“I think there’s a very good chance of it, yes. But until we get confirmation that his Marie is our Marie, we can’t really operate under that assumption. I will say that it doesn’t explain why he was so pissy when we knocked on his door.”

  Jack shrugged. “Could be that he was just rattled and filled with nerves about meeting this mysterious person that claimed to be part of his family.”

  “Maybe,” Rachel said. She made a mental note to ask Brent about this if she spoke to him again.

  “Then let’s get on that right now,” Jack said, pulling out his phone. “If it turns out Brent Teller is the next planned victim, then maybe we can use the killer’s tactics on them … maybe we can make them to come to us.”

  “Also,” Rachel said as Jack scrolled to Clint’s number on his phone, “if this woman claiming to be Brent’s family really is family, there might be something in the family records there too.”

  Feeling that the case was on the verge of breaking wide open, they hurried to the next interrogation room over for privacy. She was so focused on the endgame in their sights that in all of the excitement, Rachel just barely noticed the little flickers of light at the edges of her vision.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Rachel retrieved the laptop they’d been loaned the first time they’d come to the building, and by the time she had it back in their vacant interrogation room, Jack had already formally made the request for an extended family search based on Delores Callahan. As for Rachel, she’d come up with multiple other avenues to search based on the information they’d retrieved from Brent Teller. There were a lot of things to look into—all of which seemed small on the surface but could lead to a potentially huge twist in the case.

  As she once again pulled up the records from long ago—the ones with the big, blank space in them as a result, Jack looked over his shoulder while waiting for his results.

  “What are you looking into?”

  “Well, if you remember, the woman at the administration office at the hospital told me that there was a small team working to fill in the holes left by that section of missing time from when all the records went missing. Rather than assume we’re out of luck, I’m wondering if there’s a hierarchy to it all. We’re talking about a woman’s death from what should have been a simple surgery, right? So, I wonder if that might take priority when it comes to recovering everything—if it can be recovered. It’s sort of like doing a search with hashtags.”

  “Good thinking. Deaths, birth records … you’d think all of that would be backed up and sought out first in a case like that.”

  “I’ll look over all of this if you want to go over and prod at Teller to see if he can remember anything else. We need to get his alibis for the last few nights too.”

  “Yeah, I’m on it. But I’m coming right back over here whenever Clint gets back to me with those family records.”

  He surprised her by kissing her on the cheek on his way out. She smiled as she scanned over the material, no longer able to ignore the small, occasional, flickering lights at the edges of her vision. There was no pain, and it really wasn’t hindering her eyesight, but she thought it was safe to assume it had something to do with the tumor.

  She allowed the creeping fear of this to remain as she looked through the records. The dates in question—the dates Delores Callahan had been in the hospital leading up to her death—were scant. And some cases, though, it was evident that the files had been replaced. Some were photocopies of handwritten notes in an effort to get some sort of record down, and others were basic typed up reports, all in different formats and styles. So, while it was easy to locate the inserted files, there was still a bit of searching to do.

  However, when she ran a search for gallstones, she was surprised to find a direct hit. She didn’t think gallstone surgery would have come up as high priority, but there it was. There was only one single report from the time period in question, and she wasn’t surprised to see that the name attached to it was Delores Callahan. She supposed that made sense, seeing as how the gallstone surgery had allegedly been the cause of her death.

  However, as she looked over the records, the entire case tilted. She could feel the trajectory of it change completely.

  The time of the surgery was listed as having gotten underway at 11:10 in the morning. The surgery had ended at 12:20 and, according to the records, was a success. Three gallstones had been removed, the largest of which had been 1.75 millimeters. At the end of the report, there was even a note that indicated Delores Callahan had been returned to her room.

  She continued to read, and line by line, more revelations were uncovered. As her eyes fell over the following line, her heart seemed to freeze. She barely had time to process what she was reading before Jack came in.

  He was staring at his phone when he walked through the door, a tight smile on his face. “Clint came through again,” he said, barely looking up at her. “I’ve got a set of family records right here.”

  Rachel looked up to him, anxious to share what she’d found, feeling that it was going to blow the case apart. But she also sensed that Clint had delivered something worth sharing, something that had Jack lighting up as he sat down across from her.

  “Right here,” he said, putting his phone on the table and spinning it around so that she could read it. “Delores Callahan, daughter of Ruth and Barney, had five siblings: Charles, Bob, Nick, Frances, and … Marie. Marie married a man by the name of Robbie Brooks at the age of twenty. And that’s our link.”

  A spark of excitement passed through her, made all the more powerful by the weight of the detail she’d just read.

  “Well, hold on to that link … and hold on tight,” she said. “Because according to records I just found, it turns out that it wasn’t the gallstone surgery that killed Delores, though it might have been a contributing factor.”

  “What killed her, then?”

  This time, it was Rachel who turned a screen. She set the laptop screen in front of Jack and watched his face light up seconds later. “Holy shit,” he said. “Do you think Brent knows?”

  “No clue. Let’s go ask.”

  She took the laptop with her as she and Jack left the room and returned to Brent Teller’s interrogation room. Rachel noted that he still looked worried, but she was now almost positive they were looking at the killer’s potential fourth victim rather than the actual killer.

  “Brent, you were told your mother died as the result of her gallstone surgery, right?” Rachel asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the story.”

  “And how old were you?”

  “I was fifteen years old.”

  “And at that age … do you recall anything about your mother being pregnant?”

  He looked at them with confused, alarmed eyes. It was the look of a man that thought someone was playing a prank on him, but he couldn’t quite be sure. He cocked his head thoughtfully and then shook it slowly.

  “No … no, I don’t recall that. I think … I think maybe Mom thought she might want another one, but her and Dad … they never got along, so I don’t think it went anywhere, you know? I mean, if she did get pregnant, I never knew. But ... wait … wait, does that mean …?”

  He seemed legitimately confused and shocked. Rachel could tell that he wasn’t sure what to say, so she thought she’d fill in the blanks for him. She sat down in the single chair on their side of the table and set the laptop down, the screen facing him.

  “In the last fifteen minutes, I’ve come across these previously missing records, concerning your mother’s hospital stay. Initially, we were told that she’d died as the result of a surgery to remove gallstones. But the records indicate the surgery went perfectly fine. But if you keep reading, there were other complications once she was returned to her room. These records aren’t exactly complete because of issues with file transfer from physical to digital and an untimely fire, but the story is easy to follow. Your mother—”

  But Brent picked it up from there, leaning forward slightly and reading from the records on the screen. “She went to the hospital because she was pregnant and complaining of severe stomach pains. They found gallstones and had surgery to remove them, but … but, during recovery, something happened with the baby, and they had to deliver early—Jesus, seven weeks early. A C-section was performed … the baby was taken care of and placed in NICU and then she …”

  He trailed off here, and Rachel knew why. The record indicated even after the gallstone surgery had been considered successful, that she’d died of the procedure, rather than childbirth. There was also no record of a baby born that day with the last name Callahan or Teller. There, was however, a recorded birth for a Jane Doe. The birth record was filed just three minutes before the death of Delores Callahan.

  “She … she didn’t want my dad to know,” Brent said. “She must have known she was going to die … the doctors must have told her.”

  “That’s what I’m assuming. But I also know there are rules and laws about that sort of thing. For a doctor to lie about that … to mess with records and paperwork … it would be messy. And because the doctor and his assistant are both dead, we can’t ask. The fact that the records themselves are sort of a mess doesn’t help, either.”

  And even as she spoke it aloud, she began to get a better shape for not just the case, but perhaps the killer’s motives as well. Perhaps the killer knew about the way the records were handled. Perhaps they knew that there was some sort of devious plan to create such trickery. And based on what they knew so far, she assumed the killer had to be one of two people. The first, of course, was the jilted husband—the husband who may have found out about what had truly happened to his child after Delores had died. And because the courts had never picked up the case, it might have given him that extra push.

  But that didn’t quite make sense based on what Brent had told them.

  Also, what about the records? She knew full well that, sometimes, coincidences did indeed happen. And though the window of time that was affected by the missing records was a few years and not just the week or month they were interested in, something did feel a bit too convenient there. She wondered if there was manipulation from the hospital’s end for some reason. It seemed almost a bit too conspiratorial, but she knew it had to be considered.

  “Mr. Teller,” Rachel said, “can you tell us anything about this woman that called you?”

  “Not really. She was just … she sounded very sad when she told me she was trying to find information on her family.”

  “Did she sound young or old?” Jack asked.

  “On the younger side, I believe. Surely no older than forty or so.”

  “And she was going to meet you today?”

  “Yes.”

  Rachel thought things over. She knew what she wanted to do, what they needed to do. But without certain permissions, they’d be breaking a few laws. In the moment, though, she didn’t care.

  She looked to Jack and said, “How are your acting skills?”

  He apparently knew where she was headed with this. He looked to Brent and gave a tiny shrug. “Good enough to play Mr. Teller, I think.”

  “What?” Brent said. “No, I don’t … you really think she intends to kill me?”

  “I think there’s a good chance of that, yes,” Rachel said.

  “Well, she knows what I look like because of Facebook.” He seemed to think very long and hard about something and then took turns looking each of them in the eyes. “If you really think this woman is a killer and … and if she’s coming to look for me … I think it should be me. I think I have to be the one to lure her. If we throw it off with you,” he said, nodding to Jack, “it could screw it all up, right?”

  Jack sighed and crossed his arms. “He’s right. I mean, I don’t like the idea, but he’s right.”

  Rachel nodded and said, “You’ll have to sign some forms and a waiver,” Rachel said. She didn’t like the idea at all, either. But she also knew it would be the smartest move. Not the safest by any means, but the smartest.

  “Mr. Teller, I need you to come with us. We’ll have you sign some papers and then we’re going to have you meet with this woman after all. But we’ll be waiting too.”

  “Why are there papers to sign? I just said I’m okay with it.”

  “Because you’re putting your life in danger. And you’ll also be accompanying agents on an active case.”

  “I just can’t see anyone wanting to kill me,” he said. “I know it sounds conceited, but I just don’t get it.”

  Rachel said nothing in response to this as Jack helped Brent out of his chair, but she couldn’t help but wonder how different Brent’s reaction would be if he knew that the woman that was planning to kill him might very well be his biological sister.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  She felt a delicious sense of danger as she walked right by the police station. After everything she’d done, after the way the last five days had played out, walking by the building felt very much like tempting fate.

  Today had been interesting, though. Jane was quite sure her next victim was inside. She’d seen him go in but had not yet seen him come out. It was ironic, she thought, that they had taken him in, thinking he was the killer. It wasn’t something she’d intended to do when she’d set out to do her work, but it was entertaining. Yes, it slowed down her overall plan, and she found herself simply biding her time, but there was a thrilling sort of irony to it.

  Careful not to take her attention off the police station, she crossed the street and made her way to the northern rim of it. The station was located in a mostly municipal part of town, meaning that there wasn’t much to do to occupy her time while she waited for her next victim to be released. She had no idea how long it would take for the police to figure out they had the wrong person. Truly, she had no idea how those things typically progressed. Would they need to check his alibi? Maybe check his records, maybe take some DNA samples?

  She didn’t know.

  What she did know was that she’d look very suspicious just lurking around the police station. People came in and out of it, but she had yet to see anyone just sort of sulking by and checking the place out as if it were some sort of landmark or monument.

  Because of this, Jane was quite excited to see that there was a small café at the end of the block on the other side of the street. As she drew closer, she saw that it wasn’t a café at all, but a strange sort of Asian fusion dive. She went in, taking a quick glance out at the police station as she did so, making sure not to miss him if he came out.

  Wanting to fully play the part, she hurried to the counter by the front, a small space set-up off to the side of the rest of the diner where a thin, beautiful, Asian woman took drink orders—mainly for tea and coffee. There was only one other person in line. She hid her impatience as she waited, and when it was her turn, she ordered a coconut boba tea and a spring roll. The service was quick; once she had her order in hand, she walked back outside and looked to the police station. A single cop and an older woman were coming out of the front door. Neither was the man she was looking for, and the cop wasn’t either of the pair that had taken her next victim in.

  She assumed they were some sort of federal agents or something. They certainly didn’t dress like plain old cops.

  Jane had seen enough cops in her day to know the difference. She’d seen cops, administrators of the state, social workers, therapists … you name it.

  She’d seen a lot in her twenty-six years, and now, she was looking for answers to all of it. And all of the answers she wanted revolved around her mother—a woman who had died shortly after giving birth to her. Not even birth—not really. No, she’d been cut out of her mother’s stomach … a fact she’d only discovered a few months ago.

  She felt as if she’d spent the past six years consistently learning new things—not just about how the world worked but about her past. She started to sort through it all as she found a spot on a small bench in front of the Asian fusion place. Jane sipped on her tea, kept her eyes on the police station, and allowed not only the last six years, but every stinking day before that roll through her head like a reel of old, over-exposed film.

  She remembered little of it, but she knew she’d been passed around between three different homes in her first four years of life. When she was five, Jane had settled into a foster home that had seemed, at first, safe and secure. She’d liked the mother, the father had been fun and adventurous, and their older kid—a fifteen-year-old boy—had adored her. But when their son had died from a drug overdose at the age of sixteen, the family fell apart, and she was sent back into the system.

  The next family had seemed perfectly fine at first. But then, four months in, the father thought it was perfectly fine for him to bathe their then eight-year-old foster daughter. His sexual advances never turned into abuse or actual sex, but his hands seemed to have a mind of their own. More than that, both he and his wife seemed to have decided around the time Jane was ten years of age that they were more interested in having a servant than a child. And when she wasn’t serving them well enough, the mother would slap her. The husband had punched her twice: once when she’d backtalked about how clean the dishes needed to be, and again when she’d discovered him peeking through the door when she’d been changing clothes at the age of thirteen. When she’d confronted him, she’d received a stiff punch right to the ribs.

  She’d reported this to social services, and after five years with that family, she was once again bounced around from foster home to foster home. She’d spent most of her seventeenth year with an older family that had treated her nice—had treated her like they’d actually cared for her. They’d even tried to convince her to get a name change, thinking it sad that she’d simply asked to keep Jane from the Jane Doe listed on her birth certificate.

  But by then, she’d been too jilted and jaded by the system. And she’d also made a plan to go off on her own at the age of eighteen. She’d saved up more than eleven thousand dollars from part-time jobs, plus another three she’d stolen from the abusive couple, so getting a small apartment in the city of Farmville, Virginia, wasn’t all that hard.

 

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