In Close (Bulletproof #3)(2)
Author: Brenda Novak

So, frightening though it was, she liked the cover of darkness. It made her feel as close to anonymous as she could get in the place where she’d grown up. The noises she heard were nothing to worry about. No one would have any reason to hang out in an abandoned studio that didn’t have electricity or running water. If some vagabond had moved in, there’d be proof of occupancy.

Knocking the cobwebs out of the way, she followed the beam of her flashlight through the cluster of furniture. Then she climbed up to the loft, where her mother used to paint. She’d loved watching Alana work, had never felt more at peace than here, with the sun pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the second floor, her mother standing in the light, concentrating on her latest masterpiece.

Several unfinished paintings perched on easels covered with sheets, looking like ghosts floating a couple of feet off the ground. The sight of them made Claire sick with loss, a loss rivaled only by David’s death. Whoever had taken Alana had robbed the world, and Claire, of so much.

Was it someone she knew? Someone she passed on the street, spoke to, cared about? One of those people who always asked how she was?

It had to be, didn’t it? Alana went missing from their house in town in the dead of winter. Although this part of Montana saw an influx of hunters, fisherman and recreationists during the spring, summer and fall, it was not a place to visit in the cold months. Libby, thirty miles away, was the closest town. Notorious for the asbestos mine that’d made everyone sick and caused the death of two hundred people, Libby had been in the news a lot in recent years. But on the day Alana had gone missing, it was still just a spot on the map, and an overturned truck carrying vermiculite ore had blocked traffic on the highway for hours. The sheriff himself hadn’t been able to get through until it was cleared.

Claire supposed some “bad man” could’ve come from the other direction, from Marion or Kalispell, but no one had spotted any strangers that day. Even more significant, there’d been no sign of forced entry at the house. Whoever had taken Alana was most likely someone she trusted. She’d opened her door, never expecting to be harmed.

The betrayal inherent in that scenario made Claire more determined than anything else to solve the mystery.

Dragging a chair from the corner, the very chair in which she used to sit and daydream while her mother painted, Claire climbed up to reach the handle that would open the attic door. Just shy of five foot three, she could barely grab hold, but once she caught it, the pull-down ladder lowered easily enough.

It was warmer in the small space above Alana’s studio. Dustier, too. Claire coughed as she poked her head through the opening and used her flashlight to re-acquaint herself with the contents.

Boxes stacked floor to ceiling left little room in which to maneuver. She hadn’t remembered it being quite so crowded. But when it became clear that her mother wasn’t coming back, Claire had insisted that everything Alana owned, down to the razor she’d been using in the shower, be preserved. The sheriff’s department had confiscated the contents of Alana’s desk, her computer, any recent letters she’d written or received, the photos she’d snapped in the months prior to her disappearance, her journal, the things left in her car—anything they thought might help them find her. Claire and Leanne had taken possession of any sentimental items that remained. And the rest had been packed up and stored here years ago, just after Claire graduated from high school and moved out—and her stepfather and his wife bought the luxurious home they currently enjoyed, the home they’d bought with the inheritance Alana had received when her parents died in a plane crash only a year before she disappeared.

Riddled with guilt for even thinking that her mother’s misfortune had provided such a spectacular living for the woman who’d replaced her, Claire steered her mind away from that direction. She liked her stepmother. It wasn’t Roni’s fault that Alana was no longer around.

But it bothered Claire that Roni acted as if Alana had never existed. Tug and Leanne preferred to handle the situation the same way. They’d both asked Claire to forget the past. Learning what happened wouldn’t bring Alana back, they said. And it was true. It was also true that Leanne seemed to do better if she didn’t have to be reminded of that fateful day. Which was why, after pleading for the new sheriff to reopen the case a couple of years ago, Claire had gone back to call him off. Her family had been too upset about the questions he was asking. They couldn’t tolerate the assumptions and suspicions that were inevitable in such a small community.

Claire respected their position. But she couldn’t stop digging entirely. She needed resolution as much as they needed to forget.

What she was hoping to accomplish by coming here tonight, however, she didn’t know. She’d been through all this stuff so many times. Her stepfather, his wife and Leanne had seen it, too. The three of them had packed it together.

But Claire couldn’t help hoping that she’d see something she’d missed before, that some clue would emerge and solve the mystery. That happened all the time on those forensics shows.

Squeezing through the narrow pathway, she moved toward a box that contained her mother’s childhood memorabilia—Alana’s report cards, her early journals, pictures of her family and friends. Claire loved looking through that box because it made her feel closer to the woman she missed so terribly. And it was as good a place to begin as any. She planned on going through every last box, even if that meant frequent trips to the studio over the next few weeks.

She bent to lift it, then saw some boxes that had been packed much more recently. They stood out because they were labeled in her own handwriting. David’s Clothes, David’s Things, David’s Yearbooks.

Her hand flew to her chest as if she could stop that familiar lump from growing in her throat, but she couldn’t. What were her late husband’s personal belongings doing here? She hadn’t expected to find them, wasn’t ready for such a powerful reminder.

One day several months ago, her mother-in-law had come over and packed up everything of David’s, insisting it all be taken from the house. She said that Claire couldn’t get over his death if she was living with his ghost, still sleeping in his T-shirt and crying over the fact that it was beginning to smell more like her than him.

Claire had assumed those things of David’s, except the few she’d managed to retain, had gone into his parents’ garage, but Rosemary must’ve asked Claire’s stepfather to put them here. The two often talked, usually about their concern for her and how she was or wasn’t “coping.”