Page 58 of Find Me

Lindsay pulled up aNewsdayarticle and handed her phone to him. “That’s from this year. Wait, do you actually think you know her?”

She watched as his gaze shifted to the screen. He pressed his lips together as he studied it. When he stood from the floor, he returned her phone but avoided looking at her, seemingly focused on something in the distance.

“Jesus. I think I’m going to puke.” He walked to the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and splashed water on his face.

“Okay, you’re scaring me right now.” She grabbed his arm and led him to the sofa, where he took a seat. “Jess, talk to me. What’s going on?”

He pressed his face into his hands. “Why do you have to be a fucking cop? Fuck!”

“Stop it. I’m your sister first and foremost. If I have to hand in my badge and go back to beauty pageants to pay the bills, I will. Tell me what’s happening here.”

He lifted his face and, for the first time since he’d seen Hope Miller’s picture, made eye contact with her. “You’re thirty-four. That’s some pageant.”

His grin brought a moment of relief, but she flipped him off with both fingers anyway. “Fuck you twice. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on, or do I need to get my handcuffs and beat it out of you?”

He made his way to the refrigerator for a bottle of Rolling Rock, taking a long draw before returning to the sofa.

“You’ve got to promise me I can trust you.”

“Say that again, and I’m going to—”

“I can’t, Ellie. It’s not fair. You’ve got everything going right now. I don’t want to pull you into my shit.”

“It’s about to be our shit, okay? What is happening?”

“I was at Richard Mullaney’s house the night he died.”

“Do you remember TC Atkinson?” Jess asked, handing her two shot glasses. After slamming the rest of his beer, he had retrieved a bottle of Four Roses bourbon from the top of the refrigerator.

Ellie was about to say no but then paused. “Is that the girl I called Woodstock?”

“Oh wow, I totally forgot about that.”

“She reeked of pot and patchouli oil and thought she was Stevie Nicks. What were you thinking?”

“I was twenty-two, and she was a wild woman. What do you think I was thinking?”

“So what were you doing at that house, Jess?”

“TC and I were chilling, and then she told me that this girl she worked with was a babysitter and that the family was out of town for the weekend, so we had a place to hang out for the night. You know... to party.”

“And it was Melanie Locke’s house?”

“I didn’t know whose house it was, and I wouldn’t have been able to pick Melanie Locke from a lineup back then if my life depended on it. It was just some rich people gone for the weekend—that’s all. It’s not like it was a big rager or anything. Just me, TC, her friend, and the friend’s boyfriend. We got there and were drinking, smoking some pot, being pretty mellow. But then it becomes obvious that TC’s on something else. She’s totally out of it, giggling like an idiot, and she tells me she and her friend ate some mushrooms. I was pissed because if I’d known that was the plan, I wouldn’t have gone.”

Once Ellie joined the police force, she’d been careful to avoid the details of Jess’s recreational activities. Though she wanted to believe those days were over, it was no secret that he had enjoyed more than his fair share of illegal drugs over the years. She was more surprised about his disapproval of someone else’s illicit drug use.

“Sorry, but I would have assumed you’d join the party.”

“Hallucinogens? Hours of living in an altered reality where, let’s say hypothetically, you think murderous clowns are tickling you? That’s a hard pass. I was trying to talk TC down, but then her friend’s dude started freaking out and was breaking shit. Like total batshit crazy town. Pulling crap off the walls, smashing glass everywhere. I was like, What the fuck, man? And the other girl’s totally out of it. I was worried she was going to pass out or something. And then TC starts tripping even worse, and her happy giggles are now a raging paranoia. So I’m trying to get TC to sober up, and get angry dude to stop breaking shit. And then the zoned-out girl goes wandering out the front door, and the boyfriend runs after her. It was a clusterfuck, and I just wanted to bail, but I didn’t feel right leaving TC there.”

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was monotone. “I caught what looked like headlights through the front window. Someone was pulling into the driveway. I knew it was too good to be true, some rich family letting the babysitter hang out in their house while they were out of town.”

He shook his head and poured himself another shot.

“It was Richard Mullaney coming home?” she prodded.

“I had no idea, not at the time. I literally picked TC up over my shoulder and ran out the back door. We were halfway into the yard when I heard a gunshot. The shock of it seemed to sober her up enough to get her moving. We jumped the back fence and ran like hell.”

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