As she pressed the Up button on the elevator, a jingle of keys down the hall distracted her. That part of the basement held the laundry and sterilization equipment, the laundry detergent smell covering the smell of formaldehyde and bleach that accompanied the morgue. A man in pale blue scrubs was pushing a large basket of folded linens down the hall. Ellie stared at her feet and then pushed the button again, hoping he wouldn’t ask why she was in the basement or why she didn’t have an ID badge.
The elevator doors slid open and Ellie dove inside, pressing the lobby button seven times in a row and the Close button even more ferociously. It wasn’t fast enough. The man rolled the giant basket into the elevator by backing in through the doors. When he noticed Ellie inside, he jumped but then smiled and nodded like there was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Could you push LL for me, please?”
“Uh, sure,” Ellie responded, and pushed the button for the lower lobby, still trying not to make eye contact. Then her phone started to buzz again. This time she couldn’t help herself; she needed to know the news.
Ellie slipped the buzzing phone out of her back pocket and was surprised and relieved to see Chet’s name staring back at her. She let out a sigh of relief and sent him to voice mail; it could wait until she was out of the elevator. Moments later the orderly exited on LL, and Ellie was finally alone. A message had buzzed through.
Still nervous that someone would pick up on the fact that she’d been snooping around the basement, Ellie found a quiet corner by a large ficus and a decorative remake of an ancient statue. She wanted to call Collin, tell him that Randy was the dead man, that he might be right, Caleb might be innocent, but first, she had to call Chet. Instead of listening to the message, she just touched Chet’s name in her Recents list.
“Hello?” Chet answered, as though any one of ten million people could be calling him.
“Hey, Chet, it’s Ellie. Everything okay?”
Chet hesitated. “Did you listen to my message?”
“No. I just saw you called.”
“Oh, Ellie, I kinda wish you’d listened to the message.”
“You’re making me nervous. What is going on? Is it Amelia?” she asked.
“Ellie, it’s not about Amelia,” Chet said, sniffing like he always did when he was trying to figure out what to say. “It’s your dad. He’s missing.”
CHAPTER 28
AMELIA
Tuesday, May 3
One week earlier
“Randy!” Amelia jumped in her seat, heart racing as she took in the sight of Randy on the other side of her window. He was dressed down, tee shirt and jeans, hair unkempt. He looped his finger in circles, urging her to lower the window.
After the crazy day in the car, he’d been calling her endlessly. She didn’t know what to say to the increasingly frantic man. Talk of the town was that most of Randy’s image was under lease or loan, and when he had to pay a crapload of back child support and legal fees, he had to cash it all in after Dawson was picked up from preschool by his very normal-looking mother. It wasn’t an abduction. It wasn’t dramatic. The law was not on Randy’s side, and that in and of itself made Amelia question everything he’d ever said. She wasn’t really sure what to think about the whole Dawson situation, but one thing was becoming increasingly clear—Randy was not what he seemed.
So last night she called his phone in the middle of the night and left a voice mail that explained that she was honored by his offer but needed to decline. She thought that oh-so-brief chapter in her life was closed, but now it was looking at her through the smudged window of her SUV.
“Can we talk?” he asked, his voice loud enough to be easily understood through the glass.
She wanted to know how Dawson was doing, and she’d been friends with Randy before the whole business thing started, so Amelia put all her personal issues in a well-worn box inside her that kept all the problems and dysfunctions she tried to ignore or explain away, and rolled down the window.
“Where did you come from? I didn’t see your car.”
“Yeah, I had to trade it in. I need to downsize until I get Dawson back.” Randy tried to give a small smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He looked tired, and the lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes made him look ten years older. “I just wanted to come see you and apologize in person for what happened the other day. I wasn’t myself, and I know I upset you.”
He clasped his hands in front of him, resting them on the door. A long, black arrow tattoo ran down his forearm and pointed to his wrist. A word that Amelia couldn’t really decipher was scrawled along it.
“Hey, no apology needed.”
“No, apology totally needed, and I was hoping you could rethink my offer. I think you and I would make a great team.” He gave one of his bright, sparkly smiles, and Amelia couldn’t help but smile back.
“Randy, I think you have more important things to worry about, don’t you? Dawson ring a bell?”
“I’m working on that, but this offer—it has an expiration. I need to know . . . now.”
“Listen, it’s such a generous offer, but I’m honestly too busy in my life already. I’d just be a burden. And I’m pretty sure you have enough to worry about right now.”
He stared at her intensely, eyes never wavering, the blue in his casual cotton tee catching some of the blue in his eyes.
“I don’t think you understand. I am leaving town for a while, but I’ll need you to take over for me when I do. You can start by listing my place.” Amelia shook her head, hoping she could find the magic words that would make him back off.
“I can’t, I’m sorry. I thought I could, but it is too much right now.” Steve wanted her to do the job. Randy wanted it for her. Ellie thought she’d be great. But it wasn’t time. Not now. Not with this man.
Randy gritted his teeth at her response and leaned into the window so she could smell his soap. She leaned away, trying not to offend him but getting nervous and hoping Ellie would return. Another smile, this one clearly his most charming.
“Amelia, I signed you up for classes online, and I’ll lose the deposit if you back out.”
“Randy,” Amelia said, speaking slowly and with more than a touch of frustration, “that is not my problem. You really overstepped there. I can’t do this right now. I can’t.”
Randy’s smile melted away like wax dripping down a candle. He took a step back from the car.
“Damn it, don’t you get it? Your life isn’t going to get any better. Not till you get out of this shithole town. I thought you were smarter than that, but you can’t even see it, can you?” He glared at her as though she were the most invalid human on the planet. With a closed fist he swore and punched her door, hard, and then walked in a small circle, shaking his hand.