Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  “Detective O’Meara,” he said, “this is Dr. and Mrs. Moretti, parents of Nathan Moretti. Detective O’Meara is with the sheriff’s office and she’s the detective in charge of the Violet Sperry homicide. There’s a chance the murders of Annessa Cooper and Violet Sperry are connected, so I asked her to sit in on the interview. Okay with you?”

  “Yes, yes, whatever. Just tell me you’ve found Nathan,” Mrs. Moretti said. She sat in a chair next to her husband’s, holding his hand, looking frightened out of her mind.

  “Not yet. But we know that he intended to meet Annessa Cooper; text messages were sent between them and we just confirmed that your son’s car was parked in The Right Spot’s lot that night.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Mrs. Moretti’s voice was high and tight.

  “But it was gone later.”

  She blinked and Cade started asking questions:

  Did either of them know that their son was involved with Annessa Cooper?

  They did not.

  Did they have any idea where he may have gone?

  Again, the answer was no. “We started calling all of his friends and, well, his work again, anyone we could think of, but no one had seen him since yesterday,” Dr. Moretti said. “The last person to have seen him that we know of was Will Hart, his employee.”

  “I—I just don’t understand,” Nate’s mother squeaked, and while she tried to hold herself together they told them what they knew about their son, that he’d never followed in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, though Lord knew he was smart enough; that he’d never settled down with one girl; that he had a “bit” of a wild streak; and that they had no idea where he might be.

  Eventually the two were interviewed separately and Kayleigh sat in on both conversations, but she learned nothing more of importance while she spoke with Nate’s obviously distraught mother and worried father. Kayleigh came away from the interviews feeling as if she’d learned nothing more about Nate Moretti’s disappearance or the murders of Violet Sperry and Annessa Cooper.

  * * *

  “There was one last thing I wanted to talk to you about,” Cade said as he and Richard Moretti were alone in the interview room. The doctor’s wife, done with her private interview, had asked to use the restroom, Voss had left to show her the way, and Kayleigh had taken a call and already left.

  Leaving Cade alone with the doctor.

  “What’s that?” Moretti asked, standing near the door, jangling the keys in his pocket.

  “It’s about the night Luke Hollander died.”

  “What? Luke Hollander?” Moretti blanched a little. “That’s out of left field, isn’t it? I’m here because my son is missing.”

  “But you were the doctor who attended to him that night.”

  “That’s right. They brought him directly to St. Augustine’s. It served as an emergency room, or an urgent care for locals back then. I was on call and met the ambulance there.”

  “You pronounced him DOA.”

  Moretti paused a second, looked away, remembering. “Yes. That’s right. It was a chaotic night. The shooting at the cannery, all the kids involved, my boy included.” A muscle worked near his temple. “Ned came in. . . .” He let the sentence trail, remembering.

  “Ned took Rachel to the station.” Which wasn’t protocol.

  “Yeah . . . Everything was topsy-turvy that night. Nothing made any sense.”

  “But Luke was dead when he got there?” Cade asked.

  Moretti had been looking at the floor, caught in thought; now his head snapped up.

  “That’s what you wrote in the report and on the death certificate,” Cade pointed out.

  He nodded. “That’s right.” But he said it slowly, as if anticipating Cade’s next question.

  “But the EMT who was attending swore he was still alive.”

  “One of them,” Moretti said quickly. “The other agreed with me.”

  “So why the discrepancy?” Cade watched the doctor carefully.

  Moretti’s throat worked. He scratched his cheek. “As I said it was a crazy night. Kids being rounded up, some brought here, to this station, Luke dead, his sister having pulled the trigger. Ned Gaston, he was a mess.”

  Cade didn’t doubt that. The night of Luke’s death was the beginning of the end of Ned’s career and had exacerbated the breakdown of his marriage. From the point that he’d brought his daughter into the station, his drinking had increased, his temper flaring more easily, his whole life seeming to crumble. Cade knew. He’d witnessed it firsthand during the tenure of his own marriage. “So what happened?”

  The doctor’s back stiffened. “Luke Hollander died.”

  “When?” Cade pushed.

  Moretti’s mouth opened and closed.

  “He wasn’t dead when he got there, right?”

  “He . . . he was gone.”

  “Tell me.” He wasn’t buying the doctor’s story.

  Moretti’s eyes shifted away.

  “What happened?”

  “He was . . . he was . . . dead.”

  “Was he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Good to know. Because I’m reopening the case,” Cade said, stretching the truth. “And the EMTs who brought him in, even a nurse on duty, I’ve already talked to them and they’re coming in later, to corroborate your story.”

  “Why? When you have murders to solve and my son to find? Why would you bother?”

  “Because it’s all linked together.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Luke died twenty years ago.”

  “And someone’s pissed now. The crimes are linked, Moretti, and your son is somehow involved.”

  “Oh, Jesus. No. You don’t think Nate’s . . . He would never harm anyone. No, no, no . . .”

  Cade just stared at him. The questions still hanging. “Okay, then, we’ll go at it through the staff that was at the hospital that night and the rescue workers. Someone will remember something and maybe, just maybe, it’ll help us find your son.”

  “I don’t see how,” Moretti said weakly as the sound of footsteps could be heard through the partially open door. He glanced through the opening and his face collapsed as he spied his wife. In a second, he drew a breath. “I don’t want Janine to know,” he said. “Let me take her home and . . .”

  “Now, Moretti,” Cade said and opened the door. To Voss, he said, “We’ll just be a minute more. Maybe you can walk Mrs. Moretti to the car.”

  “Sure,” Voss agreed, giving him the what’s-up look but touching Nate’s mother on her elbow, then saying to her, “This way.”

  “Richard?” his wife asked.

  “I’ll just be a minute.” He offered her a weak smile as they passed.

  Cade pushed the door closed. “So,” he said, “did you help Luke Hollander get out of this world, Doctor?”

  Moretti’s knees started to buckle and Cade caught him.

  “Did you?”

  “Oh, God.” Moretti fell into a vacant visitor’s chair. “No,” he said, and shook his head vehemently. But his entire body had seemed to fold in on itself and he held his head in his hands. “But . . . but I didn’t do everything to save him. He was too far gone, he’d lost too much blood, his brain starved of oxygen, comatose, totally unresponsive. Had he lived, he would have been a vegetable.... When Ned said to ‘let him go,’ I . . . I wrestled with my conscience, with my oath as a doctor, with what was truly life and . . . oh, Jesus . . .”

  “You didn’t do anything to save him,” Cade said, finally getting it.

  “He was too far gone . . . and Ned said it would be a living death for Melinda to have her boy alive but not . . . unable to function. . . .”

  “So you didn’t give him a chance.”

  Moretti closed his eyes. “I tried . . . I did . . . but . . .”

  “You let him die.”

  * * *

  Rachel’s phone hadn’t stopped buzzing all afternoon as text after text had come through:

  Lila: I heard Nate is
missing! Is it true? I can’t believe it. It’s like our whole class is under attack. What’s going on? Call me!!

  She was shocked and would have thought Lila was overreacting to some gossip that had no foundation until she read the subsequent texts:

  Brit: Friends of Nate’s came into the coffee shop. I overheard them saying that he’s missing, didn’t show up at work, that the police are looking for him. Do you know anything?

  Of course, Mercedes was all over it. Not only had she left a couple of voice messages asking Rachel and Harper for an interview, but also texted:

  Do you know anything about Moretti going missing? I have a source who says he was supposed to meet Annessa last night. Is that true? Does this have anything to do with Annessa’s murder? Did Harper see him? I NEED to talk to you! Anytime. I sent you an e-mail, but please, CALL ME!

  Even Billy Dee had texted:

  What’s up with Moretti? What’s going on? His dad called me. Said he’s missing. Got any info? Kinda worried.

  “Me too,” Rachel said aloud, then texted Cade:

  Just heard Nate Moretti might be missing. True?

  After laying down the law when she’d gotten home, her kids had surprised her. Dylan had actually tackled his room, and though it wasn’t up to her white-glove standards, at least it wasn’t a biohazard waste dump site any longer. Harper was doing homework.

  “Trying to get a better grade in chemistry,” she’d said when Rachel had checked in on her daughter. Harper actually had been seated on her bed, books spread around her, as she typed on a laptop. “Maybe make the honor roll.”

  “That would be great,” Rachel had said, and as Harper had turned back to her studies, she’d closed the door and stepped into the hall. Since when had Harper cared about her GPA? Probably the end of her freshman year, so why the sudden interest . . . ?

  Oh.

  It hit then.

  Xander Vale was attending the University of Oregon and Harper’s GPA was hovering near, but not quite at, the admission standards. Maybe Cade was right and Xander wasn’t such a bad influence after all.

  Or maybe you should just trust that your daughter is finally growing up, becoming that adult she’s so fond of mentioning.

  It was odd, this feeling that both kids were doing exactly as she’d asked.

  It was almost as if they were being too good, she thought, then kicked herself for being so suspicious. They’d done what she’d asked and Harper, if a little more serious than usual, seemed fine, her more studious and subdued attitude explained by the ordeal she’d been through.

  After glancing at the clock, she warmed what was left of the lasagna in the oven, and after tossing together a quick salad, headed upstairs to check her e-mail. No responses today from any of the jobs she’d applied for and, of course, the e-mail from Mercedes.

  “Give it up,” she muttered under her breath, then decided, her curiosity getting the better of her, to open and read it:

  Rachel,

  I would love to interview you for the last of the articles, give you a chance to tell your side of what happened the night that Luke Hollander died. I’m hoping to get perspectives from some of the other people who were there. I want to do an in-depth feature on who Luke really was, behind the mask of high school athlete (and heartbreaker), and so some insight on his life growing up would help, too. Your mother and father seem to be stonewalling me, but I hope you could add something and convince them to contribute. Please call me. Mercedes

  Along with the e-mail were three attachments, all photographs. One was a family shot that Rachel remembered as being on a Christmas card they’d sent when Rachel was around eleven. She remembered the ugly red sweater that her mother had made her wear, while Luke was in green. At that point in time the family still had been pretty tight and looking at it brought back memories of happier days. The second shot was one of Luke’s senior pictures, one where he was staring straight into the camera, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and the third was of a stranger, a mug shot identified as being Bruce Hollander. “Oh, no,” she whispered. Mercy couldn’t drag her mother’s first marriage into these articles. “Shit.” She picked up the phone and dialed.

  Mercy picked up on the second ring.

  “You can’t write about Luke’s real dad—I mean, his biological father,” Rachel said as she stared at the picture on her computer monitor. She’d never seen a picture of Bruce Hollander before, but now she saw the resemblance to Luke and something else.

  “I think I can,” Mercedes was saying. “You all keep trying to stop me by giving me nothing to go on and I’m scrambling here. But let me tell you, not only have we sold more papers this week than any other this year, but the online subscriptions have skyrocketed. This is the kind of story people love to read about,” she added, sounding pleased while Rachel’s stomach was turning.

  “But it’s my family.”

  “And it’s newsworthy.”

  “Twenty years ago.”

  “Maybe, but people love that retro stuff and get off on a bit of a mystery, a little bit of a scandal.”

  “No matter whose life it harms.”

  “Temporary,” Mercy said. “Until the next big story hits, and with the recent murders, you don’t have to worry too much. People will move on. A twenty-year-old mystery won’t hold the readers’ attention like the new ones.”

  “Geez, Mercy, the new ones are people you know.”

  Mercedes sighed. “I can’t help that. News is news.”

  “What if it were your family?”

  “I’d report it.”

  “Sure.”

  Rachel was still staring at the picture of Bruce Hollander. Something about him bothered her. The picture was obviously old, but she knew how to photoshop in a few wrinkles and less hair, make him more clean shaven....

  Her heart nearly stopped.

  She’d seen this guy.

  Recently.

  And she knew where.

  She added a baseball cap to the picture and felt the muscles in the back of her neck contract. Yeah, this was the guy loitering around the offices of the Edgewater Edition, the man she’d seen watching her. A noise in her head started, like the sound of the ocean. Had he been the person she’d seen walking the dog on the street the night her door had been tagged? But why?

  Because he thinks you killed his son.

  Mercedes was starting to ask another question but Rachel blurted out, “Bruce Hollander is out of prison now.”

  “Yeah. I know that.”

  “Have you interviewed him?”

  Silence.

  “Have you?” Rachel demanded, her thoughts whirling. Fear sliding through her soul.

  “Yeah,” she said. As if it was no big deal. This was the man who had beaten up his wife, put Melinda in the hospital. “He wasn’t too hard to track down,” Mercy said.

  But he’s dangerous! A known felon! “Does he live around here?” Rachel’s heart was thudding wildly and it was all she could do to keep her tone normal. “Do you have his address?”

  “No . . . Just a phone number. He, unlike you and the rest of your family, was willing to discuss his feelings about the son he’d barely known.”

  “I’d like that number.”

  “Oh . . . no, I can’t do that.”

  “You’ve already admitted that you talked to him. It’s not like you’re protecting a source. You’re printing his damned picture in the paper.”

  “Whoa, slow down. So what? Look, I don’t give out addresses or phone numbers. If he asked for yours I wouldn’t give it to him.”

  “Did he? Did he ask for mine?”

  “No! God, Rach. Slow down, will you? What’s wrong?”

  Everything. Every damned thing. My marriage is over, my kids are growing up and away from me. Someone’s definitely targeting me. People I know are being killed, damn it, and you’re bringing up the worst part of my life, putting it out for public display, so that my children will see it, so that the whole town will
read about it, so that I’ll relive it.

  “I’m fine,” she lied.

  “I hope so.” Obviously Mercedes didn’t believe her, but her voice softened as she added, “Look, Rachel, we’ve been friends a long time. I was there that night; I saw what Luke’s death did to you, to your family. I remember seeing you so upset and your dad comforting you and trying to comfort Lila, who was out of her mind, and I know you think I’m exploiting you and your family, but I’m just telling the story, or retelling it because it’s a part of the history of this town.

  “That cannery, where it all happened, used to be the very heart and soul of Edgewater. One in three families had someone directly or indirectly involved with tuna and salmon packing back in its heyday. From fishermen to cannery workers to truckers to janitors and inspectors, that cannery along with the sawmill and logging camps, kept this town alive. And then it was over and the cannery was closed, never sold, and a group of kids went down there one night for some fun, and a boy, a local athlete, was tragically killed. It’s part of Edgewater’s history. Now the cannery is scheduled to be renovated and rebuilt into a bustling new complex of restaurants and shops, condos and businesses, lauded as rejuvenating this town. It’s important.” She let out a sigh. “Of course, now there’s a new angle.”

  Rachel saw where this was going and she thought she might be sick. “Violet’s and Annessa’s murders.”

  “That’s right. It’s horrible, yes, but news. And your daughter found Annessa. So it’s important that I talk to Harper.”

  “Important for whom? No.”

  “I think it should be her decision.”

  “What? No! God, Mercy, back off. She’s just a kid.”

  “About the same age as you were when Luke was killed.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Rachel said through tight lips.

  “This is my job, Rach.”

  “And this is my life. My kid’s life.”