by Gregg Olsen
“I’ll bet. Did you ask her about it?”
When Samantha started to answer, her cell phone rang. The ringtone was “Jingle Bells.” She looked at the number and let it go to voice mail.
“My husband’s late,” she said. “And, to answer your question, I did ask her about it a week or so later.”
Samantha Phillips had been out running errands. She made a trip to the bank, the cleaner’s to drop off her husband’s shirts, and she picked up two bags of Halloween candy because the old Justin House had been rumored to be haunted; every year, it got more trick-or-treaters than probably any other residence in Cherrystone. She knew that Saturdays were Mitch’s biggest day at the dealership and that Mandy would be home. She parked behind a dark blue Lexus on the street in front of the house.
When she rang the bell, Mandy met her at the door.
“Oh, hi, Sam,” she said.
“Hi, honey, I thought I’d stop by for coffee. I tried your cell, but it must be off.”
Mandy lingered in the doorway, not really opening it for Samantha to come inside. “I guess I forgot to recharge it again.”
There was a beat of uncharacteristic awkwardness.
“Can I come in?” Samantha asked.
Mandy stood still. Her hair was clipped back, as if she hadn’t had time to brush it out. It looked like she was getting a late start on the day. “Not a good time.”
A flicker of worry came over her. “Are you all right? Is the baby all right?”
“The baby’s fine. I’m just trying to take it easy.”
The excuse seemed so hollow, so completely unlike her friend.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure. Let’s get together later. I’ll call you.”
“But I wanted to talk about last night. What you said about the baby…I thought Mitch knew it was a girl.”
“I can’t go there right now,” she said, narrowing the opening of the doorway. “I’m sorry.”
“Can I come in? We need to talk.”
“Not now. Now isn’t a good time.”
Before Samantha could change the subject and offer to go to the store or run an errand to help out, the door snapped shut. It was as if she was selling magazine subscriptions door to door or maybe handing out pamphlets for a fundamentalist religious group.
She stood there and looked at the grand front door.
What just happened here? What’s going on?
Two days later, Samantha got Mandy on the phone at her job at the county clerk’s office.
At first, she thought that Mandy’s cell phone had died and that had been the reason why she hadn’t called back, despite several messages.
“Are you mad at me?” Samantha asked.
“Not mad,” Mandy said, keeping her voice office-low. “I’m going through some things.”
“With Mitch?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Is he being an asshole again?”
“Listen,” Mandy said, “I know you’re worried about me.” Her voice grew curt and now, very final. “I’m not going to talk about this. I need you to back off. OK?”
Then she hung up.
That was the last time they ever spoke about it.
Jenna Kenyon’s cell phone vibrated somewhere in the depths of her purse. She’d been dispatched to the basement bedroom that her stepmother Dani had said was built with her in mind.
“You father wants you to feel you have a home here, too,” Dani Kenyon said as she first revealed the unfinished bedroom, more than a year ago. “I want you to help pick out paint colors and fabrics. I’m thinking of chocolate with mango accents.”
“That sounds yummy,” Jenna said, knowing that Dani wouldn’t get the irony of her pun, nor the literal distaste she had for orange and brown. The colors reminded her of the design scheme used by her junior high.
“Having you happy here is a big, big priority,” Dani said.
The passage of time proved that. The room hadn’t changed a bit, save for a few more items shoved inside the space. Jenna knew where she stood with Dani, and by extension, where she stood with her father.
She found her cell phone and let out an audible sigh.
It was Amber Manley.
She let it go to voice mail and turned on her laptop, waiting for it to whirl into life.
Amber Manley was a sister from the Beta Zeta House at Cascade University, Jenna’s old chapter. Amber had stumbled onto a cache of food and clothes that had been squirreled away by Pepper Raynor. The problem was that while Pepper was a thief—stealing food from the kitchen and ripping off bits of every size two in the house—Amber had become the target of disciplinary action because she opened Pepper’s closet.
Jenna started typing.
Dear Amber,
I know you’ve been trying to reach me. As much as I’d like to help you, I’m afraid I can’t. The chapter rules are very specific. Despite the odor coming from Pepper’s closet, you had no right to open it…
More than a thousand miles away, he stirred as she came online. His computer know-how came in part from the endless loneliness that draws a boy into the insidious depths of a computer screen, searching for connections to people, and for his own place in the world. He liked how the keyboard felt; cool at first, then hot as he pounded the keys to take him to places he thought he’d never go. His screensaver had been an image of the jade-colored waters around the sandy edges of Oahu, a place he thought he’d never see. But he had. He’d been all over the country, and to Europe. No place he visited, however, made him feel better about himself.
Nothing could.
And just when he thought it could be different, it was all snatched from him.
She was to blame, because she’d stolen from him all that mattered.
He’d e-mailed from a dummy e-mail account a seemingly innocuous message that he cleverly outfitted with a Trojan horse—spyware that allowed him to capture every word she typed on her laptop. If he was logged on to his computer at the same time, he’d actually see her words in real time. She wasn’t a stupid girl, he knew. She wasn’t weak. She handled those self-absorbed and dimwitted girls with an impressive toughness and logic. There were things about her he might have admired, had he not blamed her for the darkest tragedy of a life that had been marked by so many.
As he formed his plan, created his list, he learned to loathe her over the others. Of the three, she’d been the one in charge. She could have changed the course of her own destiny. She was responsible for everything that was coming to her. Jenna Kenyon could have kept her name off the list.
The first two had no choice. No voice. They would be the disposable practice dolls that he’d once tossed in a fire pit behind his foster family’s house. They were trash. Not even human.
Jenna would be the prize. He’d save the most-deserving for last.
Chapter Five
The next morning, Emily caught a glimpse of Cherrystone’s least favorite—albeit most successful—car dealer as he slowed his car in front of the copy center on Washington Avenue. She found a spot right behind him and parked the Crown Vic. Running into a “person of interest” is always a good thing.
“Hi, Mitch,” she said, emerging from her vehicle. She could see him tense a little, but his slight smile stayed intact.
“Sheriff Kenyon,” he said, pressing the key button to his automatic door lock. The horn beeped.
She took a breath. “I was going to call you. No need now.”
“How lucky for you,” he said, through taut, angry lips.
“I was thinking that we could get some more traction on Mandy’s case if you stopped by the station.”
Mitch Crawford’s eyes flashed. “Oh, I see. After you’ve treated me like a freak and embarrassed me in front of my own staff, you want me to make nice? That’s just goddamn beautiful. Thanks to you and your careless insinuations, my own mother-in-law asked me what I did with Mandy.”
Emily shook her head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes people forget t
hat you’re a victim here, too.”
Most people would have seen the emptiness of Emily’s words, but there was no risk of that with Mitch Crawford. He only saw the things that fit his overly inflated self-image. Anything that stroked his ego, got him attention, or made him feel that he was the wronged one—it was a safe bet.
“Will you help us?” she asked, this time, her voice a little softer. She wasn’t aiming for sexy, although there was no doubt that she was a beautiful woman with a stunning face and lovely figure. The days of charming a guy with an unbuttoned blouse were long gone, but she still could see the value in suggesting vulnerability.
Because that’s exactly what catches a guy like Mitch Crawford off guard.
“I’m in the middle of some stuff here,” he said, waving a manila envelope in Emily’s direction.
“Oh, I can see that,” she said. “Why don’t you come by later this afternoon?”
“Do I come alone? Or do I get a lawyer?”
“You can always bring a lawyer, Mitch, but I think you’re smart enough to see that we’re only trying to help. I mean, really, why would you need one if you just want to help us find your wife?”
Mitch was probably a decent poker player. If he was worried right then, he didn’t let on.
“All right, Sheriff. If we clear the air, will you get Mandy’s mother off my back? Tell her that I had nothing to do with any of this disappearance BS? She won’t let up. It’s distracting. It isn’t exactly helping me move cars off the lot, you know.”
“Look, Mitch,” she said, trying to keep her cool, “she’s worried about her daughter. She loves her daughter. She wants to know where she is. You know, most people in your position would feel the same way.”
“You don’t know how I feel,” he said.
“Come in and tell me.”
Mitch let out an exasperated sigh. “This is stupid. But I’ll be there.”
Back in her office, the smells of a burning coffeepot and popcorn emanated from the break room. Emily dialed the prosecutor’s office and was patched through to Camille’s desk.
“Hazelton,” Camille said, her voice throaty from a cold that had declared war on her immune system.
“I ran into Mitch Crawford,” Emily said. “He’s agreed to come in for an interview. Thought you’d like to know. You’ll never believe what he was concerned about.”
“Try me.”
“He’s worried about his mother-in-law and car sales. He barely even mentions Mandy.”
Camille let out a laugh, which started a series of coughs. “Sorry. Working on a cold. That’s priceless. Remind me never to buy a car from that guy. I’d hate to boost him in a time of real need.”
“Do you want to be there?”
“No. Too formal. Just chat with him. Press him gently—and I know that will be hard because I’d like to shove him against a barbed-wire fence until he screams.”
“You must be sick,” Emily said. “You’re holding back now, Camille.”
“Just a little. You know what I mean.”
Emily did. The two women talked a moment longer. Emily told the prosecutor that she intended to videotape the interview with Mandy’s husband.
“I’m not sure he’ll go for it,” she said.
“If he likes what he’s wearing today,” Camille said, “I’ll bet he says yes.”
An eleven-year-old snowboarder noticed the gleam of silver under a pile of snow on the back end of a Walmart parking lot near Spokane. Casey Broder’s mother wouldn’t let him go to the slopes with his older brother and friends, so the kid took to the heap of snow plowed into a minimountain behind the store. It wasn’t much of a slope and he cursed his mother for not letting him do what he wanted to do.
All of that changed, when the sun hit the minimountain just right and a small mirror blinked right at him.
Casey thought it was a girl’s compact at first. He bent down to pick it up, but it was frozen into the minimountain. Using his board, he started to chip away at the crust of snow. A couple of whacks and he discovered that the mirror was attached to a car.
A silver Camry.
Casey told the Walmart greeter what he’d found and the man called the police. Within an hour, the police arrived and determined that the car belonged to a missing woman from Cherrystone.
“They found Mandy’s car behind a Deer Lake Walmart,” Jason said, catching Emily in her office. “The store’s snowplow operator has lousy peripheral vision and buried the car by mistake. It sat there because no one complained their car was missing.”
She could read her deputy like a book. There was neither sadness or hope in his words, just the rote recitation of the facts.
“She wasn’t in the car, was she?”
He shook his head. “Nope. State police will process for trace.”
Emily had a sinking feeling. “Thanks, Jason. I’ll tell Mitch. I’ll bet you a beer that the vehicle’s clean.”
“You’re on.”
If there had been any hope that Mandy had left on her own, it evaporated with the discovery of her Camry. She might have had plenty of reasons to escape her husband—last trimester or not—although it seemed unlikely that she’d vanish from a Walmart parking lot.
“She’s not the Walmart type,” he’d said.
Chapter Six
Mitch Crawford’s eyes were bottomless. Flinty. Cold. Sheriff Emily Kenyon felt the sparse hairs on the back of her neck rise. She’d been close to evil too many times to discount the feelings that niggled at her. It was as if somewhere inside there was a malevolent barometer telling her to be just a little more wary.
But not so wary that you let fear stymie you.
On the credenza behind her, the face of her daughter, Jenna, beamed in her graduation photo. Nearby, a little pink purse decorated with an eyeless flamingo and filled with pennies served as a paperweight.
And as a touchstone to terrible things in the past. Things that made Emily and Jenna closer than ever.
“I’m surprised at you,” she said, as they faced each other from across her desk. “You seem…” She paused to irritate him.
“What’s the word I’m looking for? Indifferent. That’s what I’m feeling from you here.”
It was a lie, and a strategic one.
Mitch, however, didn’t blink.
“Are you expecting me to cry?” Mitch asked.
“Some emotion would be nice, Mitch.”
He gripped the stack of fliers that he’d had made at the copy center. They were facedown, but through the cheap goldenrod-colored paper the photo of a woman was visible. The headline in squat block letters was also bold enough that it could be read backward through the paper: MISSING.
Mitch kept his arms folded tightly across his chest. The muscles that enveloped his sturdy frame like cables spun around a rigid spool tensed beneath a powder blue Hilfiger lamb’s wool sweater. He didn’t smile.
“Look,” Emily said, still sizing him up, “I don’t want anything from you but the truth.”
Mitch clutched his papers and stood up. “Jesus, Sheriff, you know me. You know my family. You know that I didn’t do anything to her.”
She asked if he’d mind if they spoke in the conference room.
“I’d like to record our conversation,” she said, waiting for him to decline.
But he didn’t.
“I have nothing to hide. You wouldn’t know it by the way you are treating me.”
She wondered if it spoke of arrogance or innocence, his willingness to be filmed.
With the stationary video camera recording, Emily sat across from Mitch so that she could meet his gaze head-on. She noticed how he hadn’t yet said Mandy’s name. She stayed quiet, hoping that her silence would invite the man with the ever-so-slowly-receding hairline and beefy biceps to reveal something of use in the investigation. To spill more. It was a technique that had served her well as a Seattle cop, then as a sheriff’s deputy, and finally as the sheriff.
“You need to be forthcom
ing,” she said. “We understand that things weren’t that—and I don’t mean to be unkind here—great between you,” she said, stopping herself and playing his game of not mentioning his wife’s name. “And your wife. You know your marriage was in trouble.”
The veins in his neck started to plump. “We had problems, but not any more than anyone else around Cherrystone or anywhere in this country!”
“Yes, but she was going to leave you.”
Mitch’s face had gone completely red. “I’m sick and tired of all the innuendo coming out of your office. I loved my wife.”
Loved, past tense.
Emily opened the folder and handed it to him like a menu. Inside was a photograph of a pretty blonde in a periwinkle sweater over a blouse with a Peter Pan collar. Emily noted that Mandy was apparently a very traditional pregnant lady, in that she had chosen the same look her own mother’s generation had sported—pregnant woman as child. Big bows. Babyish prints. None of the trendy hipster black pregnancy duds for her—no bump-clinging spandex tops revealing a thin slice of tummy.
“I know what my wife looks like,” he said.
“Say her name.”
Mitch shoved the folder back. “Damn you, Emily. Mandy! Mandy is her name! Is this some kind of a test here?”
“Calm down, Mitch,” Emily said, her voice steady and commanding. “I want to find Mandy, too. I need some help here. Are you sure you’ve told us everything?”
Mitch turned away from her and headed for the door. “There isn’t any more to tell,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ve been to my place. You’ve interviewed everyone that I’ve ever known.”
“OK, then a few questions for you. I’m wondering why it is that you didn’t know where your in-laws were.”
“Because I didn’t.”
“You sent them there, Mitch. Essentially paid for it.”
“Look, I didn’t. Mandy did. Mandy decided to give them a free ride on our dime. I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know they’d gone to Mexico until after they got there. I was so pissed off at Mandy, I didn’t want the details of Luke and Hillary sipping margaritas. That trip was for Mandy and me.”