All of Allison’s and Hannah’s known social media sites closed down. Allison’s phone is no longer active. Email accounts might be active, but she’s not responding to messages sent by Harmon or her mother.
Sonja Nilsson interviewing Alli Parker’s coworkers. None have suggested where she might have gone. Still more subjects to contact. Parker has no relatives in the area.
Jon Merritt’s mother lives in Kansas; father is deceased. Mother reported that she’s heard nothing from her son or Alli Parker, with whom she was on terms that were friendly, if distant.
He read through his notes twice. It was enough background.
The Restless Man was restless.
Shaw rose and walked to Sonja Nilsson’s office. She was on the second of her two phones, the off-brand one. Her conversation seemed serious.
She looked up.
He told her, “Going out. Back in an hour or two.”
She nodded and turned her full attention back to the call.
Shaw fished the motorcycle keys from his pocket and walked to the elevator, past some colorful renderings of Pocket Suns. Bright yellow lines radiated outward from the dome of the units, reminding Shaw of nothing so much as the beams emanating from the heads of Christian martyrs in medieval paintings as they were about to meet their ends.
28
He parked on Cross County again—no risk of her deflating any tires now—and made his way along the same route he’d taken earlier in the day, through the woods behind her house.
Jon Merritt assessed the place: Nice enough. Small. A pool, of course. Shehadto have her pool.
He pictured the seahorse...
The snow...
Spattered with her crimson blood.
Then he dumped the memories and slipped up to the back door.
The lucky SOB got lucky once again.
His ex and daughter had left so fast they’d forgotten to lock the door and set the alarm. The light on the unit glowed green. He stepped inside. He was going to go from room to room to close the drapes but his wife had conveniently done so. Still paranoid, it seemed.
Cartons sat stacked in neat rows against the wall, each one carefully labeled—unlike at the U-Store facility, where she’d tossed things into the containers helter-skelter. A third bedroom was packed floor to crown molding with boxes and racks of clothing.
She’d unpacked only the necessities. Where was she planning onmoving permanently? Out into the country? Another state? Her job was important to her but there were other miniature reactor companies. Some had tried to steal her away, he recalled.
Sparse, yes, a residence for a transitional life. Still, she’d built some comfort; the house was homey lite. Cut flowers, real ones, exploded from a half-dozen clear glass vases. Macy’s oriental rugs covered the laminate floors. Pictures on the walls. Every relative was represented but him. She’d done what the Soviet dictators did. Purge.
The ransacking began.
His ex’s bedroom was also her office.