Heidi confessed, “I picked up the box and shook it once.” Her breath caught on a sob.
“Oh God.” Edie looked dazed. “What was she doing?”
“Do you think . . . could this have anything to do with what happened to her?” Kitsy asked, her voice turning into a squeak.
“We’re just beginning the investigation,” September said.
She asked a number of further questions about Tracy, but as Kitsy had already said, they knew nothing of her social or personal life outside the office. Finally, September recognized she’d exhausted them as a source of information and put her notebook away.
Kitsy drew a breath and then asked, “This isn’t connected to the bones you’re trying to identify, is it?”
“What bones?” Edie asked as she shrugged into her coat.
Heidi sat in silent horror.
“No, that’s a separate case,” September answered Kitsy. She followed Edie toward the door, Kitsy trailing a few steps behind.
“How are you doing on that one?” Kitsy asked. There was no real interest in her tone. She was just making conversation.
But she’d given September an opening. As Edie held the door open for her, September said, “I’ve whittled down the rental to four names of people who could’ve lived there, on Aurora, during the window of time I’m investigating. Kirkendall, Wright, Patten, and Brannigan.”
“Patten,” Kitsy said immediately. “Like the shoe. Patent leather.”
“Patten,” September repeated.
“Lance Patten,” she said. “That’s his name. And the parents were Joan and ... hmmm. Escapes me. They had a horse.”
Lance Patten. Finally, a name! September felt that tiny little zing, the one that sizzled through her brain whenever she realized she’d made a connection, an inroad into a sticky investigation.
Staring at the floor, Kitsy went on, “The kid rode it sometimes, but that was before he went off the rails, I think.” She was frowning, remembering, but she looked up and met September’s gaze. “Does that help?”
“Yes,” September assured her.
Kitsy sent her an uncertain smile. “I, um, I hope we can keep Sirocco’s name out of this. We don’t need any bad publicity. I mean, I’m so, so sorry about Tracy, but . . .”
“Too late. That reporter talked about Tracy on the news,” Heidi spoke up. She’d finally roused herself from the chair and had pulled her purse out of a drawer. “I saw it in the break room.”
“When will we know something about Tracy?” Edie asked. She was still holding the door.
“As soon as we have some information,” September said.
*
Luke took Andi to dinner at a steak house that had been in the area for sixty years. It still served baked potatoes in foil, though the iceberg salad wedge with blue cheese dressing was a new addition. Andi had no appetite whatsoever, so she just chased lettuce leaves around on her plate.
“Eat something,” Luke told her.
“I can’t. I feel tied up inside.”
“You still need to eat something or you’re gonna crash.”
She knew he was right. What she really wanted was one of her antidepressants. She hadn’t taken one earlier when they were talking about them, and she needed to get back to evening herself out. The pills were supposed to help. “Jarrett said he’d call back and he hasn’t.”
“He’s supposed to call Thompkins, too.”
“He’s not hiding or anything, is he?” Andi asked, worried sick.
“What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. He was freaked that she was gone.” She gazed at him unhappily. “I can’t even say the word. Dead. There. I said it.”
He reached across the table and captured one of her cold hands. “Give yourself some time. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
“What if... I mean . . . what was Jarrett doing there?”
“Call him,” Luke suggested. “See if he’ll pick up. Ask him yourself.”
Uncertainly, she reached in her purse for her cell phone. He was right. What was she afraid of?
When she pulled out the phone she saw she’d missed a text from Emma: Carter told me about Mimi! WTF! Scott’s an asshole!!!! Andi made a strangled sound. “I guess he didn’t tell her about Trini.”
“Who?”
Rather than explain, she turned the phone so he could read the text. “It’s from Emma,” she said. “It seems so stupid and trivial now. I was thinking Scott could be behind the bird messages, but I don’t think he is really. And even if he is, I don’t care.”
She put in another call to Jarrett, but once again he didn’t answer; her call went straight to voice mail. She didn’t bother leaving another message.
Luke paid the bill and put his arm around Andi as they headed to his truck. He drove her home through a dark night filled with fits of wind-driven rain. The cabin’s front light welcomed them. The place really did feel like home.