“Oh, thank goodness. Please, come in,” he said, holding the door open.
Tension eased from Laurie’s body as she stepped through the entrance. The place always had that effect on her. She didn’t know if it was the connection to David, or the photographs that lined the walls and mantelpiece, but there was a homey feeling to being here that was a welcome relief from both the tension at work and the uneasiness of her apartment.
“Please, take a seat. I’ll make us some tea.”
Laurie only drank tea with Frank. She’d never asked him where he got them from, but he used spiced tea leaves that carried a hint of burnt orange. She collapsed into the armchair, sinking into the loose springs, and had to will herself to stay awake. Beyond a thorough cleaning, the place had changed little since Frank had moved back in. The dust had been wiped from the photos, and she smiled at the pictures of David in his various incarnations from baby to the young man who had attended Frank’s sentencing.
“Thank you,” she said, sitting up to take the hot mug from her father-in-law.
“You’re here late,” said Frank. “Not that it isn’t lovely to see you,” he added, a little panic in his voice as the cup shook in his hand.
“Just passing,” she said, conscious of her sweat-soaked clothes. “Thought I’d check in on you. How have you been?”
“I’ve been well.” His eyes darted to the battered duffel bag she’d seen him with on the day he was attacked by Warren and his former deputies.
Laurie took a sip of the tea, hints of cinnamon reaching her palate through the burnt orange. “Planning a trip?”
Randall squirmed in his seat, his eyes struggling to focus on her. “Just came back.”
“Oh?”
“My brother. He’s a preacher, over Dickinson way. Came by to see me and took me to see his church.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother. David never mentioned an uncle.”
“Maurice. David never met him. At least, I don’t think he did. Annie never took to Maurice. I’d forgotten. I never took to him too much myself. He used to bully me as a kid, and when I got old enough to defend myself, he became all Christian. Didn’t approve of the way I lived my life. I didn’t much care, but I did take Annie to meet him, and then something happened.”
Laurie placed her cup down. “What?”
“I don’t know for sure. Annie wasn’t someone you could push for an answer. She would either tell you something or she wouldn’t. There was no changing her mind. All she told me was she thought Maurice wasn’t quite right and she didn’t want to see him again. And that was enough for me.”
They spent the next few minutes chatting aimlessly, Laurie’s mind working overtime. Finishing her tea, she said goodnight to Frank, noting the faraway look in his eye as she headed off. The first thing she did when she reached the car was to check for a preacher in the Dickinson area by the name of Maurice Randall. She couldn’t quite believe that David had never mentioned an uncle to her, nor could she recall the man being present for Frank’s sentencing. She hadn’t asked Frank if Maurice had any children, and wondered now if there was a whole side to David’s family she didn’t know about.
A hit indeed came in for a pastor by the name of Maurice Randall in a small town outside Dickinson. She zoomed in on the grainy image on her phone of Maurice’s smiley face. She wasn’t sure when the photo had been taken, but he looked ancient: an even more weathered version of Frank.
What the hell are you doing? It was past midnight and here she was, sitting outside her father-in-law’s house—A convicted murderer, don’t forget that, Laurie—when a few miles away a mother and father would be trying to sleep, sick with worry that they would never see their daughter again.
Laurie threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove off. She tried not to think about it, but as she made her way back across the sleeping island, all she could think about was Maurice Randall and why David had never once mentioned him.
Chapter Nine
Guilt still played on Laurie’s mind as she arrived at the station the following morning. Exercise usually kept her focused, but although she felt alert in her body, her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts encompassing the missing girl, Grace Harrington, David and his mysterious meeting with Rebecca Whitehead, and Frank Randall and the revelation about his brother, Maurice. She wanted to snap out of it and focus entirely on the Harrington case, but her mind kept taunting her with images of Rebecca Whitehead and the grizzled face of Maurice Randall. Personal issues aside, there were a number of other outstanding investigations demanding her attention, which she could have spent every waking hour working on and never clear.
It was 6 a.m. and the skeleton night shift were still in the bullpen. She accepted a few nods of acknowledgment from the tired officers before pouring some coffee and taking a seat at her vacant desk. The updates from the Grace Harrington investigation were minimal. She’d been missing for over twenty-four hours now, which was a crucial milestone. The hope still had to be that she would turn up shortly, her tail between her legs, telling woes about an act of rebellion that had backfired. Laurie had seen cases pan out that way so many times before that it was still a legitimate expectation. However, the number of people reported missing in the States in any given year was staggering, with official cases exceeding half a million. A high percentage returned, but sometimes people were never seen again. Laurie wouldn’t be mentioning it to the Harrington family later, but within twenty-four hours a missing person could effectively be anywhere in the world.
That’s the kind of optimism we need. She heaved a sigh and looked around the depleted bullpen slowly filling up with the day shift. Blocking everything else besides the Harrington case from her daily calendar, she decided to upload the details of the Annie Randall investigation from sixteen years ago. Last night’s revelation about Maurice Randall had started her thinking, and she couldn’t shake the need to find out more about the man. Guilt had been her go-to emotion for so long now that accessing the case felt like just another millstone to hang around her neck. She tried to justify her actions by telling herself that she would be dedicating the next twelve to sixteen hours to Grace Harrington, but as she loaded the old case file onto her screen she nonetheless looked furtively about her, a gnawing feeling eating away in her stomach.
She only had access to the case files as she’d worked on the investigation in the past, albeit in a reduced capacity, but a note would be made on the system that she’d accessed them and she would have to give some justification for doing so if asked.
Scanning through the old images from that time triggered a visceral reaction, and she fought to contain her shaking hands as she scrolled past images of David and Frank during the hours following the discovery of Annie Randall’s body. They both looked like different people from those she’d seen in the smiling family portrait in Frank’s house. Here, they carried Annie’s death, for different reasons, in their features. It would be easy to read too much into it, but she was sure she could see the guilt, and maybe something approaching confusion, in the eyes of Frank Randall as he was snapped at the crime scene, staring, as if in shock, as Annie’s remains were taken away.