Her Last Day (Jessie Cole Book 1)

by T. R. Ragan

  Zee didn’t bother standing up to see why he’d come. Beneath his bloodied shirt she saw gauze bandages. “What happened to you this time, Bozo? Every time I see you, you’ve either been crying like a little baby or you have a new injury.”

  Instead of responding, he pulled a brown paper bag from his canvas bag, held it up, and jiggled it. “I’ve got something for you.”

  She could tell the way he struggled that he was hurting. “Fool me once, shame on you,” Zee said. “Fool me twice, shame on me. Or something like that.” She shrugged. “In other words, I’m not falling for it.”

  His good arm dropped to his side, the bag along with it. He pulled a face. “You’ve lost all humor. How sad.”

  He walked up close to Natalie’s cell, wrapped his fingers around the bars, and shook them hard, making the cage rattle. He then pressed his face close to the bars so that his nose stuck through one of the gaps. “Wake up. I have a surprise for both of you.” He slid the brown bag, followed by two water bottles and a small black box, into Natalie’s cell.

  Natalie eyed him warily.

  He walked a few feet away, unfolded a rickety old chair that had been leaning against the wall, and left it in the middle of the room. Then he walked over to the enclosed cell, unlocked the door, and disappeared inside. Zee had never seen him go inside before.

  Natalie was on her hands and knees. She was weak, but she crawled across her cell, grabbed the goodies, and headed back to her corner.

  Zee thought she looked like a skinny little rat that had been living in a dark cave for too long. Her thin hair hung in limp strings from her head. Her eyes looked bigger than usual, marbles in hollow sockets. In a few short days she seemed to have morphed into an alien creature.

  Or maybe, Zee thought, she was hallucinating. She hoped not, because when she hallucinated, things got really weird, and she’d forget what was real.

  Zee looked down at her own arms, glad to see she was wearing her coat. Her father had given it to her years ago after they’d watched The Matrix together, and she’d begged him to buy her a coat like that. She knew she’d lost some weight, which made her glad she couldn’t see her arms, afraid she might look like Natalie, a skinny, pale rat. And then she waited for the voices to chime in, call her a loser or a chickenshit, but they remained quiet.

  A tap, tap, tap on the bars made her look to her left. It was Natalie. She’d gone through the paper bag and was trying to tell her something. Her voice was so low and raspy it was hard to hear what she was saying.

  “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” Her long, bony arm slid easily between the bars, and she set a sandwich on the floor inside Zee’s cell. The black box the killer had put in her cell was now wrapped around her upper arm.

  “Do you have your medicine?” Zee asked, intrigued.

  Natalie nodded. “Come and eat. I’ve tasted it, and it’s good. No tricks this time.”

  “What if it’s been poisoned?”

  Natalie was chewing. “If I drop dead, you’ll know for sure.”

  Zee wondered if Natalie might be kidding as she crawled that way. She picked up the sandwich and pulled it apart, still not convinced spiders weren’t going to pop out. But it looked fine, and it smelled okay, so she took a bite. Natalie was right. It wasn’t bad. She ate it quickly, then grabbed the water bottle Natalie had left for her and drank it down in two long gulps.

  When she finished, she noticed that Natalie was back in her corner, still eating her sandwich, nibbling on the crust like a mouse.

  The rattling of chains echoed off the walls.

  She looked up and saw Forrest backing slowly out of the cell, pulling someone along with him. It was a man, but he was hunchbacked, and his arms and legs were misshapen, giving him an awkward gait, one arm hung longer than the other. Like Natalie, he’d been stripped of clothing. His skin appeared nearly translucent. Clumps of white hair covered a spotted, mostly balding head. Drool fell from one side of his mouth as he was yanked to the center of the room and forced to sit in the folding chair, which squeaked under the slight weight of him.

  Forrest attached the chain hanging from the man’s left arm to a metal hook on the left side of the room and then did the same for the other side. He worked fairly quickly for an injured guy, but if he was the Heartless Killer, then that would mean he probably did this on a regular basis.

  When he was done, Forrest straightened and looked at Natalie. “You’ve eaten and you have your medicine,” he said. “So now you owe me. I want you to question Dog and find out why he tortured and beat his only son.”

  Zee’s full attention was on Natalie, who simply nibbled at the edges of her bread, ignoring Forrest completely. That worried her. And rightly so, because when she looked back at the killer, she saw his face redden before he pivoted on his feet and disappeared behind the stairwell. That worried her even more, because the last time he disappeared under there, he’d pulled out a hose. The water had made a mess of things. Nearly drowned Natalie, and the straw still stank.

  He returned quickly, this time holding a long leather whip.

  Zee kept her eyes on him.

  He lifted the whip in the air, and with a flick of his wrist, he made the leather crackle and snap.

  The man in the chair flinched, but he had yet to howl, which made her think that maybe there was a wild animal still hidden within the cell.

  Natalie kept on eating. Nibble, nibble, nibble, her eyes darting around as if she was afraid someone might take her food.

  Zee kept blinking—once, twice, three times—hoping it would all go away. Maybe this had all been a long, drawn-out nightmare, and any second now she’d be back in her room shuffling her tarot cards or reading today’s horoscope. But a few blinks later, she was still there. And so was the man. And Forrest, and Natalie, her new best friend.

  Forrest ducked beneath the chain to get to Natalie’s cell. Once again he stood close to the bars. “You’re a psychotherapist, and this is your patient,” Forrest told her. “Dog wants to know why he tortured his only son. Was he born sick? Or was it something else? My mother told me long ago that he was once a good man. I want to know if that’s true. If you don’t get him to talk, I will have to punish him, and then you, too. I will beat the very last breath from the old man if that’s what it takes. Do you understand?”

  Natalie didn’t move.

  “I know you do,” he said before he returned to his place behind the decrepit man.

  Zee watched all three people, her gaze darting from Natalie, to the old man, and finally back to Forrest. Waiting. Watching. The clowns had known all along where Forrest lived. They had danced and pointed, telling her which way to go when she was lost. It all made sense now. This was a circus, all right. And she was the only spectator.

  “Ask him!” Forrest shouted, making Zee jump.

  Nobody else moved.

  The tip of the leather whip hit the old man’s shoulder, splitting him open. His cry of pain came out, sounding like the screams of a dozen people.

  Natalie frowned.

  Finally. Something.

  The snap of the whip had worked this time. Natalie buried the rest of her food beneath a pile of straw and then crawled to the door of her cell, where she could get a better look at what was going on. “Stop it,” she said in a tiny voice.

  Zee wasn’t sure if she was telling the old man to stop screaming or telling Forrest to stop hurting him.

  “Leave him alone,” Natalie said, looking at Forrest now.

  Forrest’s eyes narrowed. “Ask him the question.”

  “Old man,” she began.

  “His name is Dog.”

  “Dog,” she said, “why did you beat and torture your only son?”

  Dog grumbled and mumbled. Zee could tell that he was really trying to answer the question, which surprised her.

  The whip snapped again, slitting open Dog’s other shoulder.

  This time he howled.

  It was the same piercing cry Zee had heard many times
before. There was no other animal inside his cell. Dog was one and the same.

  The expression on Natalie’s thin face was a mixture of horror and rage as she cried, “Dog! Look at me!”

  The silence was deafening.

  And once again Forrest raised his arm, ready to strike again.

  Unable to take any more, it seemed, Natalie began to shake the bars as she shouted, “What did you do to your son?”

  She shook the metal bars so hard, Zee thought she might break right through.

  “He took her from me,” Dog said at last, his voice hoarse. The clarity of his words surprised everyone, including Forrest.

  “Who did he take from you?” Natalie commanded.

  “My wife.”

  “You were jealous of your own son?”

  Forrest looked tense.

  Dog began to cry, his eyes like leaky faucets, his entire body trembling.

  “You didn’t like the attention your wife gave your son,” Natalie said, “so you tortured him?”

  Dog growled. Gone was the sadness. His eyes widened, and his nostrils flared. “She only loved him! Everything she did was for him! I hated him. I wished he was never born. But when I harmed her little boy, her prized possession, she grew angry. And that anger was directed at me . . . only me.”

  Forrest looked at Natalie in confusion.

  “He preferred your mother’s anger and hatred over nothing at all,” Natalie told him.

  “Is that true?” he asked Dog.

  Dog’s head bobbed.

  Forrest’s expression changed suddenly, and Zee wasn’t sure what he was thinking as he furiously worked to unchain Dog. Once that was done, he shoved him back into his cell, shut the door with a clang, and secured it tightly.

  “He could have had both,” Natalie said as Forrest blew out the lantern and walked away.

  Forrest got as far as the steps before he turned and said, “What did you say?”

  “Babies need a lot of care,” Natalie told him. “If your father had been patient, he could have had both your mother’s love and his son’s love.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Not long after Colin had left, Jessie grabbed her purse. “Come on,” she said to Olivia. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Woodland. I want to look Arlo Gatley in the eyes when they take him away.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s something I need to do.”

  “What if he’s dangerous?”

  “If the police haven’t arrived, I won’t get out of the car until he’s in handcuffs.” Jessie didn’t want to freak Olivia out, but there was no way she was going to leave Olivia home alone. “I always carry pepper spray,” Jessie told her, “and we can bring Higgins along for the ride, too.”

  Olivia jumped up from the couch and grabbed the leash and a couple of treats for Higgins.

  They had been on the highway for at least five minutes when Olivia turned to Jessie and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You don’t look well, for one thing. I’m worried about you. The cut on the side of your face looks kind of puffy and swollen.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m taking antibiotics. I feel fine.”

  “I overheard some of your conversation with Colin, and I think he’s right,” Olivia said. “You should be concentrating on making sure you don’t go back to jail. I’m scared.”

  Jessie’s heart sank. “I’m sorry I’ve worried you. I don’t want you to be scared, okay? Two different women have agreed to testify against Parker Koontz in court. Everything will be fine.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes,” she said, wishing she felt as confident as she sounded. “But I also need to find Zee Gatley, okay? I have no idea if she is safe. She could be alone and scared. Now that her dad might be in trouble, she’ll need my help more than ever.”

  “You’re right,” Olivia said. “She needs your help.”

  Jessie smiled at Olivia. “You’re an amazing kid—you know that?”

  “Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

  They both chuckled. The rest of the ride was quiet, Jessie lost in her own thoughts and Olivia busy texting her friend.

  As soon as Jessie turned down the familiar street, she saw lights flashing and pulled over to the side of the road.

  “What’s going on?” Olivia asked.

  “I’m too late.”

  An officer had his hand on top of Arlo’s head, helping him into the back seat of the cruiser.

  Higgins whimpered, the dog’s way of letting them know he needed to go to the bathroom.

  Jessie pointed ahead. “The neighbors won’t mind if you take him to that empty lot over there.”

  Olivia put the leash on Higgins and led him away while Jessie leaned against the hood of the car and watched three police vehicles drive slowly past. Arlo Gatley had been arrested as a possible murder suspect. She could see the neighbors peeking out windows, probably grabbing their phones and letting one another know that they’d been right all along and the bogeyman was finally gone.

  Olivia was headed back her way when someone called out.

  Jessie looked over her shoulder and watched the woman jog toward them.

  “That’s Mrs. Goodman from the other day,” Olivia told Jessie. “You know, the lady I talked to, the one with all the kids, the one whose house I went into, and you freaked out because you thought—”

  “I got it,” Jessie said, shushing her.

  The woman was out of breath by the time she caught up to them. She introduced herself to Jessie and then said, “I can’t believe my luck in seeing you both here.” She had something in her hand, and she gave it to Olivia. It was the picture of Zee they had blown up.

  “Not more than thirty minutes ago,” she said looking at Olivia, “my brother stopped by, saw the photo you’d accidentally left behind, and instantly recognized the man you were asking about. My brother and this guy attended the same elementary school.” She put her hands in the air. “What are the odds? First my brother stops by, and then to see you both here.”

  The woman had Jessie’s full attention. “Do you have a name?”

  She nodded. “Forrest Bloom.”

  Jessie made a note on her phone.

  “Is your brother still friends with him?”

  “Oh no. I don’t think they were ever friends. According to my brother, Forrest was in class one day and gone the next. My brother said Forrest and his family used to live on a farm somewhere around here. I wish I could be more help.”

  “You’ve been a great help,” Jessie said. “Would you mind if we exchanged numbers in case I think of any more questions or if I need to talk to your brother?”

  “That’s fine.” They exchanged information, and then Jessie and Olivia headed for the car.

  As soon as they were back home, Jessie grabbed her laptop.

  “What are you doing now?” Olivia asked.

  “I need to find out everything I can about Forrest Bloom.”

  “You’re still going to look for Zee?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Jessie asked.

  Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought since her father was arrested that there might not be any point.” She scratched the side of her face. “If he killed all those people, then maybe he killed Zee.”

  “I had thought about that,” Jessie said, “but logic tells me Arlo wouldn’t have hired me to find his daughter if she hadn’t been missing. And my heart tells me Zee needs me more than ever now that her father is in jail.”

  “That makes sense,” Olivia said. “Do you think that Forrest guy might be able to help you find Zee?”

  “At this point he’s our best lead.”

  Olivia pushed herself from the couch, disappeared inside her bedroom, then returned with her own laptop. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  “You have school tomorrow,” Jessie reminded her. “You need to work on your report.”

  “This to
tally counts, since I’m using Zee’s case as part of my school paper. Of course, I’ll change the names to protect the innocent.”

  Jessie sighed as she returned her attention to the map on her computer. An hour later, she still hadn’t located anyone by the name of Forrest Bloom. Instead of using pay databases to try to gather information on him, she looked through her browser and clicked on a free public database. She then accessed property appraiser records in different counties, including Yolo County, searching for Forrest Bloom’s name.

  His name popped up, but all hopeful anticipation was dashed when she read that the Bloom farm had been sold years ago. The problem was, none of the records stated whom the property had been sold to, which was information she could use since the new owners might be able to shed light on what had happened to the Blooms and where they had moved to.

  For the rest of the night, she kept at it, checking and cross-checking, using every database she could think of until she finally hit pay dirt. Marcus Hubbard had bought a farm in Woodland from a man named Brody Bloom. She wrote down the property owner’s name and telephone number. It was too late to call now. She’d have to call in the morning.

  Olivia had fallen asleep on the couch next to her. Jessie took a moment to watch her sleep. She was growing up so fast. She had a lot of the same facial features as Sophie. The same nose and full lips. If her sister was alive, did she think about her daughter? Or had she simply moved on, like their mother?

  THIRTY-NINE

  First thing Tuesday morning, after his wife and kids pulled out of the driveway, Ben Morrison finished dressing, grabbed an apple from the bowl of fruit sitting on the counter, and jumped into his van parked in front of the house. The engine sputtered for a few seconds longer than usual before roaring to life.

  The first time Ben had seen Sophie Cole on TV, he’d never thought his investigation into her disappearance would become so entangled with his own accident.

  Last night he’d focused on the stolen vehicle. At the time of Ben’s accident, investigators had referred to it as an open-and-shut case. Vernon Doherty had stolen the car and was driving drunk when he plowed head-on into a tree in Auburn. The morning after the crash, it was confirmed that the stolen vehicle belonged to Caleb Montana, who’d reported it missing.