One Child Alive: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with nail-biting suspense (Rockwell and Decker Book 3)

by Kane, Ellery A.

  A young man had approached Graham outside the Crown Vic. His face bright red from the sun, he looked as if he’d come straight from the beach. Up close though, the bags under his eyes told Will he’d had a sleepless night. “Are you Detective Decker?” the man asked Graham. “I called the station. They said you might be here.”

  “Hell no, he’s not.” Will shuddered at the thought of being confused for that nitwit. He couldn’t resist a dig. “Wishes he was though.”

  “Hmph.” With that, Graham shut himself inside the car, which was fine by Will, since Will had the keys to the ignition. No keys, no AC. And he knew Graham’s pride would never permit him to crack a window.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Those murders last night… My girlfriend and I might have heard something. I mean, it’s probably nothing, but—”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” Already, Will felt a twinge of excitement. The thrill of the chase. He withdrew his notepad, steely-eyed, in the same purposeful way he would unholster his gun. “What’s your name?”

  “Kurt Miles. My girlfriend, Rachel, and I were at the Barbecue Bash last night with her parents. They live in Fog Harbor, and she thought it would be a fun way to spent the Fourth. She didn’t tell me that Mom and Dad are extremely old-fashioned. As in, sleep-in-separate-rooms old-fashioned. So, Rachel and I took a long walk down the beach last night, if you catch my drift.”

  Will nodded, hoping this guy wasn’t about to lead him down a rabbit hole to nowhere.

  “We set up a blanket between the dunes about fifty yards from Ocean’s Song. That far out, the beach was deserted. Quiet. Romantic. Until they started going at it like cats and dogs.”

  “Who started going at it?”

  Kurt waved his hand back in the direction of the house. “That couple who got killed, I guess. The Foxes. We could hear them clear as day from their pool deck. Couldn’t see over the fence, though.”

  “What were they arguing about?” Will asked, jotting down a few notes.

  “What weren’t they arguing about? At first, the woman—Mrs. Fox, I assume—was saying how they needed to try to get along for the kids. And then Mr. Fox told her that the kids weren’t clueless and he didn’t want to come to Fog Harbor anyway, and he was tired of pretending that everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t. Mrs. Fox sort of implied he was the reason their whole marriage had gone to hell in a handbasket, and he sort of implied he didn’t love her anymore. That was the gist of it.”

  Will took a breath, trying to reconcile it all with the images he’d seen on Hannah’s Facebook page, but the juxtaposition didn’t surprise him. Real life was messy. It couldn’t be posed, cropped, and filtered. “Then what happened?”

  Kurt grimaced. “Mrs. Fox said, ‘Please don’t go over there. You don’t know what he’s capable of.’ Then Mr. Fox yelled, ‘I’m tired of living a lie.’ As best we could tell, he stormed out. Mrs. Fox stayed on the deck for a while, crying. Well, sobbing would be a better word. Then she went back inside too.”

  “Do you remember about what time you heard the arguing?”

  “Sure do. We promised Rachel’s parents we’d be back by eight, so I’d say it was around seven twenty or seven thirty at the latest.”

  The timeline of that brutal night had begun to fall into place. Peter and Hannah had argued on the deck at 7:30. He’d left for the motel in a fit of anger, with Hannah begging him to come back. “Do you think Rachel would be willing to swing by the station? She might remember something you didn’t.”

  Kurt’s face turned sour. “She went back to Portland this morning. We broke up.”

  Will knew he’d regret it but he couldn’t help asking. Especially when he noticed Graham in the passenger seat, fanning himself with the morning newspaper. Let him suffer. “Broke up? Why?”

  “The Foxes. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But Rachel said Mr. Fox sounded like a complete asshole, not even trying to save his marriage or talk it out for the sake of the kids. I pointed out that Mrs. Fox seemed like a real control freak, and sometimes it’s better to get divorced than to live in misery. Before I knew it, we were the ones arguing like cats and dogs. Rachel said I wasn’t committed to the relationship. That I’d jump ship if the seas got too rocky.”

  “I’m sorry, man. It sounds like you had a rough night. Anything else you can tell me that might be important?”

  Kurt shrugged. “Not anything factual. But seeing that story on the news this morning was like a punch to the gut. Those poor kids. I can’t say I was surprised though. Not with parents like that. Those two hated each other. Whatever happened to them, they brought it on themselves.”

  Graham pouted all the way back to the station, where Will gave him his marching orders. Deliver the sealed evidence bag containing Peter’s cell phone to Jessie. Do not pass go. No way in hell was he letting Graham tag along to the Sand Dunes. With a crowd of hungry reporters gathering, Will watched until Jessie met Graham at the door, not trusting him to keep his word. Or his big mouth shut. Especially when Will saw Graham’s ex-girlfriend, Heather Hoffman, holding a microphone. Even if word on the street was they’d broken up, Graham had a bad habit of blabbing police business to the leggy blonde.

  On the drive over to the motel, Will scarfed a granola bar while he telephoned Marcia Russell, Peter’s long-time assistant. He’d cut her off earlier just after she’d revealed her worries about her boss. If this Elvis Bastidas character she’d mentioned had met Peter at the motel, Will felt certain he could wrap up the case in less than twenty-four hours. Even better, he could rub that in JB’s face for the foreseeable future.

  Marcia answered on the first ring, as if she’d been waiting for him to call back.

  “What can you tell me about Elvis Bastidas?”

  She let out a trembling sigh. “Nothing good. When Mr. Fox worked for the public defender’s office, he represented Bastidas on a murder case. The shooting of a rival gang member. Mr. Fox convinced him to take a twenty-five-year plea deal for manslaughter. Apparently, they disagreed about case strategy. Bastidas wanted to testify on his own behalf—he said it was self-defense—but Mr. Fox talked him out of it. Anyway, the case was settled well before my time.”

  “Was Peter afraid of him?”

  “With good reason. Bastidas had threatened him before.”

  “From prison?” Will doubted it. Prison officials read, censored, and inspected all mail for evidence of threatening language and contraband.

  “Mr. Fox received several letters with no return address and signed by Bastidas, telling him he’d had plenty of time to plan the perfect murder. Of course, we alerted the prison authorities and Bastidas earned himself an additional one-year sentence for criminal threats. Mr. Fox figured he’d asked one of his gang associates to mail the correspondence.”

  “Do you happen to have those letters?”

  “I’ll send you the entire case file right away.” Marcia’s voice brightened with the prospect that she could make a difference. “If you think it will help catch the killer.”

  Will spotted the Sand Dunes Motel up ahead with its dingy white plaster façade and its flashing red NO VACANCY sign, the V bulb flickering on and off in the fading light of the late afternoon. “I do, Marcia. I really do.”

  “Right away, Detective.”

  “One more thing.” Will paused, trying to soft-shoe his way into the question. “Since Peter was your boss, this may be a bit awkward for you. But, was he happy in his marriage to Hannah?”

  Marcia stayed quiet for so long that Will checked his screen, wondering if she’d hung up.

  “Bless his heart, he tried. He really did. Hannah did too, in her way. They were different people. Peter liked to kick back, go surfing, toss the football with Dylan. Have a few beers with his buddies on the weekends. Sure, he worked hard, but he knew how to have fun.”

  “And Hannah?”

  Another sigh. This one, beleaguered. “Hannah didn’t do anything just for the sake of doing it. If it served n
o purpose, she wasn’t interested. That woman had no room in her life for fun.”

  Will pushed through the double doors into the motel lobby, which seemed too fancy a word for a room so small and barren it resembled his brother’s cell at Crescent Bay State Prison. Behind the mud-brown countertop, the middle-aged clerk smacked her bubblegum and batted her false eyelashes at him.

  “Hi, Betty.” Betty Smoot had been working reception—and flirting with cops—since the Sand Dunes had opened its doors in the early nineties. Rumor had it she’d relocated to Fog Harbor for a steamy prison romance that turned cold when she’d fallen for the correctional officer in charge of the visiting room instead.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure, Detective Decker?”

  He steeled himself for her usual come-ons, starting with her seductive hair-flip. Betty had the subtlety of a bowling ball. “I’m investigating a homicide.”

  “That quadruple murder?” She clutched her chest. “How awful. An entire family gunned down. It’s unspeakable.”

  “And I need to view the motel security footage from last night between seven and nine thirty.”

  Betty ushered him through the swinging door and behind the counter with a whisper. “Say no more.”

  Inside the motel office, Betty offered him the lone seat in a green pleather desk chair. She positioned herself behind him, fast-forwarding through multiple screens of footage. When Will saw Peter’s black SUV glide into the parking lot, he pointed. “There. That’s him.”

  Peter piloted the vehicle around the side of the motel and parked in front of a long row of rooms. Each of the doors bore the image of a lone palm tree. “Where’s he going?” Will asked, as they watched Peter exit the car and stalk hurriedly toward a guest room.

  “Looks like 135. We call it the bridal suite. It’s the biggest room we’ve got, and there’s one of them vibrating beds. You know, the Magic Fingers.”

  Will scooted his chair out of reach of Betty’s own fingers, which had found his too-tight shoulders.

  On the screen, the motel room door opened, blocking Will’s view of the occupant. Then, Peter disappeared inside the room.

  “Do you remember who rented the bridal suite?” Will didn’t dare take his eyes from the video as Betty scrolled ahead, an hour lapsing in the span of a few seconds.

  “Do I remember? I remember every handsome face that walks in here… but yours especially, Detective. Don’t tell your crotchety old partner, but you’re the best-looking detective Fog Harbor has ever—”

  Will gestured to the screen, grateful to see the room door swing open wide. Peter ran out, opening the back door of the SUV and retrieving a golf club. He held the club menacingly, two-fisted like a baseball bat as he approached the door again.

  “Oh my.” Betty stepped toward the screen and placed her long, glittery fingernail on the other man. Just a shadow made of pixels. “This one’s got a gun.”

  The gunman strode toward Peter, who dropped the club on the pavement behind him, stumbling over the curb and falling on his ass. As Peter sat there, the man stooped to retrieve the golf club. Returning the gun to his waistband, he lorded the club over Peter before taking a single swing at the front door. Will had seen the vicious dent it left.

  Satisfied with his work, the gunman returned to the bridal suite, and Peter scrambled into the SUV, tossing the club into the back seat and fleeing in a hurry.

  “Back up,” Will said. “To the part where he falls down.”

  Betty rewound the video, freezing on a still shot of Peter, splayed like a dead bug on the pavement. “Do those look like flip-flops to you?” Will asked, thinking of Peter’s lone black Havaianas sandal lying in the grass at the scene of the fire.

  Squinting at the screen, Betty replied, “Don’t think so. Those look more like loafers to me. See there,” she pointed, “the top of his foot is covered.”

  “Let it run. Let’s see what happens next.”

  Twenty minutes later, the gunman emerged from his room and drove away in a hurry, nearly bottoming out at the exit. Betty fast-forwarded until they spotted him again, returning in the pitch-black of the early morning.

  Betty pressed pause, widening her eyes at Will. “I can’t believe no one called the front office. I worked the night shift. Two to ten. Didn’t hear a thing.”

  Will played along. But he knew the score at the Sand Dunes. Snitches weren’t welcome among guests or employees. “You said you remember the guy?”

  “Jonah Montgomery.” Betty flipped through the old-school reservation book, displaying the man’s signature and address—Santa Barbara. “He paid in cash. Drove a red Dodge Challenger. Planned to stay through Tuesday, but he checked out first thing this morning. Probably around 5 a.m.”

  Will flashed her a grin and hurried out of the office. Jonah had a big head start, but with any luck, Highway Patrol could catch him before he went off the grid. “You’re a lifesaver, Betty.”

  “Wait. There’s something you should know.”

  Hand on the door, Will’s stomach plummeted at the gravity of her usually breathy voice.

  “He dropped his wallet on the floor. Cards and cash scattered everywhere. Naturally, I came out from behind the counter to help him pick it up. I should’ve known. A good-looking guy like that—”

  Will motioned at her to hurry. To spit it out.

  “He’s a cop.”

  Adrenaline had already spiked Will’s blood before he got on the radio to dispatch, requesting a BOLO for a red Dodge Challenger. Driver may be armed and dangerous. He couldn’t sit still waiting for somebody else to find his man, so he circled the parking lot twice—nothing—then took off down the highway headed south, driving as the sun began its slow afternoon descent. The dappled light cast flitting shadows in the spaces between the trees, making Will nervous.

  When the call came in—someone had spotted the Challenger outside a convenience store north of Brookings, Oregon—Will pulled off the road and smacked the steering wheel with his palm. He’d gambled wrong, thinking Jonah would head home to Santa Barbara. His prime suspect could be well on his way to Canada by now.

  Sixteen

  Olivia walked side by side with her sister, retracing her path from the remains of Ocean’s Song up the beach toward Shells-by-the-Sea. The tourist crowd always dwindled in the late afternoon, heading back to their hotels and travel trailers to prepare dinner on the grill and stare up at a black canvas speckled with stars. Olivia never tired of the Fog Harbor sky. She’d missed it during the years she’d spent teaching criminal psychology in Palo Alto.

  “Where were you earlier?” After Emily had embarrassed her in front of Deck, Olivia couldn’t resist prodding her sister. Since Em had moved to San Francisco, she felt the distance between them growing. “I looked everywhere.”

  “Laying out a ways down the beach. It was too crowded up here.”

  “You don’t look like you got any sun.” With the fair complexion and freckles they shared, the proof should have been obvious on her cheeks, her shoulders, the bridge of her nose.

  As they approached Leah’s B&B, Em reached inside her bag, displaying a bottle of sunscreen. “SPF 55.”

  “Fine. But next time, tell me exactly where you’re going, okay?”

  “You should be thanking me. You found that clue, didn’t you? You impressed Detective Decker.”

  “Hardly. And that’s not the point.”

  Wade waved to them from his post alongside the back deck. His bald head glistened with sweat, his ocean-blue shirt wet beneath his armpits. He lowered the volume on the radio clipped to his waist. “How’s the poor little guy you rescued last night? Have you heard anything?”

  Olivia wasn’t sure how to answer. She hardly felt like a rescuer. Not the way Thomas had cowered under the table in the interview room. But Wade had helped her, lighting her path up the beach to safety, while Thomas trembled in her arms. She owed him something. “His aunt should be here by now. So far, he hasn’t said much about what happened.”
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br />   Wade gave a rueful shake of his head. “Something like that, you never get over. No matter how many years pass by. He’ll still be reliving this Fourth of July when he’s my age.”

  “You’d be surprised how resilient children can be.” But Olivia knew the past never healed. Not really. Though the wound scabbed over, the cut stung as deep and as raw as ever. Maybe worse, now that her father was gone, and she had little hope of learning the truth about what happened that night at the Double Rock. For a boy like Thomas, who’d lost so much in an instant, resilience sounded like nothing more than a fancy word in one of her psychology textbooks.

  “I just hope the cops can find whoever did this,” Emily said. “A person like that is capable of anything.”

  Wade took a swig of water from the bottle he kept in the shade of the eaves. “Well, I think they might have a suspect.”

  Even with the sun beating down on them, Olivia went cold. “How do you know?”

  Patting his radio, Wade answered, “Fog Harbor PD put out a BOLO about ten minutes ago for a red Dodge Challenger.”

  “Do they have a name?”

  “Jonah Montgomery.”

  Olivia avoided the shortcut home. She couldn’t bear to drive past the patch of scorched earth where Peter Fox had drawn his last breath. Surely he’d been familiar with his assailant; he’d looked into a pair of dark eyes he recognized in his final moments. But had he realized what would come next? That his family would be a target? She hoped not.

  On the way, Olivia made small talk with Emily, anything to stop her fingers from twitching. As soon as they pulled into the driveway, she hoofed it inside and opened her laptop, typing the suspect’s name into the search bar.

  Thirty-three million results. Seriously?