“What do you mean?”
“Yes, I took the jewelry. And the gun, too. I threw it all in Black Lake. I admit that. It was a stupid thing to do. But the only reason I did it was to protect myself. I was desperate that night. I panicked. I knew how it would look when the police came and saw Colleen’s body and my gun lying next to her. I knew that you’d tell everyone about our affair sooner or later, and then I’d have a motive to go along with a dead wife. I could see all that coming. That’s why I tried to make it look like a thief did it. But I didn’t kill Colleen.”
I got out of the chair and waved to the guard. I wanted Keith out of there right now. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to listen to him lie to me again. The guard unlocked the door and came into the room and took Keith by the arm, but Keith resisted long enough to bend over the table.
“You asked if I could help you, Shelby. You asked if I knew anything about Jeremiah. Well, here’s what I know. I’m innocent. I didn’t murder anyone. Maybe there’s no connection between Colleen’s death and what happened to that boy. Or maybe you were right all along, and Jeremiah knew who really killed my wife.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
A cold case like Jeremiah’s disappearance never goes completely cold. It was always in my thoughts. We kept a file cabinet in our basement office that contained everything related to the case. Search results. Photographs of evidence. Transcripts of interviews. Plus my personal notes of what had happened in those early days. Every few months, on a slow day or a Sunday afternoon, I would pull it all out and go over everything page by page to see if there was something we’d missed. After Adrian joined the force, we’d often do it together. I think it made him feel closer to his brother.
Sometimes the review left us with new questions, new people to talk to, or new places to search. None of it led to any breakthroughs, but it meant I was often on the phone with Special Agent Bentley Reed to talk about the case. He came back to town several times over the years, including on the one-year and five-year anniversaries of the disappearance, when the national media was revisiting the mystery. A strange thing happened along the way. He and I became friends. We’d have meals together. I told him about my struggles with Dad and Anna. He told me about his wife, his four kids, and his drug-addicted brother. I was pretty sure he didn’t tell many other people about him.
When I got back to the sheriff’s office later that morning, Reed was there to lead the investigation again, and he kissed me on the cheek. Physically, he hadn’t changed much. He was an imposing man, in good shape, and I was willing to bet he could still give younger agents a run for their money at the gym. He’d shaved away his thinning hair and his goatee, probably because it had gone completely gray a while back. He wore a suit and tie, but he’d come prepared for the January weather with a hooded winter coat and North Face boots.
He was still as sharp and focused as ever. We reviewed topographical maps of the area and studied ground and aerial photographs of the ruins at the Mittel Pines Resort. The team laid out a search strategy and grid. Then, while a dozen FBI forensic specialists headed for the resort itself, Reed asked me to drive him back to the original place on the national forest road where Jeremiah had disappeared. He wanted to follow the route the kidnapper would have taken on the way to Witch Tree and see the world through his eyes.
Being Reed’s chauffeur again after ten years gave me a feeling of déjà vu. As we drove, I told him about my conversations with Ellen and Dennis Sloan and about Anna taking Jeremiah to the ruins of the resort a few months before the disappearance. I also told him about my visit with Keith Whalen, even though I didn’t believe that Keith was telling me the truth about Colleen’s murder.
I told him my father’s thoughts about the white F-150, too.
“Interesting,” Reed replied as we rattled along the dirt road. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that very same question. I don’t see how the driver of the truck could have gotten away from the lake without help. Either someone met him or someone left a car for him. If that’s true, there’s a witness around here who knows something.”
“Or we could be wrong about the truck.”
“True. Do you believe that?”
I shrugged my shoulders. It would make the case easier if I believed that, but I didn’t. “No, you’re right. The truck was wiped down for a reason. It’s connected to Jeremiah somehow.”
Reed was quiet, looking out the car window at the trees. We were close to the spot. When we got there, I parked, and the two of us climbed out into the bitter cold. The forest was more open in January because the trees were bare, and you could see into the deep stretches of wilderness on both sides. Snow clogged the brush and spilled across the road in windswept ridges. Where there had once been nothing but a bicycle left behind, there was now an unofficial memorial that attracted locals, strangers, and mystery hunters at all times of the year. People came here to look for clues and pray for answers. They always left something behind. There were dozens of white crosses. Stone cairns. Stuffed animals. Flowers that had died with the coming of winter. Hand-written notes with messages of inspiration.
Come home, Jeremiah.
The lights are on for you, Jeremiah.
You’re not forgotten, Jeremiah.
During the warmer months, volunteers tried to keep the site clean and well maintained, but the memorial grew forlorn over the winter as weather took its toll. Reed looked up and down the road and into the trees. We’d been here together countless times. Nothing was ever going to change, but you never knew when the ghosts would decide to talk.
Reed shoved his gloved hands into his coat pockets. “If we’re right about the F-150 being connected to the crime, that means someone stole the truck in Martin’s Point and grabbed Jeremiah right here about two hours later. And now it looks like whoever it was took the boy to the abandoned resort, which is another hour away.”
“That’s right.”
“This resort sounds like a place that most locals know about but most outsiders probably wouldn’t know about.”
“Yes, unless they stayed there when it was open.”
Reed nodded. “Okay, that’s true. A visitor would remember it, too. On the other hand, the resort was shuttered for more than a decade before Jeremiah disappeared, right? So if our perp stayed there, it was a long time ago. The question is: Why take the boy there? Was there anything personally significant about that location for the kidnapper? It’s a long way to go with a victim in the car, and there are plenty of other deserted hiding places closer to where we are. But he chose the resort.”
“You think that was his destination all along,” I said.
“I think so. It’s not a place you come upon by accident. He knew where he was going.”
My face was cold. I shivered. I couldn’t take my eyes off the collection of crosses pushing out of the snow. We were alone out here, and the wind moaned and rattled the empty branches. Ten years ago, we’d been here in the summer, when the forest was overflowing with life, full of insects and birds and plants all reaching for the warmth of the sunlight. Now that world was dead until spring.
“The kidnapping had to be a crime of opportunity,” I pointed out. “No one could have known that Jeremiah would be out here. Adrian didn’t even want him to come along. So the boy couldn’t have been a specific target for anyone. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Reed frowned. “In other words, we’re right back where we were when this all started.”