Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (red white royal blue TXT) 📗

that everybody awake is rubbernecking at my car cruising down the street. They’d know everybody in town, and every set of wheels on the road. I see a few lights coming on in houses as I glide past, and then I take two more turns and pull to a stop in front of the address for Sheryl Lansdowne. I don’t see another vehicle in the driveway. Lights are on inside, though, frosting the white curtains. It’s a nicer house than I expected. Bigger than the others.

I park and take a second to get ready. This is the unknown, whatever happens: either I find a person waiting who’s about to get a horrible shock, or I find something else that makes this whole puzzle clearer, or I find nothing at all. I’m tired, but I get my head clear. I have to.

The air outside is chilly but doesn’t have that oppressive stench the pond did, and I’m grateful. I take it down in gulps as I head up the path. The lawn’s a little overgrown, needs a good shape-up, but that’s not significant. I go to the front door and look for a bell. There isn’t one, so I knock—forceful, unhesitating knocks. No point being indecisive.

I hear a dog race toward the front, barking. Sounds like a small one, at least. I make a note in my book and put on evidence gloves before I even consider touching the doorknob. Evidentiary value of the outside doorknob isn’t much, though, so I go ahead and turn it.

Locked.

No other lights come on inside the house.

Just to be on the safe side, I knock again, louder and longer. There’s no response, though I can see lights flashing on in neighboring houses. I’m waking up the whole damn town. Great.

I head around the side, making my way carefully with the help of my flashlight, and sure enough, there’s a back door. It’s locked too. I see what I can through the curtains; nothing out of place except the clearly unhappy dog, who charges into the kitchen area and sends dry food flying when he kicks the bowl. He’s a little terrier of some kind, I think. Loyal, at least.

Whatever’s happened to her, Sheryl Lansdowne didn’t leave herself vulnerable here; plenty of rural folks leave windows open, doors unlocked, but she has this place secured. So why did she take her kids out there on the roads so late at night? I don’t know. I didn’t see suitcases, or even so much as a diaper bag, in that car. She couldn’t have been on the way somewhere, or she wouldn’t have left all these lights burning and the dog alone. It’s a fair-size house, and I doubt she had money to waste on an unnecessary electric bill. Nobody out here does.

I retreat from the back door and take another look around. All the windows are locked down. Nothing to do here. I don’t see anything suspicious at all.

I go back to my car and I’m starting it up when I see the next-door neighbor’s front door open, and a big, older man in a checked robe steps out to stare at me. I roll down the window and gesture, and he comes over with a deliberate, heavy gait. He stops a couple of feet away, still staring. He’s white, with a well-worn face and a red drinker’s nose, though that could charitably be because of a cold or the chill. “What you want ’round here?” he asks me bluntly. I pull out my shield and show it to him. It saves time. His mood alters a little from suspicious black woman to suspicious black woman with a badge. I know he’s got a handgun in the pocket of that robe; it’s pretty damn obvious.

He grunts and cinches the frayed belt a little tighter. “Well, you ain’t local,” he observes. No, I’m not. Few black people in this little town; it’s the legacy of the sundown laws officially in place until the sixties, where people like me had a curfew to be out of town every night. Still unofficially enforced.

“I’m Detective Kezia Claremont from Norton PD,” I tell him. “You know your neighbor there?”

“Sheryl? Sure. She’s got two little girls. Cutest you ever saw.” His body language alters again. Worried. “She all right?”

“She isn’t home,” I tell him. “Does she live alone?”

“Since that no-good bastard of hers left she does. Been more than a year since he took off.”

“Name?” I ask, and write down Tommy Jarrett when he gives it up. “You know where Mr. Jarrett moved off to?”

“Somewhere up around Norton, I expect. He’s got family up in there.”

Interesting. I don’t know of any Jarretts. “And you are, sir?” I’ve let him get comfortable with it. I keep my tone polite.

He relaxes. “Hiram Trask. Me and my wife, Evie, live right there.” He points to the house he exited—smaller than the Lansdowne house, and in poorer condition. “Last I saw Sheryl, she was off driving the girls. She does that, time to time, when they get cranky. Says the car noise puts them to sleep. She get into an accident or something?”

“I’ll check into it,” I tell him, and dutifully take down the make and model of Sheryl’s car when he tells me, though I already know. I don’t want to give him any reason to complain. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Trask. Y’all have a good day, now.”

He nods and steps back, and I back out and head for Norton. He watches me all the way to the turn, to make sure I’m gone. I expect nothing else.

It’s a short drive back to Norton, but one thing I’m already certain of: I have a lead. Tommy Jarrett, if he was the babies’ daddy, might well want Sheryl dead, and the children, too, especially if child support was involved. Worth looking into, at least. Always start with the closest person to the victim and spiral out.

Before I can make it to the station to start running checks