“Oof. Sounds brutal. What happened?”
Olivia had prepared for this. Still, looking Deck in the face, she found it hard to lie. Even by omission. But she needed a little more time to work on his brother before she told Deck what she’d been up to, certain he’d put the kibosh on her one-woman investigation if she pushed too hard.
Instead, she took a drink, chasing her guilt with a slosh of cold beer. Then, she plucked the folded sheet of paper from her pocket, the email from Marcus Boon that had greeted her that morning. She’d printed it at work, mostly so she could hold it in her hand while she seethed with rage. She pushed it across the table toward him.
This she could give him. This felt safe.
“Take a look.”
Thirty-One
Will envied Olivia that beer. He needed something with bite to quiet the fluttering in his stomach. Not butterflies but bats, with sharp little teeth, gnashing on his insides. He stared at the printout of the email, pretending to be a slow reader, until Olivia got up to collect her order. With her out of sight for the moment, he took a deep breath and tried to stop his thoughts from spinning.
He’d been surprised to see her here. Surprised that she’d walked right over to him, like this was their booth, with a smile that soothed his tired soul. After he and JB had spent the rest of the afternoon researching the Chained trio, as they’d started calling them, the lab had called with the bad news. Not a single print on Shelby’s letter. The DNA on the seal, if there was any, would take a while.
But all of it—the trailer in the woods, the parakeet bones, Trish’s tears and regret—paled next to this single sheet of copy paper with a few lines of black ink. Because that asshole, Boon, had deflated Olivia’s heart. Had made her wonder if her dad had given up on life. Given up on her and her sister.
“It’s a total sham, right?” Olivia returned with her haul, carefully balancing the steaming-hot container of mac and cheese alongside her number five.
Will nodded. “Your dad just happened to end up in the holding cell with the pipe. Just happened to get an extra bedsheet. Detectives don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Neither do psychologists.”
“What can you do?”
“I’m working on it.” She took a delicate bite from a spare rib. “What about Shelby? Any new leads?”
“CSI found a lot of blood in the cabin. The place lit up like a Christmas tree. We’ll have to wait on the lab to confirm that it’s Shelby’s. But I’m fairly convinced this is the murder weapon.”
For the second time that day, he displayed the photo he’d taken of the owl andiron set in its usual position on the hearth.
“Creepy.” Olivia grimaced, wiping a little sauce from her lip. “It certainly speaks to the planning, or lack thereof. The killer made a split-second decision. Used whatever was available to him. Same with the barrel, you know?”
Will’s suspicions turned to Winters again, but he kept it to himself for now. He slid the case file across the table and pulled up the photo he’d taken on his phone of Trish’s letter. “Shelby’s mother got this in May of 1986, supposedly from Shelby, saying she’d met a nice rich boy and taken off to travel the country. She misspelled her own brother’s name.”
“That sounds fishy.” Olivia enlarged the image of the yellowed paper, its creases well worn. “The language is oddly formal for a rebellious teenager, don’t you think?”
“Exactly what her mom said. She gave us some photos of Shelby’s loser boyfriend and her best friend, Drea, if you want to take a look. Apparently, those two hooked up not long after Shelby disappeared.”
As Olivia flipped through the photographs, Will kept talking, full steam ahead, to distract her from that awful email. He couldn’t fix it for her but he’d damned sure try.
Thirty-Two
Thankful for Deck’s nervous chatter, Olivia worked her way through the photographs and JB’s notes on the Chained trio. Lead actress, Victoria Ratcliffe, lived with her husband, Reid Vance, in Sea Cliff, an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco. There was no trace of Brenda Samson, the prostitute Grimaldi had been accused of kidnapping, and her next of kin hadn’t returned JB’s call. Donald Eggerton and his wife, Lucinda, owned an adult bookstore in Hollywood. He’d been arrested a few times as a young man but had no known history of violence.
Closing the folder, Olivia raised her head to look at Deck. “Do you really think any of these folks were involved in Shelby’s murder?”
Deck shrugged. “Well, I figure whoever killed her had to have known about the cabin, that Grimaldi wasn’t around a lot. They filmed a movie called Chained. And from the injuries Chet identified on her wrists, it seems like Shelby was chained up down there, so…”
“What’s the story then? The why?”
“Hell if I know.” He flashed a mischievous smile but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s what I keep you around for.”
“Sometimes the why leads you to the who.” Olivia tried to push away the thought of her father and the Oaktown Boys and why they’d wanted him dead. It clung at the back of her brain, refusing to release its tenterhooks.
“I’m listening.”
“No prints on the letter and the misspelled name must mean it’s a farce, meant to stop anyone from looking for her. You’ve got to assume she was dead by then, which tells me she was already pregnant—likely with Brandon Simpkins’ baby—when she ran away.” Olivia finished the last of her beer and sat back, thinking. She liked the way Deck listened to her. The way he noticed every word, even when she was just spitballing. Even when he disagreed. “We also know that Chuck Winters last saw her a few weeks before he was arrested in March.”
“If you believe a word out of his mouth.”
“I do.”
“You do?”
Olivia laughed at Deck’s incredulity. “You’re the one who tossed his room.”
“I didn’t say he was pure as the driven snow. I just don’t think he killed Shelby. Does he seem like the type to concoct a letter like that? And why would he go out of his way to get that picture back? I’ll bet he wanted to find her, just like he said. Besides, he was more of a career criminal than a sex offender.”
“Maybe he broke into the cabin, hoping to rob the place, and Shelby caught him by surprise. He didn’t want to go back to prison, so he panics, hits her with the andiron, and stuffs her in the barrel.”
Olivia squinted at him skeptically.
“He’s the best suspect I’ve got.”
“Well, you’re going to have to do better, Detective. Shelby didn’t come to that cabin by accident. Think about it. Crescent Bay State Prison wasn’t built until 1989. In the mid-eighties, Fog Harbor would’ve been a ghost town, especially in the fall. Even Winters said he came out here to disappear. How’d she end up at that cabin of all places? On a dirt road you’d need a map to find?”
Will wished he’d ordered dessert. Surely one of the Pit’s giant chocolate chip cookies would ease the sting of Olivia and her pointed questions. Which were all infuriatingly legitimate. “You gonna answer that question for me?”
“I can tell you my best guess. Whatever the why, the baby is what brought her here. She was scared out of her mind to be pregnant. According to your notes, her mom said she still kept that Mary Jane doll on her bed. She was still a child at heart, not ready to be a mother.”
Will tried to catch Jane’s eye at the bar. “What about this guy, Simpkins? Do you know him from Crescent Bay?”
Olivia shrugged. “I think he’s in the domestic violence group Leah facilitated before she went on maternity leave. One of the interns leads it now.”
“Figures.”
“What’s he in for?” she asked.
Will had finally got Jane’s attention. He held up the laminated dessert menu stanchioned between the ketchup and the salt and pepper. Picked his poison. As Olivia laughed, Will wondered when JB’s soul had invaded his body, taken over his mouth too. “I’ll give you three guesses and the firs
t two don’t count.”
Thirty-Three
Deck cut the chocolate chip cookie right down the middle, a perfect dissection. “That’s your half.”
Olivia grinned as she broke off the crispy edge and popped it in her mouth. “I’m surprised you didn’t use a ruler.”
“When you have three brothers, you learn the art of precision. If you took less than your third, you’d be out of luck. And if you took more, you’d end up with a wedgie.”
“No mercy, huh?”
“Not for the middle brother. I got it from both sides. Either taking up for Petey or taking licks from Ben.”
“Typical middle child. The peacekeeper.”
His mouth full, Deck rolled his eyes at her, and she chuckled.
“Researchers determined the birth order thing is mostly a myth. But did you know, astronauts and serial killers are usually firstborns?” Olivia asked him, taking another bite, savoring his flirty smirk.
“Hmph.” Deck matched her with a bite of his own, both their halves dwindling.
“So, what was Ben like, growing up?” She felt guilty for fishing but it didn’t stop her. The better she understood Deck’s big brother and what made him tick, the better chance she had of convincing him to help her.
“Dad’s favorite. Bossy. Stubborn. Kind of a know-it-all.” Deck ticked the words off one by one on his fingers before he shrugged. “Typical firstborn.”
Olivia snagged the last bite of Deck’s half of the cookie.
“Hey—”
“That’s what you get.” She disappeared the morsel in her mouth. “You forgot ruthless.”
Deck stopped mid-laugh, his eyes widening. “Don’t look now, but—”
She glanced over her shoulder anyway, following his gaze to the bar, where Jane was slinging drinks for the off-duty cops. “Is that Heather Hoffman?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Olivia watched as the reporter rested her delicate hand on a beefy shoulder. A shoulder where she’d once laid her head, regrettably. “With Graham?”
“Not jealous, are you?”
A comeback on the tip of her tongue, Olivia’s phone buzzed on the seat next to her. An unknown number with a San Francisco area code. She held up her finger to Deck. Mouthed, one minute, and left the table. Skirting past Graham and his arm candy—or was it the other way around?—she found a semi-quiet spot in the hallway near the bathroom.
“Hello?”
“Is this Olivia Rockwell?” She recognized the gravelly voice but couldn’t place it. “You alone?”
“Yes. To both.”
“This is Henry Decker. We need to talk about your father.”
Olivia leaned into the wall at the Hickory Pit, keeping herself grounded by running her fingers over the couples’ initials carved in the redwood. “Okay.”
“I talked with a couple of my old buddies from the police force who work down at Valley View. Apparently, Mac Boon was on duty that day working the parole hearings. I knew Mac back when he worked for SFPD. Between you and me, I trust the guy about as far as I can spit.”
A rush of air escaped her lungs, but no words came.
“Now, this part you can’t go repeating. But word up at the prison is your daddy was still working as a CI. If Oaktown had gotten wind of that, he’d be a goner.”
Olivia turned back toward the crowded restaurant, where she spotted Deck looking at her, his forehead creased with concern. She shook the shock off her face and forced a smile.
“A CI for SFPD?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own, but the little girl she’d been before they’d left the Double Rock. Fearing her father as fiercely as she’d loved him.
“I can’t say.”
She couldn’t tell if he meant can’t or won’t.
“But there’s one more thing. You ever hear mention of the General being involved, you best drop it. Whoever or whatever he is, he’s got eyes and ears everywhere. Foot soldiers, too.” Olivia didn’t tell him she’d already heard plenty about the General. He’d been at the rotten center of a contraband-smuggling operation at Crescent Bay State Prison.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, wondering if her words about holding onto anger had thawed him somehow.
“After you left, I remembered something else about ole Mad Dog. I always vet my CIs. Find out what makes ’em tick. Your daddy told me he started informing because of you…”
A lump formed in Olivia’s throat, as she listened to Henry Decker break her heart.
“So one day you could be proud of him.”
Lost in the fog of her thoughts, Olivia stared out at the ocean, listening to the numbing push and pull of the waves through the open window of the station wagon she’d inherited from her mother. After leaving the Hickory Pit, she’d come straight to her thinking place. The bluff overlooking Little Gull lighthouse.
The gleaming beacon shone down on the bright pink ice plants that had started to bloom on the hillside and creep up through the rocks. But the place still felt haunted by the long, wet winter. By the ghosts that roamed the shoreline, tortured and lonely like Little Gull, the Yurok woman who’d thrown herself from the bluff in the name of ill-fated love. Never at peace. Perhaps poor Shelby walked among them now.
Olivia rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. Her mind roiled and churned like the black water near the cliffside. She thought of her father and how she’d misunderstood the most essential piece of him. Of pregnant Shelby, arriving in Fog Harbor, scared and confused. Of the way they’d both ended up victims of their own foolish choices and the cruelest twists of fate. And of Deck, and the curious way he’d studied her when she’d returned to their table pretending she’d fielded a call from work and not his estranged father.
A knock on the passenger window, and Olivia yelped. She’d been so far gone, she hadn’t noticed the car parked alongside her. “Em? What are you doing?”
“Looking for you, obvs.” She made a face as she climbed in. “I figured I’d find you here. And this monstrosity is easy to spot. I can’t believe you didn’t try to salvage the Bimmer.”
After her BMW had been wrecked that winter, Olivia put the insurance money toward refurbishing her mother’s Buick station wagon instead. Clunker that it was, when she’d needed it most, it had still gotten her where she’d needed to go. She owed it one.
Emily ran her hand across the new leather seats. “But Mom would’ve loved this.”
They sat side by side for who knows how long, listening for the cries of the gulls, and watching the unwavering bright light from Little Gull illuminate the deep, black water.
Thirty-Four
Will found Cy dead asleep in a musty box in the corner of the garage. Apparently, slightly moldy cardboard made a more comfortable bed than the plush money pit Will had procured at the pet store in San Francisco before he’d returned. But he’d figured he owed it to Cy for sticking him with self-proclaimed dog man JB for two days.
After topping off Cy’s food and water, Will took a seat on the tailgate to think. Though he hated to admit it, Olivia had a point about Winters. The ex-con didn’t seem shrewd or sophisticated enough to create a ruse like that letter Shelby’s mother had received. According to Olivia, Shelby’s baby had brought her here, to a cabin in tiny Fog Harbor, where it would’ve been easy to disappear. But was she running from her mother? Or someone else?
A sharp sound started Will’s heart firing like a piston. Cy had heard it too. Ears on high alert, his body stayed still as a stone.
Will tucked his gun in his side holster and slipped out the half-open garage door. He peered into the dark woods that separated his cabin from 248 Wolver Hollow Road and waited, holding his breath. Then, through the tangled bodies of the redwoods, a light flickered.
Will jogged up the dirt path that led from his house, skirting into the ditch when he reached the main road. The grass had already grown thick. Its blades calf-high and tugging at his jeans. Like sinister fingers meant to hold him, to sink him into the earth.
H
e ran without looking down. When he reached the turnoff for the neighboring cabin, he stopped. Listened again for the sound, for any sound, besides his own labored breathing. Hearing nothing but the soft call of the katydids, he crept forward across the lawn toward the cabin’s cavernous eyes and the light, seeping through the slit in the curtains.
Someone was inside.
Will put one foot on the porch steps, wincing at the creak of the old wood. The yellow crime scene tape shivered in the wind.
“Put your hands where I can see ’em.” The familiar voice came from behind him.
Will froze, momentarily confused, until he spotted a car parked on the lawn alongside the house, with the unmistakable front end of a Corvette.
“Are you trying to get yourself shot? I said, put your hands up.”
Will could think of nothing he’d rather do less than to be held at gunpoint by a cowboy cop like Graham Bauer. But he complied, raising his hands to the sky.
“It’s Will Decker, Fog Harbor PD.” The gun in Graham’s shaky hand kept him from adding, moron. “I live next door, remember?”
“Well, what the hell are you doing sneaking around out here?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Will pointed to the unoccupied vehicle. “And what’s she doing here? Did you let her in?”
Looking surprisingly sheepish, Graham lowered his weapon, then his voice. “Look, man. I really like her, and she’s into the badge. You know the type. She wanted to see the crime scene. Off the record, of course. Can’t you just mosey on home and pretend you didn’t see us? I’ll return the key to the office in the morning.”
“Nothing Heather Hoffman does is off the record. If I were you, I’d check your bedroom for a listening device.” Will bounded up the last two steps, leaving Graham slack-jawed.
“At least there’s something to listen to. Your bedroom is nothing but crickets.” Graham laughed softly. “Guess she’s just not that into you, Decker.”
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