CHAPTER 9

 

Janice McPherson entered her daughter’s bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. The room looked exactly like it had a year ago. Rarely a day went by that she didn’t come in here to dust or run the vacuum or simply sit and stare at the at the stuffed animals, art drawings, and all of the other things that defined her sweet daughter before her death.

Travis, in contrast, hadn’t stepped inside this room since Chloe’s murder. Ironic really, since he was the one who had been so incredibly close to his daughter. She recalled the day she had noticed that the bedroom door was closed and could hear their hushed voices inside. She had opened the door and the room was pitch dark except for the harsh beam of the flashlight her husband trained on her as she stood in the doorway. Suddenly Chloe had ordered her to go away and then they had both started laughing hysterically.

That was just one of many times Janice had felt out of the loop. When the two of them got together like that—father and daughter—everybody else became an outsider. Sometimes she found it endearing. Other times she felt jealous of all the attention her child got while she received so little by comparison.

Before the birth of Chloe, she and Travis had enjoyed a wonderful, loving relationship. Travis had still been on the way up the company ranks and had been able to shuffle his work and family life. But once he become regional director of UrbanGroup the same year that Chloe was born, things started going downhill in their marriage.

Travis had always been a workaholic. He had devoted most of his waking hours to UrbanGroup, and rare were the days that he came home before seven or eight at night. As much as she enjoyed the lavish lifestyle her husband’s career afforded them, she knew that it came at a price.

After Chloe came along, all of Janice’s time was spent raising her child while Travis spent his time making money. It wasn’t until Chloe was a year old that Travis starting spending quality time with his delightful little daughter. Then, as time went by, what little time Travis could spare with his family was spent doting on Chloe. Janice was thrilled that her husband had finally started showing some genuine interest in the family.

And then Benjamin was born. Travis never spent nearly as much time with his son as he did with his daughter. It wasn’t that he didn’t love or care for his son, he just didn’t allot the same amount of time for the boy as he did for Chloe.

When Chloe was found murdered, everything went to pieces. Besides being overwrought from the loss of his daughter, Travis became more and more estranged from Janice. His immense grief compounded her own grief over the loss of their bright, energetic angel and the way her violent death obliterated the overall family dynamic. Benjamin was all but lost in the shuffle amidst his father’s devastation and the attention stripped from him in the process.

Now, with a year having gone by and Chloe’s murderer still at large, Janice had become more and more doubtful that her relationship with Travis would ever heal. She felt that the only salvation for their marriage was the apprehension of her daughter’s killer. Maybe then Travis would at last become a semblance of his old self and the family could accept the loss and move forward.

She wanted to call Alan Swansea to ask how things were going with the case but she felt it was probably too soon. All she knew so far was that the PI had met with Travis at the office yesterday and had briefly interviewed him. Although Travis seemed a little edgy when she had asked him about the meeting, he agreed that hiring the private investigator was their only hope for finding Chloe’s murderer. When she asked him for the specifics of the interview, Travis became agitated and would only tell her that it was basically the same line of questioning he’d been subjected to by the police a year ago.

She knew that Travis was holding something back but she didn’t dare press him. She was just glad he had cooperated with Swansea and seemed somewhat positive that something was finally being done.

Ben suddenly ran up the stairs and called for her. She stood up and went out into the hall to find the youngster clutching his iPad, a big smile on his face.

“I just made it past the third level, Mom! Look!”

Ben held out the device proudly and she looked at the screen.

“That’s wonderful, honey!”

She hugged her son, grateful that at least she still had one child to love and embrace.