Софи Райан - No Escape Claws

“I will,” I said. “I promise.”

Neither Liz nor I said a word until we were in the elevator. I leaned my cheek against the top of her head. “Being the Warrior Princess bites sometimes,” I said.

She laid a hand against my other cheek. “I know,” she said. “And I’m proud of you.”

We headed back to the shop, where we brought the others up to date.

“So now what?” I asked.

“Mallory and Gregory can give statements that Mike didn’t have his ball cap,” Mr. P. said.

“Do you think Katy Mueller remembers that Mallory was wearing it?” Charlotte asked.

“I think that’s a long shot,” I said, choosing my words carefully. Katy Mueller seemed convinced that Mike Pearson was responsible for her best friend’s death. I had the feeling she wasn’t going to be very helpful in getting him released.

I looked at Mr. P., who seemed to know what I was thinking. “I agree with Sarah,” he said. “Judge Halloran’s condition will add a little ambiguity to his ID of Mike, but it would help if we could come up with a little more evidence.” He hiked his pants up. “There is one more thing we could try. It’s a bit of a long shot, though.”

“A long shot is better than no shot,” Liz said. “What are you thinking, Alfred?”

“Maybe one of the neighbors had a security system.”

“But Rose said you didn’t notice any cameras,” I said.

He nodded. “I didn’t. But it’s occurred to me that the fire happened just two weeks before Christmas last year.”

Rose realized what he was getting at before the rest of us did. “Christmas parcels,” she said with a knowing smile.

Charlotte and I exchanged a blank look.

“Want to clue the rest of us in?” Liz asked, making a get-on-with-it motion with one hand.

“More and more people are shopping online, especially during the holidays,” Mr. P. said. “Which means there are more packages being delivered when everyone is at work and school.”

Rose straightened the front of her apron. “Do you remember the story last December about the three friends who were stealing parcels all over Rockport?”

Charlotte began to nod her head. “They each dressed up as Mrs. Claus.”

“I remember that,” I said. “They didn’t even need the money. They were just doing it because they were bored.”

“And do you remember how they got caught?” Alfred asked.

“Someone set them up,” I said, smiling as the details came back to me. “The guy left a box on his front steps and he set up some kind of temporary camera.”

Alfred nodded as though I was his prize student who had just gotten all the test answers right. “That camera sent images to the man’s phone and stored them in the cloud.”

“And how does that help us?” Liz asked.

“Those cameras were very popular,” Mr. P. said. “You could even rent them. A lot of people did that. In January they took them back. But unless they closed their account and deleted the images that were stored in the cloud, it’s all still there. As I said, a long shot.”

“Like Liz said, a long shot is better than no shot,” I said.

He nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Charlotte left with Liz and Avery. Rose and Mr. P. rode with Elvis and me. They spent the drive making a list of the neighbors in the immediate vicinity of the Pearson house. It seems Denise had mentioned the names of several of them when Rose and Alfred had talked to her about the fire.

I unlocked the apartment door, set my things inside and put Elvis on the floor. He stretched and headed for the bedroom. I followed him. He made his way over to my new running shoes, which were sitting by the bottom of the bed. He nudged one shoe with his nose, knocking it over onto its side. Then he looked at me.

“How did you know what I was thinking?” I asked.

“Merow,” he said.

Jia Allison had mentioned she ran the hills loop, an almost-six-mile circuit with some easy-grade uphill work. I’d been thinking of running the route on the off chance that she might be out there herself.

I crouched down, leaned my face in close to Elvis and gave the top of his head a scratch. “Sometimes you’re just a little bit spooky,” I said. He murped in agreement and licked my chin.

I changed into my running gear while Elvis nosed around in the closet. “We’ll have supper when I get back,” I said. “Unless you were planning on cooking.”

He yawned. I was pretty sure that meant no.

It was a good time for a run. There was very little traffic for some reason. Usually at this time of day I’d see other runners but I was the only one hitting the pavement. There was no sign of Jia Allison.

I was past the halfway point of the loop when I caught sight of someone running ahead of me. I spotted short, dark hair under a baseball cap, but it wasn’t until the street curved that I knew for sure it was Jia. I upped my speed, pushing myself to catch her, which wasn’t easy because her training pace was faster than mine. But I did manage to close the distance between us.

“Jia,” I called when I judged I was close enough for her to hear me.

She looked back over her shoulder. I saw a flash of recognition and she slowed her pace. I closed the rest of the distance between us.

“Hi,” she said. “You training for the Half Shore 10K too?”

“Actually I was looking for you,” I said as I kept pace beside her. It helped that she hadn’t speeded back up.

“Let me guess: You have more questions about Gina Pearson. I already told you everything there is to tell.” Her eyes didn’t quite meet mine.

I studied her for a moment, tried to imagine her in a dark coat and a red and blue ball cap. In the dark and the snow could Judge Halloran have mistaken her for Mike Pearson? It was possible. “You saw her before the fire, didn’t you?”

It was a guess but I had a gut feeling I was right.

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “It was bad enough that she drove drunk and ran my daughter down. She also had her own child in the car. Did you know that?”

“You mean Greg.”

Jia nodded. She was wearing a gray and yellow half-zip running shirt. It was inside out and something was hanging from the upper arm. A fabric softener sheet. I reached over and grabbed it. Jia started and pulled away from me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hand. “You just had a dryer sheet stuck to your shirt.”

She glanced at her arm. “And my damn shirt is on inside out.” She closed her eyes, her chin dropped to her chest and she stopped in her tracks. Her whole body sagged.

“Are you all right?” I said.

Jia shook her head. “No. I’m not. I know Hannah is better—better than we could have hoped for. And I’m grateful every single day but sometimes I have these moments where I panic that it’s all going to be taken away again. I keep . . . I keep trying to run past the feeling, but I’m not doing a very good job of it.” She looked at me then, shaking her head.

“We should walk,” I said. “Your legs are going to cramp.” We started moving and I watched for any sign that she was light-headed.

We walked in silence for maybe half a minute, Jia looking straight ahead. “I did see her,” she suddenly said.

I realized she was talking about Gina.

“In fact, it was the day of the fire. I was at the grocery store. She tried to apologize again. I just . . . I pushed her aside and just walked away from her. I was afraid if I stayed there I’d hit her.” She looked at me then, anguish etched on her face. “I keep thinking what if that was the one thing that pushed her over the edge, what if I drove her to kill herself because I wouldn’t let her apologize?”

I was shaking my head before she finished talking. “You are not responsible for Gina Pearson’s death,” I said emphatically. I wished I could tell her that Gina had been murdered, that she hadn’t killed herself. “It’s . . . it’s more complicated than that, but it’s not your fault in any way. It’s not.”