Missing My Mark

By Lynn McMahon Anstead

With her ex-husband's murder solved and the perpetrators in jail, Carly feels safe moving on with her life and focusing on her new relationship. When her son fails to return home at the usual time, panic sets in. In her heart she knows that something is seriously wrong, but will she be able to convince anyone to act before it's too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynn McMahon Anstead
• Release date: Feb 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311124814

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I hate waiting. I mean I really hate waiting. I hate it down to the very tips of my fingers and toes. I try to distract myself with other things, like reading a book or watching television, but I find that I am unable to focus and can skim through pages of type, or even watch an entire episode of Oprah without having absorbed one single thought or idea. I can’t absolutely confirm that I have always felt this way, but do suspect, from both my earliest memories and stories that my mother is only too willing to share, that this trait is not one that has been recently acquired. In fact I would probably go so far as to say that it’s actually hard-wired into my personality, which should make it something entirely out of my control and would, of course, mean that I didn’t have to take any responsibility for it. Yeah, wouldn’t it be great if it I could get away with that!

Oh waiting is definitely easier if there’s someone there to talk to, but since it tends to make me even more scattered than normal, there’s generally not a lot of people willing to volunteer to wait with me, at least not more than once. Which explains why I was sitting there alone, nursing my tepid cup of tea and waiting for the damned phone to ring.

My daughter Shelby was at school, although a quick glance at the clock reassured me that she should be home before very long, dragging her brother behind her. Actually it would probably be the other way around, because I was pretty sure that it was Mark’s turn to have the car today, so he should be the one dragging her. I got up and paced around my small living room, glaring at my telephone in disgust, as if it could be held responsible for the fact that it wasn’t ringing.

The weeks of cleaning, and painting and throwing out years of junk had been hard work, but at least they had actually given me something to do. Then came the days of keeping the house spotless, not using the wastebaskets so that they were always empty and vacuuming my way out the front door. That was also a pain, especially since I never really knew where to go while people looked through my house. However this part of the process - with someone interested and actually putting an offer in on the house - this had to be the hardest part of all. They had to talk to their agent, who then had to talk to my agent, who then had to talk to me. And this whole process had to be repeated every time an offer or a counter-offer was made. So there I sat, waiting for the next volley in this ridiculous tennis match, hoping to get this thing resolved today, so that I could get on with my life.

It didn’t help that they had come in with a ridiculously low offer either. I don’t know whether they thought they could get the house for a song because of what had happened here, or whether they thought I could afford to let it go cheap because of the insurance money I’d collected after Kevin died. Whatever made them think that they deserved a chunk of that money anyway? I wasn’t even sure that I deserved it and I was married to the man for 15 years. Whatever their rationale, I certainly wasn’t going to let it go for 25% below asking price. Fortunately their second offer was a little more reasonable, but they hadn’t come even close to meeting what we really expected to get for the house.

Making the decision to sell the house had been an easy one. With everything that had gone on this past summer, there was absolutely nothing that made me feel in the slightest bit tied to this place any more. In fact I don’t think I’ve managed to sit on that couch once, without remembering how I’d laid there, with the man who’d killed my ex-husband sitting on top of me, convinced that it was going to be the spot where I would die.

Confused yet? I don’t blame you at all. Perhaps I could take a moment to fill you in on the events of the last few months. It would serve the dual purpose of bringing you up to speed and keeping me from crawling any walls.

About three months ago (although it feels like a whole lot longer than that), I opened my trunk to bring my groceries home from Sobeys. Inside my trunk I found the body of my ex-husband, with a knife sticking out of his stomach. Apparently I fainted, because I woke up in the hospital to find that not only was my ex-husband, Kevin, really dead, but the local Chief of Police was determined to frame me for his murder.

Since my son Mark was on a European backpacking vacation at the time, it was up to me, my daughter Shelby, my best friend Kareena, and my mother to find the real killer, which we succeeded in doing. Unfortunately he managed to get one step ahead of me, and if it hadn’t been for the fortuitous return of my son providing a distraction, I may very well have died right here in this very living room. The irony of the fact that I was once again awaiting the arrival of my son, to provide another distraction did not escape me. But this time I needed him to provide distraction from the excruciating process of waiting, which was considerably less important than the life-saving distraction he had provided before.

The shrill ringing of the phone startled me out of my reverie. Amazing, isn’t it, how the damned thing can make you jump, even when you’re expecting it to ring?

Thank God, I didn’t think you were ever going to call back. I ungraciously announced without greeting.

Hey mom. I was startled to hear the voice of my daughter answer back. I quickly looked down at the telephone to see that it was indeed the number of her cell phone that peeked out at me from the window of my phone, and not the number of my Real Estate Agent’s phone. What was the point of paying for call display if I kept forgetting to use it?

Hi honey, I can’t really chat right now, I tried hard not to sound accusatory, Sheri’s supposed to be phoning back with the next offer.

Mom can you come and pick me up please? All thoughts of real estate deals vanished at the tone of Shelby’s voice. Mark is over half an hour late already.

Did you phone to see whether he’d left yet? I fought back the rising panic that was threatening to choke me.

‘Yes, the lady at the camp office said that he’d left at the usual time." Unable to decide on what to study at university, Mark had decided to take a year off, and had secured a job working at an Outdoor Education Centre for kids.

Well did you try his cell phone? There had to be a reasonable explanation for this. He probably had a flat tire, or had run out of gas somewhere.

Yeah mom I did, and that’s what’s really weird. Every time I call, you can hear that someone is answering it, but nothing is ever said. There’s just this sound of someone breathing quietly. Although the last time I thought I heard someone singing quietly in the background, and it sure didn’t sound like Mark.

An icy fist clenched around my heart and squeezed. What could this possibly mean? What had happened to Mark? Shelby, exactly where are you?

I’m on the sidewalk out in front of the school. Sometimes it’s hard to get cell reception inside the building.

Please go back inside the school and stay there until I come to get you. I really needed to know that she, at least, was safe. I might be a little while, because I really think I should be calling the police first.

Gotcha. Shelby understood only too well how important this safety thing had become to me.

I pushed the button to disconnect Shelby from the line, so that I could call 911. As luck would have it, Sheri chose that exact moment to phone and her call connected without my phone actually ringing. It took me a few seconds, although it felt like so much longer, to figure out what happened, and once I did, I’m afraid that I was anything but polite to her.

Well they’ve made another offer, but I’m afraid that it’s not much different from the last one. The discouragement was evident in her voice.

Tell them to shove off then. I haven’t got time for this nonsense right now. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Sorry Sheri, Shelby just called and Mark seems to be missing. I really need to look after this right now.

The beauty of having a friend for an agent is that you don’t have to waste a lot of time explaining things. Sheri and I had known each other since our kids were in karate together, many moons ago, so she knew who Shelby and Mark were, and knew just how nervous I was about their safety these days.

I’m sure everything’s okay. I will look after this the best I can. Keep me posted. Recognizing my need for urgency, she hung up before I could say another word.

My fingers trembled as I dialed 911, and I swore softly with every ring, cursing at how long it was taking to actually reach a person. Disappointment didn’t even begin to describe what I felt when I finally got through and was told that my problem wasn’t considered an emergency, and I bit my lower lip while I waited to be transferred to the Police Station. The woman at switchboard there had to be one of the few people in this one horse town that didn’t recognize my name right away, and I suffered another few minutes of agony before I finally got a chance to talk to an officer.

I should have seen it coming. Mark was 19 years old, and had only been missing for about an hour. No one was going to take that seriously except, perhaps, a neurotic mother. There didn’t seem to be a great deal of worry about the strange noises that Shelby had heard when she phoned, since there were so many possible explanations for those too. No amount of assurances that Mark would not do this to me, given what we had been through that summer, got through to this guy. I even came away with the feeling that he thought I was looking for more limelight, now that the sensation surrounding Kevin’s murder had died down (please forgive the horrible pun). The only thing he promised me was to post the license plate number, so that the patrol cars out and about would keep half an eye out for the car.

It took every ounce of my limited self-control not to slam the phone down. I so desperately wanted to call Duncan, but he was hours away, taking a course at the OPP training academy in Orillia. Even if I could get through to him, if he wasn’t actually in a classroom, there was nothing he could do for me, and all I would do was unnecessarily worry him.

Kareena was my next obvious solution, but a quick call to her office yielded the information that she was in court, and wasn’t expected back in the office that day. With the feeling that time was running out sinking into the pit of my stomach, I left messages on both her home phone and her cell phone. Her fiancé, Scott, one of the city’s finest boys in blue, was the next to get a frantic call from me, but he too seemed to be out, and another, semi-frantic message was left.

With all of my options exhausted, I scribbled a note to Mark, telling him to phone as soon as he got home, and left it on the kitchen table where he would know to look. I turned on my cell phone, stuck it in my pocket, and set off to pick up Shelby, who was probably worried sick in her own little waiting hell. Maybe the two of us could drive around and find Mark.

***

Shelby was out the door and running down the front steps of the high school as soon as she saw the van turn onto the street. She was at the curb and had the door open before I’d even come to a complete stop. My stomach did a little flip at the sight of her. I was so relieved to see that at least one of my babies was safe, and absolutely sick at the look of worry in her blue eyes.

I tried phoning him again. She informed me, as she was sliding into the seat beside me. This time it just rang and rang until his answering service cut in.

I nodded acceptance of her news, and brought her up to date on my efforts.

Shit. She announced. I was afraid that they would say that, but was hoping that they would make an exception, given what we went though this summer.

I had hoped that too. I nodded again. But I guess as far as they’re concerned, the bad guys who hurt us are behind bars, and there’s no reason to expect lightning to strike twice. In fact I kind of got the feeling that I was being patronized…like they were treating me as if I were some little old eccentric now, looking for burglars under every bush.

But mom Mark would never do this to us, especially knowing how difficult it is for you to let go anymore.

I snuck a quick peak at her, wondering if I really had been making life too rough for them, with my over-protectiveness, but decided that now was definitely not the time for that discussion. I know that baby, but unfortunately they don’t. I found myself automatically turning right up 59, heading for the camp where Mark worked, and where the Board contracted out most of its Outdoor Education programs.

Shelby glanced nervously at the clock on the dashboard. Better hurry up mom, or everyone will have gone home.

I punched my foot down on the accelerator and prayed that there were no police cars around.

***

We did manage to catch the administrator, just as she was locking the front door to the Centre. She smiled indulgently, giving me the, I’m so sorry, we’re closed for the day speech before she turned and recognized Shelby, from the number of times that she’d been out there to pick Mark up. Her forehead wrinkled with concern as she assured us that Mark had left at the regular time. When asked if he’d mentioned if he’d been planning on going somewhere after work, she shook her head and said that the only thing he’d mentioned was picking up his sister from school, as always. Her smile softened at this, as she commented on his tendency to tell her the same thing every night, and I wondered if he had somehow subconsciously realized that someday it might actually be important.

She obviously felt awkward, standing with us there in the darkening gloom, so we thanked her for her time, and made our way back to the van. Retracing our path, but much more slowly this time, we drove back along the route that Mark would have most likely taken to get from work to where Shelby was waiting for him. There was no evidence of any accident that might have resulted in his trip to the hospital, and no sign of the little sand-colored Toyota Celica that I’d bought for my children to share. We never bothered reclaiming the car that Kevin’s body had been found in, and Scott told me that it had been sold at a police auction.

We did notice a little red Volkswagen Beetle, one of the newer models, pulled over to the side of the road, not far from where the boarded up buildings of the Centre stood. Actually it was directly in line with Cottage 2, the building where Kevin had once worked, and outside which the State Police had discovered that he had been killed. I shivered at that thought and stepped a little harder on the accelerator. It never occurred to me to copy down the license plate on that Beetle, but I would spend hours berating myself for that oversight.

We made it all the way back to the high school, without learning anything more that might have revealed what happened to Mark. We were just preparing to start exploring the side streets in the neighborhood that would have provided a less direct route for him to have taken to get to Shelby, when the cell phone in my pocket vibrated. Relief surged through me, as I realized that it was probably Mark. He’d likely come home and found the note on the table, and was now phoning to apologize for the stress he’d put us through. I punched the button on my phone and answered, waiting to hear the sound of his voice. Instead I was surprised to find that it was Kareena on the other end of the phone, telling me to come home.

***

The rest of the drive home was horrendous, and I found myself thanking God that we lived in such a small town. Even still, it was the height of whatever passed for rush hour in these parts, and it took twice as long as normal to get there. Kareena had refused to say anything else, except to repeat the direction to come home, and then she had hung up on me.

I tried reassuring myself with the knowledge that whatever she had to tell me about Mark, he couldn’t be in the hospital, because surely she would have had me meet her there unless…unless he was dead. That had to be it…he was dead, and that’s why she had refused to say anything else on the phone. I fought back the tears as I tried to see well enough to get Shelby home in one piece.

Seeing the police cruiser parked outside of my house did absolutely nothing to allay my fears. Of course I realised that it was probably Scott who had driven it there, but the fact that this was serious enough for him to be there in an official capacity (he had to still be on duty to be driving a cruiser, didn't he?) did not escape my attention. So there was no way that this was just a social call.

Kareena has had a key to my house for as long as I can remember. We’d even managed to make sure that she got a new copy, when the locks had been changed this last summer, so she was inside my house with a pot of coffee brewing by the time my unsteady legs managed to get me inside. One look at her face told me everything I feared was true.

He’s dead, isn’t he? I blurted out, only vaguely aware of Shelby’s hand squeezing my shoulder.

Who? Kareena’s face was genuinely surprised.

Mark. I was a little less sure of myself this time around.

Mark is missing? The blood draining from Kareena’s face did little to reassure me, nor did the fact that Scott had risen to his considerable height and was making his way towards me.

Why are you here Kareena? What is it that you have to tell me? I made no effort to stop the rising hysteria in my voice.

Brian Lawrence escaped Carly. He was in court for an appeal, and somehow he just managed to just slip away. Nobody knows where he is.

It took a few seconds for the two events to coalesce in my mind. Brian Lawrence was loose and my son was missing. I later learned that Scott anticipated my faint and caught me on the way down, breaking my fall and lowering me gently to the floor. Given the circumstances, I’m really glad he never tried to move me to the couch.

CHAPTER TWO

I sat at my kitchen table, with a blanket draped across my shoulders and my trembling hands wrapped around a hot mug of coffee. I had often wondered, when hearing reports about missing children, what those poor parents must have been feeling. This hopeless helplessness that threatened to suffocate me wasn’t far off what I had imagined. However it was something that I really could have done without experiencing first hand.

Sitting across the table from me, in similar straits, was my poor daughter. The loose grip of her hands around the mug, which had never once made it to her mouth, and the glazed look in her eyes made me seriously worried that she was going into shock and I began to wonder whether or not I should take her to the hospital.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that Scott and Kareena were wondering the same thing, and were also discussing whether or not a trip to the hospital would be needed. However I was shocked (another lousy pun) to hear that they had reached the same conclusion about me, and were considering booking us into a room for two. I struggled through the lethargy that was saving me from having to deal with what I’d been told, and broke surface with a whimper. Even to my own ears it sounded particularly pathetic. I tried again.

What are we going to do? My voice sounded tinny and weak, and very far away, so I cleared my throat and worked at making it stronger. We’ve got to find Mark. There, that time I sounded almost human.

Carly you’ve had a tremendous shock. Scott’s professional voice was calm and soothing. I’d really like to take you and Shelby down to the hospital where you can be checked out by a doctor.

Hah! I snorted. The last doctor who treated me at that hospital ended up trying to kill me. With my luck he’d be on duty again tonight, now that he’s out of jail. I saw Scott and Kareena exchange worried looks over my head. It’s okay. I tried to reassure them. I haven’t completely lost it…not yet anyway.

I lifted the mug to my lips for the first time, enjoying the feel of the warm, sweet liquid running down my throat. Kareena you know I stopped taking sugar in my coffee last summer. I reminded her. It had been part of my bid to try and make my shape more pleasing for my new, younger boyfriend.

I know honey. But I think the sweetness is supposed to be good for shock. Her warm brown eyes were still full of concern.

It’s going to make it awfully hard to go back to drinking it without sugar again. I sighed. But I’ll just have to deal with that tomorrow. I looked over at my poor daughter, and thought I detected a hint of life in those beautiful blue eyes.

Shelby. I called her softly and was rewarded when her eyes twitched in the general direction of my face. Shelby baby talk to me, or we are going to have to take you to the hospital. Her hands tightened around her mug and she softly shook her head.

Shock is a very dangerous thing babe. You know that. I can’t take any risks with you. I pushed back the thought that wanted to say, especially now that Mark is missing.

I’m okay mom. She let out a long, shuddering sigh. I just can’t believe that it’s going to happen all over again.

Drink. I encouraged, knowing the warm sweet liquid would do wonders for her.

Why mom? She asked, after lowering the mug from her lips. Her voice was oh so very young.

Don’t know sweetheart. Our Instant Karma is certainly out to get us this year. I took another sip of my own coffee. But we can manage babe, because we have to.

Yup, I suppose we do at that. A second, larger sigh shuddered through her slight form, and I knew, at that moment, that she would be okay. At least she would be as okay as the circumstances allowed.

I turned to Kareena, and struggled not to react to the relief so evident on her face. Talk to me. Was all I said.

Apparently Brian had been in court, in the judge’s chambers, talking to the judge and the County Prosecutor about cutting some deal in exchange for his testimony. It seemed that he was only too pleased to point the finger at Burgess as being the real bad guy, identifying himself as merely an unwilling lackey.

That’s ridiculous. I spluttered. There’s just way too much evidence of things having happened the other way.

Agreed. Kareena seemed to be having as much trouble staying calm about this as I was. "I think he knew it too, and this was just an excuse to get himself into a position where he could get away.

Anyway, he excused himself to go to the washroom, and was escorted there by one of the guards. While Brian was behind the locked door, a commotion broke out in the lobby, somebody shouted ‘He’s got a gun’ and the guard ran to help. Of course it turned out to be a couple of teenagers horsing around, and when the guard returned to the bathroom, the door was still shut, but Brian was gone. Unfortunately it took him a few minutes of listening to the dead silence on the other side of the door to figure that out. His handcuffs had been removed so he could use the urinal, but he was still wearing ankle cuffs. Nobody knows how, or even if, he managed to get those off.

I rolled my eyes in disbelief. You’ve got to be kidding? That seems too easy to be believable.

Well apparently they were short-staffed, because two of the guards were off with food poisoning. One other guard, who was escorting another prisoner to lock-up, and this guy were the only two who were on duty. They tried calling in someone else, who was taking a vacation day, but he was also busy talking to the great white telephone.

This is beginning to look staged. I grumbled.

It is indeed. Kareena agreed. Apparently someone brought the guys some home-baked cookies yesterday, and everyone who ate one of them got sick. The guys who managed to make it in to work today didn’t have one, because they’re watching their weight.

So Brian just walked. I sighed. What time was this? I didn’t bother asking if they’d orchestrated a search and had managed to find him. I was quite sure that the answers to those questions would have been yes and no.

About 5 o’clock. Kareena said. Strangely enough, I actually saw Brian as he was being escorted to the washroom. He grinned at me, and flipped me a salute. I just turned my back and walked away.

Shelby proved that she really was paying attention, as both her head and mine snapped to attention at the same time. What time did you say? She asked in a tone that brooked no argument.

Pretty close to 5:00. Kareena repeated. I’m sorry but I wasn’t looking at my watch. Why is this important?

Because that’s after Mark went missing. Shelby turned to me with a look of puzzlement on her face. If it isn’t Dr. Lawrence who’s got Mark…then where is he? I shrugged, expressing both my lack of knowledge and my sense of helplessness, just as Scott’s walkie-talkie squawked.

Scott stepped out onto the front step to take his message, making it impossible for me to listen to a word he said, as badly as I wanted to. The realization that he had done that in case any bad news came through didn’t do much for my peace of mind either.

Carly, tell me about Mark. Kareena’s tone indicated that this was probably the second time that she’d made the request.

There’s not much to tell. I answered, before proceeding to give her the details about timing, what my calls to the police had yielded and what Shelby and I had already done to look for him. Shelby added in her two bits whenever they were needed. The fact that another hour had passed without so much as a word from him hit me hard in the gut. Before Kareena could respond to what little information we’d given her, Scott came back into the house.

They’ve found Mark’s car. His whole demeanor was so serious that I felt my bowels turn to liquid. It’s parked up behind the old Blanford Mall. There’s no evidence of foul play.

The very fact that it’s sitting there and my son isn’t home is enough evidence of foul play for me. I tried, unsuccessfully, to push back the feelings of helplessness and made a beeline for the bathroom for my own conversation with the great white telephone.

***

My determination to visit the car was only slightly stronger than Scott’s insistence that I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it, but I did win out in the end. I finally convinced him by using the argument that Shelby and I would have a better chance of spotting anything amiss then the police would. This, of course, was only half right. Maybe Shelby had sat in that car every day since we’d bought it, but I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d been in it. However I certainly wasn’t going to point that out to Scott as we all piled into the cruiser to travel to where the car was about to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Mark had radioed that we were on the way with keys in hand, so at least the locks would be spared being pried open.

As we drove past the police station on the right, I felt a huge gap in my heart where Duncan had recently taken up residence. I realized that I had not phoned him yet, and cringed at how angry he would be when he found out about my omission. It was one thing not to call him up when Mark was late picking Shelby up from school, no matter what my warning bells had been chiming, but another altogether not to call him with Mark missing and Brian on the loose. That necessitated a phone call, and I hadn’t gotten around to making it.

It only took a few seconds more for me to realize that because the car had been found outside of city limits, the Provincial Police would once again be involved in the investigation, the same way that they had been when Kevin’s car had been found. But because Kevin’s body had been found within city limits, inside the trunk of my car, the city police had also been involved in the investigation, which is what had given Burgess the opportunity to try to frame me.

I closed my eyes and squeezed them tightly shut, willing away images of Mark being found in the way his father’s body had been. I don’t know whether or not Shelby was having similar thoughts, but something was obviously troubling her, because I felt her hand being pressed into mine and I squeezed back. Surely this time was going to turn out differently. Forget what losing Mark would do to me (I couldn’t possibly bear to even think about that)…but what about Shelby? How could she possibly handle losing her father and her only sibling in the space of a few months?

The Blanford Mall was situated about 10 minutes outside of city limits. I have never understood why someone felt compelled to build it way out here, or how the merchants had managed to stay in business for as long as they did. Once Wal-Mart pulled out to build bigger and better and closer to the hub of things, the mall’s other tenants had slowly followed suit, as their leases expired. The whole thing sat vacant now, like a ghost town. As far as I knew there were no plans to re-vitalize it, but if being torn down was part of its future, I hadn’t heard anything about it.

Scott turned left into the empty parking lot, the tarmac cracked and full of potholes from years of frost and neglect. The Wal-Mart sign, long since removed, could still be read by the discoloration of the brick. The large storefront, that book-ended the other end of the strip, had gone through several incarnations over the years, so it was impossible to read any one name on the now naked brick. I vaguely remembered a grocery store having been there at one point, where, as local legend went, a scene for a movie had been shot. I think it was one about special effects, or something like that.

Taking it slowly, because of the condition of the parking lot, Scott guided the cruiser around to the back of the mall, where the doors to all the service entrances stood. As we slowly made our way along, to where the circle of lights surrounded what I could only assume was our car, I was haunted by the memory of another story that I’d heard about the mall - one that I’m pretty sure was true.

A few years back, not long before I’d moved here, there’d been two (or was it three?) suspicious deaths in the septic tank of the mall. Apparently the men from the (out-of-town) company contracted to do the cleaning of the tank had all succumbed to the fumes within and died. What made the situation so suspicious was that these men were allegedly experienced at this work, and safety procedures demanded that at least one man stay on the outside to avoid this very occurrence. This, combined with the fact that they were in there without their protective masks, prompted all kinds of speculation about money owed to the mob, and this being a professional hit. I can’t remember if it was ever solved. As horrible as the thought was, I made a mental note to make sure that the tank wasn’t overlooked in the search for Mark.

It’s strange how your mind can race a hundred miles an hour, when you’re trying to avoid thinking about some unpleasant task that lies ahead. As we neared the hub of activity, I was impressed to count not one or two, but four separate cruisers, all of them bearing the Provincial Police emblem on the front door panels. Obviously they were taking my concerns much more seriously than the city police had done. Of course that probably had a lot to do with Duncan being one of their numbers, plus the fact that the abandoned car substantiated my concerns. I’ll have to admit that the last thought was grudgingly offered up.

Well my ramblings had succeeded in allowing me to get as close to the car as Scott could maneuver, without thinking once about what I might find therein. Once the car had pulled to a complete stop, both Scott and Kareena turned and looked at us. They were both doing their best to keep their professional demeanors about them, but Kareena was losing the struggle.

Are you sure you want to do this? She couldn’t help asking.

What would you do, if you were me? I was pleased to hear the resolve in my voice, and she nodded her acceptance. Giving Shelby’s hand one last squeeze, I let go and got out. The car couldn’t have been sitting there for very long, but it was cold enough for frost to start forming on the windows. And I couldn’t help noticing that it was starting to snow – great, big, white, fluffy flakes.

One pair of officers had just finished dusting the exterior of the car for prints, and turned to look at us expectantly. The other pair, who were fighting a losing battle trying to measure and photograph tire prints, before they were obscured by the falling snow, nodded their greeting, but kept on with what they were doing before the window of opportunity had passed.

Carly. I was greeted by a tall officer, whose face was vaguely familiar. I struggled briefly to remember a name, from that B.B.Q. that I had attended with Duncan, but gave up trying. There was no way I would remember his name if it had been given to me only seconds ago.

Shelby stepped forward, extending the trembling hand that was holding her copy of the car key. The same gray-haired gentleman gently took the key from her, instinctively understanding that for now, no conversation would be welcomed. He turned to the car and slipped the key in the lock, as Scott moved protectively between the car and Shelby and I. He wasn’t actually blocking our view, but was in position to do so, should something unpleasant be revealed.

The door swung open and I was instantly hit with the overbearing smell of perfume – a sickening, overly-sweet