by Lis Wiehl
Meanwhile, Mia was speed-dialing a number on her cell phone. She pressed it to her head, the index finger of her free hand closing the other ear. Her lips were a tight line. After a long moment she shook her head and tapped a button to turn off the phone.
“Why didn’t you take Colleen’s phone with you?” she demanded. “I need to know what’s wrong.” She groaned. “If something’s happened to my kids . . .”
“I couldn’t, Mia.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the siren. He and Mia had tangled when she first started working at King County, but that was a long time ago and it didn’t matter now. Not when two kids were in danger. “It was a landline.”
Colleen Miller had been sprawled on her side on top of a dozen record albums, her head turned to face the ceiling, a slick of blood painting her upper lip and chin. The bullet had caught her just below the hollow of her throat. More blood pooled like thick syrup under her head and upper torso, on top of the LPs. The phone rested on the floor near her bottom shoulder, just a few inches from her mouth. If Colleen had been breathing after Mia heard the shot, it didn’t look like it could have gone on for very long.
Charlie had taken two quick photos of the phone—noting that there was no blood on the black-and-silver face—so he could put it back exactly where it had been after he told Mia’s kid it was okay to hang up. That the boy could stop listening for the dead woman to name her killer.
With gloved hands, Charlie had gingerly picked up the phone. But when he put it to his ear, all he heard was a little kid screaming.
Now Mia asked, “Was Brooke saying anything?”
“Not that I could tell,” Charlie said, hedging a little. It had just been wordless screams, seemingly without even a pause for breath. “I’m pretty sure I could hear your boy calling her name in the background.” Again, he left out the panic in the older kid’s voice.
“Did Brooke sound like she was hurt?” Mia’s voice had gotten smaller, until it was barely audible over the thrum of the tires and the wail of the siren.
Parents seemed to know unerringly whether a child’s cry was faked, whether it sprang from boredom or genuine pain. Charlie might not be a parent, but he knew what had been under the sounds he had heard.
Sheer terror.
“I don’t know.” Not knowing whether it was right or wrong to say even part of what he was thinking, Charlie just went ahead. “She was pretty loud. If your daughter’s hurt, it didn’t affect her lungs any.” He thought of how the blood must have bubbled in Colleen’s airway and then out through her mouth.
“Brooke walked in her sleep last week.” Again Mia tapped on her phone and then held it to her ear, but Charlie could tell by her posture that she no longer expected anyone to answer. A few seconds later she put it back in her lap. “Maybe she fell out of bed and hurt herself. Our schedule has really changed since I went back to work. Her bedtime is all messed up.”
Charlie just hoped that the reason for the screams would turn out to be trivial. Something that would seem like an overreaction tomorrow.
But then he thought of the horror and panic and fear he had heard in the little girl’s voice. Crime was down all over the city, but just last month he had worked the case of a Yugoslavian immigrant who had gone crazy and stabbed to death three of his neighbors. Including a seven-year-old girl the guy had chased out into the front yard.
He pushed the accelerator up to nearly seventy. “You don’t carry, do you?”
“No.” Mia shook her head.
“Is there a gun at your house?” Maybe that had been what had happened. Mom was gone, so the kids decided to take out the gun and play cowboys or gangbangers? Or, even more likely, the older boy was jumpy because his mom had gone tearing off in the middle of the night, heard a noise, and accidentally shot his sister?
“No,” Mia said again.
Nodding, Charlie blew air through pursed lips. Guns and kids didn’t mix, not in his opinion. But when he thought of that little girl screaming, he found himself wishing that the other kid, the boy named Gabriel, had something to protect them both with. Something a little bit more powerful than a can of bug spray or a tennis racquet.
Mia’s hands were braced on the dash. She leaned forward, her eyes fastened on the road, as if the extra few inches somehow helped her get to her kids faster.
“Put on your seat belt.” Charlie was doing seventy in a twenty-five zone. His seat belt had gone on at the same time he turned the key in the ignition. He had once seen a rookie cop after a collision at 105 miles an hour. The kid had metal for hips and wasn’t on the force anymore.
Mia didn’t move. He grunted impatiently.
“Mia, come on, put on your seat belt. We need to get you there in one piece.”
Slowly, like someone in a dream, she sat back and pulled the belt across her body, her eyes never leaving the road.
“Tell me about your kids.” It might be useful information, but mostly it would keep Mia focused. Keep her mind off what horror might be going on at her house. Charlie saw gleaming knives, a tumble down an entire flight of stairs, a fast-moving fire, a meth-addled burglar. The trouble with their line of work was that your memory—not your imagination—could supply you with a million terrible vignettes.
Mia took a deep breath. “My son, Gabriel, he’s fourteen. He’s a freshman this year. And Brooke is four.”
A long gap between kids. With anyone else, Charlie might have figured that the two kids were the product of different marriages, each husband wanting kids of his own. But Charlie had known Mia back in her first turn through the King County Prosecutor’s Office, back before she decided to stay home and play house full-time. Her decision had always surprised him.
Then again, while Charlie had been married three times, he didn’t have any kids, so he didn’t know what it was like trying to be both a mom and a prosecutor.
“And what’s Gabriel like?”
“He’s a really good kid.” Mia took a shaky breath. “I mean, he’s been having a hard time with what happened, but what kid wouldn’t? Normally I never would have asked him to listen to Colleen, but I didn’t have much choice.”
Single mothers. The world was full of them. Charlie had no idea how they did it all, how they wiped noses and packed lunches and reviewed homework and joined the PTA or whatever else it was they did.
Charlie didn’t even have a cat.
“And your daughter? What’s she like?” He hoped this wouldn’t remind Mia about the screaming, but then again, it was clear that the screaming was all she could think about.
A smile touched her lips. “Brooke is four, but she thinks she’s older. She’s really proud of herself that she can put dishes in the dishwasher and help make her bed.”
As she spoke, Mia’s gaze never wavered from the dark road ahead of them. She was blond, blue-eyed, about five foot seven, slender. Not his type. He liked them short and dark and curvy. Plus she was far too rigid. She had never understood that sometimes you had to look at the big picture.
Charlie tore his eyes away. He had to be like Mia and keep his eyes on the road. So many bicyclists these days didn’t have lights, let alone helmets. An ER nurse he dated said her hospital had a name for people like that.
Donors.
Mia continued, “All this change has been hard on Brooke too. Now she’s in preschool full-time and then Gabe has to pick her up after school or football practice. Both of my kids are being forced to grow up too fast.”
“What were they doing when you left?” Charlie asked.
“Brooke was sleeping. And Gabriel should have been doing homework. But when I went in to tell him about Colleen, he was playing his guitar to music on his computer.” Mia fell quiet and hit Redial. After a few seconds she touched the button to end the call. Her next words burst out of her. “I never should have left them alone.” Her eyes widened. “Charlie—what if it was all a ruse to get me to leave?”
“What do you mean?”
“How was Colleen killed?” Mia tur
ned away from the road and stared at him wide-eyed.
“Shot in the chest.”
“Where was she in her house?”
“In her basement.” Charlie wondered where she was going with this.
“That’s just like Stan.” When she saw his blank look, she said, “You know. Stan Slavich. He used to work in my office. Until he was murdered.”
Charlie hadn’t thought about Stan in several years. He was pretty sure a homicide detective named Carmen Zapata had handled that case. Carmen was dead now. Breast cancer. Charlie said, “We never solved that one, did we?”
“No. And think about it, Charlie.” Mia’s back went rigid as she ticked off the coincidences. “Stan was a King County prosecutor. Just like Colleen. He was shot through the basement window of his home. Just like Colleen. And he was all alone when he was shot. Just like Colleen. What if someone is targeting prosecutors? What if they came for me next—and went after my kids when they figured out I wasn’t home?”
“They would have to move awful fast.” There were a lot of things Charlie thought were possible, but this wasn’t one of them. “I don’t think whatever’s happening at your house is connected to Colleen, Mia. Maybe there is some kind of a connection between Stan and Colleen, but I doubt it goes any further than that.”
The parallels between the two killings were too hard to ignore, though. Charlie didn’t believe in coincidences. He didn’t believe in much he couldn’t see, hear, touch, taste, smell. “When did Stan die, anyway? Six years ago?”
“Four and a half. I know exactly because I was on bed rest with Brooke. They wouldn’t even let me go to the funeral. Scott was really disturbed when Stan was killed. And then Brooke was born four weeks early. So Scott talked me into not going back.” She gave a shaky laugh. “You probably heard how well that worked out.” She turned back to look at the street. “It’s right at the second light, and then it’s just around the corner.” Mia undid her seat belt.
Charlie cut the siren. If there was a bad guy in the house, he didn’t want him to feel his back was against the wall. “Let me go in alone first and see what’s wrong.” And if it was really bad, maybe he could keep Mia away from it. There were certain sights no one should ever see.
Charlie had seen most of them.
“No way, Charlie.” She was in full mama bear mode now, ready to rise up on her hind legs and swipe her claws at whatever got between her and her cubs. “Don’t argue with me. Those are my babies in there.”
She was out of the car before it had even come to a stop. Charlie barely threw it into park and ran after her, cursing himself. Whatever was happening in the house was bad enough.
He didn’t need Mia to become a third victim.
CHAPTER 5
As she sprinted across her lawn, Mia heard muffled screams coming from the second floor of her house. The sounds gave wings to her feet.
What was wrong? She saw no strange cars, no flames, no smoke. The house was lit up from top to bottom, but the blinds were drawn.
Usually she liked how far apart the houses were here. But as she sprinted up the three stairs to the porch, Mia wished that she and her neighbors lived cheek by jowl.
She turned the knob and yanked the front door back. A shock ran up her arm and into her shoulder when it didn’t budge.
The front door was still locked. No unlocked door, no strange cars, no flames, no smoke. No sign of anything amiss.
But somewhere above her, Brooke was still screaming, barely pausing for breath. At the end of each ululation, the sound was nearly a sob.
While Mia fumbled her key into the lock, Charlie peered through one of the door’s small paned windows, one hand cupped around his eyes. His gun was out of its holster and by his side. The sight of it did not reassure Mia.
She twisted the key and threw open the door. “Brooke? Gabe?” she yelled as she ran into the empty entryway, Charlie at her heels. “What’s wrong?”
For an answer, Brooke only screamed again.
“Mom!” Gabe called, his tone so desperate that tears sparked her eyes. “Something’s really wrong with Brooke!”
Mia flew up the stairs. Her foot slipped on the fifth step and she half fell, banging one knee. Shaking off Charlie’s hand, she bounced back up, not even registering the pain.
No blood, she thought when she reached the doorway to Brooke’s room and tried to make sense of what she saw. Thank God there’s no blood. But something was still terribly wrong.
Gabriel was kneeling on the bed, leaning over Brooke. His hands were on his sister’s shoulders, trying to hold her still. Arms flailing, Brooke twisted back and forth, her body arching, her feet kicking under the covers. She let out another scream that made the hair rise on the back of Mia’s neck.
“Oh, baby, no!” Rushing forward, she squeezed past Gabriel and tried to scoop up Brooke to comfort her. But at her touch, her daughter stiffened and bucked and scratched all the more, her back bending like a bow. She howled again, right next to Mia’s ear. Her skin was clammy. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead. Brooke’s gaze swung to Mia, but her eyes were oddly flat and unfocused.
“Watch out, Mom!” Gabe yelled.
Brooke’s fist hit Mia in the temple so hard that for a moment one side of the room went black. “Brooke, it’s okay,” Mia shouted, trying to pierce through her daughter’s cries. “Brooke, Brooke, Brooke—wake up!”
Instead Brooke kicked and thrashed as if Mia were attacking her. Wincing and tucking her head, Mia tried to grab her wrists, but Brooke fought back even harder, twisting her hands free. Finally Mia leaned her weight across her four-year-old’s body, pinning her arms in place. She pressed her own face into the pillow, cheek to cheek with her daughter. Brooke’s heart felt like it was beating so hard it might burst through her damp skin. Could a heart even beat that fast without causing damage?
Gabe pinned Brooke’s legs in place under the covers, but she continued to fight them both.
Had she eaten some type of poison? Gotten into the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed for Mia three months earlier? Was she having a seizure?
Her daughter’s breathing was ragged and harsh, each exhale an explosion ending in another howl. It was so rapid that just hearing it made Mia’s own breathing speed up.
“Brooke, baby, can you hear me?” she said, but her daughter’s frenzy didn’t abate.
“How long has this been going on?” Charlie asked from the doorway. Mia glanced back at him. He was holstering his gun.
Gabe jerked his head around, his eyes widening.
“Who are you?”
“That’s Charlie Carlson,” Mia said, still trying to hold her daughter’s tiny body still. She had to raise her voice to be heard over Brooke’s continued keening. “He’s a cop. When he picked up Colleen’s phone to talk to you, he heard Brooke screaming.”
Gabe’s gaze flashed to the phone that lay faceup on the floor a few feet from the bed. “Is Colleen okay? I didn’t hear her say anything, and then Brooke started screaming and I dropped the phone. I’m sorry.”
“We can talk about Colleen later.” Mia tried to say it lightly, as if nothing were wrong. “Right now we need to figure out what’s wrong with Brooke. What happened?”
“I was in my room when she started screaming. I thought someone had broken in or something, but she was all by herself.” Gabe took a shaky breath. “It’s like she’s not really there. I mean, I think she’s hearing something, seeing something, but whatever it is, we can’t see it. It’s like she’s stuck someplace else.”
Could a four-year-old be mentally ill? As if in answer, Brooke let out another terrified wail.
“Should I get dispatch to send an ambulance?” Charlie asked.
“No,” Mia said. “I want to try something.” Shouting and holding Brooke down weren’t working. “Let go of her legs,” she told Gabe. “Go stand in the doorway with Charlie.”
She was working off instinct now, a guess that the exact opposite of what she wanted to do—s
hake Brooke awake, force her back into herself—was what was really called for.
She released Brooke, who continued to flail and screech, but no worse than she had been. Kneeling next to the bed, Mia put her face as close as she could to her daughter’s without touching her and waited for a moment of silence. Brooke let out another half scream, and after it was finished Mia half crooned, half whispered into the pink shell of her daughter’s ear. “Mommy’s here, baby. It’s okay now. You can go to sleep. You can relax.”
There was a pause. Brooke let out another cry, but it was quieter and somehow held a note of sadness. She was on her side now, facing the doorway. Tentatively, Mia put out her hand and lightly touched her daughter’s lower back. Sweat had soaked through her pajamas. Mia began to rub slow, small circles. Brooke continued to cry out, but there were pauses in between, and the volume was diminished.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. It’s okay.”
Outside, sirens suddenly split the night. Mia’s hand jerked. She had forgotten that Charlie had asked for backup. She realized with a little shock that it had probably been less than five minutes since they ran up the stairs.
“I’ll tell them it’s okay,” Charlie said. “Right?”
“Right,” Mia said, her attention still fully focused on her daughter. The sound of the sirens didn’t seem to have penetrated. Brooke’s screams had turned into something more like sobs.
Charlie went down the hall and murmured into his radio.
Slowly Brooke’s cries faded away. In five more minutes she was breathing peacefully, seemingly deep asleep. Gabe tiptoed closer to the bed, and occasionally Mia met his eyes and they exchanged tremulous smiles. Charlie came back to the doorway and watched them without speaking. Even Charlie Carlson, it seemed, knew there were times when it was better to do nothing.
Finally the only remaining sign of whatever had happened to Brooke was a faint flush on her cheeks and a few strands of hair still stuck to her face. Her mouth was loose, her breathing easy.
Slowly Mia lifted her hand. Brooke’s breathing didn’t change. Mia got to her feet. Looking down at her daughter, she found it hard to believe what had just happened, those moments of terror. She hugged Gabe.