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TWENTY-SEVEN
Lebanon, New Hampshire
Tuesday, March 16
6:00 p.m.
No answer from Katherine Garrison.
Whatever Michelle Cross had planned to do by stealing her son’s and Troy’s baby teeth had died with her.
Leigh hauled the heavy garage door overhead, assaulted by dust, mold, and must. The blisters along her shins threatened to burst with the effort. She’d had to wait until Lebanon PD had finished processing the scene of Chris Ellingson’s home. No telling how far the news of the chief’s banishment had spread, but she’d managed to sweet-talk her way past the pair of officers assigned scene security for the night with coffees and her credentials. For now.
She compressed the flashlight’s power button and stepped inside. Her heels scraped a piece of cement free and sent it into the nearest wall. Not much had changed. A few boxes moved to the side, that bike she’d noticed earlier now angled toward the exit. It’d take days to go through it all. “So what did they want when they broke in?”
Because as much as she believed the unsub had come here to learn everything he could about his victim, there were easier ways to go about gathering information than rummaging through boxes that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. In fact, most of these seemed to belong to Chris Ellingson’s mother, whom Leigh had confirmed had passed three months ago.
Leigh bit down on the end of her flashlight, trying to keep it steady and her hands free as she scanned the too-small space for something easily accessible. Most of the boxes seemed to be packed into the far-right corner, leaving space along the left. “Now why wouldn’t you stack them against the back wall? What did you need to get to?”
Dragging the closest box from the row, she discarded the collection of nightgowns at the edge of the cement. Next, a stack of puzzles that’d never been opened. Halloween decorations, broken pieces of a Christmas tree. Sweat beaded beneath her bra and at the back of her neck the faster she worked, feeding into the stoked fire telling her there was more here than what met the eye.
An oversized duffle bag fell off the top box as she hefted it down and hit the floor. Leigh didn’t bother going through the box digging into the top of her thighs and set it down. The bag was new, from the looks of it. At least not covered in dust and webs.
Out of place in the middle of this mess.
Crouching, she located the main zipper, pulled it back, and positioned the flashlight on a nearby box.
“You weren’t looking for anything at all, were you?” She bared the bright blue tarp stained with rivets of brown, crusted liquid. Blood. Chandler Reed would have to take a sample to confirm it, but her instincts said it belonged to Michelle Cross. One of the corners of the tarp had been torn. Caught in the victim’s jacket. And packed underneath it, a worn leather book stuffed with inserts. She pried the book open. Not inserts. Newspaper articles. From Lebanon, Concord, and every other surrounding town. All dated within the months of her brother’s and Derek Garrison’s disappearances. Handwritten notes and highlights had turned it into some kind of journal. Chris Ellingson’s journal. “You were leaving something behind. To frame Chris Ellingson.”
Leigh gave the garage another once over. Ellingson hadn’t known this was in here. He would’ve disposed of it the moment he’d discovered the unsub had been trying to set him up. “Which means he hasn’t been in here for a while.”
She left the bag where it’d fallen and called for the officers posted at the front of the house, stepping away from the evidence. “I need this photographed and logged right now. Then get the bag to the federal investigator at the station. Chandler Reed. He’s been looking for it.”
“We’re assigned scene security, Agent Brody,” the taller of the two said. “We can’t leave our post without permission from our CO.”
“Give me his number. I’ll stay.” She’d already made the decision to finish what she’d started. “This bag could tell us who the killer is. It’s important it’s processed as soon as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The officers followed her orders in quick succession, leaving her alone to protect the house from trespassers, the murder-obsessed, and people too curious for their own damn good.
She checked each access point: windows, the front porch, and the back door to ensure nothing had been left unlocked and turned back into the garage. She’d gotten through maybe half of the boxes stacked to the ceiling. It could take the rest of the night if she didn’t get her ass in gear.
One by one, she sifted through and categorized Ellingson’s possessions. She’d had to do the same for her mother, for her brother. After everything that’d happened, she’d been the only one left, and it’d taken weeks to be able to simply touch that ballerina jewelry box on the closet shelf again, or one of Troy’s action figures, without emotionally losing it.
Leigh dropped one of the heavier boxes and scrambled to keep the contents from escaping into the shadow of the back wall. Until she recognized what’d been inside. “You son of a bitch.”
Toy soldiers.
Hundreds of them.
She easily picked out a soldier similar to the one Troy had received. Another that looked like the one recovered from Roxanne Jennings’s body. Only this set was new. Never given the chance to be left with a body. Whole, instead of diced up for comparison in a lab test or wearing thin in the jacket of a grieving family member.
How many of these had been saved for potential victims?
How many more were out there, waiting to be found?
She sat back on her heels, brushing against the box beside her. The flashlight rolled off the top and crashed to the floor. Its beam shot into the corner of the garage.
And highlighted a bright gold padlock.
