“Okay, so now please try to follow me,” Peterson said. “You sent Danielle those letters for what you say are stupid reasons. Jealousy, maybe? Or maybe you just straight up don’t like her. Honestly, I don’t care. And now that you’ve admitted it, it’s not an issue. However…part of my job is to try to find threads in things. And if you knew Chloe and Danielle Fine’s mother—Gale Fine—and sent these messages to Danielle seventeen years later, it makes me wonder why.

  “You see, we’ve now discovered that it’s a well-trod theory that Aiden Fine was having at least one affair. And while no one ever came forward with one, someone that maybe spent routine time with his wife, learning about him and his schedule…”

  “Absolutely not,” Ruthanne said. She said it quickly but with a bit of shock, but still Chloe wasn’t sure she was telling the truth.

  “Okay, I believe you,” he said, though Chloe wasn’t sure he did. “Do you happen to remember where you were on the day Gale Fine was killed?”

  “I was at home. I remember getting the call, but I don’t remember who it was. I heard that she had been killed, that he was on his way to prison, and the girls were sent off to their grandparents.”

  “Let me ask you this, then,” Peterson said. “All of this happened in Pinecrest. Their deaths, the girls being carted off to the grandparents’…and your friendship with their mother. How long have you lived in Pinecrest?”

  “I’ve been here for years,” she said. “I moved from Boston to Pinecrest with my first husband. When we divorced, I nearly moved to Baltimore. But I met a man during my hunt for a house and he lived in Pinecrest. We got married and bought a house in Pinecrest so I stayed put.”

  “But you and your husband…your second husband, that is, are no longer together, correct?”

  “Right. We divorced last year. He moved to Texas and left me the house.”

  “Is that when you started sending the notes to Danielle Fine?”

  Ruthanne shook her head. “This was about six months ago when I started doing that.”

  “And you still don’t have a good reason?”

  “No.”

  She’s lying, Chloe thought.

  On the other side of the glass, Peterson got up and looked down at her. “Let me check on a few things,” he said. “I think I can get you away from all of this with just a slap on the wrist in terms of the letters. Hang tight, okay? I’ll have you out of here as soon as I can.”

  The relief in her face was so clear that it was jarring. She’s hiding something, Chloe thought.

  Peterson left the interrogation room and came into the little observation area. He joined Chloe and Greene, staring at Ruthanne through the glass.

  “So,” he said. “She’s lying her ass off. I just can’t tell about what.”

  “She knows more than she’s letting on,” Chloe said.

  “She does,” Peterson said.

  “It also makes me think that maybe she knew your father better than she’s letting on,” Green said. “That or your grandparents.”

  “What if she really knows what happened to my mother?” Chloe asked. “She could have the answers to the whole thing…”

  Greene made a startled motion as his cell phone buzzed inside of his pocket. He took it out and read the text message that had just come through.

  “Maybe she does,” Greene said. “We can start looking for ourselves if you want. I just got a notice that we’ve got a search warrant for her house approved.”

  Chloe looked at the harmless-looking woman on the other side of the glass. She barely remembered the woman from her childhood, but she could remember sitting in front of her TV with Danielle.

  Had Ruthanne been keeping secrets even then?

  Chloe felt a little sneer come to her face as she started for the door. Green quickly thanked Peterson for his hard work and then followed her out. Chloe wasn’t sure but she thought he seemed as if he was now just as anxious to get to the bottom of it all as she was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  They walked up Ruthanne’s porch steps under the cover of night as the late summer evening chewed through its last bit of evening light. It glowed like an angry strip of red along the horizon. Chloe watched as Greene expertly picked both the key lock and the dead bolt. It took him less than twenty seconds and then they were stepping inside Ruthanne’s house.

  The place was meticulously cleaned and smelled like a mixture of lemon and vanilla. It was one of the smaller houses on the street but the inside was still quite beautiful. The front door opened into a small foyer with high ceilings. This took them into an alcove where a right-hand turn would take them into the kitchen and a left-hand turn would lead into the living room.

  Chloe stayed with Greene, not quite sure what they were looking for just yet. If she knows the truth about Mom, what form would that truth take? If it’s something more than just firsthand knowledge, what else would she have?

  “Can you think of anything your mother might have given this woman while they were friends?” Greene asked.

  “No. I really barely even remember her at all.”

  “So based on what we know and what we anticipate, what do you think we should be looking for?”

  “If we want immediate answers, I don’t know,” she said. “If we can find a laptop, I think we need to take it. Maybe there are documents or receipts or…I don’t know. Something. Or maybe we could get into her emails. Her phone would be the best bet, but she had that on her at the station.”

  “I’m going to give you ten minutes to look the place over,” Greene said. With that, he took out his phone and started scrolling through his contacts. “In the meantime, I’m going to call Peterson and see what they can do to get her phone from her. We’d basically have to charge her with something at that point, though. And at this stage, that will be tough.”

  Chloe again found herself appreciating the lengths Greene was going to allow her to learn unhindered. But at the same time, she was very aware of each and every step she made through Ruthanne’s house as she started her search. She scanned the living room and did see a laptop sitting on the edge of a walnut coffee table. She figured it was worth a try, so she opened it up but was presented with a password screen. Frowning, Chloe left it and headed further into the living room.

  She came to a small hallway that contained only a coat closet, a bathroom, and the staircase to the second floor. The stairway brought her to another hallway. This one contained another bathroom and two bedrooms. The first bedroom was rather small and was filled with boxes. Chloe checked the boxes and found an assortment of things that made her wonder if Ruthanne had considered moving away from Pinecrest recently. There were books, a spare coffeemaker, unopened packs of toilet paper, tampons, Q-tips, and other toiletries. There were also several boxes of clothes that had been packed up.

  Chloe left this makeshift storage room and walked into the other bedroom. This was the master, as immaculately cleaned as the rest of the house. A queen-sized bed sat in the center of the room, against the far wall. Pushed into the right corner of the room was a small desk. An iPad and a few books sat on the top of it. Off to the side, there was a small organization cube, the type that helped to sort letters, paper, correspondence, and so forth.

  Chloe found the exact same kind of envelopes and little golden seals that had been used to deliver the notes to Danielle. She thumbed through them, wondering if maybe she pre-wrote the letters. But all she found were blank pages.

  A small ornate filing cabinet sat beneath the desk. It was the kind of thing that looked like it was more for decoration than serving an actual purpose, made of wicker and frilly bronze knobs. It was no larger than two feet high, fitting perfectly beneath the desk. Chloe dropped to her knees and pulled out the first of the two drawers. There were a few scattered pictures, some showing Ruthanne with a man whom Chloe assumed was one of her husbands. Judging by the clothes, she supposed they were no older than ten years old.

  In the back of the drawer, she found a battered-looking photo album, the collectible kind that only held one or two a page.

  She opened it up and nearly dropped it.

  There was a picture of her parents in the first sleeve. Her mother was grinning widely while her father gave her a kiss on the cheek. With trembling fingers, Chloe turned the page. This time the picture was just her father. He was looking away from the camera, his gaze following that of a young girl…

  That’s either me or Danielle, she thought. She’d seen enough of their childhood pictures to recognize the frizzy blonde hair.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  She kept turning and saw three more pictures of her family. Her mother was only in one more of them. The focal point of the pictures was undoubtedly her father.

  She turned yet another page and it was like jumping forward in time. She saw her father again, but he was older. His hair was graying and his eyes looked tired. More than that, this one appeared to be a selfie. There was a concrete wall behind him, scarred and cracked, likely the inside of a cell or some sort of resource room at his prison.

  He’s got to be at least forty in this picture, Chloe thought. Oh my God…this is recent. Very recent, maybe.

  There were two more recent pictures of her father. Each one was more jarring than the one before it. Chloe hated to admit it, but she had the intense urge to cry. Yes, she and Danielle had willingly made the decision to just pretend he no longer existed—but that had been after he had started to ignore them. To see him in the present, sending pictures of himself to someone they barely knew…it felt obscene.

  She came to the end of the album and instantly went to the bottom drawer. The only thing in it was an old cardboard keepsake box. It had a flimsy little decorative latch keeping it closed. She broke it off in her hurry to open the box.

  Inside, she found several folded sheets of paper. But sitting on top of them all was a phone. It was an iPhone, about two models behind the most recent. Taking a chance, she tried to power it on. She waited until the Apple logo came on, the loading bar starting to fill beneath it.

  While she waited, she took one of the folded pieces of paper at random. She unfolded it and found a right-leaning script that had made up a letter that occupied about half a page. She barely even scanned the letter itself. She went straight to the salutation.

  A little cry of sadness rose out of her throat when she saw her father’s name.

  ***

  “Agent Greene!”

  She called his name, not giving a damn that her voice was thick with emotion and that she was on the verge of crying.

  “Coming!” he said. He sounded concerned, as did his footfalls as she listened to them coming up the stairs.

  While she waited for him, she looked at another of the letters. Without counting, she supposed there were at least twenty in all. She scanned this letter a little more closely before coming to her father’s name again. Some of the words she saw included: never loved her, soulmate, anything for you, be together again soon and deepest love.

  She wanted to tear the letter to shreds. She might have done just that if Greene had not come into the room in that moment.

  “What is it?” he asked, his hand hovering over his sidearm. She supposed her voice had been rather alarming.

  “She was having an affair with him. It’s here…in these letters. I don’t know how far it goes back, but some of this paper looks old and worn. And then there’s this,” she said, sliding the photo album his way. “There are pictures of our family in here and…and recent pictures of my dad.”

  “What about this?” Greene asked, picking up the old iPhone.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  The phone had fully booted up, allowing Greene to look it over. He went to Pictures and found the gallery empty. He then checked for texts but found not a single one. But when he checked the call history, he found pay dirt. He showed the screen to Chloe. She observed the six listings, noting that they were all made to the same number.

  “You recognize this number?” Greene asked.

  “No. But they’re all made on the same day…on Tuesday of this week.”

  “The day Martin Shields was killed,” Greene said, finishing her thought for her.

  Without another word, Greene instantly pulled out his phone and made a call. Chloe only half listened as she picked up another letter and read it. This time, she read it word for word.

  Ruthie,

  It was good seeing you last week, even it if was through the dirty glass. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you still come all the way out here to see me. But just think…another year or two and there will be no more waiting. No more long trips. I’ll be with you all the time.

  I think of you all the time. It makes the nights longer, but that’s okay. You’re the only reason I have to even look forward to getting out. Two years…two measly years. You can wait that long for me, right? I hope so.

  Write me back when you can. And if it’s not asking too much, could you send another of your “special” pictures? Maybe something with black lace this time?

  Yours,

  Aiden

  There was too much in the letter to process. For starters…two years. What about two years? She was pretty sure she knew what it meant but…how?

  Greene had gotten off the phone. Distantly, Chloe was aware that he had called someone at the bureau to trace down the owner of the number they had found on the stow-away phone.

  “Find something?” he asked.

  She nodded and handed him the letter she had just read. “Can you make a call and find out what my father’s status is? I haven’t cared for so long…I just figured he’d rot in prison. Was that naïve of me?”

  “I don’t know enough about the case to say for sure,” Greene said as he scanned through the letter. “Jesus, Chloe…this is rough. I’m sorry you’re uncovering all of this.”

  “I’m not,” she said, meaning it. She was, however, finding it very hard to imagine telling Danielle everything she had discovered during the course of this day.

  When Greene’s phone rang, it startled them both. He looked at the display and said, “They must have a name for that number already.”

  He answered it and Chloe waited patiently, listening to only Greene’s side of the conversation.

  “That was quick…yeah.” A pause and then, very slowly, Greene added: “Can you please repeat that?…Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

  He killed the call and looked gravely at Chloe. “Pick up those letters and anything else you found. We’re taking them to her as proof. This thing just blew up on her.”

  “Why?” Chloe asked. “Greene…whose number is that in the phone?”

  He smiled, as if he couldn’t believe their luck. “It appears that Ruthanne Carwile has been using that old phone to call Alan Short.”

  It took a full second for the name to register. Alan Short—the man who had somehow gotten some of his blood under Martin’s fingernails.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “It’s enough for a conspiracy charge,” Greene said. “And if we push hard enough, probably enough to free your sister.”

  Danielle, Chloe thought, again sickened by the fact that she was going to have to relay all of this information to her.

  But first there was Ruthanne to deal with. And truth be told, Chloe couldn’t wait to see the look on that bitch’s face when she plopped these letters and pictures down in front of her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Earlier, Chloe thought Ruthanne had looked like a scared dog inside the interrogation room. But now, as she was forced to watch things unfold from the other side of the glass again, it was Chloe who felt like a dog. Only she imagined this might be what a dog felt like when it was chained to a post and really wanted to get after the maimed rabbit at the edge of the yard, wanting to tear its throat out.

  It was made worse by the fact that she was in the observation room alone. Greene had joined Peterson in the interrogation room. As she watched, both men stood on the opposite side of the table from Ruthanne. Greene held a manila envelope under his arm. Ruthanne had noticed it and couldn’t seem to take her eyes away from it.

  Peterson wasted no time with pleasantries this time. He leaned over the table, closing the space between them significantly.

  “I’m going to ask you this last time…and I want you to think long and hard about your answer,” he said. “Were you at any point in the last twenty years or so involved in an affair with Aiden Fine?”

  Ruthanne was not able to answer. Her lips were trembling and she kept staring at the envelope. Seeing it, Chloe was pretty sure Ruthanne knew what they had found. Slowly, she nodded her head.

  Greene opened the folder and pulled the contents out. He spread the letters out on the table. He even pulled the small photo album out of the folder and placed that in front of her as well.

  “These are all addressed to a woman named Ruthie,” Greene said. “I assume that is a nickname for Ruthanne. If I am wrong, please correct me.”

  Again, Ruthanne shook her head. “They’re written to me.”

  “How long have you been keeping in touch with him?” Greene asked.

  “Ten years or so,” Ruthanne said. She took a moment and managed to stave off the emotional breakdown that she had seemed to be on the brink of having. She was finally able to look at Greene and Peterson. Now that she had been found out, she looked almost relieved. She sank into the chair and looked at them both with a sleepy sort of interest.

  “How about the affair? When was that taking place?”

  “For about eight months before…”

  “Before what?” Peterson asked. “Before Gale Fine was murdered?”

  “Yes,” Ruthanne said, the word coming out of her mouth like venom.

  “So we’ve learned that you were indeed involved with Aiden Fine,” Peterson said. “Is there anything else you want to admit to?”

 

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