The Mia Quinn Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  Unbuttoning his coat, Charlie put his hand on the butt of his gun and hurried across the street. Mia followed.

  “Don’t come any farther,” he told her as they reached the edge of the wild lawn. She started to protest, but he cut her off, keeping his voice down. He didn’t have time for this. “Somebody could be lying low here. Maybe even the person who killed Colleen. Empty houses attract all kinds of bad people.” Addicts broke in to steal appliances, fixtures, or any copper wire or pipes they could pry out of the walls. Vacant houses were magnets for vandalism, drug dealers, or even prostitutes looking for an out-of-the-way place to service a client.

  He pointed at the sagging For Sale sign. “Call the real estate agent and ask when she last showed the house, or if anyone has permission to be inside. And if things don’t add up, tell her to meet us down here ASAP to open the house. While you do that, I’m gonna call it in and check the perimeter.”

  Charlie notified dispatch, then went up onto the front porch, gun in his hand. He knocked on the door, then tried the handle. Locked. Holding his breath, he listened intently for the sound of footsteps or movement but heard nothing. He went back to the driveway and began to make his way around one side of the house, checking the windows as he went along. Everything was closed and locked.

  But then he got to the back door. At his touch, it swung open with a faint squeal, revealing an empty kitchen with shadowy corners.

  Protocol called for Charlie to back off and wait for backup. He hesitated for a second. If things got really hairy, there were probably two or three cops still at the wake, cops who could be over here in a second. Mia might even be alerting them now.

  Taking his gun out of its holster, Charlie stepped inside.

  “Seattle Police,” he called out. His voice echoed through the empty space. The air was cool and stale. He sniffed. No stench of cat urine, which was what meth smelled like when it was being cooked. Still, his gut told him that someone had been here recently.

  Was maybe even still here.

  The question was, who was it? Colleen’s killer? Someone mentally ill? Homeless? On the lam? Dealing drugs?

  A new thought occurred to him. Had someone killed Colleen because of what she had witnessed happening in this supposedly empty house? Or had the killer decided to hide out here—hide out in plain sight—after killing Colleen for a different reason?

  With his Glock leading the way, Charlie moved at a half crouch through the kitchen, past the stainless steel refrigerator and the matching range. The cupboards were too small to hold a person, so he ignored them. It was so quiet he could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

  At the end of the kitchen there were doors to the left and right. Taking a deep breath, he opened the one on the left, keeping well out of the doorway. He heard nothing. He stuck first his gun and then his head past the door frame.

  A laundry room. Empty, except for a washer, dryer, and utility sink.

  He turned his attention to the door on the other side, which had a metal pull instead of a knob. He pulled the handle back with his free hand.

  Too hard. The lightweight door banged into the wall, making him jump. His heart was hammering in his chest. The doorway framed only darkness, then his eyes adjusted and he dimly made out steps leading down to a basement. With him backlit at the top. There was a reason cops called doorways vertical coffins. Stepping back, he spotted a double light switch and flicked both of them up. One light came on over his head and another in the basement. The stairs ended in one corner, and even with the light on he couldn’t see much past them. But the basement seemed as empty as the kitchen.

  Holding his breath, Charlie listened for movement or even just breathing. Nothing.

  Now he had a decision to make. He was in the middle of a house sandwich. There could be bad guys above him and/or bad guys below. There might even be bad guys on this floor. Whatever he did, he was taking his chances that someone from another floor might decide to ambush him.

  He had been trained to start a search at the bottom of a house and then work his way up, which meant he should start in the basement. But Mia had seen a face at the window on the second floor.

  His eyes caught the brass gleam of a bolt on the basement door. He closed the door, then pushed the bolt home. It wasn’t much of a bolt—maybe one-third of an inch thick. But even if someone managed to shoulder or kick it open, it would make some noise before they succeeded.

  Charlie still hadn’t heard a sound. He moved through the small dining room on tiptoe and then into the living room, where he opened the closet door. Empty.

  But then he turned back and saw a white face peering in through the windowpane on the front porch. His heart jumped. And then he realized who it was.

  Mia! Hadn’t she just been lecturing him about playing by the rules?

  Gritting his teeth, he made a shooing motion, but he didn’t wait to see if she obeyed. Instead he circled back to the far side of the house. Here a hallway connected two bedrooms and a small bathroom, as well as a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. Everything empty, including the closets. Everything quiet.

  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, he saw the first sign that someone had been in this house since it went on the market. Someone who didn’t belong here.

  A silver can of Coke sat on the top step. Taking a deep breath, Charlie went up the carpeted stairs on tiptoe.

  CHAPTER 36

  What’s shaking, dude?” Zach said in Gabe’s ear. “Ready to have some fun?”

  Gabe had been getting out of his stupid funeral suit with its pregnancy rubber band when his cell phone rang. So far the day had been filled with one bad thing after another:

  A. Having to wear this suit that reminded him so much of his dad’s death.

  B. Having the suit not fit anymore—but not because he was taller, or his biceps had bulked up, but because his gut was bigger.

  C. Having to sit in a crowded, too-quiet church next to his mom while she couldn’t stop crying.

  D. Trying not to remember what it had been like hearing the harsh, wet-sounding breaths that had been the last sounds Colleen had ever made.

  E. Learning that some crazy person in Seattle was targeting prosecutors.

  F. And that, hello, his mom didn’t even care.

  Now Gabe told Zach, “I’m more than ready.”

  Three minutes later he was standing in front of Grandpa, who was in the family room watching a black-and-white documentary about World War II. Brooke was still asleep upstairs.

  Grandpa tilted his head. “So your mom said you could go out with your friends?”

  Gabe had this feeling like he was hovering above himself. If he said he hadn’t asked her, then his grandpa might say no. Or Grandpa might call his mom, who would probably still say no.

  But if he just went out for a couple of hours and then came back, his mom might not ever find out. She would probably stay a long time at Colleen’s, maybe until the end so she could help clean up.

  “Yeah.” Gabe nodded briskly, focusing on a spot on his grandpa’s forehead just above his eyes. He was fourteen. Old enough that he didn’t need to check in with his mommy every minute. Young enough that he should be allowed to be a kid, at least every now and then. Since his mom went back to work, it was like he had a job too, only no one ever paid him.

  “So are you in?” Zach asked. The four of them—Zach, Gabe, Rufus, and Eldon—were sitting on the steps in front of a real estate office that was closed on weekends. It was just a couple of blocks from their high school. Around his neck Zach was wearing a blue bandanna, which looked a little weird.

  “In for what?” Gabe asked. Rufus and Eldon looked at each other.

  Zach punched him in the arm. “You know. The fun.”

  “Sure.” Gabe felt the first brush of uneasiness.

  “Good. I’ll alert the troops.” Zach pulled out his phone and began to send a series of texts. Gabe tried to follow what he was typing with his thumbs, but it was too fast. And the scr
een was upside down, so he couldn’t read it.

  “Your T-shirt’s tight, dude,” Rufus said, pointing.

  Gabe looked down at his chest. “My friend Sadie made it for me last year.” It was the one his mom hated, with the impossibly cute kitten and the words I hate everyone. She said it sent the wrong message. Which was one reason he had pulled it on as soon as he heard her car back out of the driveway.

  “I’ve seen that girl around. She’s hot,” Eldon offered. “Even if she is just a freshman.”

  Gabe shrugged. He and Sadie had known each other since kindergarten, and for Gabe there was no mystery.

  Instead he said, “What about that blond cheerleader, the one with the curly hair? She’s all kinds of sexy. Ellie Something.” Gabe wanted to find out her last name so he could Facebook-stalk her.

  “Wallace, I think.” Rufus rolled his big head around as if his thick neck was tired of holding it up. His baseball cap started to fall off, but he caught it in time.

  Zach was still typing. Surreptitiously Gabe looked from him to Rufus to Eldon. The other three guys looked more like men, with muscled chests and thick arms, and here Gabe was wearing a T-shirt he’d gotten in eighth grade. And it was still loose across his skinny chest and arms, despite the peanut butter sandwiches and the cans of tuna and the protein drinks and the reps and everything else he was doing.

  Yesterday Gabe had bought three magazines on weight lifting. The guys on the covers were oiled and tan, and it looked like someone had stuffed whole plucked chickens under the orange skin of their thighs. Although Zach, Eldon, and even Rufus looked nothing like the men in those magazines, they could still lift way more weight than he could. And Coach Harper played all three of them regularly. Gabe was beginning to wonder if he would ever get off the bench.

  Zach slid his phone back into his pocket.

  “So exactly what is it we’re going to do?” Gabe asked.

  “You know what a flash mob is?” Zach’s eyes were bright.

  Gabe thought of stuff he’d seen on YouTube. “You mean like when those groups of people suddenly start singing or dancing?” He’d seen videos of people at a shopping mall singing Handel’s Messiah, and pedestrians on a city sidewalk suddenly breaking into the dance from Thriller.

  “That’s one kind, right,” Rufus said with a grin that made him look like he had a secret.

  Gabe hoped they wouldn’t make him do something he couldn’t, like break-dance or sing in a high-pitched voice. If it was a bunch of people doing the same thing at the same time, he could probably manage that.

  “Just follow our lead,” Zach said.

  In the next five minutes a dozen more kids gathered on the steps. They nodded, and a few said “hey,” but nothing more than that. All guys except for two girls. A couple were from the football team. Gabe thought he’d seen most of the rest at school, but he wasn’t sure. He saw another guy with a bandanna around his neck, which again struck him as weird. His stomach was starting to feel queasy.

  “Okay,” Zach said, getting to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  All of a sudden Gabe got the reason for the bandannas, as Zach and the other dude pulled theirs up over their noses. Other kids tugged down the bills of their hats or pulled up sweatshirt hoods. And then the mass of people moved across the street as one.

  Gabe was reminded of ants or bees. Wasps. Using their hive mind, making a single decision. Only instead of stinging someone to death, he realized, with growing horror, they were about to swarm the convenience store across the street. The Sunshine Mart wasn’t part of any chain, just one of those stores with some Asian guy behind the counter. One of those stores that catered to people who bought snacks and cigarettes and the occasional half gallon of milk two days away from its expiration date.

  They poured inside and began to stream up and down the aisles. Just before Gabe walked in the door, he ducked his chin and pulled his T-shirt over his mouth and nose. He didn’t like what he thought was about to happen, but even more than that, he didn’t want to get caught. At some signal that he must have missed, the other kids began to laugh and whoop, snatching and grabbing what they could. A bag of Cheetos fell to the floor, and then someone stepped on it with a loud pop and an explosion of orange powder. Ahead of him, some dude was laughing as if it was all really funny.

  Gabe met the eyes of a guy on the other side of the aisle and saw that he didn’t look like he was having a good time. He looked terrified. And then Gabe realized he was looking into a strip of mirror, mounted at the top of the shelf and running the length of the aisle. He was looking at himself.

  A girl skipped past him with a giant bag of Cool Ranch Doritos clutched to her chest. She wore a green hat shaped like a frog. Brooke had a hat like that, but it was a cat hat. She called it her Cat in the Hat hat.

  Gabe’s mind was filled with nonsense and his hands were empty.

  The store owner had his own hands in the air and was yelling, “Stop! Stop!” while he turned in circles, shaking his head in disbelief. A tiny woman that Gabe assumed was his wife grabbed the back of his green polo shirt and pulled him back behind the counter.

  They were afraid of the kids. Of what they could do.

  But Gabe didn’t feel powerful.

  He felt scared.

  Zach tossed him a Mars bar and he caught it. He didn’t even like Mars bars. He stared at it for a long moment and then let it drop on a shelf that still held a few Hostess pies. An arm reached around from behind him and grabbed the candy bar and the pies. In the distance sirens began to wail. Kids grabbed up more things, then pushed and ran. Gabe followed.

  In less than ninety seconds it was all over. Gabe looked behind him as he ran out the door. The shelves were stripped bare of candy bars, jerky, and bags of chips.

  He sprinted outside and around the corner. His teeth were chattering even though it was warm outside.

  What had he just done?

  CHAPTER 37

  It wasn’t even the well-loved stuffed brown bear that broke Mia’s heart. Instead it was the algebra textbook.

  The textbook lay next to the sleeping bag in the master bedroom of the supposedly empty house across the street from Colleen’s. The carpet still had dents marking where a bed, a dresser, and two night tables had once stood. But now there was just this twisted blue sleeping bag and a teddy bear with patches of missing fur. Two white plastic garbage bags lay like deflated balloons next to the clothes that had filled them until the officers had emptied them out, looking for weapons or drugs and finding nothing. A fat pink candle and a box of matches rested on a metal pie tin. Next to a box of saltines sat an open jar of peanut butter that still held a spoon.

  This poor girl had been eating peanut butter and crackers, while across the street people snacked on stuffed mushroom caps, mini quiches, and pot stickers. Not to mention sesame seed honey cashews.

  Charlie had finally allowed Mia upstairs after they had determined whoever was living in the house must have left in a hurry, probably after Mia had spotted the face in the window. The other officers had left once they realized the house was unoccupied.

  “Judging by the clothes, whoever is squatting here is a girl,” Mia observed now. “Who did Violet say used to live here?”

  “A mom with two kids,” Charlie answered. “I’m wondering if one of them never left.” He picked up the textbook and flipped through it.

  In the bathroom Mia found a toothbrush and paste, a towel, a washcloth, and a scrap of soap. In the shower stall, plastic hangers held clothes that had been hung up to dry. She touched a sleeve. Still damp. The lights didn’t come on when she flipped the switch, but when she tried the faucet, a stream of cold water ran out.

  The adrenaline that had surged through her when she realized the blinds had been raised seemed to have flushed the wine from her system. She felt completely alert. And embarrassed by how she had chattered away to Charlie.

  “It must get awfully cold and dark,” she said, walking back into the bedroom, which smelled du
sty and slightly sour. “I wonder how long she’s been living here.”

  “Do you remember how long the house has been for sale?”

  “Since sometime this summer. But I guess that doesn’t mean she’s lived here that whole time. I guess it doesn’t even have to be the same girl who used to live here. It could be just someone who was looking for a safe place to live.”

  “No sign of forced entry, though,” Charlie pointed out. “Which means she probably has a key.”

  Mia went to the window. It directly overlooked Colleen’s yard, and the plywood tacked over the shattered basement window. “From here she would have had a clear view of Colleen when she was shot.”

  Charlie joined her. “But why would she be looking out the window at night? It’s an interesting theory, Mia, but I don’t think it’s likely that she saw anything.”

  “Even if she didn’t see anything, the poor thing’s got to be pretty freaked out. First she’s been trying to hide from everyone and keep it a secret that she’s living in a supposedly empty house. And now she’s got to worry that there’s a murderer loose in the neighborhood.”

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice called from downstairs. “Hello?”

  Charlie went to the head of the stairs. “Yes?”

  “It’s Linda Langston,” the woman called up. “The real estate agent.”

  “Come on up.”

  The real estate agent was tall and thin and dressed in a navy blue suit. She started shaking her head the minute she saw the girl’s belongings. With the toe of one high-heeled pump she nudged the teddy bear. Her lip curled back as if it were roadkill.

  Mia’s stomach cramped as she wondered how much further she would have to fall before her own house would be foreclosed. She was still making the mortgage payments, but barely. The more she tried to untangle the mess Scott had left, the more she wondered how long she could keep juggling everything. In another few months, would Linda Langston be demanding her keys, impatiently tapping her high-heeled foot, while all of their worldly possessions sat inside a U-Haul truck in the driveway?