“You’re telling me you’re on the run from the police right now?”
I stared at Scott, and he grimaced.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s bad. It’s awful. Did you tell Matt? You know he’s CBPD, right?”
He nodded. “I know. I know. I just didn’t know where else to go. Then I remembered that I read recently that you moved back and that you solved that Nancy Henry case, and I was so impressed since it was really complicated. I was on I95 and had decided to run when I saw the exit sign to Cocoa Beach and thought of you. Only you can help me. I am innocent, Eva Rae. I haven’t hurt her.”
I stared at him, then sipped the coffee I had poured myself while Scott told me everything.
“And you say she just disappeared? Any signs of forced entry?”
He shook his head. “All I found was an empty picture frame on the living room floor. Nothing else.”
I gave him a look. I saw the desperation in his eyes. It was hard to miss.
“Well, I have known you for years, Scott, and even though you acted like a prick back in the day, I don’t believe you would harm anyone.”
“Thank you,” he said, relieved. “You’re the first to say so. All my friends, even my parents, don’t want to have anything to do with me. They think I did it, that I did something to her. Can you believe them?”
I sipped my coffee pensively. “Could she have left you? Is there a reason why no one thinks that’s a possibility?”
“I think she’d at least say goodbye,” he said. “Or leave a note.”
“When was the last time you heard from her? Was it when you said goodbye in the morning, or did you talk during the day?”
“She texted me because she had received flowers, and she thought they were from me. But I told her that I hadn’t sent any. When I came home, they were in the trash bin outside.”
That made me frown.
“Flowers?”
“Yes, lilies. They were her favorites, and so she immediately thought they were from me.”
“But you didn’t send any. Could it have been someone else she knows? Her parents?”
“She didn’t speak to her parents. I never met them, and she didn’t like to talk about them.”
“Hm, why not?”
He shrugged. “She never told me.”
“Did you ask?”
He smiled. “I know you think I’m a cold bastard, but people change, Eva Rae. Yes, of course, I asked. She didn’t want to tell me. She had moved far away from them because she didn’t want to see them. She came down here from Ohio and wanted to start over.”
“Was she generally very secretive about her past? Like did she have friends from before she moved down here? Did anyone visit with you?”
He shook his head. “None. She never spoke of anyone from her past.”
I paused, then thought of my baby upstairs. “I don’t know, Scott…”
His eyes were begging. He put a hand on top of mine, and I froze. His touch brought me back to years ago. My heart was pounding at the memory.
Careful, Eva Rae.
“Please. Eva Rae. I have nowhere else to turn.”
I exhaled. “I just had a baby, Scott. Things are kind of tight and messy around here right now. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. For all I know, Sarah just left you, and maybe she went back to some guy she hadn’t told you about. Besides, if the police can’t prove you hurt her, then they can’t charge you with anything. I suggest you get a good lawyer instead. I can help you with that.”
“I don’t think that is what happened,” Scott said. “She didn’t just leave. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
I rubbed my eyes. Exhaustion was beginning to set in. This was so not what I needed right now.
“I’m sorry, Scott… I can’t…”
He grabbed my arm and forced me to look at him. The deep desperation in his eyes got to me.
“I’m telling you—something happened to her. I know it did.”
“And how do you know?”
He sighed. “Because she told me two months ago that if she ever went missing, I should look for her.”
Chapter 9
THEN:
“How have you been? You seem a little…quiet today?”
Lynn sent Jeffrey a compassionate smile. He looked great, as usual, impeccably dressed in his pinstriped suit and white shirt underneath. His expensive watch dangled from his wrist, but there was something different about him—a sadness she hadn’t seen in him before. He had arrived a few minutes late for their appointment and had barely looked at her.
“Is something wrong?” she added after a few seconds of silence.
She couldn’t help smiling when she looked at him. She couldn’t tell him, but she had been looking forward to their session all weekend. She had thought about him a lot, maybe even more than she should have. She couldn’t help it. There was something about him that made her care for him. She had wondered if it was a maternal instinct that had awoken in her. Did she care for him the way a mother would a child?
“Jeffrey?”
He looked up. Were those tears in his eyes?
“It’s just… well, I miss her so much.”
Lynn exhaled. “You mean Joanna?”
He nodded. “She was the one for me, you know?”
“Okay. Let’s talk about that.”
Lynn straightened in her chair.
“I don’t know,” he said. “What’s there to talk about?”
“I have a feeling there’s more than you think. Have you seen her recently?”
“I see her…from time to time.”
Lynn looked at him from above her reading glasses. “You see her? Where?”
He shrugged and looked away. His eyes hit the bookshelves to his right. There was something he wasn’t telling her.
“Just…around.”
Lynn tilted her head slightly. “Okay, just so I understand better, you see her around, you say, but could you tell me where you see her? At the supermarket?”
“Among other places…yes.”
“At her house?”
“Maybe.”
Lynn swallowed, then took off her glasses and looked at him. “Have you been following her?”
His eyes hit the floor. He shrugged. “Maybe…a little.”
She sighed and closed her eyes briefly. She wasn’t supposed to pass judgment, so she’d have to be careful how she said the next thing.
“Does that sound like a good idea?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. It’s not something I plan to do. It just happens. I drive past her house and see her come out the door, and then I follow her. I just feel…it’s hard to live without her. You must know this. You know with your sister and all.”
Lynn swallowed again, then wrinkled her forehead.
“My sister?”
“Yes, how she fell in love with a guy and then killed herself because he dumped her.”
Lynn’s heart stopped. “That’s not exactly what happened, but that’s not important. How do you know this?”