“Then why do I have to go at all?”
“Your father’s attorney thinks it will make a difference. Please just do it for me and don’t argue.”
Dakota had decided, even as she’d nodded at her mother, avoiding her eyes. O.P.B. was a go.
The mission parameters were simple.
Time: This morning. The board would convene at 10 a.m., and they were set to leave for the hospital an hour before.
Place: The kitchen. She’d peeked downstairs. Both of her parents sat at the table, not speaking, per the usual.
Gear: A tasteful black skirt. And the perfect sleeveless blouse. Hannah had given it to Dakota for her birthday last year, telling her the royal blue accented her eyes. Whatever. What really mattered was it covered the tattoo completely until she extended her arm, revealing the tiny black cage on her shoulder.
Dakota folded a sweater across her arm, tucked her copy of Silence of the Lambs in her backpack, and glided down the stairs, as if she really did have wings.
Her father looked up from his sesame bagel. “You look nice. Very professional.”
She took the seat to the left of her mother, a strategic position, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. To say something sarcastic. Lucky for me, Hannah did a special episode on what-to-wear-to-your-dad’s-misconduct-hearing, for example. She smiled to herself and put a lid on it. O.P.B. wouldn’t have the same impact if her parents were already fuming.
“Thanks, Dad. Are you nervous about today?”
“A little. But we’re confident the truth will prevail.”
Her mother didn’t seem all that confident, even in her navy suit, which she wore every time she had to testify in court about some crazy patient needing to be forcibly medicated. When Dakota spotted the Tiffany necklace that she and her father had picked out only a few months ago, her chest ached.
“Hurry up and eat something,” her mother said. “There’s traffic, and we don’t want to be rushed.”
Dakota steeled herself. Go time.
She made a show of reaching for the last wheat bagel, certain her mother would spot her ink. But she’d already stood up from the table with her coffee cup and walked to the counter. Dakota watched as her mother emptied the rest of the cup into a thermos and topped it off with a generous splash of Bailey’s liqueur left over from Christmas.
If her father noticed, he kept his mouth shut. Which was apparently the new normal for the Drs. Roark. Her mom let him get away with being a cheating slimeball, and he looked the other way while she drank like a fish.
Dakota took a few bites, washing her anger down with a swig of orange juice.
Time for Plan B. Every mission worth its salt had one.
“Mom, can you help with this top? I think there’s a thread dangling back here.” But just as her mother approached from behind, her father tugged at the thread she’d loosened that morning with a strategically placed safety pin.
“Got it,” he told Dakota, giving her a smug pat on her non-inked shoulder. “See, your old dad’s not so useless.”
Her mother turned away and headed for the door, slinging the Louie over her shoulder like a weapon. Dakota joined her in the foyer, rethinking the whole mission. After all, when you really got down to it, she was all her mom had now. Well, her and the alcohol.
“Ladies first.”
Her dad held the door open, and Gus bounded toward it. Without thinking, Dakota reached for him, snagging him by the collar just as he’d reached the threshold.
Behind her, her mother gasped. Not the sound of a poked bear but a wounded one. It didn’t satisfy her the way she’d hoped. It saddened her.
“What’s that?” her mother demanded, spinning Dakota around by her arm. “Where did you—”
“Mom, it’s just—”
“Holy shit.” Her father gaped at her, practically awestruck. She took her pleasure where she could. “Who did that to you?”
Dakota shrugged. “Some guy.”
“When?” He leaned in closer, inspecting it. “It’s not even red anymore.”
“A few days ago, I guess. But hey, at least you guys can feel good about sending me away now. I’m a real rebel.”
Red-faced, her mother stormed down the steps, hard-stopping at the bottom. O.P.B. had an expected outcome, and this was the moment Dakota had anticipated. The toss of the grenade. Her mom would yell at her to go to her room or tell her she was grounded. Maybe even charge back up the stairs and slap her across the face with a bearlike paw. Then, tonight, they’d cry about it together, and Dakota would confess. It’s fake, Mom.
“Cole, deal with her. I can’t even stand to look at her right now.”
Leave it to her mother to toss a live grenade right back.
****
Dakota stayed in her room, where she’d been exiled by her father sans laptop and cell phone, which he’d locked in the bedroom safe. At least she couldn’t read the comments on her photo, which had spread like a virus over the weekend. Instead, she huddled under the covers with Gus and Clarice Starling.
Even after she heard her parents come home. Especially then.
Because the board had decided in her father’s favor, reinstating his pay. Hannah’s mom had publicly rescinded the allegations against him. Well, her lawyer had, anyway. Dakota had watched the whole thing go down on the noon NVMX news broadcast.
My client wishes to retract the allegations of sexual harassment against Doctor Cole Roark and will not be pursuing legal or financial reparations. We will be giving no further statement at this time.
She didn’t know exactly what it meant. Only that it wasn’t good. Because her mom kept yelling things like, “You paid her off, didn’t you?” and “Is she your whore now?”
Her dad fired back the same old lines. “She told the truth. Nothing happened.”
When the voices downstairs built to a crescendo—she barely recognized them anymore—something crashed against the hardwood. A door slammed. And Gus whimpered at her side.
Dakota couldn’t focus. She tucked a Post-it between the pages, marking chapter three, knowing she’d have plenty of time at Starry Sky to get to know Hannibal Lecter.
Chapter
Thirty-One
(Tuesday, August 16, 2016)
Dakota spent the morning on her hands and knees. Someone had to do it. Otherwise, Gus would step on the glass shards and cut his paw pads. She swept the big pieces of the broken vase into the dustpan and used a wet towel to collect the slivers.
The Mercedes was gone, and her mom lay on the sofa, out cold and late for work. Dakota found the bottle of Baileys in the trash can, along with two mini-bottles of vodka, discarded beneath the coffee table.
She couldn’t explain it, but seeing her mother slack-jawed and drooling and still wearing yesterday’s clothes hurt worse than all of it. The affair, Starry Sky, even Tyler’s stupid photo. It made her feel reckless. Like nothing counted anymore. Even being grounded.
She tore out of the drive on her bike and pedaled in a fury, her legs churning like a runaway machine. Leaving it all behind her, she headed for the library and took up her usual position at Storybook Corner.
Ten minutes of searching the internet and one local call on the library’s free phone service, she’d found what she needed in Allendale. But she couldn’t get there on her own. And she’d read too much about Ted Bundy to hitchhike.
She logged on to the Shadow Snoops forum and typed a public post. She’d give it ten minutes. Let the universe decide.
Cagedbird18: There will come soft rains.
She took a deep breath and held it, listening to the clock hanging near the circulation desk. She focused on the pain, the ache in her lungs. The way it made her feel alive. Eighty-three seconds later, eighty-three ticks, the universe decided.
Chewie: Cryptic, Birdie.
Cagedbird18: I’l
l DM you.
****
Boyd rambled nonstop on the drive to the warehouse. About the weather. Wookiees aren’t built for summer. About Yoda’s last meal. Two frozen mice. About the appropriate viewing order of the Star Wars series. Chronological, obviously, and anybody who says to watch according to the release date is a heathen. About the matching baseball caps he’d brought. So we can go undercover, Lisa Ling style. About anything but the last time they’d seen each other.
“Are you sure this is the place?” he asked as Dakota directed him into the parking lot. Empty, save for one beaten-up white van. The warehouse looked no better. Half its windows were boarded or broken or graffitied with spray paint.
She nodded, tucking her hair up into the black Star Wars hat. “Jeffrey said he’d meet us here at eleven. That’s probably his.”
“You mean that serial-killer van? Great.”
“Says the guy with the VW bug.”
“At least my name isn’t Ted. His is Jeffrey. As in Dahmer.”
Dakota rolled her eyes at him, laughing. “Jeffrey Dahmer drove a blue van. Plus, he’s dead. So I think we’re safe.”
But as they made their pilgrimage across the desert-hot pavement, Dakota’s mind played tricks.
A face peeked out of a third-story window. Just a shadow.
Blood spotted the concrete. Only paint drippings.
A chainsaw buzzed from behind the dumpster. Probably Jeffrey waiting to take their heads.
“Do you hear that?” Boyd asked.
The high-pitched hum made her queasy.
As they drew nearer the door, Dakota located the source of the buzzing. Not Jeffrey after all. But flies. A swarm of them. She inched closer to Boyd.
They both leaned their heads, peering around the dumpster into the shadowy space where the sun didn’t reach. Gristle and fur and a tiny skull. A horrible rotten stench. That’s what was left of whatever had died there.
“Howdy, folks!”
Dakota stumbled back, bumping into Boyd’s chest. His hands latched onto her arms and righted her, then lingered until she pulled away.
“I’m Jeffrey. And you must be Birdie.”
She nodded and spoke a shaky yes over the drumbeat of her heart.
“This is my friend, Chewie.” Her voice sounded better now. Steady.
“Sorry about the smell, guys. This little bugger—I’m thinkin’ it’s a squirrel—got himself trapped in the dumpster. Raccoons probably drug him out. They’ll eat anything, you know.”
Boyd elbowed Dakota, widening his eyes at her. “I didn’t catch your last name,” he said.
Jeffrey pointed to the badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck: SOLANO COUNTY, SHERIFF’S OFFICE, ANIMAL CARE RECORDS DIVISION, JEFFREY GOODFELLOW.
“Jeffrey Goodfellow, huh? As in good fellow.” Boyd chuckled. “That’s convenient.”
****
Beads of sweat dotted the back of Boyd’s neck like angry blisters. Dakota watched them fall into the collar of his T-shirt, leaving a wet spot down the back.
“I feel like I’ve lost ten pounds,” he said. Wiping his forehead, he sifted through the last banker’s box of records Jeffrey had pulled for them, marked 1990 A-G.
“Gunderson, Gustafsson, Gutierrez, Guttuso.”
“Guzman!” They both shouted, their voices echoing eerily against the unfinished concrete walls. Jeffrey looked up from his desk, studying them for a moment—blink, blink, blink—before lowering his head back to his book.
“Seriously,” Boyd whispered. “You don’t think he’s a little creepy?”
She put a finger to her lips and pointed to the file in Boyd’s lap, trying not to think about Jeffrey and his reptile eyes and his well-worn paperback book. Which just happened to be a Stephen King.
“Maybe a little,” she admitted, studying the Guzman’s dog license application and jotting the details in her notebook.
Owner: Raul Guzman
Dog Name: Blondie
Breed: Golden Retriever
Adopted from Solano County SPCA: May 15, 1990
“Unbelievable,” Boyd said. “Five of them. All adopted at the SPCA.”
Dakota laid the file facedown on the copy machine, listening to its soft mechanical whir. “What do you think it means?”
“Sounds like you two are on the way to solving your caper.”
Dakota jumped at Jeffrey’s voice, calm as still water and suddenly right over her shoulder.
“No caper. Just a class project.” Boyd took the folder from Dakota’s hand and returned it to the box, affixing the dusty lid atop it.
“Right. A class project.” Jeffrey twisted his mouth at them, taking a pointed glance at Dakota’s notebook. SHADOW MAN INVESTIGATION printed in big block letters across the front. “I’ll bet Birdie and Cheesy are your real names too.”
“Chewie,” Boyd corrected, with a crooked smirk.
“You know,” Jeffrey said, stroking the yellowed pages of Cujo. “I always thought Shadow Man probably had a family or something. That’s why he stopped. Or hey, who knows, he might’ve just passed the family business on to his kids. Maybe even his son.”
****
Dakota couldn’t stop laughing. She laughed so hard her stomach hurt and the tightness in her chest unwound. They’d run from the warehouse and Creepy Jeffrey, past the rotting squirrel carcass and across the pavement desert, and flung themselves, breathless, into the VW.
Boyd fired it up, just as Jeffrey emerged from the warehouse, waving at them, as if he really was a perfectly good fellow. They sped away, their giggles picking up steam as they drove.
“I don’t want to go back yet,” Dakota said, after their laughter had subsided. So Boyd took the exit for Glory Hole and parked at the overlook.
Dakota leaned against the railing and into the cool breeze, listening to the rush of water below. The last time she’d come here with her parents she’d done the same, savoring the magic of the place. Until her mom had pulled her back, worried. Like she might fall in and disappear forever into the swirling water.
When Boyd joined her there, letting out a howl into the wind, she started talking, unloading it all on him. The entire awful summer and more.
The stairs that led down to Hannah’s basement and the end of the world as she knew it.
The first time her mother slapped her face.
The letter she’d mailed to Grandpa Krandel. And their trip to Allendale.
The worst birthday ever.
Even the fake tattoo that looked real.
Dakota decided Boyd listened better than any boy she’d ever met. But he had that look again, and it made her nervous. She wished he wouldn’t do that.
“Can I see your tattoo?”
She didn’t know how to say no, not without making him feel bad, so she pulled her T-shirt down over her shoulder. She flinched when he touched her, moving just out of his reach.
“I like it. It’s totally you.”
Her stomach roiled like the water below, but he seemed not to notice.
“I had fun today,” he said.
“Me too.”
“I like spending time with you.”
She nodded.
“Do you like me?”
The question seemed impossible.
“I know I’m not that great looking, but you did say I wasn’t ugly.”
“You’re not, but—”
“Is it the burns? They freak you out, don’t they?”
The breeze turned to a sudden, whipping wind, burning Dakota’s eyes till they watered. Scattering the magic of Glory Hole like the puff of a dandelion.
“I thought we were trying to solve this case. You know, Shadow Man? Crazed serial killer who murdered your aunt.”
“Of course, we are.” He twittered. “We’re the dynamic duo.”
/> “Well, it seems like you’re . . . distracted. You’re acting strange.”
He sighed. And she had the sudden urge to wallop him. To hit harder than her mother ever had.
“You know the odds of us ID’ing Shadow Man are astronomical, don’t you? I mean, you’re fifteen and I’m a loser who lives in my mom’s basement.”
“So what are we doing then?”
“I thought we were hanging out, having fun together. You trust me, right? I know you do. You just told me all that stuff.”
Dakota turned away from him. The car sat waiting to swallow her, to carry her wherever he wanted to go. The only witnesses here were the distant sycamores, waving to her the way Jeffrey had, yielding their bodies to the wind.
“Take me back to the library.”
She felt ashamed when he hung his head. Because this was her fault. She’d been the one to let the universe decide.
“Okay,” he said.
Halfway back to Napa, he started to speak. To say something about Shadow Man and the dogs and what they’d do next.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll find Shadow Man without you.”
AFTER
Chapter
Thirty-Two
(Friday, October 12, 2018)
“See you in a bit,” Sawyer says, taking a seat in one of the stiff-backed chairs in the lobby of the Sheriff’s Office. I must look worried, because he squeezes my hand.
“Are you sure you don’t have to get back to work?” I ask.
“The Blue Rose can survive a few hours without Grant Sawyer.” Which is more than I can say. “I’ll be here manning the extraction point. Ready for a counterattack if necessary.”
Feeling lighter, I follow Detective Sharpe turn after turn, down a long, cold hallway. A circuitous route that seems designed to disorient me, though I have nothing to hide.
“So how have you been?” he asks. I’m grateful for the distraction. Because the click of his loafered heels against the tile unnerves me. Like a bomb counting down to explosion.
“Better. Now that the media vultures have scattered. Thanks for that, by the way.”
Shadows Among Us Page 33
