Page 10 of The Whisper Place
“What is it?”
I started, realizing Charlie and Max were both watching me stare at the lip gloss. I stuffed it away. “She never left this bag behind before, did she?”
“No. She always took it with her when she went back to the city.”
Charlie’s anxiety spiked. The walls of the bedroom started closing in around me, making it hard to breathe. Max immediately took over and suggested looking around outside. Charlie followed us to the door, but got even more panicky in the front yard.
“Which way did she run?” I leaned against the trunk of a giant oak tree and pretended to be interested in the road, trying to untangle myself from Charlie’s erratic stabs of panic and paranoia.
“I don’t know. I mean, she usually went by herself before I woke up.”
“Did you ever take walks together?”
“Yeah, a few times.”
Max sent him inside to get his phone so he could show us their walking route on a map. Then he leaned on the other side of the trunk. “You holding up?”
“He’s falling apart. He doesn’t want us here.”
Max watched Charlie disappear into the house, giving him a cop’s once-over that looked for weapons and weaknesses. “I’m not getting the desperate lover vibe either. He was different last night.”
“He’s hiding something.”
“Related to Kate?”
“I can’t tell.”
“What did you get from the bag?”
I glanced at Max. He already knew the answer, but he needed to hear the confirmation out loud.
“She wouldn’t have left without it.”
Charlie showed us the route he’d walked with Kate, a circuit that started on the road and cut through two fields and along a few other properties. It looked about two miles, a decent jog for someone who didn’t know the area well.
“And you didn’t hear her leave that morning?”
“No.” He shoved his phone away, turning to the driveway and the cars parked there as if for help. “But I sleep pretty hard.”
“What makes you think she went for a run before she left that morning?”
“Her running clothes were gone, and the shoes she ran in. Everything else is still here.”
I pictured it. The sweaty woman returning to the yard. Going straight to her car instead of the house. Not showering. Not grabbing her overnight bag, her money, or her favorite lip gloss.
“Wouldn’t she have come into the house to get her keys?”
He shook his head. “She always kept her keys with her. She had pepper spray on them, and an airhorn.”
“She needed that out here?” Max glanced around the horizon, clocking the total absence of threats. “Were there any problems with neighbors? Anyone she didn’t feel comfortable with?”
“She didn’t know anyone here. Except—” Charlie’s energy stuttered with a sudden memory.
“Except who?”
“No one.” Charlie dodged, avoiding eye contact.
There were three houses along the route, tops. It wouldn’t be hard to talk to everyone who might have seen her that day, and find out whether she’d had contact with any of them. I flashed a glance at Max, letting him know I was on it, and he nodded before shifting tactics.
