Wonderland

by Jennifer Hillier

  “What the fuck?” Nate stepped back, his free hand flying toward his mouth. The hand holding the gun dropped to his side, and he looked like he was going to faint. “It’s Detective Ambrose. Oh my god. Deputy Chief, I shot Donnie. Oh my god. Oh no.”

  “Nate—”

  “I didn’t know,” Nate said again, looking down at the dead man. On the floor, Pete Warwick looked equally stunned. “I swear to god, Deputy, I didn’t know it was him. He was wrestling with your daughter and I saw the gun and I fired. I didn’t even think—”

  “Nate,” Vanessa said, louder this time. The young officer looked over at her, visibly shaken, his eyes wide. “It was a good shoot. You did the right thing; you saved Ava’s life. Donnie is the killer we’re looking for. I found that out only an hour ago. He’s been obsessed with Bianca Bishop since he was a Wonder Worker here, and he’s the one who’s been killing those boys.”

  “And he shot Blake,” Ava said, starting to cry again. “I was trying to let him out, and he shot Blake.”

  “Blake’s still alive,” Jerry said. He was inside the cell, crouching down beside the boy, fingers pressed to his neck. “I’m getting a very faint pulse. Hang in there, buddy. Ambulance is coming. Hang in there.”

  Ava pulled away from Vanessa and ran over to Blake, getting right down on the floor with him. She reached for his hand. “I’ll stay with him till the paramedics get here,” she said.

  Jerry looked over at Vanessa. She nodded her consent.

  “I promise I won’t let go of your hand this time,” Ava said to the unconscious boy on the floor.

  Vanessa let out a long breath and stood up, looking around the dungeon, the one that nobody had ever thought really existed. Her gaze met Oscar’s, and he shrugged helplessly, as if to say, I’m sorry. Somewhere down here were the remains of Nick Bishop and probably the other missing boys as well, but Vanessa had no intention of looking for their bodies right now. Not with her daughter here. Besides, they were already dead. It could wait for when they could get a proper crime scene team in place.

  “Mom,” Ava said. “There’s another victim. I almost forgot. There’s someone else here.”

  “I know, sweetie,” Vanessa said. “We’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

  “No, Mom, there’s someone here who’s alive. He’s somewhere down there.” With her free hand, Ava pointed toward the dark corridor just beyond where Oscar was standing. The conviction in her daughter’s voice was unmistakable. “Whoever it is, he saved my life. He distracted the guy who almost killed me. I didn’t see him, but I think it has to be one of the missing boys.”

  Almost right on cue, music began to waft out of the dark corridor and a flickering light could be seen. It wasn’t just any song. It was the Wonderland jingle of all things, the one from the TV commercial that played on all the local stations about six times a day.

  As if in a trance, Oscar began to head toward the music and the light. Concerned, Vanessa called out, “Oz, stay where you are,” but the VP of operations either didn’t hear her or was ignoring her. Pulling out her weapon once again, Vanessa was prepared to follow him, but a few seconds later, his voice could be heard clearly throughout the dungeon.

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” Oscar said, his voice breaking. “Nicky.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  It would take at least a week to process everything they’d found in the tunnel, but preliminary reports from the search team confirmed the remains of three more boys. Their bodies were in various states of decay, but one of the boys had an old army knapsack next to his remains, with a Devil’s Dukes patch sewn onto the front. Vanessa’s heart ached for Tanner. His words, expressing hope that his son was somewhere out there, alive and happy, had haunted her, and this wasn’t the news she wanted to give him.

  The second victim was likely Kyle Grimmie, and the third victim was a boy Oscar suspected Bianca had killed when she was only a teenager. However, nothing could be confirmed until thorough autopsies had been performed.

  The sun wasn’t even up yet, and the park was already in chaos. Half of Seaside PD was inside the midway, along with six ambulances and three fire trucks. Earl Schultz, unable to get in touch with Vanessa for the past couple of hours, had heard the call come in over the radio that first responders had been dispatched to the park, with the possibility of at least two dead bodies and a possible gunshot victim. When Vanessa exited the Clown Museum with Ava, the chief of police was waiting for her.

  “The security guard told me about your daughter,” he said. “I’m glad she’s all right.”

  She walked Ava over to the paramedics first to get checked out, then took her boss aside and filled him in on everything that happened. It was a lot to report, and the longer she talked, the more haggard Earl looked. When she finished, he heaved a long sigh.

  “I should have retired last year. But I thought, nah, I’ll hang in, what’s one more year?” He looked around at the flashing lights and the stretchers carrying the bodies they were pulling out of the tunnel. “But this . . . this is not how I wanted to go out.”

  They watched as the paramedics finally brought Nick Bishop out into the light. He was strapped to a stretcher, but his face was uncovered, though they’d put dark sunglasses on him. Even wrapped in a blanket, it was clear how painfully thin he was from years of near-starvation and muscle atrophy. His hair had gone completely gray, the bones in his face sharp, his skin sallow.

  He’d been unable to speak inside the tunnel when Vanessa tried to talk to him, as whatever head injuries he’d suffered seemed to have damaged that part of his brain. But he could write, and the note he’d scrawled into Vanessa’s notebook said that Donnie had found him in the tunnel, still alive, the night he’d snatched Tyler Wilkins. Eight long years ago. There was so much more to ask him, but it could wait until he was in better health. Nick Bishop had saved her little girl’s life, and for that, Vanessa would be forever grateful.

  “Christ,” Earl said. “Nick Bishop. Alive. If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes . . .”

  “He’s in bad shape, Earl,” she said. “He’s been down there a long time.”

  “Why do you think he did it?” The police chief looked baffled. “Why would Donnie keep him there all these years?”

  “I can only guess that it was for Bianca,” she said. “Some kind of warped sense of love for her, or loyalty. Donnie was a Wonder Worker back then. In his mind, he was probably doing something good for the woman he loved.”

  “But Bianca believed she’d killed Nick, which was why she was pretending he was living in some other part of the world.” Earl rubbed his face again. “I can’t even wrap my mind around that.”

  Vanessa could only shrug. “All Bianca ever cared about was protecting the park. I’m sure it made sense to her. When I break the news to her later that her uncle is still alive, her reaction alone will tell us how much she really knew. At the very least, I’ve got her on attempted murder. She’s done.”

  Vanessa checked on Ava again, and for the most part, her daughter seemed okay. No physical injuries other than a few scratches and a small cut on the back of her head from where Carlos Jones had pushed her into the dressing room mirror. Jones—real name Alberto Ruiz—was long gone from Seaside, but Vanessa would find him if it was the last thing she did. Nobody touched her little girl and got away with it. Nobody.

  One of the officers had offered to drive Ava home, but her daughter refused to leave. She wanted to stay close to her mother for the time being, and that was fine with Vanessa. Ava had asked about Blake, but all Vanessa knew was that he’d been flown to Harborview Medical Center. It was the state’s only level-one trauma center, and he’d receive the best medical care possible. Her fingers were crossed that he’d pull through.

  Even in the wee hours of the morning, news traveled at lightning speed. Wonderland’s main entrance was jammed with reporters. The flashing lights of the police car
s and ambulances were the only thing brighter than the midway, and by noon it would be all over the local news. By dinnertime, it would make national headlines.

  Tanner Wilkins had bullied his way into the park with his usual charm, and the look on Vanessa’s face when their eyes met told him everything he needed to know.

  “It’s not a hundred percent,” she told him. “We won’t be sure until the ME takes a look.”

  “But it’s likely Tyler,” he said.

  “Yes.” She touched his arm gently. “I’m so sorry, Tanner.”

  He nodded, moving away for a moment to compose himself. When he turned back, his face was filled with grief. Peace, Vanessa thought, would probably come much later for him, assuming it ever did.

  “I guess I can leave Seaside now.” Tanner’s voice was thick.

  “I think you should.” She squeezed his arm. “Take Jenna, go on a vacation. You’ll figure it out.”

  His grizzly face looked down at her. His eyes, always so bright blue, were sad. “Will you be here when I get back?”

  “I’m not sure.” It was the most honest answer Vanessa could give him. “But if I’m not, you’d better find me. My car might need servicing. Plus I’m a sucker for those free beers you promised. I’ll even buy dinner.”

  Tanner managed a smile. “You hitting on me, Deputy?” Bending down, he kissed her cheek. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

  On his way out, he shook hands with Jerry, who offered his condolences and pulled him into a rough hug. Jerry then came over and slung a skinny arm around her. She put her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this tired.

  “Pretty crazy, huh?” he said.

  “Sure you don’t miss this?” Vanessa said. “Earl Schultz just told me he’s retiring. They’ll be looking for a new police chief.”

  “Nah, I’m good where I am,” Jerry said. “And besides, I’m sure they’ll ask you.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Don’t blame you.” He sighed. “You think there’s more bodies down there? Didn’t you tell me you found a whole bunch of Wonderland ID cards in Glenn Hovey’s bedroom?”

  Vanessa shook her head. “Nate ran the other ID cards and from what we can tell, the rest are alive and well. My theory is that Donnie knew Hovey collected those ID cards, and he set him up by planting the cards of the boys he’d killed in with the rest of them. Glenn Hovey is weird, but I’m beginning to think that’s true of everybody who’s been at Wonderland a long time. I don’t think Hovey killed anyone other than Jack Shaw, and from what I hear, he had good reason. How much time he’ll serve for it, though, who knows.”

  “And the Dragon Lady?”

  “Oh, she’s going down,” Vanessa said. “She tried to kill her uncle, and on some level she had to have known what Donnie was doing. All the Wonder Workers she’d slept with went missing, and she doesn’t go to the police? Come on.”

  Ava came up to them and Vanessa put her other arm around her. The three of them stood staring at the Wonder Wheel, old and huge and majestic. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, filling the early morning with a warm glow. The only thing missing was John-John. Her little boy was probably just waking up at his friend’s house, safe and blissfully unaware of everything that had happened. It was too early to call over there now, but Vanessa couldn’t wait to wrap her son in her arms and squeeze him till he squirmed.

  “You know what, I’m going to stay till tomorrow,” Jerry said. “Make sure you guys are okay. Plus I want to make sure you don’t beat yourself up about Donnie.” His voice softened. “You couldn’t have known, honey. He hid it well.”

  “Too late.” Vanessa sighed. “You know I need to kick my own ass righteously and properly before I can begin to forgive myself for missing that one.”

  “He liked you, Mom,” Ava said. “He told me. If that makes you feel better.”

  It didn’t, but she smiled at her daughter and pulled her closer.

  “So what’s next?” Jerry asked.

  “Wonderland used to be the only good thing about Seaside, and now it’s the worst thing about Seaside,” Ava said. “I hate this place. I think we should move back to Seattle.”

  “That’s a real possibility.” Vanessa watched the commotion in the midway. “This town, it’s too small, too corrupt, too tainted. Everything is fake. It looks like a postcard from the outside, but it’s rotting on the inside. I don’t want to raise my family here. Only problem is, I’ll have to figure out what to do for work. I’ve burned all my bridges at Seattle PD.”

  “Yeah?” Jerry said. “Because if you’re serious about coming back to Seattle, I could use a good partner. Isaac and Castro Investigations has a nice ring to it.”

  Vanessa couldn’t help but laugh. It was a nice offer, but she couldn’t imagine not being a cop. She’d been in law enforcement for sixteen years; the badge was all she knew.

  In the distance, a familiar figure was walking toward them. It was Mayor Frank Greenberg, and when Ava saw him, she untangled herself from her mom and ran straight for him. He bent down and hugged her, lifting her up off her feet, and then his eyes met Vanessa’s. Frank smiled at her tentatively. She smiled back, the weight of what they had done with John Castro both bridging and widening the gap between them.

  “You know what,” she said to Jerry. “I’ll think about it.”

  And she would.

  Author’s Note

  As fiction writers love to do, I took reality and warped it a little bit. Readers who are familiar with the Pacific Northwest region of the United States will notice that I’ve played around with geography, as I tend to do in all my stories. For instance, there is a town called Seaside in Oregon, but there isn’t one in the state of Washington. As far as I know, the fictional Seaside and the real Seaside are nothing alike.

  There are several amusement parks throughout the world with the name Wonderland, including one just north of Toronto, where I grew up. However, Canada’s Wonderland is nothing like the Wonderland I created for this story. It does not have a clown museum (and if it did, I would never, ever go in there), nor to my knowledge does it have an underground tunnel leading to a dungeon where bad things happen. The Wonderland in this book is a mix of the real Wonderland I knew, the CNE (the Canadian National Exhibition, which is a huge fair in Toronto that happens every August), and my own demented imagination.

  And one last (hopefully fun) tidbit: I had no idea Jerry Isaac was going to be in this book until I wrote the page where he was first mentioned. He was not in the proposal I submitted to my editor a year before this book got published. Characters are surprising that way . . . or at least they are for me, as I don’t outline my stories in advance. If you’ve read Creep and Freak, I hope you were as happy to see Jerry as I was. It’s always awesome when old friends show up.

  Acknowledgments

  It took me a full year to write Wonderland, and while I technically wrote the book alone, I had a lot of help with everything else in my life.

  I am so grateful to my husband, Darren Blohowiak, for being superdad and superhusband, and supereverything else I needed in order to complete this book. I started writing Wonderland six months before I gave birth, and I finished it shortly after our son turned six months old. It was a crazy, exhausting, stressful, and amazing time, and I could not have done it without you. Thank you for understanding how important this book was to me, and for helping me make it happen. I love you.

  My agent, Victoria Skurnick, is my navigator, arbitrator, negotiator, protector, and defender when it comes to all things publishing. She also happens to be one of the sweetest, kindest people I know. Thank you for always taking care of me.

  My editor, Natasha Simons, is a joy to work with. I’m not sure how she does it, but she manages to make the very tedious process of editing my own book an almost
painless endeavor (I’d say fun, but then she’d totally know I was lying). Thank you for believing in Wonderland, and for taking my vision and making it better. To everyone else at Gallery Books and Pocket Star, thank you! It’s been a pleasure working with you wonderful folks for the past five years.

  My family rocks. Mom, Dad, and John, thanks for being proud of what I do, and for all your encouragement. To my in-laws, the Blohowiaks, thank you for being so supportive. It’s an honor to be part of your family. A special shout-out to my aunt and uncle, Regina and Alex Perez, for being like second parents to me in so many ways. I love you guys.

  My friends rock, too. You know who you are—you got me drunk at my Las Vegas wedding, and if that doesn’t bond us for life, I don’t know what else would. Thank you for being there for the biggest moments of my life, and also for the tiny ones that happen every day. You’re the greatest cheerleading squad a girl could ever ask for.

  A special thank-you to McKenzie Nelson for her tireless energy taking care of my son while I was holed up in my office writing every day. Everyone in the neighborhood probably did think you were a teen mom, but that’s only because Mox loved every moment he spent with you.

  Someday, Maddox John, I hope you read this book and think it’s cool you were growing inside me when I wrote it. I also hope you’ll think it’s cool to be named after a fictional serial killer—your mom has a warped sense of humor. I didn’t know you were going to exist five years ago when I first created Abby Maddox, but now it all makes sense. You are the reason for everything. Like the Jamaican palm reader told me, you were coming. It was certain. And now here you are, and I couldn’t love anything in the world more than I love you.

  Don’t miss these other edge-of-your-seat thrillers from Jennifer Hillier!

  Creep

  CLICK HERE TO ORDER