Moth(22)

This woman knows nothing about her daughter, and the fact that she’s adamant to push my buttons only tells me she’s hiding secrets. I wonder if her strict upbringing led her daughter to lash out and drastically change. That kind of shift could have led to her demise. Without a body, there’s not much else I have to assume.

When I hear the guys coming downstairs I know I can’t stick around much longer. I need to leave her with the assurance that I’ll be able to provide her with answers she desperately longs for. I reach for my wallet and pull out my card. “If you think of anything you might have forgotten to tell the police please give me a call. Even the smallest of details can help me locate your daughter.”

“She’s dead isn’t she?”

“Do you think she might be?”

She shrugs. “It’s been years. If she were alive she would have called someone.”

“I hope that’s not the case. If I discover anything else about your daughter’s case I’ll let you know.”

It’s not until we get back outside when House begins to unravel what he’s discovered in the bedroom of Windy Lewis. He hands me the camera. It’s turned on so I can go over the photographs. “Check this out.”

I start flipping through as Renner takes the driver’s seat. The room is in pristine condition. Her walls are lined with books. Her bed is still made. It looks like a magazine it’s that kept. “What am I looking for?” I ask House.

“Keep scrolling.”

Then I see a shot where one of them is holding back the corner of the carpet. The hardwood floors have carvings in each plank. First it shows that someone is counting down something. They are divided into fives, so I quickly add up what I can see from the photo. Three hundred and forty. “What the hell?”

“We found these in each corner of the room. I wouldn’t have thought to look, but one was sticking out, probably from being vacuumed.”

“So how many would you guess?”

“Thousands. What the hell could she be counting?”

“No clue.” I keep scrolling and see prison and she’s the devil. At the same time House places something over the backseat toward me.

“We found these when we pulled the carpet almost halfway up.”

Before I look I add, “It sounded like the roof was coming off. I should have known you were going to be thorough.”

“There wasn’t anything to find. Nothing was moved. No notes. No journals. No nothing,” Renner says.

I peer down at polaroid photographs House has handed me. It’s a female figure. She’s naked and taking a picture of her back while looking in the mirror. I can see the silhouette of her face and recognize it to be Windy. Her back has long bleeding lashes across her shoulder. I flip to the next picture and notice this one the lashes are in another area. Her hair is pulled up, and it’s obvious this is a different time. Another picture reveals the same evidence. The lashes are across her lower back this time. Then there are some on her ass. In some I can almost see a hint of scarring from the beating before it. I cringe as I keep going through at least twelve photos of this girl being abused, probably by her parents. When I look on the back I notice she’s written dates. She’s documented every single one of them as if she were collecting evidence. There’s no telling what kind of damage they’ve done. It’s definitely enough to make a person go crazy. All I can gather is this is plenty of enough reason for the girl to want to get the hell away from her family, by whatever means necessary.

It only takes me a second glance to reveal something I hadn’t noticed at first. The handwriting. I recognize it. “Holy shit.” I pull out my phone and flip through until I reach the shots I’ve taken of the journal entries I found in the fake Windy’s apartment.

“What?” Renner asks beside me.

“The handwriting matches the journal entries. Guys, I don’t think the fake Windy wrote them.”

“So the fake Windy has the journal belonging to the real one? This is f*cking insane, Moth. We need to tell the director. This case is getting too involved. We’re not paid to do this kind of investigation.”

“Shut your pie hole. If you want out then you call and cry to the director to reassign you. I refuse to quit. We’re finding answers.”

“Answers that lead us further away from Jamie,” House adds from the backseat. I know they’re annoyed, but I refuse to back down, even if it pisses off my closest team members.

“We aren’t calling the director, and neither of you are getting out of this. I need you. Stop bitching and help me figure this out.”

“This chick was obviously in an abusive upbringing. She probably ran away and gave her identity to someone else to throw off the police. The heroin was probably a coincidence,” Renner states.

“No. There’s something else. It doesn’t add up.”

“I’m with you, man. Whatever it takes,” House offers.

I nod. I’m still looking at the photos, comparing them to the journal handwriting. It’s a dead ringer. Not even an expert could match the swirls this chick uses in certain letters. I’m determined to get the fake Windy to write something down for me. I need to be sure about this piece of the puzzle. They may think this is leading us in another direction, but I see it is a lead we need to follow.