“Sure did.”
Laurie racked her brains, trying to remember what she’d told Filmore, but came up blank. She couldn’t recall him telling her anything about another rescue mission. “You think Frank did it?”
“Don’t you?”
“I found something,” said Laurie, retrieving the letter from the plastic evidence bag, which had been placed with her belongings.
Warren took a deep breath, taking out a pair of reading glasses hooked over the collar of his sweatshirt before looking down at the note.
“I see,” he said, once he’d finished.
Laurie could tell by the way he refused to make eye contact with her that the note wasn’t a surprise. “You knew about this?”
Warren nodded. “They came to me, asking for advice.”
“Sadie was trying to extort them?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. She was pestering them for money, but as you can see there was no threat.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, Warren.”
Warren held her gaze, but didn’t answer.
“Is this in the original investigation? Jim Burnell’s report?”
“I wasn’t allowed to get involved in that, you know that.”
“He spoke to her, though. Sadie?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t a suspect.”
“Why’s that?”
“She was Randall’s high school sweetheart,” said Warren. “The girl had some sort of bone-wasting disease. Poor thing ended up in a wheelchair.”
“That was verified?”
“You can check the case notes, Laurie. What the hell is this about?”
Laurie’s head pounded. Frank must have left the letter there for a reason, but it was hard to think straight at the moment. It was as if she was so desperate for him not to have killed his brother, and not to have been at the center of this from the beginning, that she was looking for things that weren’t there. “You sure there’s nothing else I should know?”
“Laurie, I don’t say this lightly. I love you. You and David both. I wouldn’t hide anything from you. You must know that?”
Laurie forced her smile.
“Now get some rest,” said Warren.
Laurie waited for him to leave before yanking the IV drip from her vein.
Chapter Forty-Two
Laurie was momentarily dizzy as she got to her feet, refreshing her cup of water before pulling open the curtain. She believed Warren, but wasn’t finished with the letter and Sadie Cornish’s involvement in Annie Randall’s murder.
The rest of the building was surprisingly quiet. She hadn’t taken much notice before, but her period in bed had been accompanied by a cacophonous noise of people speaking that reminded her of working at the bullpen back at the station. Now that hubbub had died to a general chatter, and the only people she could see were the other patients in the makeshift hospital corridor.
Rounding the corner, she stepped into the large hall and asked a young man in a fluorescent jacket what was going on.
“We’re in the eye of the storm,” he said, his voice a dull whisper as if his news deserved the greatest of respect.
Everyone else appeared to be in a similar state of hypnosis, straining their ears as if to better hear the eerie silence that had descended outside. That they were in the eye of the hurricane meant only one thing to Laurie: much worse was still to come. Conscious that she was in a gown, she made her way to the bunk where she’d dumped stuff earlier in the day and changed into jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers. She didn’t know where her coat was so she took David’s rain jacket, wondering where he was and if Warren had spoken to him.
Changed, she went in search of Filmore and found him outside in the darkness with a group of other volunteers, staring into the abyss of the eye. Water had settled around the high school like a moat. The air was perfectly calm, as above them the moon shone brightly in the clear night sky, the starry blackness circled by walls of cloud. Laurie pictured the monster with its swirling tendrils she’d glimpsed earlier that day. With the clear sky, it was hard to imagine they were effectively in the belly of that particular beast.
“How’re you feeling?” said Filmore, not looking away from the sight.
“I’m fine,” she said, though in truth she was suffering a relapse. Her head was pounding, and her legs unsteady, as if she were on a boat.
Filmore turned to her. “You don’t look so fine, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“In these circumstances, I’ll let that one slide. Have you spoken to Warren?”
“Not since I arrived. Why?”
Laurie wasn’t sure how much she’d told Filmore during the rescue, if anything at all, so relayed everything about what she’d found at Frank’s house.
“I know all this, Laurie. You’ve already told me. What has this got to do with Warren?”
“I’m worried something was overlooked during the initial investigation. Warren knew about this letter but I didn’t see it in the report,” she said, handing him the evidence bag.
If this was old news to the lieutenant, then he was hiding it well. At first it just confounded him, then he stared at her in disbelief, his hand running through his hair. “Who is this woman?”
“Her name is Sadie Cornish. Apparently, she was Randall’s high school sweetheart.”
“The name looks familiar.”
“Her name is on the interview list from the original investigation, but there was no mention of her asking for money.”
“It’s not a crime.”
“No, but it could be significant. Especially as Frank was reading this letter just before he went missing.”
Filmore looked away, up to the walls of cloud circling the island. “That’s quite a leap.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, we need to find Frank before something else happens.”
“You’re aware we’re standing in the eye of a hurricane that could yet kill us all.”
“What can I say, Lieutenant? I’m always working.”
Filmore laughed at that. It felt like the extremis of gallows humor, but Laurie was serious about finding Frank. “Do what you have to do, Laurie, but first we need to get everyone inside. Only a fool would be outside now,” he said, with an ironic smile.
Laurie helped usher everyone back inside the building. It was hard not to feel false hope in the peace of the eye. How easy it was to believe that this was it, that the worst had passed. The only positive she could think of was that the dirty side of the hurricane had passed through the island first, but now they would have to endure the eye wall from the other side and although she was no meteorologist, she knew things could still get worse.
Laurie hadn’t noticed before, but water was leaking through the front doors of the high school. Being inside, she had grown accustomed to the smell, but after her blast of fresh air, the interior of the building was cloying. The school must have been at over three times its capacity and didn’t have the facilities to safely contain everyone. The toilets had blocked and the building reeked of excrement, urine, and body odor. It was a stark reminder of how quickly things could change. Accustomed to hurricanes as Galveston was, and even though lessons were always learned, the stark truth was that no amount of preparation, beyond abandoning the island city for good, could fully prepare the place for a hurricane’s unpredictability. At least the evacuation process had improved since Rita and Ike, and a greater percentage of the population had left the island in time. But already the hurricane felt more substantial than Ike, and, with the eye hovering over the city now, chances were high that the severe damage Heather had already caused would get much worse.