Find You First Page 2

  He zipped the bag shut. From inside, one muffled word from Todd: “Dark.”

  “How much longer?” Kendra asked Rhys.

  He shrugged. “Minute, tops.”

  There was some minor rustling inside the bag for a few seconds, then nothing. Kendra watched the stillness for a moment, then opened the second bag and started taking out cans of Drano, scrubbing brushes, spray bottles of bleach, cleaning cloths, paper towels, garbage bags.

  Rhys said, “Bathroom’s all yours.”

  Kendra frowned. “Come on.”

  Rhys shook his head adamantly. “You know I can’t handle that. If the bathroom’s only half as bad as this kitchen, it’s going to be like a latrine behind enemy lines.”

  God, Kendra thought, Rhys could be such a germaphobe. He could kill a guy, but ask him to clean a toilet and he looked like he was going to lose his lunch.

  She said, “What d’ya think this guy was into? He was scared shitless we were real cops.”

  Mills looked at the phone sitting on the laptop. “Burner. Drugs, maybe.” He paused. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Kendra said, “Be a lot easier if we could just torch the place like the last one.”

  “If there wasn’t a goddamn fire station on the other side of those trees, I’d say yeah. But they’d be here in seconds. Place’d never have a chance to burn.”

  They were methodical. Kendra, giving in to her partner’s squeamishness, found her way to the back of the trailer and attacked the bathroom. She cleaned out the sink and shower, then poured Drano into the drains, ensuring that anything in the traps would be dissolved. This was followed by a thorough cleaning of every surface with the spray bottles of bleach. Toilet, walls of the shower, even inside drawers and cupboards.

  Into a garbage bag she tossed Todd’s hairbrush, razor, toothbrush, partially used bars of soap, every toiletry item he might have used. She didn’t just empty the small trash container. She bagged the container, too. Plus towels, washcloths.

  “How’s it going up there?” she called out.

  Down the hall, from the kitchen, Rhys said, “Gettin’ there.”

  Kendra, needing a break, traveled the narrow hallway to where it opened onto the kitchen. The countertops were clear and clean, the empty stainless steel sink glistened, and the front of the fridge didn’t have a single, visible smudged fingerprint.

  She whistled. “This place almost looks good enough to move into, if it weren’t a fucking trailer.”

  It took the better part of four hours. The last thing they did was go back out to the van for a high-powered vacuum to give the place one last, good going-over. Gathered by the door were the body bag and ten stuffed garbage bags that included, among other things, all the clothing from Todd’s bedroom closet and drawers, the laptop, the bills, some list of seniors’ facilities found in a cutlery drawer, all the cutlery itself, trash from under the sink, the half-eaten slice of pizza.

  “You look under the bed?” Rhys asked her.

  “Not an idiot,” Kendra said. “Good thing, too. Found an empty beer can. I’ll do a walk-around outside, in case he tossed any.”

  Rhys dangled a set of car keys from his index finger. “I’ll take the Hyundai. Let’s load as much as we can into the car. Anything that won’t fit, we’ll throw into the van. Hit the funeral home first, then the junkyard.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Nearly two.”

  “Any luck, we’ll have everything done by daybreak. I’m gonna sleep for a day.”

  “You wish.”

  They each took an end of the body bag and tossed it into the trunk of the Hyundai. They managed to get several bags in there, too, then filled the back seat. The remaining bags went into the back of the van.

  They took a moment to catch their collective breath.

  “I reek of bleach,” Kendra said. “Calling us cleaners, that’s supposed to be a euphemism.”

  “You want to follow me or you want to head out first?”

  “I’ll follow you. Not sure I remember the turn.”

  “Shit. The phone.”

  “I bagged the phone. It was by the laptop.”

  “No, that was a burner. Cheap flip phone. He must have had a personal phone. There was a Verizon bill by the laptop.”

  Kendra said, “It’s probably with him, in his pocket, in the body bag.”

  “We’ll look for it later.”

  They were both silent a moment. Rhys tipped his head back, put his right hand to his forehead as he looked up at the stars.

  Then he brought down the hand, let out a long sigh, and said, “Two down. Seven to go.”

  THREE WEEKS EARLIER

  One

  New Haven, CT

  “You’re dying.”

  Dr. Alexandra Nyman was expecting some reaction when she delivered her diagnosis, but Miles Cookson was busy looking at his phone.

  “Did you hear me?” Alexandra asked. “I know that’s blunt, but you’ve always told me to be straight with you. There’s no way to sugarcoat this.”

  She’d come around her desk and was sitting in a leather chair next to Miles’s, angled slightly so that her right knee was inches away from his left. She held a file folder with half an inch of paperwork stuffed into it.

  Miles, still staring at the phone, both thumbs tapping away, said, “I’m looking it up.”

  “You don’t have to look it up,” she said. “I’m sitting right here. Ask me anything you want.”

  He glanced at her. “You’re wrong, Alex. I can’t be dying. I’m fucking forty-two years old. It’s something else. Has to be. Look at me, for Christ’s sake.”

  She did. Miles presented as someone in good shape. Five-eight, trim at 160 pounds. She knew he’d run marathons into his thirties, and still jogged a few times a week. Nearly bald, but he made it work in a Patrick Stewart kind of way.

  “Miles, we did the tests and they—”

  “Fuck the tests,” he said, putting down the phone and looking her in the eye. “All my so-called symptoms, you can put them all down to stress. Are you telling me you’ve never been short-tempered, or restless, or have things slip your mind now and then? And yeah, okay, I’ve been a bit clumsy. Falling over my own feet. But it can’t be what you’re saying.”

  She said nothing, but decided to let him vent.

  “Jesus,” Miles whispered. “How could I … It’s tension, stress, simple as that. You fucking doctors, you’re always looking for trouble where there isn’t any. Finding a way to justify all those years you went to school.”

  Alexandra frowned, but not critically. She understood the anger.

  “Sorry,” Miles said. “Cheap shot.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s … it’s a lot to take in.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not stress, is it?”

  “If all you had was some restlessness, a bit of forgetfulness, even the odd mood swing, I would agree with you. But stress doesn’t explain the involuntary body movements, the jerking, the twitching you’ve been—”

  “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  “And I should clarify what I said, about you dying. There’s no cure, there’s nothing we can do. I can prescribe tetrabenazine, which will help with your symptoms when they become more pronounced, but it’s not a cure.”

  Miles laughed sardonically. “Why couldn’t it have been cancer? There’s stuff they can do for cancer. Cut it out, hit it with chemo. But this?”

  “There’s no getting around it,” Alexandra said. “Huntington’s … it’s like you take Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s and put them all into a blender. Your symptoms are very similar to any of those.”

  “But worse.”

  She said nothing.

  “The other day,” he said, “I wanted to put one foot in front of the other, something as simple as that, and my brain was like, no way, Jose. Not happening. And then, a second later, it was okay. Dorian, my assistant, had set up a meeting, told me all the details. Five
minutes later, I could barely remember any of it.”

  “I know.”

  “I go through periods, I feel restless, like my skin’s crawling, I have to do something, I can’t relax.” He paused. “How bad will it get?”

  “It’s a brain disease,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’ll lose more and more motor control. Unlike ALS, where you can remain mentally sharp while your body’s ability to do things deteriorates, Huntington’s will impact your cognitive abilities.”

  “Dementia,” Miles said.

  The doctor nodded. “There will come a point where you will need constant care. There is no cure. They’re working on it, and they’ve been working on it for some time. One of these days, it’ll happen.”

  “But not soon enough to help me,” he said.

  Alexandra said nothing.

  “Who’s doing the research? How much money do they need? I’ll cut them a check so they can get off their asses and do something. What do they need? A million? Ten million? Tell me. I’ll write them a check tomorrow.”

  The doctor leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “This isn’t something you can buy your way out of, Miles. Not this time. All the money in the world won’t bring about a cure overnight. There are some very dedicated people working on this.”

  Miles turned his head, looked out the window as he took that in. “How long?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. Whether it’s Huntington’s, or cancer, or your heart, whatever, predicting life expectancy is a mug’s game. Look at Stephen Hawking. When he was diagnosed with ALS—you know, Lou Gehrig’s disease—they gave him two years. He lived for several more decades. Last year, I had someone in for a checkup, gave the guy a clean bill of health. Dropped dead two days later of a heart attack.”

  “This isn’t helpful,” Miles said.

  “I know. For you, it could be four or five years, maybe less, or maybe you’ve got twenty years. When we did your genetic test, we were looking for a high nucleotide repeat. Below thirty-six the likelihood of Huntington’s is much less, but when you get up around thirty-nine, then you’re—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Apps, I understand. DNA stuff, not so much.”

  Alexandra nodded her understanding. “Sorry. Too technical. Look, we’re going to want to do regular assessments, see how you’re doing. That may give us a better understanding of your long-term prognosis.”

  “I could live a long time, but it could be hell,” he said.

  “Yes. Here’s the bottom line. You know what you’ve got. If there are things you want to do, things you want to accomplish—amends you want to make—now is as good a time as any. Maybe you end up doing it with plenty of time to spare. But a diagnosis like this, it sharpens your focus. Helps you set priorities.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Miles. I’ll be with you every step of the way.” She paused. “There’s something else we should talk about.”

  “God, not more bad news.”

  “No, but let me ask you about family history again. Did either of your parents have Huntington’s?”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, not that I know of. I suppose one of them could have but it never had a chance to show itself. They died in a car accident when they were in their forties. My dad was a drunk. He ran their Ford Explorer into a bridge abutment on the Merritt Parkway.”

  “You have a brother, yes?”

  Miles nodded. “Gilbert.”

  “The thing about Huntington’s is, it’s very much an inherited condition. You’re right that one of your parents might have developed it had they not died prematurely. You could have inherited it from one of them. If a parent has Huntington’s, there’s a 50 percent chance that any of their children will have it, too.”

  “Pretty high odds.”

  “Right. So, there’s a high probability that your brother has it, too. I think he should be tested.” She hesitated. “Are you close?”

  “He works for me,” Miles said.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “We’re … close enough. Things got a bit strained after he married Cruella de Vil.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Caroline. I’m not … a fan. But I’m not exactly her favorite person, either.” He thought about what the doctor had said. “I’ll talk to Gilbert. Suggest he get tested. Or maybe …”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  Alexandra waited, trying to will him to be more forthcoming. When he wasn’t, she forced a smile.

  “There is one tiny piece of good news,” she said.

  “This isn’t like that joke, is it?” Miles asked. “Where the doctor says, ‘I have bad news and good news. The bad news is you’re dying, but the good news is I’m sleeping with Brad Pitt’?”

  Alexandra said, “No, not like that.”

  “Okay. Tell me.”

  “Well, you’re not married. You have no children. If you did, this would be devastating news for them. It’d be terrible enough to learn you’ve had this diagnosis. But on top of that, they’d have to deal with the news that they might have it as well. One chance in two. That would be, for you, I think, an extra emotional burden you really don’t need at this time.”

  Miles stared at her, expressionless.

  “Miles?” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just blanked out there for a second.”

  Alexandra grew concerned. “Do you have children, Miles?”

  And Miles thought, Isn’t that just the fucking million-dollar question?

  Two

  Providence, RI

  Chloe Swanson had the minitripod set up and ready to go.

  She wasn’t using anything fancier than her iPhone for this. That was all she needed for this project. After all, didn’t Steven Soderbergh shoot an entire movie with an iPhone? If he could do that, couldn’t she? But she didn’t want the camera to be all shaky for the interview, so she’d brought along a minitripod to attach it to. Bought it used at a Providence camera shop for a third of what a new one would have cost her.

  She positioned it on a stack of books on an end table, which she had moved around in front of her grandfather’s wheelchair so that it was aimed at him at eye level. She wanted to frame the shot so she wouldn’t see his bed in the background. The room was so small it wasn’t easy.

  Chloe was initially going to film this in one of the nursing home’s common rooms, but her grandfather didn’t want to go down there. He’d had something going with one of the other residents, a woman in her mideighties, but they’d had a recent falling-out. Chloe had tried to piece together what had happened, and astonishingly, at least to Chloe, it appeared to have something to do with sex. The old lady was interested, but Chloe’s grandfather, not so much.

  Anyway, Chloe hadn’t wanted to do the video in the common room anyway. Too much background noise. There was one guy, had to be close to ninety, who was always making these unbelievable horking noises, like he was trying to cough up something that was all the way down in his shoes. Chloe wasn’t without sympathy. Her heart went out to a lot of the residents of the Providence Valley Home, the place her mother most often referred to as the Fairfield Valley Home for the Bewildered.

  Chloe didn’t like it when her mother made jokes about old people. What was funny about losing your balance, falling down, having to wear diapers, forgetting your loved ones when they came to see you? Where were the laughs in that? Sure, Chloe was only twenty-two and didn’t have to worry about getting old for a very long time, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have to care. She’d been here often enough to visit her grandfather that she’d made friends with several of the residents, and had started thinking about a more ambitious project that would involve interviewing a number of them, not just her mother’s father.

  Everybody had a story to tell.

  And it was Chloe’s hope that interviewing her grandfather would fill in some of the gaps in her own story. Not all of them, of course. There was one huge, missing chapter in
her life it was unlikely she’d ever know anything about. Kind of like a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece. Problem is, that piece takes up half the puzzle.

  Chloe wanted to know who she was.

  Her grandfather was thin and round shouldered, with a few wisps of hair that did little to hide his array of liver spots. Most days, Chloe might find him sitting in pajamas and a bathrobe, but today he had put on a jacket, white shirt, and tie. Chloe thought she could fit her entire hand between the collar and the old man’s leathery, wrinkled neck.

  “That’s really a camera?” he whispered.

  “It’s my phone,” she said. “You’ve seen my phone before. It does all kinds of things.”

  He licked his dry lips. “But where’s the film?”

  “It’s digital. Are you ready?”

  “Fire away. I’m not going to need my lawyer, am I?” He grinned, flashing his dentures.

  “I don’t think so,” Chloe said. “Unless you’re going to confess to something awful you did back in the day. Were you a hit man or something? Did you work for the mob?”

  He shook his head. “Just Sears.”

  “I’m going to pick up from where we talked last time. Is that okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Don’t look into the camera. Just look at me. We’re just having a conversation. Okay?”

  “I get it,” he said weakly.

  Chloe tapped the screen on the phone, settled into her chair opposite her grandfather, and said, “So how did you handle it, when Mom came out?”

  “Came out of what?” he replied, grinning slyly.

  Chloe chuckled. “When she told you she was a lesbian.”

  “Oh, that, well,” he said. “It didn’t happen all at once, you know. She kind of hinted about it. The clues were there if we were paying any attention. Your grandmother, Lisa—bless her heart—and I couldn’t help but see the signs, but sometimes, even when it’s right there in front of your face, you pretend not to see it. Any boyfriends she had, it never lasted long. I think I took it better than Lisa did, to tell you the truth. I think Lisa was always counting on a big wedding for whenever Gillian found Mr. Right. You know?”