Wherever She Goes(27)

Where the Wild Things Are.

I smile, as I crack open the cover. I know every word of this book. It’s one of Charlotte’s favorites. I flip through, and I remember the woman’s words.

“I’ve been reading with him.”

I hold the book up to the light. There’s no dust on the cover, meaning it hasn’t been under there since the last tenants.

I flip through again, and there, written on the inside cover in shaky block letters . . .

Brandon.

I examine the empty drink box. It’s a child-sized one, grape juice, with a purple mouse on the front. Also no sign of dust. When I turn the box upside down, a drop of purple liquid falls.

As I watch that drop fall, a thought forms. I toss the book and box onto the bed and race around the house, checking the garbage cans.

Every one is empty.

Completely empty.

There is not one item of trash inside. And no bags outside.

You erased him. You knew something was coming—someone was coming—and you erased every trace of him.

I go back into the bedroom, and I pick up the box and the book.

Found you, Brandon.

No, I’ve found proof of him. Proof that I cannot take to the police, because it’ll be like when I told Officer Cooper about the mud-smeared license plate.

“See this juice box? This book? Here’s the proof.”

“A . . . juice box. And a . . . book. Left under a bed.”

“Right, but—”

“Tell me again how you happened to find these things, Ms. Finch?”

I would admit to breaking in—even to hacking—if it would convince the police that a child is missing. It will not.

I found evidence of you, Brandon.

And now I need to find you.





Chapter Sixteen





When I leave Kim’s rental, I head to Chicago, for a rental locker I have not visited since the day I married Paul. No, that isn’t true. I did come here three years ago. To the locker I rent under a fake name, from the kind of company that doesn’t ask questions if you pay in cash.

The last time I visited was a week after Charlotte was born. And I removed a gun. For six months, I kept that between the mattress and boxspring of our bed, until Charlotte started to crawl, and the day she did I brought it back to this locker.

Paul never knew about the gun. Aubrey Finch isn’t the kind of woman who’d even know how to hold one. She certainly wouldn’t want one in the house. Not with a child. I agree, yet when Charlotte was born, all my old fears ignited.

They are irrational fears. I know that. It isn’t as if I have a million bucks, stolen from my partners, stashed in this locker. No one is going to come after me. When I first left home, I’d slept with a gun under my pillow for a year before realizing I was safe. After Charlotte, though, nightmares plagued every bit of post-baby sleep I got—nightmares of someone coming for her, taking her, hurting her. Those, too, eventually died down, and I was fine returning the gun.

Now, though, I am again worried. I’m digging into something dangerous. Kim is dead. Her son is missing. It is my earliest fears with Charlotte come to life. Someone from Kim’s past came for her. I’m certain of it. If that person finds out I’m digging into Brandon’s disappearance? Into Kim’s death?

Time to visit the storage locker.

The space is barely closet sized. My possessions would actually fit into a box. But I can’t exactly stick a box in a sketchy storage locker without the risk of someone prying open the door and knowing they’ve hit the jackpot.

I’ve scattered my treasures among thrift store furniture. Taped under each drawer of a dresser is twenty thousand dollars. None of it is stolen. When Ruben first came to me with his hacking offer, it’d been a get-rich-quick scheme. Such things always are, aren’t they? The problem is that most thieves don’t funnel their ill-gotten gains into a 401K. They stuff it into a needle or spend it on a blackjack table. Not me. Of the money I made, I kept one-third to live on. One-third I donated to charity for veterans suffering from PTSD. The final third I gifted, anonymously, to people in need. That doesn’t make me Robin Hood. I did keep the one-third, and I enjoyed “sticking it to the man” a little too much.

This hidden money, though, comes from my father. It is my inheritance. When I walked away from my criminal life and reinvented myself, I knew better than to throw around money, even if it was legally mine. I lived the life I’d created for myself—a girl with a high-school education, working sales jobs. Then I met Paul, and I couldn’t exactly produce a hundred grand in cash without raising questions. So the money stays here until I have a condo and joint custody of Charlotte. Then I can begin slipping it out to pay off my mortgage.

I’m storing memories here, too. My mother’s photo album. Her rings. My father’s medals. His watch. A locket he gave me when I turned sixteen. Thumb drives, too, of digital documents and photos. My past takes up so little space. Less even than the money.

The gun is taped under a nightstand. As I pull it out, I remember the first time I held one. On my twelfth birthday, I asked my father to take me to the range. He refused. Continued to refuse until he caught me in a field, target shooting with friends.

At the time, I thought he refused because I was a girl. I know now that he didn’t want me following him down his path into service. He never said that, but I see proof in my memories, of every time I raised the subject and he’d start talking about good civilian tech jobs and I’d get so angry, certain he just didn’t think I could handle army life.