One Child Alive: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with nail-biting suspense (Rockwell and Decker Book 3)

by Kane, Ellery A.

  Olivia moved along the perimeter of the pool, anxious to be rid of this place. She didn’t make it far before she spotted something twinkling at the bottom of the water, where it caught the sun’s reflection.

  The skimmer in hand, she knelt at the pool’s edge and peered down at the object. It glinted like a coin but had a strange inverted U-shape. Perhaps it had fallen into the pool by accident. She had to have a look at it.

  Maneuvering the net deep beneath the surface, she angled for it, scooping it up after a few tries. She laid the pole on the deck and examined her catch—a small, shimmery horseshoe—that would fit in the palm of her hand.

  It made no sense here, at the bottom of a pool in Fog Harbor, and she began to ask herself if it had been left deliberately. But what did it mean?

  A quick Google search told her the horseshoe was a symbol of luck, its crescent moon shape meant to protect against the curse of the evil eye. She sat back on the warm deck and released a shaky breath.

  The Fox family’s luck had finally run out.

  Thirteen

  Crime scene tech Kelly Munroe moved around the shell of the silver SUV snapping photographs of the burned interior, while her partner, Steve Li, had begun the painstaking excavation.

  Fire Lieutenant Hunt greeted Will with a handshake and a weary smile. Graham hung back, exactly as Will instructed, following the rules like a schoolboy. Or a guilty perp flying under the radar. No matter; Will preferred him like this. Quiet, out of the way, and absorbed in his cell phone.

  “Take a look inside.” The lieutenant pointed toward the open cargo space which had been reduced to ash. “As you can probably tell, the fire started here, in the rear compartment. The even burn pattern suggests the use of an accelerant, probably poured along the back and middle seats.”

  Will followed Lieutenant Hunt as he talked, peering in the open doors at the destruction. He found the charred car seat on the rear driver’s side particularly unsettling.

  “Then, the flames spread up to the front of the car. Fortunately, we were able to extinguish the fire before it destroyed the entire front cabin. Your killer didn’t plan on anybody showing up so fast. Not on that road at that time of night. He probably figured most of the town would be occupied for at least another twenty minutes at the fireworks show. In that time, the whole SUV would’ve been destroyed.”

  Turning to Steve, Will said, “Give me some good news, man.”

  “Well, we lifted a ton of fingerprints from the exterior but that’s to be expected with a rental car. Larry, the head mechanic at the police impound lot, took a look-see under the hood. Said he didn’t see any mechanical issues with the vehicle. No reason for the victim to be stopped on the shoulder in the middle of nowhere.”

  Will nodded. Stopped on the shoulder and still seat-belted in, according to Olivia. The SUV’s nose pointed east, away from Ocean’s Song. Peter had been headed somewhere.

  Steve made his way to the driver’s-side door, pointing to a six-inch dent in the aluminum. “Larry also says this appears to be fresh damage.”

  Will examined the indentation, looking for paint transfer. “A fender bender?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. But your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Did you recover anything from the vehicle?”

  Steve gestured to the table beside him, covered in plastic sheeting. The refuse of Peter Fox’s life laid bare. “A cooler, a couple of fishing poles, and a set of Callaway golf clubs. The driver was out of the bag and tossed in the back seat.”

  Will surveyed the items with obvious disappointment.

  “And we found the bullet.”

  “Now you’re talkin’.” Will rubbed his hands together eagerly.

  “It was lodged in the side panel between the front and rear passenger windows.”

  “Caliber?”

  “Looks like a nine millimeter.”

  “Anything else?”

  Steve directed a flashlight into the dark cave beneath the middle row of seats. “Stay tuned.”

  While Will made his way around the vehicle, Graham materialized beside him. “How’s it going, partner? Need a hand?”

  Though Will said nothing to encourage him, Graham stuck to him like a shadow until they’d reached the driver’s door. Then, he craned his neck to see inside it. “Have you looked under this one yet?”

  Will watched in horror as Graham’s ungloved hand advanced toward the seat like a heat-seeking missile. He seized him by the shoulder and pulled him back. “Rule number two, remember?”

  “We already checked there,” Steve said. For a by-the-book tech, he remained remarkably calm. “It’s the first place I looked.”

  “Alright, alright.” Graham took a step back. But as Will fielded his buzzing cell phone, he kept his eyes on him while he found a quiet spot in the corner to answer.

  “Will Decker, Homicide.”

  “Hello, Detective. This is Marcia Russell, Mr. Fox’s personal secretary and office manager. I received your message.” No wonder Peter Fox had hired her. Marcia had the sweet and disarming voice of an innocent. She sniffled before she continued. “I heard about the tragedy on the news this morning. Do you know I worked for him for the last fifteen years? It still doesn’t feel real. I just saw him last Tuesday before he and his family left on vacation. To tell the truth, I’ve been worried sick something like this might happen.”

  Her words felled Will like an axe, and he steadied himself against the wall. “What do you mean?”

  “A day after they’d left for Fog Harbor, Peter received an email. A notification from the parole board at Crescent Bay State Prison. An inmate he’d represented as a public defender some twenty-five years ago had just been released on parole. I told Peter it wasn’t smart to make the trip up there—not with Elvis Bastidas on the streets again—but he wanted to make Hannah happy. Lord knows, that was a full-time job.”

  As Will penned the name into his notebook, Graham’s booming voice drowned out soft-spoken Marcia. “Hey, I think you missed something, Steve-o.”

  “One second.” Will cursed himself for letting Graham out of his sight. He lowered the phone to find him already rummaging beneath the driver’s seat. Grinning from ear to ear, Graham raised his hand high.

  “Ms. Russell, I’ll have to call you back.”

  Will stared in disbelief. Not at Graham but at the cell phone he held aloft like a championship trophy.

  Will would’ve paid good money to watch pretty boy Graham attend his first autopsy, but after the stunt he’d pulled at the police garage, he had no choice but to banish his temporary partner to the hallway while Chet examined the bodies of the Fox family one by one. He couldn’t afford to lose focus. Not now. But Will planned to read him the riot act the moment they left.

  “It’s a near-contact wound.” Chet ran a gloved finger alongside the hole on Peter’s left temple. “See those blackened edges, the searing of the skin? The muzzle of the gun would have likely been less than half an inch or so away from his skin to cause that type of injury.”

  Will nodded, trying not to appear overeager. He didn’t want to hurry Chet but at the same time, the victim’s cell phone was practically burning a hole in his pocket. He pulled it out, unable to withstand the wait.

  Before Chet made the first incision, Will waved the phone at him and blurted, “Can we do it now?” reminding himself of his younger brother, Petey, who’d always gone hunting for his birthday presents weeks in advance, only to get them all grounded.

  Chet sighed. “Give it to me.”

  Will watched him press Peter’s cold thumb against the screen, bringing it to life. The newly visible background image—a candid shot of Lily in ballet slippers and a pink tutu—made Will shake his head. Some parts of the job were harder than others. Parts like this, impossible. At least he’d thought to charge the phone on the way over, giving him ample time to sift through its contents.

  After he’d reset the passcode, Will knew the exact place to start. Where were you goi
ng, Peter Fox? He opened the mapping application, frowning at the destination of the most recent trip logged in the history, which had concluded at 8 p.m. The destination, the Sand Dunes Motel on the outskirts of downtown Fog Harbor.

  “What is it?” Chet asked. “You look spooked.”

  “More like confused.” Will knew the Sand Dunes. All the local cops did. It was the seediest motel in Fog Harbor. With his Rolex watch and oversized SUV, Peter Fox would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. “He was at the Sand Dunes earlier last night. An hour and a half or so before Olivia found him.”

  Chet lowered his face shield and retrieved the bone saw from its resting place. He approached Peter’s lifeless body. “The only folks who stay at that motel are either breaking the law or running from it.”

  Will turned away to scan Peter’s text messages, hoping to take his mind from the shearing grind of the saw as it worked Peter’s chest open. But he could feel the sound anyway, the juddering vibrations, shaking him right down to his bones.

  Peter’s last texts had come in from his wife, Hannah, in quick succession between 7:45 and 7:46 p.m. just prior to his arrival at the Sand Dunes.

  Please come back. Think about what you’re doing.

  It’s not safe. He’s crazy. He’ll destroy you.

  An hour and a half later, at 9:15 p.m., she’d phoned him, and they’d spoken for exactly forty-three seconds. The last call Will guessed either would ever have. He felt strangely grateful for it though, since it narrowed the time of death to a fifteen-minute window and pointed like a neon arrow to the Sand Dunes and whoever Peter had encountered there.

  Will waited until they’d left the cold sterility of the medical examiner’s office. He’d been holding back the tide for hours now; the dead deserved respect. But as soon as Graham had buckled himself into the Crown Vic, Will laid into him, taking out his pent-up frustration, the smell of death still clinging to him like a hellish cologne. The sight of a child on an autopsy table never got easier. “What the hell were you thinking, rummaging through the car like that? I told you not to touch the evidence.”

  Graham never backed down from a fight. Especially not with Will. Not since that first night months ago when he’d seen Will and Olivia sitting together at the Hickory Pit. “I found the cell phone, didn’t I?”

  Will welcomed the challenge. “I don’t know. Did you? Or did you plant it there?”

  “What? You’re out of your mind.”

  “Steve doesn’t miss evidence. Do you really expect me to believe he overlooked a large-screen smartphone?”

  “You can believe whatever you want. That’s what happened. Maybe Steve got distracted by Kelly. I heard those two were an item once. Nasty breakup.”

  Will groaned. Trying to talk to Graham required the patience of a kindergarten teacher. But he couldn’t leave it alone. “We need to talk about your fight with the victim. I want to know what happened. All of it. Including what you did after you left the beach up until the time you showed up at the crime scene. I assume you have an alibi.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  Will started the car, wishing he could demand Graham get out. He heeded Chief Flack’s advice instead. One of them had to be mature about this. “You’re right, Graham. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  The victorious smirk on Graham’s face was Will’s undoing.

  “But until you do, I consider you a suspect.”

  Fourteen

  Olivia snapped a photo of the small horseshoe drying in the sunlight on the pool deck of Ocean’s Song. She composed a quick text to Deck, letting him know what she’d found, and attached the picture. Predictably, he responded:

  Why are you roaming around an active crime scene?

  And then, before she could answer him:

  I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t let that thing out of your sight.

  While she waited, Olivia studied the house, trying to understand what had happened there and why. The timing of the two fires suggested Peter had been murdered first. The assailant had known the location of his family and come here to finish the job while the rest of Fog Harbor stared up at the exploding night sky, clueless. The magnitude of the violence—an entire family, gone in the span of thirty minutes—communicated a singular and undeniable message. For the killer, this was personal. And it left Olivia with a new and horrifying worry that Thomas may yet still be a target.

  “Liv?” Olivia spun around to the sound of her sister’s voice. Emily peered over the top of the gate, her curls blown ragged by the wind. “What are you doing?”

  “I was looking for you.”

  “Here?”

  Olivia shrugged, uncertain how to explain the pull she’d felt to see the damage up close. She knew it had to do with her father, what she’d witnessed as a girl, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying to rescue Thomas. From trying to understand how a soul could become so twisted not even the best psychologist could unwind the knots. “I couldn’t find you, so…”

  “So, you blatantly disregarded the crime scene tape?” Deck emerged from the other direction, stepping through the windowless hole in the side of the house and out onto the deck. To Olivia’s surprise, Graham trailed behind him.

  “In her defense, it’s covered in sand.” Emily opened the gate and stepped inside, holding up the wilted yellow tape as proof. On her other arm, a rolled beach towel protruded from the top of her tote bag.

  Deck gave her sister a withering look as he donned a pair of gloves and retrieved the horseshoe. He examined it briefly before placing it in a plastic evidence bag.

  “What is it?” Graham asked.

  “I’m not sure, but it’s unusual. The shape, that shimmery green stone.” Olivia decided to ignore Deck for now. No better way to infuriate him. “It might’ve been dropped by the killer. It could even be a calling card.”

  “That’s a little far-fetched.” Graham laughed at her. As if he knew better. Olivia couldn’t believe she’d ever considered him worthy of a second glance, much less seven regrettable dates. Obviously, she’d been lonely and blinded by his strong jaw and perfect hair and drool-worthy biceps. “It probably belongs to one of the thirty or so firefighters who traipsed through here. Doesn’t that sound more likely to you?”

  Olivia opened her mouth to give Graham a piece of her mind, but Deck butted right in, like usual.

  “If Doctor Rockwell says it’s important, then it’s important.” Clearly, he knew there was no better way to infuriate her than to stick up for her when she was perfectly capable of defending herself. She’d show him.

  “What’re you doing here anyway, Graham?” Her voice came out exactly as she’d intended. Dripping with contempt.

  “Didn’t you hear? I work with Detective Decker now.”

  “Temporarily. Only until JB comes back.”

  Olivia hadn’t expected that. Her eyes cut to Deck, who seemed to be on the verge of implosion. Then, to a mildly amused Emily.

  “I thought you got into a fight with the guy who got killed. Is it even ethical for you to work the case?” Leave it to her sister to call a spade a spade.

  “You’re misinformed, Emily. Fox’s son plowed into me. I told that rude little shit he needed to be taught some manners. I can’t help it if his dad got offended and threatened to have my badge. If you ask me, the whole situation was blown way out of proportion.”

  As far as Olivia remembered, Graham had been the one in Fox’s face, slurring his words and jutting his chest out like a drunk frat boy. Peter Fox hadn’t helped matters. They’d both been three sheets to the wind.

  “But you threw the first punch,” Emily said.

  “Well, he started it.” With a huffing breath, Graham spun around and stormed back toward the broken window, calling over his shoulder, “And I certainly didn’t kill him.”

  After Graham had tromped through the burned shell of the living room and disappeared, Emily let out a low whistle. “What a hothead.”

  Olivia t
urned to Deck, only to find his brown eyes on her already. She couldn’t be irritated with him now. Not knowing he’d been stuck with Graham. “You don’t really think he killed anyone, do you?”

  “He found the victim’s phone.” He said the word as if he hardly believed it. “After Steve finished searching the car. I think he’s hiding something.”

  Graham was a bully. But a killer? “If that’s true, then maybe it’s a good thing you’re keeping him close.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Though the phone did turn out to be useful. Peter drove to the Sand Dunes last night to meet someone. And his wife wasn’t happy about it.”

  “I assume you’re headed there now.”

  Deck nodded, then patted his pants pocket, where he’d tucked the plastic baggie with the horseshoe inside. “Nice work spotting this, by the way. But—”

  “I know. I know. Keep out of your crime scene.”

  With a shrug and a smirk, he headed back the way he’d come, stopping after a few steps. “You free later?”

  “She’s free.”

  Olivia whipped her head around and glared at Emily. Damn little sisters, always sticking their noses in.

  “Apparently, I’m free.”

  “Want to go a couple rounds on the bag? I have a feeling I’m gonna need it. And I wouldn’t mind picking your brain.”

  “Pick away,” Emily said, still grinning.

  Fifteen

  As Will exited the beach house, he puzzled over the horseshoe. Now that’s what you call an old-fashioned clue, his father would say. With Will’s luck, it would probably turn out to be nothing more than a red herring with no useable prints. Still, he marveled at Olivia’s knack for discovery, all the while wishing she would stay safely on the sidelines.