Heather(66)

“Good girl. Call me if you need anything, Annabelle.” She opens her purse, unfolds her wallet, hands you two twenty-dollar bills. “Promise me you’ll only use this for you. To get away. You have to think of yourself. You have to take care of you first.”

You nod, taking the cash. The little girl scowls at you from the cart as they walk away.





CALLIE


That Saturday she’s working late at the station—reviewing resumes of new job candidates, more admin, another grant application, this time for a K-9 unit and handler. Under everything she does the questions still hum: Who was Baby Doe’s mother? Who is the father they share? When, how, will she ever learn what happened to Jenna? She forces herself to concentrate, even as she feels this sticky mess of secrets sucking her backward. The last thing she needs is anyone on the squad to think she’s slipping: after all, they’ve still got all these overdoses on their hands. Another just last week, a father of two. Callie found a picture of his family online, posted along with his obituary. She can’t get the round cheeks of his smiling sons out of her mind.

As she’s wrapping up Jane texts to ask if they can go for a drive somewhere in the morning. Damien, Callie thinks. Maybe she’s finally ready to talk about the drugs. Maybe Jane will give her what she needs to go after Luke.

You got it. Where to?

Anywhere. I just need to get out of this house. And I need to be ALONE.

Uh, I can drop you off somewhere and come back for you? Or we can go to a park and sit on different benches?

You know what I mean. You don’t count. I love my family but today I hate my family.

Sure. What time?

We ride at dawn.

8?

Fine. But know that with a small child at home I’ll have lived half a day by then and may already be cranky.

You’re cranky now …

Too much TikTok. Btw, is this your girl?

Callie doesn’t know what she’s expecting, but not Rebecca Nixon. Callie had told Jane about her before the DNA results came back, about Nixon’s obvious disdain for the cops she’s helping, about her self-congratulatory air that she tries to pass off as empathy. And there she is when Callie clicks on the link, all false lashes and contoured cheekbones. She’s wearing a suit not unlike the one she has on for her website photos, but this one is purple and her top is cut a little lower. She brushes a barrel curl over her shoulder and tilts her head. I wanted to share what is so important to me about solving cold cases.

“Oh what the fuck?” Callie says. There are only three other videos on Rebecca’s profile and she’s far from the number of views that Jane’s usual roster of crime girlies can rack up. The second video on her profile is centered on a cold case, the kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Laura Munch.

Authorities were stymied for two decades. When Laura’s older sister, Amanda, came to me, I knew there was a way to help them. I knew there was more that could be done. Watch my next video to see how I cracked the decades-old case.

That’s her, she texts Jane. She can’t bring herself to say anything else.

Def gunning for a podcast. Or maybe she wants to go primetime? There’s a guy like her who just landed a network deal.

I can’t even talk about it. I’ll see you tomorrow AM. She closes her eyes, pictures Rebecca spinning Callie’s story for the rest of the world to consume between makeup tutorials and dance videos. Straitlaced cop finds her own life at the center of the cold case she’s investigating …

She turns her phone off and has to will herself not to smash it as hard as she can against her desk.



* * *



The next morning she rings the doorbell at Jane and Damien’s and Opal answers, dressed in pajamas with rain boots and a blue tutu.

“Hey Callie,” Damien says. He smiles, but it looks forced. She looks at him a beat longer than is polite. Do his eyes look bloodshot? His pupils dilated? His arms—are there track marks? Would he, desperate, cross over from pills or powder to shooting up? Jane had mentioned that he was picking up some shifts at Luke’s selling Christmas trees and ropes of pine garland now that hiking and canoeing has slowed for the winter. Luke made good on his word. Money still tight, worse if he’s got a habit to support.

She only looks away when Opal tugs at her shirt. “You’re taking mama away. I want you both to stay here.”

“We’ll be back before you know it, Miss Opal. And before I go back to my house today I’ll talk to your mommy and daddy about the next time we can hang out. Maybe Wednesday? That’s my off day this week.”

“My folks will be here,” Damien says.

Jane’s eyes narrow. “Well Callie can still come over. She and Frank can talk shop.”

“Sure, yeah. You probably see my dad more than we do, Cal. God knows he can’t give up the job.”

Callie doesn’t know what to say. Frank dropped by the station again this week, talking shit with the guys, leaving during shift change for beers at the tavern. But not before popping into Callie’s office to give her a few pointers on where to best set up drunk driving checkpoints during the holidays, even after she told him she had it all sorted out.

“He’s been helping a lot,” she says, but can’t look at Jane, who surely knows she’s lying. “But I don’t want to impose on your family time. I’m off on Friday too. Maybe that will work.”