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Boucher flipped through his notebook. “Michelle Cross. No criminal record, credit history looks good. No outstanding debts that we could find. Never enlisted with the military, and current employment history and tax records put her with the same company for the past two years as a remote web designer. All in all, nothing there to give us motive as to why she ended up on that bridge. We’re still interviewing neighbors on foot to find someone who might’ve seen or talked to her before she died. But according to her boss, Michelle was using all of her paid time off.”
That got her attention. “Did they give a reason why?”
“Said it’s been planned for months. Michelle told them she was visiting her sister in Concord for a week. Didn’t think anything of our vic not checking in for work.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “The sister had no idea?”
Boucher pointed at her as though she’d won a prize. “Bingo.”
“If Livingstone’s right in that the killer stalked Michelle Cross in the weeks—maybe even months—leading up to her death, it makes sense he waited until no one would report Michelle missing. The question is, what was the victim doing the week she was supposed to be in Concord and how did the killer have access to her schedule?” Along with a million others. While the home had obviously been cleaned from ceiling to floor, she couldn’t see any signs of a struggle. They’d already established Michelle Cross hadn’t been killed at the bridge. Evidence of a piece of tarp and lack of blood at the scene suggested she’d been transported from the murder site. Most likely by car, but not the victim’s. It was still in the driveway. Considering the careful planning at the crime scene and the cleaning agent burning her senses here, the killer was too meticulous to have left it behind for police to search or match to any treads left behind. Leigh moved toward a set of stairs leading to the second floor. “She wasn’t killed here. You would’ve already found blood evidence or had neighbors report screams each time she was stabbed.”
Boucher seemed to pause. “What makes you think the killer let her scream?”
The past threatened to escape the dark hole she’d dug at the back of her mind, but Leigh forced herself to stay in the moment. She had one shot to prove the man who’d murdered her brother and Derek Garrison had tortured and killed Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt. And she wasn’t going to waste it. “Why stab and cut someone over a dozen times if not to watch and hear them suffer? Besides, Dr. Jennings didn’t find any adhesive or bruising around Michelle’s mouth to suggest she’d been gagged or taped during her exam of the body at the scene.”
“Good point.” Boucher followed her up the stairs, close on her heels.
Was that approval? The lieutenant’s proximity was suffocating and reassuring at the same time. She’d never been comfortable being boxed in, but that small victory of agreement blossomed into hope. They wanted the same thing: to find a killer. Maybe that would be enough. A start to repairing the rift between this town and her family. Because she sure as hell wasn’t going to get any consideration from Officer Pierce.
Leigh ignored the cold dampness crowding around her ankles from the spilled coffee. The upstairs was just as stark and empty as the main floor. Silence pressed into the first of two bedrooms.
Empty. Mundane. Barely furnished.
Seemed Michelle Cross saw her life here as temporary despite the decades of memories and time she’d actually spent in the home. Just as Leigh did. Either the victim was looking toward the future, to leaving Lebanon behind, or she was hiding something. Plaster and paint peeled from the ceiling overhead. Typical of homes this old, but the cracks shooting across the ceiling weren’t. “Have you already searched up here?”
“Not much to search. This room’s empty, found nothing but toiletries in the bathroom.” Boucher scanned the room from her side. “Michelle slept in the other bedroom. Same situation. The woman was practically living out of a suitcase.”
Goose bumps prickled up her arms, even with her jacket.
“It’s colder in this room than anywhere else in the house. Did you notice?” She pointed at the ceiling, tracing the largest fault line from one end of the room to the other. “There’s attic space above this room. Michelle must’ve removed the insulation. Maybe to gain access to the storage up there. It would explain the compromised plaster. Attic spaces aren’t usually structured to take much weight.”
“If there is, should be an access from one of these rooms.” Boucher raised his gaze to the ceiling as they maneuvered back into the narrow hallway and into the other bedroom. He was right. The only signs of life included a barely made-up mattress with a pillow on a diagonal and a crumpled pile of laundry shoved in the corner. She hadn’t gotten a look at the upstairs bathroom yet, but one thing was clear: Michelle Cross was living as a stranger in her own home. But why? “Here.”
The lieutenant sidestepped into a shallow closet and lifted the thin rectangle of drywall blocking the attic entrance free. Dust rained into her face and hair, but not enough to convince her this cavity hadn’t been opened recently. Leigh sidestepped out of the way to get a better view. “We need to get up there.”
“Are you volunteering?” Boucher unholstered the flashlight from his service belt and compressed the end. He angled the beam into the cavity. Rafters and pockmarked sheathing that’d seen better days materialized at the other end of the light.
Webs spidered out around the opening with sticky white fingers, and a hollow sensation gutted her stomach. She’d always hated spiders. It wasn’t enough the paneled ceiling of her childhood bedroom had been infested with translucent brown funnel spiders and given her night terrors for months, but one had crawled free of her brother’s mouth seconds after she’d found him under the house. She’d screamed so forcefully, she’d ripped the skin off the back of her throat. “You’re the one with the gun.”
“All right.” Boucher handed off the flashlight and set one boot into the bottom built-in cubby of the closet. Bracing himself, he climbed higher until his head penetrated the darkened space. “You’re right. There’s something up here. I’ll be damned.”
Leigh circled to get a better view. A myriad of possibilities lightninged through her mind. “What is it?”
Boucher hauled himself up through the opening. Joists groaned under his weight, and a new crack splintered from one corner of the attic entry to the back wall of the closet. The lieutenant’s outline disappeared a split second before he dipped a hand back through the opening. “Come on. Hand me the flashlight, and I’ll pull you up.”
The last time she’d gone into a darkened space similar to this, she’d found Troy’s body. Muscles down her spine tightened as each second ticked by—too loud—in her head. Boucher was a detective. He would smell her anxiety rising the longer she refused to move. He’d get inside her head. He’d find the dark hole where she’d buried her secrets. No one was allowed in there. Not even her. She’d learned what would happen if she bared that place, but he was still there. Waiting for her.
Leigh surrendered the flashlight, slid her hand into his, and pushed off the same bottom cubby to propel herself upward. The ceiling had struggled to hold Michelle Cross’s weight. What would it do with her and the lieutenant’s combined? All too soon, she was encapsulated in darkness with nothing but Boucher’s hold keeping her grounded. Then he let go.
Her toe hit a cardboard box, and she nearly fell forward, hands splayed to catch herself. She couldn’t see anything without the flashlight. A streak of lightning penetrated through the single clouded window off to one side and lit up the crowded space. Boucher’s outline solidified off to her right, unmoving. Thunder shook through the house—loud this close to the underside of the roof—and agitated the unease clawing through her. She could taste it in the form of bile at the back of her throat. Leigh took a careful step, sure to keep her weight on the top of the joist spearing this direction. The last thing they needed was to fall through the ceiling. “What is it?”
Boucher angled the flashlight toward the floor. Almost forgotten. “Looks like we found what Michelle Cross was doing in her spare time.” The lieutenant stepped out of line and dragged the beam up the wall. “Killer must’ve missed it.”
Concern about their combined weight in a compromised and weakened attic space fled as curiosity and validation pulled her closer. Handwritten notes scribbled across pinned newspaper articles. She didn’t have to get a clear view of the headlines to figure out what they said. They’d been burned into her brain every time the morning paper showed up on her porch after her father’s arrest. She’d never had the courage to bring the papers inside. To protect her mother. To protect herself. They’d all gone in the garbage still rubber-banded. Leigh raised her hand to the corner of one clipping, trying to smooth it out. It centered a photo of her father, smiling back in his last yearbook photo. Elementary school teacher arrested for deaths of two students. And written in thick marker over the body of the article, a single word. Innocent. Her heart rate ticked higher. “She was investigating Troy’s and Derek Garrison’s murders.”
Why? Michelle Cross wasn’t police. She wasn’t a private investigator as far as they’d been able to tell. She worked for a tech startup as a web designer, but there was no denying someone from the past had piqued the victim’s interest.
“She had a suspect, too.” Boucher positioned the flashlight higher up the wall.
