Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
She paged to two weeks before she was taken, moving her finger over the squares and reading his jotted notes.
“Look at this,” she murmured, pointing to a note in the margin. Evan leaned in.
“Dow, shop two fifteen,” he read. He frowned at her. “Is that an appointment? He met him at his shop a little over a week before you went missing, then?”
“Sounds like it,” Noelle said. “And a week before Dow was killed.”
“Did you ever know your dad to meet Dow at his place of business?”
“No, but I don’t know that I would have had any reason to know that. Dow and my dad worked on a few jobs over the years. I do know that once my dad installed some big lighting system that involved computerization, and he consulted Dow on it. I don’t remember where, or who hired him, but I remember my dad was excited about the job.” She remembered because it was one of the first times she’d seen his eyes light up over anything since her mom died. He seemed enthusiastic about the project, but she also remembered him saying it paid well. And they’d needed the money. Desperately. They’d been buried under debt. The job had ended, and he’d gone back to mostly sulky and silent, but for a moment, he’d been his old self. Yes, she remembered.
She flipped backward, seeing the name of an insurance company and an arrow running through the days of that week. She thought he might have been installing the electric system in the new build of a regional office. They definitely wouldn’t have required a computerized lighting system or anything out of the ordinary. So why meet with Dow at his shop? She had no guess. But it could have been any number of perfectly normal, uninteresting reasons that had nothing to do with anything relevant to them.
Noelle paged forward through that week, past the meeting with Dow. “Look,” she breathed, her eyes going over her father’s note at the bottom of the page. It looked atypically messy, as though his hand had been unsteady when he’d written it. “Dow. Not a robbery. Murder? Police?”
“Your father thought Dow was murdered,” Evan said, lifting his head. She raised hers, too, taking in his worried expression. Yet despite that, there was a tempered excitement shining in his eyes. They were onto . . . something. But what?
“Apparently he did,” she said. “But what made him think that? Other than just a hunch?”
“I don’t know. He also put not a robbery. But it was a robbery. Or at least, his personal items were missing from his body. Your father had some reason to believe robbery was not the motive? Also, why put police with a question mark? Did he think the police had something to do with it, or was he questioning whether he should go to the police?”
“He’d already done that, though,” she said. “He’d reported Dow missing the day before.”
“True,” Evan said, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and tapping his hand on his thigh. “So was he considering going to the police about additional information he had?”
“Maybe. But that’s pure speculation at this point.” She thought about it for a minute. “My father, though . . . he was a good man, Evan. If he had information regarding a crime committed against his friend, he wouldn’t have questioned going to the police.” Their eyes met and held, and she knew what they were both thinking. Her father had gone to the ends of the earth—at least as far as he was able—to bring justice to his wife. He’d ultimately failed, and it had ruined him. Why wouldn’t he try to help the police solve his friend’s murder if he was in possession of information that would do just that?
“Did Dow have any relatives or friends who might be willing to answer a few questions?”
She cast her eyes to the side. “I think I remember him mentioning a sister. But I never met her.”
“I’ll look into that,” Evan said.
“Okay.” Feeling troubled, Noelle turned the page. The week she’d gone missing. She had the insane urge to slam the book shut, as though opening it to that particular day could conjure malevolent spirits who might shuttle them both back to that moment and make them relive it once more. She reached out, grabbing the drink she’d left on the desk and taking one long sip before placing it on the floor at her feet.
Evan picked up his drink from the floor and took a long swallow. That week. It lived and it breathed. It took up physical space in her mind somehow, a place where her cells still quivered, and she figured his did as well. How could it not? “I went missing this day,” she said, tapping March fourteenth. “But he didn’t know it yet. Paula is the one who called to let him know she was worried. She’s the one who called the police.” There were no notes regarding her disappearance or what he’d been experiencing that day. But he’d obviously been sick with worry, so much so that it brought on a massive heart attack and he’d dropped right on his living room rug. Paula had found him later that day when his calls had gone unanswered. She’d had a hunch something was wrong and used the key they kept hidden on the porch to go inside. He was already cold by that point. There was no chance of saving him.