Chapter Twenty-Four
Early morning sun blared through the window, but the incessant pounding woke him up. He rapidly blinked a few times to get his bearings. Last night they came back to Cayden’s cabin to go over Shana’s case. The more information they gathered, the clearer it became that they had nothing concrete. The inner workings of a sixteen-year-old girl would remain a mystery with all her secrets gone.
Levi grabbed the sheet to cover himself up and stumbled out of bed. Stubbing his toe against her dresser, he hopped to the front of her cabin. “How the hell did you forget your key again?” He opened the door to the cheery face of DA Taylor Garber.
For a good thirty seconds, which felt similar to eternity, she stood on the porch gaping at him. “I was looking for your … uh, partner.” She swallowed. “I was hoping she could talk some sense into you concerning the conference room, but—”
“Pretty sure the phone would have worked just as good.”
“I didn’t know you were partners in this way. How long?” She wiped at the non-existent tears in her eyes. The dramatic act reminded him of Meghan. His high school girlfriend hadn’t crossed his mind in years.
“Let’s just say it’s complicated.” Too old for this type of nonsense, Levi sighed.
“If I would have known, I wouldn’t have ever slept with you. I thought you were a good guy.”
“This doesn’t make me a bad one.”
“I wonder what the administrative board would say if the they knew.” Anger contorted her pixie face while she threatened him.
Not exactly a deep person, Levi at one point did rate Taylor’s moral compass higher than zero. “Considering that I’m grown, none of their damn business! I’ll tell Cayden you stopped by.” He began to shut the door.
“Slugging Dale and now this…” She gestured toward Cayden’s cabin, fumbling with the strap of her purse. “Maybe you were never right for us in the first place.”
“Yeah.” He chuckled before he shut the door. “I tried to warn you the first time you asked.”
Hungover from lack of sleep, he walked to the kitchen.
“That awkward shit was fun to witness,” Cayden said. The small, silk robe barely covered her beautiful behind as she turned around to hand him a mug. “Went to your house for coffee. I ran out.”
“Taylor wanted you to talk sense into me by allowing the mayor’s council to come back to Goosebay Lake for their weekly meetings.” He dropped the sheet from his waist.
“Then I must thank you for taking that particular bullet for me.”
Levi reached around to grab a chunk of her ass before he backed her into the counter. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
****
Winnetka, Illinois, became the home of Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the prime destination for more than one John Hughes film. Perfect suburban utopia for plenty of grand teenage angst and one third grade teacher, Mary Donahue.
After a forty-mile trek, they arrived at the school a little after the last bell. Grade school never changed. Short lockers lined the halls along with the smell of cheap cleaning products. They waited for missing teacher Ray Donahue’s wife in her classroom.
“Not saying I hated school, but…” Levi wrestled with a small chair. “I hate school.”
Cayden studied the homework that covered the walls. Mary Donahue’s move from St. Geneva may have been far, but not far enough to outrun her past.
“Hi! I’m sorry, I don’t remember having an appointment.” A petite, middle-aged woman with girlish looks stood at the door. Cayden crossed the room to greet her, while Levi got stuck in the child-sized chair. He struggled with the seat as Mary laughed at his predicament. “More of the fathers get stuck that way. Here let me help.” She hurried over and pulled down on the desk part while he tried to sit up. The seat fell with a clunk. “There you go.”
“Sorry,” he admitted with the good decency to look pitiful.
“This is Levi, and I’m Cayden. I used to go to Chesterfield, with Shana Waters.”
“Oh.” Mary’s round face fell. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“We found her,” Levi stepped in, “that day, and we think you may know something to exonerate your husband.”
Mary took a deep sigh and sank down in one of the kid’s desk. “Raymond was a good man. We were both teachers, so there wasn’t a whole lot of money. When he got that job at Chesterfield…”
“Good salary?” Cayden pressed.
“Yes, for us it was a fortune. We were happy we could finally start the family we wanted … but Chesterfield changed him.” She gazed out of the window. Branches from the oak tree tapped against the pane. They waited for her to finish. “Withdrawn and fidgety, I thought he was having an affair. When I confronted him, he promised that wasn’t the case. All he would say was that a little girl was in trouble.”
As a single tear slipped down Mary’s face, Cayden touched her shoulder. “Did he say who she was?”
“No. He promised me he would tell me everything once he got her help. Then like that”—she snapped her fingers—“he was gone.”
“What do you think happened?” Levi passed her the Kleenex box from her desk.
Mary grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her tears. “Truthfully, I think whoever murdered that girl murdered him first.”
Unable to add anything else about her husband’s disappearance, they gave Mary their contact information and said their good-byes.
“Wow, is it always like that?” Levi asked.
“What?” They stepped outside while Cayden checked her phone and saw no less than five missed calls from Deny and three messages.
“Exposing a raw nerve.” He shrugged.
“Pretty much.”
“Hey!” He put his hand over the screen of her phone. “I’m pouring my heart out here.”
“Sorry.” She smirked. “Please continue to tell me how Mary’s pain makes you feel.”
“What about how it makes you feel? How many of these have you done?”
Too many. “A few,” Cayden admitted.
“It’s sad.”
Uncomfortable under the weight of his scrutiny, she tried to move around him, but Levi stepped in front of her.
“Look, if we don’t find something soon we’re going to have to stop.”
“You don’t think we’re making progress?” she asked, confused.
“She didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already suspect. Besides, it felt like we were snatching out her heart just bringing up her husband. I mean shit, the woman can’t even move on.”
“True.” Cayden chewed on her bottom lip. She noticed the teacher’s ring-less finger. After seven years, Mary could have declared Ray Donohue dead but she didn’t. “We have a timeline that makes better sense, now.” She pulled up the crime report on her screen and read it. “According to Mary, Mr. Donahue went to a parent teacher meeting around 7:00 PM and they lived fifteen minutes away. Shana was seen in the administration building where his office was held around that time, but her last sighting was at the library later that night.”
“Which means, what? She didn’t meet with him?”
“According to his employee card, he never swiped back onto property that day.”
Levi gave her a lopsided grin.
“What?” she asked him about his quick change in moods.
“So then Dale could be on the hook for … two murders?” He held up the number on his hand while his smile turned downright devilish.
“Biased much?”
“All jokes aside.” He laughed before he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Dale’s a douche and I’m sure he should be in jail for something.”
Darkness ate away at the light in the sky. She was positive they would be stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic because they were a good hour away from home. Levi opened the truck’s door for her.
“Maybe we’ll find something at the storage facility?” She got into the passenger side.
“Yeah, about that…” Levi said before he shut the door on any further explanation.