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

by Ellery A Kane

  “What did you say, exactly?” Making Drake accountable. She’d worked damn hard at that too, for diminishing returns.

  He answered in a voice so low she couldn’t understand him, but his eyes peeked up at her, bright and unashamed.

  “I’m sorry, Drake. I can’t hear you when you mumble.” In her own voice, she heard her mother, scolding her. Which worked out fine because that’s what Drake needed her to be. His own mom, battling her own demons, had laid the first stone on his dark and crooked path.

  “I called her a bitch. A fat bitch.”

  “That sounds like old Drake behavior. A lot like what happened yesterday with Hank. I thought you’d moved past petty insults.”

  “She said nobody wanted me. That they wouldn’t give me that teaching assistant job.” His fists clenched in his lap. Olivia knew exactly what those hands were capable of. The way his rage turned them into talons.

  “It sounds like you’re feeling sorry for yourself rather than for what you said to Ms. Ricci.”

  He smacked his knee, the sudden movement drawing Hank’s attention. Olivia gave a little head shake, waving him off. She couldn’t have Handsy interrupting now.

  “Damn, Doc. You’re good. I tell everybody I got the smartest shrink in the joint.” He puffed his chest as if he’d pinned her there like a medal.

  “Well, then you know I’m not going to tell you what to do. Part of the reason you started therapy is to figure out some of these dilemmas on your own.”

  “That’s exactly what Shauna talked about at the Changes group this week. Options. You always have options.”

  “So, what are they?”

  “Well, I figure I’ve got two of them. New and improved Drake knows he should apologize. But I can’t. Ms. Ricci’s not here today. She didn’t show up to work. It’s probably my fault.”

  “And old Drake, the Vulture?”

  “The Vulture would stay pissed. Work himself into a real frenzy. The Vulture would… nah. I can’t tell you what the Vulture would do. That’s what ended me up here in the first place.”

  Olivia waited out a shiver before she spoke.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know what it means. But I’m not gonna say it. I’m already in enough trouble. I mean, have you heard the rumors?”

  “Which ones?” Playing dumb. A therapist’s secret weapon.

  “Somebody’s trying to make me look real bad. Probably that Oaktown asshole, Riggs. The guy’s had it in for me ever since he got out of the hole. He knows I told the goon squad about his little plan to shank O’Brien. They should’ve given me a medal for that shit.”

  “Riggs, huh? And what is it he’s saying about you?”

  Drake laid his hands on the desk and leaned in. Olivia couldn’t look away from them now. As he spoke, his fingers curled in like claws against the wood veneer.

  “That I murdered Ms. McMillan. From here in prison. Just like Hawk, the main character in my book. Ain’t that a hoot? I mean, it’s fiction. Made up. That’s the whole goddamn point. Nobody’s goin’ around saying James Patterson is bumping off ladies.”

  Drake pushed away, smirking, and pointed at the egg timer which had steadily advanced to its end.

  Ding.

  Olivia waved at Maryann as she pulled the library door shut behind her. The soft click of her heels turned the heads of a few inmates seated at a long table in the center of the room, their legal paperwork strewn around them. White-haired Morrie Mulvaney sat at the head, overseeing them. Olivia offered a polite smile, pretended not to know him. Morrie had been a friend of her father’s before they’d transferred him to Valley View. She’d sat on his lap as a little girl, played with his handlebar mustache. A lifer just like her dad. Oaktown Boy too, with the tattoo to prove it. Branches of the inked oak tree barely visible beneath his collar, a remnant of his old life. The new clean-shaven Morrie worked as a paralegal for canteen money. He’d been lucky enough to convince the parole board he deserved a second chance, and unlucky enough to have his grant rescinded by the governor.

  “Hey, Maryann. I’m glad to see you back. You doing alright?”

  Olivia found the answer on Maryann’s face. In the fluorescent light, her skin had a pallor, a sickly glow. Her eyes like two dark holes on the surface of the moon, the loose skin beneath them magnified under her glasses.

  “I haven’t been sleeping well. Neither has Luna. We can’t stop thinking about Bonnie. And the rumors.”

  “Melody told you too?” Olivia kept her voice low. When your life depends on your five senses, you hone them. Sharpen them to a point. Inmates had ears as sharp as Dobermans.

  Maryann mouthed Drake. “He’s in here all the time working on his books. I’ve been trying to act normal. I even agreed to edit the sequel for him. Since Bonnie’s… well, you know. You don’t think there’s any truth to the talk, do you?”

  “Remember last year? That story about the warden’s secretary.” Leeza’s a stripper, Em had told her one night. Olivia wouldn’t dare repeat it now. But it had made the rounds along with a thousand other tall tales cooked up behind these walls. These men could fashion ink pens into needles. Nunchucks out of chair legs. Rumors out of thin air.

  “You’re right. It is pretty far-fetched. How would he get out of his cell and past those fences? Crescent Bay is airtight. Even the cockroaches die here.”

  Depressing, but Olivia had seen the proof. The upturned bodies, the spindly legs, in the corner outside the control booth. As if they’d made it as far as they could before they’d surrendered. “Do you happen to have a copy of Bird of Prey?”

  “Sure do. We don’t keep it on the shelf. But I’ve got my own. Drake signed it to me.” Maryann’s voice carried, and Morrie raised a caterpillar eyebrow at them. “I’m in the Acknowledgments, too,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her pudgy fingers. “So is Bonnie.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “Yeah. I helped with some of the research. He wanted to get all the details right.” Maryann reached behind the counter and produced the book.

  “I’m sure he did.” Olivia had forgotten the cover. That creepy golden eye Drake had drawn himself. It fixed on her, followed her, as she slid the book across the counter and tucked it under a magazine. Because inmates talk. The last thing she needed was a run through the rumor mill. “I’ll be at the desk in the back if anybody asks.”

  Maryann nodded. “Happy reading.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Will sat in his truck outside the prison, rubbing his temples. He’d sucked down one and a half doughnuts and two cups of coffee on the way. That’s what it would take, minimum, to make it through today on two hours’ sleep. But the JB diet had taken an axe to his skull. He peeked at his face in the rearview mirror but found no blade, no protruding handle. Just a day’s worth of scruff and hair that looked like he’d skipped a shower. Which he had. Amy had never liked it mussed. You look like a hoodlum, she’d told him. Not a detective.

  That right there told him he needed sleep. A solid eight hours. Because the Amy synapses never fired unless they were pickled in alcohol or high on the fumes of exhaustion.

  He popped the remainder of doughnut number two in his mouth and washed it down with the last shot of coffee. Might as well do it big. Then, he locked the truck and headed inside the gates of Crescent Bay to the prison library. At least there’d be no danger of running into Dr. Smarty Pants.

  Will spotted Maryann hunched over the circulation desk, cataloguing a stack of nature books. One tap of the service bell, and she jumped. A book about redwoods tumbled predictably from her hand to the floor, splitting down the center so that the cover splayed wide.

  “Detective Decker, what a surprise.”

  Will winced at it all. The book, her pale face, the volume of her announcement. Which, as he expected, cleared the library faster than a fire alarm, the center table vacant in ten seconds flat. Granted, the badge clipped to his belt probably didn’t help.

  “Sorry. I f
orgot where I was for a moment. You startled me.”

  “Redwoods, huh?” He pointed to the book at her feet. “I wouldn’t have figured it.”

  Maryann twittered. “Nature books and thrillers. Our two most popular categories.”

  Will placed the book he’d brought with him on the countertop. “Tell me about this thriller.”

  “Well, that’s Drake Devere’s book. But I reckon you already know that.”

  “His name is rather large. Pretty hard to miss.”

  With a simpering smile, Maryann took a seat on the stool behind the desk. Will wondered if she’d ever been a preschool teacher. She looked at him like that. Like a boy. Or her little white dog. A thing to be coddled. “It’s a story about an inmate, Hawk, on death row. He digs a tunnel from his cell to the outside, so he can do what he wants to. Kill women.”

  “I’ve read it.” Cover to cover.

  “Oh. Then, how can I help you, Detective?”

  “Your name is in the Acknowledgments. I’m wondering why.”

  “Drake asked me to help him with some research for the book. I suppose it was his way of thanking me. I was as surprised as anybody.”

  “Research on what, exactly?”

  Maryann’s gaze traveled past him. “Is Drake in trouble? Are you investigating him?”

  “Let’s just say I’m curious.”

  “You’re not the only one, I guess.”

  “Someone else has been asking?”

  She nodded eagerly, pointing behind him. “I loaned my signed copy within the last ten minutes.”

  Will spun around and followed her finger. Past the center table. Down the long shelf marked A–D. To the little desk pushed into the corner and the woman sitting there, her nose in the very same book.

  The axe blade in his head began to throb again. He couldn’t say what was worse. That he liked the way she tucked a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear as she read. That she looked put-together—and hell, he could admit it, beautiful—while he bore a strong resemblance to the dead mouse he’d found on his porch that morning. A gift from one stray to another, no doubt. Or that he realized he’d been hoping to see her all along.

  Chapter Twelve

  Drake Devere could write. He could strangle women, too. But, he had a way with words that Olivia had forgotten. It had been a year since she’d read Bird of Prey, and it resonated differently now that she’d been poking around inside his head, wandering the endless maze of dark and winding corridors up there, certain she’d stumble upon the one thing she always wanted from her patients. To understand. To make meaning.

  Deep in Chapter Three, her stomach hollowed. She gripped the book’s jacket a little tighter. She felt like someone was watching her. Finally, the heat from unseen eyes forced her to look up.

  “Deck? Uh—Will… I didn’t see you there, Detective.”

  Detective. She owed him that much after she’d sent him running for the hills. She wondered if all men saw her that way; as a flood, formidable and destructive. Never satisfied. You’re too much, Erik had told her once. Because she wanted things like fidelity and honest conversations. A husband who’d binge-watch CSI with her, who wouldn’t refer to her job as mumbo-jumbo.

  “Seems like we have the same taste in books.” Will’s mouth hinted at a smile. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He certainly hadn’t shaved. And his hair hadn’t seen a comb. Some girls liked it that way though. Mussed.

  Will held up the book he had tucked to his chest, and Olivia cursed herself. She’d been so focused on his damn hair she hadn’t noticed the copy of Bird of Prey that matched her own. “I suppose we do.”

  “So, what did you think?” He took the seat opposite her. “I’d give it two stars at most. It’s a bit theatrical for my taste. A little overwrought. I mean…” He opened the book to a dog-eared page and read aloud. “‘The night sky beckoned to Hawk from the window of his airless cell like the call of a siren luring him to his doom.’ Jeez.”

  “Theatrical and overwrought. That’s Drake in a nutshell.”

  Will set the open book on the desk. The pages fluttered, landing where the spine had creased, on the page he’d turned to the most. He glanced over his right shoulder, then his left, before he settled his gaze back on her. “Are you sure you should be telling me that? I don’t want you to violate any rules. Since we’re both such strict rule followers.”

  Olivia sighed, smiled. He’d given her an out. “Fair enough. I deserved that. But in my defense, Warden Blevins gave the all-clear. I’m to cooperate fully.”

  “Oh. Lucky me.”

  “By the way, I want to apologize for my comment yesterday. It was uncalled for.”

  She saw it in his eyes. The past lingered there, unresolved and heavy. “I’ll let it slide. Since I did threaten to arrest you.”

  “Should we call it even then?” She laid down her own book and extended her hand. He took it into his and held it there for a moment, as warm and strong as she’d expected. His knife scar, smooth beneath her thumb.

  “Even-steven.” He glanced at the notes she’d been writing, and she quickly moved the paper out of his line of sight. “Oh, so it’s like that.”

  “Well, you haven’t told me why you’re so interested in Drake. Or why you’re back here again. Or why your book is signed by the author.”

  “What? How do you—?”

  She pointed at his copy. At the title page and the writing she saw there. He leaned back in the chair and ran an exasperated hand through his hair, mussing it again. Some girls liked it that way, and Olivia decided right then she was one of them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Will drove toward the station in a haze of exhaustion. He’d used up the last dregs of his energy on witty banter with Olivia, and thank God he had. Because she’d agreed to give up the goods on Drake. They’d made plans to meet that night at the Hickory Pit. Will’s choice. He needed to see Dr. Smarty Pants tackle a plate of spareribs before he could fully trust her. If she ordered a salad, forget about it.

  Otherwise, the visit to Crescent Bay had been a bust. Warden Blevins had let him scroll through the security footage from the night of Bonnie’s murder. Useless, since it had cut out around midnight when the rain hit. He’d also offered up Drake’s Central file, where Will had found and photocopied rules violations for disrespect, theft, manipulation of staff, and overfamiliarity. In other words, typical Vulture. Maryann had printed Drake’s library check-out log, a list of thrillers, dime store romances, and the classics, the last few in audiobook format. According to Maryann, only inmates with certain conditions were allowed audiobooks, but Drake had shown her a doctor’s chrono for dry eyes. Will could think of a few diagnoses for him, starting with a fatal case of full of shit.

  With only a couple miles to go before the turnoff for downtown, Will slammed on the brakes. Petey. He’d totally flaked on his promise to call the bail bondsman first thing this morning. He pulled off the road into the grove of redwood trees and searched his contacts for Dan the Bailout Man. He pressed call and waited.

  No signal. Just the sort of thing that happened in middle-of-nowhere Fog Harbor. Times like this, he missed the big city, even if SFPD had practically exiled him, branded him a leper. Hell, they’d done better than that. They’d graffitied it on his front door in red spray paint—Get out, snitch—though he couldn’t prove it.

  Will cracked the door and hopped out, instantly awakened by the December air. It stung like a shock of cold water to his face. He walked a bit down the highway, holding his phone to the sky as he went.

  “This is ridiculous.” He traipsed back the other way, down the dirt road that led God knows where.

  One bar. That’s all he needed. Just one bar.

  “Yes!” He’d been walking for a while, repeatedly pressing the call button, when the phone began to ring.

  “This is Dan the Bailout Man. How can I help you?”

  Will stopped moving. He didn’t speak the words he’d planned to say.

  I
n the clearing, the woman’s body sat propped up against the massive trunk of a redwood, her head drooped to the side, eyes closed, as if she’d decided to take a nap. He didn’t go any closer. He didn’t need to.

  “I’ll have to call you back.” His voice sounded strange out here, with only the trees to hear him. The trees and the dead woman with the denim blue garrote around her neck.

  “What the hell, City Boy?” Red-faced and out of breath, JB puffed up the dirt road toward Will, making his way through a sea of blue uniforms. “Are you part bloodhound? Who stumbles on a body out here?”

  “I couldn’t get a cell signal.”

  Will led JB into the clearing, where Chet had already begun to do his work, and waited for the lightning to strike his partner. The same strike that had riveted him to the spot. These kinds of cases didn’t come along often. Once or twice in a career, maybe more, if you got really unlucky. Which he had, apparently.

  “Are you shittin’ me?” JB stared ahead, mouth hanging open like an old bulldog, circuits sufficiently fried. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Will nodded.

  “Doc, tell me he’s wrong. Please. For the love of God.”

  Chet examined the garrote with a gloved finger. “We’ll have to take a closer look in the—”

  “Goddamnit, man. Just tell me. Is it the same?”

  “It appears highly similar. Same fabric, same yellow stamp,” Chet continued over JB’s groaning. “Manner of death, strangulation, just like Bonnie. Probably posed here post-mortem. The tights are pulled down; the shirt is torn. Possibility of sexual assault. Judging by the minimal insect activity and the beginnings of rigor mortis, I’d say she’s only been dead a few hours though.”

  “Got an ID yet?” Will asked.

  “There’s a couple patrol officers, Bauer and Milner, said they recognize her. I guess she runs the same route every morning. They headed back up to the road. I told them you’d want to talk.”