Panic rose up in her throat, a hot bile, and she cracked the door. Vomited right there in the ditch with the rain pouring.
Her thoughts kept swimming. She’d already been fired. Now what? Arrested for DUI? With the patrols stepped up, the cops would be here any minute to put her in handcuffs and stick her in the cage in the back, not much different than Drake. She wouldn’t let that happen. She could still make it to her grandmother’s house. Still salvage this day.
Breathing hard, she hoisted her purse onto her lap. The iPod had been there all along. She found the song she’d been looking for and cranked the volume, drowning out the rain. Then, slowly, cautiously, she reversed, singing to herself.
See how careful she could be. How responsible. Only ten miles to home, and she’d keep it between the lines the whole way.
Two miles past the turnoff for Crescent Bay, she took a left onto the decommissioned highway. The Mini rumbled over the neglected asphalt, her teeth juddering with every pothole. But miraculously, the rain slowed. Then stopped completely. She couldn’t help but give herself credit.
If you can change your mind, you can change your world. That’s what she’d written on the whiteboard the first day she’d set foot in the prison to teach Changes. She’d been good at it, too. The inmates had told her so, Drake included. Because she didn’t judge them. She saw inside, right down to the core of the apple. To the lost little boys—men, now—who sat in her classroom searching for the understanding the world had never given them. Even Drake had told her she got it. Understood him better than Dr. Rockwell. Maybe she didn’t need a Ph.D. after all.
With that thought sprouting wings, she felt better. She even smiled. But it only lasted for a single beat of her heart.
She cried out, slammed her brakes, skidded to a stop, as a dark creature glided across the road, its black body half-hidden in the low-hanging fog. It stopped, waited. Right in front of her.
As she inched the car closer, it didn’t move.
Not a creature at all. A wheelchair. But where had it come from? Who?
Her thoughts stopped swimming in circles. It’s a test. A sign. A gift from the universe. I’m a helper. That’s what I do. I help. Someone clearly needed help.
The wheelchair rocked slightly in the wind, empty and curiously dry. It looked old, well used. One of the footrests missing.
As Shauna put the car in park and stepped out into the night, she’d never been so brave.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I’m worried about Shauna.”
The first words out of Emily’s mouth that morning hit Olivia like a bowling ball. She’d skipped breakfast and avoided the kitchen entirely, not wanting to face Em.
“You know how she’s glued to her phone, right?”
Olivia turned on the radio as she pulled out of their driveway. The rain had ended, at least for now. The sky, a muted gray-blue. She glanced back at the porch, at the handful of garland drowned on the step, and smiled to herself, remembering Deck standing there, dripping wet. It felt like years since last night. “You mean, like someone else I know.”
“Whatever.” But Emily didn’t deny it. The local station’s classic Christmas carols played in the background, the exuberant sleigh bells an eerie contrast to the grim new world around them. A world where women they knew were being picked off one by one. “She hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts. Not since yesterday night, after you left to drive Detective Decker home. I hardly slept at all thinking about it.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably just upset. Maybe she doesn’t feel like talking.” Like me, Olivia thought.
“But what if she’s not? What if…” Emily didn’t say it out loud. Thank God.
“Did you see this?” Emily directed Olivia to her phone’s screen. Correctional Officer Hank Wickersham Identified as Person of Interest, Released without Charges.
“Can we stop by Shauna’s grandma’s house to check on her? It’s practically on the way.”
Olivia knew the Ambrose house. Not counting Adele’s long-windedness, it meant at least a twenty-minute detour. Which meant she’d be late for the 8 a.m. all-staff MHU meeting. Technically her meeting.
“Of course. But let’s make it quick.”
Route 187—an unfortunate number for a highway, especially one snaking its way past prison gates—had been decommissioned in the nineties in favor of the nearby interstate. By now, the forest had begun to reclaim it. The relentless winter rains took bites of the asphalt, and grass pushed its way through the cracks of what remained. Olivia remembered making the trek out here as a wide-eyed teenager, her friends drunk on cheap booze. Her, on freedom.
Only a few houses remained occupied. The rest had fallen to ruin, ready to be swallowed in time by the wild grass, the river, and the redwoods. The Ambrose house stood at the end of the long straightaway, a ROAD ENDS HERE sign near the mailbox.
But they never made it that far.
A few hundred yards up ahead, lights flashed, painting the horizon in swashes of color. A barricade marked POLICE stopped her from going any farther.
Emily’s “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” beat in Olivia’s brain as she steered the car to the shoulder.
“Wait.” She reached for Emily’s arm. But her little sister skirted out of her reach, flung open the door and ran straight into the eye of the storm. Big sister followed.
A gloved hand stopped them both at the barricade. It belonged to Officer Bullock, otherwise known as Bulldog to his colleagues. Graham had used the nickname a few times, and Olivia had never needed an explanation. The thick jowls, the underbite, and the short, stocky frame. The clipped voice telling her to hold up. She half expected him to growl.
“Can’t let you go through here, ma’am.”
She nodded at him, catching her reflection in his mirrored sunglasses.
“That’s my friend’s car,” Emily said, pointing over Officer Bullock’s head to Shauna’s yellow Mini Cooper, stock-still in the center of the asphalt about thirty yards from the barricade. The driver’s door gaped open.
Frantic, Olivia scanned the ground for a body bag but saw nothing. No ambulance either. She lifted her gaze to the officers on the periphery. They combed through the thick plant cover where the road met the forest.
JB stood among them, smoking a cigarette. He raised his hand to wave at her. Then he tossed the butt to the ground, stamped it out, and collected it, depositing it in his coat pocket. He disappeared into the redwoods.
“Can you please tell us what’s happening?” Emily begged. “Is she… is she dead?”
Bulldog answered with the hard set of his jaw.
Emily’s bottom lip trembled, the same way it had since she’d turned two years old. A little tremor before the big one, their father had teased. Olivia put her arm around Emily and considered retreating to the car. She could call Deck from there, find out what had happened. But the big sister in her couldn’t let this particular asshole slide.
“C’mon,” she told Emily, guiding her around the barricade. “We’re going to look for Detective Decker.”
“Ma’am, no one gave you permission to do that.” Bulldog strutted toward her, faster than she’d given him credit for. “You need to go back the way you came unless you’d like to spend the morning in jail.”
“I know that detective.” She pointed at the spot where she’d last seen JB. “I’m working with him and his partner.”
“Yeah. Sure you are. And I’m Columbo.” Bulldog grabbed her by the upper arm, squeezing his fat fingers into her flesh. He spun her in the other direction and gave her a little push. The part of her that belonged to her father—hot-tempered and defiant—dug in her heels.
“Don’t push my sister.” Emily’s tears stopped, her lip stiffened. “She’s a doctor.”
Bulldog removed his sunglasses, squinting at her. “Hey, aren’t you Bauer’s girlfriend?”
Olivia sighed. Would it ever end?
“It’s okay, Bullock. I’ll take
care of this troublemaker.” The voice came from behind her and her stomach clenched. Still, facing Deck would be better than leaving in handcuffs. She had no choice when she felt his hand brush her shoulder.
“Trying to get yourself arrested again?” He barely smiled, the circles under his eyes as dark as her own.
“Em was worried about Shauna. She hasn’t heard from her since last night.”
“She texted me a few times from the Hickory Pit,” Emily interjected.
“We were going to drive out to her house, but…”
Emily whimpered. “Is Shauna okay?”
Deck glanced behind him at the Mini and shrugged. “Honestly, we don’t know. Her grandmother said she never came home last night. A neighbor found the car abandoned out here on the way to work this morning. Her purse was left on the passenger seat, and we found her phone a few feet in front of the car. Unfortunately, it landed in a pothole and got very wet. The team’s been searching the woods for about two hours. There’s no sign of her.”
Dread and fear pooled in her gut, but she felt a small comfort when she met Deck’s eyes. The little flecks of gold in them caught the sunlight, and she looked away before he saw too much of her. He already knew too much.
“Can I take a look at those messages, Emily?”
Olivia stood front and center in the MHU conference room. Fifteen pairs of eyes stared back at her, expectantly, waiting for her to tell them what to do. To be the chief. Only Leah knew Olivia had never wanted the job. After the Oakland Police Department profiling debacle, she’d hoped to blend in for a while. To lay low. But when she’d interviewed for a staff psychologist job at Crescent Bay, Warden Blevins had insisted she’d be a better fit as chief. The position had been vacant for nearly two years since Vernon Hale had retired. You seem like a natural leader, the warden had cooed. You certainly know the population.
She’d been flattered, proudly telling him about her research at Stanford, even her work with the FBI, but looking back now, she wondered if she’d been way off base. If he’d meant it differently. Her personal knowledge of criminals. Knowledge so personal, in fact, it flowed in her blood; fifty percent of her DNA.
“Alright, everyone. Let’s get started.” The remaining chatter quieted, then stopped completely. The spotlight on her. “I sent out today’s agenda last Thursday. But with the current circumstances, I think it’s best if we take some time to process everything that’s happened.”
One of the interns, Jenny Li, raised an eager hand. “I heard Shauna Ambrose is missing? Is that true?”
A few gasps, a few nods. But mostly stunned silence. “Who did you hear that from?”
“All the officers are talking about it. Melody said she saw her out last night at the Hickory Pit. That Shauna was fired yesterday for posting pictures of Drake online. And then, she got drunk and made out with—”
“This isn’t the place for gossip.”
Jenny’s supervisor, Dr. Stanley, jumped to her feet, ready for a fight. Olivia knew why. She’d wanted the chief job. Had lobbied for it for months. “But if Shauna is missing that makes three. All from the prison. All women. Then this morning, I see a report that Hank Wickersham turned himself in to police as that person of interest from the theater. Yet, he’s still allowed to come to work. We have the right to know what’s going on.”
“Carrie, I understand you’re concerned about our safety. We all are, myself included. I wish I had more to tell you. It seems Hank was released without charges. The administration is cooperating fully with the investigation and—”
“Sounds like a line to me.”
Leah glared at Carrie. “What do you expect Olivia to do about it? She’s a psychologist, not a cop.”
“Yeah. Well, she’s Devere’s psychologist. We’ve all heard the rumors about him and Bonnie. No wonder she had those fancy boots last year. Probably money she stole from Drake. And then fighting with Laura the day before she was murdered. Have you even asked him if he was involved?”
Olivia began to question why she’d come to work at all today. Why she’d listened to a sniffling Emily and made the turn toward the prison. This didn’t feel like a distraction. It felt like a slap in the face. Her chest tightened as she surveyed her staff. Do you now there’s an actual word for a group of psychologists? Emily had teased her once, laughing so hard she’d barely gotten the word out. A complex. That explains a lot.
At the edge of this restless complex, leaning casually against the wall, Warden Blevins watched her. Like a roach slipping in through a crack in the wall, he’d come in so quietly she hadn’t noticed.
“I don’t think my sessions with Drake are relevant to this meeting. Just like all of you, I adhere strictly to the ethics code and the rules of the institution, which require me to notify Warden Blevins if there is a threat to our safety or security.”
She observed the warden’s face. At this distance, she couldn’t tell the difference between his smirk and his scowl. Unless that threat is the warden himself.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“These tracks look mighty similar.” JB pointed to the tire impressions in the mud just off the road, beyond a set of footprints. “You wanna bet they’re a match for the Michelins? And how about those babies? Correct-Tex?”
“Yep. But no body.”
“Not yet.” The words thudded from JB’s mouth, heavy and foreboding as stones laid upon a grave.
Will stood near the yellow evidence markers, trying to see the scene the way the bad guy had. Or girl, he heard Olivia caution in his head. He wondered when in the last four days her voice had taken up residence there along with the rest of her. Had it really only been five days?
From here, a small clearing in the redwoods, he had an obstructed view of the road. Its fissures and craters like the surface of an alien moon. The ground yielded, soft beneath his feet, and he let himself sink in, thinking.
“So, our perp is here in the truck, waiting for Shauna presumably. She can’t see the vehicle from the road, so why does she stop?”
“She knows him. Maybe he flags her down.”
“Then why hide the truck back here in the woods? He wants the element of surprise. Maybe he used a ruse or a partner. Something to draw her in.”
Will thought of Drake. Of the way he’d lured his victims deep into Muir Woods, promising to meet them for a picnic. A secluded spot near a waterfall. Then, when they’d hiked to the spot, found his blanket spread beneath a tree, he’d swooped in from behind and captured his prey.
JB nodded his approval. “Not bad. I’ll make a detective out of you yet. But I’m still thinking these murders are a one-man show.”
“What do you say we head over to the prison?” Will asked. “Talk to the kitchen staff about Laura. Find out exactly why Shauna got fired. Maybe even pay our buddy Drake a visit.”
He hoped they’d run into Olivia too. But he would never say that out loud. It had been hard enough this morning, keeping his hands to himself. When they’d wanted to punch Bullock right between the eyes. To linger on her shoulder.
“A visit to Crescent Bay?” JB swooned. Clutching his chest, he batted his eyelashes. “Oh, City Boy. Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“What do ya think?” JB asked, from his seat at a table in the Crescent Bay dining hall. “Two Michelin stars?”
Like most things in prison, the tables were metal and bolted to the dingy tile floor. Four seats—also metal, also bolted—surrounded each one. A dismal shade of brown, the walls provided the perfect backdrop for the meals served here. One heaping spoonful of bad decisions. A side of hopelessness. A stale slice of regret. It might’ve been the saddest place at Crescent Bay, and it made Will’s chest ache to think of Ben eating his meals on a cold, hard slab of steel like this one each day.
“Why not three?” Will asked.
“I deducted a half-star for the plastic sporks.”
Will chuckled. “Fair enough. But we can’t have you shanking your neighbor because he didn’t pass the
salt.”
“And another half for the hired help.” JB nodded toward the kitchen. As the lunch hour approached, the din had only grown louder, Will’s nerves juddering with every clanging pot. Every dropped dish. “I can’t trust a chef who calls himself Cannibal.”
JB had finally met a pie he didn’t like. His piece sat on a paper plate, untouched. The whipped cream melted.
Luis “Cannibal” Delgado, inmate leadman in the kitchen, had told them exactly nothing about Laura or Drake or the Oaktown Boys. Just said no comment and offered them a slice of day-old pie like a goddamn politician. Same as the others—Corey Coleman, Morris “Tiny” Jones, and Scott Guthrie. “Seems like the feeling was mutual.”
“Here comes our last shot,” JB muttered. “Let’s hope this guy lives up to his nickname.”
A shifty-eyed, dark-skinned man slunk toward them. He claimed one of the two remaining seats at the table and smiled broadly. An odd contrast to the scar that wormed its way from the edge of his mouth down his neck. “Cannibal says you want to talk to me.”
“Are you Michael LaRue?” Will asked.
“Sure am. But folks around here call me Squeak.”
“Alright. Squeak it is, then.” Will extended his hand before he caught sight of Squeak’s, covered in flour. Too late now. “You might have heard we’re investigating a couple of homicides.”
“Yep, sure did. Ms. Ricci was just about the best supervisor I ever had in the joint. And I’ve had a few. Ms. McMillan taught me how to read poetry. Both real nice ladies. Didn’t deserve to go out like that, if you ask me.”
Squeak said it all—already long-winded compared to the others—without taking his eyes from JB’s pie. He glared at it like the pumpkin filling had personally offended him.
“Are you okay?” Will asked.
Squeak mulled it over. “Well, that depends. Somethin’ wrong with that pie?”
Will watched JB’s throat constrict.
“’Cause I made it myself. From scratch. I won the Crescent Bay Bake Off three years runnin’ now. Got the recipe from my mama. Best pumpkin pie you’ll ever taste. I personally guarantee it.”
Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1) Page 19