight of Steven leaving her all over again. It was a bold move and since Steven was not known for bold moves, she fully expected him to return at some point that night.

  But he never showed up.

  At some point, she managed to fall into something similar to a deep sleep but it did not last long. She received a text message at 5:35. She retrieved her phone from the bedside table without having much time to ruminate on the empty side of the bed behind her. With sleep-blurred eyes, she saw Greene’s name on the display. The message read:

  Paperwork will be approved by 8 this morning. We’ve already started getting things approved for you to be there to pick her up. Beware…the media will be there, too. I’ll be there to assist.

  With this news, any further sleep was out of the question. She got out of bed, put the coffee on, and took a shower while it percolated. After getting dressed and grabbing a quick breakfast of toast and oatmeal, she headed out. She figured she’d get there a little earlier than eight but she honestly wasn’t too worried about that.

  When she stepped out of her front door, there were several cars and two news vans parked on the side of the street. As she hurried to her car, the news crews also hurried forward. They came across the lawn as if they owned the place, their cameras and microphones at the ready.

  “Are you absolutely certain your sister is innocent?” one reporter asked.

  “Are you afraid of how this turn of events might hurt your career if it turns out Danielle was involved in any way?” another asked.

  She cast her face toward the ground, refusing to even give them the privilege of filming her face. She got into her car and backed out quickly, nearly clipping a cameraman with the back end of her car.

  If they’re already at my house, she thought, it’s bound to be much worse at the jail.

  She drove quickly out of Lavender Hills, already spotting a few curious and nosy neighbors on their porches as the news vans gave chase. As she made it out of the neighborhood and onto the highway, she wondered if it was possible that any of her neighbors somehow already knew that Steven was gone.

  These neighbors of hers—the women in particular—seemed to have a knack for knowing certain things. Why would her private argument with her fiancé yesterday afternoon be any different?

  She couldn’t help but feel a little sting of guilt. Maybe she had been too demanding. Maybe her absolute refusal to listen to his side when she’d told him that Danielle was going to be staying at the house had been out of line. It was, after all, partly his house.

  But no…she refused to feel guilty. Steven and his parents had practically marked Danielle as a black sheep ever since she and Steven had started seriously dating. If that was the kind of people they were, maybe she really didn’t need Steven and that sort of negativity in her life.

  If she had to ride out this situation knowing that she had ultimately chosen her sister over a life with Steven, she was fine with that. It stung, but she could live with it and feel that she had made the right decision.

  That, of course, led her to thinking of how Danielle had gotten into this mess in the first place. Her dating Martin wasn’t all that peculiar, but the fact that someone had placed evidence pointing toward her on his body was.

  She knew that she had basically been told to stay off of the pending case—that more seasoned agents were handling it now. But she couldn’t help but wonder who Alan Short was and what his connection to Danielle might be. Perhaps Greene would stand true to his word and keep her updated. She had no reason to assume any different.

  It took her half an hour to get to Riverside Correctional. She arrived twenty minutes early but she thought that was for the best. When she arrived, the parking lot and the street were swarming with television newscasters—some local and some on a national level. She realized that the death of Martin Shields itself was not newsworthy. But when you threw in a car backed into a lake and the possibility of planted evidence, it became even juicier. And if the news was running with the Alan Short story, it would be almost headline worthy while Short was searched for.

  She toyed with the idea of simply sitting in her car and waiting for Greene to arrive but saw that it would do no good. Even before she had parked her car, reporters came rushing forward. Doing her best to outpace them, Chloe opened her car door and again walked with her head down.

  More questions came hurling toward her and this time she did respond. She kept repeating “No comment, no comment.” It was chilling and infuriating to hear so many people referring to her sister as a murderer. She had to make a great effort to not lash out at every misinformed question as the questions become more barbed the closer she got to the jail.

  Apparently, a good Samaritan cop saw what was happening on his way into the building. He came rushing over and stood in front of her with his arms splayed and led her through the growing melee of reporters and cameramen.

  “You will all back up and give Ms. Fine some room. Anyone even accidentally touches her, you’ll be looking at fines. Got it?”

  This pushed the tide of people back somewhat but not enough to make Chloe comfortable. She followed the cop to the building, where he ushered her in through the doors and into the front lobby. Once inside, she noticed that a few people were looking curiously at her—the receptionist, a few officers, a woman waiting in a chair in the lobby.

  “Agent Fine,” the cop said, “I’m Officer Wright. Sorry you had to deal with that.”

  “It is what it is,” she said, barely noticing that he had referred to her as Agent. “They were outside of my home, too.”

  “Jesus,” Wright said. “Anyway, I assume you’re here for your sister?”

  “I am.”

  “Let me see what I can do to get things rolling,” Wright said.

  Chloe spent the next ten minutes showing her badge to people and signing forms. As she was signing what she was told would be the last one while standing by a little kiosk that separated the central building from an expansive hallway, another officer came up beside her. Agent Greene was with him and he looked angry.

  “Damned vultures are roosting outside,” he said. “How did you make it in without cold-cocking one?”

  “Oh, it took some effort.”

  The uniformed officer who had given Chloe the last form looked it over, stamped it, and then nodded. “You’re good to go, Ms. Fine.”

  Chloe and Agent Greene were buzzed in through the door that led into the hallway. There was only one door along this hallway and as they stepped into the hall, it was opening. An armed guard walked out, ushering Danielle ahead of him.

  Her arms were not cuffed and she was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing when she had been brought in. It had only been two days but something about this seemed barbaric to Chloe.

  Danielle came quickly toward her and when she threw her arms around her, Chloe could hardly believe it. When she returned the embrace, Danielle felt as light as a feather. She was also trembling—maybe crying. Chloe wanted to know for sure but also did not want to embarrass Danielle, as she knew shows of emotion were not common for her.

  So she let it go and, for the moment, simply held her sister in her arms.

  And she knew in that moment that while she’d miss Steven for quite some time, she had absolutely made the right decision.

  ***

  The bureau had not seen the sense in devoting agents to escorting Chloe and Danielle back to Pinecrest. Instead, two cops tailed them into Pinecrest where they were then handed off to two Pinecrest PD patrol cars. Those patrol cars followed them into Lavender Hills and then parked alongside the curb outside of Chloe’s house. She pulled her own car into the driveway and parked, taking note of the news crews. There were more of them now—four from her count—but they seemed a little more hesitant to come after her with the cops’ cars parked in front of the house.

  The sisters hurried inside. Chloe could hear the clicking of phones and actual cameras as well as the murmurs of reporters as they made notes and spoke to television audiences.

  “When I was a teenager,” Danielle said, “I thought about learning to play the guitar. I figured I’d be a Liz Phair or Joan Jett or something. I thought it would be cool to have people with cameras following me around. I now realize what a stupid fucking dream that was.”

  Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. They sat down on the couch together and it was clear that they didn’t quite know how to behave around one another.

  “So, Steven left,” Chloe said as if she was commenting on the weather.

  “What? When?”

  “Last night. We had an argument and he left.”

  “Was it about me?”

  “Partly,” Chloe said.

  “Chloe, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. You want me to call him and explain—”

  “God, no! Honestly, it’s a blessing, I think. His parents are insufferable and treat him like Jesus Christ.”

  Danielle shrugged and sank into the couch. “I’m sad for you but I’d be lying if I said I’m going to miss him. So…no wedding?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. Turns out you won’t have to wear that bridesmaid dress after all.”

  “This day just keeps getting better and better,” Danielle said with a wry smile.

  Chloe got up and went into the kitchen to make them some lunch. As childish as it seemed, she used the mustard that Steven always claimed was his mustard on their sandwiches. As she put them together, Danielle turned the television on in the living room. She flipped through the channels, skimming the sorry excuse for early afternoon programming before settling on a local news program.

  They both froze for a moment when they saw footage of them exiting Riverside Correctional. Their heads were down as they were ushered out by four policemen. She saw Agent Greene bringing up the rear, shooting scouring glances at the reporters that trailed them. Danielle turned it up and they both listened to the report.

  “….says that while the evidence is fairly solid, new findings in the case indicate that other parties were involved. These new findings aren’t quite enough to exonerate Danielle Fine, but they are enough to apparently release her from custody. Officials are stating that the new findings are sensitive and not yet being fully revealed to the public due to the nature of the investigation. As for now, though, Danielle Fine remains the only suspect in the public’s eye. When asked for comment, Baltimore City PD stated that Fine has agreed to remain cooperative in regards to questioning and other details of the investigation. Here, we see her leaving Riverside with her sister, up-and-coming FBI agent Chloe Fine. We’ve recently discovered that these two sisters have been through quite a lot, possibly even having witnessed the death of their mother at the hands of their father. We can’t be—”

  “And screw you, too,” Danielle said, turning the television off. “I look like shit on TV.”

  “You haven’t slept in nearly two days,” Chloe pointed out. “Of course you’re going to look tired.”

  “But not guilty, hopefully.” She paused here as Chloe brought the sandwiches and some chips into the living room. “So what do you know about this Alan Short guy?”

  “Nothing. You?”

  “Same. And listen…I know you were just doing your job the whole time. And because of my idiot move of dropping that car in the lake, I know I looked guilty. It means a lot to me that you managed to look past that and not give up. It really does. No one has ever not given up on me, you know?”

  Chloe didn’t want to verbally confirm this, so she just nodded. “So, you don’t know Alan Short. But can you think of anyone who might want you framed for Martin’s death?”

  Danielle sighed and looked at her sandwich—anything not to meet Chloe’s eyes. “I don’t know any one person,” she replied. “But I should probably tell you about this one thing I’ve been keeping from you.”

  “What’s that?” Chloe asked, a little spike of fear piercing her heart. Of course, she was pretty sure she knew what was coming. She was so sure that she went ahead and answered her own question. “Are you talking about those letters?”

  “Yeah. And by the way, how did you say you found them?” Danielle asked.

  “I went by your apartment after they arrested you. I wanted to see if I could find anything to free you. These letters…if there’s even a remote chance that Alan Short wrote them—hell, even if there isn’t a chance he wrote them—I feel like we need to submit them as evidence.”

  “You saw them all, right?” Danielle asked. “One of them says that if I go to anyone about them, they’d kill me. And now, after Martin turns up dead, I believe it more than ever. That last one…Kill him or I will. The ‘him’ was Martin, right?”

  “We have no way of knowing that for sure.”

  “Seems a little wonky if it’s not. The timing adds it all up as far as I’m concerned.”

  “When did you get the first one?” Chloe asked.

  “About six months ago.”

  “And they’d just show up at random times?”

  “Seemed like it,” Danielle answered. “I’ve tried going back over my schedule for those six months to see if I could have done something to piss someone off. The worst I could come up with was turning men down at the bar.”

  “Well, what about less troublesome things? Have you gotten involved with new friends or people at work?”

  “No. I don’t have the patience for making friends, really. Although—funny enough, you’ll love this—I did look into doing a book group.”

  “Did you join?”

  “No. But it’s pretty cool. I was looking through a few of things I had from Mom and found this book she had. Different Seasons by Stephen King. There was a little note inside of it with Mom’s handwriting. They were reading it for a book club she was part of, right here in Pinecrest. I called the library and asked if they still did a book club and they said they did. So based on that, I almost joined. I even asked if there was any way to look into who might have been past members. I told them I was just doing some digging into my mother’s history…and that was the truth, as dumb as it sounds. Just to know there was a book club she once belonged to, you know? Remember how she loved to read?”

  “I do.”

  “Anyway, they said they had records of sign-up sheets but nothing any farther back than 2002.”

  “But you’ve got notes that prove that Mom was part of this book club?” Chloe asked.

  “Yeah. But then the threatening notes started coming and I got a little distracted. I just never even thought about joining again.”

  “Any idea how much time passed between the call to the library and the notes showing up?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Two weeks? Maybe three.”

  There was a lackluster tone in her voice that made Chloe want to cringe. Danielle looked tired and, despite being recently freed from prison, infinitely sad. Chloe recognized the signs of depression from Danielle’s earlier years.

  God, we can’t go back to that, she thought.

  “And what did you say about the timing adding it all up for you?” Chloe asked with a bit of sarcasm.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21