“How much did Ava like to party?”
“Quite a bit.” He took back his phone and slipped it into the pocket of his shirt. “We all did. Except she liked to go out to the clubs, the casinos, bars... I’m more of a party-at-home kinda guy.”
“Could you send me any pictures you have of her?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “But why?”
“Just trying to get a feel for who she was as a person and you know what they say about pictures being worth a thousand words.”
He tapped repeatedly on his phone and soon my own cell phone was chiming with incoming messages.
“What about hiking?” I asked. “We all know how much Ron loved it. Sounds like that’s what he lived for. Was that something Ava was into?”
“Oh, she tried.” Joon rolled his eyes. “She bought all the most expensive gear and was always asking Ron to bring her along but, of course, she couldn’t handle the bigger trails. Ron took her along a couple times but he liked a challenging outing and didn’t want to babysit a newb.” He glanced at his phone. “I gotta get back to work.”
We got to our feet.
“By the way, how’s your sick aunt?”
“My aunt?” He tilted his head. “You mean my grandmother? The one I visited in Korea when all this exploded with Ava and Ron?”
“Oh yeah, your grandmother.”
“She died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged. “She was really old.” He slipped his hat back on his head and we gathered up our food containers and wrappers and brought them to the disposal area.
“Are you still living in the same house that you were in with Ron?”
He nodded. “I’ve got a new roommate. He’s not as much fun as Ron but he isn’t as much of a pig either.”
“I never would’ve guessed Ron to be a slob,” I admitted. “But then I didn’t really know him at all.”
“Since you’re here, maybe you should talk to the people he worked with at the sporting goods place.” He glanced at his phone and rolled his eyes. “Gotta go. Call me if you have any more questions and...” he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “good luck with finding Ava.”
I decided to take Joon’s advice and head down to the other end of the mall to talk to the employees that worked with Ron at the sporting goods store. I came around the corner of one leg of the mall and nearly slammed into Abel’s grandson, Wes.
“Oh. Hey.” I nodded to him. “Thanks for getting those graves uncovered for your grandfather.”
“Sure. Whatever.” He looked over his shoulder, uneasy. “Took me five minutes, so no big deal.”
“It was a big deal for your grandfather,” I pointed out. “By the way, do you know where that big sporting goods store is?”
“The one where Ron used to work?” He pointed down a leg of the mall to our right. “It’s down that way. At the end.”
“You knew Ron?”
“Went to school with him. And you.” He gave me an awkward grin.
“Sorry.” I scratched my head. “I don’t remember too many people from then.” I cleared my throat. “But that reminds me, I was looking at some pictures online about that Ava Johansson case and I saw you in one shot taken of the search parties.”
“Yeah, I tried to help out a couple times.” He shifted from one foot to the other.
“That’s really nice of you. You had your arm around a guy with a shaved head and he looked really familiar to me. Do you remember who that was?”
“Jay Low. Ron’s older brother.”
“Oh.” That took me by surprise. “I didn’t even know he had a brother.”
We stared awkwardly at each other for a couple seconds.
“Well, I’ve gotta go.”
I said goodbye and watched as he hurried off in the opposite direction.
I headed in the direction of the sporting goods store. I had to pass a buffet restaurant where I’d taken Gramps for his birthday. I thought about him unbuckling his pants because he’d overeaten, and a smile slipped onto my face before I could stop it.
Get outta my head, Gramps.
I was itching to leave this mall now and all that this town represented to me. At the sporting goods store I found two people who’d worked with Ron and remembered him. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could tell me except that he was a nice guy and everybody liked him. One of them mentioned that Ron liked to use his employee discount to stock up on the best hiking stuff and that even with the discount it still cost him a lot. The clerk showed me a pair of hiking boots Ron had purchased just prior to the whole Ron and Ava fiasco. They were nearly five hundred bucks. The ransom money would buy a helluva lot of gear. Still, some fine Gore-Tex boots and an exotic location to wear them didn’t seem like good enough motivation to hold Ava for ransom to the tune of a hundred thousand.
Although I nearly died at the price of the boots, I didn’t leave the store before trying them on for myself. My feet felt amazing. If I ever got beyond the less skilled hikes, I would have to come back and buy a pair.
I picked up a coffee for the road and made my way back to my Jeep only to find that one of my rear tires was completely flat.
“Shit.” I crouched down and examined the rubber. There was a gash in the sidewall that meant I wasn’t going anywhere with a simple refill of air. “What the hell?”
After making a call to a local tire place I ended up spending more than those hiking boots for a new tire.
“How did it happen?” I asked the guy as I was handing him my credit card.
“Either you swerved this bad boy and kissed the curb pretty damn hard with your tire, or someone sliced it for you.” He handed back my card and a paid invoice. “Looks like a slice to me. Plus look at the back of your trunk. Someone pried that open. While I’m here, I can fix that for you too.”
I went to the back and felt along the back where tool marks showed the back had been popped open and even now wasn’t fully closed.
“You got any enemies?”
The question chilled my blood.
Chapter Six
Besides the fact that I found dead people, my life was pretty simple. I had no friends and no enemies that I knew of but the mechanic’s question still rolled around in my head. Did someone slice my tire and break into my car, if they did, what would be the reason? That kind of behavior felt juvenile and vengeful. The tire guy managed to rig the latch in the back so the trunk could stay closed and then I was on my way.
By the time I was close to home, I’d decided that one of two things had happened. Either I’d sliced the tire on a rock bouncing along the rutted roads in the park earlier in the day, or I’d been the recipient of parking lot rage by maybe parking too close to someone at the mall.
My thoughts on that changed when I pulled into my driveway and was greeted by Wookie bounding down the road to greet me.
“What the hell?”
I slammed the Jeep into Park and jumped out. Immediately, Wookie nearly toppled me over when his massive body slammed into mine. He licked me nonstop and was bouncing around as if to proudly announce that he’d been outside for hours. I looked at him and then at the house. I went through the process of my leaving that morning. Even though I’d been distracted by little Ms. Green Hair, Tracey, there was no way on this planet I’d left the doors wide open, and it was highly unlikely Wookie had spontaneously grown opposable thumbs.
I texted Garrett 9-1-1, which was our code for this-is-hella-important-so-call-me-now. And he didn’t disappoint. My phone rang immediately.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The emotion and fear behind the question made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world for having an FBI officer who loved me even if he did send me groceries like I was too stupid to feed myself.
“I’m fine but I’ve been out all day,
just got back and Wookie greeted me in the driveway.”
That sank in for a beat.
“I take it you didn’t leave him outside?”
“No.”
“Is the door open? Windows broken?”
“Not that I can see. I haven’t gone inside. I’m still in the driveway.”
“Good. Don’t go in the house. Get inside your vehicle and lock the door until I get there. I’m leaving Seattle now.”
I agreed because that sounded like a good idea to me. The last thing I wanted was to walk inside and confront whoever had sprung a furious hundred-thirty-pound Rottweiler without becoming a meal themselves. I eyed Wookie skeptically to see if there were any signs that he’d recently chomped a chunk of ass. He just stared at me panting with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. I kept a spare water dish for Wookie in the trunk for when we went out together. Who knows how long he’d been outside in the heat?
“Thirsty, boy?”
I rubbed his head as I dumped the contents of a water bottle into the bowl and put it in on the floor of the back seat for him. Then we both hopped into the Jeep and I turned up the a/c while I stared at the house. The only sounds were the hum of the vehicle and Wookie noisily lapping up his water in the back.
It was going to take Garrett at least an hour to get here. Was I just supposed to sit here until then? I half expected to see a couple guys come running out my house wearing balaclavas, holding revolvers and carrying sacks of loot over their shoulders. Except I was kind of lootless. No sack of gold and jewels or a safe. They’d be really disappointed. Wookie climbed from the back seat onto the front passenger seat and placed his fat head in front of one of the air-conditioning vents.
“What happened, boy?” I asked.
I’d been sitting and frowning out the window of my car for probably ten minutes when a bright green Hyundai pulled up behind me.
“Now what?”
Tracey jumped out of the car carrying a square pink box and approached my Jeep.
I rolled down the window and forced a smile. “Hey.”
“Hi there.” She grinned back. “Looks like I arrived just in time ’cuz you’re just getting home.”
“Um.” I didn’t know what to say so I just looked at the pink box and then up at her face. “Did you forget something?”
“I did!” Her smile grew wider until Wookie growled over my shoulder. She took a step back. “How about I just give you this through the window and be on my way?”
“What is it?”
“Cake,” she announced proudly.
“Cake?” I blinked at her, trying to understand.
“Yeah, when your guy called in your grocery order he asked us to bring you a cake but we didn’t have any proper birthday cakes done up yet on account of our baker was late getting in so I figured, what the hell, I might as well drop it off on my way home when I’m off shift.”
“A birthday cake?” I parroted. I was tempted to roll my eyes and make a loud raspberry sound of annoyance but she looked so damn proud of herself I just said, “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Well, it was your guy who ordered it and obviously you can’t have a birthday without cake now, can you?”
Apparently that wasn’t true because I’d actually never had a cake for my birthday before. Ever. We didn’t do birthdays growing up and I didn’t do them now either. I’d asked Garrett not to make any kind of a big deal about the day. He’d followed my request for no gifts but apparently cake was exempt.
“Do you feel like you missed out on part of your childhood because you didn’t have the usual gifts and celebrations? Christmas? Birthdays?”
“Everybody in the world is born. It’s stupid to celebrate something we can’t even control.”
“You okay? Your face got all weird.” Then Tracey’s jaw dropped and her eyes grew big. “Holy shitake mushroom, did I just ruin some kind of surprise?”
“No, you didn’t.” I shook my head. “I didn’t know Garrett asked for a cake. I’m surprised because I honestly don’t usually make a big deal out of birthdays.”
“That’s silly.” She made a face. “Why not whoop it up and holler just because you’re alive?”
When I didn’t reply and Wookie kept growling she took a hesitant step forward and handed me the cake through the window.
“Enjoy your cake.”
“Hang on.”
Instead of grabbing the cake I rolled up the window and climbed out, leaving the car running so Wookie could have the cool air.
“That sure is nice of you coming all the way out here with cake,” I said. “I... I um...” I looked at the Tracey and then after blowing out a long breath told her the truth. “I came home to find Wookie out of the house. Somebody let him out so that means somebody broke in.”
“No shit?” She looked at the house and then looked at me. “And on your birthday of all days!” She looked personally affronted by this. “I had a boyfriend forget my birthday one time. Not even a card so, obviously, I had to kick him to the curb but this—” she waved at the house “—is a much worse birthday kick in the ass than that.”
It was comical how she seemed perfectly outraged and aghast that such a thing had happened on my birthday. I almost giggled at her reaction but managed to hold it in.
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“It sucks big-time.” She nodded.
“It sucks harder than an anteater at a picnic.”
“That’s lame.” She laughed. “So you’re just waiting in your car until you get the nerve to go inside? Should we call the cops or something?”
“I’m just waiting for Garrett to come and check the place out and make sure everything is okay before going inside, but he’s coming from Seattle so it’ll be a bit.”
“I’ll just call the cops instead. That’ll be quicker.” She thrust the pink box in my hands and dug out her phone.
“No!” I nearly shouted and she eyed me curiously. “Because Garrett is kind of well, he’s law enforcement, so...” I smiled awkwardly. “I’d just rather it be him because maybe it’s nothing, you know?”
She nodded slowly but I could tell she didn’t get it at all. “Well, it’s too bad on account of now we’ll just have to sit here and eat that cake because we can’t just sit here and do nothing else.”
I blinked in surprise and then pointed out the obvious that we didn’t have any forks or knives or anything and she said something resembling “Pshaw” and went to her car and retrieved about a dozen fast-food napkins from the console and an uncomfortably large kitchen knife from under the seat of her car. Then she marched these things over to a small shade tree a few feet away from the driveway and plopped herself down in my grass, leaving me no choice but to follow with the cake.
She popped the lid of the cake box then handed it to me and said “Smile.” Using her phone she snapped a picture of me staring down at the white birthday cake with the pale blue buttercream frosting flowers that looked like the typical birthday cake others always received. It said Happy Birthday Julie in pink icing across the middle. I found myself blinking back tears until Tracey stabbed it with her large knife of questionable cleanliness. She carved out a large slice of cake and handed it to me on a stack of napkins.
“Of course, you get a flower and part of your name because it’s your cake. That’s the rule.”
“I had no idea there were rules about cake.”
“Not all cake. Just birthday cake.”
Tracey sawed off a hunk for herself and I watched her stuff cake into her own mouth before attempting it myself. It was so sweet it hurt my teeth but I managed to eat the entire large slice, blue flower and all in record time.
“What’s your cell phone number?” she asked when she was sawing off another slice of cake for each of us. I hesitated and she rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna send you the pict
ure of you with the cake so you can post it or whatever. Maybe you want it for a memento of the day, you know?”
I rattled off my number and thanked her when seconds later I received the picture of me staring incredulously at the boxed cake.
Eating large quantities of cake on my front lawn with a stranger while my house may have been burgled was a strangely intimate thing. We sat staring at the house with the icing-covered knife between us ready to slice cake or a robber. The sun and sugar relaxed me enough to try and talk to Tracey and not be weird.
“So you got your car fixed. That’s good.”
“Yeah it was just some thingamabob,” she replied. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven today.”
“Same!” she exclaimed like this gave us a connection on a new level. She tilted her head and looked at me. “You don’t act twenty-seven. Or talk it. I woulda guessed you to be, like, thirty or something.”
“How does twenty-seven act?”
She thought about that. “Like everything is still possible instead of impossible and like birthdays are still a big deal because it’s not like you’re sixty or something. What did you do last year?”
I was in the loony bin this time last year. “Not much.” Three hundred thirty-one. I changed the subject. “I like your rings.”
“They’re finger splints. I have a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers Danlos. My joints randomly pop out and I’m super bendy.” She looked at me stone faced. “Guys seriously love it but it also kind of sucks because it hurts like a bastard.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“What’s our plan for if some crazed guy comes running out of your house?”
“Well, we could stab him with your cake knife. If he didn’t die from the wound, he’d probably get diabetes. It’s a slower way to go though.”
A Grave Search Page 10
