by Lisa Jackson
“Bernadette Alsace,” she was saying to Naomi, her voice low, eyebrows pulled together in concentration. “And my sister, here, Annette Alsace. Our paperwork was sent by e-mail, but I’ve got a copy of it with me.” Their mother was hovering over them, and Lucas caught a glimpse of an older model Volvo parked outside.
“No, no. It’s fine. Everything’s in order,” Naomi had assured them, and the clouds of worry in Bernadette’s eyes had disappeared. “We’re glad you made it.” Naomi had rained her most benevolent, if false, smile on them. “Just give me a sec and I’ll get it. Would you like to come with me to see that everything’s in order?” she’d added to the mother, a tall woman whose lined face suggested she smiled often.
“Oh, yes. Sure.” Carrying a huge bag, the mother hurried after Naomi, who had turned away and stepped into the adjoining room where the records had been kept, leaving Lucas alone with the two newcomers.
“Hi,” he’d said, slipping the keys off the hook. “I’m Lucas Dalton.”
“Dalton? So you’re her”—Bernadette’s eyes had followed Naomi’s wake—“her son?”
“Stepson,” he’d corrected. Naomi was nearly fifteen years older than he but didn’t look her age. Though she had two boys from her previous marriage, they were younger than Lucas.
“Oh, then the reverend is your father.”
“Yes.” He’d wanted to say more but held his tongue. For once.
“I’m Bernadette,” she’d introduced, sticking out her hand. He’d taken it even though he felt dirty and grimy. Worse yet, he’d held it a second too long.
Her green gaze had lingered on his, and he was reminded of the forest at daylight. “I’ll take your bags to your cabin.”
Clearing her throat, she’d said, “Great. Oh, and this is my sister, Annette.” The younger, shyer girl hadn’t offered a hand, but stared at him with worried eyes. A couple of inches shorter than Bernadette, she was pretty enough, her eyes and hair a shade lighter than her older sibling’s, but her confidence, it had seemed, was in short supply. Annette had clutched her purse to her chest and eyed him as if she suspected him to be the devil incarnate. Which, he decided now, he had been.
Maggie said now, breaking into his thoughts, “So, no love lost between you and your father.”
“Not much.”
“And your stepbrothers?”
“Even less.”
“What about your stepmother?”
He felt the muscles in the back of his neck clench. “She and the old man are divorced.”
“I know. You don’t see her?”
“Nope.”
“But her sons hang out with Jeremiah.”
“I guess.” He didn’t like talking about his family or ex-family or anything personal for that matter, but of course, that was all about to change.
Maggie fell silent until they rounded the curve that swept around Neahkahnie Mountain, a headland where a viewpoint had been constructed and offered sweeping views of the Pacific.
She eyed the vast stretch of gray water and said, “No matter how you cut this, Lucas, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a couple of dead bodies.”
He didn’t argue, just turned north on the county road.
“Once we establish identity or at least the age of the victims and the approximate time they’ve been dead, we might well have a homicide or two on our hands.”
“Yeah.”
“So how do you want to handle this?” she asked. “If it turns out that the bones belong to one of the people who was at the camp twenty years ago, the sheriff will take you off the case.”
He nodded. They’d already gone over this ground.
“But I think we need you. I think you might be able to persuade some of your friends to come to us, rather than the other way around. It would be easier to interview them in person, here, rather than wherever they’ve scattered to.”
“No one will agree to that.”
“No?” She was looking out the side window now, gathering her thoughts, constructing her argument as she stared at the forest and cliffs that rimmed the highway on the passenger side. “You could be wrong there. If the choice to those we want to talk to is to discuss it with the local authorities and risk people they know—family, friends, and clients—learning that they could be part of a murder investigation, they might decide a quick trip to Cape Horseshoe might be a better idea.”
“You’re assuming the bones that were found belong to someone who went missing from the camp, and that people care what happened two decades ago, and that they might want to cover it up.”
“I’m just suggesting you, as a counselor at the time and son of the owner and now a detective with the sheriff’s department, might get more insight, more evidence than a rookie cop at some Podunk jurisdiction in Timbuktu.”
“That’s where you’re dead wrong.”
“Am I?” She turned to face him, intelligent eyes sparking with a challenge. “Then let’s see, shall we?”
He grappled with the decision, his fingers tightening over the wheel as he drove. “If we know definitively that the body is from that time frame, I’ll do what I can, okay? As long as the sheriff lets me.”
She nodded. “That’s fair enough. But what do you want to tell Kinley Marsh?”
“Oh, right. The reporter.”
“And ex-camper. She’s been calling.” Maggie made a big show of checking her phone’s menu of recent calls. “Three times already this morning.”
“I’ll think of something to put her off. No press. Not even an online blog, until we know what we’re dealing with.”
CHAPTER 9
Seattle, Washington
Now
Bernadette
Bernadette had just scooped up her keys from the kitchen counter, slipped her arms through her raincoat, and started out the door when her cell phone started to ring. Probably Annette. “I’m coming already,” she said crossly, though she was alone in her townhouse. Annette had the worst timing. She called when Bernadette was just stepping into the shower, in the middle of her yoga routine, or often, like now, when she was almost out the door.
Slipping the phone from her pocket, she checked the screen while stepping into the garage. Annette’s face and number didn’t appear. Instead the small display read, Private Caller. Maybe a telemarketer? Swell. She almost hung up, then placed the phone to her ear and, intending to tell the person on the other end to get a life, barked out an impatient, “Hello?”
“Is this Bernadette Alsace? Or Bernadette Warden?” a female voice asked.
“Both,” she said, slapping at the button to open the garage door. “Who’s this?” For a second she wondered if it was one of Jake’s girlfriend’s besties, calling to gloat or titter or get their jollies by somehow taunting his ex-wife. It had happened before, when it mattered. Now she really didn’t care so . . . fine. Bring it on.
The garage door started rolling up noisily, exposing a curtain of rain splattering against the short concrete drive of her recently purchased townhouse.
“My name is Kinley Marsh,” the voice said, striking some faraway chord of remembrance in Bernadette’s brain.
She opened the door and slipped behind the wheel of her Honda. “Kinley?” Why did that name ring bells? Tossing her purse onto the passenger seat and noting that her umbrella—the one she never used—was tucked into the side pocket of the passenger door, she jabbed her key into the ignition.
“You don’t remember me?”
Did she? “I don’t think so.” With a twist of her wrist, the Honda’s engine sparked to life.
“I was a camper in your cabin at Camp Horseshoe twenty years ago.”
Ah, yes. Bernadette now remembered the nosy little girl with the long red pigtails and gaps in her teeth. She’d been a pain in the backside then, always asking a million questions and puppy-dogging around after the counselors.
“I’m a reporter now.” A pause. “I’ve got my own blog and I write for an online newspaper, the NewzZone. The paper
is based out of Astoria, and so we keep up with everything happening up and down the coast. Oregon mainly, but sometimes we print stories that are from California or Washington. Not just local news.”
“Okay.” Bernadette slid the gearshift into reverse.
“You may not have heard, but it looks like at least one body’s been found on the beach near Cape Horseshoe.”
“What?” Bernadette said, her attention suddenly riveted to the call. “A body?”
“Well, from what I understand it’s not so much a body but bits of human remains, part of a skeleton and a skull.”
“Dear God.” Bernadette cut the engine. Sat frozen. She’d known this would happen. Expected it, really. But with the passage of time, that long-ago summer had faded, the worry easing. Now, it was back. And hitting hard.
“Exactly.” Kinley’s voice was smug, as if she were finally satisfied that she’d gotten all of the attention she deserved, the attention Bernadette needed to give her. “The local police are trying to identify the bones and connect them to anyone who went missing in the area.”
“Has anyone been reported missing?” she forced out.
“Recently, no. But from what I understand the sheriff of Neahkahnie County, Sheriff Locklear, is concentrating on the people who went missing twenty years ago. You remember.”
Like it was yesterday.
“But . . . But they don’t know who it is?”
“Not yet. The state crime lab is trying to make that determination.”
All of her insides seemed to shrink. “But why . . . I mean, there have been other people who’ve disappeared along the coast. . . .”
“Of course, but not so many in a concentrated time period. You have to admit, three people, well, I guess four if you count the fugitive who was supposed to be in the area at the time, all vanishing in the space of less than a week? That’s odd.”
“But the disappearances were investigated.” The story had been big news, the investigation intense, the reporters and police crawling all over the campgrounds and surrounding parks and forest area, and small, nearby coastal towns were searched. None of the missing people had been found, no bodies discovered, the case never closed. The circus event mentality of it had waned, the curious moving on to other mysteries to solve, the police concentrating on more active and solvable cases.
“The case was never closed, of course, but shelved, I guess you’d say. The investigation wound down. Apart from Monica O’Neal’s mother, Meredith O’Neal, pressing for answers, no one else has pushed for a resolution. Meredith keeps in touch with the sheriff’s department and now, with a relatively new sheriff and a body being discovered, trust me, the case is warming up. Twenty years is a long time, technologically speaking. Now, there are all kinds of advances in DNA technology, computers, cameras, digital enhancement, you name it. So, I’m pretty sure all the missing persons cases will be dusted off and pored over again.”
Bernadette glanced into the rearview mirror, saw her own eyes staring back at her, and behind them the opening of the garage and the rain falling from the leaden sky. “So why are you calling me?”
“I’d like to interview you,” Kinley said. “Get your take on what happened back then, find out what you think might have happened to those who vanished into thin air. You were there.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“A lot of it would be conjecture, sure, but that’s okay. I’ve got a blog and our newspaper is edgy. We don’t exactly write news stories, or at least not exclusively. It’s looser, I guess you’d say.” She was warming to her subject. “So, being there when it all happened, I have my perspective, but I thought it would be great to do a series, you know? What I saw and heard, and then the same from the other people at the camp, especially the counselors who knew Eleanor Brady and Monica O’Neal, and anyone who was close to Dusty Peters.”
“What . . . What about Grimes?” Bernadette asked, stalling for time. “You mentioned him.”
“I’ve got a line on his sister and his cell mate. They’ve agreed to be part of the story.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I can add,” Bernadette said. “I gave a statement to the police at the time and since then, aside from Annette, I haven’t kept in touch with anyone who was at the camp.”
“Oh. Really? No e-mail? Letters? Phone calls? No online site where old friends can catch up? Christmas cards?”
So the reporter was baiting her. “We were counselors. Not friends.”
“But weren’t you, like . . . involved with Lucas Dalton, the son of the camp’s owner.”
“He . . . He was going with Elle . . . Eleanor Brady.”
“I know,” Kinley said slowly, as if thinking hard. “But I was there and I’m pretty sure I saw the two of you—you and Lucas—together.”
“Well, I knew him. Of course.” Bernadette felt a flush climb up the back of her neck, which was just ridiculous. She licked her lips.
“You two would sneak off to that old church on the edge of the campground. Alone.”
Bernadette’s heart was thundering. No one knew about that. No one! Except, it seemed, Kinley Marsh. “Who told you that?”
“As I said, I was there.”
“Look, Kinley, I don’t really know where you’re going with all of this and I think you’re jumping the gun on thinking that a body, if there is one, has anything to do with anything that happened twenty years ago at Camp Horseshoe. I don’t have anything more to say.”
“Well, think about it. Sheriff Locklear is up for reelection and she’s looking for something to make her shine. Solving a cold case of this magnitude, the biggest story to hit the coast in nearly two decades, that wouldn’t hurt her and she knows it. She’d be a local hero, and Meredith O’Neal would have justice for her daughter.”
“But no one knows what happened to Monica.”
“Yet. But I’m thinking this whole thing is going to blow up, big-time. You might want to tell me your side of the thing before that happens. Put your spin on it.”
“There is no ‘my side,’ no ‘spin,’ ” she said tautly. “I’ve got nothing more to say.” She killed the connection, then clicked the phone off, dropped the cell onto the passenger seat, and slammed her fist on the steering wheel.
“Damn, damn, damn!” Just when she was getting her life back together, just when she was starting to feel good about herself, when being single was a badge of honor rather than a disappointment, just when she’d thought she could take on the world again despite losing her baby, as well as her husband and the life they’d led . . . and now this? The door to the past that hadn’t quite closed. It was ajar, about to be banged open.
“Get over yourself,” she said. She hit the gas and tore out fast, only to stand on the brakes as a bicyclist shot by, zipping down the hill and glaring at her before flipping her off and speeding away.
“Pull yourself together,” she warned herself tightly, her heart pounding with a surge of adrenaline. For the love of God, you could have hit the biker, killed him. Or a mother pushing a jogging stroller down the street. Get a grip, Bernadette. It was only a damned phone call. That’s all. Kinley was just poking around. Fishing. Nothing may come of this.
She drew in a deep breath, held it, and slowly exhaled.
That’s it. Calm down. Focus. Find your safe place.
Nothing was going to happen. What had occurred twenty years ago was long dead and buried.
Surely, surely she wouldn’t have to live through the horror of it again.
She sure as hell hoped not.
She looked back at her townhouse, a new retreat, the place she’d settled on once the divorce was final, her new little nest. Eleven hundred square feet belonging just to her: Ms. Bernadette Alsace, as she was in the process of taking her maiden name again and destroying any remnant of having been Jake Warden’s wife. Why keep a name that had proved so false? It wasn’t as if she had children with whom to share it. She felt an emptiness at that particular thought, a sadness th
at comes only at the promise of a child that is shattered by miscarriage, a worse pain than knowledge of the betrayal: Jake’s betrayal.
Maybe he just couldn’t cope with a wife so caught up in her own grief that she couldn’t find happiness anywhere.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and surprised herself with her own words. She hadn’t intended to speak them; aloud. Losing the baby, at eighteen weeks, had been heartbreaking, losing her husband after five years of marriage had probably been inevitable. Child or no child.
She blinked, found her eyes were wet, and got angry all over again. She’d thought she’d found a way to bury her grief, to tamp down her pain, to finally move forward again. Wasn’t this new home in the Queen Anne District proof enough of that?
But now . . . now, all this old trouble reared its head.
It was a phone call. One lousy phone call. Nothing more. Heart still beating rapidly, but no longer in the stratosphere, she took in a final breath and checked her mirrors once more. She eased out of the driveway and instead of driving to her yoga class, headed straight to Annette’s apartment located two blocks off the waterfront and which, from the eighth story, had a pigeonhole view of Elliott Bay.
Traffic was thick, the going slow, but she managed to snag one of the visitor parking slots for the building and by the time she’d made her way inside, up the elevator and along a short hallway to her sister’s apartment, she was calmer. She knocked and the door opened almost immediately.
“Thank God you’re here!” Annette said, her face white, her eyes rounded. In pink sweats, her hair falling all around her face in lank strands, she was upset and not bothering to hide it. “I just got a call from Jo-Beth Chancellor . . . I mean, her name’s Leroy now . . . Jo-Beth Leroy. She’s a junior partner at some law firm in Portland now.”
“I know who you mean.” Bernadette stepped into the apartment, a modern one-bedroom unit. The living room was furnished with sleek, modern pieces, decorated in grays with splashes of orange and yellow in the cabinetry, lamp bases, and pillows. Soft jazz was playing from speakers hidden in the walls and ceiling. A yoga mat was stretched out in front of the sliding door leading to a narrow balcony.