Page 24 of Cowboy's Way

The next thing I worked out was that Owen was absolutely not slow. Admittedly, I still don’t know much of anything about Autism, but it’s talked about enough now that I would imagine he’s on the spectrum.

While I’ve invited Owen to try out life with the Outlaws, he turned me down and lives what seems to be a very solitary life. Not that sharing personal details is his thing.

I settle for shooting him an email with a random meme; that’s long been our code for ‘give me a call’.

Grabbing a bottle of water, I head back to my bedroom to get a few hours of sleep before it’s time to feed the beasts.

No sooner than I nod off, my phone rings and I look over to see Owen’s number pop up.

“What have you got for me?” he asks without preamble.

“A new neighbor,” I reply, clearing my throat at how groggy my voice sounds to me. Looking over, I realize I’ve actually slept for an hour.

“I don’t have any neighbors,” he says, as though he had to think about it.

“I do,” I say, sitting up and reaching for the bottle of water beside my bed. “She said she’s from LA, but had been living in Vegas …”

Continuing on with the few facts I have, including the ex, there’s silence after I stop talking. “You still there?”

“You haven’t told me her name,” he answers, and I realize I left that, somewhat important, fact out.

“I’m not sure that it’s hers, but she goes by Faith Murphy.”

He reconfirms her birthday after I say that.

“Yeah, I see her on my run every day.”

“No, she lives here, has for a couple of months now.”

“No. Faith Meadow Murphy, born March the third, died March eight the next year. She’s got a corner plot in section nine sixteen of Roseacre Cemetery right next to Angela Summer Anderson, who died March eighth, nine years after Faith. It’s weird, isn’t it? Children dying on the same day, all of those years apart, but ending up buried next to each other?”

“You go running at a cemetery every day?” I don’t know why that’s the most pressing question I have right now.

“I went to a gym, but women would keep interrupting me. So, I quit. No one interrupts me at the cemetery.”

I shake my head, having to concede that’s some solid reasoning there. “Okay, can you look into the woman who’s living next door to me?”

“I need her picture.” His simple request has me cursing a blue streak and moving to my hidden office. “I mean, I can trace her without her picture, but it would make it easier.”

“No, man, sorry. I was beat last night. I don’t have a photo, but she has to have a driver’s license either from here or Nevada. I should have searched the database.”

“I’m looking now,” he responds, remaining quiet until he grunts. “Weird.”

“What?”

“She looks pretty in her license photo.”

“She’s a beautiful woman.”

“That doesn’t matter. People go to the DMV; it’s crowded and stressful. They get annoyed, then are told to line up for a picture. They’re still trying to figure out where to look when their photo is snapped. But she is looking directly at the camera and doesn’t seem agitated.” Even as he explains his reasoning, I can hear his fingers moving over his keyboard. “And she had a California Real ID, which means, when she got to South Carolina, all she needed to do was surrender the old one without submitting any historical documents, just proof of address. There.”

A message bar opens on my computer, and two images appear. The first is Faith’s California license, followed by the one she has in South Carolina. His point becomes even clearer the moment I look between them.

The stress on her face, coupled with the angle of her head, is noticeably different in the second image. Then I see the issue date of the original license and know it was during the period she was allegedly married and living in Vegas.

“How good would a forger have to be to not only provide a Real ID and a Social Security number, but to have uploaded them to government databases?”

“I know of three in my region, but only one is a woman.”

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