Page 129 of The Last Close Call

She raised an eyebrow. “Skyler said he came by here to see you when you were sick. Doesn’t seem like limbo to me. But, hey, my lips are sealed.”

“Thanks. And thanks for the soup.”

“No problem.” Lila squeezed her hand as she stepped through the door. “Love you, babe. Get some rest.”

“I will.”

Rowan stood in the doorway shivering as she watched her leave. Then she locked the door and padded across the house in her sock feet, glancing at the laundry everywhere. She’d started on a big cleaning binge to try to find an outlet for all her nervous energy. Now she still had chores to finish, but she’d lost her motivation suddenly.

She grabbed a bottle of water from her fridge and went into the sunroom, where Oscar lay curled up on a pile of papers by her computer.

Rowan sank into the desk chair and stroked his fur. He was sulking because she’d ejected him from the bed so she could wash the sheets. She scratched his favorite spot under his chin, and he responded with a low purr.

Sighing, she dug her phone from her pocket and checked the screen. Nothing new from Jack. She hadn’t heard from him since seven this morning when he’d sent her a text.

We arrested him.

Those three simple words had jarred her awake. She’d been shocked and then relieved and then panicked, for some reason. Her emotions were all over the map. She’d been expecting Jack to call with more details, but she figured he must be buried in work. She’d been watching local news, but she hadn’t seen any announcements yet, so they must have somehow managed to keep it under wraps for now, maybe while they questioned Anderson or notified his victims.

The quiet wouldn’t last forever, though. It was a high-profile story, and the press was sure to sniff out any new developments.

Oscar yawned and stretched his paws, and Rowan scratched his tummy.

She glanced at her sleeping computer and tapped the mouse to bring the screen to life. Just before she got sick, she’d been doing some research into Jack’s cold case project. She still hadn’t decided whether to take it or not.

But really, she had decided. Deep down, she knew what she was going to do. She was going to help him. She couldn’t not. The case bothered Jack deeply, and after some preliminary research, she understood why. Ramon Huerta was a throwaway kid, someone who—through no fault of his own—never had a chance. Every adult in his life had failed him, and she knew Jack couldn’t stand to add his name to the list. Whether anyone else cared or even noticed, Jack was committed to solving the case and holding someone accountable.

Jack’s unrelenting determination kept coming back to her again and again. He was a good man. He was strong and committed and, above all, tenacious. And she admired those qualities, but they worried her, too, because she could feel herself getting pulled in.

Someone’s falling hard.

Lila had figured it out in a minute. She was like a sister, and it was pointless for Rowan to lie to her.

Rowan closed out of the news article she’d been reading on her computer. She had several other tabs open, various genealogy websites she’d been using to create Will Anderson’s family tree. One of the open pages showed a new message in her inbox. It was a contact from one of the surname projects Rowan had queried weeks ago when she originally started her research. Will Anderson’s DNA analysis had resulted in two matches, and she had focused her effort on the closer match that ultimately led her to Joy Kendall. This email was someone she had contacted about the weaker match, a distant cousin from a different branch of Will Anderson’s family.

Dear Ms.Healy,

Thank you for your interest in the Leary Surname Project. I have been researching our family line for months now, and it has certainly been a labor of love! But with the help of some newly digitized records, I have at last been able to fill in some branches on our family tree. Several relatives recently took a DNA test, and I am hopeful that even more information will be forthcoming...

Rowan skimmed through the long paragraphs. Like so many other genealogy buffs she’d met, this man had plenty of time to focus on his pet project and tended to be verbose. But he was also thorough and detail-oriented, so that was good. She scrolled to the end of his message, hoping for a link to the family tree he was so proud of. He didn’t disappoint.

“Thank you, Randall,” she murmured, clicking it open.

The Leary family tree appeared on the screen, and Rowan scanned the diagram, alert for any names that she didn’t already have on her whiteboard. Quite a few were new, but she zeroed in on one person immediately.

Brett James Leary.

According to her research, he was Anderson’s biological father.

She stared at the name, thinking of Joy and how agonizing this whole process had been for her, how much guilt she’d been grappling with since Rowan and Jack had shown up at her door. Did Brett Leary even know he had a son out there? Even if he was aware, he likely had no clue that his son had grown up to be a rapist and murderer.

Rowan clicked on Leary’s name to learn more, but the biographical information available was scant—just a birth year and county where the birth was recorded.

Rowan stared at the screen as a ball of dread filled her stomach. She clicked open a browser and ran a search on the name. A cold, queasy feeling came over her as she scrolled through the search results. One of the results included a photograph. Rowan clicked it open and clutched her hand to her chest.

“Oh, Joy,” she whispered. “Oh no.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

---