by Lisa Jackson
If Waldo Grimes had been around, no one reported seeing him.
Lucas leaned back in his chair, ignoring the screen, thinking back. Roscoe whined and Lucas dropped a hand, letting the dog lick off the remnants of the pizza from his fingers.
All of the girls were each other’s alibis. They all were together for most of the night, huddled in the cavern, with the exception of Nell, who they claimed they’d left at the cabins so that one counselor had remained on duty, though that, according to her statement, was a bunch of bull. She, too, had gone down to the cavern, leaving Naomi as the only adult in charge.
At the thought of his ex-stepmother, he paused. She claimed she’d been at the cabins all night long, tending to the children, but she wasn’t sharing a bed with her husband and she, too, could have been a part of this . . . but what? He couldn’t quite put that together, but it bothered him. Though she’d sworn to be dutifully in the girls’ camp, no one could prove it.
Or maybe he was making too much of it because of his own past with her.
Frowning, he thought about the female counselors again. They all agreed that Reva Mercado had come into the grotto later than planned, and Jo-Beth Chancellor had shown up even later. Jo-Beth had explained away her tardiness to the very meeting she’d called because she supposedly had menstrual cramps.
Maybe.
What if she and Reva were involved in something else? What if the damned meeting was to provide an alibi?
But for what?
A murder?
An attack?
A prank gone wrong?
If Jo-Beth had found out that Tyler was screwing around on her, knocking up another woman, would she go as far as to kill Monica and, with Reva’s help, dispose of the body? Nowhere in the statements of the counselors was there any evidence of blood on either Reva or Jo-Beth.
No, the person who was covered in blood was the man with the knife in his back. Could he and Monica have fought, struggled, and she plunged the butcher knife into his back in a fit of passion?
Or had someone else been involved? A third, or even maybe a fourth player?
He felt that he was missing something.
Realizing the dog was still licking his fingers, he said, “Enough, okay? I’d like to keep my skin if it’s all the same to you.” Then he climbed to his feet and took the empty bottle, plate, and fork downstairs, where he dumped them all into the sink. He’d spent too many hours staring at the computer, rereading information he knew by heart. Now they had a body, the corpse of one of the missing four individuals. And most of the people involved were here, in Averille.
He couldn’t just sit around, he needed to act.
What was it Maggie had said when she’d interviewed him?
Start with Eleanor Brady.
Why not? Maybe Elle was the logical place to begin, a spot he’d ignored due to his own involvement. Maybe he should check with her mother, Jeannette Brady.
“You’re in charge,” he said to the shepherd, who followed him to the door. “Not this time, buddy, okay? I’ll be back soon.” That statement could have been a lie, but he didn’t need the dog to pile any guilt his way. He was able to do that well enough by himself.
The night was thick, rain having stopped, but moisture was heavy in the air. He backed out of the carport and with a quick glance in his rearview saw the silhouette of his dog’s head in the light of the window. If only people were as loyal as dogs, he thought, then maneuvered through the trees, his headlights illuminating the dual ruts of his lane. Just as he reached the county road, his phone chirped and Leah’s name appeared on the screen.
“Hey, shortcakes,” he said, calling up a nickname he’d given her in her youth, one he hadn’t used in years.
“Brother dear,” she responded in kind, then became serious. “Hey, look, I just saw on the news that the body has been ID’ed. So it’s really Monica O’Neal?”
“Yes.”
“Wow . . .” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I knew she was probably dead, that they all were, or they would have shown up by now, right? But . . . it’s still kind of surreal. I guess . . . I guess I was holding out some kind of hope.”
“I know. Kind of a sucker punch.”
“Exactly. It makes me feel weird.”
He frowned. “Need me to come over?” Ever since her boyfriend, a musician with dreadlocks and several tattoos and the inability to hold a job, had moved out, she’d lived alone in a small apartment in the heart of Averille. Lucas hadn’t minded the hair or tattoos, in fact he’d admired the one on Craig’s shoulder, but the not working and Craig’s disinterest in holding a job longer than it took to start collecting unemployment, over and over again, that really bothered him. Lucas thought Leah could do better. As it turned out, she’d come to the same conclusion all on her own and had sent Craig, his tattoos, guitar, and probably whatever stash of weed he’d had at the time packing.
“Nah, I’m fine,” she said, but she definitely didn’t sound like it.
“What’s up?” He flipped his lights on bright, illuminating more of the road. Though the rain had stopped, the asphalt still shimmered in the glare of the Jeep’s headlights.
“I know this is a long shot, but have you seen Mom?”
“Naomi?” he clarified, frowning.
“I only have one,” she pointed out.
He eased off the gas as he came to the intersection of the county road with 101, and after a quick “California stop,” seeing no one approaching, made the turn. “Give Jeremiah time, he never goes long without a bride.”
“Ha, ha. Not funny. Just listen, okay? The deal is, I’ve been calling her all afternoon and she hasn’t answered.”
“Well, she . . . wouldn’t be with me.”
Leah let out an audible breath. “I know.”
“And she wouldn’t tell me what she’s doing. Wouldn’t give me an update on her plans. Leah, I haven’t talked to her in . . . God, maybe years.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, ‘no love lost’ and all that, but I’ve called around. David and Ryan haven’t heard from her, and so she’s kind of MIA, I guess.”
“How long?” he asked as a car came up quick behind him, too quick.
“I talked to her this morning. Around ten. She was going shopping and meeting someone for lunch—she didn’t say who—and then she said she’d check in with me later. So far, she hasn’t.”
He negotiated a turn, clicked his lights to dim as the car, a truck it turned out, sped around him, fishtailing a little as the driver had to pull in front of the Jeep quickly because of an oncoming car coming over a rise.
Lucas hit his brakes, the Jeep sliding just a bit, his heart thudding. “Shit.”
“Hey—are you okay?”
“No thanks to the asshole who just passed me on a hill.” He slammed a fist onto his steering wheel. “I should pull him over.”
“You should calm down. Road rage isn’t good for anyone.”
He snorted. “You were saying, what? Naomi’s not returning your calls?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s early.” Leah, by nature, was kind of a worrywart.
“After seven. And neither Ryan or David have heard from her.”
“I didn’t think they got along with her. They seem more interested in Dad.”
“She’s their mother! Dad’s not even related to them.”
“Sometimes that doesn’t mean much.”
“It does to me.”
“I know, I know. But your brothers—”
“Are all a bunch of dicks. Including you,” she said vehemently, her temper finally showing.
“Can’t argue that.”
“I hate you,” she grumbled, and he laughed, knowing she was kidding.
“Sure you do. Every time you don’t get your way.”
“I just want to talk to Mom. She’s going to be upset when she hears that the body belongs to Monica.”
That much was true.
“Well, kiddo, you’re barking up the wrong tr
ee. I have no idea where she is, and I’m pretty sure I’d be the last person she would call.”
“But you’re a cop.”
“Still. She would still call Ryan if she wanted information.”
“He’s not a cop.”
“So what’re you asking? You want me to put out a BOLO for her?”
“A what?”
“Be On the Lookout,” he explained. “But I think we should wait a bit on that.”
“I wasn’t talking about something so official, but thought, I don’t know, that you could do something!”
“Hang tough. Naomi can take care of herself.”
“It’s just not like her.”
“She’ll be fine,” he said.
“A lot of help you’ve been!” She clicked off in disgust just as he found another side road leading into the hills, a narrow lane that he turned onto. Two miles inland, he spied the bashed-in mailbox without a name on it. Just the address, hard to read as the box had been hammered and re-hammered into shape after being the target of rocks or beer bottles over the years. But he knew this was where Elle’s mother, Jeanette Brady, now a widow, still lived. She’d spent all of her married life in the little bungalow and, after her husband’s passing, hadn’t moved. She and Darryl had stayed in the home even after their daughter had gone missing and along with law enforcement and the press, the curious hadn’t given them a rest.
Steadfastly, the Bradys had remained in their home despite any scandal. Eventually interest in the case and their family had waned, and an insurance policy on Elle had finally been paid, though the stress had taken its toll. Elle’s father died a few years back from a heart attack, he believed.
As he turned into the drive and the little, shingled house came into view in the beam of his headlights, he felt an unexplained sense that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to raise. Just like the night when Monica O’Neal had gone missing, he had the feeling that something was off, a sense that something was about to happen.
And it wasn’t going to be good.
CHAPTER 32
Averille, Oregon
Now
Maggie
Maggie Dobbs’s dining room was a disaster area. Though she was usually neat, her work at the office kept in even stacks that would make even the most OCD patient appear untidy, when she worked at her condo, things got messy. Real messy. The TV in the attached living area was turned on, volume low, the screen giving off a flickering light. As she worked, she checked the television every so often.
She’d sorted the statements, not alphabetically, but in groups: Counselors. The Brady family. The O’Neal family. Workers other than counselors. The Dalton family. Then she’d figured out where the groups had intersected and how, if at all, they were related.
So far, she thought, seated at the table, the overhead light fixture casting a warm glow over the reports, statements, files, and notes scattered over the faded walnut finish, she hadn’t caught a glimmer of anything that would help her. She shoved her computer glasses onto her head and rubbed her eyes. She was getting nowhere fast. Her white cat was lying on the counter separating kitchen and dining room, a spot he loved and was usually taboo. Tonight, Maggie didn’t want to fight with him. She muttered a quick, “Get down, Mr. Bones,” but he ignored her, staring at her with his gold eyes, his legs tucked under his body, his long tail with its one black spot twitching slightly. “Fine. Suit yourself.” Picking up the half-drunk cup of tea from a cleared spot on the table, she took a sip and realized the tea had grown cold. Not that she cared. She was too wrapped up in the case.
Cracking her neck, she considered the victims. In the case of Monica O’Neal, the only connection to the others was that she’d been a counselor. Monica hadn’t been friends with anyone before she showed up at the camp and no one had seemed to like her much. Though her file was large, it was mainly because of the “information” and “tips” her mother, Meredith, had left over the years. She’d had no boyfriend, but she was obviously involved with Tyler Quade as he’d admitted, and she’d come to see him on the night she disappeared, the night he’d nearly been killed by the very knife that had gone missing from the camp’s kitchen. So Monica was loosely associated with the other counselors, the girls in her cabin, and some of the workers, as well as more intimately with Tyler Quade.
On the other hand, Eleanor Brady had several connections. Her father had been an elder in the church where her boyfriend Lucas Dalton’s father had been the preacher. “Elle,” as she was called, had spent a lot of time with the Dalton family, and like her father she was a member of the church. She was a counselor at the camp but knew Lucas and his stepbrothers, Ryan and David, as they all had attended the same schools, though not all at the same time. Elle, having grown up near Averille, had known people in the town, whereas Monica hadn’t. And Elle, according to the other counselors, had been liked while Monica hadn’t been.
The two missing girls didn’t have much in common.
Except Camp Horseshoe.
And their files were very different. Monica’s was much thicker, mainly due to Meredith O’Neal’s constant phone calls and “tips” that the officers had diligently checked out over the years, though none had panned out.
Elle’s family, on the other hand, had been quiet and reclusive. Their daughter’s disappearance had affected them profoundly and they’d pulled ranks. Her father, a millwright, had retired early and her mother had been a homemaker. They broke off with the Dalton family, including Jeremiah’s church, and belonged to another small sect twenty miles away. Odd how their response was the direct opposite of the O’Neal family’s. While the O’Neals were vocal and always calling the department, taking interviews with the press and, while Monica’s father was alive, organizing search parties, the Bradys had drawn in on themselves and had been hardly seen. They’d accepted their daughter’s unknown fate calling it . . . what? God’s will?
Maggie fished out the interview with Darryl Brady and flipped through the pages. There was a tape of the interview as well, but she found the quote, “It’s hard for her mother and me, but we believe in God’s will that He will care for Eleanor and if He’s seen fit to call her home, then so be it.”
“Really?” She read the quote aloud and looked at the cat. “That’s a little weird, right?” Flipping through a few more of the old pages, she found a similar statement by Eleanor’s mother, Jeanette, and read the quote. “Who am I to question the Father?” she’d said when asked about her daughter’s disappearance. “I know that He will take care of her and she’ll come home to us, or God will protect her.” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said aloud, and knew that if she had a missing daughter, or son for that matter, she would move heaven and earth to find that kid. She wouldn’t be counting on God to step in.
Now, of course, Darryl was gone, felled by a heart attack, but his wife had continued to be reclusive.
Maggie tapped her pencil on the table and thought, the wheels turning in her mind. Even though the partial body recently discovered had turned out to belong to Monica O’Neal, she needed to talk to Jeanette Brady again. After all, it was the ghost of Elle that people had reported seeing. Not that of Monica O’Neal. Maggie riffled through the papers, the reports of people who had thought they’d seen Elle. Quite a few in the beginning and then sporadically over the years until now when Caleb Carter was certain he’d seen Elle or her ghost earlier today.
But no one had ever reported seeing a woman who looked like Monica O’Neal.
“What’s that all about?” she asked Mr. Bones, and got no reaction.
Not coming up with an answer, she mentally threw Dustin Peters and Waldo Grimes into the mix. Dustin Peters was loosely tied to the camp. Only there for a summer, to work, then disappear. As for Waldo Grimes? Who knew if the convict was even ever close to the area of the camp?
So why would all four of them disappear in the same damned week?
What fate had they all suffered?
It seemed to
make sense that they had all been caught in the same mysterious trap, but maybe that theory was wrong. “Damn it all to hell,” she muttered, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She wanted to solve this case so badly she could taste it, but wondered if it were possible after all this time. She glanced at the television again and saw that the news was on, so she found the remote under a loose stack of papers and clicked the volume up, then ran the DVR back to the beginning of the segment where anchors were discussing the identification of Monica O’Neal as a victim of the crime.
Pictures of O’Neal were shown; then the television screen split in half. On one side a serious-looking female news anchor sat at a broad desk, a fake scene of Portland at night in the background. On the other half of the screen, a clean-shaven male reporter stood outside, wearing a red jacket with the station’s logo emblazoned upon it. Hatless in the wind and rain, he was positioned so that the gates of Camp Horseshoe were in the background.
“. . . and this is what remains of a Christian summer camp, Camp Horseshoe, where Monica O’Neal was a counselor and disappeared along with several others in a case that started twenty years ago and has, over the years, gone cold,” the reporter was saying. “Today, investigators identified bones found in a cavern below Cape Horseshoe and the beach stretching from the cape to this property as belonging to Monica O’Neal.” He gave out basic information about the case, all fed by the Public Information Officer from the department, just as the sheriff had indicated. As he continued his report, pictures of the beach where the bones had been located and the cavern beneath the cape were flashed onto the screen.