Chapter 8
IT WAS WELL INTO the midnight hour. Shane’s eyes burned from hours of sitting at his dining room table, staring at files. He closed his laptop. It was rare he’d bring his work home, but that was before Janet had died. Now that he was a single dad, that rule might need some adjustment. “We’re getting nowhere. The second team couldn’t find any connection to the previous owners of the house Emily was found in. The few prints we have are from the kids who found her. We still need to talk to the local distributors of Yankee Candle and I have a list of all trinket stores in the area that sell candles, along with BrightLite Consultants.”
“You can buy candles online, too. What about the rope and tape?”
“Rope can be bought just about anywhere. I suppose Amazon as well. The tape, however, is a cheap brand. Not carried at Home Depot or Lowe’s, but carried at places like Kmart, Target, and small local hardware stores.” He paused for a moment. “And I guess online, too.”
“CSI says whoever tied the rope around Emily’s hands and feet was left-handed. Did you notice if Doug was left-handed?”
“He is,” Shane said.
Kara looked up over her computer screen. “I’ve got fifteen cases nationwide that have fingers or toes or other body parts missing, but nothing with candles. I’ve got another dozen cases where the crime scenes lacked blood from the victims. But no candles. I’ve got a few religious whack jobs who were into human sacrifice and all sorts of weird practices. But I don’t have one single case that has anything to do with candles...and butterflies.”
“I can’t find any connection between Gregory and Emily. Nothing about the designs on Emily’s body either, except for the butterflies that she drew.”
“Got our technical analyst working on that. She’s amazing and can dig up anything on anyone, match any pattern. The things she finds often amazes me.”
“Good to know,” Shane said. “One thing I thought was, maybe Gregory knew Haughton’s daughter, but that seems to be a dead end. Gregory’s parents live in Florida. Foster said they were coming back tomorrow, so we can talk to them then. Maybe they knew the McCauley’s.”
“I’ll add that to our long list of things to ask them.”
“We both need some rest.” Shane put his hand on the top of her screen. “Shut it down for now. We’ll regroup in the morning.”
“I’ll call a cab.”
“Like hell,” Shane said.
“I’m not letting you drive me to the hotel at this hour, or in this weather.”
“Didn’t plan on it,” he said. “You can stay here. I’ve got my niece’s room all set up. You can sleep in there.” He pointed to the window. “At least another foot has fallen just in the last few hours. The roads are going to be a mess.”
“Shane, I—”
“I’ve got plenty of room. You can wear something of mine to sleep in. We can go to the hotel bright and early, so you can grab a change of clothes.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not,” he said, closing her computer for her. “I’ll make you some hot cocoa.”
“You remember.”
“I remember a lot of things,” he said softly.
She looked up at him with her milk-chocolate-brown eyes, her long brown hair falling out of its ponytail. The last time he’d seen her they were twenty. It seemed like a lifetime ago, yet, looking at her now, it felt like just yesterday that she walked out of his life.
It was crazy she could still stir these emotions inside him. The love he once felt. The pain of her leaving. The confusion of silence.
“Perhaps we should discuss the past.” Kara had perched herself on the breakfast bar in his small u-shaped kitchen. “We’re working together, and who knows how long this case will last, and I feel tension between us that can’t be helping us solve these murders.”
He put two mugs into the microwave and hit the start button twice. “I have no problem working with you.”
“We do seem to work well together. We’ve been able to put aside our past for the most part, but it’s lurking and it will reach up and bite us in a negative way if we don’t address it.”
Shane let out a long sigh as he scooped the cocoa out of the can and plopped it into the hot water. “I don’t know what to do with all these memories,” he admitted. “It took a long time to get over you.”
“But you did. You got married. Had a family.”
He nodded. “I met Janet the semester I went back to SUNY Albany, alone. She’d transferred in from a local community college. We were on-again-off-again in the beginning, mostly because she got tired of competing with the ghost of Kara, but about a year after you left I finally accepted you weren’t coming back and I moved on. With Janet.” He sipped the cocoa, collecting his thoughts. The anger he felt when he realized Kara was never returning bubbled to the surface. “You really hurt me. I mean crushed me. If it wasn’t for Janet and her patience, I don’t think I could have gone on. I really did love her. She accepted you were a part of my past and that on some level the memory of you would always be with me.” He paused for a moment, glancing at Kara, who sat tall on the counter, eyes on him. “Why?”
“Why what?” she asked.
“I showed up at your dorm, so we could follow each other home for the summer, both our cars packed full. I hadn’t even gotten out of the car when you approached and said you didn’t have a home and wouldn’t be returning to Rochester.”
“You know my parents’ house had closed a few months before that.”
“And I thought you were rash in selling it after your parents died.”
“They were murdered,” she said softly. “I couldn’t live in that house anymore.”
“My parents offered to let you to live with us for as long as you needed.”
“I couldn’t go back,” she said in a voice filled with conviction. “Everything in Rochester reminded me of my parents and, at the time, their murderer hadn’t been brought to justice. The mere thought of going back made me sick.”
“So, why not talk to me? All you did for most of our sophomore year was push me away. You were constantly fighting with me.” Shane had tried to be patient and understanding. He certainly understood she was going through a difficult time. But she didn’t have to do it alone.
“I could list a dozen reasons,” she said. “I couldn’t…I’m not sure I can explain it in a way that you can understand.”
“Try. You owe me that.”
“I followed you off to college when my parents wanted me to go locally. Their only child. I left them. And they died.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that,” she said. “But I was barely twenty when they were murdered. All of a sudden, I was responsible for my family home. My parents’ belongings. Money. I felt trapped in this weird universe. You were always there for me, but at the time I didn’t want anyone. I was in a world of pity and I couldn’t stand being a burden to anyone.”
“You were never a burden.” Shane swallowed.
“But I felt that way,” she said. “It was like I was all alone.”
“But that’s not true. You had me.” He slammed his mug onto the counter, hot cocoa splashing out of the mug. “But that wasn’t enough, was it?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she said in a calm voice as she took a napkin and wiped up his mess “It was too much. The kindness of your family. The way you stood by me through it all. It was overwhelming. I loved you so much.”
“You had a funny way of showing it.”
“You and my parents were my world. I lost them and then I lost myself. I hated what I did to you, but I couldn’t face you. I didn’t feel like I deserved you. I worried you’d up and die on me, too.”
“That’s just fucking stupid.”
“I know. But it doesn’t change how I felt,” she said. “I have a question for you.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you ever chase me to Georgetown?”
“I did,” he said. “I found your address and showed up, only to find you with some guy.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It was September and you were walking together as you came out of your dorm. I figured you had moved on already. It was devastating.”
“In September? It took me years to get over you as well,” she said. “I don’t know who you saw me with, but I wasn’t able to date anyone until after I graduated, and even then, most of my relationships didn’t turn out well.”
“Would you have talked to me if I had approached you back then?”
“I have no idea.”
He appreciated her honesty. “So, this is the first time back since your parents died?”
She shook her head. “I came back to Rochester the Christmas after I transferred to Georgetown. I came to see you.”
“What?”
“I pulled into your parents’ neighborhood on Christmas Eve. I didn’t know if I was going to go to the door or not, but then I saw you with who must have been your wife, walking hand in hand. I’d be a bitch if I had showed up then. Then I read you got married.”
“I guess we both gave up,” Shane said. “What about you? Ever get married? Boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “I married my job. It’s all that I am. I really am sorry for what happened. What I did to you.”
“I’m sorry, too.” He reached across the counter and touched her hand. Her eyes met his. No denying there was still a spark, but Shane couldn’t even think about that right now. “I’m glad we talked.”
She smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was something, and it made him feel better. He had his answers; her life hadn’t been a walk in the park either. “We both need sleep. Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”