One of Those Faces (63)

CHAPTER THIRTY


I slid the paper and pen across the table.

Wilder lazily picked it up and began reading.

“Was it him?” I asked, my voice echoing off the empty walls of the office. He’d said it was a temporary work space for him while he worked out of the Bucktown Station. He’d seemed excited when he mentioned he’d be heading back to the downtown precinct soon.

He remained silent as he continued scanning the page with his eyes. “Hmm?” he asked, letting the paper drop.

“You said Jeremy left a note. Was it definitely him?”

He stroked his chin before leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table. “His note and the evidence in his apartment helped us piece together a clear picture of what happened and why.”

I waited for him to continue, but he returned his gaze to my written statement. “I need to know why,” I said after a moment.

He glanced out the small window behind me. “So, you know now that Jeremy and Holly had been together before? Well, based off of what we found, it turns out that they remained very close even after they broke up,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “And he had been forging prescriptions for a variety of different opioids and other drugs for Holly. It seems like he may have been selling to college kids all around town. That’s how we found him, actually—OD’d on his own fentanyl supply.”

“How was he writing prescriptions like that?” I asked.

“Still trying to get all of the details about the how,” Wilder continued. “But we caught on to his ‘business’ relationship with Holly because a neighbor heard a loud fight between the two the week she died. There was some dispute about money, and Holly had just started dating someone new.”

I remembered the photo of her bloody fingernails. Moving on to someone else? That’s all it took for someone to snap and kill another human in such a terrible manner?

“I’ll walk you out,” Wilder said, pushing his chair back and standing up. “I’ve gotta have a smoke.”

I followed him outside, fidgeting with my hands as he lit his cigarette. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I think my friend is missing.”

Wilder tapped his cigarette against his finger, ashes falling onto the dirty sidewalk. “Okay, why do you think she’s missing?”

“She’s not at work, and the studio’s been locked up for over a week now,” I said. “And she’s not answering her phone.”

He shrugged. “Does she have family in town?”

“I don’t know where they live, exactly.” It was some suburb out west. Arlington Heights? Skokie?

“Does she live with anyone?”

“Yeah, but her roommate hasn’t seen her in a week either.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

My face burned as I remembered our fight. “I told her I was quitting last week, and I haven’t seen her since.”

“Okay, what about before that? Did she seem off?”

I recalled her writhing with Danny on the dance floor. “No, she seemed normal. We went to a club the night before.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Did she meet someone there?”

“No, we just went with my boyfriend and another friend.”

“Did she leave with anyone?”

After Iann and I had gotten out of the taxi, Erin and Danny had remained.

He noticed my hesitation. “Did you two have a falling-out? About a boy?”

I glared at him. “Girls don’t always just fight about boys.” But this time it was about a boy. And pills, I guessed.

He chuckled. “So what, did she steal your boyfriend or something?”

“No.” At least not my current one. “Her and my other friend split a cab back home.”

He frowned and took a drag. “Okay, what’s your friend’s name? I’ll look into it. And give me the name of the other friend who rode home with her too.”

Heat rushed to my face. “The missing one is Erin Braughton, and the friend she split a cab with is Danny Fletcher.”

He looked away. “Danny . . . so, the friend she was last seen with was a boy, then?”

I held my breath for a moment. “Yeah, but they just shared a ride.”

“Okay, sure.” He flicked the cigarette to the ground and stomped on it. “Let me check it out. I’m sure it’s nothing. They’re probably shacked up together or something.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I saw him the other day, and he told me they didn’t . . . um, do anything.”

He looked me up and down.

“What?” I asked, pulling my jacket closer around my chest.

“You don’t look it,” he said, sharply, “but you’re still just a kid, aren’t you?”

I bit my tongue. Maybe he was entitled to make that statement. He must’ve been close to forty. To him, I really was just a kid. Or maybe the smoking had taken a toll on him, and he was in his early thirties. But those lines around his eyes and the creases in his brow contained a few decades of stories. “So, what’s next in the case?”

He glanced at me sidelong. “Holly’s? The evidence we found in Jeremy’s apartment is conclusive. We’re officially closing it.”