Page 42 of Find Me

“It says here that’s what locals call their city. ‘Doo Dah.’ Origins unknown.”

Hope’s brow furrowed. “How in the world would I know that?”

“If you grew up there,” Lindsay said, “which is what I think. It’s a long story, but Alex Lopez definitely used to live there as a child. You two must have known each other.”

Hope reached into her back pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “These are the phone numbers I jotted down from Alex’s cell—every number in the log since we went on that boat trip. There actually aren’t that many. Looks like he did most of his guide business by email. I googled all the numbers to see what I could find. This is the one I was most interested in: three calls back and forth to some number with a Chicago area code. I tried calling it using the landline at the rental after hitting star six seven, but now the number’s disconnected.”

“Okay, that’s weird.” Lindsay could see that Hope had scribbled three different dates and the note “disc-x” next to a number with an 873 prefix.

“Super weird. I’m thinking that has to be the person who killed him.” Hope mimicked a shiver going down her spine. “But now you’ve got me wondering more about this other call,” she said, pointing to a 316 number on the list. “That’s the corporate headquarters of LockeHome in... guess where? Wichita, Kansas.”

Lindsay knew the company well. She had even read Melanie Locke’s book,How to Be a Lady Boss.

Hope had written “LockeHome” next to the number, along with “April 12,” approximately two months earlier and, more interestingly, exactly one day after their fishing trip with Alex Lopez. Lindsay pointed out the timing to Hope.

“I didn’t think anything of it until you started asking me about Wichita. It has to be connected, right? Maybe he recognized me on the boat, and then called someone we both used to know?”

“Does Edgemoor Park ring a bell for you? Or COP summer camp? It’s a summer camp through the police department in Wichita.”

“Not really, but we do know I’m good at softball.” It was one of the many tiny clues that hinted at Hope’s past. Her writer’s bump. Her unexpected crushing of the ball when they were goofing around at the batting cages at Chelsea Piers. The fact that she knew how to make homemade lemonade that was so freaking good that people who drove through Hopewell would swing by the diner for a to-go cup. “Why?”

Why, indeed. The camp was just one of a thousand ways that Alex and Hope might have known each other in Wichita. “Just a theory I’ve been working on. First things first, we’ve got to figure out a way for you to turn yourself in—” Hope rose from the sofa, but Lindsay grabbed her forearm. “They’re going to argue that hiding shows consciousness of guilt. Right now, you’ve got an explanation for it. This crazy person attacked you, and you had no way of knowing whether the police here would believe you. But now that they’ve got an alert out for you, I promise: the best move is for you to present yourself voluntarily.”

They were interrupted by a ringing sound coming from the bedroom. “Don’t go anywhere,” Lindsay said, heading for her cell phone. Seeing it was a call from the local area code, she picked up.

“Hello? I got this number from a flyer on the beach—about a missing woman?”

Not missing anymore, Lindsay thought. “Yes, I posted those. You’ve seen her?”

“She’s... what?” the woman asked. “Your daughter or something?”

Thesinsomethingwas slightly slurred. A nut job, or a little help from a bottle? From the heavy background sounds of wind, Lindsay’s best guess was that the woman was calling from a beach.

“A friend,” Lindsay said. “A very dear friend. So you’ve seen her?” she asked again.

“Indeed, I have. And I’m trying to figure out why the hell she was stalking my boyfriend.”

26

Tuesday, June 22, 3:40 p.m.

As he entered the East End Senior Thriftshop, Carter Decker inhaled a mouthful of dust and mothballs. A dying fluorescent light buzzed loudly. Racks of clothing and tables of clutter were scattered sparsely throughout the otherwise barren space.

“Hello?” he called out.

A woman with close-cropped silver hair appeared through a swinging door at the back of the shop. “Can I help you?” She was probably in her late seventies but seemed to have no problem managing the large cardboard box in her lean, unsleeved arms. Nevertheless, Carter rushed to offer his assistance, which she gladly accepted.

“Are you Mrs. Streeter? I’m Detective Carter Decker. We spoke on the phone.”

“Well, of course you are. Sorry if you were waiting. I’m here by myself today, and we’ve got a lot of new inventory in the back that needed processing.”

“I just got here, not to worry. Do you have the rug ready?”

“Oh, I’ve still got it in the back. We hadn’t made the decision yet whether it was worth sending out to get professionally cleaned or not. We weren’t going to sell it in its current state. And, well . . . none of uswas willing to clean up someone else’s bodily fluids.” She made an ick face that he found absolutely delightful.

Carter’s request to release a photograph of Evan Hunter’s rug might have panned out. When Hope Miller was initially reported missing, Carter suspected that she had run off with the cash advance she had borrowed from her boss, along with the rug she was supposed to have placed in the Stansfields’ foyer. The discovery of Alex Lopez’s body had changed that theory. The area rug was about the right size to pull a corpse from a house.

Fifteen minutes after the press conference announcing that they were looking for both Hope Miller and the rug, Carter had received a phone call from a volunteer at one of the local charitable thrift shops, identifying herself as “Mrs. Streeter, the supervisor of operations” and saying she was “ninety-nine percent certain” they had the rug in question. The IKEA label was still attached to the back of the rug, and there was a bloodstain that she described as being “wine red, about the size of an index card.”

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