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

by Kane, Ellery A.

  Thirty

  “Let’s go this way.” Will directed Nora down the corridor that led back to his desk. Thomas tagged along behind her, clinging to her hand and his stuffed dog. Will had seen him carefully tuck Ranger Rob in his jeans pocket.

  “What happens now?” Nora asked, the pained expression on her face giving her away. She struck him as the stiff upper lip sort of woman who would wait until Thomas had fallen asleep before she lost it, bearing the burden of her grief as stolidly as Will’s father had. Nearly thirty years after his mother had vanished like a ghost, and Will hadn’t witnessed a single tear.

  “We keep investigating.” Will peered around the corner, searching the cubicles. “It’s possible Thomas didn’t get a clear look at the perpetrator’s face.”

  “What’s a purple tator?” Thomas asked, looking up at Will with those sad eyes, blue as the sea itself.

  “A bad man.” Will disguised his disappointment. Graham’s desk chair sat empty. In his mind, it had gone differently. In his mind, Thomas had turned the corner and gasped, burying his face in his aunt’s side. In his mind, Thomas had held out a shaky finger and declared Graham Bauer the worst bad man of all.

  Instead, the little boy glanced up at Nora, unsure of himself and of Will and of the entire awful situation. “Oh.”

  Will escorted them out of the station and into the parking lot, still scanning for a sign of Graham. The coward had probably taken an early lunch. “I understand if you need to return home. We’ll contact you as soon as we have news to report. If Thomas remembers anything more, or if you think of something—even if it doesn’t seem important—you have my card and Doctor Rockwell’s. Please let us know.”

  She nodded, helping Thomas into the back, buckling him in the car seat, and shutting the door. “Of course. Whatever I can do to help. At some point, I’m sure this will all seem real. But right now, it’s like living in a nightmare. For both of us. Last night, Thomas woke up screaming. I almost had a heart attack right then and there. He keeps asking for his mom and his big brother. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that he saw the whole thing. That they’re all really gone.”

  Will watched Thomas through the window. Ranger Rob had been stationed behind the headrest, the perfect spot for an ambush. Suddenly, the glass shushed down and Thomas turned to them in earnest. Whatever horrors he’d witnessed and kept locked up in the attic of his head, Will imagined him releasing them. They’d fly from his small red mouth like black winged birds and take the shape of a face. A name. A killer Will could hunt down.

  “Can we get ice cream now?”

  When Will turned back for the station, Olivia headed toward him. Her grim expression matched his own.

  “Why didn’t you show him the third photo array?” She held the folder out to him.

  Realizing then he’d left it behind in his rush, Will’s heart stuttered for a beat or two before he snatched up the folder and tucked it beneath his arm. “You saw it?”

  She nodded.

  “Did anyone else?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Will let himself breathe. “Chief Flack said we didn’t have enough evidence to name Graham as a suspect. Apparently, his TV show mix-up isn’t sufficient.”

  “But what about those texts?”

  “Also not sufficient. She doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers unnecessarily.” It still burned Will to say it.

  “Then why’d you stick him in a lineup to begin with?” Olivia scrutinized his face. He watched her puzzle for a moment before her eyes lit up. “You thought you were going in there, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged, feeling like a hapless sucker.

  “You were going to pull one over on Chief Flack, and she outsmarted you.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”

  Olivia laughed, but rubbed his shoulder to ease the sting. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just that Wise Guy Detective doesn’t usually get played like a fiddle.”

  He rolled his eyes, walking back toward the station.

  “Wait,” she called after him. Sucker that he was, he stopped, allowing her to catch up. “What did you think about Thomas? It wasn’t a total bust, you know.”

  “How do you figure? He didn’t identify either of our prime suspects, and the more we talk to him, the more confused he seems.”

  “But we learned that Jonah owns a horse. That he’s a reserve member of the mounted unit. He never told you that. Which is especially interesting since I found that small horseshoe in the bottom of the pool.”

  “All circumstantial.” Will wished he could share in her excitement, but he knew too much. He’d seen too many cases go to shit. And his gut instinct—the cop clairvoyance that always steered him right—had gone woefully silent. “Plus, the gun we found on him isn’t a match.”

  “But circumstantial doesn’t mean inconsequential.” She nudged him with her elbow, still trying to make him smile. “You know as well as I do that every killer makes at least one mistake. This one is no different. That’s how you’ll catch him.”

  “True,” Will conceded. “Killers make mistakes. The problem is, so do detectives.”

  Will mulled over Olivia’s words of encouragement as he showed his badge to the officer at the control booth of Crescent Bay State Prison. He’d come here, behind the concrete walls and barbed wire, to kill two birds.

  The iron gate swung open, and the usual stench knocked him back like a palm strike to the nose. It had been a while. Two months, to be exact, since he’d visited his brother, Ben, here. But the smell never changed. Beneath the heady scent of bleach, a mixture of bodily fluids and despair. Long-dead dreams and sweaty socks.

  When he’d come here last, he’d gone through the visitors’ entrance with the rest of the civilians and been ushered into a large room that reminded him of his high school cafeteria. Even more so after Ben had taken a seat across from him, sharing the M&Ms he’d wrangled from the vending machine. This time, he had official business with the warden.

  Will approached the administrative office and asked a correctional officer to buzz him inside, already wrestling with the demons of the past that seemed to haunt this place. Ben, of course. But not only Ben. Drake Devere too. Will still blamed himself for Devere’s escape from Crescent Bay. Frankly, so did Warden Blevins.

  “Good afternoon, Detective.” The warden appeared in the doorway of his office, with a smile so wide and toothy it promised menace. “You’re here about Mr. Bastidas.”

  Will gave Blevins a nod, looking past him to his secretary’s desk and to the small, sad table and folding chair beside it reserved for the inmate clerk who just happened to be his brother. Warden Blevins had recruited Ben for the job for reasons unknown, reasons which Will regarded with wariness. After he and Olivia had seen the warden brokering deals with the Oaktown Boys, it seemed wise to maintain a healthy dose of suspicion.

  Ben raised his eyes, disguising his exclamation of surprise with a cough. At least he looked better than he had the last time. He’d gained a few pounds on his lean frame and lost the bags under his eyes.

  “I had Ben tag the files of Bastidas’s known Los Diabolitos associates for your perusal. I presume you trust your brother’s level of thoroughness, as well as his discretion.”

  Will caught Ben’s eye, Blevins’s words poised between them like a loaded gun. Once upon a time, Will had trusted Ben with his life. But that trust had been blown to bits by Ben’s service weapon in a single, fateful night.

  “Of course,” Will said, ignoring Ben’s mirthless snort. He retrieved another folding chair from the corner and dragged it to Ben’s desk, where he took a seat facing the older, harder version of himself.

  Ben swiveled the computer screen toward him and placed a stack of envelopes on his desk. “Have at it. I’ve got mail to sort.”

  Warden Blevins nodded at them both. “If you discover anything that could reflect poorly on this institution, I’ll expect the courtesy of a full debrief.”
<
br />   Will agreed again, the lie rolling off his tongue. He owed Blevins nothing.

  As soon as the warden had locked himself inside his ivory tower, Will pointed to the empty desk where his secretary usually sat. “Where’s Leeza?”

  “Early lunch.” Ben’s voice oozed sarcasm, even as he lowered it to a whisper. “Ever since Blevins hired me, she’s got me doing her job too. I’m working overtime.”

  “What do you expect, man? You’re cheap labor.” Though Will didn’t like the idea of Ben spending so much time alone with the warden, he supposed Ben was safer here out of the direct reach of the Oaktown thugs. “I still can’t believe you took this job.”

  Ben shrugged, his eyes shifting to the door and back to Will again. “Blevins said he’d put in a good word for me with the Classification Committee. I might be able to shave some time off my sentence.”

  That churned Will’s stomach. Every favor Blevins gave came with strings attached. “Just keep your eyes open.”

  After giving a stiff salute, Ben winked at him. “Aye, aye, Captain. Both eyes wide open.”

  Will quickly scrolled through the files Ben had marked, getting a lay of the land. All of the men had been validated by the Institutional Gang Investigators as members of Los Diabolitos. Most had worked their way up the ranks to hold positions of authority. If there was a hit on an attorney and his family, these were the guys who’d okayed it. But sorting through reams of useless information and trying to decipher the gang’s lingo seemed like a colossal waste of time.

  Will pushed back from the desk. Then, realizing he had no better leads, returned to the files with a sigh of resignation.

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself a tough case.” Ben raised his head from the heaping pile of mail.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re doing that thing with your face.” Ben squinted, scrunched his forehead, and poked his head out like a turtle. “The my evidence is shit face.”

  Will couldn’t deny it. “So, what’s your take on it then? I’m sure it’s been all over the news. Enlighten me.”

  “A rich defense attorney. Dead wife and kids. Fancy beach house set on fire. Uh, yeah. There’s been a little media coverage.” Ben stared at him until Will squirmed under the weight of his gaze. “Seriously? You want my opinion? Damn, you must be desperate.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, I guess I am.”

  Ben huffed out a laugh and went back to mail sorting. Will waited him out.

  “If you’re looking at Bastidas, no way in hell that guy did the deed himself. Guys like Bastidas and Mendez don’t get their hands dirty.”

  “Mendez?” Will swallowed hard, the name slithering up his throat. “As in Javier Mendez?”

  The Javier Mendez case had been the stuff of legend in the San Francisco Police Department. Both for the brutality of the crime scene—he’d staked his wife’s severed head on a bedpost—and for his utter lack of remorse.

  “See for yourself,” Ben said, with a shrug. “His file is in there. I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That he and Bastidas are homeboys. Apparently, they go all the way back to the streets of Santa Barbara. They grew up together.”

  “How would I know that?”

  Ben raised an eyebrow, paving the road for the smart-ass comment that followed. “I figured you put your girl up to sussing him out.”

  “My girl?”

  “Doctor Rockwell. Olivia.”

  Will wanted to put Ben in a headlock just to wipe the smirk off him, though secretly he liked thinking of Olivia that way. “What does she have to do with it?”

  “Rumor is that she’s therapizing the guy. Which is pretty weird since he’s got no soul. And even weirder since the last bleeding heart who tried to find one ended up with a telephone cord around her neck.”

  Will ignored his brain’s blaring alarm bells. He could think of one reason Olivia wanted inside the head of Javier Mendez, and it had nothing to do with saving that bastard’s soul. He paged down until he located the tab for Mendez’s file and began to compare it against what he knew about Bastidas. They’d done time together at Desert Canyon State Prison, a maximum security facility down south. In fact, they’d even been cellmates for a while. Both had ended up at Crescent Bay eventually, Mendez most recently, after the unfortunate incident with the aforementioned bleeding heart.

  When Will reached the old section of Mendez’s file, where some of the faded pages had been stamped POOR ORIGINAL, he slowed down, took his time. Came to a complete and utter stop on a name in the Family History portion of Mendez’s post-sentencing report.

  Gabriella Mendez Bastidas, sister, age 26.

  Mendez had seven brothers. One sister. Who just happened to be married to one of his suspects.

  “Find something?” Ben asked.

  “Let me guess. I’ve got that—”

  “Jinkies face.” Ben widened his eyes, holding his mouth in a perfect O, before he chuckled. “Straight out of Scooby-Doo.”

  “Whatever, Shaggy. Can I print this page?”

  Ben nodded, suddenly serious. “Watch yourself, Deck. Los Diabolitos is nothing to mess with.”

  With a handful of printed pages on the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, Will drove away from the prison. He avoided the rearview mirror, preferring not to think of Ben back there behind the razor wire in prison garb. No matter what his brother had done, it still hit him like a punch to the gut every time he saw him there.

  Will’s ringing phone came as a welcome distraction. Even if the appearance of Chief Flack’s number ratcheted his anxiety up a notch. “What’s up, Chief?”

  “Did Thomas Fox leave his stuffed animal in the interview room?”

  “Not that I know of. Have you checked the lost and found?”

  She released a pained sigh. “I’m an officer of the law, Decker. And a woman. I know where to look for missing things, even if it is below my pay grade.”

  “Just asking.” Will heard the beep of an incoming call. “JB’s on the other line. I’ll check for the dog when I get back to the station.”

  Chief Flack murmured her agreement, and Will swapped calls. Before he could speak, JB launched into his one-man show.

  “Bow chicka wow wow. The love machine is back in business, baby.”

  Will half groaned, half snorted. “Baby?”

  “Oh. City Boy. It’s you. I could’ve sworn I dialed Tammy’s number. How’d the photo lineup go?”

  “Total bust. I’m assuming the doc gave you the all-clear.”

  “Detective of the Year reporting for duty.” Will imagined he’d said it with a straight face. “No stairs. No running. No jumping. No climbing. Not even a vigorous walk.”

  “So, business as usual then?” Will whipped the Crown Vic around, U-turning toward Primrose Avenue, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ll pick you up in ten.”

  Thirty-One

  Olivia struggled through her late-morning client session, anxiously awaiting the ding of the fifty-minute timer. She had a plan for her lunch break that didn’t involve the turkey sandwich and raisins she’d packed.

  Olivia printed the memo she’d typed—authorizing Mendez for a coveted single cell due to mental health symptoms—and plucked it from the printer. The paper, still warm to the touch, made her feel cold inside. Because of what it meant. What it said about her. Since her father had died, leaving her to uncover all of his secrets, she understood desperation in a new way. How she might be convinced to break the rules, to play with fire, if it meant getting the answers she needed.

  Leah had taken the day off for Liam’s well-baby check-up, so she didn’t need to sneak around. Still, she felt like a criminal among criminals leaving the MHU and making her way to A Yard.

  Outside, the air smelled different. Like freedom. The stench of the prison blown away in the breeze. Sometimes, when the wind picked up, the inmates swore they could smell the sea. Cruelty or justice, depending on which side of the fe
nce you resided.

  Javier Mendez was unmissable, basking in the sun atop a picnic table by the racquetball courts. No one sat next to him, but a group of younger inmates flanked the table like courtiers surrounding their king. They closed ranks, leering at her as she approached, and she suddenly wished she’d worn more layers. Her silk blouse and slacks were woefully insufficient against their predatory gazes.

  With men like these, confidence could be wielded like a weapon. She stood up straight, broadened her shoulders, and held her ground, the way she’d been taught to handle the mountain lions that occasionally roamed the running trail behind her house.

  Maintaining eye contact with Mendez, Olivia walked a straight line to the table. He nodded at the men, who retreated back to their positions. They kept watching her, though. She felt it in the fine hairs that raised on her arms and at the back of her neck.

  Olivia said nothing. Because when you throw caution to the wind and toss the rules out the window, there’s nothing to be said. She simply placed the memo in his hand and strode away.

  When she reached the track on the perimeter of the yard, she glanced over her shoulder. The memo had already disappeared, into his pocket perhaps. But he wore a tiny smile that confirmed he’d read it. She smiled too. Favors like that didn’t come free.

  Olivia returned to her desk feeling lighter. At least she’d done something. For months, she’d felt powerless, helpless, resigned to accept the bogus story the prison had told her. That her father had killed himself. Even though she knew it was complete BS.

  Still riding her high, Olivia studied the business card she’d found in Em’s pocket. Last night, she’d scoured the Internet, only to discover that Nick Spade had no website. But she had been able to confirm he’d been licensed as a PI for three years.