Page 156 of To Die For

He sat on the bed that the Odoms had shared. The room was uncluttered and scrupulously clean and contained little touches of femininity and playfulness, no doubt courtesy of Alice Odom. As Devine looked around the spare quarters, he thought back to the photo of the Odoms he had seen. A family, all together in love with no idea what the future held.

He stood and checked the front area of the trailer through the gap in the blinds. The darkness held nothing but silhouettes of trees. He couldn’t even see any telltale clouds of chilled breath from the clusters of armed personnel he assumed were out there in the cold. He then ventured around the small room, opening drawers and examining things. He stopped when he saw the old-fashioned photo album stored in one drawer. He was surprised that people from the Odoms’ generation would even have one.

When Devine pulled it out and opened the album, he understood that he was both right and wrong.

The pictures were of a younger Alice Odom, and her mother and father and her brother, Danny Glass.

Glass Sr. was a short, burly, red-faced man with features full of bitterness. His wife was petite with a countenance of extreme unhappiness wedged under her fake smile.

Danny and Alice were next to each other and looking into the camera with what seemed to be genuine happiness. The teenage Danny was holding little Alice’s hand.

Devine wasn’t sure when the photo was taken, but “little” Alice was nearly as tall as her mother. Danny Glass had a full head of dark hair that mirrored his father and mother. Alice’s auburn hair was a trait that her daughter had inherited.

Now they were all dead, except for Danny Glass. That was probably why he was clinging so hard to Betsy, the only link he had to his beloved sister.

Continuing his impromptu search, Devine next found in a cabinet a manila file markedHEALTH. He found in the pages, to his surprise, not the usual routine medical checkup reports he had expected, but rather material on IVF treatments from well over a decade ago. Apparently the Odoms had had difficulty getting pregnant. There were also some wellness checkup forms from when Alice had been pregnant with Betsy, and vaccination records that showed Betsy had been inoculated against the usual childhood diseases.

The last piece of paper puzzled Devine. It was the only one in the file having to do with Dwayne Odom. Devine read over the test results.

How could that possibly be?

The next moment his phone buzzed, and he looked at the message he’d just gotten from Emerson Campbell. It was in response to a photo that Devine had sent him previously. The info filled in a lot of holes for Devine and also gave him an idea. He set down the medical file and focused on the details Campbell had just provided.

A minute later his phone buzzed once more and he read the text.

It gave a place and a time and was signedPJ.

He went to check on Odom. She was asleep.

He looked in on Shore and Rose and asked them to keep watch while he was gone. Shore pulled the Glock and Rose his knife.

“We got her,” said Shore. He was looking Delta Force serious.

Devine nodded, stepped outside the front door, and climbed into his car.

As he headed down the road he felt the presence of people there, watching.

Let’s hope they’re all on our side.

Since they had clearly seen just him and not Odom get in the Subaru, no one had followed him, which was a relief.

When Devine arrived at his destination, he saw a wink of light coming from about a hundred yards away.

His hand slipped to his waistband and the big Glock came out.

Devine maneuvered his way from tree to tree until he was within ten feet of the light.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” he said.

Jackson stepped out into the open. She was dressed all in black, and until she removed her face covering, she was nearly invisible.

“I saw Anne Cassidy today. She even spoke to me. If I hadn’t been working so hard to keep from gutting her, I would have been laughing my ass off.”

“But she didn’t know it was you?” said Devine.

“I almost wished she did recognize me. Then Icouldhave just ended her right then and there.”

“We all have regrets.”

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