Her laptop was gone, and her desktop locked. He found an old phone that he remembered, a Nokia flip. He recalled it was her second phone—and one she hadn’t told him about—because it was for work, she claimed. One morning a year and a half ago, he woke up, still drunk, alone in their bed and found that he’d thrown the mobile across the room. The device was unharmed. The mirror was shattered. He powered it on now; it was no longer active.
Squatting, Merritt began rifling through her desk, pulling out drawers and dumping the contents on the floor. Looking for diaries, notebooks, address books, envelopes with handwritten return addresses, business and greeting cards, receipts, Post-it notes, bills, credit card statements, flyers...
Jon Merritt knew very well that a case might be closed thanks to the smallest of jottings. If he found something that might be helpful he didn’t read it carefully now but shoved it into his backpack; he didn’t want to spend any more time here than was necessary. A police visit was unlikely but not impossible.
Digging, digging, sorting, discarding, stuffing...
God, there was a lot of crap, much of it for work: schematics, diagrams, spreadsheets and long, complicated reports. He didn’t remember her bringing home this much when they lived together. There was a policy against taking most documents out of the office.
Once the desk was depleted, it was on to the bedside tables, thedresser, vanity, closets. A search of those yielded only marginal prizes. In the end he hefted the backpack onto his shoulder and estimated he’d collected a good five or six pounds of Allison Parker’s Personal Life.
Now on to his daughter’s room, though he didn’t think he’d have much luck there. For one thing, it would be his ex who had their destination in mind, not Hannah. Also, a typical teen, the girl keptherexistence mostly digital. No diary, no address book, no Post-its. Some doodlings on class assignments. A pink scrap of torn paper that saidKyle is crushing on you. I am serious!!There were two other references to the kid, who Merritt had never heard of.
Were Kyle’s parents among those unknown friends they might stay with?
Merritt was flipping through a thick stack of poetry, photos and school assignments when he heard the rattle of a motorcycle outside. The engine gunned and stopped. He stuffed the papers into his backpack and peered out.
In the front yard was a trim man, in his thirties, resting a helmet on the seat of a Yamaha dirt bike. He was in a brown leather jacket, black jeans and black shoes. The jacket wasn’t zipped and Merritt believe he saw the butt of a pistol on his right hip, back and low. It was nestled in a gray inside-the-belt holster.
Who the hell was this?
Jon Merritt walked to the kitchen, opened the garage door and stepped inside, drawing his own weapon.
A two-hundred-dollar gun that had cost seven.
29
Following the agreeable voice of the GPS girl, Moll pulled into the parking lot in front of the one-story building. It was white clapboard, with black-trim windows.
The modest sign above the door read:
Safe Away
This was the third women’s shelter on the list. Allison Parker had had no connection with the one north of the city—which had been the most likely one, given the direction of her flight. The second was in Bakersville, the seediest part of Ferrington, and no one there knew Allison.
“Better be it.” Moll snagged an envelope, 8½ by 11, white. And stepped out of the Transit.
He was almost certain Allison Parker and her daughter weren’t here, since it was south of Ferrington. But she might’ve headed north, then circled back. Merritt had said she’d definitely spent some time in one of the shelters, and Moll’s hope was to find somebody she had become friendly with, somebody she might have spoken toaftershe fled. Maybe they’d even recommended another shelter in adifferent county. Nothing wrong with putting some miles between her and any threat.
Moll pushed the intercom button.
“Yes?” A woman’s voice floated out from the speaker below the camera. She seemed stern.
“Hi, delivery.” Moll was as professional as he could be. He held up the envelope. “Need a signature.”
The probing eye would see a man in a suit and tie. A white man. Made a difference, sad to say. The door lock buzzed, and he entered, thinking: careless of them.
The front office was paneled with cheap wood and was obviously a DIY job, with mispatched alignment and sloppy joints. Behind a scuffed desk sat a woman of around thirty-five in a white blouse and dark skirt. She had long brunette hair, ponytail strangled by two scrunchies or whatever they were called. One near her head and the other near the end of the tail.
She was not alone. A large dark-skinned man, wearing a security guard’s blue uniform, sat in the corner. He eyed Moll and went back to texting. He was armed.
With as pleasant an expression as a hulk of a man can muster, Moll displayed the envelope on which a label was pasted. He said, “Copy of a revised restraining order for Ms. Allison Parker.” He was going to pretend to hesitate and look at the name on the envelope. But that might be overacting. “The sheriff’s out serving Merritt now. If he can find him.”
“Allison?”
Moll’s bad day improved considerably with this. She hadn’t asked, “Who?” She knew Merritt’s ex.
“That’s right. She’s in residence here, isn’t she?”