“But Sheriff Alan did call and give me a heads-up you’d be coming,” Annie said, getting up and fishing a large ring of keys out of her desk. “He told me to let you wander around, take whatever you wanted.” She unlocked the chain on the gate into the evidence locker, pulling it open. “I do have to lock it behind you, though. Sheriff Alan brought in a bunch of heroin this morning. They were looking for that arsonist and instead came across a whole operation in a warehouse outside of town. Can you imagine? What are people thinking these days, I swear. They need the good Lord to guide them.”
“I’m sorry Alan’s having such trouble with that arsonist,” Paul said.
“Four fires now,” Annie said, tutting. “Like the world’s not burning down fast enough already. Anyway, you go on, find what you need. I’ll be right here when you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Annie,” Paul said.
The evidence locker was dimly lit by a lone bulb that swung back and forth with the vibrations from the movement upstairs in the courthouse. Paul scanned the shelves and the neatly labeled brown boxes, trying to get a sense of how they were organized. It didn’t seem to be completely chronological, and it took him a few moments to realize the sheriff had organized the place by crime and then alphabetized the sections.
“Okay, homicide,” Paul muttered to himself, scanning the boxes. His eyes lighted on the name EVANS, CASEY. He knew that name. It was the football player who had drowned over Labor Day weekend Paul’s freshman year. Foul play had been suspected, but there’d never been enough evidence. He was in the right section, at least.
He spent the next fifteen minutes going through the boxes in the homicide section. And then, when he couldn’t find any of them with Cass’s name or her case number, he began to go through the entire room.
An hour later, he’d checked every single evidence box.
Cass’s weren’t here.
“Hey, Annie,” he called.
“Yeah, Paul?” she asked, hurrying over and unlocking the gate and letting him out. “You find what you need?”
He shook his head. “You keep a log, right? Of who checks out what evidence?”
“Sure,” Annie said. “It’s right here.” She went over to her desk and pulled out a logbook, handing it over to him.
Paul’s stomach clenched as he saw the last entry, made this morning.
Ryan Clay, checking out Case #543
Paul felt a curl of disgust in his stomach. What was this guy’s problem? He must’ve snooped to see what file Paul was looking for in the records room yesterday and decided to fuck with him.
His fists clenched and he tried to breathe deeply. This was the kind of petty bullshit he hated. He wasn’t someone who played games. And Ryan seemed determined to do some stupid, pointless male posturing to make himself feel better when all it was going to do was get his ass handed to him—first by Paul, then by his boss.
“Thanks, Annie,” he said. “You’ve been a great help.”
She blushed. “Tell your mom I said hi.”
“Will do. ‘Bye now.”
He headed out of the courthouse, blinking in the sudden sunlight after being in the dim basement for the last hour. He put in a call to Sheriff Alan, but it went to voice mail. He didn’t want to leave a message chewing out the man’s deputy, so he decided he’d track down Ryan’s address and go there himself.
But first, he needed to stop by the farmhouse and see if Abby and Zooey had made any progress on the Dr. Jeffrey front.
As he drove down Orchard Row, the windows rolled down, the cooling autumn air filling his lungs, he found himself thinking about Abby.
And thinking about Abby always led him to think about regrets. He didn’t regret much in his life—he tried hard not to, even with how he and his fiancée had ended their engagement—but most of his regrets were centered around the two girls who had shaped him more than anyone else.
That month before Cass was killed had been confusing for him. She’d been up visiting her grandmother, and they’d talked on the phone, and he’d gone up to visit her a few times, but it’d been hard on a teenage relationship. She had seemed so stressed at his last two visits, and he found himself spending all the time he wasn’t visiting Cass with Abby.
It wasn’t anything new, the two of them hanging out. It was like every summer of his memory, really.
But there had been moments—maybe he’d imagined it? Maybe it had been wishful thinking?—where he’d thought . . .
He had loved Cass, but Abby . . . Abby knew him in a way no one else really ever did. She’d been the one he used to run to when his dad got a little too drunk. They’d lie together in the meadow between their homes, among the lupine and California poppies, and they’d never talk about the distrust each of their father’s choices wore in their hearts, but they understood each other. And the older they got, the deeper that understanding went, and the more his teenage self realized that as much as he loved Cass, he didn’t have that with her.
And that maybe he wanted that.
Maybe he wanted Abby.
Looking back, when Cass’s murder was a fresh wound in him, he’d pushed it down. The wondering. The attraction. Those thoughts that had bubbled to the surface in the hot summer nights when it was just him and Abby. The want that he could feel in the very tips of his fingers when she shot him that tilted smile.
He’d denied it until he almost believed it had never existed. There had just been one night, right before they both left for college. And there’d been one quick, tear-filled kiss that wasn’t about either of them. It was about Cass. It was about goodbye. To the people they’d been. To the bond they had. To the girl whose death had helped define them.
But he’d been able to excuse that simple kiss as grief and it hadn’t broken them, because they could still deny it. Deny the want simmering under the surface.
Until Abby’s dad died and he’d showed up on her porch after the funeral. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from getting on a plane as soon as he was able to. It killed him he hadn’t been able to attend the service, but he’d been on a case.
He thought at least he could give her distraction and a bottle of whiskey and his company as she grieved.
But he’d fucked it up. He’d let his guard down and let everything he felt show on his face and then he’d bent forward and . . .
Kissing Abby—really kissing her—was just like he thought it would be. And at the same time, nothing like he thought it’d be. It was like the harvest sunset and bright, crisp apples and the comfort of a woman’s hand resting over your heart. It was Abby and it was him and it was right.
Until she pulled away. And then everything—all those secret dreams he’d been harboring for longer than he’d like to admit—shattered.
He wasn’t sure they’d ever get back to normal. Even now, even with this—the hunt—bringing them together. The way she looked at him was wary, like she was worried he might be her downfall.
He pulled onto the road leading to the Winthrop Orchard, driving down the dirt lane, the rows of almond trees blurring as the tires kicked up dust and he veered around the big pothole near the end of the road.
He didn’t see Zooey’s rental car in the driveway, but Abby’s truck was parked under the big oak tree. And she was sitting on the porch in the swing.
“Hey,” he said, as he got out of the car and ambled up to the porch. “You are not going to believe what your ex did.”
“My . . .” She trailed off, puzzled. “Ryan?”
“He decided to pull a power play and check the evidence box out of the locker before I could. Sheriff Alan’s getting an earful from me later.”
“Oh,” Abby said.
Paul frowned. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “How did your talk with the doctor go?”
Abby met his eyes for the first time and his stomach clenched, the worry in them sending a chill through him.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “About Cass.”
“What about her?” he asked. “What did Dr. Jeffrey say?”
“Paul,” she reached over, taking his hand in hers. “Cass was pregnant.”
“What?” He thought he’d misheard her. Surely he had misheard her. “No,” he said. “That’s . . . no . . .”
“She was,” Abby said. “Dr. Jeffrey left it off the report because he thought Mrs. Martin couldn’t take it. He buried it.”