Page 31 of Tracked
“Zoom out again,” Calder directed. “The land it abuts here to the east—”
“BLM.”
Calder swore under his breath.
BLM was the designation for land belonging to the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management. I didn’t know exactly how many acres of public-use lands they held in the state, but it was in the millions, and it was popular with campers and hunters because it came with very few rules.
“I can fly a drone out there, but even in this smaller pocket between the national park and the reservation, we’re still looking at tens of thousands of acres.”
“No, that’ll take too long.” Calder massaged the hard edge of his jaw with his hand. “This is the only property owned by the corporation?” He didn’t wait for confirmation before tacking on, “What about Maxwell? Does she have property in her name?”
“Well, that’s where things get interesting. For Wilderness Within, everything from their legal status to tax filings, even down to the reviews left online, is legitimate. But I had the same thought as you, so I looked into Maxwell and found this.” Callum clicked, and documents appeared next to the doctor’s image on the monitor: Schedule C forms filed with the IRS for the last three years. “According to their website, Wilderness Within runs two retreat cycles: one at the beginning of summer and one at the end. Based on what she filed with the IRS, Maxwell is bringing in roughly ninety thousand a year after expenses from Wilderness Within, but when I looked into her personal assets, I found a mortgage for a$3 million home just outside of Jackson, a lease for a brand-new Porsche that she’s upgraded every year for the last three years, and a $1 million condo in West Palm Beach that I can find no record of on any third-party-rental listing website, so she’s not renting it out.”
“Does she have a private practice? Would that account for the spending?”
“No,” I scoffed and bit into my cheek when Calder glared at me. There was no way a psychologist could afford all that, even in private practice, without some external source of funds.
“No, she doesn’t. She had a practice in California, but she closed it when she moved to Wyoming.”
“Family money? Investments?”
“Not that I’ve found.”
“So she’s getting money from somewhere to afford her lifestyle, but somewhere that she’s not reporting it.”
“Maybe she asks for gifts or donations from participants at the retreat and then doesn’t report them,” I suggested.
“That would be a lot of gifts.”
“I might’ve found something else on Maxwell.” Callum leaned forward. “I thought it was odd that she closed up shop and moved to Wyoming. She has no family or any other ties to this area. I looked into her practice thinking the reason was financial, but I didn’t find any hardship there.”
“Something with her license?”
“Still valid.” Callum clicked and opened a clipped image. “When I was looking for information on her office, I found this review cached on one of those provider-aggregate websites.”
You did this to Hannah. She’s gone because of you. You’re a monster.
“What does that mean? Who’s Hannah?”
“Great question,” Callum drawled, his sarcasm barely contained. “Except for a great-great-aunt who is deceased, I couldn’t find anyone named Hannah associated with Julia Maxwell. The only, most likely option is that Hannah was—”
“A patient.”
“Right.” Less sarcasm this time. “I did a search crawl for any article or blog from around the time of this post that mentionedHannah, Maxwell, tragedy, psychologist... anything along those lines, and this is what showed up.”
An article from a university newspaper appeared.
Sophomore Suicide Shakes Campus
“‘Sophomore Hannah L., found dead in her dorm Wednesday morning from apparent suicide,’” Calder read aloud. “How does this have anything to do with Maxwell?”
Callum clicked, enlarging a section of the article.
Family of the deceased claim she was seeking psychological treatment regularly before her passing.
“You think Maxwell was treating her, and the person who left that review blamed her for Hannah’s death,” Calder inferred.
Just like someone blamed me for Ian’s.Instantly, my throat clogged and my vision blurred. Ian’s face—his eyes bright and wild in front of mine. My heart slugged against my chest, seeing the way he looked at me—
