Page 36 of Stay Away from Him

Thomas Danver went on a trip late that night, driving to a remote cabin that he and Rose owned in northern Minnesota. He claims he went there looking for Rose, to see if that was where she’d gone missing.

We also know that an hour before he took this trip, he purchased three items at a nearby hardware store. A tarp, rope, a shovel. Why, Dr. Danver? (Or should I say Dr. DANGER?) Because he was preparing to bury Rose’s body.

During this trip, Thomas turned off his phone and his car’s GPS. Again, why? So he could not be traced. So the police could not find the place where he buried Rose.

And finally, we know that before he came back to the Twin Cities, Thomas briefly turned his phone back on in the vicinity of his cabin, to email a cleaning service asking for a deep clean of his house, with special focus on the kitchen floor. He specifically asked for bleach to be used. Why? Because when Rose told him of her plans to leave him, he killed her in a fit of rage, hastily cleaned up the evidence, and thenhoped that a professional cleaning would remove all traces of blood.

After he returned from his trip, he reported Rose missing. By this time, she had already been dead two days. And by the time the police began to suspect that Rose was dead and began to investigate Thomas, she was already buried in a field somewhere. The house had already been professionally cleaned—though they still found traces of Rose’s blood in the kitchen. It’s hard to get rid of blood completely.

With the blood, Thomas’s hardware store purchases, his delay in reporting Rose missing, and the testimony I provided about Thomas’s abuse, they charged him and were preparing to bring the case to trial. But then they dropped the charges.

WHY?

Nausea grew in Melissa’s stomach as she read Kelli’s post. Lawrence hadn’t shared any of this when he told her about Thomas’s past—didn’t tell her much about the evidence against him except to say that it was weak, circumstantial. This felt like more than that. Maybe it wasn’t a slam-dunk case, but it still looked bad for Thomas. Bad forMelissa—the woman who was gullible enough, credulous enough, to go on a date with him. To bring him into her bed.

She took deep breaths and tried to remind herself of what she knew. Namely, that Thomas wasn’t in jail. He was walking around, a free man. In spite of the evidence against him, he hadn’t beenconvicted of a crime. In fact, as Kelli admitted at the end of her post, the county attorney dropped the charges against him. She claimed not to know why, but Melissa was sure the prosecutor had good reasons for dropping the case. Maybe the evidence was weaker than Kelli Walker presented it. Maybe Thomas had a good explanation for all of it. Who should Melissa trust—Thomas, the man who’d been so kind to her and her son, who she found so attractive, who a dear friend and her ownguttold her was safe and could never do what he was being accused of? Or Kelli Walker? A woman she didn’t even know? A meddlesome, nosy woman who spied on her, took her photo, posted it on social media without her knowing? A woman who might have even broken into her home? The only person Melissa was pretty certain had committed a crime here wasKelli.

There was also the fact that Rose had had a stalker. That was the information Thomas and his defense attorney had given to the prosecutors to make them drop the case. Thomas’s wife was being threatened by someone, someone who wasn’t Thomas, and instead of taking it seriously, the police ignored it.

Kelli Walker hadn’t mentioned anything about that, Melissa noted. Shouldn’t a group dedicated to justice for a missing and possibly murdered woman have been looking atallthe suspects?

Melissa expanded the comments on Kelli’s pinned post, looking for some mention of other suspects. There was nothing in the comments other than expressions of outrage against Thomas, so she began scrolling through the group feed, looking for other popular posts. She got about three posts deep before she found it:

What about the stalker theory? Has this group looked into that?

The top comment under the post was Kelli’s, with dozens of likes on it.

The stalker theory is complete and utter bullshit. It’s something Dr. Danger and his high-priced lawyer cooked up out of thin air.

Melissa cocked her head, suspicious. Something wasn’t right in how quickly Kelli dismissed the question. Why was she so fixated on Thomas as the killer, and why wouldn’t she consider any other theories?

Just then, Melissa’s phone buzzed on the counter. She glanced at it to see messages coming in from Thomas.

Hey. Thinking about you today. And about last night.

Melissa felt a flush of warmth spread through her body as she thought of Thomas in her bed, peeling her clothes away from her body, putting his hands on her. In spite of herself, in spite of everything she was learning, she wanted him back, wanted him here—and wanted him now.

I want to see you again.

Melissa sucked in a breath and held it while she typed out a response.

I don’t know. This is going a little fast.

The dots appeared, and the message took a while to come.

I know. And I’m sorry. We can slow it down. As slow as you want. Just meet me. Now that I’ve had you, I can’t go a day without you. I’m addicted, Melissa.

Melissa’s held breath came out as a laugh, light and airy. She’d never had a man come on so strong before—never had a man who’d claimed to be this attracted to her, to want her this badly, to beaddictedto her. It was intoxicating.

Maybe she was addicted too.

Meet me at the park,Thomas messaged before Melissa could think of a response.The playground. I promised Bradley, remember?

You did,she responded.

So let’s do it. After I get off work.

Melissa paused before responding, thinking it through. She needed to be careful, to look at all the angles. Her body, her gut, were telling her one thing: telling her to trust Thomas, to trust her attraction to him. Telling her that the way she felt about him couldn’t be a mistake, couldn’t be a lie. But her mind was telling her something else entirely: that Thomas might be dangerous. That she should take the evidence against him seriously, even if it was being presented by a woman she didn’t know or trust.

---