Now That She's Gone

by Gregg Olsen

  Brit looked like a hundred miles of washed-out road. She hadn’t eaten. She looked unkempt. The pretty-smart of her looks had ebbed in the days since they met at the reveal for Spirit Hunters. There was good reason for that, of course. It had been the second worst time of her life.

  Kendall wanted to say “F Pandora” but thinking it was enough given the circumstances. Pandora and the show’s ratcheting up of the case had, in fact, led to that moment. Even so, there could be no celebration. No acknowledgment. Tami Overton was dead. Naomi was in juvenile detention. Roger had tried to kill himself. It was as if Katy’s case and the resolution they hoped was in store had set off a series of other tragedies that might never have occurred. Pandora had promised Katy’s mother that the answer was close by, but she was also very, very lethal.

  “I wish you hadn’t come,” Kendall said.

  “I wish my daughter hadn’t been murdered, Detective.”

  That was a statement for which there could never be any kind of response.

  “I’ll need you to stay back.”

  Brit pushed closer to the backhoe.

  “Really, Mrs. Frazier, you don’t want to see her,” she said, putting out her hand like a traffic cop with a genuine sense of urgency.

  Brit stopped in her tracks. She didn’t say anything. She was as close to her daughter as she was going to get. She stood there alone. No husband. No girls. No supporters from the Second Cup, Second Chance coffee shop. Right about then, she needed her own second chance.

  The sound of the stone breaking shattered the air. Everyone stood back, holding the air inside. Calvin Donaldson didn’t say a word, but gave a sad nod and retreated to the front door of the main house. He didn’t need to see any more. Kendall went closer to the equipment and the others.

  The backhoe operator lifted the slab and set it aside. A moment later, he gently scraped layer after layer of soil.

  “We barely covered her, Detective,” Scott said, his eyes finally directly meeting Kendall’s. “I’m really sorry about what we did.”

  Kendall nodded. She would give Scott plenty of credit later for having the basic qualities of human decency. She suspected Tami Overton was that type of person too. Not Alyssa, of course.

  “Scott, what happened that night?”

  “My dad says I shouldn’t say any more. Not without a lawyer.”

  “You’re better than that. I know you are.”

  “I want to tell you.”

  “You can. You’re an adult. You can waive those rights. You can do the right thing right here and now. We’re alone,” she said, “but the world is watching.”

  Scott watched as the backhoe kept moving. It was only a matter of moments before Katy would be found.

  “Do the right thing, Scott. Brit and Roger deserve it.”

  “Naomi does too,” he said.

  “She was part of this, wasn’t she?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. She wasn’t here when it was all over. She started walking home. I went after her when it was done.”

  “Tell me.”

  Katy Frazier was confused and crying. Alyssa had chopped her hair with a pair of scissors while Scott and Tami held her down in the trench dug to hold the cement forms. Naomi stood still. She had wanted to scare her sister. Remind her that she was a person too. She hadn’t done a thing but watch and had left before what Alyssa promised would be the “real fun.”

  “Alyssa! What are you doing to me?”

  Katy was crying and shaking. Her hands were held to her head, feeling the patches and unevenness of her best friend’s brutal hairstyling.

  “You are such a complainer. We’re just playing around. Like you do with our emotions every single day, Katy. You’re always saying you’ll be there. You’re always saying come to the Kitsap Mall. I’ll see you at A&W. Such a liar!”

  “Why are you mad about that? That wasn’t anything.”

  “You don’t get to decide what I feel anymore. What any of us feel anymore. Right, Scott? Tami?”

  “Right, Alyssa,” Tami said, unconvincingly. Alyssa shot her a glare and Tami felt compelled to say more. “We’re totally sick of you, Katy.”

  “Scott! I’m scared. Take me home.”

  Scott kept his mouth shut. He refused to look at her.

  “Scott, what’s the matter? Why are you doing this to me? Don’t you love me anymore?”

  Again, no response.

  Alyssa spoke up. “I told him about Trevor and Maxx.”

  “I don’t care about those guys,” she said.

  “Then why did you go down on them?”

  “I didn’t, Alyssa. You did.”

  “You little bitch!”

  “You told me you did. Why are you acting like this? I want to go home.”

  “You aren’t going home. Ever. You’re gonna die tonight.”

  Scott looked over at Alyssa. This wasn’t the plan, but he didn’t do anything to stop her. He just stood there. Tami did the same. Alyssa held up the scissors.

  “Tonight,” she said.

  Katy was frantic. The construction site was large and with the tide up high, she knew she couldn’t get away from any of them. She had to go through them. She started to push past them.

  “Stop her, Tami! You idiot! If she gets away she’ll tell on us!”

  Tami, who hadn’t wanted any of this in the first place, but who only wanted to be part of someone’s inner circle, threw herself onto her friend, tackling her and bringing her to the ground.

  Alyssa pounced, shoving the knife deep into Katy’s abdomen. Katy looked up from her future grave. Blood oozed from her mouth. Seeing the blood, Alyssa twisted the scissors and felt the life force drain from her friend.

  Her rival.

  Alyssa looked up at the others. They stood there frozen, in shock.

  “Tami!” she called over to her friend, her follower. “Stab her! Scott, stab her! We are all a part of this! You need to do this now.”

  “And we did,” he said. “I’m really not sure why. Tami and I just did what Alyssa told us to do. Like we didn’t have minds of our own. I know we did, but that night it didn’t feel that way. I took some psychology courses to see why. The mob effect, I guess. We just did what she said, in the heat of the moment. In the frenzy of what Alyssa had done. We hadn’t come there to kill Katy, I swear it. We hadn’t. We just got caught up in something.”

  Kendall knew there was probably some truth to what he was saying, but it was an excuse. And Scott Hilburn wasn’t going to prison for Katy’s murder anyway. He’d testify against Alyssa.

  Scott was going away for what he did to Tami.

  “We covered her up and I guess we got lucky,” he said.

  “Lucky?”

  “We thought we’d be caught the next day,” Scott said, his eyes wet with the kind of tears that couldn’t be faked. “We were sure of it. But we didn’t know about the cement pour the next day. I mean, we didn’t do a very good job. Not at all. Just barely covered her. I threw the scissors in the water. After we left we found Naomi walking on the road. We didn’t tell her all that had happened. At least not right away.”

  “I see something pink,” the backhoe operator said.

  Kendall went to the edge of the hole.

  “I see it too,” she said.

  Pink was the color of the shirt Katy was wearing when she vanished.

  A deputy with a shovel jumped into the indentation that the backhoe operator had made with his bucket.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve found her.”

  Another deputy approached Kendall.

  “They also found Alyssa,” he said. “She was picked up an hour ago in King County. We’ll transport her tonight.”

  Kendall looked over at Brit, who was slumped over in the driveway crying uncontrollably. Scott was in no better shape. Both had loved Katy. One was responsible for her death, the other had to come to grips with the blame she’d placed on her husband, an innocent man.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
/>   Back at her desk, going over the paperwork that would close the file on Katy’s death and the multiple tragedies that had sprung from it, Kendall Stark longed for the relief that would come on a day without a murder investigation. To say that she loved her work was simplistic. She did see the great value she could bring to the justice system. She could see the sad appreciation on the faces of those who wanted to know the why behind the unthinkable. Sometimes, she knew, the why wouldn’t be enough. Not for Tami Overton’s mother, her son, her husband. Not for Juliana’s parents. Chaz’s sister, who kept calling her for an update. Janie’s husband and son.

  All of them would have some information now, but they would always be damaged by the evil visited upon them.

  Kendall’s phone vibrated and she looked down. She didn’t recognize the number when she picked it up. The voice, however, was chillingly familiar.

  “Hi, Detective,” the caller said.

  It was Brenda Nevins.

  “Where are you?” Kendall asked reflexively, knowing that Brenda would never answer that question.

  “You can’t catch me,” she said. “You can’t trace this call. But you can listen.”

  “We know what you did, you bitch. I will find you, Brenda. And when I do I’ll think of some reason to be threatened by you so I can shoot you dead.”

  “That’s funny. You are threatened. But what does any of that matter? I’m free. I’m more famous now than I was when you ruined my chance for a TV special.”

  “Is that all you care about?” Kendall asked, appealing to Brenda’s twisted ego. “If it is, turn yourself in right now. You’re smart enough to know that you’re a hot commodity.”

  “You think I’m hot? I thought so. I saw the way your eyes dawdled over me when we met. I could have had your tongue between my legs right then and there.”

  There had been no doubt that Brenda was sick, but she was also a bad judge of character. Kendall was sickened by the fact that they’d shared the same air in that interview room at the prison. She’d seen evil face-to-face before, but never as dark and conniving as Brenda Nevins.

  Kendall pushed. “Where are you, Brenda?”

  “You are turned on, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re wet right now,” Brenda said. “I can sense it over the phone.”

  “I’m married,” Kendall said, not sure why that was her response. “I’m not interested.”

  “Janie was married too,” Brenda said. Her tone was cool, indifferent. “She wasn’t interested either, but I had her.”

  “Why did you kill her?” Kendall asked. “Why did you kill Chaz Masters? Juliana Robbins?”

  Brenda let out a laugh. “Because that’s what I do,” she said. “Besides riding a man and spinning him like a top, getting a woman to experience her wildest fantasies, I’m good at killing. It’s what I do.”

  “Juliana was a nice girl,” Kendall said, knowing that the producer was so much more than that, but stunned by Brenda’s sense of entitlement and superiority. Brenda operated in that twisted place occupied by many grandiose serial killers. Bundy and Gacy were two of those who reveled in the attention and their place in history.

  “Nice is easy to kill,” Brenda said. “No one remembers nice anyway. All they remember is me. And my little prison mouse, Janie. Janie was a great help to me too.”

  “And Chaz? Why him?”

  “Because I could, Kendall Stark. That’s all there is to it. I know that the media wants to ascribe some great plan and messaging on my part but really, killing successfully means killing people randomly.”

  There was truth to that. Kendall knew that the serial killers who confounded detection the longest were those who killed in different areas, used multiple dump sites, and targeted a seeming hodgepodge of victims. Bundy, however, broke that mold at the end, when he ditched his penchant for sorority girls who resembled his ex-girlfriend for a twelve-year-old Florida girl.

  “I got your message. Birdy got hers.”

  Brenda laughed. “I’m glad. I figured you two ladies would get a kick out of that. I’m surprised it didn’t make the front page.”

  “We didn’t release the information, Brenda. We like to put on a good show too.”

  Brenda went quiet for a moment. “I’m sure you do. Want to know a little secret?”

  “Shoot,” Kendall said.

  “You’d like to shoot me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Kendall said, “but I’d still like to hear your secret.”

  “About what I left behind.”

  “Yes, the hummingbird and the toy shark. What about them?”

  Brenda paused. “Just came to me at the last minute. I mean, I just thought of it on the spot.”

  “That’s clever of you,” Kendall said.

  “I thought so,” Brenda said, not picking up on Kendall’s less than enthusiastic endorsement of her creativity.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t mention the keychain,” Brenda said.

  “What keychain?”

  “With Janie. In her pocket.”

  “Oh, that,” Kendall said, not knowing what she was talking about.

  “You didn’t see it, did you? You’re a very sloppy detective. Good for me, I guess.”

  “You need to turn yourself in, Brenda,” Kendall said. “Enough people have been hurt.”

  “I’ve only just started, Detective. Let’s just agree that we disagree. Life’s more fun when the world spins wildly. It’s like a ride.”

  The line went dead.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  It wasn’t hard to find Cody Stark’s school. Kendall and Steven had been boosters of the school for the past two years—less so at the moment with the change in his job.

  Brenda Nevins sat outside watching the kids through the chain-link fencing as they played, mostly quietly, in the school’s designated play area. Obviously geared toward younger students, the play area featured what appeared to be a foam rubber tugboat as its focal point. The ground was also rubberized. No kid could get hurt playing there had been the intent. Brenda knew a dozen ways she could harm someone. It spun through her mind that she could tear a chunk of foam off and shove it down some kid’s throat.

  Not just any kid, of course.

  She listened to a rap station on the radio. It was a preset. She imagined the car’s owner was a young person, and while she didn’t care much for rap she thought that it was good for her to stay current. She thought that the owner was an overprivileged brat who’d been handed the world by doting parents.

  Not like her double-crossing mother, who’d always been so cruel to her, who’d seized every moment she could to tell Brenda that she was no good. Not pretty enough. Flat-chested. Stupid. Would never be anything. To kill her mother would be an utter waste of time. So been there and done that.

  Mommy issues.

  Brenda took the paper bag from the backseat. She checked her makeup in the mirror. It had been applied with a light touch. Her clothes were clean, but not stylish at all. She had lived her whole life to turn heads but in that moment she wanted nothing more than to blend in. The kids scurried back into their respective classrooms. Brenda looked down at the prepaid cell that Janie had purchased. Lunch would be served in an hour. She turned off the radio and started for the door.

  Kara Watanabe had been the office administrator for sixteen years and loved every challenging minute of it. She had boundless energy and unbridled enthusiasm. She barely stood still. Why would she? There was always something she could do to help someone. When Brenda came into the office she smiled and waved her over with a disarming smile.

  Brenda did her best to fire her own back.

  “I’m Cody Stark’s aunt,” she said. “Staying with the Starks.”

  “That’s lovely,” Kara said. “How can I help you?”

  “Kendall’s working some big case,” she said, with a slight inflection that indicated that she’d tired of hearing it. “She asked me to bring Cody some cookies. Call me a
bad aunt for spoiling him, but he’s pretty precious to me.”

  “If he were mine I’d spoil him too,” Kara said. “I can’t very well do that here. Wouldn’t be fair, but between you and me and the fence post, Cody is one of my favorites. That is if I had been allowed to have one.”

  Brenda smiled.

  “Thank you. I wasn’t sure. I’m kind of the black sheep of the family. By default of course. I mean, with Steven and Kendall—who are about as perfect as a couple can be—I’d say there isn’t anywhere to go but down.”

  Kara made a face.

  “I mean for me,” Brenda said.

  “Understood. I hope they work things out.”

  Kara’s comment piqued Brenda’s interest, but she didn’t indicate so. Instead she did what she was best at—rolling with it. She liked to collect little bits of personal information. Information was a key into places where people wouldn’t have wanted her, which is what she wanted in the first place.

  Trouble between Kendall Shark and her husband. Good. That might come in handy.

  “Me too,” she finally said. “All couples have tough times, Ms. Watanabe. It’s how they come out stronger for it. That’s what I admire. And that’s our Kendall and Steven Stark, through and through.”

  “I hope so,” Kara said, searching for the younger woman’s name, finally admitting her lapse at an introduction. “I didn’t get your name. I’m Kara Watanabe, the office manager, and I do just about everything else that needs to be done around here.”

  Brenda smiled. “I’m Whitney,” she said, picking a name she’d always liked over her prosaic moniker, another crappy gift from her mother. She should have changed it when she got married. Steffi or Whitney had been her names of choice back then.

  Not boring-as-the-hills Brenda. She was never going to be a Brenda. Not ever.

  “Nice to meet you, Whitney. You brought Cody a treat?”

  “He and I made some cookies last night. Snickerdoodles. I told him that he could have one today as a little treat after he ate his regular lunch. Is it all right if I leave them with you? I know lunchtime is soon. Kendall told me it’s at eleven-thirty.”