Two weeks later
I returned from a relaxing but adventurous honeymoon in Africa to several missed calls on my business line from a senator in Australia named James Ashby, a man I assumed I’d never hear from again. We’d met several months earlier in Cairns when I’d traveled to Australia to help my friend, Nick Calhoun, investigate the disappearance of his wife Marissa, who was traveling Down Under to attend her friend’s wedding. James was to be the groom, but once I’d solved Marissa’s murder, and he’d learned his bride-to-be had been keeping secrets from him that pertained to the murder, he’d called off the wedding.
The voice mail James left me was vague: “Call me when you get this message. Something has happened here, and I’d like to hire you. I need your help.”
After listening to it, I stood there, staring at my phone as if it were sand in an hourglass, while I considered whether to return the call or not. I wasn’t sure I wanted to travel to another country at the moment. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to offer whatever help he needed. When we’d first met, I had formed the wrong impression of him after hearing rumors about the kind of person he was, but in the end, he’d proved himself a better man than I initially believed him to be. Still, I speculated there was a side of him I hadn’t seen, a side he concealed from others. I didn’t know how I knew. I just did, and I wasn’t sure getting involved with him again was in my best interest.
On the other hand, I’d never been one to shy away from risk. And though hard for me to admit, I’d recently come to realize my life was the most fulfilled when accompanied by a moderate amount of danger. It was something I lived for, something I needed in order to thrive, and as the sand in my imaginary hourglass began to run out, I decided I should at least talk to him before coming to a decision.
James answered the call on the second ring, saying, “Does it always take you this long to call your clients back?”
“I was on my honeymoon,” I said. “I’ve only just returned, and you’re not my client.”
“Oh. I wasn’t aware you’d gotten married. Congratulations.”
“I was surprised you called. You mentioned needing my help, but you’re a senator. Aren’t there plenty of people who are equipped to handle your needs more than I could be?”
“There are, but none of them are you.”
I accepted his flattery and got to the point. “What can I do for you?”
“You can get here as soon as possible.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“A few weeks ago, my sister Caroline and the man she had been seeing were murdered in her home.”
Whatever I’d expected him to say, this wasn’t it.
“I ... I’m really sorry to hear it,” I said.
My thoughts turned to his niece, a sweet teenager with Down syndrome. I’d met her on my previous visit.
“What about Grace?” I said. “Please tell me she’s all right.”
“She’s fine. I wouldn’t say she’s doing well, but we’ll get there again one day. She’s staying with me now, and I’m doing everything I can to help her.”
“Where was Grace when Caroline was murdered?”
“She was in the house, sleeping. Caroline screamed, which woke her. She went down the hall to investigate the noise and found Caroline on the floor, bleeding and unresponsive. Hugh, Caroline’s boyfriend, was crouched over her, mumbling, but Grace couldn’t hear what he said.”
“I thought you said he was dead.”
“He is. That is to say, he was alive and appeared unharmed when Grace first discovered Caroline, but he’s dead now.”
“I’m confused,” I said.
“I was too. There are a lot of moving pieces here. A lot of things which don’t make sense, but they will once we find the man who did this.”
Or woman.
“How are you sure it was a man?” I asked.
“I’m not. It’s just a hunch.”
“What else can you tell me?”
“From what Grace has been able to piece together, we know Hugh was alive initially. When Grace saw him leaning over Caroline, she assumed Hugh had killed her. She locked herself in the bathroom and escaped through the window. She ran to a neighbor’s house and called me. I headed straight over. When I arrived, Hugh was dead. He’d been found at the bottom of the stairs, and it looks like he either fell down them or was pushed.”
I visualized Hugh having a confrontation with Caroline’s killer. I assumed a chase had ensued at some point, wherein Hugh ended at the bottom of the stairs.
“Grace never heard or saw anyone else in the house?” I asked.
“No one. But her memory of the night’s events hasn’t been great. She was quite shaken up. It’s still a bit fuzzy.”
“It’s understandable. I’m sure she’s confused about everything right now.”
I found the whole thing strange. Caroline had been dead when Grace found her, but Hugh had been alive. Minutes later, he was also dead, but the two had died in different ways. I wondered if Grace was confused at the time, so overcome with shock and grief at seeing her mother dead on the floor that she’d missed things. Clues. Maybe the killer had still been there in the house before she escaped out the window. I also wondered if Hugh had been an intended victim, or if he’d been killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe he hadn’t been murdered at all. Maybe he’d just suffered a heart attack or something and just toppled.
“I’m sorry your family is grieving,” I said, “but I’m not sure what I can do to help. I’m not a licensed private investigator in your country.”
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Too late—I already was, and the last thing I wanted to do was to end up on the wrong side of the law in a country where I wasn’t a citizen.
“Is there a way I can help you from here in the States?” I asked.
“No. You must come to Cairns. It makes the most sense. You didn’t seem to have a problem working in Australia before, hmm?”
He was right. I didn’t, and I justified my actions because I was helping Nick find answers about what happened to his wife. That was personal. This wasn’t.
“I’m not sure, Senator Ashby. It’s not that I don’t want to help. I do. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to—”
“Look, Sloane, all I want you to do is to do some digging around. I thought I knew almost everything there was to know about my sister, and now I believe I was mistaken. I don’t know who did this to her, or why, or if it has anything to do with me, or if it doesn’t. The police have been remarkable. They’re doing everything they can. But I’m impatient, and I want the killer found—now. The longer this goes unsolved, the less the chances are that we’ll find out who did this. I need you. Will you come?”
Guilt often caused people to break from the norm, shredding their ethical rulebook and creating one more suited to the situation, like he was doing now. And even though I was principled and tried to do the right thing in most situations, it was something we had in common. His comment about whether Caroline’s murder had anything to do with him meant the idea was weighing on him. I was familiar with that particular kind of weight, what it felt like, and how far it had dragged me down when my sister died at the hands of a serial killer several years before. Until he had answers, the weight he felt would eat away at him like rust on a sunken ship, and I didn’t want to add to that.
“Let me see what I can do,” I said. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”