Lisa Scottoline - Look Again

Rats.

She drove slowly past the house, reconnoitering. All the lights in the house were off, its modern oblong windows gone dark, and the only movement was the gentle whirring of its automatic sprinklers, watering the thick grass like so many mechanical whirligigs. Flowers bloomed at the foot of the HELP US FIND OUR SON sign, and the larger-than-life face of Timothy, or Will, floated ghostly in the dark.

Maybe not tonight.

Ellen was about to leave for the hotel when a light from the Bravermans' first floor went on from on the far right. She slowed to a stop, just past the house. The window had no curtains, and she could see Bill walk through the room and seat himself at a desk, inclining forward. In the next minute, his profile came to life, illuminated by the light of a computer laptop.

Ellen pulled the car over and parked on the opposite side of the street, then lowered the window, turned off the ignition, and watched Bill. She could see bookshelves and cabinets in the room, so she gathered that it was a home office. Bill spent a few more minutes on the computer, then got up and moved around the room, doing something she couldn't see. In the next minute, the front door opened and he emerged, carrying a black trash bag.

Yikes!

She ducked in the front seat and watched in the outside mirror. Bill put the trash bag in a tall green trashcan and rolled it to the end of the driveway, then went back toward the house. She stayed low until she heard the front door slam, then she eased up in the seat, looking behind her. The light in the home office switched off, and the house went dark again.

Trash could contain DNA.

She scanned the street, front and back, but there was no one in sight. She slid off her clogs, opened the car door as quietly as possible, and jumped out, her heart pounding. She bolted for the trashcan, tore off the lid, plucked out two bags at warp speed, and dashed back to the car like a crazed Santa Claus.

She jumped in the car, threw the bags in the passenger seat, and hit the gas, then went around the block and ended up on the main drag, speeding to the causeway with her booty. She pulled over and cut the ignition, turned on the interior light, and grabbed one trash bag. She undid the drawstring and peeked inside, but it was too dark to see the contents. It didn't smell like garbage, so she dumped it out onto the passenger seat, dismayed at the sight.

The trash was shredded, and it tumbled out like a ball of paper spaghetti. She pawed through it anyway to see if there was any item that could contain Carol's DNA, but no dice. It was Bill's home-office trash, strips of numbers, portfolio statements, and account statements. She remembered that Bill was an investor, so it made sense that he'd shred his trash. She never shredded anything, but her home office trash consisted of Toys.R.Us circulars.

She gathered up the trash, stuffed it back into the bag, and tossed it into the backseat. Then she reached over and grabbed the other bag, which was heavier. She yanked on the drawstring and opened the bag, releasing the yucky smell of fresh garbage. She held the open bag directly under the interior light and peeked inside. On top of the trash sat a heap of gray-blue shrimp shells that stank to high heaven, and she pushed them aside, going through wet coffee grounds, the chopped bottom of a head of Romaine, a Horchow catalog, and underneath that, a mother lode of mail. None of this would yield a DNA sample for Carol.

Bummer.

She pulled out the mail on the off-chance there was a sealed envelope. She flipped through it, but no luck. It was all unopened junk mail from Neiman Marcus, Versace, and Gucci, plus a glossy copy of Departures magazine. Stuck inside the magazine was a pink card from the dentist, a reminder that somebody had to get her teeth cleaned next month. She flipped the card over. The front read, Carol Charbonneau Braverman.

Ellen blinked. Charbonneau sounded familiar. She couldn't place if she'd heard it or if she was imagining it, her exhaustion finally catching up with her. She rooted through the rest of the trash, but there was nothing yucky enough to contain Carol's DNA. She tied the drawstring tightly, so it wouldn't stink up the car, and hoisted the bag into the backseat with the other. She took off for the hotel and threw the trash in a Dumpster on the way.

But when she finally reached her hotel room, she checked her email.

Amy Martin hadn't written yet, but her sister Cheryl had.

And her email brought the worst news imaginable.

Ellen felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. She sank slowly onto the quilted bedspread, staring at her glowing BlackBerry screen. The email from Cheryl had no subject line, and it read:

Dear Ellen,

I'm sorry to tell you that yesterday, we found out that Amy passed away. She died of a heroin overdose in her apartment in Brigantine on Saturday. Her wake will be Tuesday night, but there will be a private one for the family before her burial, on Wednesday at ten o'clock in Stoatesville, at the Cruzane Funeral Home. My mother says you can come to either time, and she would like to see you.

Sincerely, Cheryl

The thought overwhelmed her with sadness. Amy was too young to die, and so horribly, and Ellen thought of how Cheryl must be feeling, then Amy's mother, Gerry, who had been so kind to her. Her thoughts came eventually to herself and W. She had just lost her chance to learn anything from Amy.

Her gaze wandered over the blue-and-gold bedspread, the photographs on the wall, of nautilus and generic conch shells, and the balcony sliders. The glass looked out onto a bottomless Miami night, the same night that was falling at home. The sky was dark and black, no way to separate earth from heaven, and she felt undone, again. Loosed, untethered. She had a nagging fear, gnawing at the edges of her mind.

Quite a coincidence.

It seemed odd that Amy would turn up dead now, just when Ellen had begun asking questions about her. It seemed stranger still, considering the suicide of Karen Batz. Now, both women with knowledge of Will's adoption were dead. The only one left alive was Amy's boyfriend, and he was the one who looked like the kidnapper in the composite.

Not just a kidnapper. A murderer.

Ellen started to make connections, but even she knew she was entering the wild-speculation realm. There were innocent explanations for everything, and she flipped it. Amy had lived a fast life. Heroin addicts overdosed all the time. Lawyers committed suicide. Not everything was suspicious.

God help me.

Ellen willed herself to stop thinking, because she was making herself crazy. This had been the longest day in her life. She had one DNA sample, which was one more than she thought she'd get the first day. Her job was in jeopardy, as was her love life, but that was back home, which seemed suddenly very far away. Another world, even. She flopped backwards on the bed, and exhaustion swept over her, mooting even her darkest fears.

In the next minute, she fell into a terrible sleep.

The next morning, Ellen parked her car in the same spot on the main drag, perpendicular to Surfside Lane. It was another hot, tropical day, but she was dressed for it today. She'd stopped at the hotel's overpriced gift shop and bought a pink visor, a pair of silver Oakley knock-offs, and a chrome yellow T-shirt that read SOUTH BEACH, which she'd paired with white shorts from home. Inside her pockets were a plastic glove and a folded brown paper bag.

She took a slug from a bottle of orange juice, still cold from the minibar. She felt weighed down by the news of Amy Martin's death and couldn't shake the fear that the overdose wasn't accidental. She put aside her dark thoughts to tend to the task at hand, especially because she wanted to get back home in time for the funeral.