Ellen saw him, too, but there wasn’t a drop of emotion in her stare. She made no move to come closer or to acknowledge him. He didn’t belong to her world anymore.
Dennis zipped up the down vest he was wearing, as if he’d felt a chill. “So what do you think, Shelby? Who brought my son out here?”
“We haven’t found any evidence about that yet. Hopefully, the FBI will turn up something when they search.”
“Do you think it was Keith Whalen?”
He caught me off guard, and I answered before I could stop myself. “No. I don’t.”
Dennis didn’t look surprised by my honesty. “Me neither. Keith had problems, sure. He had a lot of anger bottled up inside. I could picture him losing it and killing Colleen. But kidnapping my son and murdering him in cold blood? I never believed that Keith was capable of that.”
“Neither did I.”
“Well, I guess we could both be wrong. People surprise you, right?”
“Yes, they do.”
He watched his ex-wife again, who ignored him as if he didn’t exist at all. “Ellen always thought Jeremiah was still alive. She never gave up hope.”
“But not you?”
“No, not me. I knew he was dead. That was really what split us up. I’m sure everyone thought it was because of the affairs, but the fact is, Ellen could tell that I didn’t have any hope left. She hated that. She needed to believe.”
“Why were you so sure?”
“I guess I could feel it. I just knew he wasn’t in the world anymore. I even had a dream where Jer came and told me he was dead. I cried, but I was sort of at peace after that. He said he was okay.”
I thought about Anna’s very similar dream. It was as if Jeremiah had been leaving messages with the people who loved him.
“I suppose you’ll be searching the woods,” Dennis added.
“Yes. When the snow melts.”
“I hope you find him. For Ellen’s sake. For closure. She never found any peace the way I did. She still tortures herself about it. I see her on television sometimes at Congressional hearings, and there will be this moment where she’s questioning someone and she stops and gets this faraway look. And I know. She’s thinking about Jer. She’s wondering where he is. So it would be nice if she could stop wondering, you know?”
“Yes, I know. That’s what we all want.”
“He doesn’t have much of a family to come back to,” Dennis went on, “but I’d like to bring him home anyway. Jeremiah deserves that.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Adrian wanted to stay at the scene with his mother, so I took the cruiser myself to drive back to Everywhere. The winter night was already falling fast. I headed off along the slippery curves with my headlights sweeping past the forest above the frozen creek. When I got to the intersection that led toward Witch Tree, I started to turn left, but then I spotted the wooden arrow pointing me toward Will Gruder’s house.
I reversed my turn and continued straight.
I’d been to Will’s house on police calls several times, but not since the explosion at the meth lab two years earlier. Their lab had been located deep in the forest on hunting land plastered over with No Trespassing signs. It was no wonder that we’d never found it. But the explosion and fire gave it away and torched several acres of wilderness. We’d found Vince dead at the scene and Will burned over 60 percent of his body. He barely survived.
When I parked in the snowy yard, a Doberman tied up on a chain welcomed me with a murderous frenzy of barking. The house wasn’t much larger than one of the old resort cabins, but it had a satellite dish pointed at the sky and security cameras mounted near the roof. Heavy-duty electrical cables ran outside, powering a refrigerator and freezer. I saw an enormous wooden cross hung on the front door.
I knocked hard, which only made the dog madder. The door opened a crack, and to my dismay, I saw Anna staring at me from inside.
“What are you doing here, Shelby?” she asked in annoyance. “Are you following me?”
“I’m looking for Will.”
“Well, he’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“In the hospital in Stanton. He’s had joint problems since the fire, you know. Yesterday his knee locked up, and he had to have some kind of injection.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“No, you’re not.”
I leaned closer and smelled alcohol on her breath. Hard stuff, not beer. “Am I interrupting a party?”
“There’s no one else here.”
“So are you going to invite me in?”
“Will wouldn’t like it. He doesn’t want strangers coming inside.”
“Then how about you come outside?”
Anna sighed as if I were making a huge imposition on her life, but she grabbed a coat and joined me in the yard. The Doberman on the chain barked like a madman, but Anna snapped her fingers, and the dog shut up immediately and stiffened to attention. Anna told him to sit, and he did. His eyes followed her closely, waiting for her next command.
“He obviously knows you.”
“Sure he does. Plague’s a good boy.”
“Plague? The dog’s name is Plague?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Vince thought it was funny.”
“Well, you’re good with animals.”
“Better than people.”
Anna hadn’t zipped up her bubble coat. Underneath, she wore a short-sleeved red T-shirt that left part of her stomach exposed. Her jeans had holes in the knees. I was more concerned with what I saw tucked into her belt. An automatic pistol.
“What the hell are you doing with a gun, Anna?”
She shrugged away my concern. “Some sketchy guys come around here sometimes. People don’t always know that Will is out of the business.”
“You’ve been drinking. Alcohol and guns don’t mix.”
“I had one drink. It’s not a big deal.”
“Is the gun Will’s?”
“No, it’s mine.”
“You own a gun? Since when?”
“Since last summer. I was having a smoke behind the Witch’s Brew, and some guy tried to assault me. That’s when I met Will. He taught the guy a lesson. I didn’t want to get caught out again, so I got a gun.”
“You were assaulted?” I asked, trying to keep my voice down. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Nothing happened. The guy barely touched me before Will took him down. I’m fine.”
I took a deep breath and tried not to lose my cool. Anna was always pushing me, as if she wanted me to blow up at her, yell at her, ask her what the hell she was doing with her life. But I didn’t. Not this time. I tried to channel Trina, who’d always seemed to levitate above the world, never getting upset, always staying in control. Honestly, I don’t know how she did it.
“Anna, you keep shutting me out. I want to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” she snapped back at me. “What, did you have a nice talk with my mom today and she told you to crack the whip? Look, I don’t care what you think you are to me, Shelby. Mom, sister, girlfriend, priest, whatever. Right now, you’re my landlord and that’s all.”
The raw pain blew out of this girl like a tornado and nearly swept me away.
“Okay. You’re right, we don’t have to be close. We don’t have to be anything. But as your landlord, I need you to be home tonight. Not here. Got it?”
“I have to take care of Plague.”
“Find someone else to do it. Call one of Will’s friends at the bar. I need your help with Dad tomorrow. I’m going out early to see Keith Whalen, and then the FBI is coming into town. You need to look after my father. That’s part of our deal.”