Page 41 of Find Me

“And you didn’t recognize him when he showed up at the house?” Lindsay realized how judgmental she sounded, but she needed to know if Hope would be able to answer these questions when the police inevitably asked them.

“No. I barely paid him any attention. It’s not like we were actually fishing—just enjoying the boat ride. And remember, he was wearing shades and that safari hat or whatever? You said something about how it wasn’t fair because we couldn’t tell if he was hot or not.”

Lindsay summoned a memory of a dark-haired, olive-skinned man in mirrored aviator sunglasses and a tan cotton hat with flaps that covered the ears and neck from sun. Practical gear for someone who spent most days on the water, but also a hindrance to forming a clear impression of his appearance. If she could find photographs of Lopez in his usual guide attire, it could back up Hope’s explanation.

Her mind skipped back to Lopez’s mirrored sunglasses. She closed her eyes, drilling down on a vague memory. A floppy-haired kid—theone who caught the big blackfish—showing the fishing guide how to turn off the screen lock on his iPhone after the guide complained that he was constantly pulling off his shades to get his device’s facial recognition to work. The kid offering to change the settings and then making fun of the guide for having such an obvious password. The guide joking that he was too boring for anyone to want to snoop through his cell.

“Did you learn anything else from his phone?” Lindsay asked. In a perfect world, she’d have an investigator conduct a full data analysis, but she knew that powering up the device was too risky.

“All the emails were about fishing trips. Most of the texts too. I jotted down a bunch of the phone numbers from the call log. I also looked through the contacts really fast, but nothing jumped out. I’ve been too afraid to turn it back on since then. If he had tracked his phone, it would have led him right to me. And I was obviously too afraid to come back here, so I went to one of the rental properties my boss manages. I knew the renters took off for a month to Napa Valley, and I knew where the spare key was hidden. I’ve been staying there.”

“What about your car?”

“It’s in the garage at the rental. I rode one of the house bikes here.” Lindsay started to stand up, but Hope told her not to worry. “I locked it up near the train station and then walked the rest of the way. Figured it would be easier to dash inside someplace on foot if someone seemed to be following me.”

Lindsay reached for Hope’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s like you’ve been living inside a Netflix show for two weeks. Are you okay?”

“It’s not as easy to be invisible as they make it look on TV.”

“I’m just glad you’re safe. And alive. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I can’t believe he’s dead. Or that the police think I killed him. I mean, even if I had, it would have been self-defense when he attacked me, and I would have called the police. But I’m absolutely positive hewas alive when I left that house. I heard him kind of groaning and cussing as I ran out the door. They said on the news that he was shot, and his body was found in the water. They . . . what? Think I somehow got a gun, killed him, and threw him in the ocean? How would I get a full-grown dead man’s body into a car by myself? And I don’t even know how to shoot a gun—as I’m sure you remember.”

The shooting range. What was it about firing that gun that had rattled her so badly?

“Look, we don’t know for sure what the police think. They said for now you’re a person of interest. I do know the police found Alex Lopez’s blood in the foyer of the Stansfield house. I was the one who brought them there when I first reported you missing.”

Hope pressed her eyes shut and bit her lip.

“Hope, I had no idea. How could I?”

“I’m not blaming you. At all, I promise. I just... I didn’t know what to do. I could see how it would look. They’d ask all kinds of questions about who I am, where I came from, what I know. It was everything you warned me about when I moved.” Her shoulders shook as she began to cry. “I didn’t want to drag you into this until I at least figured out what was going on. I thought all I had to do was keep myself safe until I could figure out whatever connection I must have had to this guy. I have no idea why he’d start following me around town, or what kind of game he was accusing me of playing.”

That asshole, Carter Decker, had pretended to be on Lindsay’s side, to want her to make nice with him. She replayed the conversation in her head, realizing the damage she had inflicted.

We took a fishing guide trip. I was surprised she wanted to go.

So it was her idea?

She wanted to jump back in time to tell herself to stop talking.

“And you haven’t seen Alex since you left him at the Stansfield house?”

“Not once. I swear.”

“Did his face spark any kind of recognition? Maybe shake something loose from the past?”

She shook her head.

“What about the idea of Wichita, Kansas? Do you think it’s possible you used to live there?”

“Why would you— Oh, wait. Whoa, this is bizarre.”

“What? Are you remembering something?”

“Don’t ask me why, but when you said Wichita, I immediately thought, Doo Dah. What does that even mean?”

Lindsay reached for her laptop on the coffee table and searched online for “Wichita Doo Dah.”

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