whipped cream on top. Today she’s living dangerous and it looks like real coffee.
“Thank you. Marley wasn’t in the lab yesterday. I think he was home sick, but they expect him in today. I held on to the evidence.”
“I need you to do something else this morning.”
“Okay,” she says. “Shoot.”
I tell her.
Thirteen
Sheriff Gray is in early too. He looks like he had a rough night. I imagine everyone that was at the scene yesterday must have had nightmares. Just thinking about it sends a shiver through me.
I head for his office and close the door behind me. “I want to take Ronnie with me today. I’m going to Port Orchard to see someone.”
Sheriff Gray cocks an eye at me but doesn’t ask who I’m going to see. He knows I want to keep it quiet and he’s giving me room.
“She’s on light duty, Megan,” he reminds me. “She’s still got a bum wrist.”
“I need her,” I say.
He’s surprised, kind of, but he doesn’t ask me why. He knows she is a hard worker and smart.
“You can have her, but don’t get her hurt.”
Like I would let her. She can do that all by herself. She’s been hurt before. It’s part of the job.
“I promise.”
“And check in with me every hour. In fact, have Ronnie call me every hour.”
He doesn’t trust me. I wouldn’t, either.
“I’ll tell her.”
Yeah. Right.
I leave the cigarette butt and other stuff with Nan. I give her the request form to give to Marley and tell her he’ll be in this morning looking for us.
“Where will you be if he asks?” Nan asks.
“It’s none of his business,” I say. Or yours, I think. I know Marley will be disappointed that Ronnie isn’t here, but I think he’ll have fun asking about the panties.
We leave before Nan can burn me to death with her death star glare.
“Where to first? Port Orchard?” Ronnie asks.
I start the car and glance up in the trees to see if my stalker has taken up position. There’s no one.
I asked Ronnie to do some more digging into Gabrielle’s background. She found the picture of Gabrielle and her son while she was doing a search for Monique. But she only copied it because she thought the woman and Monique looked so much alike. I never knew Gabrielle’s last name. I assumed it wasn’t Delmont because she had a son.
Ronnie had done what she called “dumpster diving” and found marriage records for Gabrielle and a birth certificate for her son. Sebastian Wilson was born around the same time that Leanne Delmont was murdered by my biological father. Gabrielle’s husband had died when the boy was six months old. She graduated from Portland State University and moved to Port Orchard. Ronnie found an address but the phone number was no good.
Figures it would be in Port Orchard. Most everything bad in my life happened there. It’s where Rolland, my stepfather, was murdered. It’s where I had to fake my own death and flee. I don’t think I look like that girl anymore but I’m not anxious to ever go back there.
“I talked to Crime Scene and they didn’t find a cell phone yesterday,” Ronnie says as we get on the road. “No phone service at the house, either. No cable. Nothing. Don’t you find that strange?”
I did, but I didn’t want to get into it. “We need to get Monique’s phone records for her home in Tacoma, cell phone, anything.” I don’t tell her I have the phone numbers memorized. “Also phone records for Gabrielle’s nonworking phone. Maybe she and her mother talked recently.”
“I already sent a subpoena,” Ronnie says. “The records should be waiting for us when we get back. I asked for a hard copy and they’ll send it to my phone too.”
Anxiety seizes me as I think about returning to Port Orchard. I’m not too worried about someone recognizing me, but Caleb still lives there, as far as I know. I would have tried to look him up if I hadn’t brought Ronnie along. Caleb knows what I did, what I’m doing now, and what name I’m going by. I can’t risk him calling me by my old name, Rylee. Not in front of Ronnie.
“I’ve never been to Port Orchard,” Ronnie says.
That’s good. Make this your last trip, I think.
“I visited when I was a kid,” I tell her. “Not much to see.”
She’s on her phone and starts telling me all the touristy attractions. I let her rattle on. Nothing new there. I don’t