“Hannah, are you in there?” Jed tapped on the door of Hannah’s office. She hadn’t mentioned a morning patient, but she could be in there with someone.
The door flew open so fast, Jed stumbled back a step. “Whoa! A-are you alone?”
“I’m alone, and I just discovered something.” She grabbed his arm and practically dragged him across the threshold into the cozy space that looked like a child’s dream playroom.
She grabbed her laptop and spun around, thrusting the computer in front of her. “I’m in the CPS archive database. Do you see this?”
He squinted at the screen as she jerked it back and forth in the air. “No, I can’t see anything. You’re waving it around.”
“Sit.” She patted the cushion of a big comfy chair, and he sank into it. Then she placed the laptop on his knees and jabbed a finger at the screen. “Look at the names of the Keldorf fosters.”
His gaze tracked down the page, and he sucked in a breath when he saw the name of the fifteen-year-old boy. “Addison. Do you think that’s the name Nate was trying to spit out?”
“It has to be, don’t you think? That’s too much of a coincidence. It’s the boy, Jed. That’s why my father had circled the surviving foster kids. He suspected something.”
“Maybe Addison, the boy, is a junior. Maybe the little ones have a father with the bio name of Adam. There could be a lot of possibilities here, Hannah.”
“I know.” She waved her hands in the air as if shooing away those possibilities. “Addison Abbott would be about forty-five years old now. Any bio parent would be closer to sixty-five. What’s more likely? A forty-five-year-old taking vengeance or a sixty-five-year-old?”
“But taking vengeance against whom?” He tapped her screen. “If Nate Keldorf suspected Addison Abbott of killing the family, it sounds like the kid already got his vengeance for whatever Chet Keldorf did to him and his sister.”
“It’s symbolic, Jed. These killings are symbolic. Addison sees children being mistreated like he was, and he’s rescuing them from their home life.” Hannah pressed a hand against her chest, her eyes blinking.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dr. Robbins is about midforties.”
“Are we back to Robbins?”
“He came to my office earlier. Said he wanted to clear the air about the statement he made regarding Zoey and Stephanie—about their being unfit mothers and their kids better off without them.”
“He came here?” Jed patted the bag in his jacket pocket that contained the bullets for the Glock he’d cleaned for Hannah. “Did he change his name from Addison Abbott to Robbins?”
“Bob or Robert Robbins.” She squeezed beside him on the chair and dragged the computer to her lap. She clicked through the database, scrolled through files and entered words in the search field. “I’m pretty sure Addison Abbott changed his name...but I don’t think his sister Alyssa did. She shows up a few more times in this database as Alyssa Abbott, but Addison never makes another appearance.”
“Alyssa might know where her brother is, but she’s never going to talk to the police. Is there any information where she might be located now?”
“It doesn’t say. She’d been in a few group homes.” Hannah shook her head and sniffed. “That Chet Keldorf must’ve done a number on those kids.”
“Whatever Keldorf did was only amplified by what her brother did—if he is responsible.” He dragged the bag with the ammo out of his pocket and swung it from his fingertips. “I’m going to start tracking down Alyssa Abbott and see if I can get a line on Addison Abbott’s new identity. You load your gun and keep it with you, in case Dr. Robbins, or anyone else, swings by again.”
She wrapped her hand around the plastic, which crackled in her grip. “Do you think you can find the Abbotts?”
“I told you. I have some very shady but good sources.” He quirked his eyebrows up and down.
“Ex-cons, you mean.”
He held up his fingers in boy scout fashion and said, “I’m not an ex-con, so I’m not on parole and don’t have those same restrictions. I can fraternize with whomever I please.”
“Are these guys...?”
“Misunderstood.” He kissed the side of her head. “What do you have on tap for the rest of the day?”
She took a quick glance down at her computer and the flash drive sticking out of the side before cupping her hand over it. “Some work to take care of, and I think the teachers at the elementary school might drop by to discuss how to move forward with the kids when they get back to school—if they get back to school.”
He recognized the flash drive from Sheriff Maddox’s collection of junk. He had no idea what Hannah was trying to prove or disprove about his case.
“Why wouldn’t the kids be back in school? Too soon?” He kissed her again, his lips lingering on her soft hair, before hauling himself out of the deep chair.
“Maggie told me relatives are swooping in for Sheldon and Chrissy. They may take them out of the area.”
“Might not be a bad idea.” He poked at the bag in her lap. “Load that gun. I’m not kidding.”
“I will. Trust me.”
She trailed him to the door of her office, and once he was outside, he turned and kissed her on the mouth. “I do trust you, Hannah. That’s why you don’t have to pretend you’re not still snooping into my case.”
SEVERAL PHONE CALLS, web searches, records searches, lies and payoffs later, Jed was headed for Alyssa Abbott’s group home just outside Seattle. He’d driven onto the ferry from Dead Falls to Whidbey and then took another ferry to Seattle. The forty-minute drive from Seattle to Carnation should get him there before sunset.
He did not, however, have the same luck with Addison Abbott. Alyssa’s brother must’ve definitely changed his name because he dropped off the face of the earth immediately after the massacre of the Keldorf family.
The drive took him from the city to tree-lined roads and rural landscapes. The group home where Alyssa resided housed nonviolent, mentally disturbed adults. He hoped that Alyssa was cognizant enough to give him information about Addison.
A stately home with cottages scattered around its perimeter met him around the next bend. He drank in the beauty and peacefulness of the scene. Anyone who’d come out of that Keldorf nightmare, detailed in the CPS database, deserved this—he just hoped he didn’t have to ruin it for Alyssa.
He pulled up in front of the big house and nodded to a maintenance worker as he got out of the car. He figured he’d have to check in with the staff before approaching Alyssa. Maybe Hannah should’ve been the one to visit Alyssa Abbott. At least she had some credentials as a psychologist and a reason for being here.
He took a deep breath of the pine-scented air and jogged up the steps to the front door. The front room looked like a hotel lobby but instead of a long counter for check-in, an antique desk was tucked in the corner with a woman on a computer behind it.
He ran his hands down the lapels of his jacket. He’d figured a jacket and a pair of slacks would present a better image than his regular jeans and T-shirt.
The woman looked up from her computer, and he gave her his best smile while reading her nameplate. “Good afternoon, Ms. Bullard.”
“Hello.” She shoved her glasses to the tip of her nose and peered at him over the top of the frames.
“I’m here to visit someone today, Alyssa Abbott, and was hoping you could direct me to her cottage.” He pulled out his wallet, ready to show her some ID.
The woman screwed up one side of her mouth and tapped the keyboard in front of her. “Name, please?”
“Jed Swain. I’m an old friend of Alyssa’s, and her brother told me she was staying here.”
Ms. Bullard was shaking her head before he even finished speaking. “You’re not on her visitor list, Mr. Swain. I’m afraid you have to be on the visitor list to get access to Alyssa.”
“Oh, I thought her brother had cleared me. I told him I was going to be passing through Seattle and wanted to take a detour to Carnation—just to check up on Alyssa. He said he’d set it up for me.”
“He didn’t.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “If you can get Mr. Abbott on the phone, I’ll allow him to give me verbal approval.”
Jed pulled out his phone as if he could actually make a call to Alyssa’s brother. And if he’d been hoping to get Addison’s real name here, it looked like he was facing disappointment in that area, too. The staff here knew him as Abbott.
Not wanting to push or raise any alarms, Jed backed off and waved his phone at Ms. Bullard. “I’ll give him a call right now to see what I can do. I’d sure hate to miss this opportunity to see Alyssa.”
Grasping his phone, he exited the building and turned the corner of the building. He gazed out at the individual cottages. If he were lucky, she’d be located in one of those instead of occupying a room in the main building.
With his phone to his ear, in case Ms. Bullard saw him out the window, he wandered toward the cottages. He glanced at the red door of the first structure. It had a number but no name on the front. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.
He meandered to a few more, peering into one window at a youngish man watching TV and another where an older couple chatted with a young woman with a child. He loped down a gentle dip toward a creek where two cottages crouched by the shore. He was about to approach one of the houses to see if he could peek through the crack in the curtains when the rustling and chirping of birds stopped him.
He veered toward the cottage from which the noises were emanating and stumbled to a stop when he saw a birdcage in front of an open window. He crept closer, and his heart tripped in his chest when he recognized two caged finches. What were the odds?
The door of number nine beckoned, and he stationed himself in front of it and tapped lightly. A silver-haired woman appeared in front of him, the lift of her lips the only expression on her face. If her hair had been black or brown, she could’ve passed for someone much younger at first glance, but at second and third glance Jed could tell her hair had turned gray prematurely.
He cleared his throat. “Hello, I heard your birds singing. Finches, aren’t they?”
She nodded. “I like finches.”
“So do I.” He held out his hand. “I’m Jed.”
Glancing down at his hand, she put her own behind her back. “Hello.”
“What’s your name?”
She stared past his shoulder for so long, he turned to see what she saw—nobody and nothing.
He tried again. “What’s your name?”
Her brown eyes flickered. “Alyssa.”
Jed eased out a slow breath. “Can I see your birds, Alyssa?”
She looked beyond him, into the distance again and widened the door. “You can see my finches.”
“Thank you.” He made sure to give her a wide berth. She seemed as if she could take flight suddenly, like one of her birds.
Crooking her finger at him, she tiptoed toward the birdcage where the finches fluttered and tweeted. “They don’t like loud noises. Neither do I.”
He followed her to the cages and poked a finger between the wires. “They’re nice birds. I like finches. I had finches once. My brother gave them to me. I kept them in a cage like this one. Where did you get your birds, Alyssa? Did you get them from your brother?”
She shook her head back and forth, her silver locks dancing on her shoulders. “My brother hates birds.”
“So does mine. That’s why he gave them to me.” Jed stepped away from the cage and surveyed the neat room, furnished in pastel colors with framed Impressionist prints on the walls and shelves filled with books and miniatures. “What’s your brother’s name, Alyssa? My brother’s name is...Bob.”
Alyssa folded her hands in front of her. “My birds’ names are Birdy and Tweep. What are you birds’ names?”
“Ah, Siggy and Hannah.” He sent Hannah a silent apology. “What about your brother? What’s his name?”
“I was making dinner. Do you want dinner?”
“Yes, please.” Anything to get her out of the room. Although in her state, it might not even register that he was looking around.
“Do you like soup?”
“I love soup. Thank you.”
The knots in his gut loosened a little when she traipsed toward a small kitchen. He zeroed in on the shelves, studying the miniatures, which turned out to be photos of random Victorians. He plucked out a few books and shook their pages. His gaze darted to the wall. A collection of school class photos was bunched together beneath a Monet, and he faced them. Could these be from Alyssa’s school years? Would her brother be in these photos?
He squinted at the dates at the bottom of the photos and cocked his head. These were recent photos from the past few years. Did Alyssa have a child in school? His pulse thrummed when he saw Samish Elementary next to the date. Did Alyssa have a child in school on Dead Falls Island? Did she have a niece or nephew?
He scanned the children’s names beneath the photos, but none jumped out, except for Sheldon’s, Chrissy’s and Olly’s. Two adult pictures graced each of the classroom photos—the classroom teacher and the principal, Mr. Lamar.
Jed planted a finger below Lamar’s photo. He’d seen this guy before at Luigi’s Pizza, talking to Hannah. He’d wanted to discuss how to handle Sheldon’s and Chrissy’s return to school. In fact, Hannah expected the teachers today.
His pulse thumped in his ears. Why would Alyssa have these classroom pictures? Who was the one constant in these pictures?
“Here’s your soup.”
Jed spun around, startling Alyssa so that the soup sloshed over the sides of the bowls into the plates.
Holding out his hands, he said, “I’m sorry, Alyssa.”
She put the soup down on the coffee table and wiped her hands on the frilly apron tied around her waist. “You’re looking at my pictures.”
“They’re nice.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the wall. “Is that your brother in those pictures, Alyssa?”
“Oh, yes.” She tugged on her apron. “My brother is the principal of Samish Elementary School.”