Her Last Day (Jessie Cole Book 1)

by T. R. Ragan

  He watched Erin look up into the higher branches. His pulse quickened at the thought of her seeing him. But she merely reached up and grabbed an apple from a low branch. She pulled hard until the apple came free, and the branch snapped back into place.

  She gathered more apples, scooping them into the hem of her gunnysack dress before walking off.

  He waited a few minutes before dropping to the ground and gathering a few apples of his own. Standing in the direct line of his intended target, he wound his arm and let the first apple fly. The fruit smacked her in the back of the head and caused her to topple over. It was no use; he couldn’t hold back the laughter another second.

  She looked behind her.

  The expression on her face when she saw him was priceless. Apples forgotten, she pushed herself to her feet and ran, dragging her bad leg along.

  He continued toward her at a slow pace, throwing the fruit at her, laughing each time he hit his mark. The next time she fell, he thought she might be dead since he couldn’t see any sign of movement. But on closer examination, he found her on her back, eyes wide-open, the gunnysack rising and falling with every breath.

  “You never should have run.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Come on,” he said, leaning forward. “Back to the box you go.”

  Before he could grab her by the hair, her arm slid out from behind her, and she swung hard, hitting him with such force and speed he never saw it coming.

  Grimacing, he staggered backward and fell to the dirt. He’d been struck in the arm with a bale hook made of steel. For a second he simply sat there in disbelief. And then he rolled his neck back and forth, taking it all in, enjoying the fiery pain as his arm pulsed and throbbed. It had been so long since he’d been tortured, he’d forgotten what physical pain felt like. It was intense. Indescribable. Awesome.

  As much as he was enjoying himself, he knew he couldn’t sit there forever. Afraid he might bleed out if he removed the hook, he left it in his arm and pushed himself to his feet. Anger overrode all else. “Stupid, stupid, girl,” he said as he followed her along, laughing every time she tripped and fell. It didn’t take him long to catch up to her.

  “You’re a monster,” she said, arms flailing as she tried to run faster.

  “Sticks and stones,” he said before he kicked her in the back of the knee, sending her flat to the ground. He bent over, used his good arm to grab a fistful of hair, and began to drag her toward home.

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried.

  “Because I can.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Jessie walked Ben Morrison outside to his car just as Colin was crossing the street. She made quick introductions. “Colin Grayson, homicide detective with the Sacramento Police Department, I’d like you to meet Ben Morrison, crime reporter with the Sacramento Tribune.”

  “I’ve heard of you,” Colin said, “but I don’t believe we’ve ever met in person.”

  Ben nodded as they shook hands.

  “So, what’s going on?” Colin asked, turning toward Jessie.

  “Ben is doing his own investigation on Sophie’s disappearance.”

  “I thought you had decided to move on?”

  Her chin came up a notch. “I changed my mind.”

  “I should get going,” Ben said. “Good to finally meet you.”

  “Yeah, you, too.” Colin looked at Jessie. “You should be resting.”

  “I took some ibuprofen. I’ll be fine.” Jessie stepped around Colin so she could thank Ben for coming. After he drove off, she looked at Colin for a long moment.

  “Are you okay?”

  She hooked her thumbs in the front pockets of her jeans and smiled at him. “I am now that you’re here.”

  He raised both hands in surrender. “Is this a trick?”

  She laughed. “No. It’s just that I haven’t been honest with you.”

  He waited for her to go on.

  “Those six weeks that I didn’t see you were the longest weeks of my life.”

  He rubbed his chin. “Are you trying to tell me that you missed having me around?”

  She nodded. “I never should have pushed you away.”

  “I should have called you after the divorce.”

  She shook her head. “It probably would have been too soon. Some things just need to unfold naturally and in their own good time.”

  “Does this mean you’ll think about going on a date with me?”

  She smiled. “I might even put on a dress for the occasion.”

  “Okay, then. Let me check my calendar and get back to you.”

  “Sounds good.” She gestured toward the house. “Let’s go inside. It’s hot out here.”

  He followed her up the stairs and into the kitchen, where she poured them both a glass of ice water from the refrigerator. “So you’ve heard of Ben Morrison?”

  “Yes, I have,” Colin said. “Morrison was the same reporter who ripped our department to shreds in his write-up after Officer Ed Smith was found guilty of rape.”

  “I do remember that,” she said. “It took jurors twenty-four hours to find Smith guilty. I didn’t realize it was Ben who covered the story, but I did agree with the Tribune’s account of what happened at the time. He was questioning other officers who tried to help cover Smith’s tracks. If I remember correctly, another officer went so far as to plant false evidence to help Smith. Everyone needs to be held accountable for their actions, the police included.”

  Colin exhaled. “So you’re working with that guy?”

  She set her glass on the counter. “I am.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds before she said, “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me what you’re really thinking?”

  “You don’t have time to be chasing ghosts right now, and the only thing Ben Morrison wants is for your story to give their subscriber numbers a boost. You need to focus on staying out of prison.” He shook his head. “What’s going to happen to Olivia if you get thrown back in jail?”

  “I know you worry about me and Olivia, and I appreciate it. I really do. But Ben Morrison has made me realize I could never simply move on with my life. I need to know what happened to Sophie. I need closure. Olivia needs it, too.”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Someone is out to do you harm. Whoever broke into Andriana’s house and took the video is afraid. And if they’re scared enough to break into someone’s house while they’re at home, then how far will they go to shut you up?”

  “I talked to David Roche,” Jessie said. “He’s a sleazeball, but so far everything he’s told me about Parker Koontz appears to be true. The good news is that I have two women who are willing to swear in court before the judge that Parker Koontz stalked and terrorized them.”

  Colin released his hold on her. “It’ll be their word against his, a local hero of sorts.”

  “True, but it’s something. I’m doing all I can. I have other people I plan to talk to. I did nothing wrong. It’s going to be okay. I have to believe that.”

  “I wish there was more I could do to help,” Colin said, “but my hands are full right now and—”

  “Stop,” she said as she put her arms around him and rested her head against his chest. “You’ve done enough as it is.”

  For a moment they simply held each other. Jessie breathed in the scent of him and wondered again why she’d pushed him away.

  “Are you two friends again?”

  Startled, Jessie stepped away from Colin and saw Olivia standing at the top of the stairs. “We never stopped being friends.”

  Olivia smiled. “Oh, I see.”

  Colin walked over to Olivia and gave her a pat on the top of the head. “Friends hug. It’s allowed,” he said.

  “Enough lollygagging,” Jessie told Olivia. “You have school tomorrow and a report to work on.”

  “Is that even a word?” Olivia asked. She looked at Colin. “Lollygagging?”

  Colin shrugged. “I have no idea.”r />
  “Did Jessie tell you I’ve decided I want to be a private detective?”

  “No. We were too busy hugging to talk about you.”

  Jessie gave him a look of exasperation.

  He winked, which made her wonder why she bothered with him at all. He was a little pushy, and cocky, and way too handsome.

  “Well, what do you think?” Olivia pressed.

  “I think you would make a fine detective.”

  Olivia looked at Jessie. “I told you.” And then she frowned and said, “So what’s going on with the Heartless Killer case? Bella’s mom wouldn’t leave our side at the mall. Not even for a minute. All she talked about were the twin girls that were found recently. She said the story was on the front page of today’s paper.”

  Olivia saw the paper on the table. A picture of the girls on the front cover.

  Jessie walked across the room and hovered over Olivia as she read the story about how the girls were taken as they walked to the bus stop.

  “They look exactly alike,” Olivia said.

  “Identical twins,” Jessie said. The thought of the girls being taken and then held captive by some maniac made her sick to her stomach.

  “Blonde. Blue-eyed,” Olivia said as she examined the picture.

  Jessie looked closer, too. Then she saw the necklace one of the twins was wearing, and she gasped.

  “What is it?” Olivia asked.

  “Remember what you said the other day,” Jessie reminded her, “about the attention always being in the details?”

  Olivia nodded.

  Colin walked over to take a look.

  Jessie went to her room and returned with the picture Arlo had given her the same day she’d found the shoe box under Zee Gatley’s bed.

  “One of the girls is wearing earrings,” Olivia said as she continued her examination. “The other is wearing a necklace. The picture looks as if it was taken outside.”

  “Look at this.” Jessie placed the picture of Zee next to the picture of the little girl.

  “Zee is wearing the exact same necklace!” Olivia said.

  “Who’s Zee?” Colin asked.

  “She’s been missing for more than a week now,” Jessie said. “Her father hired me to find her after the police showed little concern since she’d run away so many times before.”

  “She has schizophrenia,” Olivia added.

  Colin hovered closer, examining the necklaces.

  A tiny gold swan dangled at the end of a gold chain. How in the world had Zee ended up with that necklace around her neck? Images of Arlo flashed through Jessie’s mind. Arlo acting so strange. Arlo telling her she couldn’t take a look around the house. Arlo with blood on his thumb.

  Jessie looked at Colin.

  “Tell me again how you ended up with this picture?” he asked.

  “Arlo Gatley came to my office after his daughter went missing. When I went to his house in Woodland to take a look at her room, I asked him for a picture of his daughter, and this is what he gave me.” She inhaled. “It’s him—isn’t it? He could be the man you’ve been looking for.”

  Colin pulled out his phone. “I need your client’s name and address.”

  “Why?” Olivia asked.

  “Because if the necklace Zee is wearing is the same one that’s on that little girl,” Jessie explained, “then Arlo could be in a lot of trouble.”

  “Zee’s dad could be a killer?”

  Jessie nodded.

  “If he lives in Woodland,” Colin asked, “why did he hire you?”

  “He said he saw me on the news after I was able to locate Tonya Grimm. Arlo Gatley said he trusted me to find his daughter, too.”

  “I’m going to need to get a warrant to search his house. Do you have the file here, or is it at your office?” Colin asked.

  “It’s in my room. I’ll get it for you.” She walked back to her bedroom to retrieve the file from her bedside table. She didn’t like the idea of handing over her client’s information, but everything pointed to him being a suspect. Arlo had acted so secretive and bizarre at times. She thought about everything he’d told her, including his wife dying of cancer, and found herself questioning whether any of it was true. As she returned to the living room and handed Colin the file, she wondered if mental illness ran in the family.

  “Wow,” Olivia said. “What if you’ve been working side by side with the Heartless Killer all along?”

  Jessie placed a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “Let’s hope it’s not true.” She didn’t want to believe Arlo was a killer. Her heart had gone out to him when he’d talked about being bullied and called names. Innocent until proven guilty, she thought.

  Colin walked away from the two of them as he talked on the phone. When he was finished, he planted a kiss on Jessie’s forehead and then took two stairs at a time toward the exit, telling them to lock the doors and stay inside.

  “You look sad,” Olivia said. “You liked Arlo Gatley—didn’t you?”

  “I did. I can’t say he wasn’t an odd man, but I never would have pegged him as a killer.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Zee felt dazed and out of sorts. Her stomach rumbled and growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in days. Her face and part of her neck was swollen from spider bites. It had taken hours to rid herself of them all. She’d begun to sweat and vomit. When it became hard to breathe, she’d thought she was dying. But Natalie had talked to her in a calming voice. The more upset Zee got, the calmer Natalie became.

  Zee felt pain in her joints when she stood for too long. Worse than that was the hunger. She’d chewed on the dirty straw littering the ground, but it wasn’t helping. “Are we dying?” she asked Natalie.

  Natalie was in her usual spot, facing Zee, her back against the cement wall. “I don’t know.”

  “What if he starves us to death?”

  “We’ll be okay. I read once that dying of starvation is a peaceful way to go.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Do you really want to know what happens?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Simply put,” Natalie told her, “once the organs fail to work, the body will slip into a coma and pass away quietly.”

  “But I’m thirsty, and my stomach is cramping.”

  “That’s a good sign.”

  “What? Cramping?”

  “No. That you’re still thirsty. If you were starving, you’d be too weak to sense thirst.”

  She’s lying again. She’s a big liar.

  “The voices in my head think you’re a liar.”

  Natalie shrugged. “Tell them all to fuck off.”

  That was one of the funniest things Zee had ever heard. “Do you hear that?” she said out loud. “Natalie says fuck off!” She laughed so hard she had to hold her sides.

  Natalie laughed, too.

  “What’s it like to be normal?” Zee asked.

  “I don’t know if I believe there is a ‘normal.’ We’re all different. I have voices inside my head, too,” Natalie told her. “But I’ve never given them names. I always figured the voices had something to do with instincts and conscience and perhaps lessons I was taught at a young age.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For instance, if I feel like having an extra piece of cake, I always hear my mother’s voice reminding me that the extra weight will go straight to my hips.”

  Zee chuckled at that. “Every one of my voices would tell me to eat the whole damn thing.”

  Natalie smiled.

  “Are you hungry?” Zee asked.

  “If you gave me a hot dog, I wouldn’t turn it down. And that’s saying a lot, since I don’t eat meat.”

  “Do you think he killed your husband?”

  “No,” Natalie said.

  As soon as the question had come out of her mouth, Zee scolded herself for being so blunt. One more bad habit she couldn’t seem to stop. If she had a question, she asked it. Didn’t matter what it was about. Her father told her not t
o worry about things like that. He told her to be herself. And to always love herself. She missed him. More than she’d ever missed him before.

  “My mom died when I was very young,” Zee confessed. “She had cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I blame my dad.”

  “Your dad? Why?”

  Zee shrugged. “I’ve been blaming him for so long I don’t really remember why.”

  “People often place blame on the ones they love most.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not really sure, but most people are more likely to act aggressively against a friend or partner rather than a stranger. If you’re blaming your father for your mother’s death, then you should probably talk to him about it.”

  “I guess my questions would be, did Mom know she was dying? And then I would want to know if she had talked about having more kids. I want to know if she knew I was crazy and if that’s what really killed her. I was only six months old when she died. Do you think she knew I was a crazy baby?”

  “You’re not crazy now, so my guess is that you weren’t crazy then, either.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “You’re not on medication, and you’ve been lovely to talk to. In just these past few days, I’d say without hesitation that I consider you to be my friend.”

  “Are you always this stupid nice?”

  Natalie laughed. “No. Just ask my husband. Like your father, I would say he usually gets the brunt of any anger or annoyance I might be feeling at any given moment.”

  “I bet you’ve helped a lot of people feel better about themselves.”

  “Well, that’s stupid nice of you to say.”

  Zee’s laughter was stopped short when she heard the now-familiar sound of the door above the stairs creaking open. She looked at Natalie with wide eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Stay strong. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I don’t want you to die, either.”

  “Is that laughter I heard?” He lit the lantern and then headed their way. “It looks to me as if you two are becoming fast friends.”