Gretchen added, “We’d like to have a look at the bedrooms, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Lydia said. She followed them down the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms. In the bathroom, a crumpled towel lay in the bottom of a hamper. A few toiletries were lined up on the counter, but Josie saw nothing out of place or even unusual. One of the bedrooms held only a treadmill. The other bedroom was furnished with a queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and a matching dresser. As Mettner had told her, Amber’s bedclothes were rumpled. Other than that, the room didn’t look any more lived-in than the rest of the house. On the nightstand was only a lamp, alarm clock, and phone charger.
Josie scanned the room. There were no visible personal touches whatsoever. She opened Amber’s closet, oddly relieved to see some evidence that Amber had really lived here. Several items of clothing hung from the rack and along the floor were several pairs of shoes. The shelf above the clothing rack held folded blankets and bath towels. Josie saw nothing alarming or useful in terms of figuring out what happened to Amber. Gretchen pulled open the drawers of the dresser one by one and Josie could tell from the heavy sigh that issued from her lips when she was finished that she, too, had found nothing.
Josie opened the drawer of the nightstand, but it only held one item: a book. Wake Up To Faith by Thatcher Toland. Josie picked it up and looked at the cover. Toland’s weathered but handsome face stared back at her, a cautious smile directed at the camera. In the photo, his blue eyes looked much older than his sixty-some years. When she’d seen him that morning, out of his element, he’d seemed more youthful. The subtitle read: My Journey from Self-Destruction to Hope and New Life. Josie shook her head as she paged through it. Amber had never struck Josie as a particularly religious person, but Toland’s star had been on the rise nationally for months and everywhere Josie went, she saw people reading his book. He was also on just about every talk show imaginable promoting it, and now with the opening of the megachurch nearby, he was sure to continue to be on television for many weeks to come.
Lydia drifted into the room after them, walking slowly, as if she were afraid of waking someone. As she drew closer to Josie and noticed the book, she said, “That was here? In Amber’s home?”
Josie used one hand to point to the open drawer in which she’d found it. “Right there.”
Lydia shook her head. “That’s very unlike Amber. She never… went in for this kind of thing.”
“Religion?” asked Gretchen from the other side of the bed. She was on her knees, looking under it.
“No,” said Lydia. “Televangelists and such. She always thought they were fake.”
Now, given what Lydia had told them about Gabriel Watts joining Rectify Church, Josie wondered if it was possible that Gabriel had given the book to Amber. If he was the person Sawyer had witnessed accosting her on the street a couple of weeks earlier, perhaps he thought that Amber had something to rectify.
As Josie turned more pages, something fell from the book and fluttered to the floor. Lydia bent to pick it up and stared at it. A small gasp escaped her lips. Her free hand clamped over her mouth. Josie craned her neck to see what it was but couldn’t get a clear view. It looked like some sort of news story printed on copy paper.
Josie said, “Mrs. Norris? Is something wrong?”
She shook her head, moving her hand away from her mouth. Josie couldn’t keep track of the emotions flashing across her face: surprise, shock, fear, then relief. Lydia handed the paper to Josie. The headline read: Sullivan County Woman Murdered in Apparent Drowning. It was a small article, but someone had written something over the text in thick black Magic Marker: DING DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD!
Josie tried to read the story beneath the marker, but all she could come up with from the disjointed typescript was that Nadine Fiore, formerly Nadine Watts, had been murdered at her home. There was no date and no indication as to what newspaper it was from.
Lydia rested her hands on her chest, as if she were trying to keep her heart from bursting out of her body.
Josie held the article up. “Did you know about this?”
Lydia shook her head.
“Do you have any idea who would have given this to Amber, or sent it?”
“No. None.”
“Your son, maybe?” asked Gretchen as she came over and took the article from Josie’s hand to study it.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. He and Amber never got along. Maybe Eden? Nadine was cruelest to my girls.”
“Was Eden a member of Thatcher Toland’s church?”
“Oh, no. Absolutely not. She hated—” Lydia broke off.
From across the bed, Gretchen stood up. They both stared at Lydia, who seemed to be floundering for the rest of her sentence.
“Hated Thatcher Toland?” said Josie. “Church?”
“Organized religion,” Lydia blurted finally. “She would never read something like this. Ever.”
“Do you think Gabriel gave Amber this book with the clipping? What was his relationship with Nadine like?”
Lydia pressed her lips into a thin line. Then she said, “It wasn’t great. I don’t think Nadine ever did anything to him—physically—but she hated him just the same. But that message: ‘The Witch Is Dead,’ that sounds more like Eden than Gabriel.”
Of course it was possible that Amber had bought the book herself, and that someone had sent her the clipping and she’d tucked it into the pages of the book. Or she had gotten the book from Gabriel and the news article from Eden. There was no way to know for certain—not at this juncture.
Josie said, “Can we keep this?”
“Certainly, yes,” Lydia agreed instantly.
Josie tucked the clipping back inside the cover of the book. “Is there a phone number where we can reach you if we have more questions?”
“My cell phone,” said Lydia. As she rattled it off, Josie typed it into her phone and saved it.
Gretchen said, “Mrs. Norris, we’ll leave you for now. Let me give you my card in case you need to get in touch. Just one last thing. Would you mind if we took Amber’s surveillance camera from the front door? We’ll return it with the phone and other items as soon as we’ve finished with it.”
Lydia gave them a watery smile. “Sure,” she said. “Whatever you want.”
Twenty-One