In Close

Boxes stacked floor to ceiling left little room in which to maneuver. She hadn’t remembered it being quite so crowded. But when it became clear that her mother wasn’t coming back, Claire had insisted that everything Alana owned, down to the razor she’d been using in the shower, be preserved. The sheriff’s department had confiscated the contents of Alana’s desk, her computer, any recent letters she’d written or received, the photos she’d snapped in the months prior to her disappearance, her journal, the things left in her car—anything they thought might help them find her. Claire and Leanne had taken possession of any sentimental items that remained. And the rest had been packed up and stored here years ago, just after Claire graduated from high school and moved out—and her stepfather and his wife bought the luxurious home they currently enjoyed, the home they’d bought with the inheritance Alana had received when her parents died in a plane crash only a year before she disappeared.

Riddled with guilt for even thinking that her mother’s misfortune had provided such a spectacular living for the woman who’d replaced her, Claire steered her mind away from that direction. She liked her stepmother. It wasn’t Roni’s fault that Alana was no longer around.

But it bothered Claire that Roni acted as if Alana had never existed. Tug and Leanne preferred to handle the situation the same way. They’d both asked Claire to forget the past. Learning what happened wouldn’t bring Alana back, they said. And it was true. It was also true that Leanne seemed to do better if she didn’t have to be reminded of that fateful day. Which was why, after pleading for the new sheriff to reopen the case a couple of years ago, Claire had gone back to call him off. Her family had been too upset about the questions he was asking. They couldn’t tolerate the assumptions and suspicions that were inevitable in such a small community.

Claire respected their position. But she couldn’t stop digging entirely. She needed resolution as much as they needed to forget.

What she was hoping to accomplish by coming here tonight, however, she didn’t know. She’d been through all this stuff so many times. Her stepfather, his wife and Leanne had seen it, too. The three of them had packed it together.

But Claire couldn’t help hoping that she’d see something she’d missed before, that some clue would emerge and solve the mystery. That happened all the time on those forensics shows.

Squeezing through the narrow pathway, she moved toward a box that contained her mother’s childhood memorabilia—Alana’s report cards, her early journals, pictures of her family and friends. Claire loved looking through that box because it made her feel closer to the woman she missed so terribly. And it was as good a place to begin as any. She planned on going through every last box, even if that meant frequent trips to the studio over the next few weeks.

She bent to lift it, then saw some boxes that had been packed much more recently. They stood out because they were labeled in her own handwriting. David’s Clothes, David’s Things, David’s Yearbooks.

Her hand flew to her chest as if she could stop that familiar lump from growing in her throat, but she couldn’t. What were her late husband’s personal belongings doing here? She hadn’t expected to find them, wasn’t ready for such a powerful reminder.

One day several months ago, her mother-in-law had come over and packed up everything of David’s, insisting it all be taken from the house. She said that Claire couldn’t get over his death if she was living with his ghost, still sleeping in his T-shirt and crying over the fact that it was beginning to smell more like her than him.

Claire had assumed those things of David’s, except the few she’d managed to retain, had gone into his parents’ garage, but Rosemary must’ve asked Claire’s stepfather to put them here. The two often talked, usually about their concern for her and how she was or wasn’t “coping.”

No one had mentioned that David’s belongings had been moved to this attic, but Claire supposed it was understandable that they would be. Rosemary had a large family and a crowded house. She probably didn’t want to encounter her dead son’s possessions every time she retrieved the holiday decorations. The studio already held what remained of Alana’s life, and nobody ever used it. This must have seemed like the perfect solution.

Closing her eyes, Claire reached out for the warm presence she’d occasionally felt since David’s death. She wasn’t a superstitious person, certainly didn’t believe in ghosts that rattled chains and haunted people, but she did have faith in the power of love to create a bridge between this world and the next. She’d felt some comfort since he died. It was almost as if he visited her now and then to make sure she was all right.

She wished she could feel him now, but the pain was too sudden and too acute. Grappling with it required all her focus.

“Why’d you leave me?” she whispered. The tears that rolled down her cheeks were nothing new. She cursed them, wished she could get beyond them, but the senselessness of his death, the fact that she’d lost David so soon and couldn’t imagine ever loving someone else in quite the same way, didn’t help.

She almost shoved his boxes out of sight, pushed them to the back so she wouldn’t have to see the thick black letters that seared her to the bone: David’s. They were only inanimate objects he’d once owned. As badly as she wanted him, David wasn’t here anymore, and he never would be.

But she didn’t push the boxes away; she pulled them closer. She’d spotted something that struck her as odd. On a two-foot-by-two-foot box, third from the bottom, David had scrawled his own name. She recognized his writing—but not this particular box, which she would’ve noticed since it was white and all the ones she’d used were brown.

Why had she never seen this before? She was positive it hadn’t come from her house....

Once she opened the flaps, she knew why. He must’ve stored this above his parents’ garage before he went to college. If she had her guess, it’d been brought here in an effort to keep all his possessions together.

Fresh longing filled her as she touched the soccer and basketball trophies, the varsity letters he’d never sewn on a jacket, a pen set he’d made in wood shop. Then there were the cards she’d given him when they first started dating. They’d gone to high school together, were an item for two years before he left for college, so she had the same homecoming and prom pictures.

Unable to spend any more time with those memories for fear she’d undo the progress she’d made in the past few months, she began to close the box when she decided to see what was inside a fat accordion-style file folder tucked between some old sweaters. It looked far too businesslike for the seventeen-year-old David who’d packed up the rest of these things....

When she opened it, she realized why. This folder wasn’t from that early period. It was from after they were married. And what it contained shocked her so badly, she had to put her head between her knees so she wouldn’t faint.

Jeremy Salter hung back in the trees, watching. It was pitch-black, but that didn’t matter. The night- vision goggles his father had given him for Christmas worked beautifully. He’d also received a Swiss Army knife—he loved collecting things that would help him survive in the wilderness. He imagined himself as the next Rambo.

But Claire had no survival skills. She didn’t belong out here, especially after dark. If she wasn’t careful, a bear or a pack of wolves could attack her. Or even a man. Men were by far the most dangerous animals on earth.

His father used to say that; his father had also proved it.

She must like it here, he mused. She came often enough. But not so much lately. Not once David was killed. Since David’s death, she didn’t do much of anything, except cut hair all day. Then she’d curl up on the couch, eyes glued to the TV. But he usually got the impression that she wasn’t watching the program. She’d stare at the screen without blinking and soon the tears would start.

She missed David and didn’t know how to go on without him.

Jeremy understood how that felt.

So what was she doing in her mother’s old studio? Trying to get herself into the same trouble David had? Didn’t she know that some secrets should be buried and forgotten?

She’d be fine if only she’d let the past go. Then he’d be fine, too.

Sometimes he wished he could tell her that. Promise her that everything would get better if she could just go on her way. She was so beautiful and smart and nice. Everything a woman should be. Any guy would love to be with her.

Including him. Especially him. Not that he’d ever have a chance. He was too…different. He’d always been different.

Her flashlight had made it possible for him to track her movements to the loft, but then the light disappeared.

Had she turned it off? Was she sitting on the floor, crying? Missing her mother the way she missed David?

Or did she have some other reason for being here? She’d slipped away from the park so cautiously, it’d certainly felt as if she had a purpose.

He needed to get inside the cabin to find out. But he hesitated to go that close. What if she caught him?

That could be dangerous. For both of them.

But if he was quiet enough, she’d never have to know. He’d been watching her for years, hadn’t he? And she’d never caught him yet.

2

David had a copy of the case files on her mother. Everything was here, from the missing-persons report to the last interview. Claire had seen some of this before, but even she hadn’t been privy to all of it. How had he come by this much information?

He must’ve gotten it from Sheriff King. Either that or he’d called in a favor from his old hunting buddy, Rusty Clegg. Rusty had been a deputy for the past six or seven years. It helped to have a friend on the force.

But what felt so strange about finding this was that David had made his own notations on many of the reports and interviews. It was almost as if he’d picked up the investigation where the sheriff had left off.

Why hadn’t he told her what he was doing? The dates on the log he’d kept correlated with the first year of their marriage and included a number of entries in the months leading up to his death. The last time he’d written anything was two days before the accident. She found detailed information on her stepfather and Leanne, plus her mother’s only sibling—a sister living in Portland, Oregon—and a complete chronology of Alana’s last movements.

Some of it Claire didn’t want to read. It brought back That Night, the longest night of her life, during which every adult she knew, including her stepfather, was out searching. She and Leanne hadn’t been allowed to leave the house. They’d waited for their mother, or some word of her, praying all the while for her safe return—to no avail. When the sun came up, their stepfather and one friend after another checked in with the bad news that they hadn’t been able to find any sign of her.

Reluctant yet determined, Claire’s eyes skimmed the handwritten log fastened to the left side of the thickest folder.

May 10: Spoke to Jason Freeman. Claims he saw Alana at the bakery between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. Watched her go in and come out carrying a bag of doughnuts while he drank a cup of coffee in the cab of Pete Newton’s truck. Jason says she got in the car with Tug and drove away. Tug confirms this in original interview. Other than Tug, Jason is the last person to see Alana.

May 12: Tried to reach Joe Kenyon.

Now there was a name, the one most often mentioned by those who theorized that Alana had been unhappy in her marriage and had gone looking for fulfillment in the arms of another man. If she’d had one affair, it was plausible she’d have more and might even have run off with whatever new lover she’d taken, right? That explained the mystery to some. But it explained nothing to Claire, who couldn’t believe her mother had ever cheated.

He wouldn’t open his door when I knocked, but Carly Ortega across the street told me Alana stopped at Joe’s house quite often. She even saw her car parked in his drive once, late at night.

Late? How could that be possible? Tug was always home at night. Alana would’ve had to slip out of bed without his noticing in order to leave the house. And why would she do that? Joe had come to cut down the diseased cottonwood tree that was about to fall onto their roof, but other than the few hours they’d spent together then, Claire couldn’t remember them ever speaking.