Leave Me Love(25)

I'd almost expected our room to be blocked off by police tape, but a crime hadn't been committed there. I was able to walk in without a problem, but could tell they'd combed through the room. They never left anything where it belonged.

I didn't expect to find anything if the police had already searched the place, but I sat at her desk and went through the drawers, opening books to see if any papers were hidden in them, checking for secret compartments, and feeling very much like a spy movie cliché. Ash checked under and behind the furniture, making himself as useful as he could in the small space.

They'd taken her computer and journal—and probably anything else she'd written in. It only took twenty minutes of fruitless searching before I was ready to give up, but something behind one of her anatomy posters caught my eye.

A tiny sliver of paper stuck out from behind the one over her desk, and I pulled the pin out of the wall and took it down.

And the buzzing in my head started again.

Hanging in a baggie were several sheets of the exact embossed stationary used by the Midnight Murderer.





Chapter Eighteen


Cat's Letter





ASH CALLED MAXWELL and he agreed to meet us at his office after hours. This time Ash joined us for the meeting, while I explained what we'd discovered about Bridgette. I showed him the stationary, which I hadn't touched except with tissue to preserve any fingerprints, and I showed him the pictures I'd taken before removing the paper. "I know it's not admissible as such, but it's something. It's definitely something."

He used a handkerchief to slip it into an envelope. "Why didn't you call Detective Gray? To preserve chain of custody?"

"Because he's already decided I'm guilty. We can't trust him to follow up on anything. But we should tell him where to find the guy who can identify Bridgette as the person who signed for my car. That has to mean something too, I just don't know what."

Ash held my hand, the feel of his skin comforting and warm against my cold flesh.

Maxwell took notes and then looked up at us. "It's definitely suspicious. We'll look into it and see what we can do with this."

He then pulled out a shoebox from under his desk and handed it to me. "Catelyn, I found this and thought you should have it. You mom and I were close friends, and we often exchanged letters. We knew each other in law school, before we fell on opposite sides of the court room. They're… private letters, but maybe they can help you find the book she was working on."

I reached for the box, looking down at what amounted to a treasure trove of memories of my mom. My eyes filled with tears. "Thank you."

He plucked the top letter off the stack and opened it. "This one might be particularly useful," he said, pointing to a sheet of stationary with one line written on it.

In my mother's neat scroll it read: The book is with Cat.





Chapter Nineteen


Family Dinner





"DO YOU HAVE any idea what the letter means?" asked Ash as he drove us home.

"No. None. I don't know anything about her book now, and I certainly didn't know anything back then when she wrote this." I'd read through some of the letters, which had been useless personal back-and-forths between her and Maxwell, but I planned on staying up all night reading through the rest. Maybe they held more clues—or any clues at all, really, since nothing I'd discovered had been particularly helpful thus far.

"There's one person who might know," I said, dialing Professor Cavin's number. After I explained what I found, he agreed to meet the next day.

Ash got a call then and, when he answered, he turned into someone colder than the man I knew. I only heard his side of the conversation, which was all one word answers. "Yes." "No." "Maybe." "Okay." "Fine." "Bye."

"Who was that?" I asked.

"My dad. It's my mom's birthday and she wants everyone to get together for a family dinner at her favorite local restaurant."

I waited for him to continue.

"I have no desire to spend the evening with my dad. Or my brother for that matter. But I love my mom and this is important to her."

Another pause. He pulled into a parking spot in front of his—our—house and we got out and let ourselves in.

Finally, I broke the silence. "Are you going to go?"

He looked at me, his eyes conflicted. "Only if you join us. Besides, I think my family should meet you properly, as my girlfriend. And, hopefully someday, something more."

My heart thrummed at that someday, the implications that word held. "I'm happy to join you," I said, wondering if his family would be happy to see me, but finding I didn't care too much.



***



It's a tricky thing, navigating grief and fear and worry while undertaking the everyday chore of living. We were doing all we could to find out what had really happened to Bridgette, while also trying to live our lives as best we could. Birthdays happened, school and work needed tending to—though I'd once again taken a leave of absence from The Pleasure Palace, unable to deal with the inherent conflict in talking dirty to strangers with my boyfriend sitting next to me. It was one of the tricky areas of us living together that I'd have to sort out eventually.