by Kate Kessler
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Kathryn Smith
Excerpt from The Walls copyright © 2017 by Hollie Overton
Author photograph by Kathryn Smith
Cover design by Crystal Ben and Wendy Chan
Cover images by Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First Edition: March 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBNs: 978-0-316-43899-5 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-43902-2 (ebook)
E3-20171031-DANF
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Amber Alert
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Acknowledgments
Meet the Author
A Preview of "The Walls"
Praise for Kate Kessler
By Kate Kessler
Newsletters
This book is for Steve—always
February 19
AMBER ALERT
ISSUED FOR: MAINE
Tala Lewis
Missing Date: February 17
Missing From: Eastrock, ME
Age Now: 17 years old
Sex: Female
Race: Filipino
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 5 feet 9 inches
Weight: 130 pounds
Description: The child was last seen wearing a purple coat, black sweater, jeans and black boots.
Anyone having any information should call 911.
March 31, 2017
POLICE EXPAND SEARCH FOR MISSING TEEN:
MISSING EASTROCK GIRL MAY HAVE GONE TO NEW YORK, FRIENDS SAY
By Mark Picard, Herald staff writer
EASTROCK—Police are widening the search for missing Eastrock teenager Tala Lewis.
“We’re exploring the possibility that Tala may have left the state,” said state trooper Detective Neve Graham. “Obviously, we just want to bring Tala home.”
Tala, 17, was last seen February 17 after spending time with friends. Those same friends say she was supposed to meet them that night, but never showed.
“She was happy that day,” said best friend Kendra Granger. “We hung out with friends and made plans to go to New York after graduation. She said she couldn’t wait to get out of here.”
“I can’t believe she’d just take off,” said friend Luke Pelletier. “But the only place she’d go is New York. She wouldn’t leave her friends for any other reason.”
While friends and family have a hard time believing Tala would leave without word, police say that many runaways eventually end up in larger cities where they can blend in and avoid attention.
Tala was last seen wearing a sweater, coat and boots. She is 5'9" tall with dark hair and eyes. Anyone with information should call 911 or the Maine State Police.
CHAPTER ONE
April 26, 2017
There were three words Neve Graham hated to hear. They echoed in her ears as a twig snapped beneath the sole of her boot. They found something.
It was late April, but there were still patches of snow in the heavily sheltered woods, despite it being a sunny day. Another few rains and it would be gone soon. New shoots of life burst through the dirt, rotting vegetation giving away to something vibrant and green, despite the stubborn snow.
God, she hated spring. It smelled like death to her, all that decay stripped bare by the slow but relentless thaw.
“You see it yet?” called a voice.
Neve turned. Coming along the path toward her was Charlotte deBaie, death investigator for the area. “Just got here,” she replied. “Can I carry some of that?”
Charlotte waved her away as they started down the rough path down the rocky hill. “Do you think it’s her?”
“It’s someone.” When she’d gotten the call earlier, she’d been told that hikers had found human remains at the Edgeport state park, commonly referred to simply as “the Falls” by locals. The area only had one missing person, but that was one too many as far as Neve was concerned. Part of her wanted to give the family closure, but there was no goddamn way she looked forward to making that visit.
Maybe it was a tourist. A lone hiker who hadn’t told anyone where they were going. It was possible—it happened occasionally.
Charlotte’s boot skidded on a loose rock. Neve reached up to steady her. She really didn’t want to break the larger woman’s fall at the bottom of the bank. Plus, the guys would make lesbian jokes for the next month, regardless of the fact that both Neve and Charlotte were in relationships with men.
When they finally reached bottom, they had to pick their way along the rocky terrain bordering the river to where the falls growled and splashed. A young man was sitting partway up the steep incline. Neve recognized him as Gareth Hughes, one of the caretakers of the park. He was pale and perched on a rock about ten feet below the bridge that allowed hikers to cross over the falls.
“Climbed all that way down just to climb up again,” Charlotte muttered, watching where she stepped. “Sounds about right.”
Neve smiled slightly. “Better to come down the path than that.” She pointed where Gareth sat. That was just an invitation for a broken neck, which was what had probably happened to the person he’d found. There was a path from the parking lot to the upper level of the falls as well, but it was tricky terrain.
Finally, they reached the base of the falls, where they were soon joined by Gareth’s brother, Owen, and Neve’s fellow state trooper Vickie Moore, who was in uniform and the first on the scene. There were others as well, but Neve was primary
since it was a female body. She’d been looking for Tala Lewis for two months, ever since the girl went missing.
Neve and Charlotte suited up to preserve the scene and made their way twenty feet up the side of the falls. The rocks and vegetation were wet from melt and rushing water, making it a slippery mess.
“Be careful,” Neve cautioned as her own toe slipped on a slimy patch. Damn booties.
“Not my first rodeo, girlie,” Charlotte replied, deftly avoiding the same spot. Somehow, she managed to look cool and graceful while a tiny trickle of sweat ran down Neve’s back.
Gareth reached down to give her a hand up the last couple of feet. Then, when Neve stepped to the side, he helped Charlotte as well. The bridge was only a few feet away—a good place for anyone else to stand so as not to contaminate the scene any more than it already was.
“Where is it?” Neve asked the younger man.
He pointed to a pile of rocks that looked as though it had been part of a landslide at one time. Behind them, Neve saw alders, more rocks, and a boot. A boot that looked as though it might still have a foot in it. She swallowed. She’d been doing this job for ten years now, and it never got any easier.
She and Charlotte approached in single file, Neve stepping on the hard rocks in an attempt to preserve the scene as much as possible. She paused on top of the largest boulder and looked down.
Shit.
The body had been a young woman at one time. It was surrounded and still partially covered by rocks. Long black hair stuck to the scalp and tangled with debris on the ground. She wore a puffy purple jacket, ripped and stained with blood, and jeans stuffed into black boots. Her skin was almost the same color as her coat, with patches of red. Freezer burn, Neve thought. It wasn’t the bloat that got to her—or even the smell. Thank God it was still too cool for bug activity, and the rocks had kept her covered until meltoff started. No, what got to Neve was the grimace, and there always seemed to be a grimace. It was the one reminder that what they were looking at used to be alive. The girl’s revealed a slightly crooked eyetooth.
Charlotte began taking photos with her phone. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
Neve nodded, her throat tight. They both knew they’d have to compare dental records before they could say anything publicly, but there was no doubt in her mind. “It’s Tala Lewis.”
And it was obvious her death hadn’t been an accident.
The moment Audrey Harte saw the unmarked police car pull into the drive, she knew something bad had happened. Detective Neve Graham was a friend, but things had been strained between them ever since Neve made it clear she didn’t fully trust Audrey, or her fiancé, Jake. It wasn’t that Audrey blamed her; Neve had every reason to be wary as a cop, but not as a friend. Audrey would never betray her that way.
So if Neve was there, unannounced, then something bad had happened. Audrey turned away from the workers building an extension onto the old farmhouse that would soon be her Grace Ridge facility for troubled teens and walked toward the spot where Neve had parked under an ancient apple tree. There would be blossoms on the tree in a few weeks, toward the end of May, but for now it was thick with buds. It was obvious back there, on what locals referred to as “the Ridge,” that spring had truly arrived.
Neve climbed out of the car and shut the door. She wore a black pantsuit and white shirt that indicated she was on duty. Was it Jake? Audrey’s mother? No, someone would have called her, unless it was really bad.
“What’s wrong?” Audrey demanded, closing the distance between them with long strides.
Neve leaned against the car. Her dark hair was back in a tight bun, but curls had managed to escape regardless. They had met as children, and Neve had been the first black person Audrey had ever seen that wasn’t on television. Audrey was also the first person Neve ever met whose eyes were different colors. They’d been fascinated by each other, and became pretty good friends.
Then Neve’s father arrested Audrey and her best friend for murder and put an end to that.
Neve crossed her arms over the chest of her button-down. “We found a body this morning.”
Audrey’s shoulders sagged. “Tala Lewis?”
Neve nodded. She looked defeated. “Yeah.”
“Shit. Alisha is going to be heartbroken.” Alisha was Jake’s niece, who’d been good friends with the girl who’d disappeared a couple of months ago. Alisha clung to the hope that her friend had taken off to New York or LA to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. She was convinced that Tala would send word as soon as she was settled in, even though the girl was much more considerate than that and would never let people worry about her.
“I’m going to ask you not to say anything to her until we know for sure. I haven’t talked to the parents yet.”
“Of course.” She didn’t like keeping secrets from Alisha, but she couldn’t be expected not to share the news with friends, and her mother—Jake’s sister, Yancy—had a reputation as a gossip. It would be all over town before suppertime.
Neve was silent for a moment, giving Audrey a chance to study her. She looked exhausted; there were dark circles under her wide eyes, and tension in her brow. “What else?” she prompted. It was obvious now that Neve had sought her out not because of Alisha, but because she needed to talk. “Is it Bailey?” Bailey was the daughter of Neve’s boyfriend and was currently incarcerated at a juvenile facility, awaiting trial for the murder of her stepmother, Maggie. The same Maggie whose father Audrey had helped kill.
It all felt so very incestuous.
“No. She’s good. The lawyers are optimistic.” She shifted against the car, turning so that her back was against the driver’s door. “The body we found had been stabbed. Multiple times.”
“The body” rather than Tala. Either Neve was being very diligent about not committing to the victim’s identity, or she was trying to be impersonal. “I don’t suppose there’s any way it could have been accidental?”
Neve gave her a sharp look, as if questioning her intelligence. “We found her back the Falls. Someone had taken the time to cover the body with rocks.”
Audrey leaned against the car as well. A cool breeze ruffled her hair. “So now you have to tell the parents their daughter was murdered.”
“By someone who seems to know the area and had the thought to leave her in a spot where she was very unlikely to be found. If it wasn’t for the park guys doing some work, we might not have found her. Once the warm weather hit . . .”
She didn’t have to explain any further. Audrey had worked with the police enough—and watched enough TV—to have an idea what bugs and animals could do to a corpse.
“You’re thinking it was someone local.”
Neve sighed. “I hate the cases with murdered kids. I thought when I left New York I was leaving this kind of stuff behind.”
Audrey didn’t know exactly what had happened, but she knew Neve had been shot and almost died, and that her parents had begged her to give up the city, because her father had almost been killed on the job years earlier. It was the reason they’d moved to Edgeport.
“It’s been getting worse,” Neve continued.
“Since I came home,” Audrey supplied, because of course it was all about her.
“Shut up.” Neve scowled at her. “You coming home didn’t have anything to do with what Bailey did, or this. It’s just that I’ve been much more affected by crimes involving kids because of it.”
“Welcome to my world.” Audrey had started into her career as a forensic juvenile psychologist because of her own background, but it soon became more than that. She wanted to help kids, but now her life was so full of wounded and even criminal teenagers that she sometimes wondered if she’d become desensitized to the very issues she wanted to help solve.
“No. You’re trying to help these kids. I’m the bad guy. I had to arrest Bailey.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “I don’t want to be my frigging father.”
Ah. Audrey supposed she ought to
have seen that one coming, but Neve didn’t talk much about her father, or what she thought of him. Really, Audrey was the last person fit to comment on the mental and emotional health of Everett Graham.
“You’re not your father any more than I’m mine.”
Neve shot her an arch glance. “Seriously?”
“Hey, I might be like him, but I’m also a fully grown woman capable of making my own decisions. I’m not my father, and you’re a better cop than your father ever was. At least you care.” That might have been overstepping, but Neve didn’t seem to mind.
“She was stabbed to death, Audrey. I’ve never seen anything so brutal.”
Audrey’s lips compressed. It was obvious Neve was affected by this case if she felt she needed to discuss it when she oughtn’t. “It was personal.”
Neve nodded. “Very. If this was one of those criminal shows we’d be discussing overkill.”
Audrey liked procedurals. “So, what are you going to do?”
Neve sighed and tilted her head back as she met her gaze. “Wait for ID to be confirmed and the autopsy results to come in, and then I’m afraid I’m going to have to start looking for a murderer.”
Audrey’s smile was grim. “I’ve got an alibi.”
CHAPTER TWO
Did you hear they found a body?”
Alisha Tripp’s head whipped up so fast a spasm ran down her neck. She stared into heavily lined wide eyes. Lucy Villeneuve plunked her skinny jean–clad ass into the seat beside her on the bus. Lucy lived close to Ryme, which was on the other side of Edgeport from Eastrock, where the high school was located, which meant Alisha was probably going to have to listen to Lucy for her entire ride home, as Alisha’s stop was first.
Lucy was something like what Alisha’s mother was accused of being—a gossip.
“No,” she replied, which was true. Even if it weren’t, she wouldn’t tell Lucy.
“Kendra’s mother said she saw the cops going back the park road this morning—meat wagon too.”
Alisha grimaced. “Meat wagon” was one of those terms that unsettled her stomach, kind of like “genital warts,” or “trust me.” Or maybe it was the idea of them finding someone that made her feel queasy.