Lies We Bury(10)

“You got it.”

She switches to a more subdued, pensive smile. “I lead a team of three marketing specialists and four college interns.”

“Sounds like a full plate. Can you cross your arms and hug your elbows? That’s great.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot. Luckily, I live and breathe social media, so it doesn’t feel like work.” The laugh tumbles out of her like it’s too big for her throat. “Our job is to make sure Portland readers know where they can find reliable and accurate news.”

“Is that a problem, generally?”

“Not exactly. I mean, most of the news that outlets are reporting is all from the same handful of sources: the police, eyewitnesses who want their five minutes of fame, or government officials. For that reason, it’s about building brand loyalty with readers versus trying to be the first ones to report. There’s no way you could know what to report on first, every time, unless you were the criminal.” She grins again, lifting an eyebrow.

“That makes sense. Let’s do a series of profile shots. Then I think I have everything I need.”

Amanda gives me her left side and smiles at a shelf in front of her.

I lift the viewfinder to my eye, but her words roll through my head again. No way you could know . . . unless you were the criminal. If anyone knew I took photos of Four Alarm before it was a crime scene, would I be a suspect?

When I don’t click the shutter, Amanda turns back to me. “Uh. Claire, right? Everything okay? Should I do something different?”

“No, you’re good. The focus was off,” I mumble. “I read on the Post website about the Four Alarm death. Has the brewery staff been cleared of suspicion?”

“Too early to tell. Word on the street is that one guy is being looked at for having ties to the S&M community, but no one has been arrested.”

“Sadomasochism?”

Amanda meets my eyes with a smirk. “Right? As if being into a little kink means you’re into murder.”

I nod, then snap another three photos. “Any other crimes like this recently? Or similar crimes in the past? A woman being held underground and then killed.” Speaking the words feels wrong, as though I might out my origins accidentally. Remember that one guy who held three women underground and made them bear children?

“Or killed and then moved underground—there have been a few,” Amanda says. “From years ago. Three others that all involved bunkers or basements or something weird going on belowground. The crime team has been trying to dig up those details since the weekend, but they’re short on help.”

“Lots of people on PTO, huh?” I ask, remembering Pauline’s explanation for the last-minute coverage of the parade.

“That, paternity leave, and someone else quit out of the blue.”

A midmorning shadow slides down the window, followed by a rumbling noise. An airplane dips low, probably landing at Portland International Airport, and obstructs the light for a final shot. Unease seems to paint Amanda’s face in the gloom of the cavernous room. Then the airplane’s engine fades into the distance, and the sunrays return.

I snap the shutter button and tell Amanda we’re done. She leaves, promising to send the next subject upstairs. I remain at the window, digesting her words, waiting for the sun’s warmth to energize me. Instead, a cold, clammy feeling persists along my skin.

When a man knocks on the glass, I jump and almost drop my camera to the floor.

“Claire? You ready for me?” The man Pauline called Elliot peers at me from the doorframe. He runs a hand through gray-threaded black hair, then tucks a thumb into his belt loop. Although he must be nearing fifty, his shirt buttons strain against the muscles of his chest. “I got Kasey covering for me on the police scanner for the next twenty minutes.”

“You’re with marketing, too?” I ask.

A conspiratorial gleam enters his eyes. “Newspapers run pretty lean nowadays, so I’m on three different teams. The interns find it funny that the old guy is in marketing—as if social media and publicity are just for kids. What can I say?” he adds. “I surprise people.”

Glancing down at Amanda’s wary expression on my screen, I clutch my camera closer. “I know the feeling.”



Jenessa’s phone goes to voice mail as I cross the river to the house she rents in North Portland. She hasn’t invited me over since I moved here, but I have to speak to her. There’s no one else in the city who will understand the panic blurring the white dashed lines of the asphalt. If there is a link between this victim and me, there’s only one person I can speak to freely about it. My sister.

Hurtling over the bridge at a speed too fast, I pass individuals standing at the thick-beamed railing, alone and seemingly deep in thought. Are they contemplating jumping right here and now or planning out a return visit under cover of darkness, as I would?

The city Rosemary moved us to after we left Portland didn’t have a major river that would assist a suicide attempt—only a lazy one that wound through the desert town. Despite our torrid beginnings, my mother didn’t even own a gun, too terrified that one of us, herself included, might do something drastic. She wasn’t wrong. Although the obvious means of hurting myself were out of reach, I never let that stop me.

I merge onto another freeway and swerve onto the shoulder to avoid a car ambling forward. Breezy. Calm. Carefree.