“Don’t get used to it, buddy. It’s only temporary.” The cat stretched his front paws and laid his head atop them, closing his one good eye. The other had been stitched shut long ago, when he’d belonged to someone. “And don’t scratch my truck.”
Will had a plan for the rest of the evening. It involved a hot shower, a piece of cold pizza, and Three’s Company reruns. But the shrill ringing of his phone was a death knell. His plan, doomed to crash and burn.
“Will Decker, Homicide.”
“You have a collect call from Peter Decker, an inmate at San Francisco City Jail. This call may be recorded and monitored. To accept this call, please press 0. If you do not wish to—”
Will stabbed at the zero on the screen, and the line crackled. He hadn’t heard from his little brother, Petey, in months. And the last time he’d seen him, slinging drinks behind the bar at Aces High, the nightclub he owned, Petey had told him he wouldn’t be attending Ben’s trial. Where would I sit? he’d asked. I can’t take sides.
“Thank you for using Talk-net. Go ahead with your call.”
“Seriously? What did you do this time, Petey?”
“I’m sorry, Deck. But you’re the only one I can call. Damn pigs raided the club again. No offense. They got me for resisting.”
“How much do you need?” Will asked, through gritted teeth. Technically, he was one of said pigs.
“Twenty-five hundred.”
“Jesus. You do realize I’m a cop, right? In a Podunk town. Not an investment banker.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I had any other options. You know I’m good for it. I promise I’ll pay you back.”
Will had heard that before. “Plus interest.”
“Yeah. Of course.” The silence stretched between them, taking the shape of all that had gone unsaid after that night at Aces High. Will hadn’t taken a drink since. “Hey, by the way, your Podunk town is in the news down here. You solved that lady’s murder yet, big brother?”
“I’ll call the bail bondsman first thing in the morning.”
“Morning? You mean—”
Will sat there for a while, listening to the rain and staring at the phone. That’s the thing about the past. You can hang up, but it always calls back.
Will couldn’t breathe. He’d been running. Hard and fast. And drunk. Something terrible waited around the corner. He knew it, but he didn’t stop.
His Glock felt like a viper in his hand. Alive and writhing. Hungry.
When he turned into the shadows, time stopped. His fate poised in mid-air like the toss of a quarter. Or the spin of a revolver’s chamber. Then, he heard a shot.
Will sat up, gasping. He took his own inventory. Shirt, soaked through. Heart, pounding. Gun, still and cold on his nightstand. Unfired. He finally took a breath.
Outside, the rain beat on, and the clock assured him he’d only been asleep for an hour. The dream had left him shaken but focused too. He sprang up, padding into the spare bedroom where he kept the boxes he hadn’t unpacked yet. Fog Harbor still felt temporary.
He knew exactly where to find it, muscling open the tape with his bare hands and tossing the other books aside as if his own life depended on it.
Will guessed Drake had designed the cover of Bird of Prey himself, because his name figured prominently in bold type. The design—a close-up of a hawk’s golden eye—sent a chill through him every time he looked at it.
He opened the cover to the title page, where Drake had written a personal message with the same meticulous penmanship he’d used in Bonnie’s class. Will had received the package, like the four letters before it, in the mail last February 3rd. No return address, postmarked Devil’s Rock, Oregon.
Happy anniversary, Detective Decker! Can you believe it’s been five years since we rendezvoused? I’ve been busy, as you can tell. So have you, I hear. Too bad about your brother, Benjamin. I do hope I’ll have the chance to make his acquaintance. Remember what I promised you. We’ll meet again, and this time, I’ll know you even better. Inside and out. This time I’ll be ready. Will you?
Fondly,
Vulture
Will propped himself against another box, turned to Chapter One, and settled in for a long night—well, an early morning—of reading. He didn’t need Dr. Smarty Pants. He’d figure Drake out all by himself. Just like last time.
*
USA News Online
“Modesto Man Dubbed ‘The Vulture’ Arrested in San Francisco Slayings”
by Tori Sheffield
Authorities in California have arrested a man they believe is responsible for the deaths of at least five young women over the past decade. San Francisco Police apprehended Drake Mortimer Devere, 40, at his home in Modesto. He has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder and rape in the deaths of Alecia Ramirez, Constance Poole, Lana Booker, Jennifer Li, and Amelia Gutierrez. All of the victims apparently encountered Devere on Let’s Get Together, a dating website where Devere maintained multiple fictitious profiles. Authorities allege Devere targeted women with low popularity scores, a controversial feature of the site which has since been disabled, and lured them to remote locations near Muir Woods, where he sexually assaulted them and strangled them with pieces of their own clothing.
Dubbed ‘The Vulture’ due to the predatory nature of his crimes, as well as injuries left behind on the victims’ neck which resembled claw marks, Devere first came to police attention six months ago, after he submitted a short story to the San Francisco Post featuring details specific to the crimes. DNA evidence obtained from the victims’ bodies did not result in a match on CODIS, the FBI’s combined DNA index system; however, investigators obtained a sample of Devere’s DNA through other means, resulting in a match.
Arresting homicide detective William Decker did not mince words at a news conference on Monday, telling reporters, “Devere is pure evil. He’s the worst kind of predator. The kind who can’t be reformed. There’s only one place for a monster like that, and we’re relieved he’s finally behind bars.” San Francisco Prosecutor, Mark McGovern, told reporters he plans to seek the death penalty.
Chapter Nine
Laura Ricci had no clue how she’d gotten here. Here being 4 a.m. in downtown Fog Harbor, the same town where she’d grown up. Though for a thirty-seven-year-old junior college dropout who supervised the dredges of society in Crescent Bay’s chow hall, grownup seemed debatable.
That’s why she’d fallen in love with running. You plotted a course. You followed it. You didn’t get lost and end up living somebody else’s life. With its sudden starts and stops, its sheer cliffs, its misdirection, life was nothing like running. Which was why she’d had to start from scratch a few years back when Ricci’s Bistro burned to the ground in an electrical fire. Life was no marathon. It was a trial by literal fire.
Laura’s shins ached as her sneakers pounded the sidewalk, splashing rainwater onto her leggings. But her thighs no longer rubbed together. Her breasts didn’t jostle with every stride. And her stomach felt semi-taut beneath her T-shirt. Still thirty pounds from her goal weight, she felt light as air. When she passed Thrifty Dry Cleaners, with its massive windows and sparkly Christmas display, the reflection shocked her. She looked skinny. No, not skinny. Strong.
Take that, Devere. She couldn’t believe she’d let him get to her. When he’d arrived late to work again yesterday—blaming Handsy Hank, a nickname she had to admit hit the mark—she’d sent him back to his cell. She’d written him up. She’d told him, come January he’d be reassigned, and not to the Education Department like he hoped. Not with Bonnie gone. Nobody else there wanted him.
Fat bitch, he’d muttered, just loud enough for the rest of the inmate staff to hear him. They’d hung their heads, embarrassed for her, before she’d snapped at them to get to work. At least with Devere gone, the job wouldn’t be such a headache, and if she kept saving, she’d be able to reopen Ricci’s within a year. Even less, with her slightly unpleasant side gig. Back on course, after all.
Laura’s five-mile route took her on a loop downtown around the quaint Fog Harbor square. She never tired of it. Lost in time, the sandstone courthouse sat like a jewel in the center of the block, the frame and the tall narrow windows, outlined in twinkling white Christmas lights. She allowed herself a quick stop to gaze upward at the clock tower which read 4:05 a.m.
She’d need to pick up the pace if she intended to make it to work by five. She lengthened her stride and pumped her arms in time to the drums on her holiday workout mix. In ten minutes, she’d made it back to the dirt road that led through the redwoods toward home, her headlamp illuminating the path.
The air smelled different here. Clean and mossy and wet. The fog threaded its skeleton fingers through the tree trunks, obscuring some of them entirely. She always dreaded the final leg of her run. Even more so after Bonnie had vanished and turned up dead outside her own vigil—how’s that for a kick in the teeth?—though Laura laid the blame squarely at James’ feet. He hadn’t done the deed himself, of course, but everybody knew the guy smuggled in cell phones. They sold for a cool grand a pop. If you’re not careful things like that catch up to you. But Laura had learned to be exceedingly careful.
Laura tried to stay focused on the trail. The redwoods weren’t friendly. She’d realized that a long time ago, when her best dog had chased a raccoon into the tree cover and never returned. And then again, years later, when Uncle Rick started taking her hunting every weekend. Sometimes, they’d stay out so late they had to crash in the back of his truck. He only brought one sleeping bag. Come to think of it, she could hold the redwoods responsible for the forty pounds she put on during her thirteenth year, hoping it would be enough to protect her. That maybe if she’d added enough layers between them, there’d be no way for his hands to get through.
A drop of rain splashed onto her forehead, as if the universe took joy in mocking her. Like Drake. One drop became two became ten became a hundred. Until the sky opened up again.
The trees played tricks with her. Little sounds. Furtive movements. Footsteps. Maybe just the beat of her heart. By the time she reached her mailbox, she’d hit a full-on sprint, and her lungs ached.
Laura got a few paces up her own dirt road and stopped cold. The rain attacked her now, stinging her skin, but she couldn’t move. In the glow of her headlamp, a hooded figure lay on the ground, unmoving.
“Are you okay?” She sounded no different than the girl she’d been when Uncle Rick had laid his hands on her. She’d never been able to stop him, no matter how fat she’d made herself. Only God had done that, striking him dead with a rare Northern California lightning bolt in that very same forest the summer she’d turned sixteen. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
But she’d left her cell phone behind. She always did, despite the dangers.
Laura took one step forward, and her legs shook.
“I’m coming,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m coming.” The words more for herself, since the figure—whoever it was—stayed still as a stump.
As she moved, the redwoods closed in around her. Until it seemed the entire world had grown as small and hateful as this forest.
Dread thickened in her throat, and she wiped the rain from her eyes. Futile, because it kept coming. She kept coming too. Closer and closer, until she saw hands, white and clawing against the muddy ground.
Just then, a flicker of movement caught her eye, and the fog parted. The forest revealed what it had been hiding all along. A truck, like the kind they used at the prison to make the rounds, checking the fences for weak spots. The old jalopy studied her through its headlamps, a pair of dark, lifeless eyes.
Laura bent over and drew back the hood, as the figure finally stirred. The last face she’d ever see, familiar.
Chapter Ten
The blood-red sun woke Olivia, her mother’s voice repeating that old mariner’s adage. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. It had always amused Olivia, how well her mother played a role. When people had gotten nosy, which they often did in Fog Harbor, her mother had told them Martin Reilly worked as a fisherman on the Arcadia, the biggest boat in the marina. That a wave had taken him overboard one winter and they’d never found him. No body. No bones. No trace. To Olivia, it seemed not so far from the truth, even now. Her father had sunk himself to the bottom of the sea. A rusting hull gathering barnacles.
Olivia slogged toward the kitchen, pausing at Emily’s closed door at the sound of her alarm clock blaring on the other side.
“Em?”
Olivia knocked, softly at first, then louder. Nothing. She put her ear to the door. The shrill, insistent beeping drilled right through the pinewood.
“Emily. Get up.”
Punishment. That’s what this was. Punishment for last night. For the argument they’d been having for the last six months.
“I get it, Em. You’ve made your point.”
Olivia tried the knob, expecting it to be locked. Instead, the door yawned open. Emily’s bed empty, except for the sheets and the quilt balled carelessly at the foot. Two pillows rumpled near the headboard. The Christmas snow globe that had once belonged to their mother resting on the nightstand, the plastic flakes settled at the bottom. Emily’s easel propped near the window, her painting of Little Gull half-finished.
Like a trapdoor had opened, Olivia’s heart fell clear through to the pit of her stomach. She rushed inside, searching the bathroom. The closet. She wanted to yell, but she feared the sound of her own panicked voice would just make it worse.
“Stopped raining.” Emily leaned against the doorframe, her cheeks whipped red from the wind. In her hand, she held a sketchpad and charcoal pencil. Olivia could see the outline of the lighthouse, the rocks, the crashing waves.
“Where were you? You scared the hell out of me.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about, Liv. You’re always overreacting.” Emily flopped onto the bed and groaned into her pillow. “I walked down to the beach and did a few sketches. You still act like I’m a kid sometimes.”
“I worry, okay? Somebody has to. What happens when you move to San Francisco and your paintings don’t sell and you’ve got nobody to help you? What happens then?”
“I’ll figure it out. Like you did.” But Olivia hadn’t really figured it out. She’d taken Erik’s alimony in one lump sum and put it straight to use, renting an apartment in Palo Alto, buying the BMW, and paying her way to a doctorate degree. Still, that money hadn’t been free. She’d earned it the hard way.
“I don’t want you to do what I did.”
“Don’t you want a life, too? A husband? A family? A boyfriend, at least? I know it didn’t work out with Graham but…”
“Of course.” Olivia didn’t sound convincing. Not even to herself. She had to face facts. She’d stopped trusting men a very long time ago. Long before she met Graham or Erik. Long before she’d started getting inside the heads of the worst the male species had to offer. “I just don’t understand your rush. Why now? With everything that’s going on here?”
“That’s exactly why. What happened to Bonnie, it made me realize how short life is. I don’t want to be stuck here living with my big sister and scraping plaque forever. Do you know what it’s like to look inside the mouth of a guy who hasn’t brushed in six months because he’s whittled his toothbrush into a shank?”
Olivia’s laughter burst out of her closed mouth without her permission and refused to stop. She joined Em on the bed, bopping her with the other pillow, until they both sighed, breathless with laughter. Damn little-sister voodoo.
Olivia’s stomach knotted as she approached the MHU. Drake waited out front, pacing like a caged tiger.
“Doc! Boy, am I glad to see you.” He jerked out his headphones, his voice sharp as a razor. An easy smile drew up one corner of his mouth. Olivia prepared to be charmed. Or sliced in two.
“We don’t have another session scheduled till next week,” she reminded him, unlocking the door. Icebox-cold today. She pulled her jacket t
ighter as Drake followed her inside.
“Aw, c’mon. I really need to talk to you. It’s important.”
Drake strolled past the desk, running his hand along the counter, and Hank’s whole body stiffened. Like a dog with his hackles raised.
“You alright, Doctor Rockwell?”
She nodded, and kept moving, hoping Drake would too.
“Please, Doc. I’ll be so quick you’ll forget I was ever here.”
Impossible, but she invited him in anyway. She set her bag beneath the desk, started her computer. Opened her notebook and laid it on her lap, stalling. She should send him packing. When they’d first started therapy, he’d done this all the time, shown up on a whim issuing his demands. But now, he knew the rules. She’d worked damn hard at that. One fifty-minute session per week. Even insatiable Drake Devere had learned to fit himself inside the therapeutic frame.
“You’re the only one I can talk to about this shit. You ask the right questions. Good questions. Like the one you left me with yesterday. Spent the whole night thinkin’ about that.”
Olivia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Maybe the warden had been right. Something was up. She retrieved a dial timer from her drawer. She’d bought it just for Drake but it came in handy with her other patients too. That authoritative little ding had a way of setting boundaries.
“Five minutes, Drake. Time starts now.”
He pushed the door shut with his boot and dropped into the chair across from her, as if he’d known her answer all along.
“So, what is it?” she asked.
“I screwed up. I screwed up real bad.”
“Is this about yesterday? The thing with Hank.”
Drake cackled. “Handsy? Hell no. I don’t feel one iota for that loser. It’s Ms. Ricci. With all that mess yesterday morning, I got to work late. Again. And then, I said some things I didn’t mean.”
Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1) Page 7
