“Well, he offered me a hundred bucks for a day-old hospital cafeteria doughnut.”
“That well, huh?”
He patted his pocket with a sly grin. “I’m thinking I found myself a new racket.”
Olivia shook her head at him and smiled, relieved to fall back into the rhythm of their usual banter. Maybe they could pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Is this as disastrous as it looks?” he asked, gesturing to the two-way mirror.
Thomas had retreated to the corner of the room and hidden beneath the table. Dr. Lucy sat in the center of the floor, laboring over a new block tower. “Worse.”
“I thought you said Dr. Lucy was one of a kind. That there was no one else like her.”
“Yeah. Literally. As in the only child psychologist in Fog Harbor. I can’t vouch for her clinical skills.”
Dr. Lucy leaned her head to the side, trying to coax out Thomas. “When scary things happen, it helps to talk about it.”
The boy averted his eyes, curling himself into a ball like one of those roly-poly bugs.
Olivia grimaced at Deck. “I can’t watch this anymore. Thomas looks miserable, and she’s not getting anywhere with him. He’s not ready to talk. Pushing him too hard will only make it worse.”
“How long have they been in there?”
She glanced at her watch, shocked that only fifteen minutes had passed since Lucy had introduced herself as a doctor who talks to boys and girls to help the police catch the bad guys. “Long enough.”
“Alright. We can try again after his aunt gets into town. Maybe a familiar face will be a comfort.” Chief Flack had informed Olivia that she’d contacted Hannah’s sister, Nora, herself. With Hannah and Peter’s parents deceased, Nora was the closest next of kin.
Olivia hurried to the door, fully aware she’d just committed the therapist’s cardinal sin. Letting her own stuff dictate her actions. They had a word for that. Countertransference. But right now, looking at poor Thomas, she didn’t care. The boy needed rescuing. “Would you like me to tell them?”
“I can do it.” Deck stood too, suddenly far too close to her in the cramped observation room. She felt unsteady on her feet, like she might bump into him. Still, she clung to the doorknob, refusing to let him win.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Detective?”
“It sounds like you’re saying it’s not.” He took another step toward her, and she swallowed hard.
“Well, if I remember correctly, Thomas wasn’t exactly fond of you.”
Deck rolled his eyes. “Kids love me. Usually.”
“The evidence would suggest otherwise.”
“Anyway, I brought something for him.” He withdrew a plastic army man from his pocket. “He left it behind last night in the lifeguard tower. I thought it might be his favorite.”
Olivia studied the toy in his palm, feeling guilty for teasing him.
“You really shouldn’t have just run off like that,” he said.
“I ran off for a good reason.”
“Which was?”
His face inches from hers, she felt certain they weren’t talking about Thomas anymore, and it made her cheeks flame. “You know why.”
“I came after you. I was—”
Before he said something he didn’t mean, she fled into the hallway and rapped her knuckles against the solid wood of the interview room door.
Moments later, Dr. Lucy opened the door, holding a block in her hand. She blinked up at Olivia, while Thomas watched curiously from beneath the table. “Is everything okay?”
Olivia lowered her voice, hopeful Thomas wouldn’t hear her discussing him like he wasn’t there. “Detective Decker and I thought it might be better to wait until his aunt has arrived.”
Dr. Lucy closed the door behind her, her sunny disposition darkening. “That child witnessed something awful, and I need more time with him. You can’t expect miracles, Doctor Rockwell. Surely you know that, working with a criminal population. If Thomas doesn’t want to talk, I certainly can’t force him. I’ll need to earn his trust.”
“But perhaps you could try a more directive approach. He doesn’t seem too keen on building block towers.”
She looked down at the block she’d carried out, her cheeks pinkening. “I’ll bring some crayons and paper with me tomorrow. Children communicate more easily through drawing. It’s like a window to the subconscious mind.”
Just then, Thomas tugged on the door, opening it a crack. “Can I go home now?”
Olivia wondered what home he meant.
Eleven
Will returned the soldier to his pocket and stole a moment alone in the quiet observation room. He leaned against the wall, listening to Olivia deliver the news to a frustrated Dr. Lucy, who agreed to return to the station the following day. Then he watched through the two-way mirror as the social worker retied Thomas’s shoelace, took him by the hand, and led him away.
The boy followed along obediently, holding the stuffed dog Olivia had found tangled in the sheets on the bunk bed. At the doorway, he stopped and looked around, lost and confused. Like he’d discovered himself alone on an alien planet.
While Olivia reassured Thomas, Will looked on with recognition. Thomas reminded him of his thirteen-year-old self, the moment he’d realized his mother wouldn’t be coming home. She would never have missed the birthday tradition of marking her boy’s ever-growing height in pencil on the kitchen doorframe. And yet, that year and every year after, it had gone undone. As if he and his brothers had simply stopped growing, frozen in time in 1992. He knew July Fourth would forever be sullied for Thomas. A dark day that would divide his life into the before and the after.
When Will poked his head around the corner, Olivia had gone. So, that settled it. She wanted him to forget all about last night. Fine. He had plenty else to think about besides her kissing him out of the blue. Of course he’d balked. What did she expect? She’d gone and changed her own stupid rules without telling him.
He flopped into his desk chair and began purging JB’s drawers on impulse, anxious for a distraction, for a way to rein in his thoughts that swarmed like bees, flitting from one poisonous flower to another. In an hour or so, he planned to head down to the police garage to watch the crime scene techs examine the burned-out shell of the SUV Peter Fox had rented six days ago. He hoped like hell Fox’s cell phone would be recovered. His wife’s had been located early this morning on what remained of the coffee table. The device, completely melted. Though Will had put in a call to the cell company for the records, it would take at least twenty-four hours to get his hands on them.
Will busied his mind, inventorying JB’s indiscretions. One pack of Marlboros. Two half-eaten Snickers. A bag of Halloween candy Will felt certain JB had stolen from the break room. He popped a peanut butter cup in his mouth in JB’s honor and dumped the rest in the trash can with a sigh, ending the unceremonious burial.
Then he turned his attention to his computer, searching for the website belonging to Peter Fox, attorney-at-law. The sleek web design and glossy photos confirmed what Will had already gleaned. Peter, a private defense attorney, had a booming law practice in Santa Barbara. According to Peter’s bio, he’d cut his teeth in the public defender’s office and prided himself on the relationships he’d maintained there. No wonder he boasted of his ability to secure favorable sentencing terms for his clients. He had an in.
Will scrolled down the page, stopping when a photograph hit him head-on. The entire Fox family, barefoot and clad in white button-down shirts, posed together on the beach in front of Little Gull lighthouse. Arm in arm with matching white smiles, it struck Will as one of those candid photos that’s anything but. In the photograph, Thomas barely reached his father’s knees.
On Hannah’s Facebook page, he located the same image with a worrisome caption: FOXES’ FOURTH OF JULY AT OCEAN’S SONG… SEVEN YEARS AND COUNTING!
Will shook his head at how naive people could be, giving up their life’s details in a p
ublic forum for anyone to mine. His suspect pool, growing larger by the minute. And the Foxes looking more and more like the ideal family. Between the photos of Lily’s ballet recitals, Dylan’s first high school dance, and Thomas’s fourth birthday at Disneyland, Will could find no evidence of trouble in paradise. Even the candid selfies of Peter and Hannah gleamed with the kind of mutual admiration of a couple in a jewelry store commercial.
The ringing of the desk phone startled him. “Morning, Chief.”
“My office, Decker. ASAP. We need to discuss the Fox case.”
Will trudged toward Chief Flack’s office, his legs heavy with the knowledge that he had a dead family, an ailing partner, and no leads. Her door stood wide open, and he stopped short of the threshold in shock. One of the chairs was already taken.
“What’s he doing here?”
“JB’s going to be out of commission for at least a week. You need a partner.”
“Him? Chief, can I speak to you in private?”
With a smirk, Graham Bauer stood and brushed past him as he left the office, forcing Will to step aside. Tonight, Will would be picturing that same smart-ass grin on the heavy bag in his garage. A couple of hard right hooks would set him straight.
As Graham lingered in the hallway, Will entered the office and shut the door firmly behind him. “With all due respect, Chief, you’ve got to be kidding me. Bauer is an overturned conviction waiting to happen.”
She sighed. “I don’t disagree.”
“What about Milner? I sent her to interview Coffman this morning.” Will had texted Jessie on the way over. He hoped the Shells-by-the-Sea security guard could shed light on the timeline between the gunshots he’d heard and the fire at Ocean’s Song.
“Jessie’s sharp. But she’s way too green for this case.”
“C’mon. I can’t work with that guy.” Will resisted the urge to drop to his knees and beg. “It’s a conflict of interest. He punched the victim in the face.”
“According to Graham, it was self-defense. He said Fox came at him.”
“Of course. What else is he gonna say?”
“Listen, I don’t like it any more than you do. But you’re not in San Francisco anymore. This is all small-town politics. Between you and me, Graham’s uncle, Marvin, donated a shitload of money to the mayor’s re-election campaign. And guess who appointed yours truly as chief? Unless you want some other yahoo telling you what to do, we’ve got to keep Marv happy. Which means keeping Graham happy. So, put your big-boy panties on, give him some busy work, and keep him out of trouble. JB will be back in a week’s time at the most. No harm, no foul.”
“I’ll do my best. But I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea. The worst you’ve ever had.”
“Noted.”
Will knew when to keep his mouth shut. Besides, he couldn’t say it out loud. Not without evidence to back it up. But he’d already thought it a hundred times. Graham Bauer was a suspect.
Will returned to find Graham spinning in JB’s desk chair, pontificating to his unamused partner, Jessie Milner. “If you ask me, the old man should call it a day. We have standards to maintain in this department, and he’s what you might call a weak link. To be honest, that porker should thank his lucky stars Chief Flack did away with the yearly fitness test.”
Jessie poked her head over the partition, mouthing save me when Graham turned his back.
Will stopped the chair with a firm hand. “Get up, Bauer.”
Graham didn’t budge. “Hey, Deck. You know, I was thinking that you should come up with a catchy nickname for me, since I am your new partner.”
“Temporary partner. And I already have a few nicknames for you that I can’t repeat.”
“Ouch. Why so salty? You worried I might out-police you?”
Will gritted his teeth. His head already pounding, he took one last swig of coffee and grabbed the keys to the Crown Vic. “Let’s go.”
With a mock salute, Graham finally rose from the chair and fell into step behind him.
When they reached the car, Will stopped and took a breath while Graham waited in the passenger seat. His moment of respite allowed the added advantage of watching Graham suffer in the stuffy hotbox.
“Alright, I’ve got three rules. One, I drive… the car and this investigation. Two, you don’t touch evidence without my permission. Three, you don’t bad-mouth JB. Ever.” As frustrating as JB could be sometimes, he’d grown on Will like a barnacle. Crusty and relentless.
“And what happens if I break the rules?”
Will grinned and produced his cell phone. As he’d left Chief Flack’s office, a text had arrived from JB—Chief told me the news about Tweedledum. Don’t say I never gave you anything—with a link to a video. Will clicked it for the second time and displayed it for Graham, not even trying to contain his glee.
In the frame, Graham sat on a barstool, straining, as he arm-wrestled his partner. A small group of local cops looked on, hooting and cheering. Though he had a good fifty pounds on Jessie, she held his arm upright. While he struggled, she smiled. With a primal grunt, Graham gave it one last try, his celebrated biceps stretching his shirtsleeves. Jessie waited until he’d exhausted himself before she muscled his arm to the counter, raising her hands in victory.
“I’m waiting,” she said, above the drunken whooping. “Make it loud, Bauer.”
Graham stood atop a chair and cleared his throat. “Can I get your attention, please? I’d like you all to know I was just defeated in arm-wrestling by my female partner.”
“And?”
“And in high school, I auditioned to be a member of a boy band.” After video-Graham had belted out the first verse of a Backstreet Boys’ classic, Will hit pause.
“One word, Bauer. Viral.”
Twelve
After leaving the station, Olivia drove to Leah’s on autopilot. She couldn’t shake the image of Thomas’s face, his lip quivering slightly as she’d waved to him from the hallway. He’d barely lifted his small hand before he’d been whisked out the exit door by the social worker. Even now, Olivia rolled her eyes at Dr. Lucy’s psychobabble. A window to the subconscious mind. But she’d been right about one thing: Thomas had seen something. Something that had sent him running for his life.
Olivia stopped short of the crime scene tape blocking off the road to Ocean’s Song and turned into the Shells-by-the-Sea lot. She parked between a police cruiser and a Steadfast Security car and made her way inside to pick up her sister. Already, she couldn’t wait to be home, to collapse onto the sofa for a much-needed nap.
“And you said you heard the shots around nine forty last night?” Jessie Milner sat across the shell-shaped coffee table from Wade, jotting notes onto a pad.
“Yes, ma’am. I was heading back from my patrol around the perimeter of the hotel when I heard three blasts, each about thirty seconds apart. At the time, I thought the sound might be fireworks. But then, I realized the show had already ended. A few minutes later, when I saw the flames, I knew it was the devil’s work.”
Fighting off the impulse to eavesdrop, Olivia continued through the common room to the back porch deck, where Emily had told her she’d be waiting. All of the wooden rockers were taken, with no Em in sight.
“Looking for your sister?” Jake approached from the beach, carrying a picnic basket and a large umbrella, all part of the Shells-by-the-Sea beachside service.
“Have you seen her?”
He pointed in the direction of Ocean’s Song. “She walked off with a beach towel about twenty minutes ago.”
“Of course she did.” Olivia sighed. Since their father had died under suspicious circumstances at Valley View State Prison, the coroner ruling it a suicide, Emily had become even more devil-may-care, like blowing off her classes at San Francisco Art Institute to hang out with her new chic friends in Dolores Park.
Olivia’s shoes sank into the soft sand of Shell Beach as she set off to find Em. The tourists flocked here in droves every summer, laying out their stripe
d beach towels, building castles, and plunging into the waters of the chilly Pacific. While she walked among them, she marveled at the way they frolicked, undeterred by the hulking remains of Ocean’s Song that loomed over them like a dead beast.
In the light of day, the destruction shocked her. While most of the house remained intact, the burned portion faced outward, scarring the otherwise picturesque beachfront. Olivia stopped outside the lifeguard stand and texted Emily again.
Helllooo?
Tired big sister here.
Where are you?
With no immediate response and no sign of her sister, she walked up the beach toward Ocean’s Song, hoping for a closer look. Equal parts drawn and repulsed, she lingered outside the compound.
The gate to the pool stood slightly open, inviting her inside. The crime scene tape that had been stretched across it had collapsed in the wind and lay half-buried in the sand. After a quick glance over her shoulder, she stepped over it and slipped behind the gate, wondering if the killer had exited the house this way. Straight onto the beach and lost in the crowd of revelers leaving the fireworks show, hidden in plain sight.
The pool deck had the scattered look of life interrupted. Several of the lounge chairs had overturned in the chaos of the evening, and remnants of ash floated in the pool alongside a colorful beach ball.
Careful to avoid the shattered glass that littered the wooden planks, Olivia approached the empty window frame. Police tape crisscrossed the gaping hole that had yet to be boarded up by the owner. The charred sofa lay just inside it, spotlighted by a sunbeam, and Olivia stared for a moment, imagining the horrors that had taken place there. Her work as a psychologist had taught her anyone was capable of murder. But to shoot a child in the head, to burn her body, that required the absence of a soul. Poor Lily and Dylan, their lives cut impossibly short in the most brutal way.
From behind Olivia came a whispery-soft sound that raised the hair on her neck and silenced her breath. Even as she blamed the wind, she spun toward it, certain she’d see the killer standing there, ready to silence her as he’d done with the others. The deck was empty; the gate shut. The pool water shimmered beneath the sunlight. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, or the primal undercurrent of fear that came with it.
One Child Alive: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with nail-biting suspense (Rockwell and Decker Book 3) Page 4
