Her Last Day (Jessie Cole Book 1)

by T. R. Ragan

  Colin set the pizza box on the kitchen counter and then came to hover over Jessie to see what was going on. “You’re all so quiet. Looks like serious business going on here.”

  “It’s the video Jessie took when she was following the Peeping Tom,” Olivia told him. She then went on to explain how the video was automatically uploaded via Bluetooth on Jessie’s phone.

  “Well, look at that. He definitely fired before you pulled out your gun,” Andriana said.

  “Can you rewind the video?” Colin asked.

  She rewound the tape, then waited.

  “Farther back,” he said, his voice strained.

  They all watched closely as she did it again.

  “There! Hit ‘Pause,’” he said.

  Again, Jessie did as he asked. “What is it? What do you see?”

  Colin pointed at the upper-right-hand corner of the computer screen. “See that man, the guy right there? The entire time you’re walking, he’s looking directly at you. Right as we hear a shot fired, he cuts off abruptly to the left and disappears.”

  She reversed the video again. They all watched him. “I see him,” Jessie said, “but what does it mean?”

  “It’s him.” Colin exhaled. “That’s David Roche.”

  “Koontz’s partner,” Andriana said.

  Jessie watched again. He was right. It was definitely him. “I went to his office to talk to him. He was so arrogant and full of himself, but I never thought he might somehow be involved in all this.”

  “Why would David Roche be watching Koontz,” Andriana said, “unless he knew something was about to go down? Do you think there’s a possibility he planted the blanks in Koontz’s gun?”

  A restless feeling settled over Jessie as she began to realize what this could mean. If David Roche was somehow involved, this could be the Holy Grail of evidence needed to prove she’d acted in self-defense.

  “Why would Koontz fire at Jessie in the first place?” Colin wanted to know.

  Nobody had the answer to that.

  Andriana rubbed her temple. “If David Roche somehow deceived his partner, he’s not going to be happy to learn that Parker Koontz is waking from his coma.”

  Colin frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Andriana’s friend works at the hospital where Koontz is staying,” Jessie explained. “He’s showing signs of recovering.”

  Colin smiled at Andriana and then grabbed Jessie’s hand and pulled her from her chair so he could wrap his arms around her.

  She laughed. “Are you happy about the video or Koontz’s possible recovery?”

  “Both. Everything. We might be able to keep you out of jail, after all.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Two days later, after a long day of courtroom drama, rousing revelations, and celebrations, Jessie returned home to Olivia and Higgins, who had stayed up to say good night. As she watched her niece head off to bed, Higgins on her heels, Jessie found it hard to believe he was the same dog from only weeks ago. His cast had been removed, and he’d become more playful and less fearful of people. He’d also become dependent on Jessie whenever Olivia wasn’t around, following her like a second shadow. She wondered how they’d ever gotten along without him.

  Jessie plopped down on the couch, picked up the remote, and turned on the TV. For the second time in the past three weeks, she was the main story. On the screen, a reporter on Channel Ten news looked into the camera lens and talked about what went down in the courtroom behind closed doors.

  “Parker Koontz, a well-known attorney in Midtown, awoke from a coma yesterday,” the reporter said, “and was well enough to tell investigators that his partner, David Roche, convinced him to shoot Jessie Cole after he was told she would ruin the firm’s reputation when the public learned of his Peeping Tom tendencies.”

  The report continued. “Events around the Cole-versus-Koontz case escalated when the receptionist at the law firm told the court that the firm was in financial trouble, and David Roche had set up a Key Man Insurance Policy, which compensates businesses for financial losses that often occur in the result of the death of a key player in a business. Many law firms have such insurance.”

  The reporter went on to talk about how David Roche had replaced real bullets with blanks, knowing that Jessie Cole would most likely return fire to protect herself and others. They went on to show clips of the video Jessie had taken, circling the area with a red pen where David Roche was clearly visible. Both men were charged. David Roche was taken into custody, and Parker Koontz would soon be transported to the prison infirmary.

  Jessie shut off the television and headed for bed. It was late, and she still had trouble sleeping since the Heartless Killer incident. For the next few hours, she tossed and turned. Finally giving up, she lay awake, her mind churning. During the first week after Arlo Gatley’s release, she’d talked to him more than once. During their last conversation, she’d been glad to hear that he was making a concerted effort to meet the neighbors. Whether out of guilt or shame for judging Arlo based on his looks and mannerisms and thinking the worst of him, or sheer compassion, the neighbors had come out in full force, plying him and Zee with home-cooked meals and invitations to barbeques. Mrs. Dixon, a longtime widow and Arlo’s next-door neighbor, had invited him to dinner. He’d been surprised to admit that he’d enjoyed being in her company.

  Despite solving the mystery of Parker Koontz, and her tremendous relief in knowing that the Heartless Killer had finally been stopped, she couldn’t stop thinking about Ben Morrison.

  A week after he’d saved her life, and others, he’d called her and asked to meet with her, telling her it was imperative that they talk. She’d met him at the office. After hearing what he had to say about Sophie, she’d been angry that he’d waited so long to tell her what he’d heard. At the time, she had a court case looming, so she’d pushed it out of her mind.

  But now, as she lay in the dark, she thought about Sophie’s friend Juliette Farris. After Sophie had disappeared, Jessie had met with Juliette on more than one occasion. She remembered Juliette coming across as quiet and sort of standoffish. Long before Mom ran off, Jessie had realized Sophie was a troublemaker. There was the time Sophie stole a pack of gum from the grocery store, and then was suspended from school after forging their mother’s name, excusing herself from school due to illness. There were other things, too, but a car thief? Luring strange men away so she and Juliette could steal their money?

  Sophie had a wild side, and she’d liked to let loose every once in a while, but Jessie also knew the Sophie who cried easily at movies and spent more than one weekend baking cookies to raise money for families worse off. All Jessie had to do was shut her eyes to see Sophie spending endless, sleepless nights watching over Olivia when she was sick with croup.

  Ben Morrison, Leanne Baxter, and Juliette Farris had nothing to gain by making up lies about her sister.

  And yet every time she talked to Ben, it seemed there was one more link between him and Sophie. And it always pointed to the last day Sophie was seen alive.

  Her stomach tightened.

  No matter how Jessie twisted the sequence of events around in her mind, Ben and Sophie’s connection seemed to begin at the Wild West and end at the scene of the accident—an accident that had changed the course of Ben Morrison’s life.

  Ben had said they should focus on Sophie’s last day.

  Jessie began to tick off everything she could remember.

  When Jessie had returned home early from work, Sophie was wearing a red dress. Her dark hair had been curled, and the way she’d done her makeup had made her look much older. She’d been antsy to get out of the house. They had argued. Jessie had lectured Sophie about being irresponsible. She had a daughter to look after. Jessie recalled telling Sophie that she needed to have a life, too.

  But Sophie had always been selfish, and she’d marched around the house gathering her purse and sweater. The last thing Jessie had said to her was, “If you walk out that doo
r, don’t you ever come back.”

  Jessie swallowed the lump in her throat.

  She thought about the stolen car Ben had talked about. Everyone had assumed Vernon Doherty had stolen the car, which made sense at the time because authorities assumed, rightfully so, that there had been only two people in the car.

  But things had changed. According to Ben, the owner of the car’s son had confessed to having taken his father’s car without permission to a friend’s house in Sacramento, not far from Jessie’s house.

  Did Sophie steal the car?

  The last time anyone saw Sophie was when she’d left the Wild West with two men: Vernon Doherty and Ben Morrison.

  If Leanne Baxter’s account of what happened was to be believed, Sophie broke a bottle in the parking lot and used it to get Vernon Doherty to back off. Did she hurt him? Possibly even kill him?

  Continuing with her line of thought and the sequence of events that day, she recalled what Ben had said about Vernon Doherty’s autopsy. The report revealed that he was most likely dead before the car caught on fire because there had been no smoke in his lungs or carbon monoxide in his blood. There were two possibilities, as far as Jessie could tell.

  Doherty could have died on impact, or he could have been dead at the Wild West before he was placed in the car. If that were the case, then that would mean Sophie could have been driving the vehicle that night.

  Jessie’s insides twisted as something occurred to her.

  Her heart raced as she climbed out of bed, grabbed her computer, and took it to the family room to search the Internet for information on Ben Morrison’s accident.

  As she skimmed through one article after another, she already knew that if everything happened the way she thought it did, then Sophie’s last day could only have ended two different ways.

  Sophie either escaped without injury and walked away, or she was thrown from the vehicle.

  The first scenario would mean Sophie could still be alive. The second scenario would lead Jessie to believe her sister had perished but her body was removed . . . or never found.

  She clicked faster now. She stopped scrolling when she came to an image of the overturned vehicle. It was still in flames when the picture had been taken. It wasn’t the car or the wreck that grabbed Jessie’s attention, but the deep gorge beyond.

  Jessie’s hand went slowly to her mouth as she whispered, “Sophie.”

  Even if everything she’d learned about her sister was true, nobody could convince her that Sophie would have abandoned Olivia.

  And that was when it dawned on her with such clarity she could no longer sit still. She made note of the name of the road where the accident had occurred and then went back to her room and pulled on hiking boots and a coat.

  Next she went to the kitchen, grabbed a flashlight from the drawer, then left a note for Olivia in case she woke up while Jessie was gone.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  For two hours Ben had been sitting at his desk, looking over the accident report from his crash. Years ago he’d had every photo taken of the Ford Pinto—before and after the accident—blown up to eight-by-tens.

  After the wreck was towed up the hill, it was placed on a flatbed. The windshield was broken—a large, gaping hole. If Sophie had been driving, and if she had not been wearing a seat belt, she could have easily been propelled forward into the night, before the car burned and rolled.

  He thought of his last trip to the place where the accident occurred. In his mind’s eye, he saw the ravine made up of a mixed species of woodland, dead trees, shrubs, and an uninterrupted patch of thorny blackberry bush that would be difficult if not impossible to traverse.

  Why hadn’t he seen it before?

  Because he’d never once thought anyone else was in the car with him. His heart quickened as he looked at the time. Moving quietly through his bedroom, he made his way into the walk-in closet, where he dressed quickly. Ten minutes later, his wife found him in the garage piling tools into the back of the van.

  “It’s late, Ben. What are you doing?”

  He kept working. “It’s about Sophie Cole. I think I know what might have happened to her on the night she disappeared.”

  “She’s been missing for ten years. It can’t wait until morning?”

  He slid the side door shut, then came around the van to where his wife stood and placed both hands on her shoulders. “This is important to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. But I promise I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

  “Does this have anything to do with you, Ben?”

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders and raked his fingers through his hair. “This has everything to do with me.”

  “So, no matter what you find out there, this isn’t the end—is it, Ben?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For ten years you’ve been telling me that the past is the past and you were fine with not knowing who you used to be, but that’s not true any longer. Is it?”

  He said nothing.

  “I’m worried about you—about us—because you haven’t been yourself. You’ve become secretive and obsessive. You wanted better ratings for your newspaper, and after finding yourself face-to-face with a serial killer, that’s exactly what you got. But I can see it in your eyes—it’s not enough.” She sighed. “If everything you’ve been doing lately, disappearing into the night at odd hours and failing to call home, is the beginning of some fantastical journey into your past, I’m not sure how much more I can handle.”

  This time he placed the palm of his hand on her cheek and said, “I love you, Melony—more than ever, and I promise to do whatever I must to make our marriage work because I don’t ever want to lose you. But I also find myself yearning to know who I once was. Bits and pieces of my memory are beginning to return. You said yourself that the doctors knew that was not only a possibility but a probability. Tell me how to bury it all, and I will do everything in my power to do exactly that.”

  She frowned, and he gently brushed his lips against her forehead. “Go,” she said. “Do what you have to do. We’ll figure this all out tomorrow.”

  By the time he climbed behind the wheel and opened the garage door, Melony had disappeared back into the house.

  It took Jessie much longer than she thought it would to find the area where the car had crashed into a tree and then rolled down the embankment before hitting another tree. Her Jeep was pointed down the hill and into the ravine beyond, two headlights shedding beams of bright light, giving her a path to follow.

  She stood there for a moment, staring, wondering if she’d gone completely mad. Being out here at this time of night seemed like a fool’s errand. The sun would rise soon, but it hadn’t yet, and the creatures that used the dark as cover could see her, but she couldn’t see them. She could hear them, though. A chirp. A strange intermittent cawing. A rustling and skittering of tiny feet. The croak of a frog in the distance.

  A light breeze rustled the branches of trees, and for the first time in forever, she felt as if her sister was talking to her. She listened closely, her gaze focused on the terrain. Sophie was here.

  Jessie pulled the hood of her coat over her head and slipped on the only pair of gloves she could find before leaving the house. They were thin with a flower print. Garden gloves. They would have to do. She didn’t bother using the flashlight. The headlights were enough.

  Taking one step at a time, she made her way down the hill to the tree that had stopped the car from rolling into the abyss.

  The abyss.

  The thought that Sophie might have been thrown from the wreckage and left to die among brambles and overgrown brush made her insides churn. If she was down there somewhere, hidden in the overgrown brush and weeds, would there be anything left? Would wild animals have carried her off?

  The sound of a car approaching pulled her from her thoughts. She looked back to the road and saw a vehicle approaching. The tree she was standing next to
wasn’t wide enough to hide behind, so she quickly but carefully stepped over the edge, where the hill met the ravine, and held tight to a shrub so she wouldn’t slide too far. She hoped the car would pass by. It could be hikers getting an early start, or maybe people lived farther down the road. She wasn’t sure.

  But the car stopped and the engine was shut off. A door opened and then closed, and then opened and closed again. Whoever it was walked to the edge of the embankment. She couldn’t look into the bright lights, but she could make out a silhouette. It was Ben. He stood perfectly still. He held something at his side—a tool—maybe a shovel or a rake. No. It was a sickle.

  “Jessie?” he called.

  The moment she heard his voice, she saw his face clearly in her mind as he squeezed the life from Forrest Bloom. Twitching jaw, pulsing veins, nostrils flared as he tightened his grasp around another man’s neck, easily taking his life. No one else had seen the look on his face. No one else had seen what he was capable of. And after the dead man crumpled to the ground at his feet, Ben had looked her way. In that instant their gazes had locked as if in a strange secret knowing of what lurked within him.

  For the first time since she’d met Ben Morrison, she realized he wasn’t the only one who wanted to know who or what he’d been before the accident, before his memories stripped his past from him, before he married and had kids and became a family man.

  He was trudging down the hill now, moving much faster than her snail-like pace. As she had done, he stopped at the tree with its bent trunk and arthritic branches.

  He was close. Too close.

  The thinnest sliver of sun reached out to reveal her hiding place. He left his sickle leaning against the tree and came to the edge where he could plainly see her and she could see him.

  Had he killed Sophie? The thought hit her without warning.

  Bent over slightly, he offered his hand to help bring her up from her precarious holding. But she didn’t take the lifeline he offered. Instead she released her grasp on a handful of brittle branches and found herself sliding, unable to get a foothold. She grasped for underbrush, felt the weeds and dead branches slide between her thinly gloved hands as she fell farther and farther until she was rolling into thorny brambles that clawed at her face, forcing her to shut her eyes, afraid she might be blinded.