Now That She's Gone

by Gregg Olsen

  “I set one aside and gave the bag to Cody’s teacher,” Kara said, keeping her eyes riveted to the detective’s. “She said they were a special family recipe or something like that. I don’t remember. Everything is happening so fast.”

  Drugs could be quick. Some poisons were fast too.

  “She had been eating something,” the paramedic said. “We found something in her mouth when we intubated her.”

  “Look around the office,” Kendall said, completely unsure about what was going on at the school that she’d scrimped and saved to send her son to for a fighting chance at an independent life. Undone by poison? She could never have imagined that in a zillion years. Who would give poison to a child? Her brain downloaded some cases she’d studied. One in particular had a kind of macabre resonance. It was a case in which a woman named Laurie Dann had delivered poisoned baked goods to kids in her Illinois neighborhood.

  Kendall didn’t know who Whitney was. Not for sure. But she had a pretty good idea.

  Brenda Nevins.

  “I’m going after my son,” she said.

  A few kids were looking out the window at the scene outside, but most others carried on with whatever they were doing. Candace Donahue met Kendall at the door.

  “Candace, where’s Cody?” Kendall said to the teacher without saying hello.

  “He’s over there,” Candace said, looking alarmed, but not sure why. “Kendall, what’s happening?”

  “Did you give him the cookies?” Kendall asked as she scanned the room. She couldn’t find Cody’s shock of blond hair. Not a sign of him anywhere.

  The teacher nodded.

  “What’s going on?” Candace asked.

  “I don’t see Cody,” Kendall said.

  Candace looked over. “He was in the quiet area. I don’t see him there now.”

  “What’s happening? Is Reeta all right?”

  Kendall didn’t answer. She couldn’t think about Reeta just then. She was probably dead. She’d eaten something before she died. A cookie. She’d been drugged or poisoned. In a second, she was in the quiet area where Cody was lying among the blocks with a cookie in his hand.

  She screamed and scooped him up.

  “Baby!” she called to him. “Breathe!”

  She started toward the doorway, barely turning to call over to Candace.

  “Candace, get the cookies! Don’t let anyone touch them.”

  While the rest of the kids and Ms. Donahue looked on in horror, Kendall ran down the hallway carrying the most precious thing in her life. She could feel Cody’s heart beating against her own. It was a warning drum. She’d thought of all the times she’d held him and how she’d never imagined a moment like this. She prayed to God that He would spare her son from whatever Brenda Nevins had given him. Cody coughed, struggled for air. He was awake, but having a hard time breathing. Kendall caught the scent of bitter almonds and knew that cyanide had been the poison.

  “The cookies are poison,” she said as she made her way to the open doors and the commotion outside. “Keep them away from the kids!”

  She was fast as she ran toward the paramedics, tears coming from her own eyes. It was the first time in her life that she’d ever cried without making a sound. It was as though her eyes were raining, dripping, oozing the pain she was feeling inside.

  “Guys! My son’s been poisoned!” she called out. “Cyanide, I think.”

  The paramedic team ran to meet her.

  At Harrison Hospital in Bremerton, Kendall Stark watched through the ICU window as the team of doctors and nurses kept her son alive. He’d had a small dose of cyanide and he was going to be fine. She managed to get Steven on the phone and he was already on his way home to Port Orchard.

  He’d wanted to surprise her.

  “I’m north of the Bay area,” he said. “I’m going to turn around so I can get to the airport.”

  “No. Don’t do that. They aren’t going to admit him. It was a scare. A very big scare at that. But we’re going to be all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Kendall was speaking about their marriage and their son at the same time.

  “We are. We can get through anything.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you too.”

  “Jesus, Kendall,” he said, choked with emotion. “Why Cody?”

  Kendall knew the answer. Yet she didn’t want to say it to her husband. She knew that she had been the cause of her boy’s near demise. Her job. Her relentless pursuit of the bad guy.

  “There is no reason when it comes to crazy,” she said in the phone

  And yet over and over it came to her. This was Brenda’s payback. Brenda had made things very, very personal. The Kitsap County investigator didn’t know where she was right then. She imagined that Brenda had watched as the scene at the school played out. That she’d loved every minute of Kendall’s agony. What Brenda might not have known is that she’d made something abstract very, very personal.

  That was too bad for Brenda Nevins.

  Kendall would never rest until that monster was put away for the rest of her life. And if Kendall had the chance to kill Brenda, she would be just fine with that. In fact, though she would never admit it to anyone, not even Birdy, that scenario was even better.

  “Come home to us, Steven. Drive safely.”

  “I’m on my way. I’ll stop only for gas.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Kendall was half asleep when her phone vibrated. She reached over and picked it up from the bedside table. She had hoped it was Steven, calling from the road to say that he was almost there. Instead the number on the display was unknown to her.

  She answered.

  “Hello?” she repeated, when no one spoke.

  “Just me,” the voice said.

  It was Brenda.

  “What do you want now?”

  “How’s that adorable little boy of yours? That was a close one. Wasn’t it?”

  “I will kill you,” Kendall said.

  “No, you won’t. I’ve called to say goodbye. I’m traveling. Not sure where I’ll end up. And if I don’t know, you’ll never know.”

  “I will find you, Brenda.” Kendall wasn’t making a threat, but an unshakable promise.

  Brenda laughed. “That’s so funny,” she said. “So funny. Goodbye, Kendall. Thanks for making me a household name. It’s all I ever wanted.”

  “You’ll be more famous than ever when I find you.”

  Brenda laughed again.

  “Good luck with that,” she said. “Bye, Kendall. Oh, one more thing.”

  Kendall didn’t want to hear what Brenda had to say. Yet she couldn’t help herself.

  Brenda dropped a bomb.

  “Your husband is very handsome,” she said.

  The phone went dead.

  Kendall’s heart raced. Sweat collected on her brow. It was like she’d been poisoned by those final words. She threw her feet to the floor and dialed Steven. It rang and rang and then, voice mail.

  “Steven here. You know what to do.”

  “Steven! Call me! Steven, be careful. Brenda’s out there!”

  Kendall ran to Cody’s room. He was asleep. His hair, a mass of straw-colored sweetness, glowed from across the room. Tears came to her eyes. Tears and rage. So lost in that moment of fear and anxiety, she didn’t feel her phone vibrate at first. She looked down.

  Steven’s photo appeared on the screen.

  “Kendall, missed your call,” he said. He sounded alarmed.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice low as she left their son’s room for the privacy of the living room.

  “Yeah, fine,” Steven said. “Just worried about you. And Cody. Is everything all right? I just crossed over into Washington. Feels good to be back where there’s some fresh air.”

  “Are you alone?” Kendall asked, standing in front of the window, scanning the yard, the road, for any sign of her.

  “Yeah,” he said. “What’s up? Y
ou sound weird. Cody’s okay, right?”

  Kendall sank into the sofa. “He’s fine. Steven, be careful. Brenda Nevins won’t stop at anything to hurt you. Hurt us. Our family.”

  “I can handle her,” he said, trying to calm her.

  “I can too,” Kendall said. “Be careful. Don’t get taken in by her. She’s changed her appearance. She’s very, very clever. She might come after you.”

  “You’re a little over the top on this, babe,” Steven said.

  Not the right choice of words.

  “You don’t understand,” Kendall shot back, her voice growing louder with urgency—but not so loud to wake their son. “She’s a monster. She’s fixated on me. She’ll do whatever it takes to inflict the maximum amount of pain. She tried to kill Cody.”

  “You’re breaking up,” he said. “See you in less than three hours. I’m going to pull over and get some gas and coffee.”

  Then the line went dead.

  Kendall repeated her husband’s name several times into her phone, but he didn’t answer. Frantically, she tried his number but it went to voice mail.

  “Honey, I love you,” she said into the recording, trying to project a sense of calm. “Be careful. We need you. Watch out for her.”

  Kendall stopped herself from telling him not to talk to strangers. He was a salesman—or at least before the new job he had been one. Steven Stark never knew a stranger. It was part of who he was.

  Three hours later, Steven pulled up to the driveway of the old Craftsman in Harper. Kendall and Cody were outside waiting. Just after he turned off the ignition, the little boy bolted for his father. Kendall watched as Steven picked up Cody and hoisted him to the sky. It was a version of “helicopter,” a game they had played since he was a toddler.

  “You’re almost too big for me to do this anymore, buddy,” Steven said, setting Cody down on the cushion of lawn next to the driveway.

  “I don’t think so,” Cody said, laughing.

  Kendall held that image for a beat, wondering how many more there might be. How the time apart had concerned her. How much she loved Steven, but felt a growing chill between them.

  She embraced her husband, but it was quick and somehow strange.

  “Cody,” she said, “Daddy and I need to talk. How about you take some of his things inside?”

  “Okay,” Cody said, picking up a small black leather duffel bag.

  “Everything we have is right here,” Steven said, watching his son carry the bag into the house.

  Kendall drew closer. She wanted to jump into his arms, but there was something strange between them. She was unsure. Not able to process all that had happened with Brenda, Cody’s school, her husband’s distance.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  She couldn’t deny that. “Me too.”

  His eyes searched hers. “Are we going to be okay?” he asked.

  Kendall looked away. “I don’t know. I want us to be. But . . .” her words trailed off to silence and the two of them wandered to the stump that had been left behind when the beloved madrona tree died years earlier.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  She swallowed hard and looked over at the water of Yukon Harbor. It shimmered. A flock of shorebirds landed. A car whizzed by. Everything was normal but the conversation she was having with her husband.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “Am I losing you?” she asked.

  Steven gave his head a quick shake. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.

  “How could you even think that?” he asked.

  “You were so far away,” she said. “Far away.”

  “Kendall, you don’t understand. Do you?”

  She wasn’t going to cry. This was a hurt beyond tears. In some ways, after all that had happened, there was nothing left inside to cry out anyway.

  “I just thought,” she said, trying to get out all the words, yet knowing that saying them aloud would give voice to something she didn’t want to be true.

  Steven pulled her closer. “Thought what? That I was with someone else?”

  She didn’t have to say it. He did.

  “Something like that,” she answered, only meeting his gaze for a moment.

  He looked right at her. His eyes were bullets at hers.

  “Kendall, I don’t think you get it,” he said.

  “Get it? You didn’t return my calls.”

  “I didn’t have time,” he said.

  Kendall pursed her lips. “Everyone has time.”

  “Look,” Steven said, “you don’t know what it’s like to be kicked to the curb by changes over which you have no control. I was fighting for my job. I was fighting to save my dignity.”

  She looked at him. In his eyes. Taking him in. Measuring his words.

  “You were there to work through some changes in the way you sold advertising,” she said.

  “You really think that?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. “I was there fighting to keep my job, not be outsourced, show everyone that I could adapt and, as my boss said, ‘get with the program.’”

  She looked at him. He had laid it all bare. He’d been away not to gain some promotion or work some angle, but he’d been away and very, very absent because he’d been working hard at survival. Not at being with another woman.

  “I’m sorry,” Kendall said. “I just thought . . .”

  Steven reached for her. “Never. Never. You and Cody are my life. In fact the only thing that got me through the training, the sucking up, the trying to hang on to what I’m good at . . . was you two. I was down there fighting for us, not sure I’d be able to make the cut. There are younger, smarter people than me and as the business changes they’ll need fewer of us.”

  Kendall felt foolish and relieved at the same time. Steven hadn’t been avoiding her. He was trying to survive. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in tight. They kissed. All they’d gone through, the misunderstandings, the terror of over what had happened at Cody’s school, faded. She was absolutely sure that they—the three of them—were going to be all right.

  The truck stop was busy twenty-four hours a day. It had a restaurant and bar, a convenience store, and a very basic motel with thirty-eight units. It even had a shower rental for truckers who couldn’t stay longer than an hour and needed to clean up for the next leg of their long, lonely drive. Cars were welcome there too.

  The man sat at the counter. He wore khaki pants and a dark blue MMA T-shirt. He played with the wedding ring on his finger, loose, like his pants, from a stress-induced weight loss. He looked lonely and preoccupied.

  He was perfect.

  “Which way you headed?” Brenda Nevins asked as she slithered into the seat next to him.

  “Auburn, then east,” he said.

  She rolled a shoulder forward. She wore a low-cut tank top. And while she considered her breasts her best feature, she thought her shoulders were quite sexy too.

  “I have family in Kent,” she said.

  “Too bad for them,” he said, smiling at her. She was a knockout. A little hard, but the kind of woman who made him even lonelier for his wife.

  “Tell me about it,” she said, taking a French fry off his plate, and inserting it into her mouth, slowly.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m not looking for any pay and play.”

  She made a pissed-off face. It was exaggerated. But subtle wasn’t Brenda’s strong suit.

  It never had been.

  “Mister, you’ve got me all wrong,” she said, acting indignant. “I’m not a lot lizard and the fact that you think I am insults me. Big-time.”

  “Sorry. I just . . .”

  “You judged me. I don’t like to be judged.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She took another fry.

  “My boyfriend dumped me here. We had a big old fight. I’m kind of stranded.”

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “You’re sorry a lot,” she said, her eyes
softening. “I have some money. I can pay for some gas if you’re headed to Spokane. I could use a ride.”

  The man thought.

  She leaned closer, exposing the best breasts that money could buy.

  He felt himself get hard and shifted in his seat.

  Her eyes lingered on his crotch and he looked away.

  “Sure, I’ll give you a ride,” he said.

  She looked at him and smiled. She’d give him one too. One he wouldn’t be able to savor for very long at all.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Readers probably know that the author’s writing of a book is only part of the process to getting it into their hands. Others, behind the scenes, play important roles. I’d like to share my appreciation for Michaela Hamilton, my editor at Kensington Publishing. Michaela is a wonderful partner in crime fiction—she has terrific insight into story and tone, both essential in crafting a thriller or mystery novel. Our partnership has produced eight novels, including this one. Additionally, I want to acknowledge the contributions of my longtime agent, Susan Raihofer of the David Black Literary Agency. Susan and I have worked together for almost twenty years and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thanks so much, Michaela and Susan. It’s been scary fun working with you. And finally, a quick but appreciative shout-out to Jean Olson and Elizabeth Hayes for getting everything right.

  Don’t miss Gregg Olsen’s next exciting Waterman and Stark thriller

  JUST TRY TO STOP ME

  Coming from Kensington Publishing Corp. in 2016

  Keep reading to enjoy an exciting excerpt . . .

  The day Brenda and Janie vanished

  Janie Thomas looked at the laptop she’d been ordered to transport to her second-floor office at the Washington State Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, Washington. It was against prison protocol to bring any electronic devices inside the secure facility, but Janie was the prison superintendent. When she started to breeze though the checkpoint, she told her favorite officer, Derrick Scott, that she was running late.