I got up to the bridge and the rods urged me forward. I tried edging left and right but they always pulled me back to the bridge entrance. There was a break in the fence to walk through and enter the bridge deck. I stepped through the fence and started to sweat. My feet shuffled forward a few steps but my legs felt like rubber.
“It’s just an old bridge. It won’t collapse,” I told myself but my feet were like lead and wouldn’t bring me farther.
The Coke and chips in my stomach churned and threatened to come up when I forced myself to go farther.
“Just a few steps,” I muttered. “Just enough to prove she’s here.”
I thought of the killer. What would be the point of him carrying her onto the bridge deck? Just to toss her in the water? I wiped the sweat from my face with my hand as I thought about that. If she’d gone over, the swift-flowing creek would’ve carried her to my right. I backed up onto the safety of brush area before the bridge and I ignored the urge of the rods to continue and, instead, turned my body sideways to squeeze between a tight crop of trees and shuffle down the right embankment.
There she was, lying bent and broken facedown and naked on a boulder in the middle of the creek. Water rushed forcefully on either side of her right hand, trailing a white ribbon in its wake.
Chapter Six
With shaky hands I pulled out my phone and punched in Agent Pierce’s number. The call went right to voice mail.
“Damn!”
I started to text and heard the unmistakable sound of someone walking in the nearby brush. I ran back to the car as fast as I could and, once there, my fingers fumbled with the keys as I panicked to open the car. When I finally got in the driver’s seat I locked the doors and my breath came in ragged gasps as I looked in my rearview mirror. My throat was parched with alarm. I could feel someone’s eyes on me.
Awkward fingers fumbled with the phone as I texted: I found Kari Burke.
I hit Send and tried to take a calming breath but it came out on a strangled sob.
Immediately the phone rang in my hand.
“Where the hell are you?” Pierce barked.
I directed him as best I could. Everything in me wanted to drive far and fast away from this place but I sat and waited. His sedan came screeching up less than ten minutes later. My legs were wobbly as I climbed out of the car to greet him.
“What the hell?”
He stopped short as he looked me over and I realized the difference. I pulled the cap and glasses off and tossed them onto the driver’s seat.
“Where?” he demanded.
I pointed.
“There’s an old bridge down there and she’s...” I swallowed thickly. “She’s under the bridge on a rock.”
He went to leave and I grabbed his arm.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “I heard someone. Maybe you should wait for help.”
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice calm but his eyes sharp. “Wait for me in your car. Lock the doors.”
He pulled a revolver from a shoulder strap under his jacket and continued on toward the bridge. I chewed my thumbnail nervously as I stared intently in my rearview mirror.
“Come on, Pierce,” I moaned.
It felt like he was gone forever but it was maybe five minutes. When I saw him coming up the old road behind I sighed in relief and climbed back out of the car.
“I’m sorry... I’m sorry.” I covered my face with my hands. My entire body was trembling. “I know you didn’t want me to help you anymore but I just couldn’t stay in that room and I thought it couldn’t hurt to at least try.”
Pierce put firm hands on my shoulders.
“It’ll be okay,” he said awkwardly.
To his horror I began shaking uncontrollably. He wrapped me into a hug.
“Sh-h-h,” he whispered into my hair. “You did a very stupid thing coming out here by yourself but it turned out okay.”
I couldn’t speak. Could hardly even breathe. After a few moments I stopped shaking and managed to swallow my emotion enough to regain some of my composure.
He held me out at arm’s length then and ruffled my hair.
“You don’t look half-bad as a blonde.”
I tried to laugh but it came out as a trembling strangled sound.
“It was Jill. The dye, the glasses, the hat.”
“I figured.”
He called for the investigators to come, and once they arrived I told him I was going to head back to the motel.
“Oh no, no, no,” he laughed. “There’s no use in sticking you back there.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “I still have a bag there and my laptop. I’ll return the car and then check out and go back home.”
“You’re not going home either. We’ll figure out something but, right now, you need to wait for me right here,” he said and firmly pushed me back inside the Camry to wait.
“Maybe I should tell Jill,” I remarked.
“Trust me,” he chuckled softly. “She already knows and she’s not at all happy about all the rules you broke. My ears are still burning.”
“Oh.”
After a while a different agent approached the car. He said Pierce was going to be tied up here for hours. He introduced himself as Agent Spence and I had no idea if that was his first or last name and didn’t really care. My head hurt and whenever I closed my eyes I saw Kari Burke’s body.
“I’ve been instructed to drive your car back to wherever you got it and have you pack up at the motel,” Spence told me.
“I can drive,” I said.
“That’s a no. You’ve experienced a trauma here.”
He held his hand out and I felt immense relief when I handed him the keys and walked around to climb into the passenger seat. It was a good thing I wasn’t driving. My hands were still shaky. Once we were back on the interstate he glanced over at the cup holder that held the empty cola can and crumpled bag of chips.
“Was that your lunch? Because I was told to feed you if you hadn’t been fed.”
Like I was a toddler or something. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m fine. There’s food at the motel that Agent Jill brought.”
“Agent Jill, huh. She’s a real pip that one.” He laughed and I guess I was supposed to laugh along but I didn’t.
We traveled along in silence except for Agent Spence’s incessant whistling. We were a couple of miles from the motel exit when I caught him making the sign of the cross as he nodded toward an overpass.
“That’s the spot,” he said.
“What spot?”
“You know, the spot where Agent Pierce’s wife and kid died. Right there.” We were under it now and he was pointing up.
“What happened?” I asked quietly.
“Drunk driver.” He shook his head. “So one minute you’ve got a wife of ten years and a five-year-old boy and then bam it’s gone.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Holy shit is right,” Agent Spence said. “Everyone thought he was going to lose it. We figured all the counseling in the world wasn’t going to make him right in the head after that, but he did all the things you’re supposed to do. He took time off. Let the relatives take care of him a while. Did all the intensive psychotherapy shit they make you do these days, and when he came back he was good as new.” Then he sort of cringed. “Maybe not good as new. Don’t think you can ever be, you know, normal after that kind of shit happens to you.”
“When did it happen?” I asked.
“Four years ago. Maybe five.”
He’d had a five-year-old son. Wow. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that level of pain and grief and couldn’t even touch it. Then I remembered how I’d asked Pierce about his ex-wife and him saying she died and he�
��d just managed to remove the ring not long ago. Sheesh. No wonder he was so...serious. And then he bailed me out of a DUI. That must’ve just rocked his world. I cringed in shame.
We exited the highway and I told Agent Spence where to drive the car. I realized that I hadn’t stopped to fill the tank so when I dropped off the keys I gave Sid an extra ten bucks.
Agent Spence walked me back to the motel and came inside the room.
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him.
“Oh I definitely have to stay.” He laughed. “I was told not to take my eyes off you for a second because you are sneaky.”
Jesus.
So he sat on the chair and ate the last muffin and I made instant oatmeal in the microwave inside a coffee cup and ate it with a stir stick.
“That’s very creative,” Agent Spence said pointing to my oatmeal mug.
I ate my oatmeal in silence. When I was done I washed out the mug and made us some coffee. Agent Spence added three packages of fake sugar to his claiming he needed the caffeine boost but hated the taste.
“How long do you think Kari Burke was on that rock?” I asked.
Spence just shrugged.
“The medical examiner will give us an idea, I guess. I didn’t even get to see the body. There’s a protocol with these kinds of things. Pierce, he’s numero uno on this case so, of course, he’d be there until the ME arrives and then there are other agents who help Pierce on the scene.”
“And you aren’t one of those?”
“Well, sure, but I’m more surveillance. Checking the area. There are only so many people they want tracking through a crime scene.”
I guess that made sense. The room felt smaller with him in it and if I was being moved to another location, I just wanted to be gone. Spence was playing a game on his cell phone so I opened my laptop and continued with sorting all the new emails that arrived. The crazies and threats were still outnumbering any kind of support about a hundred to one.
On the bright side there was another email from Jonas: Guess where I am? The attached picture was him behind the counter at the gas station making a funny face. He said the number of reporters hanging around hoping for a glimpse of the dowsing girl had died down. He also said he was working all my old shifts and trying to save enough money to replace the tooth he had yanked. I replied with a goofy message to him not to eat more chocolate bars than he sold or he’d end up with more missing teeth.
Damn. I missed that stupid job.
Sitting back on the bed I tried to clear my mind and relax but every time I blinked I saw Kari Burke’s naked, broken body draped over the rock.
“I’m having a shower.”
Hoisting my bag that contained my change of clothes I headed for the bathroom. I needed to wash away the vision of Kari Burke inside my head and I ran the shower as hot as I could stand it. The motel had more hot water than my trailer but not enough for any kind of a mind cleanse. When I finally climbed out, the small room was sweltering and steamy. I dried off with the scratchy towels and dressed in new jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt. Because there wasn’t much hair on my head I just dragged my fingers through instead of bothering with a brush. I sat on the closed toilet for a while with my head in my hands. There was an anguished clawing need in my belly for wine to obliterate it all. It wouldn’t take much. Just a bottle or two.
When I stepped out of the bathroom my fingers were still pruned.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d drowned in there.”
It was Pierce, and Spence was gone.
“Where’s Agent Spence?”
“Out doing agent stuff.”
“Oh. How’d it go over at...the bridge?”
He was in the lone chair and I sat on the edge of the bed. His face was drawn and weary. Deep grooves cut around his eyes, aging him.
“It went well, I guess.” He blew out a long slow breath. “I want to make this stop. We need to catch this guy. It feels like I’m just one step behind him.”
The three original girls were now all dead. Sue Torres had been taken just a few days ago.
“Maybe there’s time now. It’s possible he’ll hang on to Sue Torres as long as the others and that’ll give you more time.”
He shook his head.
“He’s speeding things up. He hung onto Luna Quinn and Iris Bell just over three weeks. Kari Burke was only two.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sue Torres is on borrowed time.”
He got to his feet then and nodded to me.
“Pack up. We’re going.”
“Where?”
He didn’t reply, just motioned for me to get moving.
My clothes were already in the duffel but I slid my laptop and map into the bag and then went to the bathroom and got all the little shampoos and soaps. Pierce stopped me when I started to pack up the small amount of food.
“You don’t have to bring all that.” He waved at the instant noodles, oatmeal, granola bars and remaining apple.
“But if I leave it, that’s such a waste.” I ignored him and stuffed it in my bag and then slipped my shoes on.
“Where are we going?” I asked again as we headed out the door.
“Far away from this dump,” he replied, taking my bag from my hands and carrying it himself.
When I climbed into the passenger seat of his car I was surprised to see empty coffee cups strewn on the floor, and an apple core in the cup holder.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said as he buckled up.
“It actually makes me a little glad. I was beginning to think you weren’t human.”
He laughed in a low throaty way that came from a place of debilitating fatigue. And maybe a dash of grief. He’d lost his wife and son and yet here he was. Back to catching the bad guys.
We made our way south toward Seattle. The interstate traffic became thicker as we neared the city. He took the Mercer Street exit, angled onto Fairview then took a right on Virginia. At least if they put me up in a hotel in downtown Seattle there’d be more to do. Not necessarily good things though. A week after graduation I was living a block away from here schlepping drinks at a dive bar and sharing a two-bedroom apartment with a slobby roommate who kept trying to climb into bed with me when I was drunk. I put a lock on my door and, if I was coherent enough to remember, I also moved my small dresser in front of the door before I crashed for the night. That was seven years ago and felt like yesterday.
Agent Pierce drove into the parking garage of a tall condo tower and then parked.
“I guess this is it,” I remarked.
Definitely not the cheapo motel I’d been expecting. Maybe a private FBI place where they kept witnesses. That kind of thing.
He got out of the car, popped the trunk and retrieved my bag. We rode up to the thirtieth floor in silence and then walked to the end of the hall where he pulled out keys and opened the door. The apartment was nice but littered with debris; boxes were piled high in what could’ve been a dining room but there was no table. The small kitchen had light-colored cabinets and stainless steel appliances that looked like they’d never been touched.
“Is this your place?”
“Home sweet home.” He didn’t sound proud of it.
I followed him down a short hall and he opened the door.
“This’ll be your room for the foreseeable future.”
He tossed my bag onto a small bed against the wall. The room looked like it was supposed to be an office but there was only a twin bed and a desk and nothing else.
“There’s a bathroom down the hall.” He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “Help yourself to whatever you need. I’m going to close my eyes for an hour. I’ve been up for days.”
He disappeared into a room down the hall and I just stood there feeling awkward. It was after seven and all
I’d had to eat for hours was that oatmeal in a mug. I didn’t dare go through his cupboards. I grabbed the remaining apple from my bag and a granola bar and took them into the living room along with my laptop and the map. I sat down on the beige microfiber couch and held my laptop on my lap. The coffee table in front of the sofa was covered six inches deep in paperwork—files, newspapers, notes and pictures of dead girls.
Putting the laptop down next to me I began stacking the papers into a neat pile. With the exception of pictures of the missing girls, none of the other paperwork seemed to relate to this case but I didn’t want to snoop through his stacks of notes to see. I put the pictures of the missing girls facedown on top of the pile and pushed the entire stack to one end of the table. Once I cleared a space, I moved the laptop onto the table and while it started up I ate my apple and granola bar. I found the trash bin under the sink in the kitchen and disposed of my apple core and bar wrapper, balancing it precariously on top of an overflowing trashcan.
The laptop was ready to go except for one thing. I didn’t know Pierce’s Wi-Fi password and couldn’t access the internet. Damn. I stared at the flat-screen TV over the fireplace that was covered in a fine layer of dust. I didn’t want to chance turning it on in case it woke him so I just sat there with my hands in my lap looking around. Being in his apartment made me edgy. All those boxes stacked in the dining room were covered in dust too. He hadn’t just moved in. He’d been here a while, escaping wherever he’d lived with his wife and son. I felt like the worst kind of snooping intruder.
Closing the laptop, I opened my road map and looked it over. Two hours later Pierce was still sleeping and I was still looking over the map with eyes that stung with fatigue. It was after ten when a distinct chime sounded from my room down the hall. I frowned and walked swiftly to find the cell phone buried at the bottom of my purse.
It was a message from Jill: Open the door.
I hesitated. She had to know I was no longer at the motel, right?
A Grave Calling Page 13
