Now That She's Gone

by Gregg Olsen

  “Well, since you’ve calmed down a bit, I’ll try. I don’t expect you to understand it.”

  “Like I said, Pandora. I’m all ears.”

  Pandora’s wrist, covered with a sheath of bangles, rolled on the tabletop.

  “I have a gift. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s real and it is part of who I am. I hear things, see things, that are right in front of the eyes of others. Things they can’t see or hear. I know they come from the other side.”

  “The other side,” Kendall repeated.

  “I’m trying to help you understand. Please don’t mock me.”

  “I wasn’t mocking you.”

  “I’m extremely sensitive.”

  “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  “That night, the information came to me. It just did.”

  “What about Wyatt? How does he fit in?”

  “Wyatt is there to make the producers happy. They don’t get it. They can’t comprehend the magnitude of my gifts. They have to come up with something for the viewer to grab on to when they are watching the fantastic, the impossible.”

  The fraudulent.

  “I heard that, Detective.”

  “Heard what? I didn’t say anything.”

  “Right,” Pandora said. “You didn’t. But I hear and I see your skepticism.”

  “Did you talk with Tami Overton?”

  “No. Has something happened to her?”

  “You don’t know? I thought you knew everything.”

  “Is she dead?”

  Kendall studied Pandora’s carefully made-up face. There was a silky flatness to her complexion. The makeup was heavy. She wondered if Pandora had just done a TV shoot or if she always looked as though she was camera ready.

  “I’m not surprised, Detective. From what I understand she was a very troubled young woman.”

  “Who told you that?” Kendall asked.

  “Brit,” she said. “Brit told me.”

  “That’s interesting. I was there the whole night. I don’t recall her mentioning anything about Tami.”

  “I didn’t say she told me that night. She told me later.”

  “Later?”

  “Yes. Brit and I bonded that night. She wants my help and part of the deal of being born with a gift is to ensure that you use it to help others. I’m all about helping.”

  That was another load of crap, but Kendall didn’t say so. And this time, Pandora didn’t call her on what she thought she was thinking.

  “You’re absolutely certain about what you said you felt or saw that night?” Kendall asked.

  “I’m seldom wrong.”

  Kendall didn’t say that her cursory Internet research indicated otherwise.

  “I’m very concerned about Katy’s case. I’m concerned about the Fraziers. Very concerned, Pandora.”

  “You think I’m not? I don’t dabble in this, Detective. I do this because I must do it. I do it to help others.” She paused. “I do this to right wrongs wherever I can.”

  Kendall’s tongue was tired of being held captive. But there was no point in firing back. Pandora had come in for some reason. And it certainly wasn’t to tell the truth. Kendall could smell a fraud a mile away.

  “Stay in touch, Pandora.”

  “Oh, I intend to. In fact, I’m always in touch. It’s who I am.”

  Brenda Nevins stood over the bed looking down at Janie Thomas.

  “Wake up, lover,” she said.

  Janie’s eyes fluttered open. She was tired, hungry, and completely terrified.

  Brenda grinned. “Good,” she said. “Would you like me to let you go?”

  Janie croaked out a yes from the slit in the duct tape Brenda had cut so she could drink.

  “Do you understand that I’ll kill your son if you betray me? You know that I’m capable.”

  Janie didn’t react.

  “YOU KNOW IT,” Brenda screamed in her captive’s face. “RIGHT?”

  Janie winced and nodded. “Yes. I know.”

  “Fine then,” Brenda said. “I’m going to take a very big risk that you can do something for me. I know where your family lives. I know your son’s apartment in Boise. I know people who know people who can make someone vanish. Do you understand me, Janie?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I understand.”

  “Don’t even think about double-crossing me. Don’t you dare even give it one second of thought, you stupid bitch. I’ll take them all out and go off somewhere and have a party.”

  Janie blinked back some tears.

  “Don’t be sad, baby. This will all be over soon. Then you’ll be free. You’ll never be the same, but you’ll be free.”

  Brenda leaned close and whispered. Her hot breath that had been a turn-on was now like the flame of a dragon. Her tongue like a snake’s as it darted around Janie’s ear. She told Janie exactly what she needed to do.

  Janie, who’d been taken in by the devil, promised she’d be good.

  “I can do that. But you’ll leave my family alone?”

  “Yes. I’ll leave them alone. And you’ll go free.”

  Janie didn’t care about herself. Her life was ruined and there was no point in saving her from anything. She wished she were dead. She knew that death would be the only way to ensure that her family was safe. As long as she was alive, Brenda Nevins would have a bargaining chip.

  “I had a husband once,” Brenda said as she undid the binding around Janie’s wrists. “A daughter too.”

  Janie already knew that, but she was too terrified to say anything.

  “His name was Kirk. Her name was Kara.”

  “I like those names, Brenda,” Janie said.

  “Yes. Good names. Sometimes I really miss them. I know how much you miss your son, Joe, and your husband, Erwin. Not such good names, if you ask me.”

  “Right. Not good names. Joseph is a family name.”

  “Yes, I know. Your husband’s father.”

  Brenda knew everything about Janie. She knew more about her than Janie knew about her. Even though Janie had the benefit of a dossier of Brenda’s criminal charges, she had been blinded by her charms. She’d been sucked in like soda though a big, fat straw.

  “Kara was such a brat, though. I blame Kirk for that. I never should have had that kid. She nearly ruined my body. God, what a parasite. Always hanging on me, sucking at my breasts, rooting for more. Always more. Like there would never be enough. She was pretty, though. Not like me. But a prettier version of her father’s side of the family. Dark hair, dark eyes.”

  Janie didn’t say a word. She wasn’t sure what she should say.

  “Are you listening to me? Do you understand that I’m just like you?”

  “Yes, just like me. Kindred spirits.”

  “That’s how we found each other, Janie.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Brenda stopped and looked away, a gesture of practiced sincerity. “I miss Kara and Kirk,” she said. “I really do.”

  Janie nodded. It ran through her mind that the reason they were out of Brenda’s life was that she’d murdered them and burned down the house to cover her tracks. Brenda didn’t deny what she did. In fact, she referred to the fire as a “household cleanser” of sorts.

  “If you want to ensure that you’re not detected, you know, for being what the world considers ‘bad,’ then burn the goddamn thing to the ground.”

  Brenda told Janie to take a shower.

  “You’re a filthy mess.”

  Janie’s legs were rubber bands and she could barely stand as she went into the bathroom.

  Brenda primped her hair and regarded her new look in the mirror. She liked it. Chaz had liked it. Others would too. But she knew that it was not a game-changer in her looks. True beauty like hers could never be completely annihilated—no matter what could be done with her hair, her makeup. That’s where Janie came in.

  She sat on the toilet seat while Janie stepped into the steaming shower.

  “Use some conditioner, for G
od’s sake. Your hair’s a fright.”

  Janie stood in the shower and cried into the spray from the faucet.

  “Hurry up.”

  Janie turned the knobs and opened the door.

  “Here. Put this on your hair.”

  Janie looked at the tube of hair dye. It was called Chestnut Dream. She opened the tube and rubbed the contents in her hair. Shivering and hoping at the same time. Hoping that her colored hair meant that she would actually be free.

  And even so, she wondered where in the world she would go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Naomi Frazier looked like she’d been sprung from a carnival ride or maybe a carnival poster. She had very black hair with wide blue and pink streaks that looked almost like racing stripes for a baby shower. Her lip, nose, and—Kendall thought—probably other body parts too, were pierced. Although she looked to be the creative type, maybe a little bit of an attention seeker, Naomi almost certainly did not look like the daughter of a buttoned-up architect and his guidance counselor wife.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Naomi said as Kendall approached her in the Starbucks off Sedgwick Road.

  “Everyone’s a psychic,” Kendall said with a warm, disarming smile.

  Naomi gave a little shrug and returned the smile. “Good one. I can just tell the look of surprise, no matter how you want to hide it.”

  Kendall sat down. “I’m not that surprised,” she said. “I knew you went to alternative school, so I figured you’d look, well . . .”

  Again, a slight smile. “Alternative?”

  Kendall liked this girl.

  “Yes, alternative. And by the way, I love your hair. In my day getting a foil was a big deal. Color? We wouldn’t have been caught dead with pink or blue. In fact, we’d be killed by our parents, so I guess we would be caught dead.”

  Naomi grinned. She had braces on her lower teeth. Her eyes were very, very blue. She was pretty and not nearly as hard-shelled as her reputation suggested.

  “You want anything?” Kendall asked, glancing in the direction of the barista, a girl with red hair and an annoyed look on her face. “I’m kind of coffee’d out. Your mother makes the strongest coffee on the planet.”

  “Yeah, Dad says you could eat it with a spoon,” Naomi said. “But no thanks, I’m good. I’ll stick with my tea.”

  The color in the cup was a pale yellow. The tea was chamomile. Very herbal, and, Kendall thought, very Naomi.

  “I’m here to talk about your sister . . . and your father,” she said.

  Naomi kept her eyes on Kendall.

  “I could have saved you the time and trouble, Ms. Stark.”

  “How so?” Kendall asked.

  Naomi squirted another packet of honey into her hot drink and stirred it with a wooden stick.

  “My mom now says that my dad was screwing my sister, which in case you wanted to know, is not the worst thing she’s ever said about him,” she said. “She hates him. Always has. For as long as I can remember.”

  Kendall was surprised, but didn’t show it.

  “They seemed so solid,” Kendall said. “Until Pandora, of course.”

  “That’s what everyone thinks. My mom is a total bitch. She acts like she’s going out every day to save the world when really she’s just messing around on my dad.”

  “An affair?” Kendall asked.

  Naomi shook her head. “Affairs. As in more than one.”

  When the words tumbled out of the girl’s mouth, they came with an edge of regret. Naomi might hate her mother, but she didn’t despise her completely. In the scale of teenage hate, Brit was probably an eight on her daughter’s meter of one to ten.

  “I’m sorry,” Kendall said. “That must be hard on you.”

  “Look, I’m fine. I’m going to be eighteen in two years and I’m out of here. I’m leaving Port Orchard and never coming back. That’s what I think my sister did, by the way. I don’t think she’s buried out in the deep, like that twit Pandora told my mom. Katy hated Mom. She loved our dad. I love our dad. No one is perfect, but when you’re married to a bitch like Mom—sometimes when I have to call someone for her I say her name is Bitch Frazier until they ask me to repeat it and then I say Brit—anyway, it’s the truth. My dad survived her games and stuck with her because he loved us girls.”

  “You were only twelve when Katy went missing,” Kendall said. “You might have been too young to really know what was going on back then.”

  Naomi stopped. Paused. “Look at me. I’m sixteen now going on thirty. I’ve never been my age. In that family you couldn’t be a kid and survive, not very long anyway.”

  Kendall knew it was time to focus on the subject at hand, despite the very real possibility that she’d unleashed a volcano of vitriol against Brit Frazier and it would be kind of interesting to hear more. She was there for Katy. She was there to find out what happened to Katy.

  “Did you ever see anything back then that might suggest that your father was molesting your sister?” she asked.

  “No,” Naomi said with great conviction. “Absolutely never.”

  Kendall prodded. “A secret they shared?”

  “They had lots of secrets from Mom,” Naomi said. “We all did.”

  “Why was that?”

  Naomi’s hands were sticky from the honey pack and she got up and went to get a napkin. “Because my mom knew only one thing to do with any information. She was like a spider with a web. Anytime you confided anything to her, she’d find a way to use it against you. It might not be for a week, or a month. You’d think you could finally trust her.”

  “Example?”

  “They are stupid. Things that shouldn’t be betrayed.”

  Naomi stopped and looked at Kendall. “It’s so dumb. But when I got my period, I didn’t know what was happening. Stupid right? I had a class about it. And my mom’s a guidance counselor! But I was confused and scared. I started screaming in the bathroom and my mom comes running in and then she starts laughing at me, telling me to cool down and it was all normal and stuff.”

  “She laughed at you?”

  “Yeah, like it was a big joke, but I was totally scared.”

  “It must have felt terrible. Her doing that.”

  “It was personal and humiliating. Really. Like two days later a girl came up to me and told me that my mom told her about what happened during her counseling session. She told someone else something private so she could win them over. She was always doing that kind of crap.”

  Brit as seen through the eyes of her daughter was a very different woman than the one people in town admired and praised for her work with the troubled and disenfranchised youth of South Kitsap.

  Kendall didn’t want to defend Brit Frazier just then. Brit had told her over and over that the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department was to blame for not finding Katy, and that accusation didn’t make her like her one bit.

  Even if it were true.

  “Tell me what you remember about Katy before she disappeared. Anything seem odd at the time? Something that you’ve been wondering about?”

  “No. Not really. I mean, it isn’t like I haven’t thought of those days a million, gazillion times. I have. I was obsessed with what happened. At one point, I thought I would grow up and be a cop like you just so I could solve the case of my missing sister.”

  “Other cops have done things like that.”

  “I’m sure. I get it. It was like a hole punched into my life. Just that quick. She was there, then she was gone. I wanted more than anything to believe she was alive somewhere. Everyone did. When her friends started coming around to support us, help us, I just kind of felt like Katy wasn’t ever coming back.”

  “Alyssa, Tami, Scott?”

  “Right. Those three.”

  “Sounds like you don’t like them much.”

  “At the time I did. I really did. Alyssa practically moved in. Tami too. They were always there trying to help me, my mom and dad. I thought we were friends, but I was
a lot younger.”

  “What about Scott?”

  “That’s just it. I think Scott and Katy really loved each other. It was weird how quickly he and Alyssa ended up dating. They told me one time that losing Katy was what brought them together.”

  “Did that bother you?” Kendall asked.

  Naomi made a face. “Are you a cop or a counselor, like my mom?”

  “Sorry,” Kendall said. “A cop. I’m just trying to understand the dynamics here.”

  “Good. I get enough of that at home. No, it didn’t bother me. I liked Scott. I looked up to them. All of them. I wanted to be like them. The day Katy went missing, Alyssa and Tami came by and picked her up to go hang out somewhere. I wanted to go too. Mom was homeschooling me and kept me practically chained to my desk. Not really chained, but I think if she thought of it, she would have.”

  Kendall took out her notebook and made a few notes.

  “What are you writing down?”

  “Just a reminder.”

  “Did I help you at all?”

  Kendall nodded. “I think you did. I want you to know that I’ll be following up on everything. I’m not going to let this go. I’m not going to let you down.”

  Naomi wasn’t a crier, but she could have cried just then. She felt the emotion well up in her eyes.

  “Good, because Katy deserves better. She deserves to be found.”

  “I know,” Kendall said. “Take care. We’ll talk again soon. Promise.”

  Kendall got up and put her hand on Naomi’s shoulder. She could feel the slight tremble of emotion that the girl tried to hide from her. Naomi Frazier thought she was older than her years, but deep down, she was a kid sister still. Alone. Still hoping for Katy to come back home.

  To be found.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Birdy Waterman was about to eat a turkey and Swiss sandwich when Kendall let herself into the forensic pathologist’s always-strange-smelling autopsy suite.

  “How can you eat here?”

  “You have to eat somewhere, Kendall.”

  “Yes, but . . . here?”

  “This place is cleaner than any restaurant in town, if you must know.”

  “I’m sure it is, but it just seems weird to have lunch down here.”