CHAPTER SEVEN

Antonio found his partner in a conference room in front of a laptop and a stack of paperwork. Brandon looked pissed off, and the loosened tie around his neck gave Antonio a hint as to why.

“How was the deposition?” he asked.

Brandon didn’t look up. “Tedious.”

Depositions were right up there with root canals. Antonio didn’t know a single detective who liked to get all dressed up to get grilled by a bunch of lawyers.

He dropped a file folder on the table beside Brandon.

“What’s this?” his partner asked.

“The phone dump for Vanessa Adams. It came in this morning.”

His face brightened and he reached for the folder. “Anything in it?”

“Lots.”

He let Brandon skim the records as he sat down and popped open a can of Red Bull. He’d skipped lunch and needed a sugar boost. Brandon flipped to the last page, just as Antonio had known he would.

“Nine fifty-five Sunday night.” He glanced up. “That’s the call she was taking when the neighbor passed her on the stairs and said she was crying.”

“Reina Chambers,” Antonio said. “I tracked her down already.”

“And?”

“And she didn’t know Vanessa was missing. Whole thing took her totally off-guard. She sounded really rattled over the phone.”

“Who is she?”

“A friend of Vanessa’s. They know each other from a therapy group, apparently. She said Vanessa called her Sunday night and told her she’d had a rough weekend.”

Brandon’s eyebrows arched. “Why?”

“She didn’t elaborate, according to the friend. Just told her she’d been struggling with cutting and needed to talk.”

“Cutting herself?”

“Yeah, they’re in a support group for it. I didn’t even know that was a thing, right? She said they talked about that, mostly. Vanessa said she’d see her at the next group meeting, but she skipped it.”

“When was this?”

“Tuesday at noon. They meet at St. Michael’s church over there on the south side.”

“Vanessa say anything to her about trouble with a boyfriend or an ex? Anything like that?”

“Nope.”

“Shit.”

“I know. I was hoping for a break, given the timing.”

Brandon leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“So, this cutting thing has me thinking about the quarry again,” Antonio said. “That lake out there’s really deep.”

Brandon nodded. They’d already talked about the possibility that Vanessa had slashed her wrists or maybe downed a bottle of pills and gone for a swim. It was possible, especially in light of this new info from her girlfriend. But something about that scenario didn’t feel right.

“I keep coming back to that blood in the woods,” Antonio said.

“Same. This doesn’t feel like a suicide to me.”

“Me either.”