The Running Girls(67)
“Unless the water gets to the house. I could bring him in?”
“God, no,” said Filmore. “You wouldn’t be able to reach anywhere to safely keep the body. Take photos and video, and anything else you see that might be relevant, but you need to get the hell out of there as quick as you can. That’s an order, Laurie. You understand me?”
“Lieutenant.”
Laurie closed the call and looked outside. The thick gray clouds were so low it was as if she could reach out and touch them. She feared what would happen when the storm surge reached Frank’s house, but there was no time to dwell on the possibility. Pulling on another pair of sterile gloves, she returned to the crime scene. She’d worked with CSI before, so knew the basics of what they did. She wouldn’t be able to take any samples, but knew enough to take the correct photographs of the corpse, which was all but floating on a river of blood. She zoomed in on the deep, ragged mark on Maurice’s neck, which appeared to have severed the carotid artery. Videoing the mark, she made a comment suggesting this was the cause of death, before moving downward to capture Maurice’s disfigured legs.
She cleaned herself up in the bathroom before taking a final sweep of the house, stopping in Frank’s bedroom. Had the man killed his brother and then just upped and left? If he was out there in the wild, chances were high that the hurricane would take him one way or another. But no, his truck was missing. It was feasible that he’d joined the thousands evacuated and had already escaped the island, and possibly the state. This was frustrating for so many reasons, and Laurie wondered if they would ever find out why he’d done what he’d done.
She was about to leave when she caught sight of something beneath one of the pillows on Frank’s bed. It was an envelope addressed to Frank. The paper was dry, the ink faded. Putting on another pair of gloves, she took out the letter and began to read.
It was a note to Frank from someone named Sadie, thanking him for some money he’d given her. “I know it must have been hard for you, hearing from me all these years later,” she wrote. “I have wanted to write you for so long now. There are so many things I wish I had told you. It’s so good to see you’re doing well, that you are married and have your son, David. I wish I’d had the chance to meet him.”
Who was this Sadie, and why was she mentioning David?
“This means so much to me,” she went on, “and will help more than you can ever know.”
At the bottom, it was signed, “All my love, Sadie x”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Laurie placed the letter in a waterproof evidence bag before leaving the house. Frank must have been reading it before Maurice was killed, and she wondered at its significance. Something about the styling felt odd, especially the mention of David. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but it was possible the letter had some bearing on recent, and past, events.
It felt wrong leaving Maurice’s corpse unattended, but there was nothing for it. The storm attacked her from all angles and almost floated her down the hill toward her vehicle. The lieutenant was right: the storm surge had reached the area, and the dirty seawater was halfway up the tires on her car. Laurie forced her way through the deluge, the blood on her trousers mixing with the mud-brown water as she forced the car door open.
Hurricane Heather had arrived, even if this was its outer limits. Billowy clouds hovered in the sky as rain hailed down on her. Her car was being buffeted from side to side, and she’d only moved a hundred yards before the car lost traction. As it momentarily drifted along the road, it reminded Laurie of driving on black ice. She steered as well as she could, fearing she was going to veer off at any second, before the wheels finally made contact with the tarmac beneath the water.
Filmore had been right about being stranded. The storm surge was building relentlessly, and had she stayed any longer she would have been stuck there with Maurice’s corpse for the duration. She’d just picked up her phone to call the lieutenant when the radio crackled to life with a call ordering all rescue personnel to return to their respective shelters and to prepare for the worst. Filmore’s phone didn’t even ring, and she hoped he’d managed to get to safety.
Making slow progress along the back streets, Laurie glanced at the letter on the passenger seat. She recalled the name Sadie Cornish from the initial investigation, but hadn’t realized her significance to Frank. The mention of David’s name still confused her. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Sadie to find out the name of Frank’s child, but it still felt a little odd that she had mentioned him by name. Other questions sprang to mind as the car trundled through the deserted streets. Had Frank left the note out on purpose for someone to find, and to what end? Was it somehow an admission of guilt, or a cry for help? Laurie wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, but she had to consider what role this Sadie had had in all the events that had plagued David’s family.
The water she was moving through must have been a foot deep now, obliterating any wayfinding assistance but stop signs and mailboxes, which kept popping up where she hadn’t expected them to. It was hardly a surprise, then, when her car ground to a halt as the front wheels caught on something beneath the murky water. Laurie looked around at the boarded-up houses, feeling at that moment as if she was the only person left on the island. She put the car in reverse, the front wheels spinning and churning up great, splattering boils of mud and water outside her side window, but the vehicle refused to budge.