Ties That Bind (7 page)

Paul Carson.

Sam considered ignoring him for a minute, but curiosity got the best of her. She opened the door.

“Paul.”

“Hi, Sammy,” he said. His familiarity grated on her for reasons she didn’t really understand.

“Why are you here, Paul?”

“I know it’s late, but it’s usually customary to ask someone how they are or say hello when you haven’t seen them for a while.”

“I just saw you half an hour ago.”

“Well, before that it had been a long time. At least ten years.”

It was late, Sam was tired, and Paul was a virtual stranger to her. She wasn’t in the mood to play nice. “How did you know where I live?”

“Ward directory. I live just around the corner.”

“Oh, the joys of a small town. You can be living just blocks away from someone you knew years ago and have no idea. I guess that’s what happens when someone stops going to church.” Sam swallowed as she threw out that small tidbit of information. Then the fact that she was on the ward directory hit her. “Why am I on the ward directory? I asked for no contact years ago. I had my name removed.”

“Maybe God isn’t ready to let go of you yet.”

“What the fuck is this, a bad episode of
Touched by an Angel
?”

Paul winced at her harsh language, and Sam felt a mixture of shame, guilt, and victory that she could still shock him, raise emotions in him.

“You’ve certainly changed,” he said with a grimace.

“Not really. You just didn’t look very close. I want my name taken off that directory. I don’t exactly need people showing up at my house at all hours of the night.”

“Talk to your bishop.”

“I don’t have a bishop, Paul. I just explained that. I had my name removed years ago. I shouldn’t be on anyone’s directory.”

“Well, they call it a neighborhood directory nowadays.”

“Yeah, well, how did they get my information?”

“Probably your family.”

Sam sighed, knowing he was right. “I should have gone to law school and then sued the Mormon Church for harassment. Why is it such a big deal to let me go?”

“Why is it such a big deal to
be
let go?”

“Because I don’t believe any of it.”

“A lot of it is good, Sam.”

“A lot of it is not, Paul. And you still never answered me. Why are you here?”

He avoided her question yet again, his eyes focusing on the dark chocolate stain on her tank top. Sam became aware that she was wearing nothing under the tank and the spill was right over her left nipple. She watched Paul flush a bright red color and then turn away.

She fought the urge to cover herself and instead stood brazenly with her hands on her hips. “Guess you’ve noticed I spilled. I need to go change.”

He didn’t take the hint and met her eyes again. “I can see that.”

Sam could tell he wasn’t going to leave until he got out whatever he wanted to tell her, so she invited him in, told him to sit on the couch, and hurried into her room to put on a bra and a T-shirt.

“All right, Paul,” she said when she got back into the living room. He sat comfortably, leaning back on the sofa, looking as though he belonged there. She fought back the irritation and the desire to tell him to get out. But she didn’t intend to make it comfortable for him. Sam chose not to sit but to stand, hands on her hips. “Why are you here?”

“Because what happened tonight, what I saw, was so horrible. And all I could think of was you. And you trying to deal with it. And I felt like … I don’t know. I felt like I needed to be there for you.”

“That’s nice, Paul, but it’s been a long time since we knew each other at all. This is my job. This is what I do. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine.”

“Well, I just needed to see. Wanted to check on you.”

He had aged well, with a strong jaw and mostly unlined, still-handsome face. As a teenager, his smile had always stopped her cold and made her stomach flutter. Sam guessed more than one teenage girl had a crush on this seminary teacher. Back in high school, he’d been irresistible to her.

That was a long time ago. Now, despite his good looks and apparent availability, she saw him only as a harbinger of bad memories.

“I’m fine. Thanks for checking. But I’m really tired.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.” He stood up and walked over to the door. “I’m glad you’re okay. It’s really good to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Take care, Sam.”

He started to walk away, and she remembered the mouse. But something made her hold back. She’d leave it for D-Ray. Sam stood in the open door and watched as he reached his light-colored four-door sedan. He turned back, waved, then got into his car and drove off.

She shut her door and locked it, wondering why he had come. What point was there in going back?

It was all unfinished business, but that chapter was over for her. Unfinished or not. He’d moved on, in a big way, and so had she.

Which didn’t explain why he had shown up at her door late at night. Or why she had let him in.

NINE

Sunday morning dawned cloudy and cooler than the past week, sort of like someone had turned the stovetop down from a rolling boil to simmer. Sam forced herself out of her comfortable bed and into her running clothes, silently cursing this obsession that kept her from being lazy on just one morning—Sunday, the day of rest!—and instead impelled her out of her slightly warm town house and into the street and soaring temperatures, pounding her feet on the pavement.

Heat roiled up off the blacktop and curled around her legs as she ran past sleepy houses and slumbering trees. She felt as tired as the world looked around her, but sleep was impossible. Last night’s discovery of the macabre slide show had played over and over in her dreams, and even with the sounds of Sara Bareilles in her ears, “Gravity” blasting loudly through her earphones, it just wouldn’t go away. She made her way up Fernwood Road, trying to dislodge the mental images of three lives ended way too soon, one after another. She ran just a little harder, breathing deeper, sweat pooling between her breasts and across her brow, wishing the entire scenario would fall out of her head and melt away into the searing pavement.

Of course, that didn’t work. “You loved me ’cause I’m fragile, when I thought that I was strong.” The song reminded her of Gage.
Love? Who’s talking about love?
Another memory to haunt her.

Sam shook her head sharply, taking a left turn into the Kanesville City Cemetery. Located in the center of the town, on the north end, it had long been a focal point for her, even when she was living in Salt Lake City. Houses used to be farther away from the eternal resting place, the gullies and meadows behind it a common playground when she was a child. But as with the rest of the town, progress had encroached on the cemetery, and houses now rimmed its perimeter, the living going about their daily business among Kanesville’s ancestors.

It was a familiar pathway, the same one she always traveled. She paced herself and ran the outer perimeter of the grounds, not looking at the headstones and markers that littered the green grass. Pretending that she was at the track of the local high school or maybe running the New York City Marathon.

Anywhere but here.

Tawny Lynn Griffin. Madison Williams. And now Jeremiah Malone. Three teenagers attending the local high school. All little more than children. All dead. Tawny’s death was immediately pegged a suicide. She was found hanging from a backyard tree, two of her father’s best church ties knotted together to form a makeshift noose. Her parents had been gone for the evening, out at a Mormon Church social. They returned home to the loss of their only child, a popular cheerleader with a reputation for being a mean girl. She left a note. All it said was a hastily scrawled “Sorry.” A small stepladder had been kicked over and lay askew beneath her dangling feet. Details of the brief note were never released to the press, more out of concern for the privacy and grieving of the family than anything else.

More than one chubby, lonely teenage girl or pimply, geeky rejected boy had admitted to not feeling a great loss upon Tawny’s death.

Still, no sign anyone would kill her. That was an extreme reaction that seemed unjustified. But then Madison, Tawny’s good friend and fellow cheerleader and not-so-nice girl, was found hanging from a statue of town founder Robert Kane, in the center of the Kanesville City Park. Again, no sign of anything but a very public suicide. A stepstool was knocked over beneath her dangling legs, explaining how she got high enough to tie a rope—not a tie this time—around the head of the Robert Kane’s horse. While the first girl had left a one-word scrawl, a longer note was found in Madison’s pocket, explaining she was tired of having to try so hard. She wanted peace. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to atone. That last word, “atone,” had hit Sam wrong. Yes, they learned these things as children, but teenagers didn’t talk like that.

And now Jeremiah. One big difference was no note. Instead, there was a slide show, delivered to the Mormon seminary where all three teenagers had been instructed in matters relating to their religion.

Murder. Serial killer.
Those words escalated, darting through Sam’s brain, and she tried to shut them down. She didn’t want this to get worse, but it was already pretty transparent. Any second-rate detective could come to the murder conclusion and investigate it. And she was no second-rate detective. She refused to be. This couldn’t be a suicide pact, unless the three had planned this out with the first girl leaving a one-word note, the second leaving a longer note, and Jeremiah Malone leaving a graphic slide show.

Of course, that wasn’t possible. Because the slide included pictures of Jeremiah, dead.

Sam supposed he could have been acting it out, but she’d seen the body and there was little doubt in her mind that he was dead when the picture was taken. Newly dead.

Either they had a killer or this was one hell of a suicide pact. The appearance of the slide show meant there had to be someone else, a fourth teenager. Someone who had placed it in the seminary and someone who was, themselves, in grave danger from their own hands. And the fact remained that whoever put the slide show on the seminary computer had used a key and knew the alarm code.

Who had access to the seminary building?

Paul Carson and all the teachers—three instructors and the people who had cleaned the building last. All scheduled to be interviewed this afternoon. She had little doubt all would have a solid alibi.

If it looked like a duck and walked like a duck … How did that duck get inside the seminary building to leave the slide show?

Sam’s gut told her these were murders.

On her fourth time around the outer road, she finally slowed, decreasing her pace from a fast sprint to a jog, then a walk. She paced over to a spot filled with larger statues and monuments, tributes to loved ones placed there by those left behind. Sam walked purposefully toward a smaller, light gray headstone, careful to avoid stepping on flat granite markers.

Once there, she paced back and forth, putting her hands on her hips, elbows out, trying to regulate her breathing, looking anywhere but at the headstone in front of her. Ignoring the reason she was here. Ignoring the reason she always came.

Callie was buried next to some of Kanesville’s founding families. The graves of Bloods, Bones, and Steels could be seen all around. Strong, gritty, metallic, and earthy names. Pioneer stock. “Montgomery” seemed so out of place here—so off.

As did the dates of birth and death. Despite the heat, the day was overcast and dark, and a shadow slid across the stone as Sam bent down to touch her sister’s resting place.

“All right, I’m here. I’m listening. What are you trying to tell me?”

There was no answer.

*   *   *

Sam ran home fast and hard, trying to remove thoughts of work by making damn good and sure her lungs could barely function. It wasn’t working. She might pass out, but she knew she’d wake up to the same scenario running through her head.

And if she wasn’t thinking about them, she would think about Mary Ann Clarkston, who was in Sam’s thoughts almost as much as Callie. Sam just hoped that Mary Ann didn’t start talking to her, too, or she might have to check herself into the loony bin. Maybe she and her mother could get a twofer deal.

Knock it off, Sam. You know you aren’t crazy. And you know you did all you could for Mary Ann.

Sam stopped on her front lawn, hands on her knees, panting, trying to get some air back into her lungs. She had a wicked cramp in her side, and her calves ached in rhythm with her lungs. And still, thoughts of Mary Ann roamed through her head. Having Gage show up at the seminary building didn’t help with that.

*   *   *

Sam had been working at the supply store with Mary Ann for three months and didn’t seem to be making any ground. And tensions were high; as lead on the case, Gage needed to be able to show results. The Feds were already murmuring about stepping in. Something needed to break. Then one day, Mary Ann came into work, crying. She wouldn’t tell Sam what was wrong, at first. But finally the twenty-year-old admitted that her father had convinced one of his brothers to take her on as a wife. She was getting too old to live with her parents. She wasn’t desired as a bride, since she had a cleft palate that split her upper lip all the way to the tip of her nose and misaligned teeth that stuck out at weird angles. It destroyed an otherwise delicate, almost beautiful face.

That day Mary Ann’s face, always free of makeup, was streaked with tears and a despair that was almost palpable. When Sam asked her what was wrong, she looked around hurriedly and then whispered that she was to be married off on Saturday.

Not married, but “married off.” The words hit Sam hard, like a punch in the gut, as she considered their implications. She tried not to react. “How come you didn’t invite me?” Sam asked, innocence in her tone, hurt ringing through it. “I would love to see you get married. I thought we were friends. You didn’t even tell me!”