Face to face with that wicked grin, the last puzzle piece slid into place for Will. A stuffed white dog on the library desk. Maryann sobbing at the drainpipe, researching garrotes and telling him about Forensic Files.
A steel canister hit the floor. From nowhere and everywhere an earth-shattering explosion.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Olivia’s ears rang.
She struggled to open her eyes.
Found herself lying on the floor, her whole world upended.
Through the dissipating smoke, she saw the video camera, discarded on the hardwood. It whirred on, oblivious. Its operator God knows where. Heather, bleeding from a gash on her head.
Olivia squinted through the haze at Maryann, as she dragged a stumbling Drake toward the elevator shaft, firing gunshots over her shoulder.
Melody followed alongside them, ducking around the corner. Unleashing a hail of bullets. Her face distorted by the smoke. Warped by something else Olivia recognized. Feared. But couldn’t name.
Warden Blevins rose to his knees and drew his own weapon. He pulled the trigger, and Melody slumped to the ground.
Olivia raised her head and waited for him to fire again, to put Drake down. But instead, the warden turned and scrambled inside one of the rooms.
Maryann struggled on toward the shaft with Drake. JB on his radio, Deck in pursuit; he discharged one shot, then another. Both pinging off the metal shaft doors.
“Stop!” he yelled. As if his voice had the power of a bullet.
Olivia had just pushed herself to her feet when Maryann let loose another canister. It rattled down the hall like a ghost in chains.
The world blew up again.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Damn flash bang grenade. Will couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe either. Couldn’t hear a goddamned thing. A sitting duck, he crouched low and clung to the wall, waiting for the smoke to clear. For the ringing in his ears to let up.
The first thing he saw: Melody. Her head twisted awkwardly. Blood seeped from a wound in her stomach. A quick scan of her body, and his heart raced faster. No gun. No keys to her cuffs.
Devere had made it to the elevator shaft. Maryann too. Will fired at them again as Devere pushed the door open, and they scurried down a ladder and dropped out of sight.
“I’m going out the front,” JB yelled, as Will ran down the hallway. He peered into the shaft. Dark and graffitied and cluttered with debris, it looked like the gateway to hell. The ladder lay useless at the bottom.
He didn’t have time to second-guess it. Just stepped over the side and plummeted straight into the pit.
Relief came first, stopped short by a white-hot pain searing through his foot.
He leaned down to examine it, picked it up. The exposed nail on a rotted baseboard had gone right through his sole.
He gritted his teeth, yelled. Yanked his foot out. Kept moving. Out of the shaft and into the pitch-black basement.
Will hobbled in the dark, listening for footsteps. For breathing. For signs of life. Anything would’ve been better than absolute silence. Better than the feeling he’d messed it up beyond saving.
Except the clinking of another flash bang launched in his direction. He dropped to the ground, hands over his head, as it exploded. The only sound now, a dull throb behind his eyes.
A blade of light cut a swath through the dark. In that moment, strangely, he thought of Ben. Of that dream he always had that wasn’t a dream at all. His Glock, like a viper in his hand. Alive and writhing. Hungry. How easy it would be to pull the trigger. To make a mistake. The line between life and death, between wrong and right, between him and his brother, razor-thin.
“Easy. It’s me, partner.” Backlit by the sun, JB stood at the door leading out. The smoke escaped around him, dissipating into the blue winter sky. Will lowered his gun and sprinted up the stairs, his foot throbbing.
“Where are they?”
“Heading for the cliffs. Olivia took off after them.”
“Was she armed?”
JB shrugged.
“Shit.” Will started to run. He knew he’d pay for it later when the adrenaline wore off, but right now, he had to find Olivia. Foot or no foot. Hell, he’d have a found a way to get there on two bloody stumps.
As they raced through the courtyard, Will heard the approaching sirens. His heart deflated, flattened.
“Where’s Hank?” he asked, sucking in a breath of bitter-cold air.
“Dead.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
As soon as Olivia reached the tree cover, she stopped running.
She couldn’t catch them, not this way.
She closed her eyes and chased a memory instead. Clinging to Erik’s hand, they’d walked into the redwood grove in the summer haze. He’d laughed at her when she’d gasped at the rusty sign peering out at them from the overgrowth: SHORTCUT TO WILLOW BEACH.
The shortcut. It had to be here. The path would lead her straight to the cliff. The sand and rock pools below.
She scanned the trees until she spotted the sign overturned in the dirt, entombed in the thick weeds. The Smith and Wesson in her hand, she took off down the path that had long since grown over with neglect.
She weaved between the trees’ long, slim bodies. Dodged the smaller branches that whipped against her face. Hurdled the thick roots tangled like arms on the forest floor.
The salt air filled her aching lungs. A gull screamed overhead. The first signs. She was close.
At the edge of the grove, the two paths converged. She took cover behind a tree trunk, peeping out to listen for the rustle of the underbrush. The ragged breathing, not her own. She readied herself.
Still, it scared the hell out of her to lay eyes on Drake, free of his handcuffs, his face red with exertion.
Behind him, Maryann lay in the dirt, grabbing at her foot. “Don’t leave me! Please!”
Drake never looked back, never slowed down. He sprinted straight for Olivia, firing at her as he ran. She ducked behind the trunk, the bullets whizzing by her and dead-ending in the belly of an ancient redwood.
As he darted past, she stepped out, intent on giving chase.
“Let him go.” Maryann struggled to her feet and pointed her own gun at Olivia.
“Or what? Are you really going to shoot me? You’re a librarian.” Though she looked anything but. The sweat and wind stood her short hair on end, giving her a set of horns. The sunlight cast strange shadows on her face. Her eyes, two dark holes. Her mouth, a wound.
“Not anymore.”
“Where’s Emily?”
Maryann kept her gun trained on Olivia. “It was supposed to be you, you know. Drake wanted someone high-profile, someone people really cared about. That way, when he said you were still alive, he figured it would be easy to convince the cops to let him out to lead you there. We didn’t realize it was Emily in the car. Not until she’d gotten out. But we couldn’t very well stop then. I figured Drake would be pissed off, the way he was when we lost that footrest from the wheelchair. But he was happy. Overjoyed. He said it was perfect. That between Detective Decker being out for revenge and you wanting Emily back, there was no way he wasn’t walking out of Crescent Bay. And damn, he was right.”
“So this was the plan you agreed to? Him running off, leaving you behind?”
Maryann fired a shot in the air, and Olivia winced. “He loved me. He warned me that we might have to make sacrifices for each other. But he’s everything a man should be. Gentle and brutal, all at the same time. He said that I understand him. Even better than you.”
“And you’ve watched Forensic Files?” Olivia laughed, hysterical. “He just wanted to screw you. Did he give you his semen too? To plant on Shauna’s body. Real romantic.”
“Shut up, bitch.” Maryann scowled at her. “Emily’s dead, you know. She didn’t go quietly. She bleated like a poor little lamb. But don’t worry. We got it all on tape. I’m sure the cops will let you listen to it, so you can—”
&nb
sp; Olivia’s mind went blank. An empty slate with two words writ large. My sister!
She raised the revolver, white-hot heat coursing through her blood. She understood then, the murderers she counseled at Crescent Bay. How they’d given in to the impulse for total destruction. The need to inflict their own pain on somebody else.
She pointed the barrel at center mass. The vital bits, her dad had called them. The thought of her father, the blood on his hands and the wreckage he’d left behind him, changed her mind.
Olivia redirected the gun, aiming at Maryann’s kneecap, and pulled the trigger again and again. Again.
Nothing happened.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
JB huffed and wheezed as they lumbered toward the redwoods that lined the cliffside.
“How much farther?”
Cracks of gunfire had spooked the gulls that took to the skies, wheeling into the clouds. It propelled Will forward.
Every step, a shooting pain.
Every step, an indictment. If he’d become the job, then he should’ve at least been damn good at it. Better than this. Smarter.
Under the tree canopy, the sun disappeared. The air, cold and wet and heavy with secrets. It reminded him of Muir Woods, where a hiker and his border collie had unearthed the intact femur of Drake’s first victim.
“You okay back there?” he yelled, listening for the sound of JB’s boots on the soft ground. The frantic noises of his labored breathing. But he couldn’t stop to wait for him.
Will smelled the ocean, that loamy brine, before he spotted Olivia. Her back to him, her auburn hair wild and whipping, as she fired an empty gun.
His fault. He’d unloaded her Smith and Wesson last night, when she’d been out of her mind with worry. He’d helped her lock it in the safe and taken every bullet with him. Stuck them in the drawer of his nightstand and felt like a hero, thinking he’d done the right thing.
“I’m going to enjoy this.” Maryann laughed wickedly, her own weapon raised and pointed at Olivia’s heart.
Will aimed his Glock. This time he didn’t hesitate. He just fired.
Chapter Eighty
“Are you okay?” Deck asked.
Olivia didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure.
She watched as the firemen worked with single-minded focus, snapping the padlock from the door with a set of bolt cutters. The catch gave way, but Olivia didn’t rush in as she’d thought she would.
Until right then, it hadn’t been real. Not when she’d stared into the blank eye of Maryann’s gun, anticipating the shot that would end her. Or when she’d watched Maryann slump to the ground with a bullet hole in her head. Not even when Deck had run on without her, tracking Drake to the sea.
But now, it hit her. An earthquake to the soul. Emily could be—might be—dead. Maryann had said so.
Deck pushed the door the rest of the way. She had no choice now but to look.
Bound and gagged and blindfolded, her strawberry-blonde curls crusted with blood, Emily’s body lay balled at the back of the closet.
Olivia touched her sister’s hands—cold, so cold—and whispered her name like a prayer, watching desperately for the rise and fall of her chest.
*
San Francisco Post
“Vulture Escapes Crescent Bay State Prison, Leaves a Trail of Bodies Behind Him”
by Lillie Ferraro
Drake Devere, otherwise known as the Vulture, escaped police custody two days ago during a planned rescue operation at the former Willow Wood State Hospital. Devere had promised authorities he would lead them to Emily Rockwell, who had been missing since Saturday. Conspiring with two female accomplices who worked at Crescent Bay State Prison (CBSP), Devere managed to free himself and flee from authorities in a small fishing craft near Willow Beach. Correctional officer Hank Wickersham and cameraman Joey Marcello were pronounced dead at the scene. Both men sustained fatal injuries. Maryann Murdock was shot and killed by police during the incident, while her sister Melody sustained a gunshot wound to the stomach, attempting to aid in Devere’s escape. Rockwell, who was discovered alive after nearly twenty-four hours in captivity, is also receiving medical treatment.
Police Chief Sheila Flack confirmed Melody Murdock, a CBSP correctional officer, was placed under arrest for multiple counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping at Fog Harbor General Hospital, where her condition is listed as guarded. Murdock and her twin sister, Maryann, are believed to have masterminded the recent attacks on local women at the behest of Devere. The body of an additional victim, Nancy Murdock, the twins’ mother, was discovered strangled in their Fog Harbor home. Additional charges in the deaths of Wickersham and Marcello are pending. Devere remains at large, along with an unknown accomplice who police believe aided his escape. Authorities believe the suspects are armed and dangerous and may have fled up the coast and into Canada.
Though the Fog Harbor Police Department has been widely criticized for their handling of the rescue operation, CBSP Warden, Lester Blevins, was praised for his heroics during the exchange of gunfire. Governor Miriam Zaruba lauded Blevins, telling reporters, “Without his quick thinking in taking down the suspect, Melody Murdock, there is no doubt she would have escaped as well, likely injuring or killing other law enforcement personnel. He is nothing short of a hero.”
Fog Harbor Gazette’s Heather Hoffman, who sustained minor injuries in the attack, obtained video footage of the botched operation, which was seized by law enforcement officials pending further investigation. Hoffman announced plans to release a first-person account of Devere’s escape in her television debut on Good Morning, San Francisco, this weekend.
Chapter Eighty-One
Olivia’s eyes opened, closed, opened again. Her lids heavy, as she watched the twinkle of white lights on a tabletop Christmas tree. She pulled the cheap blanket up to her chin, leaving her feet cold, and repositioned herself in the chair near her sister’s bed.
“Merry Christmas, Em.”
Still half asleep, Emily blinked a few times before she spoke. Her eyes, ringed like a raccoon’s. “Typical dysfunctional Rockwell family Christmas.”
Olivia laughed, nodding. As girls, their Christmases had been spent in the austere visiting room at Crescent Bay State Prison, eating their holiday feast from a vending machine and looking into their father’s eyes, lifeless as an unshaken snow globe. Em didn’t know about the Christmases before. In Apartment E, there never seemed to be enough money for presents, and they had no chimney for Santa to shimmy down. By afternoon, her dad had passed out on the sofa, drunk or high or both, and her mom’s eyes would get misty. But at midnight, the whole neighborhood gathered in the courtyard at the Double Rock to shoot their pistols in the air and watch Termite’s dad, Freddie “Three Fingers” Colvin, pop wheelies on his Yamaha. When he leaned back, rising onto his rear tire, and the crowd erupted, Olivia almost believed in some kind of warped Christmas magic.
“How’s your head?”
Emily rubbed the back of her head, her mild skull fracture swathed in gauze. “Feels like I’ve been clocked by a psychopath wielding a blunt object. Oh, wait.”
“Not funny.”
But if anyone could find humor in being kidnapped, Em could. The only bright spot for Olivia, her sister’s amnesia. All Emily recalled about her ordeal could be summed in a few sentences she’d recited for Deck and JB and the FBI. Fugitive Task Force.
I hit something in the road. And then Maryann came running up, yelling for the dog, telling me I’d run Luna over. When I got out of the car, I realized it was a stuffed animal. The one Maryann kept on her desk in the library. I started to say something and next thing I know, I woke up bound and gagged and freezing my butt off in the dark, thinking they’d stuck an axe in my head.
“When do you think I’ll get out of here?” Emily asked, scooting over to make room for Olivia. She patted the mattress and Olivia winced at the sight of the rope burns on her wrists. “This place is depressing. I mean, who puts a bedpan next to a Christmas
tree?”
“The doctor said tomorrow. They want to do another CT scan just to be sure.”
Olivia climbed in the warm spot next to her sister, leaned her head against her shoulder. After a few minutes of hospital silence—the mechanical beeps, the squeaking wheels on tile, the occasional moan—she felt certain Em had fallen asleep.
“Hey, Liv? You awake?”
“Yeah.”
When Emily spoke, she sounded so small. Like she’d hidden in the smallest, darkest corner inside herself. “You know how I said I didn’t remember anything from the Murdocks’ basement?”
Olivia nodded, bile rising in her throat. She couldn’t recall when she’d last eaten. A barbecue sandwich Deck had brought her last night, maybe. She hoped it wouldn’t come back up.
“That wasn’t exactly true.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t okay. Not at all. But the shrink in Olivia took over, knew what to say. The big sister in her knew what to leave unsaid.
“I do remember something. But I’m not sure if it’s real or if I dreamed it. Maryann took the blindfold off for a little while. She told me I looked scared and let me hold Luna. She said Luna always made her feel better. I didn’t realize at first how limp the dog was in my arms. How her little eyes didn’t open. I freaked and tried to give her back but Maryann got right in my face. She told me, ‘This is what I’m capable of. There’s nothing I won’t do for him.’”
“Sounds like a bad dream.” Olivia held her sister close. She didn’t have the heart to tell her, not today. Maybe not ever. The cops had found Luna in the Murdocks’ basement, stiff and cold. Her neck, broken.
Olivia draped an extra blanket over her sister, tucking her in, snug as a bug, the way she’d always done when Em was little. She’d resented it back then, being stuck with her kid sister playing Candyland and Barbies, while their mother spent her nights working two jobs or drinking at the Hickory Pit. She’d always wondered why her mom stuck around Fog Harbor, why she didn’t kick life-term inmate Martin Reilly to the proverbial curb. But looking at Em, her eyelashes fluttering, she got it now. Her mother had done whatever it took to keep their family afloat, all together on the same patched-up life raft.
Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1) Page 34
