Her Perfect Bones: A totally addictive mystery and suspense novel

by Ellery A Kane

  “It’s got blueberries, right? Tammy says they’re a superfood. How bad could it be?”

  While JB stuffed his face, Will checked his email, starting with the one titled URGENT—DNA RESULTS. “Hey, the DNA from the envelope seal on that letter to Shelby’s mom came back.”

  “And?”

  He scanned the letter, looking for the name. Held it out and watched JB’s eyes widen. “Bingo.”

  Orange was definitely not Victoria’s color. Blame the jumpsuit or the drab jail interview room for washing out her skin. Either way, she looked like a woman who didn’t take kindly to being told what to do and when to do it.

  “You wanted to speak with us?” Will dampened the surprise in his voice. Truth be told, he’d been shocked as hell when an officer from Del Norte County had telephoned that morning, telling them she’d changed her mind. That she didn’t want her attorney, Gerald Waverly, present after all.

  “Not particularly.” She raised one thin eyebrow. “But Jacqueline told me I had to if I wanted to ever see her or my grandkids again. Apparently, the evidence against me is…”

  “Overwhelming. That’s how I’d put it,” JB said, pulling up the seat next to Will. “Especially since we found your DNA on the seal of an envelope addressed to Trish Mayfield.”

  Victoria heaved a sigh of resignation that drooped her shoulders.

  “So, what can you tell us about Shelby’s murder?” Will asked.

  “Only what Reid shared with me after the fact. I had no idea what he was planning. Back then, he was something of a loose cannon and desperate to prove himself to my father. It came as a real blow when we couldn’t adopt. I’ll admit I lapsed into a depression, and my father blamed him for that.”

  “When did you find out what he’d done?”

  “A couple of months after we rescued Jacqueline, he broke down and told me. Reid was never good under pressure. He’d packed the barrel with the sand, intending to sink it in the ocean, but he’d filled it too full. It was too heavy to move. That’s when I had the idea to send the letter to her mother. To Jacqueline’s family, too. It worked like a charm.”

  JB gave a rueful shake of his head. “Until Sam Weatherby opened the barrel.”

  “I told Reid a hundred times we should go back there. Truth be told, we did once, before Grimmy lost the place. But we still couldn’t budge the thing, so we left it. It had been there so long. Over time, you learn to forget. You move on. You think it was all a terrible dream.”

  Will knew what she meant. As a cop, he’d learned some memories were best left buried. The only problem, the worst ones didn’t stay that way. “Why Drea?”

  “She could identify Reid. Her and Winters. Reid suspected Winters and Shelby had a thing going. That she’d told him everything. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t let Jacqueline find out. We’d have lost her forever. Those poor souls were just collateral damage.”

  Will let that settle into his bones. As proper as she seemed, Victoria had the heart of a gangster. No different than Termite. “How’d you know she’d be at the cabin that night?”

  “It wasn’t hard to find her. Foolish girl with her doomed romance. I didn’t plan to hurt her. Not at first. I wanted to pay her off.”

  “You followed her?”

  “I watched her a few times from the woods outside her house. I needed to know what she knew. What she was capable of. I went through a whole bag of those damn Swedish fish Grimmy sent me, just waiting for her to reveal herself. She spent most of her time in that dusty shed making these disturbing little clay creations. I’d almost decided she was harmless before I saw that reporter, Heather Hoffman, approach her door. A day later, she met with Hoffman again at the café. I tried to track her back to her house, but she was on to me by then. She didn’t come home. Instead, the two of you showed up. In the end, she left me no choice.”

  “And Brenda?”

  “What about her?”

  “An overdose? Really?”

  “I can’t pass judgment on her since she gave me Jacqueline.” Victoria shrugged, straightening up her spine again. Feeling superior, no doubt. “But that woman was in no position to be a mother to anyone. Can you imagine how Jacqueline might’ve turned out? I shudder at the thought.”

  Eighty-Seven

  Olivia pulled into the parking lot of Crescent Bay State Prison, bringing the old Buick to a rest. She composed a quick text to Emily, letting her know she’d completed the long and winding drive back to Fog Harbor. After everything that had happened in Sea Cliff, she’d decided to spend the weekend at Em’s, eating pizza and watching chick flicks to forget the gun to her head and Jacqueline’s choked sobs and Reid’s battered body floating in the shallows.

  That morning, she’d left under the cover of darkness to be back in time for her ten thirty meeting with the interns. Only because she couldn’t stomach the thought of Carrie Stanley smugly informing them she’d be out again today.

  Olivia let herself in to the MHU and waved to Sergeant Weber at the desk before unlocking her office.

  When she pushed open the door, a small scrap of paper, much like the one Ben had left for her days ago, fluttered across the room and came to rest in a dusty corner. She picked it up and read two words that sent her reeling.

  Olivia watched the clock all day, nodding and smiling through her meeting with the interns, while the second hand seemed to slog through mud. At five o’clock, she tore out of the parking lot on a mission and headed for Big Ed’s Hardware on the town square.

  With her purchase in hand, she locked herself inside her bathroom, setting her father’s pencil drawing on the floor before turning off the lights.

  Black light, the note in her office had said. Her hands shook as she held the portable device, turned it on, and pointed it at the thick paper. At the images of the Double Rock brought to life by his hand.

  Her father’s writing glowed in the margin. The message brought her to her knees.

  Mac Boon involved in drug smuggling. I’m getting close to IDing the General.

  Need more time.

  Eighty-Eight

  Nurse Thornton roused Max Grimaldi from his post-breakfast slumber. “You’ve got visitors, Grimmy.”

  He opened his one eye, then the other, and groaned, wiping a bit of drool from his chin. “You two again? Can’t you leave an old man to die in peace?”

  Will dragged the folding chair over to the bedside. Today, he wanted to be close. “That depends on you. You tell us the truth, we leave you here to live out the rest of your days eating gummy fish and solving crosswords. In the nursing home owned by Ratcliffe Chemicals.”

  “Retirement home,” Grimaldi retorted.

  JB approached him from the other side of his bed. “A retirement home which just happens to belong to our two prime suspects in a slew of murders.”

  “C’mon, Detectives. What do you want from me? We both know the truth is subjective.”

  “Not when it comes to dead girls.” Will spoke through gritted teeth. “If you don’t cooperate, we’ll haul your arthritic ass down to Del Norte County Jail and charge you with obstruction.”

  “Or worse.” JB jangled his handcuffs in Grimaldi’s face. “You think your little film was dark. Wait till you see the inside of Crescent Bay, and those guys aren’t acting.”

  He heaved out an exasperated breath. “Sheesh. What do you want to know?”

  “What really happened to Brenda Samson, for starters? We know she’s buried at the cabin.” Will flashed his phone at Grimaldi, displaying an image of the smooth white bone the cadaver dogs had unearthed in the backyard. The old man’s face twisted in disgust. “We found this.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. Reid told me he and Victoria had gone to talk to her, to see if she’d drop the charges against me. When he found her at her apartment, she’d overdosed. Not surprising, if you ask me. Her kid had been there—God knows how long—starving, in a dirty diaper, and staring at Mommy’s dead body. Natu
rally, Reid felt the little girl would be better off with him and Victoria. He told me only what I needed to know. No more, no less.”

  “And Shelby? Did you know about her murder?”

  Grimaldi smacked the bed in protest. “Of course not. Do you really think I’m so dense that I’d leave behind a barrel with a body inside it? I’d have pushed that thing into the ocean years ago.”

  “I’m not buying it,” Will told JB. “Are you?”

  “Nope. You’re selling a lemon, Grimaldi. It’s not gonna pass muster with the DA.” He pulled out the handcuffs again and lowered the bed’s side railing. “Go on. Get up. Or should I get Nurse Thornton to help me put these cuffs on you?”

  “Alright. I saw her up at the cabin one time. I’d given Reid the key, told him to check in on the place for me. One day, he called me in a panic, asking if I’d help him. He didn’t say with what. I showed up there, and he had the poor thing chained in the basement. He wanted to know if I could find a doctor to help deliver the baby. I said ‘hell no’ and didn’t look back.”

  “And you didn’t ask any questions? You didn’t wonder what happened?”

  Grimaldi shrugged, fixing his steely blue eyes on Will. “I’ve lived long enough to know there are some questions best left unanswered.”

  In the silence, JB’s gaze drifted to Grimaldi’s nightstand. “Are those photos new?”

  “Sure are. After I dug Chained out of that box in my closet, I ran across a couple of these snapshots from some of my movie sets. Figured I might as well put them on display and enjoy them while I still can.” He reached for the first photo, stuck inside a cheap wooden frame, and displayed it proudly to JB. “Me in my glory days.”

  Will couldn’t ignore the goosebumps that appeared on his arms, as JB passed him the photograph. “That’s a hell of a lot of sand. What movie was that?”

  “Demon in the Desert, I called it. Filmed in 1979.” Grimaldi let out a raspy laugh. “I bought the stuff in bulk. Took me years to get rid of it.”

  Thirty minutes later, Will steered the Crown Vic into the ditch on County Road 37, where Trish Mayfield had been waiting for thirty-five years for her daughter to come home.

  “You want me to go with you?” JB asked.

  He shook his head. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to make this trip alone.”

  “As long as you know where you’re driving me next, partner.”

  “The Earl River.” Will gestured to the back seat, where JB had loaded two fishing poles and a tackle box. “How could I forget? My sensei is teaching me to meditate.”

  With a wave to JB, Will turned toward the redwood grove. He walked with purpose through the underbrush, marveling at the tiniest of miracles. The honeysuckle vine had begun to blossom, the pink flowers brightening the gloom. At the end of the overgrown path, the trailer door stood open. Trish waited for him there, bracing herself against the door frame. A calico cat weaved between her legs.

  Will caught his breath, suddenly overcome by a memory of his mother, and he realized then that Trish reminded him of her. The day before his mother disappeared forever, Will had caught her crying in the bedroom, searching the drawers. Talking to herself. He’d snuck into the bathroom and counted her pills. She’d been skipping doses again.

  “Detective Decker, I knew you’d be back.”

  He nodded, taking Trish’s hand. It felt as fragile as a bird’s wing in his grip, but there was strength there too. “I promised I would.”

  He guided her outside to her lawn chair and took his own seat on the washtub. “We found Shelby’s killer. I want to tell you what we know about how she died and why.”

  Tears filled Trish’s eyes but she didn’t stop them. “I never had any doubt. You look like the sort of young man who keeps his promises.”

  Epilogue

  March 1986

  Shelby forced her swollen legs to move. Only five steps up to the kitchen, but each one felt like a small mountain, testing her resolve. Her bruised wrists ached, her back too. She’d lost track of how long she’d been chained in the basement—Four days? Five?—and she’d started to lose her mind, scratching at the bricks like a caged animal.

  Though she couldn’t tell day from night down there, she knew it was nearly time. Her belly strained against her T-shirt. The baby as big as a head of lettuce now. When she’d arrived, it had only been the size of a plum. She’d read that fact for herself nine months ago in a book in the school library. She’d torn out the page, stuffing it into the pocket of her jean shorts, red-faced, like it was one of Kris’s dirty magazines. Back then, it had helped to think of the baby like that. But now, she preferred to try on names instead. Joshua for a boy. Jessica for a girl.

  Reid would be back soon. He’d told her as much. She’d done her best to act the part of a woman in labor, writhing and crying and moaning until he’d unlocked the shackles around her wrists that had rubbed her skin raw and brought her a pillow and a mound of blankets from the back bedroom that he’d once let her call her own.

  Her dramatics persuasive enough to convince Reid he needn’t worry about her escape, Shelby pushed open the basement door. Blinded by the light streaming through the kitchen window, she stumbled and bumped her hip against the table. She felt alien and lost. Like a subterranean creature that had accidentally surfaced too fast, withering in the bright sun.

  Shielding her eyes, she headed for the bedroom, praying Reid hadn’t found the bus ticket Chuck had bought for her. When she’d told Reid she was taking the bus back to San Francisco, he had torn up the whole room looking for it. Then, he’d slapped her so hard she saw stars and dragged her to the basement where Grimy kept his creepy movie props—those chains, she’d found out, were all too real.

  Chuck would be worried sick about her. She’d heard him pounding on the door that first day, and her heart had cracked in two. The crack widened and fissured, as she turned the ruby ring on her finger. A promise ring, he’d called it. A promise to save up the money to come to San Francisco with her. To take care of her and the baby. To give Brandon a piece of his mind and a knuckle sandwich too. She wished she’d told Chuck everything, but then again she didn’t. Because Reid would have locked him up down there with her, destroying her last hope of escape.

  Shelby stuffed the duffel as fast as she could, her breath coming in little gasps. She clumsily dropped to her knees before the heating vent, the ticket in sight. Hands trembling, she worked the screws off and tucked the slip of paper inside the outer pouch.

  Already tasting the salty air of freedom, she struggled to her feet, when a noise at the door startled her. She tossed the bag deep inside the vent, hurrying to conceal it.

  When the front door yawned open, she tried to scream but her throat closed up the way it did in the worst of her nightmares. No sound came.

  Reid glared at her in that awful jacket she’d once thought was cool. He dropped the plastic bag he carried to the hardwood. She stared at its contents, sickened—towels, sterile gloves, a clamp—and cursed herself for how stupid she’d been. She’d followed all of his rules—no visitors, no wandering, no communication with anyone back home. Well, most of them. He’d told her this was her choice. That she could back out at any time. But now, she understood. Reid intended to take her baby whether she gave him permission or not.

  She searched for a weapon. But the only things in the bedroom were hers, and she’d packed most of them away in the duffel.

  “I told you to stay in the basement.” He advanced toward her with no effort, slithering like a snake, while her every breath pinched her lungs. Her every step required focus.

  “I have to leave. I’m sorry. I thought I could go through with it, but I can’t. Please. Just let me go or…”

  “Or what?”

  Then, she saw it, resting on the floor beside her bed, beneath a half-propped magazine. “I’ll tell everyone about you. About what you did. Your wife won’t want anything to do with you. You’ll be all alone.”

  Shelby reache
d for the Nikon, and Reid retreated from her, from the camera’s all-seeing eye, just as she’d hoped. Clutching it to her, she followed him. The need to protect her baby as strong as the need to save herself.

  For a moment, she felt powerful. She raised the camera like a gun.

  As Reid extended his hand, pale and desperate, the release of the shutter beneath her finger was the only sound.

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  Books by Ellery Kane

  Her Perfect Bones

  Watch Her Vanish

  Available in Audio

  Watch Her Vanish (Available in the UK and the US)

  A Letter from Ellery

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  Thank you for reading Her Perfect Bones! With so many amazing books to choose from, I truly appreciate you taking the time to read the second installment in the Rockwell and Decker series. Many more thrilling cases await Olivia and Will, and I hope you’ll continue on this journey with them. Shelby’s story is loosely based on the murder of Reyna Marroquín, a Salvadoran woman who was killed by businessman Howard Elkins in 1969. Her body remained undiscovered in a barrel in the crawl space of a home in New York until 1999, when a homeowner uncovered her mummified remains. Police were able to follow the clues left behind in the barrel to unmask her killer, but Elkins ended his life before he could be punished.