The Last Thing She Ever Did

by Gregg Olsen

She took a breath and tapped out two letters.

  OK.

  He wrote:

  Thank you.

  Carole looked at their son, now sleeping in the hospital bed. She could see a little of David in his eyes. He was his father. He always would be. She patted the boy’s warm little hand and then turned back to her phone to type a message.

  It doesn’t change anything between us. He’s your son. You’ll need to act like a father from now on. Room 346.

  Liz stayed out in the hallway, thinking of what she’d say when she went into Charlie’s hospital room. A couple of reporters tried to get her attention from an area just past the nurses’ station, a horseshoe-shaped configuration that effectively corralled the media away from its most sought-after interview subject. She nodded politely when she inadvertently made eye contact with a woman from the Bend Bulletin. She hoped to God that she wouldn’t have to say anything to anyone.

  A young nurse came out of Charlie’s room. “Mrs. Franklin needs you to come in.”

  “She does?” Liz asked. “Now?”

  “Yes. Go right in.”

  Liz’s hands started to shake, and she put one in her pocket. It’s over, she thought. Charlie must have remembered something and told it to Carole. Slowly she entered the room.

  “Liz,” Carole said very calmly from her place on the bed next to her little boy. Charlie was awake but quiet. Someone had given him a stuffed dinosaur, and he clutched it in his little hands. “You did this.”

  Liz’s heart nearly jumped from her chest. She was going to die. Right there in a hospital. Carole knew! I deserve everything that happens to me now, she thought.

  “I’m sorry, Carole,” Liz said. “I’m so, so sorry.” Her knees were weak, and she could feel her bones crumbling in her legs. She nearly lost her balance.

  “Come here,” Carole said, getting up and extending her arms. “We’re all going to be okay. You did this, Liz. You made all of this happen and I will never, ever forget it. If not for you, Charlie might be gone forever.”

  Liz felt herself melt into her friend’s embrace.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “Doctor says he’s fine,” Carole said. “Scared. Confused. But fine.”

  The boy looked up at Liz and smiled. She smiled back. Inside, she could feel the horror of what she’d done rise up. Charlie was alive. She’d ended a tragedy that she’d ignited that day she backed out of the driveway. She wondered why she couldn’t feel any real joy.

  Shouldn’t she?

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  TEN DAYS AFTER BEING FOUND

  More than a week after the Bend miracle filled pages of newspapers and the feeds of bloggers and news sites, Esther still couldn’t shake the loose ends of a case that continued to trouble her. She reviewed the tape that canoeist Matt Henry had made on his GoPro. It suggested that Dan Miller had been on his side of the river when the boy was abducted. It was possible that he’d come across the bridge and scooped up Charlie, but surely someone would have seen him. Plus the man was in his seventies. Physically, was he able to do what needed to be done? To carry a boy? Quiet a boy? Make sure that he got him home unnoticed?

  And in broad daylight, no less.

  It seemed like all kinds of impossible. And yet, there could be no other explanation for what ultimately occurred among the neighbors on the river. It was a fact that Charlie had been rescued from Dr. Miller’s house. It was true that the three-year-old had been held captive there. That was undeniable.

  She flipped through the reports that littered the top of her desk. Dr. Miller was dead. Liz Jarrett had killed him. She’d told Esther and the responding officers that she fought for her life. There was no arguing that she’d been injured. There was no way to deny that she’d saved Charlie and brought him home.

  But how? How was it that Liz was over at the doctor’s house?

  “I was worried about him,” she had said. “I thought something happened to him. He’d pretty much vanished.”

  Jake poked his head into Esther’s office.

  “You look deep in thought,” he said. “How about shutting it down along with the rest of us and going out for a beer after work? Decompress a little?”

  Esther smiled faintly. “I need to take care of some things.”

  The young man looked down at the papers in front of his mentor. Among the documents were the DA’s statement that Liz Jarrett had acted in self-defense when she killed Dr. Miller. She would not be charged with anything.

  “You’re still on the case,” Jake said.

  Esther picked up Charlie’s photo. “I guess. Can’t help it. When I step back a little from it, I still see a spiderweb.” She tapped on the boy’s face with her fingertip. “Charlie’s in the middle. Carole and Liz and Owen and David are all caught up in it. Off to the side, we have Brad Collins and Dan Miller. All spun up. All of them.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We know that Owen told David he’d seen an Ohio plate at the park.”

  “Yeah, right. So?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, still trying to work it all out. “I mean, David told his lawyer that the tip about the park was what had convinced him to go after Collins. Yet Collins never said he’d been at Columbia Park. If he had, he would have told us. He isn’t a liar. No, I’m thinking Owen Jarrett fired David up and sent him after Collins—with a lie. Why would he go to the trouble of doing that?”

  Jake pressed the side of his head against the doorjamb. “Or maybe he just saw some other Ohio plate at the park.”

  “Maybe. Maybe.” She sat still for a moment. “And then there’s Dr. Miller . . .” She fumbled through the photos and picked up the autopsy report.

  Jake really wanted that beer, but Esther was working things out and he knew he had a lot to learn from her. “What about him?” he asked.

  Esther looked up. “It doesn’t make sense, Jake. I don’t know why that old man would snatch that boy. But then again, my spiderweb. As you know, Liz had a history with Dr. Miller.”

  She pointed to the news clipping about Seth Miller’s death.

  “Right,” Jake said. “The drowning of his son.”

  “Not just that,” Esther said. “I mean, that too. Also the tarp. The tarp we found underneath the bed at Miller’s house. How did it get there?”

  She got up to retrieve the tarp from a box behind her desk. With Dr. Miller dead, there had been no criminal case to pursue. No real chain of evidence to consider from the artifacts found in the Miller basement.

  “I get that the paint color matched the Jarrett front door, but so what? They probably loaned him the tarp,” Jake speculated.

  She was obsessed with the tarp and its proximity to the boy. She pulled it from the box. “That’s possible. But I don’t think so. They never talked, remember? Dr. Miller despised everyone on the opposite side of the river. He hated the Franklins for their new house, and now we know he didn’t like Liz and Owen because she reminded him of what had happened at Diamond Lake.”

  “Speaking of Owen Jarrett,” Jake said, “I just heard he left town.”

  “Seriously?” She set down the tarp.

  “Yeah, my sister’s best friend works at Lumatyx in accounting,” he said. “Says that he walked in and gave his resignation a few days after Charlie was found. She said you could have knocked everyone there over with a feather. Not that they weren’t happy about it. No one liked the guy. Constantly bragging to everyone that he was going to be rich. Made all the so-called team members feel like they were not a part of the same team. Left a boatload of money on the table.”

  Esther reached for her purse and pushed past Jake. “I’ll catch up with you later. I need to try again to find out from Liz what she wanted to tell us that day she came in. We should’ve doubled back on that. It might have something to do with her husband.”

  “You don’t think she was covering up for him? I mean, Dr. Miller acted alone, right?”

  “Right,” she said. “Of course. Somethin
g’s been bothering me. That’s all. Loose ends.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Not sure,” she said, touching that pendant of hers. She took her coat and a scarf her mother had given her. It had snowed earlier that day, dumping six inches over Bend and turning it into a winter wonderland. The snow had a way of making even the darkest things pretty. Esther always liked the snow.

  Clean slate, she thought.

  It was almost dusk when Liz opened the door to find Detective Nguyen there, holding the rolled-up tarp she used to cover Charlie the morning she’d hit him with the RAV4. Liz didn’t allow her eyes to linger on it, but it was there. Coming at her. A burning spear in a 3-D movie.

  She wore a loose sweater and jeans. Her hair was greasy and pulled back. She wore no makeup. She was a far cry from the pretty young woman whom Esther had seen the day Charlie went missing.

  The distinct odor of alcohol was on her breath.

  “Are you okay?” Esther asked. “Can I come in?”

  Liz opened the door wider, and the detective went inside. The house was filled with boxes marked with Owen’s name.

  “I heard your husband left Bend,” Esther said, surveying the living room. An almost empty wineglass sat atop one of the boxes.

  “It was bound to happen,” Liz said, barely looking at the detective. “We’d been growing apart for some time.”

  “But he left town. Left his job too.”

  “He has other priorities now.”

  “But the money,” Esther said. “I understand he was due for a windfall.”

  Liz shrugged. “Money isn’t everything.”

  Esther made her way past the organized chaos of the living room to the window overlooking the Deschutes. An enormous FOR SALE sign was posted on the once-again perfect lawn rolling from the Miller house to the shore. It faced where passersby floating on tubes and dreaming of living in Bend would surely see it.

  “That was fast,” the detective said, motioning to the sign.

  Liz eyed her wineglass but didn’t reach for it. “I heard it’s already sold,” she said. “Buyers from California. Going to tear it down.”

  “And put up another one of those?” Esther cocked her head at the Franklin house, once a monument to what newcomers brought to the area with their piles of money and big plans, now a reminder of a near tragedy and its cavalcade of repercussions.

  “No doubt.” Liz offered the detective some coffee or tea. Esther declined. They stood facing each other silently for a beat.

  “Go ahead and finish your wine,” the detective said.

  Liz picked up the glass and took a swallow.

  “How are Carole and Charlie?” Esther asked.

  “Good,” Liz said, her words suddenly tight in her throat. She took another sip. “I saw them a few hours ago. Carole’s going to take Charlie to see her parents. I think that’s good.”

  “I’ve been thinking about something,” Esther said, moving to the dining room table. She unfurled the tarp and spread it over the tabletop. She stopped when the fabric revealed the largest pink splatter. Her eyes met Liz’s. “This color of paint is the same color as your front door.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Liz said, stepping back, drinking some more.

  Esther let silence fill the space. “The lab can confirm it,” she finally said.

  Liz could feel her face grow warm. It wasn’t the wine. It wasn’t merely what the detective was saying. It was something deeper, coming from far away inside her.

  “It does look close,” she said. “My mom loved that color. Called it Elizabeth Arden pink. Same color as her lipstick.”

  Esther ran her fingers over the stiff, plastic-coated fabric. “The other paint spots match the wall color over there.” She pointed to the dining room, a celadon hue.

  Neither woman spoke.

  “Linda Kaiser at the bar exam was right, wasn’t she? Something was wrong that morning and you didn’t stay for the test. You were upset about something, but you couldn’t have heard about Charlie yet.”

  Again silence.

  “Isn’t that right, Liz? You didn’t know what had happened to him before the test.”

  No answer.

  “You came to see me, Liz,” Esther said. “But you left before telling me why.”

  Tears puddled in Liz’s eyes. “I was worried about Charlie.”

  “Everyone was. You didn’t need to come to my office to tell me that.”

  “I wanted to help.”

  “Maybe you did. But you didn’t help, Liz. You came and went. You left so suddenly that you left your purse. And then when we dropped it by, you didn’t have much to say. Your husband kind of stonewalled us. What was it that you were going to tell me?”

  Liz left the table and returned to the window overlooking the Deschutes. As always, the river snaked past the old house, darkening in the early evening sky. More early snow, maybe? She considered the Franklin house. The lights were on. Carole was probably giving Charlie a bath. It was a routine that had resumed in spite of everything.

  Everything she’d done.

  “Detective, you’re right,” Liz said.

  The space between them grew tense. Liz was digging deep. Esther had no idea where it was going.

  “About what?” she asked.

  Her lips trembled, but Liz knew she could do this. She pushed her wineglass away.

  “There is something I need to say,” she began. Each word increased her resolve. “Before I do, we need to go next door. Carole needs to hear this too.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Sometimes I think I’m the luckiest person alive. So much of all the good that comes my way is from the amazing network of support that surrounds me as I type away at my stories. I’m so grateful for the contributions of so many who offer advice and support. I can’t thank each of you enough. Here are a few that are on my mind today: My buddy Matt Glass, who knows how much I love to use index cards to plot out a book, and who was an invaluable sounding board in the early stages of this novel. Thanks to Rand and Becky Hardy for some insightful medical details. Good people. Good wine too. Gratitude goes to Thomas & Mercer and its team of dedicated people who are transforming the storytelling process for authors—one book at a time. Special shout-out to Liz Pearsons, a devoted and brilliant editor, who has more than one trick up her sleeve. Thanks to Brittany Dowdle, my copyeditor. She’s so smart! Finally, I’ve dedicated this book to David Downing, my developmental editor. David is flat-out amazing. I can’t think of any other words to describe my appreciation for what he does.

  But I know he could.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © Claudia Olsen

  #1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen has written more than twenty books, including The Boy She Left Behind and The Sound of Rain. Known for his ability to create vivid and fascinating narratives, he’s appeared on multiple television and radio shows and news networks, such as Good Morning America, Dateline, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and MSNBC. In addition, Olsen has been featured in Redbook, People, and Salon magazines, as well as in the Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, and New York Post.

  Both his fiction and nonfiction works have received critical acclaim and numerous awards, including prominence on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Washington State officially selected his young adult novel Envy for the National Book Festival; and The Deep Dark was named Idaho Book of the Year.

  A Seattle native who lives with his wife and twin daughters in rural Washington State, Olsen is already at work on his next thriller. Connect with him via Facebook and Twitter or through his website, www.greggolsen.com.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CONTENTS

  TWENTY YEARS AGO

  PART ONE BLAME

  CHAPTER ONE JUST BEFORE

  CHAPTER TWO MISSING: TEN MINUTES

  CHAPTER THREE MISSING: FIFTEEN MINUTES

&nbs
p; CHAPTER FOUR MISSING: TWENTY MINUTES

  CHAPTER FIVE MISSING: ONE HOUR

  CHAPTER SIX MISSING: TIME UNKNOWN

  CHAPTER SEVEN MISSING: FOUR HOURS

  CHAPTER EIGHT MISSING: FIVE HOURS

  CHAPTER NINE MISSING: FIVE HOURS, FIFTEEN MINUTES

  CHAPTER TEN MISSING: SIX HOURS

  CHAPTER ELEVEN MISSING: EIGHT HOURS

  CHAPTER TWELVE MISSING: ELEVEN HOURS

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN MISSING: THIRTEEN HOURS

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN MISSING: FOURTEEN HOURS

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN MISSING: FOURTEEN HOURS

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN MISSING: FIFTEEN HOURS

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN MISSING: FIFTEEN HOURS

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN MISSING: SIXTEEN HOURS

  CHAPTER NINETEEN MISSING: ONE DAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY MISSING: ONE DAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE MISSING: TWO DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO MISSING: TWO DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE MISSING: THREE DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR MISSING: FOUR DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE MISSING: FOUR DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX MISSING: FIVE DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN MISSING: FIVE DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT MISSING: FIVE DAYS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE MISSING: SIX DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY MISSING: SIX DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE MISSING: ONE WEEK

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO MISSING: ONE WEEK

  PART TWO SORRY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE MISSING: EIGHT DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR MISSING: EIGHT DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE MISSING: EIGHT DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX MISSING: NINE DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN MISSING: TEN DAYS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT MISSING: TWO WEEKS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE MISSING: FIFTEEN DAYS

  CHAPTER FORTY MISSING: SEVENTEEN DAYS

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE MISSING: SEVENTEEN DAYS

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO MISSING: SEVENTEEN DAYS

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE MISSING: SEVENTEEN DAYS

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR MISSING: EIGHTEEN DAYS

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE MISSING: EIGHTEEN DAYS