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

by Kane, Ellery A.

  With fifteen minutes until her next patient, Olivia picked up the phone and dialed. Time to unmask Nick Spade and find out why her little sister needed to speak to him.

  “Spade Investigations, Nick speaking.”

  “Hi, Nick.” Olivia forced her voice up an octave to match her sister’s flirty tone. “It’s Emily… Emily Rockwell. I was hoping you’d have an update for me.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t work miracles. Cases like this take time.”

  “Well, what have you done?”

  Nick laughed unabashedly, raising Olivia’s protective big sister hackles. “Can we talk about this tonight? An early dinner, remember? Five thirty at the Hickory Pit. My treat.”

  “Of course. I totally spaced.” Olivia didn’t know which worried her more. Her sister hiring a private investigator or dating one. “I’ll be there.”

  “And hey, bring that drawing of your father’s. I got a tip from my contact at the Feds and scrounged up my old black light from storage.”

  Olivia must’ve mumbled a response, but in her panicked brain the only words she could hear—black light—repeated like the cry of a banshee, summoning the memory of the March afternoon when she’d discovered her father’s hidden message on a piece of drawing paper he’d kept in his cell. No way that Em had it now, since Olivia had to surrender the entire sketchbook to two suits from the FBI. Which could only mean one thing.

  Somehow, her little sister had gotten her hands on another drawing with another hidden message.

  Thirty-Two

  “Damn, City Boy. You sure made it here in a hurry.” As soon as JB had fastened his seat belt, he picked up right where he’d left off, dedicated to his life’s work of ribbing Will incessantly. “Missed me, huh?”

  “Like a headache.”

  “You sweet talker, you. No wonder Olivia finally came around.”

  Will felt a flush creep up his neck. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know plenty. There’s only one man who can keep a secret in Fog Harbor.”

  Will waited quietly, without giving JB the satisfaction of asking. He knew his partner couldn’t resist delivering a punchline. Best not to encourage him.

  “The gravedigger.” JB paused for a beat, then nudged Will with his elbow. “Oh, c’mon. That was funny.”

  With a mirthless eye-roll, Will consulted his GPS, making a right turn toward the outskirts of town. Elvis Bastidas, his wife, Gabriella, and her twenty-three-year-old brother, Pedro, lived off a dirt road in a small trailer park known for gang activity. “Alright, Jay Leno. Let’s stay focused.”

  JB gave a smart-ass salute. “How ’bout you tell me where the hell we’re going?”

  Will flashed his phone screen in JB’s direction.

  “Sunrise Canyon?” He groaned. “My first ten minutes back on the job, and that’s where you take me? I was hoping for someplace a little more classy. Where the trailers don’t have bullet holes.”

  While Will filled JB in on his morning—Jessie’s discussion with Gabriella, the anticlimactic photo array, and the connection he’d discovered between Bastidas and Mendez—the Crown Vic rumbled over the bumps in the road, juddering his teeth.

  The road dead-ended at a clearing in the redwoods, where a semicircle of run-down trailers dotted the landscape. Most of them appeared completely abandoned, with water-stained furniture in their weedy yards and trash bags for windows. An uneasy chill passed over Will when a frightened face disappeared behind the curtains of a mud-brown trailer at the heart of the park.

  “He’s already home from work.” Will brought the car to a stop between Bastidas’s suburban and his trailer, painted a pallid shade of blue that echoed the sky.

  The whole place seemed too quiet. The sort of delicate calm that teetered on a razor’s edge, ready to tumble and break wide open.

  As if he’d read Will’s mind, JB pulled his Glock from its holster. “Is it just me, or is your Spidey sense tingling?”

  A sudden gust of wind blew the door to the trailer wide open—cracked linoleum, a shock of slick red, a pair of bare feet—and started Will’s heart pumping. He pointed to the glove box, where he’d stashed a set of handcuffs that JB slipped into his pocket.

  Without another word, they exited the car, taking cover alongside it.

  Will moved first, gun drawn, toward the doorway, where a shadow flitted at the edge of his vision. “Hands where I can see them.”

  As he moved closer, the shadow took the shape of a woman. Gabriella, he guessed. Her long black hair fell like a curtain around her face, while she crouched at Bastidas’s side, crying, repeating his name. “Elvis, Elvis. Quédate conmigo.”

  “Hands,” Will repeated, taking in the whole scene, one garish segment at a time. Beside Gabriella, Bastidas slumped against the wall, grimacing. Sweat beaded on his pale forehead. Gabriella had tied a dish towel around his wound but blood soaked through his pants leg. It pooled on the floor beneath him, covered the soles of his feet.

  Slowly, Gabriella registered their presence. She stood, splaying her red palms.

  “What happened?” Will asked, holstering his gun. “Where’s your brother?”

  She pointed, raising her finger over Will’s shoulder. When he glanced back, he saw JB had returned to the car to radio for help. Behind him, the dirt road was laid out, long and lonely. “Oaktown Boys. Pedro went after them.”

  “Is he armed?”

  Gabriella nodded gravely, showing Will a bullet hole that had pierced the flimsy trailer door. “They rode up on their bikes a few minutes ago and started shooting. Everybody ran inside. But Pedro, he—”

  Bastidas groaned, tried to stand up.

  “Easy there, big guy.” Will stepped inside the trailer and took a quick glance around, scanning Bastidas’s waistband for weapons. “Keep pressure on that leg until the paramedics get here.”

  Gabriella blinked a few times before springing into action, balling another towel at the site of the wound. As Will descended the concrete steps, leaving his bloody shoeprints, she called out to him.

  “Don’t hurt him, please. He’s just a dumb kid. He didn’t know any better.”

  Just then, a hail of rapid-fire bullets pierced the air. The staccato sound zipped right up his spine when he recognized it as a high-powered automatic rifle. The kind that had no business in the hands of Bastidas or his kid brother-in-law. Will ran down the path in the direction of the noise, which came from deep in the redwoods. Though he couldn’t imagine a motorcycle gang fleeing through the thick forest, he couldn’t deny his own ears. Pedro must’ve taken a shortcut to the main road in hopes of catching them.

  “Take the car,” he yelled to JB. “I’ll meet you down there.”

  Will plunged into the tree cover, while JB took off in the Crown Vic, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

  The gunfire had gone quiet now. Only the rat-tat-tat of Will’s heart pinging in his chest, and the heavy sounds of his own breathing. His footfalls breaking against the detritus of the forest floor. Twigs snapping like small bones under his boots.

  The sun didn’t quite reach here. Though he’d begun to sweat through his dress shirt, Will shivered against the sudden cold. He had the distinct sense of being watched. Being hunted by something or someone just beyond his view. He ducked behind the nearest redwood, pressing his back to the rough bark and listening as hard as he ever had.

  When the silence became unbearable, he readied his gun and whipped around, certain he’d see Pedro—or worse—ready to end him.

  JB’s voice interrupted his relief. “Put the gun down! Slow and steady.”

  Sprinting again, Will headed back toward the road with his Glock raised and ready. Pedro had already dropped to his knees near the path, an automatic rifle discarded ten feet away from him. The redwoods cast their long shadows, darkening his face. When Pedro looked up, his eyes burned, black as coal.

  “Get on the ground,” JB directed. “All the way.”

  Once Pedro had lowered himself to
the dirt, Will patted him down, pulling a six-inch blade from his boot and two handfuls of spent shell casings from the pockets of his utility pants. “Any other weapons on you?”

  Pedro shook his head. The same black hair as his sister’s flopping against his sweaty face.

  JB cuffed him up while Will cleared the weapon, discharging a single round from the chamber, before he dropped the empty magazine into the grass. Pedro had meant business. But when Will sat him up and looked him in the face, he saw just how young he was. Twenty-three going on seventeen with those chubby cheeks and that wise-ass smirk nobody had wiped off his face yet.

  Scanning the forest, Will spotted a redwood trunk peppered with gunfire. He squinted at it for a moment, distracted.

  “Got anything to say for yourself?” JB stood over Pedro, sirens audible in the distance.

  “I did it.”

  “Did what?”

  It took a lot to surprise Will these days. Even more to shock him. It had been a long time since he’d been shaken to the bone.

  “The murder of that family. The fucking Foxes. Shot ’em in the head and burned ’em up. Sent ’em straight to hell where they belong. Nobody does Los Diabolitos that way and gets away with it. Venganza dulce.”

  Thirty-Three

  Olivia sent Emily a text telling her she’d be home late, that she had to cover an evening treatment group at the prison. Then she parked in the turnout on the way to the Hickory Pit, hunkering down until her sister blazed past in her rental car, going way too fast for Olivia’s liking.

  Olivia tailed her from a distance, parking in the overflow lot across the street, and waiting for Nick Spade to show his face. Knowing her sister, it would be dangerously handsome.

  At 5:30 p.m. on the dot, a gray Toyota Corolla pulled into the spot next to Emily. Though Olivia couldn’t see the driver through the tinted windows, she would’ve bet money it belonged to Nick. The perfect car for a PI, a Corolla could blend in anywhere, especially at the Hickory Pit during Tuesday’s popular live music happy hour, rife with blue-collar workers and off-duty cops. Stay-at-home moms and the nine-to-five crowd.

  When the man stepped out of the driver’s side, she groaned audibly. She recognized Nick Spade. In fact, he’d sat behind her in tenth grade algebra where she’d endured his constant need to throw spitballs in her hair. Back then, she’d known him as Nicholas Spadoni, world-class troublemaker. He’d grown into his thick black curls and put on twenty pounds of muscle, none of which changed the fact that he was entirely too old for her little sister. Certainly too old to have his slimy hand on the small of Em’s back, guiding her into the Hickory Pit.

  A thousand worms crawling under her skin, Olivia made herself stay seated. She couldn’t barge in there like gangbusters. She had to think this through. Once her blood had stopped boiling, she’d go in level-headed, act surprised to find her sister there, and calmly inquire as to why in the hell she’d felt it necessary to hire a private investigator.

  The double doors to the Hickory Pit burst open, stilling her heart. A blur of red hair caught her eye, streaking across the parking lot. Little legs in little blue jeans barreled haphazard down the asphalt, as an oversized pickup rumbled toward him. Panicked, Olivia hurried out of the Buick.

  “Thomas! Watch out!”

  She held out her palm, like it had the power to stop him. Instead, the truck squealed to a halt as the boy scampered in front of the grille, oblivious. He flung himself against her, sobbing. His hands tightened in a death grip on her shirt. His body, shuddering. His breath was coming in high-pitched gasps.

  A frantic Nora emerged from the Pit. Her eyes darted like a wild animal’s, searching for Thomas.

  “Over here,” Olivia called to her. Thomas didn’t let go.

  The truck glided forward, the beefy driver shaking his head through the window at them, obviously annoyed. Damn kids, he mouthed at her.

  Even after Nora plucked Thomas from Olivia’s arms, he remained inconsolable.

  “What happened?” Olivia asked, when his crying had quieted.

  “I… I don’t know.” Nora glanced warily at the Hickory Pit, as if its dingy red awning dripped with blood. “He’s been off ever since we left the station. And then, Woofie disappeared.”

  “Woofie?”

  “His stuffed dog. He must’ve lost it at the rental cabin.”

  Thomas whimpered as Nora smoothed his hair. “Anyway, we were sitting in a back booth. We’d finished our meal, and Thomas was finally eating the ice cream he’s been talking about all day. I looked down at my phone for a split second and the next thing I know he’s white as a sheet. He ran out of the place before I could get my head around what was happening.”

  Thomas had wriggled out of Nora’s arms. One of his shoelaces had come untied. He crouched down, pulling at it anxiously, the same way he’d done in the interview room with Dr. Lucy.

  Olivia bent down to his level, looked him in his watery blue eyes. “Can you tell me and Aunt Nora why you got upset?”

  He tugged even harder, wrapping the lace around one finger. Olivia marveled at the strength in his small hand. She covered it with her own. “You’re safe now. Nobody can hurt you.”

  A rapid shake of his head. “The bad man can.”

  “Did you see him? Did you see the bad man?”

  His wide gaze fixed on the double doors, Olivia wondered if he’d stopped breathing. “Thomas?”

  “He’s in there.”

  With Nora and Thomas waiting in the parking lot, Olivia jogged to the entrance of the restaurant, her black flats thwacking against the pavement. She pushed through the doors and straight into the crowd, standing on tiptoe to get a bird’s eye view of the bar.

  Thomas had left no room for doubt. The bad man was a policeman. The bad man was inside the Hickory Pit. Unfortunately, so was most of Fog Harbor PD. There were at least twenty cops who fit the bill, gathered around the bar slinging back beers in clear view of the booths. The whole place was packed with bodies, their eyes fixed on a pretty brunette in a cowboy hat strumming a guitar in the corner. Near the makeshift stage, she caught sight of Emily and Nick talking, their heads close together.

  Olivia sighed.

  “Is the little guy okay?” She spun toward the deep voice, running right into Wade Coffman’s barrel chest. “I came over here to grab a quick bite on my break, and I saw him take off. Tried to stop him. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

  “Did you happen to notice where he and his aunt were sitting?”

  Wade easily parted the sea of people, guiding her toward the middle of the restaurant. Finally, she could breathe again. He pointed to Olivia’s favorite spot. She’d sat there too many times to count. “The very back booth on the far right. He had a clear view of the bar. Do you think he saw…”

  His voice trailed as she nodded solemnly.

  With Wade in the lead, Olivia made her way down the aisle so she could take a look from Thomas’s perspective. She wanted to see with his eyes.

  The booth sat, unclaimed. Only Thomas’s soupy dish of ice cream and a basket of wilted French fries remained. After she lowered herself into the seat, she spotted something else. Ranger Rob had been left behind, face down between the salt and pepper shakers.

  Olivia tucked the soldier into the pocket of her slacks, then squinted up at the bar. Though she tried to make her face an unreadable blank, she failed miserably.

  “You see somebody suspicious?” Wade asked.

  She wanted to run. To get outside as fast as she could. To call Deck.

  “No,” she answered, though her whole body railed against it, screamed yes. She stood, already slipping her cell from her pocket. “Stay here. I’ll go get Thomas so he can have a look.”

  Thirty-Four

  Will studied Pedro from behind the two-way mirror. In the same spot where he’d stood that morning, watching helplessly as Thomas dashed his hopes with a little shake of his head. It seemed a lifetime ago. But at least he’d cleared one case: Thomas had not
left his stuffed dog behind at the station. He planned to phone Nora as soon as they took Pedro’s statement.

  Patrol hadn’t located the group of Oaktown Boys who’d opened fire at Sunrise Canyon, leaving a through-and-through bullet hole in Bastidas’s calf. But a few gang members on the loose and a little blood spilled seemed a small price to pay for finding their killer. Even if it meant Will might have to eat crow with Graham. Thankfully, said meal of crow had been delayed until tomorrow, since Graham had already taken off for the night, probably planning to drink himself into a stupor at the Hickory Pit.

  Pedro slumped forward. His arms tucked inside his T-shirt, he rested his head, eyes closed, against the table as if he’d fallen asleep. Will had seen it before. Young punks who pretended to nod off in the interrogation room. Like being accused of murder was no more than a snuggle in a warm fuzzy blanket; the thought of spending the rest of their lives in prison, the perfect firm pillow. But in Pedro’s case, that pillow would come with a set of leather straps that would fix him to a gurney while the state slipped a lethal cocktail into his vein.

  “You’re welcome.” JB sidled up and patted him on the shoulder, snickering. “Less than thirty minutes back on the job and I solve your case. Hell, I might as well have wrapped him up in a shiny bow.”

  Will shrugged him off, frustrated with himself more than anything. “Let’s just get his statement, alright? Save the gloating for later.”

  “Whatever you say, City Boy. I’ll even let you have the first go at him. Give you a chance to redeem yourself.”

  When they entered the room, Pedro didn’t look up, but he opened one dark eye. It followed Will as he took the chair nearest his suspect. He moved it even closer, until he could smell Pedro’s oniony sweat. “You wanna be a tough guy? Sit up. Put your shirt on.”

  Reluctantly, Pedro pulled himself upright, stretching his arms through the thin white fabric. Will searched Pedro’s arms for the devil tattoo that would’ve branded him a member of Los Diabolitos but came up empty. Only a badly drawn and brightly colored dragon extending down one bicep and the words Mi Familia on the other. A smattering of small circular scars dotted his forearms.