What She Saw - 34

Sloane

I couldn’t sleep. I’d lain down about an hour ago and done nothing but toss and turn as the wind rustled through the trees. An owl hooted.

My tolerance for staring at ceilings was low. The more I willed sleep, the more elusive it became. I tossed back the covers and tugged on my T-shirt and jeans. I moved into the kitchen. Instead of putting a coffeepot on, I grabbed a ginger ale from the refrigerator.

Images of Fletcher’s family picture wall kept returning to me. It resembled a shrine more than a memory wall. But snapshots didn’t always tell the truth. Anyone could smile for a second or two and create the impression of happiness. I’d smiled for Sara whenever she pulled out her camera, which wasn’t often. The muscles in my face had strained as I said “Cheese” and counted the seconds until I heard the camera’s click.

Brian Fletcher had waited until after the press conference to report his daughter’s disappearance. I popped the top on the soda and sipped as I moved to the window. I stared into the darkness. “Why did you wait?”

Cradling the can, I snatched a packet of luncheon meats from the refrigerator and my keys. At the Jeep, I dumped my backpack in the front seat. I grabbed a flashlight from the glove box and searched under the wheel wells and bumpers. I found a tracker under the right rear bumper. “Grant, don’t you trust me?”

I pocketed the tracker. Engine started, I drove down the mountain as my headlights cut through the inky darkness. Gravel kicked under the tires as I skirted curves too fast. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I slowed at the stop sign but didn’t stop rolling.

The drive to the Fletcher house took thirty minutes. When I pulled into the quiet suburban neighborhood, I cut my headlights. I wasn’t the only night owl in this world, and I’d found in suburbia that when someone saw my headlights, they often called the cops. The Fletcher house was dark when I drove past it and around the corner. I parked across from a small park and retraced my steps back to the Fletcher house on foot.

I slipped through the gate and up to the sliding glass door. There were no signs indicating a security system, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one. I tried the back door and discovered it was open. No security system beeped a warning. Why didn’t everyone have an alarm and lock their doors?

Inside, I pushed past gauzy curtains and into the cool air-conditioned den. Using the light from the moon, I crossed to the wall of family photos. There were plenty of images of Tristan as a young teenager. And a few looked as if they’d been taken right before she’d vanished. She had a brilliant smile and an almost angelic face.

The years after her disappearance were stark. Dad, Mom, and little sister were all more sober and stiff. And then it was Dad and little sister. No more family vacations, no big smiles that touched the eyes. This progression was normal. The loss of a child and parent gutted families.

And then about twenty years ago, images of the sister appeared with another woman. She was blond, petite, and fit. I thought perhaps it was a life partner but discarded the thought. Both women had long, thin noses, high cheekbones, and square jaws. A cousin maybe?

I snapped several pictures of the sister and the other woman. I removed the picture from the wall and studied the second woman’s face. She and Tristan had to be closely related. I flipped it over. It read “Lannie and Susan, 2010.”

Paws padded down the hallway. Worried the dog would bark, I quickly removed the luncheon meat from my pocket and walked toward him.

“Hey, buddy,” I whispered.

He wagged his tail. Most people thought a dog was protection, but domestic dogs had accepted humans since the caveman days. This fellow was no different. I tore up the meat and laid it out in a line on the kitchen floor. It would buy me enough time to leave the house.

I slipped out the back door as the dog gobbled. I closed the door and crossed the backyard. The back fence squeaked, and as I closed the latch, a light in the upstairs bedroom clicked on. I wasn’t the only light sleeper.

I moved down the driveway and street as if I had every right to be there. I wasn’t sneaking around or up to trouble. I belonged here. Most people accepted almost anything I did, as long as I projected authority.

In my Jeep near the park, I didn’t study the images, because the longer I lingered, the greater my chance of being noticed. Headlights clicked on behind me. A glance in the rearview mirror told me it was a truck, but I couldn’t see the driver.

I didn’t panic but drove back toward Dawson, maintaining the speed limit. The second driver remained within fifty feet of me the entire time. It was almost 2:00 a.m. when I pulled into the Depot’s parking lot.

I waited in my car scrolling on my phone until Callie turned on the restaurant lights and began setting up for breakfast customers. Minutes before 5:00, she flipped the sign from closed to open.

I shut off my engine and retrieved my gun from my glove box. Instead of hurrying inside, I walked back toward the truck behind me. I was more curious than worried.

Grant sat behind the wheel as if all this were normal. He almost looked amused.

I reached in my backpack and held up a tracker. “This belong to you?”

He was nonplussed by my discovery. “You’re hard to keep up with otherwise.”

If I cared, I’d be annoyed. Or maybe flattered. But neither registered. “You going to stay out here, or do you want to get coffee?” I asked.

“Coffee.” He rose out of the truck.

I was tall for a woman, but he had me beat by five inches. I slipped the gun into my backpack and moved toward the diner. Inside, the scents of coffee and cinnamon pancakes greeted me. My appetite flickered but didn’t flame.

Callie filled mugs for us. “Toast?”

“Perfect,” I said.

“I’ll take the pancakes,” Grant said.

“Coming right up.”

The diner was too quiet to muffle my conversation with Grant. “What do you want?”

He sipped his coffee. “What did you see in the Fletcher house?”

“Why didn’t you try to stop me? Breaking and entering isn’t legal.”

“As long as you’re not setting fires, better to let your process play out.” He sipped his coffee. He’d been in law enforcement long enough to know how far to bend a rule. “I didn’t see you break into the house. The first time I saw you, you were crossing the front yard and headed to the street. That might be considered trespassing, but I’m not a cop anymore.”

Aware he waited for my answer, I shifted my focus to Callie and asked for a soda. When she set it in front of me, I took a long pull on the straw.

“What did you find?” he asked again.

I wasn’t sure what I’d seen and realized I wanted to talk it through. “I focused on the wall of family photos.”

“And?”

I opened the photos app on my phone. “Tristan’s younger sister, Lannie, was photographed with another woman about twenty years ago. This woman is either a first cousin or Tristan in 2010.”

“Tristan had been dead over fifteen years by 2010.”

“I know. So, a cousin.”

“Do you have a name for this cousin?”

“‘Lannie and Susan’ was written on the back of the image. I don’t have more than that.” I dragged my finger through the condensation on the side of the glass. “Brian Fletcher was the last of the four families to file a missing person report.”

“Lannie didn’t tell her parents that Tristan was at the festival. When Lannie did speak up, Brian filed his missing person report.”

“It makes sense. Kids lie to their parents,” I said. “I did my share.”

He arched a brow. “No. Really?”

“Shocking, I know.”

That teased a smile. “I have a twenty-two-year-old son. There were times when he used disinformation to his advantage.”

Grant was in his early forties. He’d been a young parent like Patty. “I don’t picture you chasing a kid.”

“I did my fair share. So did his mother. For the record, we divorced two years ago.”

I liked that he wasn’t attached. “Sorry to hear that.”

He shook his head. “She wanted a different life. It’s for the best.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Good.” I sipped my soda. “There was a lot of pressure on Taggart to solve this case. Word of missing women spread fast. This was a town where people didn’t lock their doors until the festival.”

“Within two weeks of the festival, Taggart arrested Colton.” That arrest had earned Taggart twenty-plus years’ worth of re-elections.

Callie returned with a plate of pancakes and one with toast. She set a fresh soda in front of me. I jabbed the straw into the floating crushed ice.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Soda and toast,” Grant said.

I always grabbed whatever sounded good. I chalked it up to the story. “My stomach often gets upset when I’m working.”

“It’s like this on every case?”

“Basically.”

The front door opened, and several guys walked in. The waitress grabbed menus and walked toward them. I shifted my attention to the toast. I covered a slice with strawberry jam. The first bite was amazing, but by the third, I was full.

I reached for my phone and opened a social media app. I searched Lannie Fletcher’s name. “The sister lives in Washington, DC, and works as an attorney. She’s now forty-seven, is unmarried, and has no children.”

As Grant sipped coffee, I opened Lannie’s profile. “She hasn’t posted a lot. Vacation pictures. Cabo. Sonoma. Hiking in southern France.”

“Who’s she hanging out with?”

“There was a dark-haired guy who was photographed with her a few years ago. But he’s vanished from her page in the last year.” I flipped through several years. In 2018 I found a picture of Lannie with Susan. The two were at a charity drive for missing kids held at the Dance Studio. The photographer had been about ten feet from the women. A death like Tristan’s rippled through an entire family.

Grant took the phone and, with a swipe of his fingers, expanded the pictures. “Lannie didn’t tag her, but she did tag the organization: Missing Children Found.” On his phone, he searched the group. “Five pages into the Missing Children Found site, there’s a photo of them. The tagline says Susan Westbrook.”

I searched Susan Westbrook on several social media sites but discovered no profiles. I searched the Dance Studio. It was in Arlington, Virginia. It had multiple five-star reviews.

“Susan doesn’t have any presence online. But the Dance Studio does.” I studied the image of Lannie and Susan, still wondering if the unknown woman was Tristan decades into the future. “Tristan Fletcher’s body was never found. Her high school ring was found in Colton’s barn with the other victims’ trinkets. Everyone assumed she’d died.”

“You think she’s alive?” He shook his head. “You’re stretching this one.”

“Why? Her body was never recovered.”

“This means she’s been in hiding for thirty-one years.”

“It was easier to vanish in 1994.”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you analyze the photo of Tristan Fletcher and Susan Westbrook and tell me if they’re the same person?”

“I can do that.”

“How long will it take?”

“A day. I still have friends who can push it through.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

Amusement brightened his dark gaze. “‘Thank you’? Where’s the real Sloane?”

“Body snatchers took her yesterday. I’m a simulation.”

He regarded me. “Good to know.”

His scrutiny was unsettling. He saw something in me. I had no idea what, and I wasn’t comfortable with it.

I shifted my focus back to the images of Susan and Tristan. Family genetics were powerful—Patty and I were living examples—but something about these two women set off red flags. My head was starting to pound. I needed a quiet place to process.

“Call me as soon as you have results,” I said.

“Will do.”

“See you soon.”

“Where are you going?”

I tossed fifteen bucks on the table. “DC.”

He grabbed my wrist. “Wait.”

It wasn’t an unbreakable grip. It was a suggestion. Take a pause. A comma in a sentence. So, I waited.