Where the Lost Girls Go

by R. J. Noonan

  “I won’t leave my husband,” she said flatly. “Don’t you see? I love him, flaws and affairs and flirtations included. That’s what real love is. You have to take the sad times with the good times, the bitter with the sweet.”

  “But your life might be in danger.” A wave of weariness came over me, but that was to be expected. After the adrenaline burst of an escape like that, the letdown made energy levels sag. “Did you know there were five graves dug up there in that little clearing? There was a fresh grave, but it was empty.” I took a deep breath, feeling my heart rate calm. “I wonder who that grave was for. Maybe for Lucy. Maybe for you. The fifth grave . . .” My thoughts wandered and an image of the open grave floated into my thoughts. A girl’s foot, decaying and blackened, but the toenails were green. A bright, popping shade of green. Green that exploded like a sweet tart in my mouth, a field of clover in the sun, a green octopus grabbing at my throat and pulling me down . . .

  “I’m so. Sah. Tired.” It was becoming difficult to get the words in my head to pass through my lips. “Sorry.” The weight of my head had brought it down to the table, and from this angle, I saw Martha’s hands, her fingertips meticulously picking at the cuticles of her fingers, tugging at any wisp of loose skin.

  “I can assure you that the fifth grave is not for me. I know, because I dug every one of those graves with these two hands and a shovel. And people think I lead a pampered life.”

  She left the table and went to the sink. I heard the sound of running water—the instant-hot spout. She returned to the table with a steaming cup, dipping a tea bag.

  She had not imbibed the chocolate chai. That pot was drugged just for me.

  I tried to lift my head, but it only created a whimpering sound in my throat.

  “You’ve failed to see what’s right before your eyes. My husband loved those girls, each and every one. Repeatedly, I suspect.” She made a snorting sound. “If anything, he loved them too much. But he didn’t kill them.

  “Oh, no. Mr. Sweetheart couldn’t bear to kill them. He just wanted to throw money at them. Put them up in a cottage here and make babies to throw more money down the drain because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. His tragic flaw. He couldn’t clean up his own messes. So I did.”

  Martha’s face swam before me.

  “Someone had to stop them from blabbing and destroying Kent’s brilliant career. I let him have his dalliances, but in the end, they had to disappear. I felt sorry for them, but really, most of those girls weren’t going anywhere good. Welfare mamas in the making. Trailer trash.”

  Those hands placed a turquoise-inlaid tea canister on the table and removed a brown medicine bottle. She leaned toward me and dangled it before my eyes. “My little stash of GHB. It only takes a few drops, and it works so fast. Takes effect in less than fifteen minutes, and it’s not the worst thing in the world. You probably feel drowsy and weak. Maybe nauseous. Your heart rate is slowing, and you just want to close your eyes and go to sleep.” I felt something on the top of my head, a gentle pressure. She was stroking my hair. “Relax.”

  The woman who had poisoned me was patting my head, trying to keep me calm. Not a heinous person, just a heinous killer.

  “But the grave . . .” My tongue and lips struggled to form the words, forcing myself to focus on each syllable. “No grave for me.”

  “You’re right. I can’t use that graveyard anymore now that Lucy ruined it for me. But you, my dear, will have a much more dramatic ending. Over the Cliffs you’ll go. One quick toss and it will all be over. Your body would be shattered . . . decimated. Some poor nature lover walking with his dog will find your body crushed thirty feet down. The police will think you took a wrong turn, a misstep in the dark, lost in the forest while in the midst of your dogged investigating.”

  Forest . . . Mori . . . it was my name. My destiny. My place to die.

  “Graves . . .” I was thinking that someone in the woods would see Martha trying to dump my body. Or did it matter? I would be dead. Drugged. Dead . . .

  But Martha couldn’t bury me in the fifth grave. Then why had she dug five graves? It was a moot point now, and yet my mind was on that track, working, and I knew the minute my mind stopped making connections, I would be good as dead. “The fifth grave,” I said, my voice a raspy whisper. “Why five?”

  “That fifth grave was meant for Kyra Miller, and you know, maybe I should have stuck with that plan. But when I came home and found them in my bedroom. My room. And the girl was so insistent that he was going to leave me for her. That little street whore. I knew it was time to make a statement with Kyra Miller, something that would let Kent know that he was walking on thin ice with these girls. That Awesome A business had to stop. So I cut the brake lines and offered up Kent’s beloved Karmann Ghia as a parting gift for Blossom. And she took it. Kent had already given her a soda doctored with GHB. His way of greasing the pan. So slutty little Blossom got in that car and smashed it into oblivion.

  “And that was the end of our problems. At least until you came along. You pushy girl.”

  I could no longer keep my eyes open, but I tried to cling to her words as they washed over me.

  “It seemed like a happy circumstance when you started looking into Andy. Over the years I’d asked him to vacate the caretaker’s cottage when I was getting ready to send one of Kent’s girls off. I would take them there, cook them a delicious meal. Promise them bus fare or a job with a friend of mine in Portland. They drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak, and went off to their happy endings from Andy’s place. And that fool boy was none the wiser. So Andy was the perfect fall guy. I dropped off those disgusting photos of Kyra at his place when I went over to sympathize with him over the police harassment. I thought that would seal his fate, and God knows Kent never missed the photos. He’s got plenty of homemade smut on his computer.

  “But no, you kept pushing. Always pushing . . .”

  I wanted to keep pushing, I did, but the darkness tugged at me, pulling me away from her words and the kitchen and the beautiful Craftsman house on Stafford Hill.

  * * *

  “No one appreciates the work I do around here,” Martha muttered as she leaned close to the cop and pulled the automatic weapon from her holster. “Probably loaded.” She put the gun in the pocket of her fleece and zipped it closed. Martha didn’t know much about guns, but she would have to wipe this one down and send it over the Cliffs with Mori when she got there. One more thing to do. Martha needed to finish this task and get back here to start dinner. She had promised Kent shrimp scampi, and she’d been just about to pull the shrimp from the deep freeze when Mori barged in.

  She opened the French doors to the garden and lifted the folded blue tarp from the porch. Damned heavy tarp, but Martha sucked in her abs and lifted with her knees—always lift with the knees. She’d learned how to do body lifts in nursing school, and she wasn’t afraid of the hard work. Oh, no. Hard work was underrated, a mystery to these lazy girls who thought money was going to fall from the sky.

  Dried mud and dirt spilled out when she placed the tarp on the kitchen floor. “Will my work never end?” She had sent Juana off to finish her day cleaning the office, which meant Martha would have to vacuum up this mess herself.

  The Japanese cop wouldn’t be heavy, but maneuvering an unconscious body was always awkward. “You just wait right there,” she teased. “Back in a flash.” She stepped outside, closing the French door behind her, and headed to fetch the wheelbarrow from the small, shingled shed at the back of the garden.

  Normally she wouldn’t attempt transporting a body in daylight, but the police had closed the park because of the dig, and the cops had been warned to stay away from the Stafford property beyond the trailhead. No one would dare wander this separate trail leading to the Cliffs.

  In the shed, Martha found the wheelbarrow tipped against the left-hand wall, as always. Everything in its place. She pulled on her rubber-coated garden gloves and thought of the beating her hands had taken these
last few years, digging graves and transporting bodies through the forest. Blisters and broken nails. It was embarrassing to get a manicure.

  She’d thought Kyra Miller, little Ms. Blossom Sex Machine, would be the last grave to dig, but that had all been a waste of time. Kent had agreed she would be the last. But Laura Mori had pushed them to their limits. This one just pushed too hard. This one just did not know when to give up. She pushed and pushed and pushed. Relentless girl. When Martha had first met her, she’d thought the curious, polite young thing was going to be easy to manipulate. She’d underestimated her.

  And, of course, brilliant, sensual Kent perceived her inquisition to be a sexual come-on, processing her questions with his cock instead of his brain. It was his tragic flaw—a costly one in the past few years—but Martha was determined to move beyond this difficult period and rein her husband in. Every marriage went through rough patches now and again.

  As she maneuvered the wheelbarrow to the back porch, her eyes swept the yard and beyond. No one lurking about. Good. Those cops had been warned to stay away. It was a gift that they’d been allowed to take a shortcut through the Jameson property.

  Back on the porch, Martha parked the wheelbarrow by the open French door and took a deep breath. One more time. For her darling, brilliant husband and their happy future together, she would do it one more time.

  She stepped inside and paused a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The air in the kitchen seemed a bit off—foreign and sour. Had Mori expired already—faster than Martha had planned?

  * * *

  I was pressed against the wall by the door, staring at two Marthas as my eyes strained to focus in the painful light. Any second now she was going to notice that my chair at the table was empty, that I had scattered and smashed cups and saucers and spoons in a desperate attempt to thrust my sluggish body from the table. She was going to notice the sheen of sweat on my body and smell the desperation that lodged in my throat, keeping me from breathing properly.

  Quiet breaths. Sips of air. I couldn’t afford to make a sound.

  I had heard her say she’d be back, and I knew my deadened reflexes would not let me escape in time. No escape. No phone call—if I could even find my phone. Attack was my only choice.

  Getting out of that chair and moving across this room had taken a few years off my life and an ocean of energy. And when I’d reached for my gun and felt only the empty holster . . .

  As if caught in a volatile dream cloud, I was off-balance and nauseous. It was impossible to focus my vision, impossible to stop the spinning. I’d had to feel my way along the granite countertop to stumble to the double French doors emitting light that made my eyes ache.

  Now trying to focus my blurred vision, I saw a bulge in her jacket pocket. A tumor in her belly. No . . . my gun.

  That bitch had stolen my revolver. My fingers closed over the handle of the cast-iron teapot, which I’d had the sense to lug with me across the kitchen, probably sloshing tea along the way.

  I figured I had one chance.

  One shot.

  Failure was not an option.

  In that split second, she noticed the table, the mess. She started to turn, to look right and left.

  Bracing against the dizzy lethargy, I summoned all my might, hoisted the cast-iron piece in the air, and brought it down hard on her head. As she turned toward me, the teapot hit her skull with a satisfying crack. Stone on bone. With a whimper, she crumpled to the ground.

  Neutralized.

  The last thing I remembered was yanking my gun from the pocket of her fleece.

  30

  A cold ache thrummed in my head, and my throat was scraped raw and dry as I heard words swirling around me. Smells and sounds, the tang of antiseptic, the softness of a cotton blanket under my palms. A pinch on my finger and tubes running along my arm. I was safe in a hospital.

  I forced my gluey eyes open. Z, Omak, and Garcia were talking. I asked for water, and Z held a cup with a straw for me. I loved him madly in that moment.

  I let their words flow for a while as my mind rose to the surface and I sucked in air. At last, I croaked out, “What happened?”

  “Garcia found you and Martha unconscious in the Jamesons’ kitchen,” Z said. “Martha’s got a welt on her head, probably a concussion. You just looked like you were taking a nap, except you had your gun pointed at her.”

  “She drugged me,” I said through the pain. “GHB. Her husband’s medication.”

  “We found the vile in the kitchen,” Garcia said. “The paramedics were able to give you something to counteract the effects.”

  “I thought she gave me a lethal dose, but I guess not. She probably didn’t want . . . the coroner. You know. Too much drugs when they found my body at the bottom of the Cliffs.”

  “The Cliffs?” Z asked. “Shit. She was gonna toss you over?”

  “She thought everyone would think I wandered too close to the edge and fell.”

  “We came as soon as Omak got your text about Kent,” Z said. “Well, actually, we went to Kent first and eventually found you. Good thing you got that text off.”

  “He’s not the killer,” I said.

  “That’s what he kept insisting,” Z said.

  “It’s her, Martha Jameson. She killed Lucy’s friends to shut them up after Kent Jameson sexually abused them.”

  “They were working together?” asked Omak.

  “I don’t think so. I’m not sure that Kent knows what Martha’s been doing, at least not on a conscious level. But the bodies in the graves, they’re the girls Lucy befriended. Kent seduced them and . . . and . . .”

  “We get that part,” Z said. “Martha couldn’t have the girls sticking around or demanding money or blabbing, so she offed them. And here I thought Kent did it all himself. I knew he was no good, but getting his old lady to run cleanup for him, that’s low.”

  “He’s the predator, she’s the killer. And Lucy . . .” The thought of the girl made my heart ache along with the rest of my body. “Is Lucy okay?”

  “No one has seen her. They’re still searching the Jameson place, but the Stafford Woods . . .”

  “I know. The forest.” I closed my eyes. Dark. Deep. Mysterious. But not my undoing.

  I wanted to keep my eyes closed, but that caused the bed to spin too fast, so I opened them and fixed my gaze on the most stationary thing in sight—Garcia. She hadn’t said much of anything, but she was definitely in the group, in the conversation. Like a friend. I felt incredibly grateful that she’d saved me, and a little surprised, too. I had thought she hated me.

  The Tilt-a-Whirl spin sped up, and I fixed my gaze on Garcia’s shield to get a grip. That sparkling sun rising over a lake. A beautiful badge for a beautiful place. A badge I had earned. I kept staring at that star, hoping for normalcy and balance. And an end to this dizziness and nausea.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” I said.

  “Nurse?” Z called. “Officer Mori needs an antinausea shot.” He left the room, and Garcia stepped closer.

  “The doctor says you’re going to be okay,” Garcia said. She smiled. “I’m glad for that. GHB usually wears off in three to four hours.”

  “Where’s Brown?” I asked.

  “We don’t do everything together.”

  I chuckled but instantly regretted it. “That hurt.”

  “Listen, Mori,” Omak said in a quiet voice, “I can’t go into detail, but I want you to know that Garcia is a damned good cop. If she seems lousy, it’s because she’s working for me. An undercover operation. I can’t really talk about it since it’s ongoing.”

  This seemed really unimportant compared to the pain hugging my skull, but I tried to indulge him. “Is it about your sister Franny?” My compromised state allowed brutal honesty.

  “Maybe.”

  Z popped back into the room. “The nurse is coming. Hold on, Mori.”

  I didn’t have much choice. “Z, you need to find out what Martha Jameson
was doing three years ago in the month of November. Find out if she traveled to Los Angeles. Ask Talitha for her calendar.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “Candy Jameson. I think Martha drugged her, too.”

  “I thought that was a suicide,” Z said.

  “Just . . . check it out.”

  A male in scrubs appeared in my line of vision. “I understand you want some medication for nausea?” He was tall and blond, a little washed out, but for now he could be my hero.

  “And headache,” I said.

  “I can give you something, but it will make you drowsy.”

  “You’re a prince,” I said, suddenly realizing how hysterically funny that was.

  I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

  * * *

  The next time I awoke, my father was sitting beside the bed. It was such a strange sight to see Koji Mori in stillness that I thought I was dreaming.

  “You’re awake! Your mother was so worried. She ran off to get you coffee from the cafeteria. She thought the smell of coffee would wake you right up.”

  “It couldn’t hurt,” I said, struggling with a dry throat. I pointed to a cup of water, which he handed to me. I sipped from the straw, realizing that it had been years since I had seen my father in any location other than home or the restaurant.

  As my eyes focused, I noticed the tears in his eyes.

  “Dad.” I reached out and touched his hand. “I’m going to be okay.”

  “Your mother was worried. I worry, too. The doctor said you’ll be fine, but this job. It’s dangerous, Laura.”

  My usual instinct to argue was tempered by the truth in his words. “Law enforcement can be dangerous,” I agreed. “But so can life. I don’t want to be like the man running from his shadow, missing out on life because he’s afraid to live.”

  Recognition was a glimmer in his dark eyes.