Page 57 of Find Me

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Wednesday, June 23, 1:05 p.m.

Ellie Hatcher heard a crack as she rose from the floor of her brother’s apartment and arched her back.

Jess apparently heard it, too. “You’re getting old, little sister. Welcome to the club.”

“I’m not old. I’m broken from being hunched over that satanic piece of torture furniture for the last two hours.” When he mentioned he had bought a wall unit online, she’d volunteered to help assemble it, declaring that it soundedfun. Now, staring at what seemed like another 2,700 pieces to go, with no written instructions, she was ready to throw the entire project out the window. She made her way to the kitchen and opened the cabinet where she still expected to find her water glasses.

“Other side of the sink,” Jess called out. It had been nearly two years since Ellie formally turned the apartment’s lease over to her brother, but this rent-subsidized Murray Hill one-bedroom with paper-thin walls and aquamarine bathroom tile was always going to feel like her home.

She had slammed one glass of water and was refilling from the sink when her cell rang in her back pocket. Thanks to her weird memoryfor numbers, she was pretty sure she recognized the digits on the screen. She answered anyway.

Yep, it was Lindsay Kelly. “I’m sorry to bother you again,” she said.But are you?“I’m calling because Hope’s case has taken an unexpected turn. The state believes her actual name is Tara King, and that she’s from Wichita, Kansas.”

If Ellie had to guess, the police had probably found a connection between this Tara King person and Alex Lopez—a connection that might establish a motive for murder. She kept this suspicion to herself. “Doesn’t ring a bell, but it’s not that small of a city.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m calling. It’s a long story, but the police asked her if she knew anything about the death of a man named Richard Mullaney.”

That name, Ellie recognized. Melanie Locke’s husband. Still, she kept quiet.

“The lead detective on the case was also on the College Hill Strangler task force. I thought it was possible you might have met him through your father. His name is Steve Thompson?”

Ellie could tell the first time she spoke to Lindsay that she was a good lawyer. She had no doubt that Lindsay already knew the connection between Steve and the Hatcher family. “I know him well,” she said. “He’s the one I called when you first reached out to me.”Which you also probably knew.

“Oh, wow, great.”

Good lawyer, bad actress.

“So here’s the thing,” Lindsay said. “I’m working on this theory that might implicate Melanie Locke, which is a hard enough hill to climb, but it doesn’t help that the detective on her husband’s case is now the head of security at her company.”

Jess was still hunched on the floor, rotating a wood panel edge over edge over edge, trying to figure out where it fit in the larger puzzle. Catching Ellie’s eye, he whispered for her to hurry up.

“It’s not like that,” Ellie said. “Steve was the go-to guy on the WPD. It’s no coincidence that he would have gotten assigned to such a high-profile murder case, and he’d also be an obvious contender for the job he has at LockeHome.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Lindsay said, “but that’s a pretty major job for a retired detective from a midsize police force, no matter how heavy of a hitter he was at home.”

“No, it’s really not,” Ellie assured her. “They’ve got retired FBI and military intelligence to do the really high-speed stuff. Most of that’s cybersecurity anyway, and Steve would be completely out of his element. He oversees the physical security at the Wichita office complex. Look, if you want me to call him and see if he’s willing to talk to you and your friend about the case, I can.”

“Thanks for the offer, but please don’t do that yet. I need to learn more about whatever wild-goose chase the police here are on before I can develop a strategy for my client.”

Ellie knew that would be her response. No defense attorney would allow a client to talk to a homicide detective, even one who was retired. She found herself wondering how Hope—or Tara King—might be connected to the Richard Mullaney case. Even without the lawyer’s permission, she might have to give Steve a ring.

By the time she hung up, Jess had given up on the wall unit. “What was that about?”

“It was that lawyer who called me about the missing friend and the DNA match.”

“You told me you dropped that.”

“I did, but now it’s pretty clear the friend’s also a suspect in a murder case. Didn’t you see on the news that the police were looking for her?”

Jess flashed areally?expression. Her brother definitely did not keep up with the local news. She gave him a quick summary of the little she knew about Alex Lopez’s death and Hope Miller’s arrest.

Jess still looked confused. “So why was the lawyer asking about Steve?”

“Because the police think this woman Hope is actually named Tara King. And they asked her what she knew about Richard Mullaney’s murder, which was one of Steve’s cases.”

Jess suddenly fell quiet and began chewing the inside of his cheek, the way he did when he was nervous, which was almost never. “Do you have a picture of her?”

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