His gaze never left her. “Maybe she doesn’t.”
Understanding her mother better than she wanted to, Cait felt sick. Shame had kept her silent, too. Was still keeping her silent.
Oh, God, she thought. I don’t want to be like her.
She bent, so her forehead bumped her knees and she didn’t have to see her brother’s face.
“Blake was abusive,” she said, her throat thick with tears. “And I let it happen.”
The next thing she knew, the sofa cushion beside her depressed and Colin took her in his arms. She swiveled and let him hold her while she cried.
* * *
HAVING HEARD NOTHING by midafternoon the next day, Noah called his police chief first, only to be told that Chief Raynor was in a meeting and would have to return his call. Frustrated and irritated even though he knew he was being unreasonable, Noah dialed McAllister’s number.
“Mayor,” Colin said, sounding resigned.
“What’s the holdup?” Noah demanded. “Hasn’t the M.E. gotten to the skeleton?”
“Have you talked to Raynor?”
“Why bother? He doesn’t know anything you haven’t told him.”
Cait’s brother chuckled. “I doubt he sees it that way.”
Noah didn’t have the patience to talk about Alec Raynor right now. “Well?”
“Sanchez isn’t a bone man. He’s asked for a forensic anthropologist from the state. I understand the guy’s coming in tomorrow.”
“So we know nothing.”
“Identifying this guy is unlikely to keep Cait any safer.”
Intellectually, Noah knew that. His gut said different. “It’s important.”
“I agree. And we’re trying. Knowing when he died narrows down the missing-person reports we have to review. I’m told he has unusual dental work. That’ll help, when we have a name to match him to.”
“What do you mean, unusual?”
“Sanchez is thinking now this man was in his thirties to forty. Not as old as we first thought. Confirmation of that is one of the reasons he’s bringing in an expert. His teeth look more like an older man’s, though. He lost quite a few of them at some point. He had six bridges, all in pieces now, of course. The remaining teeth look as though they were healthy—I’m told there are only a couple of small fillings—so the M.E. is thinking the teeth were knocked out.”
A buzzing in his ears was the first symptom. The next moment, Noah felt as if he were floating up by the ceiling, looking down at the man sitting behind the desk in his office, phone to his ear, a stranger he didn’t know.
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to make cartilage creak. The pain pulled him back into his body.
“My father disappeared when I was a teenager. Probably around sixteen,” he said in a guttural voice. His throat had thickened to the point where it was hard to speak at all. “Mom got checks from him so erratically, we’re not sure when. Angel Butte was his last known address.”
There was a moment of silence as Colin did the math. “Nineteen years ago.”
“He was in a motorcycle accident when he was in his twenties. The handlebar rammed into his mouth.”
“But what could he possibly have had to do with Jerry Hegland?”
“My father started out as a pharmaceutical rep. He got addicted to painkillers and eventually involved in selling illegal drugs.” Noah’s mother had talked bitterly about her first husband’s downfall enough times, but he’d never been sure he believed her. The dad he remembered wasn’t like that. But now he made himself keep talking. “He served a year in jail once.”
“In Oregon?”
Strange, how numb he felt. “Washington. My mother worked in Portland, but we lived across the river in Vancouver.”
“Do you remember what dentist he might have seen?”
“When I was a kid, we went to a Dr. Warren. Can’t remember the name of the clinic, but it was in Vancouver. I’m assuming my father saw him, too.”
Colin was quiet for a moment. A moment later he confirmed Noah’s guess that he was online. “Dr. Paul Warren?”
“That sounds right.”
“If it turns out this is him…I don’t know how we can keep it quiet.”