Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen

  “Dan saw your photo on the Lighthouse Web site,” she said. “Always looking for fresh faces.”

  “I was a little concerned,” she said, “but I went to your site and saw that he represented a lot of different girls.”

  “Oh, yes. One of our girls might be on America’s Next Top Model next season,” she said.

  Mercedes asked if she’d be coming with her parents or a chaperone. “No worries if you do,” Mercedes said. “Just, sometimes they get in the way. Good intentions can ruin things. Not everyone understands the process. No nudity, of course, but some of the shots will be slightly provocative. Wholesome but sexy.”

  Paige understood where Mercedes was coming from. She felt Queen Mother Maggie Thompson would put a halt to things before they got started, saying that modeling was not in keeping with the Fathoms image. Her parents, on the other hand, would tell her to get her head out of the clouds and focus on reality.

  Maybe a job at Wal-Mart?

  “Bring your laptop,” Mercedes said. “That way we can download some test shots right away.”

  Paige played the conversation over in her head Sunday afternoon as she pulled her red beater Datsun into the parking lot of the Poplars. There was no risk. Mercedes sounded so nice. At the worst, she’d get some test shots that she could upload on her Facebook when she got home.

  “Paige?” a voice called out as she emerged from her car.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Mercedes. Dan’s running late. He’s at Red Robin having lunch. We’re supposed to go meet him there.”

  Paige started for her car.

  “We can take mine,” Mercedes said. “We’re coming back here anyway to take test photos.”

  Paige looked admiringly at the silver yin-and-yang necklace that hung from Mercedes’s neck.

  “It’s special, isn’t it?” Mercedes smiled.

  Paige reached over and touched it. “I’m a silver girl too,” she said.

  “My husband bought it for me. Handmade. I just love the things he does for me.”

  “You’re lucky,” Paige said.

  “We all are,” she said, not meaning a word of it. “Lucky as can be.”

  Paige Wilson craned her slender neck. “Hey, I think you missed the entrance to the Red Robin,” she said.

  “Oh, dear,” Mercedes said. “I’ll turn around up ahead.”

  Paige shrugged. “No problem.”

  The car pulled into an office park that had been built to resemble the feed silos of a farm and circled around the empty buildings.

  Paige crinkled her nose. “What’s that smell?”

  “Just a second,” Mercedes said.

  From behind the passenger seat, a hairy hand with a chloroform-soaked cloth came at her.

  There was no struggle.

  With the exception of Midnight Cassava, there hadn’t been much of a struggle with any of them. Celesta had fought a little. Skye had fallen into darkness with the second breath. Midnight had put up a tough-chick fight by the elevator. That had been messy. Carol had slumped like a sack of flour to her garage floor. And now Paige Wilson looked like she’d fallen asleep after a long car trip.

  Melody turned in her husband’s direction as he returned the cloth he’d used to subdue Paige to a Ziploc bag. He was grinning, and she knew she’d pleased him. Still, she had to ask anyway. His approval meant everything.

  “Are we good, babe?”

  “Always. Let’s go back to her car. You can drive it home. I’ll take her.”

  Kendall Stark smoothed out the wrinkles in the pale blue blanket that enveloped Cody as she tucked him in. The blanket’s edges were frayed, and she noticed how Steven had repaired it with iron-on batting tape. She wondered when he’d done that. She wondered if the case that was ripping her apart had stolen other small moments of family life that she’d never even known about. All she could think about was the Cutter. Her mind was swirling with the thoughts of the case, the missteps she’d made, the anguish she’d been unable to lessen. As her son’s sleepy eyes began to shut, she thought about his innocence—and the innocence of those who’d died at the hands of the serial killer. He was unaware of the evil of the world. That was, she thought, a beautiful thing.

  The one gift that autism had given him. The only gift.

  With Cody asleep, Kendall kissed his warm forehead and headed toward the door. The evenings always went like that. Her phone buzzed, and she ignored it.

  Serenity snapped her phone shut. In a way, she was relieved that Detective Stark hadn’t answered. She’d make up an excuse if Detective Stark asked her later why she’d called. In the split second it took for her to push her speed-dial and get the detective’s voice mail, she’d begrudgingly found herself sliding down a slippery slope.

  She’d never forgive herself for doing so.

  The odd voice who’d called her moments before had said only sixteen words:

  I’m going to pick up your little beauty queen and take her for a test ride.

  It was a threat. And a chillingly specific one at that.

  Chapter Fifty

  March 29, 7 p.m.

  Port Orchard

  Deana Wilson was fuming in her granite slab kitchen. She and Brent, her land-use-planner husband, had dinner plans at the Boat Shed in Bremerton, and Paige was nowhere to be found. Deana had received a text message from her daughter the day before, indicating she’d be spending Sunday with a girlfriend, then going off to school the next morning.

  At forty-two, Deana was a gorgeous woman with a sophisticated bob haircut and teeth so white, they glowed in the dark. Her beauty had been passed on to her daughter. Thankfully, for Paige, not her self-centered tendencies.

  You can be so thoughtless, Paige! Deana thought as she paced the cream and sand living room. You should have been home hours ago!

  She called a number of Paige’s girlfriends, but no one had a clue where the teenager was. Next she took a seat on a kitchen bar stool, looked out at the rippling wake of a passing ferry, and dialed Maggie Thompson. Deana told her that Paige hadn’t come home from school and how she’d repeatedly tried her cell, but there had been no answer.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie, I’ve checked the calendar, and I don’t see any Fathoms event for today.”

  “We have one scheduled for Olalla Elementary a week from Monday,” Maggie said. “That’s up next. Nothing today.”

  “I have that one marked down,” Deana said, looking at the Currier & Ives calendar that hung by the corn-yellow wall phone that Brent had never got around to taking out when the family went cellular. Deana made a mental note to remind him to take care of it. A phone was not a kitchen accessory unless it was a charming antique. A corn-yellow wall-mounted Princess phone missed that mark by a mile.

  “Did you try Danica and Taylor-Marie?” Maggie said, referring to the two Fathoms princesses. Danica Moses had been the batik artist, and Taylor-Marie Ferguson had read the haikus.

  “Yes, I called them first. They have no idea where she is.” For the first time Deana let a tone of worry enter the conversation. “Maggie, they told me that they didn’t see her in school today.”

  “Don’t fret. I’m sure she’s all right. I’ve worked with a lot of these girls, and they can get pretty touchy. It isn’t easy being a queen, you know.”

  It was a not-so-sly reference to the fact that Maggie had once held the title herself.

  “I know,” Deana said. “But honestly, that girl can be so insensitive. She’s so selfish.” She paused. “You know what I mean.”

  Maggie sighed into the phone. “Yes, I do. Not as bad as 2003, but our Queen Paige is giving us a moment or two.”

  Deana Wilson thanked Maggie and hung up.

  Queen or not, when she gets home, Paige is going to get it, she thought.

  An hour later Brent came home and immediately dialed the Port Orchard Police.

  “You know something, Deana?” Brent said, while shaking his head as they waited to give a description of their missing daughter.
“If she’s run away, I’m going to blame you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  Brent couldn’t stop himself. “If there’s a more self-centered mother on the planet, I haven’t seen any evidence of it. Just so you know.”

  Deana averted her gaze.

  A twinge of shame with a capsule dose of reality?

  She didn’t say a word.

  Kendall carried her phone away from the sofa where she, Steven, and Cody had been curled up, munching buttered popcorn and watching a DVD. She hated the intrusion of a phone call, but it was urgent and it was Josh.

  “Heads up on a missing girl,” he said.

  She slowly let the air leak out of her lungs as she got up and walked to the privacy of the kitchen. “Oh no. Tell me.”

  “This year’s Fathoms queen, Paige Wilson. Parents don’t know if she ran away or what. Port Orchard Police are working it but want an assist.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Sunday,” she said.

  “Right. That’s what I thought.”

  “Nothing for us tonight. But tomorrow, first thing, we can give the Port Orchard guys a hand.”

  Kendall went back to the TV, and Cody took his place in her lap.

  “Everything all right?” Steven asked, knowing by the look on her face it wasn’t.

  “We don’t know. Might be looking at another victim.”

  Steven showed his concern by patting her hand.

  “Jesus, babe,” he said softly.

  She nodded and put her fingers to her lips. She didn’t want to talk about it just then. It was all she could think about, though. Whatever was showing on the TV was invisible to her.

  If Paige Wilson had been taken by the Cutter, her nightmare had only just begun.

  It beckoned. The tiny tear in the aluminum foil over the window was an invitation to do what he’d been told never to do. It took about thirty seconds to decide to once more break one of the biggest family rules. Max Castile wasn’t tall enough to see through that window without a boost, but he was smart enough to roll the wagon his father had him use to haul wood next to the mobile so he could step up to see what was making those noises.

  To see for sure what he imagined was going on inside the mobile.

  Max climbed up onto the wagon. It teetered as its wheels sank into the damp soil. He squinted. Getting a good look wasn’t easy. It was frustrating. It was like trying to line a thread through the eye of a tiny needle. He moved his head from left to right to try to capture what it was. He could make out his father’s beefy frame, naked save for a black hood over his head. Tattoos from his tour with the Navy, an anchor and a dagger that curled around his shoulder, were shiny with sweat. Seeing his dad like that seemed so wrong; he averted his eyes for a second. He could make out another leg, also naked, but he could not see who it belonged to.

  “No,” came a muffled whimper.

  Max just stared, his eyes glued to the fragments of flesh he could see move in and out of the view through the slit in the foil.

  They looked like the menacing figures on the magazines he’d seen in the Navy footlocker.

  Max twisted his neck and pressed his face against the glass, looking at the figure on the mattress. His heart rate quickened as the boy processed what he was seeing. He climbed off the wagon and went toward the house.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  March 30, 9 a.m.

  Port Orchard

  It was slightly foggy when Kendall Stark showed up at Maggie Thompson’s two-story wood frame house on Baby Doll Road, up Mile Hill Road from downtown Port Orchard. The queen mother had been in the middle of a quilting project when she answered the door. She carried strips of aqua and green pieces of fabric in her slightly nicotine-stained fingers.

  “The piece I’m working on for my grandson is called ‘Under the Sea,’” she said, leading Kendall into a living room cluttered with fabric, batting, and a large tracing that laid out the scheme she was following, a quilt depicting King Neptune and various sea creatures in gaudy hues.

  “Pretty,” Kendall said, gently scooting aside a stack of rumpled material to take a seat on a tan leather recliner.

  Maggie grinned, her teeth a buttery yellow. “I won a rosette last year at the fair, so I’m pretty good at this.”

  “I can see that,” Kendall said, indicating the gold and blue ribbon hanging above the jumbled fireplace mantel. Before Maggie could launch into quilting tips, Kendall quickly turned to the reason she’d called for an interview appointment.

  “Did Paige say anything to you that will help us find out where she’s gone?”

  “At first I figured she just skipped school and went to Seattle for the day. A lot of these kids around here do. They complain about how boring Port Orchard is and how there’s nothing to do. Boring here, you know. Pepsi?”

  “No thanks,” Kendall said as Maggie popped open a can of diet soda. “If she was bored, did she say where she’d go?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Look, I’ve been doing this Fathoms gig for years, and one thing I’ve learned is, you can’t trust these girls one iota. Over the years they’ve gotten more and more deceptive. They say they care about the homeless, the environment, and what have you. All they care about is getting some money and being able to brag they were a beauty queen.”

  Maggie Thompson was on a roll, and Kendall just leaned back and let the woman go on.

  “Paige was a phony. I guess they all are. I honestly don’t know why I bother carting them around, getting them to look classy, when they’re just some backwater girls with no ambition. Not like Shelly Monroe.”

  Kendall knew Shelly Monroe. She was the Fathoms Queen in the late 1970s and used it as a springboard to a semi-successful television career. She’d been a weather girl in Seattle for a few years before landing a long-running gig on a game show on which she rolled oversized fuzzy dice. She had even written an autobiography called Double or Nothing: My Life in the Wacky World of Game Shows.

  “Not everyone is a Shelly,” Kendall said.

  “I get that. But honestly, the girls of the last ten years or so seem to think that everything should be handed to them. They want this. They want that. Their constant requests are so tiring, and there’s no end to them. Can you tell I’m a little burned out?”

  Kendall nodded in agreement. “Yes,” she said, steering the subject back to the reason she was there. “Let’s talk about Paige. Had she said anything at all to you to indicate a problem? Boyfriend troubles? Something she was planning on doing? Anything at all?”

  Maggie sipped her soda and thought for a moment. “I heard her talking to Danica, one of the other girls, about how she wanted to do some modeling. I think she signed up for an agency online….”

  Danica Moses was still bitter that she’d been first runner-up in the pageant and made no bones about it when Kendall found her at her job at the Wendy’s restaurant in the Wal-Mart parking lot on Bethel Avenue. She was a pretty girl with brown eyes and long cinnamon hair that she wore in braids she’d twirled together herself. She wore a blue polo shirt with the word TRAINEE embroidered over the left breast in flamboyant script.

  She sat with Kendall in a booth near the salad bar.

  “I took my duties seriously,” she said. “Paige didn’t. That’s the truth. She didn’t care about winning the title, and I’m glad that she showed her true colors by skipping out.”

  “You don’t seem to like her much, Danica.”

  Danica looked over at her boss, an Indian with piercing dark eyes that reminded her that, despite the police interest, she was still on the clock.

  “Don’t get me started. She just thought she was better than this town, that’s all.” Danica looked around. “Do you think she was even that pretty?”

  Kendall wasn’t there to discuss whether there should be a do-over of the Fathoms Queen pageant. “Pretty enough to win, I guess.”

  Danica made a face. It wasn’t the answer she was ho
ping for. “Well, I love this town,” she said, catching another glimpse of her boss. “I love this restaurant. I would have served my time as Fathoms Queen before doing anything to harm the good name of Port Orchard.”

  Serve her time? Was being a beauty queen like being a prisoner?

  “Maggie Thompson told me that you and Paige talked about a modeling opportunity.”

  Danica’s face went scarlet. “It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t interested in being a model. I want to go to college and get a nursing degree. I actually care about people. Paige was all about the easy way out of Port Orchard. She found some modeling agency on the Internet. I saw it on her laptop. I asked her about it. She didn’t say much.”

  Danica seemed antsy, as if she had to use the restroom or get back to work. Kendall figured the latter. The boss was drumming his knuckles on the gleaming countertop.

  “Well, then, what did she say?”

  “Not much. Like I said,” Danica went on, “she bragged a little like she always did. She thought that she was so much better than the rest of us because she won first place. She picked out an ugly crown, if you ask me.”

  Kendall hadn’t. “Did she say she was going off to meet anyone?”

  “No, she didn’t. I expect she wouldn’t tell me that anyway. You know, in case things didn’t work out. I don’t think she trusted me.”

  On her way back to the office, Kendall ate a hamburger she’d ordered off the Wendy’s dollar menu. It wasn’t that great, but it certainly wasn’t overpriced. If Paige Wilson had gone off to Seattle to meet with a modeling agent, she’d come home soon enough. There was no way to check her laptop to determine which Web site Danica had seen when the two girls were talking about Paige’s modeling plans.