Page 81 of The Girl in the Mist

I get to the station and almost immediately come face-to-face with Garrison. My heart squeezes hard in my chest and I stare directly into his eyes, forcing him to look at me. I don’t move. I don’t back down. If he’s hiding something, I’m going to peel back the layers until I find it.

“Did you talk to Jacob Merriweather?” heasks.

“I did,” I nod. “He insists he didn’t have anything to do with the murders. He says he was not working with Miranda and would have no reason to kill anyone. He doesn’t want to be like his father. The purpose of his book is to expose his father’s crimes and help the families findpeace.”

“Just like his father’s confession,” he pointsout.

“Yes,” I say. “I know.” I hold up my pager. “I need to callSam.”

He points me toward his office. “You’re welcome to myphone.”

“Thankyou.”

I go into the office and shut the door. Sitting at the desk, I dial Sam at his office inSherwood.

“Hi,” I blurt out the moment heanswers.

“Hey, babe. You alright?” he asks.

“Maybe,” I say. “I just…” I shake my head. “What did youneed?”

“I thought about what you told me about Carson Benoit and it was really getting to me. I wanted to know what happened to his family. So I did some digging. I called Dean and Eric and it took all three of us, but I think we foundsomething.”

If everything wasn’t pressing down around me the way it is, I might have found a joke somewhere in there. A sheriff, a private investigator, and an FBI agent get on a conferencecall…

“What did you find?” Iask.

“After his death, Benoit’s ex-wife apparently didn’t have the smoothest time. She was bankrupt, went on probation for bad checks. Had a string of loser boyfriends. But here’s where things go really downhill. Her son, who wasn’t named in any of the records because he was a minor through all this and just like we suspected, his name was changed when they left town, had a very rough go of it. He went in and out of juvie for a bunch of petty crimes and was seriously escalating. He ended up nearly killing his mother’s boyfriend at the time after the man beat up his mother and started in on the kid. He left him for dead and ran away. The mother refused to leave him or press charges, so the court took the kid and put him in fostercare.”

“Geez,” I say.

“Kid apparently never got adopted. He bounced around from home to home until he aged out and was essentially kicked out on the street. That’s where all record of him comes to an end. He just faded intoobscurity.”

On the corner of Garrison’s desk, I see a copy of the newspaper article with the names of the victims of this massacre sitting beside one of the ones from 1964. Twenty-nine names in all. My eyes sweep over them and something sticks into my heart like a thorn. I feel the back of my neck tingle, the feeling going up to the base of my brain.

“Can you tell me where he was when he went into foster care?” I ask.

“Brecken, North Carolina,” he says.

“Thank you. I’ll call you when I’m headedhome.”

“Did you figure somethingout?”

“I’m not sure. I love you. Thank you forthis.”

“I love you. Becareful.”

Garrison comes into his office and cocks an eyebrow atme.

“Everything okay?” heasks.

“Do you know anything about Breckon, North Carolina? Ever even heard of it?” Iask.

“I think I’ve heard the name, but I can’t really tell you anything about it. Why?” heasks.

“I need you to help me make somecalls.”

I tell him exactly what I need to know and then race back to the war room to test my theory. With the names of the victims sitting in front of me, I pull out the articles and notes about Carson Benoit. A highlighter in my hand, I go through every one of them carefully, splashing vibrant yellow across the pages as I go. I’ve been looking for a pattern, for any reason behind the deaths, and I think I just found it.

---