“Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Leah answered with a sad smile.
“Okay, okay. Fine. I know him best.” When she spoke, Olivia pictured her father’s face, not Drake’s. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I agree with him. Someone’s trying to make him look guilty. He’s being set up.”
Olivia collapsed into the nearest chair, reeling from her own revelation. “Now, can we please change the subject?”
Leah blinked a few times before she rubbed her belly. “So, what do you think of Liam for a boy?”
Grateful, Olivia smiled. “Sounds like a heartbreaker already. Or a celebrity.”
“That’s what Jake said too. He told me we’d be destining him to a life of paparazzi and dating iconic child stars. That or playing a renegade vigilante in every action movie known to man.”
“Could be worse. How ’bout member of a boy band?”
Olivia laughed at her own joke, but the moment she returned to her own desk, she spun up her computer again. Morrie’s words, her father’s too, whirled like a tornado in her brain as she typed Martin Reilly’s inmate number into the database and searched his file, opening the tab marked PAROLE HEARING.
She could get in trouble for looking. But she had to know.
*
NOTICE OF PAROLE HEARING
INMATE NUMBER: 22CMY2
INMATE’S NAME: MARTIN REILLY
FACILITY: VVSP
COMMITMENT OFFENSE: PC 187, MURDER,
FIRST DEGREE
SENTENCE: 30 YEARS TO LIFE
INITIAL HEARING DATE: MARCH 5, 2020
Inmate Reilly has been scheduled for an INITIAL parole hearing on March 5, 2020. He remains housed in the Sensitive Needs Yard (SNY) at Valley View State Prison. Inmate Reilly has been employed in Prison Industries as Leadman on the construction crew since 2012. Per his most recent Work Supervisor’s Report, his performance was rated exceptional. Group and self-help activities within the last five years included Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Victims’ Awareness, and Gang Rehabilitation Group. Per the Institutional Gang Investigation unit (IGI), Inmate Reilly completed a formal debriefing process in June 2018 and should be considered an inactive member of the Oaktown Boys. Following his debriefing, Inmate Reilly was classified as SNY due to concerns for his safety.
Inmate Reilly has incurred several rules violations during his incarceration, including Mutual Combat (1989, 1990, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2000); Possession of an Inmate Manufactured Weapon (1990, 1991, 2003); Promoting Gang Activity (1995); Possession of Inmate Manufactured Alcohol (1998, 2005); Use of a Controlled Substance (2006); and Possession of a Cellular Telephone (2008, 2010, 2016). He has remained disciplinary-free for the last three years.
Should he be found suitable for parole, Inmate Reilly reported his plan to reside in transitional housing at New Hope in San Francisco, California. He is awaiting letters of support from counselors at New Hope and his daughter, Emily Rockwell, with whom he has been in recent contact.
Inmate Reilly is scheduled for a pre-hearing psychological evaluation on January 2, 2020.
REPORT PREPARED BY: Correctional Counselor, Edwin Lacy, Jr.
cc: Belinda Jett, Attorney-at-Law
Chapter Fifteen
Will knocked for a third time, rapping his knuckles against the heavy oak door and shaking the holiday wreath hung at the center. The nicest set of doors in Fog Harbor, JB had muttered the first time they’d visited. Cost more than my first car.
Will leaned in and listened for footsteps, voices, any signs of life. But the house kept its secrets well hidden. The only sounds came from the winter wrens in the bordering forest and the occasional hum of a passing car. Will couldn’t see a thing through the beveled glass inlays and the windows offered no help either, their curtains pulled tight.
James’ SUV sat in the driveway, the hood cold to Will’s touch and still wet from the early morning rain. Next to it, a set of fresh tire tracks that left him unsettled. Someone else had been here.
Will pressed his face against the car’s tinted windows, leaving his breath on the glass. The empty seats came as a relief until he spotted the two boosters in the back. A stuffed whale carelessly tossed between them, probably days ago when life still made sense for the McMillan family. He thought of the two boys and the trip they’d taken with their father. How unfair life could be with its twists and turns and loop-the-loops. Its sudden, hard stop.
All this time, Will had been waiting for a sound. But when it came, he wished it hadn’t. A groan like that meant he’d arrived too late. Something bad had already happened.
He slid his Glock from its holster as he moved toward the rear of the house, staying close to the manicured hedges. At the corner, he posted up and risked a quick glance, cataloguing the McMillans’ backyard in a single mental snapshot. Leaves rustled across the pool cover and onto the stone deck, where the boys’ toy trucks had been left haphazard. A swing set swayed in the wind as if pushed by an unseen hand. The orange flame from a firepit stretched itself toward the sky. And in the grass nearby, a fire poker.
Will turned the corner, keeping his gun ready, and approached the poker. It lay still and heavy as the wind blew around it, but to Will it pulsed with life.
Will followed the trail of blood from the poker to the deck. Fat drops that led him like breadcrumbs to the sliding glass door. It had been left open, and a few wet leaves had blown across the threshold and into the living room, where the carpet had been spotted bright red.
From somewhere inside the house, a door shut. A soft sound, but final somehow. Like the closing of a coffin.
The acrid smell of fear and booze bit at Will’s nose, its source the five empty beer bottles stacked on an end table. In the far corner, a Christmas tree, its lights dark. The presents beneath it a cruel reminder of what would never be. As he crept past the leather sofa, the television screen eyed him blankly. It knew what he didn’t. Whose blood? And where had they gone?
Will continued into the foyer, pausing at the hallway closet. He flung it open so fast, a stack of towels tumbled to the floor, and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. He kicked the towels and took another look inside to find winter coats hung on the rack, swinging slightly. A perfect hiding place. Sucking in a breath, he pushed them back, sweeping his gun across the closet bottom. Nothing but muddy shoes and boxes and one of those fancy vacuums that cost Will’s monthly rent. He’d all but moved on, when he realized.
The biggest box sat at the right corner of the closet, its flaps slightly opened. Will nudged it the rest of the way, peering inside. Just as he’d thought. The box contained at least fifty smaller boxes. Packaged cell phones. Will held one in his hand to test its weight. Still full.
A whisper of a noise, delicate as the swish of a knife through the air, brought him back to the foyer and beyond. To Bonnie’s closed office door, where the trail ended, the doorknob slick with blood.
As Will struggled to swallow, he recognized his fear. It had been a while since he’d felt afraid. Since he’d moved to Fog Harbor, his nerves had grown fat and happy without the need to look over his shoulder anymore. But now they buzzed beneath his skin like lean live wires.
Taking a position alongside, Will tapped on the bottom of the door with his boot. “Fog Harbor Police. Show yourself.”
In the stillness that followed, he readied himself. For what he might find. For what might be done to him. What he might have to do. Fear is your partner, his dad had told him, his first day on patrol. Let it have your back. But his dad hadn’t said fear could be an enemy, too. Could make you do things blindly, stupidly. Things you’d regret forever.
Will twisted the knob and kicked the door open, scanning the room for threats: Bookshelf, posters, chairs, desk.
Desk. In the slim space beneath the mahogany beast, a pair of hands trembled, sticky with blood.
“Come out now.” Will’s voice matched the beating of his heart, fierce and steady as a pounding hammer
.
“Don’t shoot,” James whimpered, as he crawled from under the desk and curled onto the floor, moaning. “I thought you were him.”
One side of his face had already begun to swell. Blood wept from a split in the skin above his eye. More blood fell from his fat lip.
“Who?” Will asked, crouching alongside him. He kept his eyes up, his gun too. “Is there someone else here?”
James groaned again, only answering one of Will’s questions. “I think he’s gone.”
“And the boys?”
“With their grandma. Thank God.” He touched his fingers to his wounds. They came back freshly red and shaking. “How bad is it?”
“I’ve seen worse. What happened?”
“I’m in trouble, Detective. Big trouble.”
“Is this about the money you stole from Drake?”
James began to sob. Will took that as a no.
When it came to a skinned knee or a black eye or a fire poker to the head, a frozen bag of peas had always been the best medicine. Will’s brother, Ben, had taught him that. He fished one out of the McMillans’ freezer, while James rearranged his broken pieces at the kitchen table. He’d stopped crying at least.
“Want to tell me what the hell happened here?” Will asked, wrapping said miracle peas in a dish towel.
James took the ice pack and pressed it to his head. “Do I have to?”
“Judging by the looks of you, I’m the best friend you’ve got right now. But I can’t help you if I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Debt.” One syllable that sounded a lot like death. “Gambling debt.”
Will pulled out a chair and sat across from James. Interrogation time. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He’d made a split-second decision to play Good Cop. For now. “With everything else you’re going through, that must be hard. Have you always been a gambler?”
James’ laugh scraped from his throat, sharp-edged. “Ironically, no. Not until we moved back here. They’d built the Lucky Elk by then. It’s an Indian casino a couple miles north of here.”
Will knew it well. It was anything but lucky. He and JB had worked at least five robberies there in the last two months. Not counting the money given up willingly by sorry suckers in search of their next heater. “I’ve been there a few times. Lost a couple hundred myself.”
“Well, that puts you about twenty thousand ahead of me.”
Will held his you’ve got to be kidding me cards close to the vest. He figured that sum amounted to half of James’ yearly salary. No wonder the guy had a cache of phones in his closet. “Is that why you stole Drake’s book money?”
James lowered the ice pack, his left eye swollen shut. He’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do when his mother-in-law showed up. “I didn’t think he’d figure it out, and he was giving it to charity anyway.”
Will nodded. “And the phones?”
“What phones?”
“C’mon, James. I opened the closet. I saw your stash. Those will get you a pretty penny behind bars. And don’t tell me they’re Christmas gifts for your nieces.”
“Don’t have any nieces.” James leaned back in his chair and plopped the bag back on his forehead, covering both eyes now. Sweet green peas and a busted lip. That’s all Will could see. “I’m not gonna lie to you. I thought about selling them. A smartphone goes for a thousand bucks in the joint. Desperate times, you know? But I couldn’t go through with it. Not with Bonnie working there too. It was too risky.”
Will didn’t believe a word. He’d once arrested a bankrupt professional poker player for taking a bat to his parents’ heads in their Pacific Heights mansion. That guy had looked him right in the face and claimed he’d been asleep upstairs the whole time. The things a man would do for money. Smuggling cell phones was the least of it.
“So, this beat-down is about what you owe the casino then?”
“Not exactly. I thought I could make my money back with a football bet. It was supposed to be a sure thing. But then, Belichick benched Brady in the fourth, so they didn’t cover the spread. Next thing you know, I’m down another twenty grand. And I’ve got a bookie named Lyle Adams on my ass.”
“And bookies need to get paid.”
“Yeah, in blood or money, I guess. I gave him all I have. And he beat the shit out of me anyway.” James grimaced, lifting his shirt and revealing a patchwork of bruises across his abdomen. “He wants the life insurance money. I tried to tell him I don’t even have it yet.”
“Jesus. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“Can’t. He told me not to breathe a word or I might end up like Bonnie. I’m all the boys have left.”
Even Bad Cop couldn’t argue with that. Will knew the ache of growing up with just one parent. The gut punch of Mother’s Day. The ghost that clung to his father like stale cigar smoke. “Why’d you tell me then?”
“For my wife. It’s for her. I just feel so…” James’ good eye welled again. “Guilty.”
“So this guy, Lyle, you think he killed your wife? Because just yesterday you were pointing the finger at Drake Devere. And then we found this.”
Will slid his phone across the table, the note magnified on the screen. James lowered the bag and held it up close, studying it.
“What is it?”
“You tell me. We found it in your wife’s car.”
“I’ve never seen it before. Bonnie didn’t mention it.”
“We don’t think she saw it. Her prints weren’t on the note.”
James tossed the bag of peas in the sink and sighed. “All I know is Bonnie did nothing wrong. That note just proves it. Whatever happened to her, I’m to blame. One way or the other.”
Probably right, Will thought to himself. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, man. We’ll find out who did it, and we’ll make him pay.”
Will sat in James’ driveway. He cranked the radio as loud as he could stand it and shut his eyes. Otherwise, he’d fall dead asleep. A hard reset. That’s what he needed. Eight hours of dreamless slumber. But a few long blinks would have to do for now.
Before he headed back to the station, he dialed Petey’s cell. Every ring jabbed at him like a crooked finger, accusing. He had one brother left—hell, one family member—who still claimed him, and he’d blown it. When he’d finally reached Dan the Bailout Man on the drive over to James’ house, the secretary had informed him the money had already been posted. Petey was a free man.
“Thanks for nothin’, big brother.”
“I’m sorry, Petey. I got caught up in that murder case. You know how it is.”
“Yeah. Story of our lives, right? Dad was always caught up in a case. Then, Ben. Now you. Don’t worry. I took care of it.”
“Who posted it?” Will felt like a kid again, that same hollow pit in his stomach every time he’d covered for Petey. Every time Petey had gotten caught, anyway. Every time he’d watched his dad take a belt to Petey’s bare butt. Those lashes had stung Will like they were meant for him instead. “Please don’t say it was that scumbag Bertolucci.”
“Vinnie’s not a scumbag. He’s a personal banker.”
“You mean loan shark. So yeah, scumbag.”
“Well, he’s there when I need him. Which is more than I can say for—”
“Hey, Petey. I gotta call you back.”
Will raced from the truck to catch the slip of paper that had blown in a gust of wind from beneath the windshield wiper of James’ SUV. He finally tracked it down, pinning it under his boot.
He slipped a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket, grateful for another of his father’s lessons. Always be prepared to encounter evidence. After he’d gloved up, he bent down and retrieved the note.
Now you know what happens when you do the wrong thing.
Neatly drawn in the bottom right corner a symbol he recognized. Only the Oaktown Boys could make a tree look as if it had been drawn by the devil himself.
Will waited for JB inside the
forensics lab, the box marked with Bonnie’s name placed on the table before him.
“This better be good, City Boy. Traffic was a bitch.”
“Traffic?” Will shook his head. He lifted the lid and removed the plastic bag marked VEHICLE. “The station is a block from here.”
JB stretched a pair of latex gloves over his stubby fingers. “That’s about a block further than these legs want to go. Besides, the place is crawling with reporters. Worse than ants at a picnic. I had to park in Chief Flack’s spot.”
“Good luck with that. Isn’t she giving a press conference at four?” Will opened the bag and began to arrange the contents in front of them. “To discuss the s word.”
JB checked his watch. Shrugged, smirked. “She’ll probably walk.”
“So how’d it go with the judge? Did you get that warrant?”
“Does a donkey have a shadow?”
“Uh…”
“Of course I got it. Me and Judge Purcell go way back. She’s got a little thing for me.”
Will had heard that story. Apparently, JB had the hots for the judge way back when. Somewhere in between wives two and three. But the romance fizzled the moment he opened his mouth. Will’s theory, anyway.
He examined the items one by one, as JB looked on. The refuse of Bonnie’s life. A baseball cap. A thermos. Two matchbox cars. Five half-crumpled gas receipts. A McDonald’s to-go order. Her Vertigo movie ticket. Three crayons. And various drawings, done by a child’s hand and paperclipped in the center, probably by the lab.
“Want to tell me what you’re lookin’ for?”
Will slid the clip aside and flipped through the drawings, his anticipation building even as his hope dwindled. Maybe he’d been wrong. But, what if? What if.
Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1) Page 10