Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1)

by Ellery A Kane

  He wrapped his arms around the two of them, pulling them to his sides and squishing their little faces against his hips. Holding them close or holding himself upright, Olivia couldn’t tell which.

  “Well, the boys and I have been a total wreck. Bonnie is the light of our family. She never complained. So many of you probably don’t realize all the things she gave up to move here with me eight years ago when I was reassigned to Crescent Bay State Prison. Before that, Bonnie studied film at UC Berkeley, and she’d won awards for her screenwriting. But she’s been even more impressive as a wife, a mother, and a teacher. We asked some of her inmate students to put down their thoughts to share with you so you’d understand, if you don’t already, just how special Bonnie is…”

  Is. Such a small word brimming with hope. Olivia’s throat ached.

  The flame had traveled through the room like a whispered secret, finally reaching her, full and bright and perfect. She extended her unlit candle to the woman next to her, who she recognized as Jane Seely, a bartender at the Hickory Pit, and the wick slowly began to flicker. Then, she leaned over, carefully offering the flame to the mohawked teen on her left. He juggled his candle and his cell phone, trying to capture the exchange on video.

  “…and how much we miss her and need her home with us. The first poem was written by Drake Devere, one of Bonnie’s most accomplished students. With Bonnie’s help, Drake self-published his own novel last year, donating all the proceeds to a domestic violence shelter.”

  A disapproving grunt from the back row startled Olivia, and the candle dropped from her hand, landing like a fallen angel at her feet. It hardly made a sound as she extinguished the flame with the toe of her boot.

  “Damn, lady.” The teen viewed her through the apathetic eye of the camera, still rolling, and his exaggerated whisper turned heads. “You almost set the whole place on fire.”

  But Olivia had already spun away, seething. Because she knew who to blame. Mr. Wise Guy with his handsome face and his disapproving noises. She concentrated on the back of his head, his hair a perfect match for the mahogany pews, willing him to look at her. When he finally glanced over his shoulder and shrugged, one corner of his mouth turned up.

  At the podium, James continued his speech, plodding ahead with the steady persistence of a zombie, and Olivia cursed herself for making it harder on him. She should’ve known better than to cross the threshold into the church. She slipped back into her coat and slunk toward the exit, suddenly craving the burn of cold air in her lungs.

  “Drake titled this tribute, ‘A Student’s Haiku’. ‘All our eyes on her. Classroom of second chances. She treats us as men.’” James paused, and Olivia waited, her hand on the door. If she left now, in the utter quiet, everyone would realize.

  But standing there, another memory bowled her over, inescapable now as an oncoming train. The last time she’d been in a church, just two weeks earlier. The prison chapel, with its straight-backed chairs, simple wooden crosses and hidden spaces to do very unholy things. What she’d seen there. What she’d run from. It all flooded in, welling up in her throat, thick as cotton.

  To hell with it.

  She nudged the door ajar, imagining them all looking at her, including that smug detective. For a moment, she froze under the weight of their judgment. Until a scream, sharp as a blade, slit the white-bellied silence wide open.

  Chapter Two

  Olivia ran in the direction of the screaming. Though it had stopped now, the absence of it chilled her. Down the steps of Grateful Heart, up the stone path that wound around the back and into the grove of ancient redwoods. Here, the path turned to dirt and led to the Earl River that flowed into the bay.

  “Doctor Rockwell!”

  Olivia heard one of the Murdock twins calling her name before she saw her, bone-white and trembling, near the large drainpipe at the river’s edge. A dog whined and circled her, its leash trailing behind, forgotten. Olivia knew then, it was Maryann and her poodle, Luna.

  Just behind Maryann, plain as day, Olivia saw the feet. The soles, booted and unmoving. The legs, still as driftwood. They protruded from the pipe and rested on the mossy rocks below. Whatever else remained lay inside the tunnel, shrouded in the endless dark.

  “It’s her,” Maryann said, her voice one-note. Hollow as a dead piano key.

  Olivia hurried down the embankment to the river, careful not to slip, and past Maryann toward the pipe’s entrance. In the summer, the river beneath the bridge slowed to a trickle here, and kids smoked cigarettes and weed, and immortalized their names in spray paint under the shelter of the drainpipe. Other things happened too. Bad things. Like the rape of the Simmons girl a few summers back. But now, the water hit Olivia, ice-cold, at mid-calf. She sloshed across the river and toward that pair of feet, extending her arms to keep her balance on the shifting rocks.

  “It’s her,” Maryann said again. “It’s her.”

  Olivia heard voices behind her. A panicked jumble of them. One, in particular, rose above the others, announcing himself as an officer of the law, telling her to get back. To wait.

  She ignored them all. All her life she’d run toward trouble. How else could she explain her chosen profession? Em called it her savior complex. But in truth, Olivia had only ever wanted to save one person. But her dad didn’t want saving. So, she had to settle for saving somebody else. A whole lot of somebodies.

  Bonnie, though, was beyond saving.

  Olivia had known it from the moment she’d heard Luna whimpering, seen her wandering free, her fur slick with river water. Luna, the kind of dog who had outfits for every holiday and rode around town in a baby carriage and had her hair groomed more often than Olivia. Luna, who Maryann loved so much she had a life-sized stuffed replica in her office at the library.

  Maybe, in some dark crevice of Olivia’s heart, she’d known all along. Mothers don’t go missing voluntarily. Not mothers like Bonnie.

  When Olivia reached the drainpipe and could finally see inside, it hit her like pounding waves breaking against the sheer cliffs that bordered Fog Harbor.

  First, the hands, partially submerged and bloated as oven mitts. Olivia braced herself against the tunnel’s rim.

  Then, the blouse strewn open; the jeans undone. Olivia’s legs anchored her to the spot like the roots of the centuries-old trees that watched, unaffected by it all.

  The eyes open but opaque and unseeing; the lips slightly parted. Olivia intended to scream, but the sound got stuck, and she only managed a shallow gasp.

  Finally, the ligature around the neck. The head, oddly angled. Olivia bent over, dry-heaving, and felt her knees buckle beneath her, just as a hand cleaved to her elbow to hold her upright. She knew that hand. It belonged to the smartass detective.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” he asked. “You can’t just go charging into a crime scene.”

  Olivia couldn’t tell him she blamed herself for this; it sounded ridiculous. But she’d knowingly gone into Grateful Heart, and now Maryann and Bonnie had to suffer the consequences of her curse. She also couldn’t tell him the other thing: that it wasn’t her first dead body. Not even Em knew that. Only her father knew, and he’d made her swear to take it to the grave.

  She couldn’t explain any of that, so she simply nodded, her head bobbing like a child’s balloon as he guided her to the rocks nearby. With his help, she lowered herself onto a dry spot next to Maryann. She focused on her breathing and Luna’s lolling pink tongue until she felt halfway human again.

  At the top of the embankment, James pushed his way through the crowd, but he didn’t make it far. His face twisted. Animal sounds escaped his mouth. Someone grabbed him, and he collapsed to the ground, sobbing. Olivia knew it was a moment she’d live again and again in the worst of her nightmares.

  “It’s her, right?” Maryann sounded better now. Less like the undead and more like the Maryann who worked as the prison librarian, her nose stuck in a book and everybody else’s business.

  There was n
o one else but Olivia to answer.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me your name, ma’am.”

  The detective stood with his back to Olivia, notepad in hand, while the other cops milled around the drainpipe. They’d already dispersed the shell-shocked crowd and extended yellow tape around a wide perimeter of the river, marking it as the scene of a crime. Clad in a hooded, disposable jumpsuit, a person—man or woman, Olivia couldn’t tell—captured the whole scene with a camera. Why would you want a job like that? A job that required you to stare, unblinking, into the vilest parts of our animal nature. She’d been asked the same herself.

  “Maryann Murdock.”

  “Ms. Murdock, my name is Detective Will Decker, Fog Harbor Homicide. I know it’s been a difficult afternoon but I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Of course. I’ll do my best. I’m very observant. I watch Forensic Files. My sister always says I’d make a great witness.”

  So Mr. Wise Guy had a name. Will Decker. Olivia mulled it over, certain she’d heard it before.

  “This is your dog?”

  “Luna. Isn’t she precious? Poor little thing got the scare of her life. I did too.” Maryann hugged the dog to her, a wet spot forming on her ample chest where Luna’s paws rested.

  “Can you tell me what happened this afternoon?”

  “I intended on coming up here to the vigil but Melody—that’s my twin sister—she had to pull a double up at Crescent Bay. She’s a CO. That’s stands for correctional officer, in case you didn’t know.”

  Olivia couldn’t see Detective Decker’s face but she could picture it. Lips pressed together in an unforgiving line. A faint eye roll, perhaps. “I’m aware,” he answered flatly.

  “So, I didn’t want to leave Mama alone at home for too long. She’s pretty out of it these days. But Luna… I guess you might say nature was calling. I walked her down the block, and she did her business. Then, she spots one of those pesky gray squirrels, and she’s off to the races and into the woods. Now, you can probably tell I’m no runner, Detective.”

  Maryann gestured down the length of her body. She and Melody were shaped just the same, from their short bowl haircuts to their stout, tree-trunk legs. The only difference, Maryann wore floral blouses and Crocs to work, while Melody squeezed herself into a standard green officer’s uniform.

  “Before I caught up, Luna was already in the water getting her paws all filthy. I just had her groomed. I was so worried about Luna, I wasn’t really looking around until I got down here and saw… well, you know what I saw.”

  As Maryann talked, Olivia’s phone vibrated in her coat pocket. Finally, a text from Em.

  U ok? Got here late. Up at the church. Heard what happened. Please tell me it’s not really her.

  Olivia closed the message without responding—let her worry for a change—and typed William Decker police into the search bar, gawking as hundreds of results populated her screen. So, this was the Will Decker. No wonder he acted like someone had spit on his shoe. They probably had.

  “Did you go inside the tunnel?” he asked Maryann.

  “Heck no. But I knew it was Bonnie on account of the boots. They’re designer. She got those last Christmas from James. All the girls at Crescent Bay turned into green-eyed monsters. Ask Doc over there. She remembers.”

  Olivia wondered at how pathetic her life had become since she’d returned to Fog Harbor three years ago, because she did remember the boots. They were Marc Jacobs, black leather and ankle-high, and looked too good to wear to work in a place that smelled of bleach and bodily fluids. When Bonnie had shown up in them the week after Christmas, the rumor mill had begun its brutal churning.

  James is selling cell phones to inmates. How else did he get that kind of money?

  He had an affair with a CO and had to buy her something special to make up for it.

  The Vulture gave her those boots. James is just saving face.

  Bonnie thinks she’s so special, prancing around here. They’re knockoffs anyway.

  Olivia sorted through the rumors she’d heard, preparing the perfect answer. One that involved none of them. But Detective Decker didn’t glance in her direction.

  “Go on,” he encouraged Maryann.

  “As soon as I saw those boots, I screamed bloody murder.” Maryann clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide behind her thick glasses. “I didn’t mean to say it that way. It’s just that I was real upset. I thought I might pass out, kind of like a heroine in a Brontë novel. Thank God, Doc came running when she did.”

  At least someone appreciated her responsiveness.

  Detective Decker jotted Maryann’s contact information into his notepad. “You’re free to leave, Ms. Murdock. If we have any other questions, we’ll be in touch.”

  He turned toward Olivia but his gaze traveled past her, to the drainpipe. To the boots. The fine leather had already turned a dirty gray and Olivia imagined them in their final resting place: a sealed cardboard box in a stuffy evidence room.

  The detective cleared his throat. His broad shoulders tensed. Olivia wondered why he wouldn’t look at her.

  “If you don’t have any questions for me, Detective, I’d like to go. My sister’s waiting at the church. It’s getting pretty cold out here, and my clothes are wet.”

  She stood up, brushing off her backside, the legs of her pants clinging to her skin. A gust of wind stirred the crime scene tape, raising the fine hairs on her arms. She shivered.

  “Actually—Doctor, is it?—you’re not free to leave.” When she finally met his eyes, they’d hardened into stones of amber. “You’re under arrest for obstruction.”

  Chapter Three

  That same damn look. Dr. Smarty Pants—of course, she would be a doctor—had been giving Will that look, or some variation of it, since he’d held the door for her outside the church. He’d seen it before, too. Women were always giving him that look, though it happened less since he’d fled from San Francisco four months ago and moved here, where the cover of the fog and the redwoods seemed to keep the real world at bay. Equal parts pity, confusion, and judgment, that look meant one thing. She knew. Somehow, she knew.

  That’s why he’d said it, told her she was under arrest. Total bullshit. But he had to say something. Anything to wipe that look from her face. And it worked. Only problem, the new look wasn’t much better. Fierce green eyes and a scowl that cut him off at the knees.

  Smooth, Deck. Real smooth. No wonder he hadn’t been laid in two years.

  “Seriously? On what grounds?”

  “I identified myself as an officer of the law. I told you to stop. Several times. And you blatantly, willfully, ignored my commands.”

  Will waited for her to argue. He welcomed it, actually. That way he could justify being an asshole.

  “I just thought—well, I don’t know why I did it. I guess I hoped there was a chance… I know it sounds silly.”

  He couldn’t bear seeing her eyes fill. But he’d started it, and he couldn’t back down now. “What if the perp had been hiding out in there? What if you’d stepped on some crucial piece of evidence? Blown our chance at catching this guy? That’s obstruction in my book.”

  She took a step toward him, teetering on the rocks, until she was close enough to touch, but he resisted the urge to steady her. She extended both her hands, goosebumps visible on her skin. The tears in her eyes had vanished. “Fine. Arrest me then. Let’s get it over with.”

  Heat crept up his neck. She’d boxed him into a corner. Nothing could save him now. Except—

  “Hey, Deck. JB’s on his way. Said to start without him on account of the rain coming. I’ll see ya in there.”

  Chet Clancy, Fog Harbor Medical Examiner and last-minute savior of total lost causes. Will nodded at him and held up a finger.

  “Duty calls, Doctor. But consider this a stern warning. Listen to the police. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”

  “Lucky. Right.”

  “And give your contact info to
the officer up there, in case we need it.”

  Will stood motionless as she trudged up the embankment and back in the direction of the church, her auburn hair whipping in the wind like a kite tail. Chet had been right to hurry him. The sky had turned the color of a tombstone. The air felt heavy, ready to burst.

  Will traversed the silty river bottom, as a few stray raindrops broke the water’s surface. When he reached the pipe’s opening, the victim came into full view again, and the tightly coiled muscles in his shoulders unwound. Lately, he’d been more comfortable with the dead bodies than the live ones. The dead had no expectations. They made no demands. Most of all, they didn’t let you down or screw you over. They gave up all their secrets in time if you knew where and how to look.

  Chet knelt over the body, carefully studying the dark bruising around the neck with his gloved hands. He looked up as Will sloshed inside. Then he rose to his feet, groaning with the effort. Fog Harbor was lucky to have him. Most of the smaller counties couldn’t afford MEs and employed coroners instead, wannabes who spent two weeks at coroners’ college and called themselves experts.

  “Looks like you managed to piss off the second-smartest doctor in this town.”

  Will chuckled. “You know her?”

  “Sure do.” Chet moved around the body—Will mirrored him—examining the hands, the boots. Marc Jacobs, according to the logo stamped on the wet soles. “Most folks around here know Olivia Rockwell. She’s kind of a big deal. Local girl. Moved back a couple years ago to take care of her mom. She’s chief psychologist over at Crescent Bay.”

  Will nodded as if he didn’t care. As if he didn’t loathe the idea that a shrink had unearthed the skeletons in his closet, probably via the Internet, the place where old bones never stayed buried.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked, eager to change the subject. Besides, he wanted to get a head start before JB, his know-it-all partner, showed up to put his boot on Will’s neck like usual. “Killed somewhere else and dumped here?”