With trepidation, Laura pulled the shower curtain open a few inches.
She gasped at what she saw.
Martha’s nude body was curled up in the tub. Her head was close to the drain, resting on her bent arm—the one with the Winnie-the-Pooh tattoo. The shower’s spray washed away the blood that leaked from an ugly gash in her forehead. Her eyes were half open, and Martha had a listless, dazed look on her face.
It looked as though she must have slipped and hit her head—maybe on the faucet.
But was it really an accident?
Horrified, Laura couldn’t move or breathe. But then, behind her, she heard a door squeak.
She swiveled around. The closet door in the bedroom was half open. It wasn’t like that before. She was practically certain of it.
Laura bolted out of the bedroom, through the front hallway and out the door. She shut the door behind her. But she was convinced someone was still chasing her. She could almost hear the footsteps in back of her. Racing down the walkway, she frantically groped inside her purse for her keys. One of the twenty-dollar bills flew out, but she didn’t care. She just kept running. She unlocked the car with the device on her key fob, opened the driver’s door, and jumped inside.
With her heart pounding furiously, she peeled away from the curb and sped down the street. In her rearview mirror, she didn’t spot anyone following her. But she didn’t slow down—not for several blocks, not until she was practically at the ferry terminal. She checked the rearview mirror again and didn’t see any cars—not yet, at least.
Up ahead, the 7:10 ferry was already loading.
Laura didn’t know what to do. If she went to the police right now, she’d end up endangering her family. But she couldn’t just drive away. She paused at the ferry terminal entrance.
She wasn’t certain anyone had actually been chasing her. But she was almost positive that Martha’s death was no accident. The timing was just too much of a coincidence.
Up ahead, only four cars were left in the line of vehicles driving onto the ferry to Anacortes.
Wincing, Laura pulled forward to the ticket booth. With a shaky hand, she pulled out her round-trip ticket and showed it to the man.
* * *
Mr. Pecan Waffle was the last one to board the ferry, and he took his time about it. He waited until one more traveler—in a minivan—drove onto the vessel after the woman in the Toyota Sienna. Then he pulled up to the booth, paid for his ticket, and cruised onto the car deck. He stayed inside his BMW. He was pretty certain she couldn’t see him parked behind the minivan.
In the cup holder, he had his smartphone on speaker. From the license plate on the Sienna, his work partner already had the driver’s name and address: Laura Gretchell on Rural Route 17 in Leavenworth. Google gave even more information on the woman, thanks to a fluff piece in the Wenatchee World. She was Mrs. Sean Gretchell, formerly of Seattle. She and her husband had three children, and they’d recently purchased a winery in Leavenworth. Laura was a former teacher.
“The article doesn’t say anything about her being a reporter,” his friend told him.
That meant she had been lying to him—and lying to the waitress at the Last Sunset Café.
Of course, he’d lied to her, too, especially when he told her that he didn’t recognize the sketches of his work partner.
This Gretchell woman had slipped away from him once before. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.
He intended to keep following her—even if she took him all the way back to the winery in Leavenworth. She’d told him that she hadn’t sketched those pictures, so he needed to find out who had drawn them. Those pictures were worth a lot to him and his partner. He wanted them. And like many serious art collectors, he considered it advantageous to deal with work by artists who were dead.
They couldn’t afford any loose ends. It was why they’d gotten rid of the waitress.
With this one—and maybe her artist friend—he’d make it look like another accident.
* * *
“No, you’re not calling the cops,” Vic said on the other end of the line. “I thought I made that clear.”
Parked on the car deck, Laura sat at the wheel of her Sienna. She had the cell phone to her ear. The ferry had left the dock about five minutes before. “Vic, listen to me,” she said. “I just want to call nine-one-one, give them Martha’s address, and tell them she’s dead. Then I’ll hang up. We can’t just leave her lying there in the tub.”
“Why the hell not?” he said. “If you call the cops, they might be able to trace the location of your cell. You could end up having a reception committee waiting for you when the ferry pulls into Anacortes. Forget it.”
“Is Joe there?” she asked. “Is he listening in, because this is more for him than you.”
She heard muttering. Then Joe came on the line: “Is it true about Martha?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. Joe, I know you were hoping she had some proof that you didn’t kill the Singletons. But her dying this way just when she was ready to sell me information about the murders, it’s too much of a coincidence. It proves what you said. Between the so-called accidents that killed Eric Vetter and now Martha, and Scott Singleton’s penchant for using roofies on unsuspecting teenagers, there’s obviously some sort of cover-up going on. This church Messenger, Courtney Furst, has disappeared, so either she’s dead or she’s in hiding. If the police knew about this, they wouldn’t be so quick to assume you’re guilty of the murders. Don’t you see, Joe?”
“I just can’t believe she’s dead,” he murmured.
“Joe, even your doctor from the institute thinks you’re innocent. I read an article while I was at the university library this afternoon, and he said he couldn’t see you intentionally harming anyone except yourself.”
“Dr. Halstead said that?”
“Yes, he did. If you turn yourself in and let me talk to the police, they’ll probably start searching for Courtney. They’ll start investigating other reasons for the Singleton murders, reasons that have nothing to do with you.”
“What about Zared? He’s the one who killed them, I’m sure of it . . .”
“The police would start looking for him, too—if you turned yourself in. Courtney’s roommate said the same man in your sketches came looking for Courtney. She’ll be able to back up your story.”
“He’s not turning himself in,” Vic piped in. “And we don’t need your goddamn advice.”
Laura clutched the steering wheel with one hand and took a deep breath. “Vic, take anything you want from the house. Take my mother’s car and go. Just leave my family alone. Joe will stay behind and make sure no one calls the police for as many hours as you need. And once we know you’re far enough away that the police can’t find you, Joe will turn himself in. It’s a good deal for everyone, Vic. If you really care about Joe—”
“Screw that, and screw you,” he barked.
“I get it, Vic,” she said. “You don’t want to be alone. You were a fugitive alone after you broke out of the institution. But then you helped Joe escape from that hotel where the police had him. To hear Joe tell it, you made him escape, and then you weren’t alone anymore. You had a partner. You were on the lam with your friend like a couple of outlaws, like Butch and Sundance. You’ve gotten him deeper and deeper into trouble so you won’t have to be alone . . .”
“Vic, what’s she talking about?” she heard Joe ask.
“She sounds like one of those quacks at the country club,” he said. “Who do you think you are, analyzing me? You were spouting the same bullshit yesterday. You want to hear what sounds like a sweet deal to me, lady? I take what I want, I kill everyone in the house, and then Joe and I hit the road in the old bag’s car. Same plan, but no witnesses.”
“You can’t do that,” she said, trying to hide the panic inside her.
“What’s stopping me?”
“Me,” she heard herself say. “As long as I’m out here, you can’t touch me. And I’m coopera
ting with you—for now. But if you hurt my family, Vic, I’ll have the police on your ass so fast, you won’t know what hit you. If you’re smart, you’ll consider that deal, just the way I offered it. Think about it, Vic. Now, please put my daughter or my mother on the phone.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Vic?”
Another moment passed. Laura wondered if the very next thing she’d hear would be a gunshot.
She clutched her stomach. “Vic?”
Someone came on the line. “Laura? Honey, are you okay?”
“Mom? Oh, Mom, for a minute there, I thought . . .” she trailed off.
“The kids and I are all right. We’re hanging in there. How are you?”
“Oh, God, Mom, I’m such a wreck. I was just in this woman’s house. She said she had some information for me . . .” Laura realized her mother didn’t need to hear about a murdered waitress—not now. She had enough on her plate at the moment, looking after three terrified children.
Laura took a deep breath. “I can tell you about it when I see you. I should be home in about three hours, maybe closer to four if the pass conditions are bad. How are you really? Have they still got you all locked up in Sophie’s room?”
There was no answer. Laura realized she’d been talking to no one for a while. It was a horrible feeling.
“Mom?”
She didn’t hear anything for another few excruciating moments.
Vic came on the line. “Y’know, we asked you to do one simple thing for us today, and you failed miserably.”
Then he hung up.
Laura clicked off. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
Every time she hung up after talking with her family, she thought it might be the last time.
She wanted so much to call the police about Martha, and yet she couldn’t. She hated to think that Vic was right. But if she called the police and they tracked her down, they’d never let her go home. Martha was dead and there wasn’t anything Laura could do for her.
She had to think about her family.
Her only hope at this point was Joe. She told herself that Joe would never let Vic hurt any of her children—or her mother. If only she could get through to him about turning himself in to the police.
Maybe someone else could get through to Joe.
Laura grabbed her purse and climbed out of the car. Locking the Sienna with the device on her key fob, she hurried up the narrow, gray stairwell toward the passenger deck. Just minutes before, she’d been worried someone was following her. But she’d forgotten about that for now.
On the passenger deck, she saw a heavyset, pretty young woman with long brown hair sitting alone, staring at her smartphone.
A bit out of breath, Laura plopped down in the seat across from her. The girl looked up.
“Hi,” Laura said. “Would it be possible to borrow your phone for just five minutes? It’s kind of an emergency. I need to look something up, and all I have is this thing . . .” She took the pay-as-you-go phone out of her purse and showed her.
The girl seemed hesitant.
“If you don’t trust a total stranger with your phone, I understand.” Laura reached into her purse again and pulled out two twenties. “Tell you what. I’ll give you forty bucks if you look up a couple of things for me . . .”
The girl stared at the money. “What do you want me to look up?”
“I need the contact information for a Dr. Halstead at the Western Washington Psychiatric Institute in Marysville. And then I need directions to the Institute.”
The girl stared at her for another moment—as if Laura might want to check herself in once she’d driven to the institute. Then with a sigh, the girl reached across the table and took the forty dollars. She started working her thumbs over the keypad of her phone. “How do you spell Halstead?” she asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tuesday—7:26 P.M.
Leavenworth
“You got me into trouble,” Vic said, smirking at her. He rubbed the back of his head. “I’ve got this goose egg, and nobody’s talking to me—all because of you.”
Sophie said nothing. She set a basket of bread and a plate of butter on the lazy Susan in the center of the round breakfast table.
Vic sat there alone, drinking expensive wine from a juice glass. The table was set for six, because he’d insisted they all eat dinner together—like a family. Obviously, he hoped to amuse himself in some perverse way, the sadist.
Sophie’s grandmother was just taking the chicken casserole out of the oven. Joe, Liam, and James were in the family room watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on some cable station with tons of commercials. But that didn’t matter, just as long as the movie kept James entertained and quiet.
Since assaulting her, Vic had been more intolerable than ever. He’d been acting like what he’d done was nothing. To him, it was all just a little misunderstanding. A half hour after attempting to rape her, he’d let everyone out of the bedroom so she and her grandmother could get dinner started.
“Hey, now, don’t get all pissy with me just because I wanted to have a little fun,” he’d said, grinning at Sophie as she’d passed him in the hallway. She’d barely been able to keep from spitting in his face. She’d kept moving toward the stairway and refused to even glance at him.
The whole family had been giving him the silent treatment. “Well, looks like I’m in the doghouse with everybody here,” he’d announced at one point—like a dad who had just announced the family vacation had been canceled.
Sophie and her grandmother had been in the kitchen getting dinner started when her mother had phoned. What Sophie had understood from hearing one end of the conversation was that someone had been killed, someone who was supposed to have given her mother information that would have cleared Joe’s name in the Singleton murder case.
It had come as a shock to Sophie.
Until hearing about this new death, her one solace had been that at least her mother wasn’t in danger. As long as she wasn’t stuck here inside the house with these two murderers, her mom would be okay.
But that really wasn’t true anymore.
Vic had allowed only her grandmother—and no one else—a few seconds on the phone with her mom. Sophie wished she’d gotten a chance to talk with her. Unfortunately, her grandmother didn’t realize how important each phone call was. She didn’t know about the word codes Sophie and her mother had worked out together.
Now, Sophie had no idea what to do.
Maybe her mother was ready to “say a prayer” for them. But Sophie couldn’t imagine her mom calling the police without bracing her for it first.
At this point, Sophie felt their chances for survival didn’t look good at all, way below the twenty percent her mother had projected last night.
Sophie didn’t want to believe it, but from what she’d overheard Vic say, it sounded as if Joe had indeed murdered that whole family. Now, every time she set eyes on Joe, she thought: he’s a murderer.
She glanced at him in the family room, sitting alone on one end of the sofa, a look of concentration on his handsome, boyish face as he watched the television. James was squeezed in next to Liam on the other end of the couch. Even her baby brother now seemed to realize the guy was poison. It was strange to see the three of them looking so serious while cartoon voices and zippy music filled the family room.
Vic was now on his third glass of cabernet. As Sophie left him alone at the table and started back into the kitchen, she had a feeling he’d only become more surly and dangerous if he kept up the drinking. Then again, maybe they’d get lucky and he’d pass out.
“Dinner’s ready,” her grandmother announced.
“Get in here, guys!” Vic called. “Leave the TV on!”
In the kitchen, Sophie’s grandmother heaped hearty portions of chicken casserole on each plate. It had pasta, a Frito crust, and a ton of butter—heart-attack comfort food. Maybe her grandmother thought Vic would mellow out and fall asleep
if he had a full stomach. Sophie carried the first two servings around the counter to the breakfast area. She put the plates down at Vic’s and Liam’s spots. Then she stopped to help James into his booster chair. Joe sat down next to Vic on one side, and Liam had volunteered to occupy the chair on the other side of him. Sophie knew he was doing it so that she wouldn’t have to sit next to the son of a bitch.
“Hey, Lee-ham, get me a glass of water,” Vic said.
“I’ll get it,” Sophie murmured.
“No, let Lee-ham fetch it. I don’t trust you, princess, not anymore. You’d spit in it.”
Liam got up from the table and went into the kitchen with her. “I’ll spit in it for you,” he said under his breath.
“No, don’t take any chances,” she whispered.
She heard Vic clear his throat. “Joe, on second thought, go turn off the TV,” he said. “That cartoon shit’s getting on my nerves.”
Sophie heard the TV go off. She, Liam, and their grandmother came around the kitchen counter at the same time Joe returned to the table. Vic was already eating—and guzzling his wine. Liam set the glass of water on his place mat.
Everyone sat down, and Sophie’s grandmother made the sign of the cross. Sophie’s family usually didn’t say grace unless it was some kind of sit-down dinner with her grandmother. So she and Liam went along with their grandmother as she prayed out loud: “Bless us, our Lord, and these, thy gifts . . .”
Joe looked embarrassed that he’d already started eating. With his mouth full, he sat there, not moving and not chewing until her grandmother said, “Amen.”
But Vic kept stuffing his face throughout the prayer.
“This is really delicious, ma’am,” Joe said after finally swallowing the mouthful of food.
Her grandmother seemed to force a cordial smile for him, and then she started eating. Except for the clanking of silverware, it was quiet for a few moments.
Sophie noticed Vic smirking.
Something was wrong. For a few moments, he’d been alone at the table with James—and two plates of food: his own and Liam’s.
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