CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

She arrived at the hospital just after eight o’clock. She found Rose in much better spirits, watching television and snacking on cafeteria Jell-O. The smile she gave Avery when she walked in was bright and unexpected.

“Hey,” Rose said. “Back so soon? Did you close that case?”

Avery sat down in the visitor’s chair and shook her head. “No, not yet. I’m trying to sort things out right now.”

“Here?” Rose asked. “I’d think it would be easier to think and sort things out in a warm tub of water with a tall glass of wine.”

“That does sound nice,” Avery said. “How about you? How are you doing?”

“Good. The doctor checked in on me for the last time a few hours ago before clocking out for the day. He said everything looks good. They’re going to release me in the morning so long as all of my bloodwork comes back normal. They want to make sure all of the meds have been flushed out of my system.”

Avery cringed at how light-hearted Rose seemed when talking about it. She knew this was an opening to have a lengthier conversation but she wasn’t sure how to start it. It was just as tricky as the interrogation she had just left.

“Rose…I understand the animosity you must have felt. But I want to know what I can do to make sure that you can come to me if you ever feel that way again. I’ll be honest with you…I blamed myself. And maybe that was for the best. Maybe it was true.”

“No, it wasn’t all on you. But…not to make light of it, that really long sleep I was in was cathartic. I woke up and saw you here and something struck me.”

“What’s that?”

Rose was tearing up. She looked away from her mother and to the television where some terrible reality show was on. “I’m tired of being angry at you. The whole teenage angst thing should have stopped years ago. I need to stop blaming you for everything and start looking at the world through a hate-free lens. Sounds deep, sure, but that’s how I feel.”

“That sounds good,” Avery said.

“So…I know I’m not Ramirez but do you want to tell me about this case? Why haven’t you cracked it yet?”

“Cracked it?”

Rose shrugged. “I only know the lingo from what I see on TV. And let’s be honest, it’s all very badly written.”

“I brought a suspect in this afternoon but I’m ninety percent sure he’s not the guy.”

“The spider guy?”

Avery chuckled, a noise that turned into a yawn. She had gone three months without these high-stress days. Today had taken its toll on her. In fact, it was all running together for her. Kneeling by Abby Costello’s body by Jamaica Pond and walking into Janice Saunders’s house filled with clowns…it all blurred together in one big chunk of time.

“It’s more than spiders now,” she said. “It’s getting really bad.”

“A serial killer?” Rose asked, sounding a little too interested.

“I think I liked it better when you were quiet,” Avery said.

“So…a serial killer,” Rose said, grinning at her mother’s irritation. “One of those bad TV shows would stall and stall until the end and then come up with these profound ideas. That or some serious deus ex machina—a clue coming out of nowhere to save the day.”

“Yeah, it rarely works that way in real life,” Avery said. “In real life, it’s honestly more like a game of Clue or Guess Who. It’s sometimes less about clues and more about digging deeper into people’s lives and their connections to suspected killers or other victims.”

“Did your time off slow you down?” Rose asked.

“Maybe. I do feel a little off. And damn, I’m tired.”

“I say we have a sleepover. Not to brag, but I can hook us up with some pretty righteous Jell-O.”

“The sleepover sounds good,” Avery said. “The Jello-O does not.”

“Awesome. Pull your chair up and watch some TV with me.”

“What are we watching?”

“Twenty women get catty with each other and cry about everything because some guy doesn’t have enough roses for them.”

And like that, something felt natural and almost repaired about their relationship. It was more than sweeping the past under the rug and pretending nothing had happened. It felt more like something had been renewed. And with renewal came the reality that they’d need to work on things but, as they worked together, they could learn to trust one another again.

Despite this, Avery drifted off to sleep fifteen minutes after moving her chair closer to Rose’s bed so she could watch television. She went to sleep with her own comments drifting around in her head like flotsam and jetsam.

It’s sometimes less about clues and more about digging deeper into people’s lives and their connections to suspected killers or other victims…

Avery didn’t realize she had drifted off until her cell phone buzzed. It was in her pants pocket, so when it vibrated it woke her up with a start. Startled, Avery checked the phone. The first thing she saw was that it was 3:05 in the morning. The second thing she saw was that the buzzing had been an incoming text from Kellaway.

All of Dan Hudson’s alibis check out. The one for Abby Costello isn’t rock solid but it’s enough to be considered verifiable given that he’s been ruled out for killing Lawnbrook and Saunders. He meets with a lawyer tomorrow to represent him in the case that’s currently being process in regards to him shooting you.

Avery then checked through her emails but found no new information on the case. She tried to drift back off to sleep but couldn’t. She went to the bathroom and splashed some water in her face. When she came back out, Rose was awake.

“I heard your phone buzz. Are you off to save the city?”

“Not quite,” Avery said. “But if you don’t mind, I am going to go home and grab a shower before heading back to the precinct. Will you have someone call me when they release you? I’ll come by and pick you up.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do. I want to. You’ve made a promise to yourself to stop hating me. The least I can do is make a promise to you that you’ll be my top priority.”

“I appreciate that, Mom,” Rose said. “But can you start that after you bring this guy in? Seeing you struggle between me and a case is heartbreaking. And I know how you can get when you’re knee-deep in a case. Go be a badass.”

“If you say so,” Avery said. “But I mean it…call me. I want to pick you up and take you home.”

“Maybe I can come see your creepy little cabin in the woods when this is all over.”

“I’d actually love that.”

Avery gave Rose a kiss on the forehead and then headed back out. She again found herself thinking of connections and the members of the support group. There was something there, maybe something she needed to dig deeper into. She figured when morning arrived, she’d call Delores Moon and try to sort it all out.

She left the streetlights and buildings of the city and ventured out toward her new home. Things with Rose seemed to be better than ever and she also felt that she had something in her mind that she was on the verge of cracking into in regards to the case. The sun had another hour or so before it made its presence known but as for Avery, she already felt like today was going to be a good one.

***

Maybe it was having spent the last two days dealing with people and their fears, but Avery found it hard to be alone in the cabin when she arrived home. She felt like a foolish child, but she turned on just about every light in the house and turned the television on to a news channel just to have some active noise in the background. Hearing the murmur of the newscasters’ voices made her feel oddly safe as she stripped down and took a shower.

She thought about what she’d said at Rose’s bedside, about how there had to be some connection to the victims. But so far, the support group and Dan Hudson was the only link. Sure, fear itself was a link but their phobias had been so vastly different. So where was the connection? If she went deeper than just the support group itself, there was Delores Moon, but no red flags had gone off when Avery had met her. She wondered who else might have worked with the group in the past: other counselors, guest speakers, or anyone of that nature.

When she was out of the shower and dressed, she put on a pot of coffee. It was 5:05 when she scrambled some eggs and sliced up an avocado for breakfast. While she ate and drank her coffee, she Googled Delores Moon and came up with some pretty impressive results. She’d worked in a clinical supervision role for troubled teens and their families straight out of college before opening her own practice at the age of thirty-five. She’d been doing that for twelve years now, often volunteering her time to lead and manage small-group environments.

When she returned to the A1, she thought she might tackle some research to look into the fear support group to see if there had been anyone else involved with it recently. She worked a plan out in her mind as she put her dishes away and tidied up the house. She went outside, checked the mail, and swept the sidewalk, simply passing the time before Rose would call and ask to be picked up from the hospital.

Back inside, she sorted through the last two days’ worth of mail, passing by bills and a flier for a furniture store sale. And behind that flier was letter with only her address. There was no return address. She recognized the handwriting at once.

Who are you, Avery?

She tore the envelope open right away. A sheet of notebook paper sat inside, folded perfectly into thirds. She unfolded it and found another of Howard’s brief letters.

We all dwell on what we fear the most, he had written in an obnoxiously neat handwriting. Whether spiders or losing your family, fear is the same in all its shapes. It is up to us if we let it control us, though. We all dwell on what we fear the most.

She read it three times, noting right away that the opening line and the last line were the same. He was repeating it on purpose. It was really no different than sitting across that table in a back room in the prison, hoping he could lead her to some profound breakthrough that would crack a case. Despite the last three months, he was somehow still looking over her shoulder.

At least with the package that had arrived on the day she’d nearly killed herself, she could brush it off as Howard being eccentric.

Who are you, Avery? It was really a very deep and nonsensical sort of question.

But this letter was different. It seemed more purposeful. We all dwell on what we fear the most.

When her cell phone rang, she shook violently. It’s him, she thought. It’s Howard calling…

But the name and number on her phone’s screen proved this paranoid theory wrong. It was Finley. And he was calling at 5:40 in the morning, which meant one of two things: either there was a break in the case or there was another victim.

“What have you got, Finley?”
“Nice to hear your voice, too,” he joked. “Look…we’re pulling at any straws we get here. We got a call twenty minutes ago from a guy named Joe Potter. He said he was worried about a friend of his. Said he got a weird call from his friend’s cell phone. Jumbled noises and the sound of her crying.”

“Maybe it was a butt dial?” Avery asked.

“Even if it was…the call came at four thirty in the morning. He tried calling back and it goes straight to voicemail. I’m calling you because of where the guy says he met his friend—a woman he made sure not to call his girlfriend.”

“Where?” Avery asked.

“At a support group for phobias.”

“Holy shit,” Avery said. “Give me his number, would you?”

“I’ll text it to you when we end this call. You want me to come out and lend a hand on this?”

“No, I think I’ll keep Kellaway. But thanks all the same.”

She ended the call and dialed up Kellaway. As she spoke to her new partner, she heard a tone in her ear as Finley’s text came through. She set up plans with Kellaway and then placed another call, this one to Delores Moon.

She was in such a frenzy and preoccupied with the phone that on the way out of the cabin, she barely had time to pass a second glance at the letter she had received from Howard. Still, that one line remained plastered to the front of her mind as she got into her car and headed back into town.

We all dwell on what we fear the most…