The Final Equinox: A Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood Thriller by Andrew Mayne

Author:Andrew Mayne [Mayne, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2022-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

PART FOUR

CRIMINOLOGIST

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

MISSING PERSONS

Jane Ikeda meets me at a coffee shop in a Santa Fe strip mall. It’s a sparsely decorated place without all the distractions of a Starbucks. Maisie, the older woman working behind the counter, is friendly and knows everyone by name. She gave Jane a warm greeting as we entered and started her order without asking.

I get a double shot of espresso to make up for my lack of sleep. I’d arrived in Santa Fe a few hours before Theo called me, because something told me that things were about to get interesting here. Call it intuition or paranoia.

Jane looks around the shop and sighs. “I started coming here a lot after David passed away. Journaling, reading, searching the internet. Anything to not think about what happened, but of course it’s all I could think about.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” I reply.

In my line of work, you find yourself saying those words a lot. I also have a pretty good idea what books she read, what blogs she visited, and the rest of the road map for her grieving journey.

Sometimes I talk to family members right after their loss, and they’re still trying to process everything. Those people often appear in a daze, as if in a dream they expect to wake up from.

Jane is past that point, I think. She’s now realized that the heavy burden and looming shadow doesn’t go away. This grief will always be there. Even if she’s able to move on, she’ll be forever saddled with the nagging thought that she did something wrong.

“The funny thing is that we didn’t get to see each other that often. David spent so much time at the institute. But we had fun together. Did you know he volunteered to tutor my students who were struggling?”

Jane is a math teacher at the community college. According to Rate My Professors, she’s well loved. I also saw a couple mentions of David and was curious about that.

“That’s very kind of him.”

“He’d go sit in the library and help anyone who asked. David loved explaining things. I think it’s also because the work at the institute was so secretive.”

Her voice trembles as she thinks about the moments that made her late husband special. When they’re alive, it’s easy to see the flaws. When they’re gone, you tend to notice only the hole in the Earth that they left.

“I had a former student email me a few days ago. She’s now at Stanford. She wanted to know if she could talk to David on the phone because she was feeling so much pressure.” Tears stream down her cheek. “I wish David had someone he could have spoken to.”

I reach out and hold her hand. Jane clasps my fingers with hers.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t be unloading on a complete stranger. I’ve been good about this for a while.”

Maisie walks by our table and places extra napkins for Jane, who wipes at the corner of her eye.

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