Dead Air Read online

  Just let me deal with this in my own way. Her own words trickled back to her. No, not her own words. Jesse’s words. Fragments from the past. Words spoken to her in anger only days before his death. She’d only been concerned about his health, but he’d snapped at her. Frightened her.

  Feeling Brad’s fingers stroking her hair, Kaitlyn opened her eyes and looked up into his concerned face. He gave her a reassuring smile, but it did little to ease her fear. She looked into his eyes and wished that she could get lost in the deep blue pools. But no sooner had the thought entered her mind than she was reminded of the waters that had engulfed her in the nightmare. She looked away, shuddering.

  “Babe?” he said.

  “I’ll be okay.” She fought back the tears. “Just hold me.”

  Kaitlyn rested her elbows on the round table, holding an aimless gaze across the small kitchen in Brad’s apartment. With her chin in her cupped hands, she allowed her eyes to close. Breathing deeply, she smelled the frying bacon. Brad was busy in the kitchen, fixing her an omelet for breakfast. She heard him sniff. The onions he was chopping must have gotten the better of him.

  She was grateful. Brad had held her in his arms until she finally drifted off. Her slumber for the rest of the night, although fitful, had been uninterrupted.

  When she awakened at 8:30, he was already awake, sitting in the bed beside her. He gently stroked her hair and Kaitlyn rolled over to smile at him. His eyes were tight and worried.

  “Did you sleep better?” he asked.

  “How could I not, with you here?”

  He leaned over, kissing her on the forehead. “How about breakfast?”

  As Brad diced a tomato, Kaitlyn thought about the letter she’d found on her door the previous morning. It must have been what had triggered the nightmare. Or perhaps the REO Speedwagon song at the bar. It’d been almost ten years since she’d had any of those dreams and now, with the arrival of the letters, they were frequent and getting worse progressively. Why did whoever wrote these letters have to dredge up the past? Didn’t Jesse deserve to rest in peace?

  Her mind drifted to an autumn evening years before. She recalled Jesse chasing her through the cornfield maze his father created in the field on the farm. She giggled and frolicked through the maze, and occasionally glanced to see if he was behind her. Kaitlyn turned a corner and raced between the walls of brown corn stalks.

  “Catch me if you can,” she shouted.

  A fun game of hide-and-seek with her boyfriend. What more could a sixteen-year-old girl ask for? It was a time of innocence, of young love, without a care in the world. The aging corn stalks rustled as she rushed along the narrow path; her elbows grazed the wilting, brown leaves. She rounded another corner and halted soon after at a dead-end. She’d have to double back. Listening for a moment, Kaitlyn tried to determine where Jesse was in the maze. The only sound to reach her was a flock of geese overhead, probably heading south for the winter. She was about to head back along the path when a hand reached out and gripped her arm. She screamed and spun around in time to find Jesse push through the wall of corn stalks.

  “Gotcha,” he said.

  “Not fair! You cheated!”

  Jesse pulled her close, smiled, and then kissed her.

  The sizzle of onions in the pan drew her attention back to the kitchen. Her gaze lingered on Brad. He didn’t know about the Shallows, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before he asked. Especially if more letters arrived. She’d never intended to hide anything from him. The topic simply had never come up until now, and she’d seen no reason to bring it up herself. What happened at the Shallows was ancient history, and she wanted to keep it that way.

  Brad approached the table, carrying two plates. He set one down before her. The omelet was cooked to perfection. The bacon was crisp. The aroma tantalized her senses. Kaitlyn grinned at him, wondering for a moment what she’d done to deserve his affections. “You spoil me.”

  “Yes, I do,” Brad said. “And I’m going to keep on spoiling you.”

  He took a seat across the table from her. He toyed with his own omelet, pushing a piece around the edge of the plate. Kaitlyn felt his eyes on her, watching as she ate. She felt her cheeks flush red. Brad must have known how embarrassed she was, because he laughed when she glanced up at him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Can’t I look endearingly at the woman I love?”

  “No.” Kaitlyn shook her head and laughed. “Not when I’m eating.”

  His eyes held her in a contemplative stare. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Kaitlyn pretended that she didn’t hear the question and continued to eat, but when she glanced up, he was still staring at her.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she said.

  “You’ve been having nightmares for a few weeks, ever since you got the first letter.”

  Damn, he noticed. She shook her head. “That can’t be true.” She knew he was right.

  “I wish you’d tell me what this is all about. I feel helpless watching you go through this alone.”

  She ignored his remark and picked at her food. How would he react if he knew the truth? She measured her fear of losing him against the weight of her own shame. For all his love and compassion, would he truly understand if she told him the truth?

  “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it,” he said, looking down at his plate. “Just remember, I’m here when you’re ready.”

  Her guilt weighed heavy as Kaitlyn tried to shrug off his concern. She made no response other than a brief nod. He continued to pick at his food, not showing much interest in what was on his plate. He was hurt by her reluctance to talk; she could tell. They’d both been happy, but the letters—and now the nightmares—were stealing that happiness away. She didn’t want to lose that happiness. She didn’t want to lose Brad.

  “I hate seeing you like this.” He set the fork down on the table. “You seem so sad. I wish there was something I could do.”

  Kaitlyn couldn’t bear to look in his eyes. “Just a bad night,” she said, her eyes glued to the plate. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure? This business is more than just one bad night.”

  She nodded and picked at her omelet, taking small bites despite not having an appetite. Silence fell over the table.

  Then, with sudden determination, Brad rose from the table, and walked from the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’ll be back in a sec.”

  Kaitlyn set the fork down on the edge of her plate. Any other day, she would have devoured the omelet. Brad’s culinary skills notwithstanding, she had no stomach for food at the moment. She looked across at Brad’s empty chair, wondering why he rushed from the room. With arms crossed tight over her chest, she leaned back. Was it possible he knew the truth about her past? Could this be the moment he brought forth a record of all her sins and demanded an explanation?

  The Shallows. What happened there had been buried so deep in her memory for so many years that it had felt like someone else’s memory. But she couldn’t push it away any longer, and it wasn’t fair to keep it from Brad. He deserved to know the truth. What would he think? What would he say? Would he understand why she did what she did? With a resolute air, Kaitlyn placed her fork down, crossed her arms, and leaned back in the chair. It’s time to tell Brad. When he comes back in the room, she decided, I’ll tell him everything.

  Brad returned to the kitchen. He stood before the table, his hands behind his back. She recognized the mischievous smile on his face. He was up to something. She rested her arms on the table and raised her eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

  “I hope this will cheer you up,” he said. “I was going to wait until our Pocono getaway next weekend, but . . . well, now is as good a time as any.”

  Brad dropped to one knee before her, bringing his hands out from behind his back. Kaitlyn gasped when she saw the velvet-covered ring box in his hand. Her cheeks felt warm and
flush. She struggled to catch her breath. Her mouth gaped open; her hands jumped to cover it. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”

  Brad held the ring box toward her. “Kaitlyn Ashe. Will you marry me?”

  She wanted to scream, wanted to fall into his arms. She opened her mouth, and then closed it, struggling to find the words to answer. The thumping of her heart was loud, echoing in her ears. Can he hear it? He’d flipped the lid open on the ring box. Her eyes caught the dazzle of the large diamond, and the smaller ones that encircled it, atop the ring; the sparkle was brilliant and mesmerizing. She looked from the ring to him, and locked eyes with his. His face beamed with expectation, and she realized that she hadn’t answered him yet.

  “Yes,” she shouted. “Of course, I will.”

  Removing the ring from the box, he slipped it onto Kaitlyn’s finger. She fell forward into his arms, bowling him over onto the floor. He drew her down, kissing her long and hard. The floor was cold and hard on her knees, but she didn’t care. When their lips parted, she held up her hand to gaze at the ring.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “So are you,” he said, pulling her close to kiss her again. Kaitlyn gave in to the moment’s passion, and the Shallows withdrew to the edge of her conscious thoughts. She’d tell him another day.

  10

  Rodney carried the bulky leather-bound book across the room and settled into the beige Lazy Boy in the far corner. He set the book on his lap, glancing at the gold lettering on the cover. A History of Western Philosophy. He’d been meaning to read the Bertrand Russell book for more than a year, but it sat untouched on his shelf. He opened the book, catching a faint whiff of dust from the yellowing pages. The first edition set him back several hundred dollars, but Rodney was certain it would be worth it.

  He’d been reading for twenty minutes when his mobile phone rang. Setting the book down on the table beside the recliner, he rose from the chair and crossed the room to answer the phone.

  “Rod, it’s Julie.”

  Rodney smiled, knowing this wouldn’t be a social call. Julie never called just to chat. Her calls were always related to an ongoing investigation. Did she ever take a day off?

  “What’ve you got?” he said.

  “Did you get the email I sent you?”

  He shook his head. This was typical of her. “When did you send it?”

  “An hour ago.”

  Rodney frowned and remained silent for a moment. This line of conversation was far too familiar. He’d tried time and again to break her of the assumption that he was waiting with bated breath for her next email. Yet she persisted with calling him when she didn’t receive a response within what she perceived as an acceptable amount of time. “No. Didn’t see it,” he said. “Julie, it’s Sunday. What are you doing?”

  “Following up on a couple things with the Ashe case. I can wait while you check your email.”

  He bowed his head, rubbing the forehead with his fingers. “What’s so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow morning?”

  “I ran that background check on Kaitlyn Ashe. It came back with some interesting results.”

  Rodney sighed, glancing back at his book. So much for spending the afternoon enthralled in Western Philosophy. “Hang on, give me a second to get to my laptop.”

  It took him five minutes to get logged in to his email, and another two to find the one Julie had sent him. He opened the attachment and scanned the screen. “Looks clean to me.”

  “Do the math. She told us she was thirty-two, but her records stretch back only fourteen years.”

  Rodney chewed his lip as he reread the document on the screen. “Could be a glitch.”

  “I ran the check three times.”

  He frowned. It was just like Julie to find anomalies where there likely were none. That was part of what made her such a good detective. “Maybe she kept her nose clean when she was a kid. Not everyone comes under the attention of the police when they’re young.”

  “That’s what I wondered at first,” she said.

  Rodney knew what was coming next. Not satisfied with what she found, he knew Julie would have continued to probe until she could either reconcile the so-perceived discrepancy or found some new bit of information. He wondered which it would be.

  “Kaitlyn Ashe isn’t her birth name,” Julie said. “She was born Laura Hobson. Changed her name when she turned eighteen.”

  “So?”

  “So, she must have changed her name for a reason.”

  Rodney stepped away from his laptop and crossed the living room to stare out the front window of his townhouse. The leaves were budding on the young oak tree he’d planted five years ago. He might need to trim the branches a bit. “Again, so? Most people have a reason for changing their name. Otherwise, why bother?”

  “Exactly.”

  Rodney didn’t respond. He knew there was more. Best to let her weave together her conspiracy before commenting. He’d learned that it was better that way. Easier for everyone involved.

  “Once I found her birth name, I dug a little deeper,” she said. “Something of interest came up for Laura Hobson.”

  Rodney looked at his front yard. The grass was waking from its winter hibernation. He’d have to get out the lawnmower soon, probably next weekend. “What did you find?”

  “There was an incident in New Jersey. Kaitlyn Ashe, aka Laura Hobson, was involved. I sent you the police report. It’s from a department in New Jersey. Real rural area. The report wasn’t even in their computer. They had to dig it out of the back of a file cabinet somewhere.”

  Rodney wondered what she must have told them to get an officer to dig through some old storage room on a weekend. They’d never do it on a Sunday for a simple stalking case. Probably told them it was a murder inquiry. “Okay. I’ll give it a read. Anything else?”

  “What? Uh, no. I guess not.”

  He heard the disappointment in her voice. He knew she’d have preferred that he read it while she was on the phone. But Rodney didn’t feel like listening to her running commentary. His Saturday had been disrupted by this case. He didn’t want to lose his Sunday too.

  “Right. Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Thanks for calling.”

  After they’d hung up, he shook his head and laughed. For all her faults, Julie was a good detective. Very thorough, but very headstrong. Once she found a loose thread, she would track it to its end, no matter how many obstacles stood in her way. Rodney had a great deal of respect for her, even if he didn’t often show it.

  As he moved back toward the Lazy Boy, he stopped by the bookshelf, reaching for a small, framed photograph. He stared at the photo’s subject, a young auburn-haired girl. Carol had been sixteen when it was taken. Young and vivacious. A brilliant student with a great future ahead of her. Two years later, she’d stood before a judge accused of a long list of charges, including manslaughter. He wondered where he’d gone wrong.

  Rodney recalled the morning he’d found the front-end damage on her Nissan Sentra. She’d been vehement in her denials, claiming to not know anything about it. Later that day, he heard about the mother and daughter killed in a hit-and-run the previous night. His heart was broken as he rushed home from the police station to confront Carol.

  His daughter admitted to doing shots during a party at a friend’s house. She barely remembered getting behind the wheel or driving home. Carol, as well as his wife Stephanie, had begged him to turn a blind eye, but Rodney had no choice. By the late afternoon, the police arrived to tow the car and arrest his daughter. She’d only turned eighteen two months before.

  Placing the photo back on the shelf, he moved back to his Lazy Boy and picked up the book he’d started earlier. But, as Rodney tried to settle back into reading, he couldn’t shake his curiosity over what Julie had found. He turned the page, trying to focus on the book, but his gaze drifted back toward his open laptop. He reread the page from the top, attempting to digest Russell’s commentary on Plato, but the
words ran together. His eyes returned to the top of the page for a third read.

  “Damn,” he muttered, slamming the book closed and rising from the chair.

  He opened the police report and began to read. The sixteen-year-old report came from the Woolwich Township Police Department. He’d never heard of the township but figured it must be somewhere in rural southern New Jersey. Julie dug pretty damn deep for this one. He read every word of the report, and then read it again just to be sure he understood the incident.

  Stepping away from the laptop, he wandered around the room, past the bookcase on the far wall. He picked up the small ceramic bust of Aristotle from the upper shelf. He looked down at the lifeless eyes, and carried the bust with him as he drifted aimlessly around the room.

  “Interesting turn of events, Ari,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

  He stared at the bust for a moment, as if listening for a response. “Could this be what this whole business is about?”

  He tossed the bust back and forth between hands. He’d been a good juggler in college, able to keep as many as five objects in the air at once. Now he was lucky if he could manage one thing at a time. Holding the bust out in front of him, he resisted the urge to quote Macbeth. “There’s one thing I don’t get, Ari. Well, one of many things. What are the Shallows? What does it have to do with a drowned teenager in Woolwich?”

  He crossed back to the bookshelf, placing the bust back in its place. He picked up his mobile phone. He had a call to make to rural New Jersey. As he looked up the number for Woolwich Township Police, he glanced back at the book that rested in the Lazy Boy. Western philosophy would have to wait.

  11

  Kaitlyn walked around the BMW and knelt down by the driver-side window, dropping the small black duffel bag she carried on the curb. Brad rested his hands on the steering wheel. For a moment, she was struck again with how handsome he looked in his navy suit. It amused her to think of herself in contrast with faded jeans and a Phillies sweatshirt.