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Not expecting to see anything, Annie opened the closet. Two boxes were stacked on the left, back against the wall. She flipped on the closet light and leaned down to examine them.
“Mason, this might be some personal stuff.”
He knelt beside her. “Let’s see what’s in here.” He opened the first box to reveal a jumble of clothing. The second box held old picture albums.
“Can we take these to try to track down where she might be and what’s happened to her?”
“Not without a warrant.” Mason put the lids back on the boxes. “I’ll get one, though, if we can’t find her soon. With that bloody sheet in the car, I have good reason to be concerned for her welfare.”
Annie stepped out of the closet and followed him into the hallway outside the condo. She was very concerned about Michelle’s well-being.
Mason glanced up and down the hall. “Let’s see if any neighbors are home. You take the north side and I’ll take the south.”
He told the leasing agent they didn’t need her assistance any longer, but she loitered longer than necessary on her way to the elevator. Once the elevator doors closed, Mason and Annie began knocking on doors.
The last door on Annie’s side opened, and an older woman with her hair in pin curls opened the door. Her faded blue eyes held curiosity. “Hello, young lady, what can I do for you?”
Annie gestured down the hall. “Have you ever met the resident in 5C? Michelle Fraser?”
“The people in and out of there were never very friendly. And always different. Young women, all of them, and they never stayed more than one night. I tried to chat with a few of them, but they scurried off like mice.”
Annie frowned. What had Michelle been up to?
Five
Was Jon doing the right thing? As he got out of the car, he eyed the converted lighthouse owned by Bree and Kade. A breeze blew in off Lake Superior, and it held the scent of moisture. The sound of children’s laughter floated up from the rocky shore, and he walked to the slope that led down to the water to glance at the youngsters splashing in the waves. The Matthews children tossed a beach ball with their mother at the water’s edge while Samson, tail held high, ran back and forth barking.
Perfect. He could confront Taylor with no onlookers. He hadn’t decided what he wanted to say yet, but he’d figure it out.
He retraced his steps, then went past the big house with its lighthouse tower until he came to a small guest cottage overlooking the big lake. A bike leaned against it by the front door, and he hoped that meant Taylor was inside.
He saw movement through a window and rapped his knuckles on the door. Taylor opened it, and her face went rigid when she saw him.
She stepped into the opening as if to prevent him from coming inside. “What doyouwant?”
“An apology from you would be a nice place to start this conversation.” He pitched his voice into a mild tone so she didn’t get her back up any more than it already was.
She folded her arms across her chest. “Fine. I shouldn’t have tried to frame you.”
“Why did you?”
It was disconcerting to see her blue eyes now when she’d masked them with the brown contacts for so long. With those eyes, he could see a resemblance to Annie. Could she be Sarah?
He wanted to know her reasoning. Why had she lied? What had she hoped to gain?
She lifted her chin. “It’s not right that people like you hurt people like me. Annie has everything, and I have nothing. I wanted to level the field a little.”
“By getting me locked up? You must be very unhappy to want to ruin someone’s life.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I already said I was sorry.”
The wordsorryhadn’t crossed her lips, but he let it pass. “Did you want to hurt me or Annie?”
She shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
She wasn’t going to give more of an explanation than she already had, so he moved on. “Why didn’t you tell Annie who you were when you first got here?”
“I remembered her, you know. I might have been little, but I remembered the way she didn’t run to help me. I screamed her name over and over, but she just splashed around in the water and didn’t scream or anything.”
