Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1)

by Ellery A Kane

  Olivia heard James’ voice, reciting Drake’s haiku. She treats us as men. And the sharp scream—Maryann’s—that left a gaping wound in the silence that followed. When she thought of the scream, she thought of Bonnie, and when she thought of Bonnie she thought of her father. Of that other body she’d been carrying around for the last twenty-seven years, the heaviest kind of baggage. The mental kind. “Would it be fair to say Ms. McMillan was one of the few women you trusted?”

  With a faraway look, Drake rubbed his chin. As if after three years of therapizing him, Olivia had stumped him. Had finally asked a question for which he didn’t have a ready answer.

  “The only woman,” he said, finally. He paused for a beat, then grinned. “Well, present company excluded, of course.”

  Olivia knew better than to return his smile. Drake wielded flattery like a weapon. Best to duck and cover. To return fire.

  “Is that why you were rude to Sergeant Wickersham? Making jokes at his expense.”

  “You mean, Handsy? That guy is a prick. Always hitting on you and Doctor Chapman and the rest of the lady psych doctors. I even heard him flirting with Ms. McMillan a few times right under her husband’s nose. So, I don’t see what me putting him in his place has to do with anything. You’re overthinking this one, Doc.”

  “Well, I’m worried about you. If there are only two women you trust in the whole world, and you’ve just lost one of them, that seems significant. It seems like something that might cause you to lash out.”

  “Lash out? Puh-lease. You think that was me lashing out?”

  Drake flopped back in his chair, his hair falling in his face like a petulant teenager. Seeing him pout like that, it would have been easy to forget the reason he’d ended up in prison serving a sentence of life without parole. Five reasons, actually.

  “I do. We’ve talked about the losses you’ve experienced in your life, big and small. Your mom, for starters. Abandoning you in foster care. Choosing heroin over her only child. You didn’t cope well with that, did you?”

  Drake’s head tipped back, exposing his long, pale neck. His laugh reminded Olivia of his nickname. Because it sounded like the cry of a vulture. Shrill and wild and unnerving.

  “I guess you’re right about that. I ended up in this hellhole talking to you. No offense.”

  “And when they took your yard privileges a few years back? That was a loss, albeit a temporary one.”

  “C’mon, Doc. That’s not fair. You know I had to make a statement. Drake Devere needs his fresh air. I’m like Walt Whitman, drawing my inspiration from nature.”

  “You broke that CO’s hand.”

  “Technically, the door fractured her index metacarpal.” On any other day, Olivia would’ve stopped Drake right there and put an official label on his bullshit. Minimization. Justification. Externalization of blame. “But, you’ve made your point. I don’t react well to stress. And you’re right. This thing with Ms. McMillan has got me strung out. I couldn’t even focus on my audiobook. Do you know what bothers me the most? What’s been keeping me up every night since she went missing?”

  Today, he steamrolled her, dragging Olivia along for the ride. “Who else is gonna help me finish the series? My readers are expecting the sequel in February. And she was supposed to talk to the Classification Committee about my working as a teacher’s assistant. Now, I’ll be stuck working for Ms. Ricci, slinging that chow hall slop for fifteen cents an hour. She hates me. She’s always writing me up for being late when she knows good and well it takes at least ten minutes to walk to the kitchen from here.”

  “Stop.” Olivia suddenly wished she’d stayed home today. Pulled the covers over her head and postponed returning to the real world with its cruel lessons, its sharp edges. None sharper than Drake.

  “I’d like you to take a step back. Work on your perspective-taking. Your empathy, remember? Next session, I want an answer to my question. To this question.”

  Drake raised his hands in surrender to an invisible gun. “Fire away. You’re the best psych doctor in this joint.”

  “You cared for Ms. McMillan. You valued her. She helped you achieve a long-held dream of publishing your manuscript and gave you confidence when others doubted you. Then, someone took her away. Ended her life. Violently.”

  Olivia thought of her father. Of his eyes. Which weren’t green like hers and Em’s, but blue and seemed to fade out the longer he’d been locked up, like a photograph left too long in the sun. By the time they’d transferred him to the minimum security facility at Valley View ten years ago, they’d dimmed to a soft gray mist.

  But Drake’s eyes glinted with life as they followed her. As golden brown as a hawk’s feather and bright as the day they’d taken his first prison photo. The one tacked onto the front of his file on Olivia’s desk and immortalized on the last page of his self-published novel, Bird of Prey.

  Though it left her inexplicably angry, she stared into them, unafraid. “What is it like knowing you did that very same thing to the families of your victims five times over?”

  Olivia watched Drake through her office window as he strolled past the officers’ desk and toward the locked outer door of the MHU. Hank didn’t look up. Not even when Drake called out to him.

  “C’mon, Sarge. Help me out. Ms. Ricci’s gonna ride my ass if I’m late for lunch prep again.”

  Leah’s patient, Greg, emerged from her door across the hall, his mouth moving strangely as he talked to the voices in his head. The same ones that had told him to drive a stake—which turned out to be a steak knife—through his mother’s vampire heart.

  Leah came out behind him and stood in the doorway. She made a face at Olivia, equal parts eye roll and exasperation.

  “You know I was just pulling your chain, Sarge. You’re alright.”

  Hank remained stone-faced at his computer while, one by one, all the 9 a.m. patients gathered at the locked door, waiting for him and his precious key. Olivia could’ve put an end to the standoff and simply opened it herself, but after the incident in the chapel she’d been trying to stick to the unwritten rules: Keep your head down. Don’t get involved.

  Hank pushed back in his chair and kicked his boots up on the desk, humming, as Drake made one more effort.

  “I didn’t mean it, Sarge. Ask Doctor Rockwell. She’ll tell you. I’ve been real upset about Ms. McMillan. I probably took it out on you.”

  Hank began singing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”, and Drake kicked the door, the hollow sound ringing like a gunshot.

  At the sound, the other doctors emerged from their offices and looked on from their own doorways, the whole MHU poised on a knife’s edge. When Olivia spotted Drake whispering to Greg, a cold dread crept up her spine and stood her hair on end.

  Her finger hovered over the red push button at her waist.

  “Let me out!” Greg screamed, flailing at the door with his fists. “He’s going to damn me to a life of eternal ruin! He’s a vampire!”

  Another inmate tried to hold him back and took an elbow shot to the nose, blood dripping down his chin and spreading onto his prison blues. The blood only ratcheted up Greg’s terror. He stretched his hand out in front of him and made the sign of the cross before he returned to thrashing the door, desperate to get out.

  Olivia launched herself straight into the fray, pressing the button as she ran. The alarms blasted, flashing red, until all the inmates hit the ground per prison protocol. Only Greg remained upright, cowering in the corner, his knuckles bruised and already swollen from the pounding.

  “It’s okay,” Olivia told him, steadying the quiver in her own voice. “There are no vampires in the MHU. Sergeant Wickersham is here to help you, and so am I. So is Doctor Chapman.”

  Hank’s hands shook as he unlocked the door and the rest of the officers stormed in to restore order.

  Secured in handcuffs and pinned to the wall, Greg began to cry as Leah tried to soothe him. “Keep him away from me,” he sobbed. “Please. He’s going to bi
te me. He told me so.”

  “Sergeant Wickersham isn’t a vampire,” Olivia said again.

  “Not Sarge.” Greg pointed at the ground, where Drake lay on his belly. Olivia swore she heard him laughing. “Him.”

  Except for the soft swish of the porter’s mop across the tiles near the door, the MHU had quieted again. Leah collapsed into the chair opposite Olivia. With a frustrated sigh, she blew her blonde bangs from her face. “Girl, tell me again why we can’t bring booze to work?”

  Olivia laughed but it didn’t quiet her nerves which had frayed down to the last wire. “For one, I don’t think Baby Chapman would appreciate you drinking.”

  “It’s really not fair. I’m big as a house. My hormones are raging. I’ve got two more months until I get this kid out of me. Then, I come to work and have to put up with these lunatics. And it’s not just the inmates. I’m telling you, I could use a strong shot of pruno right now.” Leah stuck her thumb in Hank’s direction. He hadn’t spoken a word since Warden Blevins stormed out ten minutes ago. “That guy is a riot just waiting to happen.”

  “I should’ve unlocked the door myself.”

  “That’s not your job.”

  “Yeah, but I knew Drake was in a mood today.”

  “You mean the part where he acted like a psychopath? That’s not a mood. That’s a lifestyle.”

  Olivia had to hand it to Leah. She’d been lightening the glum atmosphere of the MHU with her wide smile for the last two years, when she’d relocated to Fog Harbor with her husband, Jake, who’d quit his nine-to-five in San Francisco and bought Shells-by-the-Sea, the fixer-upper B&B he’d repaired with the entirety of his retirement fund. Even last summer, the slowest tourist season on record, Leah hadn’t complained once. She reminded Olivia of her own mother, always putting on a brave face, the way she had the day they’d moved to Fog Harbor, turning her back on the Oaktown Boys—at their hideout, no less—when they’d offered her help. I don’t want to owe them a damn thing, she’d said. They’ve already taken enough from me.

  “I really thought he’d made some progress. One step forward, ten steps back, I suppose.”

  “You know, I still don’t understand why you even bother. You’re the chief. The head honcho. You don’t have to waste your time doing therapy with these guys. Especially Drake. He’s a lost cause. Kick up your feet like Jake does every fall when the tourists disappear. Do some paperwork.”

  “Bor-ing.” The truth was she needed guys like Drake to hold up against her father, measuring him and what he’d done. Trying to make the pieces fit.

  But Olivia had learned the hard way that people treated you differently when they discovered a convicted murderer in your family tree. That’s why she hadn’t told Leah—or anyone at Crescent Bay—about Martin Reilly. Why she and her sister used their mother’s maiden name. Olivia figured the warden knew though, since she’d answered the questions on the personnel form honestly, filling in her father’s name beside the blank that required her to identify any inmates with whom she had a family or personal relationship. The guards who might have still recognized her as the spirited teenager she’d been when she’d left Fog Harbor had either died or retired.

  “Girl, you need a life, ASAP. Whatever happened with Graham Bauer?”

  “Over before it started.” Olivia sighed, glancing at her computer screen, where she’d already begun typing the incident report. Her cursor flashed at the end of the word ‘vampire’. She should’ve never accepted a first date with Officer Bauer to begin with. Dating a cop is hard enough without a murderer for a dad. “Hey, speaking of paperwork, want to do our incident reports over lunch?”

  “You know we’re always hungry,” Leah said, patting Baby Chapman. “But it’s only ten thirty.”

  Olivia gaped at the oversized clock on the wall. Surely, it had stopped. But the second hand ticked on, steady as a beating heart, reminding her of the tattoo her father had inked on his own forearm in county jail after he’d received a life sentence. A distorted clock face that had always scared her a little. He’d told her once, You don’t do time in the joint. Time does you.

  Chapter Five

  Will glanced at the watch his dad had given him the day he’d taken his sworn oath as an officer of the law. Just like his father and his father’s father before him. His brother, Ben, too. Though Ben’s oath had been shot to hell two years ago. Literally.

  “You got somewhere else to be, City Boy?” JB redirected the beam of his flashlight from the muck of the drainpipe to Will’s face. Will squinted into the harsh glare, feeling like a sewer rat blinded by the light. They’d been down here long enough, covering the same ground the officers had searched last night, looking for tracks that didn’t exist. For evidence that had washed away. For a smoking gun to tell them exactly how Bonnie had ended up here.

  “Just making sure we don’t miss the autopsy. I want to get a better look at that garrote.” He swore his partner had horns beneath his salt-and-pepper buzz cut.

  JB shifted the beam down the tunnel toward the faint hint of daylight at the end. The pipe had only two other main exits—the one by Earl River and another midway. A ladder leading to a manhole in the center of town. “Keep your eyes on the prize, alright?”

  Will kept trudging ahead, tracking his own flashlight across the muddy cement bottom. Last night’s rain had already erased the officers’ footprints and left a good two inches of standing water in some places. “So, what did you think of the husband?”

  JB cleared his throat, delivering a message about as subtle as a sledgehammer. They walked the rest of the way with only the sloshing of their boots between them.

  The pipe opened at the beach overlooking the coast of Crescent Bay, exactly where the city map showed it would. Will followed JB down onto the rocky shore, cursing the cold as he zipped up his windbreaker.

  The beach parking lot sat empty up the hill behind them, a small wooden staircase guiding the way down to the sand and the stone path that bordered it. About a half mile out, the Little Gull lighthouse rose up like a towering angel through the fog. Will let the wind run its rough fingers through his hair and inhaled the brine of Crescent Bay. Fog Harbor may have been three hundred miles from San Francisco, but out here, Will felt at home. He had to admit this place had its moments.

  “Well, that was a goddamned waste of time.” JB puckered a cigarette between his lips. He flicked his lighter once, twice, three times, each meager flame extinguished by another brutal gust. Finally, the wind quieted long enough.

  “Do you think our perp could’ve carried the body from here?” Will asked.

  “It would take one hell of an effort. We walked a good three-quarters of a mile down that pipe. And I don’t know about you, but I’m plumb out of breath.”

  Will left that one alone. “Maybe he had help.”

  “Nah. Don’t think so. My gut’s telling me this is a one-man job.” JB patted his beer belly which was no doubt telling him something, either reminding him of the approaching lunch hour or reviewing the menu of snack options he kept stashed in the glove box. “Frankly, I like the husband for it. He’s conveniently out of town with the kiddos, knows exactly where she’ll be and when. He hires a guy. Tells him to slit the tire and stage the scene to look like a rape. Bingo.”

  “But why?”

  JB shrugged, chuckled. “You ain’t ever been married. Am I right, City Boy?”

  Will gritted his teeth—he’d have to go another nine rounds on the heavy bag tonight—and shook his head. “Nope. Still single.” JB never missed a chance to rub it in. Will had been close once. Close enough to know he’d never get that close again.

  “Well, there you go,” JB said. “They’d been married for ten years. Who the hell needs more of a motive than that?”

  He wouldn’t bet against JB. The stats didn’t lie. It’s usually the husband. But Will didn’t see it. Not this time. When they’d stopped by the McMillan house that morning, James had the look of a man who’d just had his life blown u
p, Hiroshima-style. Still, he agreed with JB about two things: The McMillan house looked too nice, too fancy for two state employees; and James hadn’t told them the whole truth. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead before they’d asked him a single question, most of which he’d answered with curt one-word replies.

  “Should we head back?” Will asked, taking a mental snapshot of the whitecaps crashing against the shoreline, the gulls diving through the mist. A little guided imagery for the return trek through the pipe with JB.

  At the entrance, JB sucked in the last drag from his cigarette before tossing the butt onto a pile of kelp. As he stepped into the pipe, he grimaced. “Dammit. The old knee’s actin’ up again. You get the car. I’ll wait here.”

  Will rolled his eyes, reaching down to retrieve JB’s trash. It’s no wonder JB had been without a partner for a year. Until Will had shown up, with nowhere else to go, and drawn the short straw.

  “Are you the litter police now, too?”

  The smoldering butt had rolled onto the sand alongside the pipe. Next to it, Will noticed something peculiar. He slipped his phone from his windbreaker and snapped a few photos, before he pushed aside the sand to reveal the object, hard black rubber and paddle-shaped.

  “What is it?” Will asked, as JB leaned down to get a closer look.

  “I have no goddamned idea, but I’d say this litter bug might’ve just found you a clue.”

  Bonnie’s body lay naked at the center of a metal table. Beneath it, a rubber block lifted the chest, though Chet hadn’t done any cutting yet. The bone saw rested, clean and lustrous, on a cart behind him. It kept catching Will’s eye, winking at him under the fluorescent lighting.

  In the bright light, nothing could be avoided. Including the deep scratches beneath Bonnie’s jawbones. Self-inflicted, according to Chet. She’d fought like hell to free herself from the garrote, even as it squeezed the life from her.