Brenda Novak - In Close

Including him. Especially him. Not that he’d ever have a chance. He was too…different. He’d always been different.

Her flashlight had made it possible for him to track her movements to the loft, but then the light disappeared.

Had she turned it off? Was she sitting on the floor, crying? Missing her mother the way she missed David?

Or did she have some other reason for being here? She’d slipped away from the park so cautiously, it’d certainly felt as if she had a purpose.

He needed to get inside the cabin to find out. But he hesitated to go that close. What if she caught him?

That could be dangerous. For both of them.

But if he was quiet enough, she’d never have to know. He’d been watching her for years, hadn’t he? And she’d never caught him yet.

2

David had a copy of the case files on her mother. Everything was here, from the missing-persons report to the last interview. Claire had seen some of this before, but even she hadn’t been privy to all of it. How had he come by this much information?

He must’ve gotten it from Sheriff King. Either that or he’d called in a favor from his old hunting buddy, Rusty Clegg. Rusty had been a deputy for the past six or seven years. It helped to have a friend on the force.

But what felt so strange about finding this was that David had made his own notations on many of the reports and interviews. It was almost as if he’d picked up the investigation where the sheriff had left off.

Why hadn’t he told her what he was doing? The dates on the log he’d kept correlated with the first year of their marriage and included a number of entries in the months leading up to his death. The last time he’d written anything was two days before the accident. She found detailed information on her stepfather and Leanne, plus her mother’s only sibling—a sister living in Portland, Oregon—and a complete chronology of Alana’s last movements.

Some of it Claire didn’t want to read. It brought back That Night, the longest night of her life, during which every adult she knew, including her stepfather, was out searching. She and Leanne hadn’t been allowed to leave the house. They’d waited for their mother, or some word of her, praying all the while for her safe return—to no avail. When the sun came up, their stepfather and one friend after another checked in with the bad news that they hadn’t been able to find any sign of her.

Reluctant yet determined, Claire’s eyes skimmed the handwritten log fastened to the left side of the thickest folder.

May 10: Spoke to Jason Freeman. Claims he saw Alana at the bakery between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. Watched her go in and come out carrying a bag of doughnuts while he drank a cup of coffee in the cab of Pete Newton’s truck. Jason says she got in the car with Tug and drove away. Tug confirms this in original interview. Other than Tug, Jason is the last person to see Alana.

May 12: Tried to reach Joe Kenyon.

Now there was a name, the one most often mentioned by those who theorized that Alana had been unhappy in her marriage and had gone looking for fulfillment in the arms of another man. If she’d had one affair, it was plausible she’d have more and might even have run off with whatever new lover she’d taken, right? That explained the mystery to some. But it explained nothing to Claire, who couldn’t believe her mother had ever cheated.

He wouldn’t open his door when I knocked, but Carly Ortega across the street told me Alana stopped at Joe’s house quite often. She even saw her car parked in his drive once, late at night.

Late? How could that be possible? Tug was always home at night. Alana would’ve had to slip out of bed without his noticing in order to leave the house. And why would she do that? Joe had come to cut down the diseased cottonwood tree that was about to fall onto their roof, but other than the few hours they’d spent together then, Claire couldn’t remember them ever speaking.

May 13: Tried again to get an audience with Joe Kenyon. Refused to speak to me. Prick.

David’s log went on for several pages. Figuring she’d read the rest at home, Claire switched to the other side of the folder and skimmed several interviews originally done by Sheriff Meade.

Carly wasn’t the only one who believed there was something going on between Joe Kenyon and Alana. Joe’s twin brother, Peter, thought they were involved. He insisted that he’d heard his brother take a call from Alana while they were at work one day. He said he couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could tell by the tone of Joe’s voice that it wasn’t a simple request for tree-trimming services.

Cringing, Claire dropped her flashlight in her lap. Did she really want to continue reading? This was making her sick, making her wonder if she’d really known her mother. Had Alana been leading a double life?

Claire didn’t want to suspect her, but…how much more about Joe, about Alana and Joe, could she endure?

That depended on how strongly she believed in Alana, didn’t it? Maybe Leanne had been a daddy’s girl from the moment Tug had come into their lives, during Leanne’s first year, but Claire had always preferred Alana. She trusted her mother more than to accept, on circumstantial evidence alone, that Alana was an adulteress.

Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, Claire picked up the flashlight. “We’ll show them, Mom,” she promised. “We’ll show them all.”

Beneath the log, she ran across a list of typed “inconsistencies.” These didn’t appear to be written by David, but she was willing to bet he was the one who’d highlighted various passages. According to the date at the top, the list was Sheriff King’s summary after taking over from Sheriff Meade.

Tug said he was at work until he received Claire’s call. Concerned that Alana’s car was still in the drive and yet she was nowhere to be found, he left immediately.

The next part was highlighted.

Why would he be instantly worried? There’s never been a kidnapping or a murder in Pineview.

There’d been one murder since—Pat Stueben, the town Realtor—but that hadn’t yet occurred when this was written.

Unless she kept it to herself, Alana had never been threatened and wasn’t having problems with anyone. For all Tug knew, she’d walked down the block to talk to a neighbor and would be back any minute.

Was his reaction a bit too fast? There was always the threat of bears. They came around if people left out food. But no one in town, other than Isaac Morgan, who tracked and filmed wild animals for a living, had ever been attacked.

Claire’s arms and legs tingled with apprehension. Tug was normally the last person to assume the worst. Why had he reacted so quickly?

She tried to remember every word of the conversation that had passed between them when she’d called that day.

What do you mean she’s gone? she’d asked the minute she told him.

I’ve searched the whole house.

Did you check the bathrooms?

Of course.

She didn’t leave a note?

Not that I can find. You haven’t heard from her?

No. Stay there. I’m on my way.

At that point, it hadn’t occurred to Claire that her mother could be in danger. She’d expected him to say something like, “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.” But he hadn’t. And once he reached the house, he’d acted so tense, the same fear began to percolate through Claire. That was the first inkling she’d had that they were facing a major tragedy, and she’d taken her cue from her stepfather.

Had he already known what was wrong? Had he and Alana argued earlier, maybe when he came home for lunch? Possibly about Joe Kenyon? And had that argument gotten out of hand?

As much as she didn’t want to believe it, she knew things like that happened....