Their gaze met, and Olivia saw the same idea swirling in her sister’s eyes, the same vibrant green as her own.
“Do we own a magnifying glass?” Emily asked.
But Olivia had already sprung up from the bed, drawing in hand, and headed for the kitchen. She flung open the junk drawer and retrieved their mother’s magnifying glass and a notepad.
“Write this down,” she told her sister. “Nine six nine. Four nine five. Three two four.”
“What does it mean?” Em chewed on the end of the pencil, as she pondered the numbers.
Olivia returned to their father’s artwork. The way he’d drawn them, looking out at the boats on the water. Her heart welled with certainty. “It means Dad left us one last message after all.”
Fifty
Will couldn’t stand sitting at his cubicle, twiddling his thumbs while the crime scene techs processed the evidence from the mine shaft and the search party carried on, deeper into the redwood grove. So, he’d avoided the station entirely, telling JB to meet him at Del Norte County Jail, where he planned to have one last go at Jonah to nail down the real story. On the drive over, Will phoned Jonah’s attorney and explained they’d found new evidence at Little Gull that would likely exonerate his client.
Will found JB waiting outside the small interview room, looking fresh as a daisy compared to himself. “You take the lead on this one. I’m exhausted.”
JB wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll bet you are.” But, as they entered the room, he gave Will a fatherly pat on the shoulder that said he understood the unbearable pressure of this case. Four victims and not a single viable suspect left. The only witness, gone.
At least the email from Olivia had given Will a glimmer of hope. With the victims shot in the head and the ranch house set on fire, the Holt case bore many similarities to the Fox murders. But Will had been unable to locate the only surviving member of the Holt family, Dwayne. After the trial, it seemed he’d disappeared entirely.
Jonah grimaced when he saw Will and JB approach. His face shadowed with stubble; his eyes clouded with anguish. In only a couple of days, he’d withered like a tree with no sunlight. But Will spotted a glint of hope in his eyes. “My lawyer says you might have good news.”
JB took the seat across from Jonah, while Will stayed on his feet. He worried that if he stopped moving now, he wouldn’t have the fortitude to get up again. Or worse, he’d fall asleep in the interview room.
“You’re one lucky SOB,” JB began. “My partner got a call from the lighthouse keeper down at Little Gull. He saw you start a fire in a trash can on the beach around the same time as the Fox murders. You’re no longer a suspect.”
“I—what? A fire in a trash can?” Jonah blinked back his surprise. “I honestly don’t remember. I got so drunk that I must’ve blacked out. The next morning, all I could remember was driving out there and reading that damn letter, while I stared out at the water and chugged vodka straight from the bottle, but I couldn’t find the letter or the watch I bought for Peter. Then, when Detective Decker asked me about the bottles of lighter fluid, I panicked. I didn’t even realize they were missing. In my heart, I knew I didn’t do it. Still, I couldn’t be sure. You two know as well as I do, anybody’s capable of murder.”
Will nodded, wishing he didn’t. The same way he wished he could erase Nora’s haunted look from his mind’s eye. And that nagging, dreadful feeling from the pit of his stomach. “Can you tell us about the watch you purchased for Peter?”
“It had an inscription on the back. Until the end of time. Stupid, right? I should’ve known he wouldn’t accept it. He never wanted to have any evidence that I existed. It was too risky.” He huffed out an ironic laugh. “Now, the story is all over the gossip rags. I suppose I should take some satisfaction in that, but I’d crawl back in my hole and stay there forever if it would bring Peter back.”
Will reached into his pocket and removed the evidence bag that contained the gold watch he and Olivia had discovered at the bottom of the trash bag. He laid it on the table, the watch’s smoke-stained face visible through the clear plastic. “Look familiar?”
Jonah gasped, wiping away a tear. “Any chance I can have it back?”
“I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, the DA will likely drop the brandishing charge, and you’ll be free to go.”
“Free,” Jonah repeated. “I don’t feel free. At this point, I’ve lost my job as a cop. I lost the man that I loved. My dignity. I blame myself for all of it. If I hadn’t come to this godforsaken place, Peter might still be alive. What the hell do I do now?”
Will realized he’d been asking himself that same damn question all morning.
Will hurried out the jail’s double doors and into the parking lot, spewing words over his shoulder at JB. “Let’s head back to the station and catch up with Chief Flack, see if the search turned up anything more. Then, we can look for that Holt fellow. Or cross-reference the Fox files with any recent releases from Crescent Bay and—”
JB cleared his throat with authority, forcing Will to stop and look at him. “Slow down, City Boy. First things first, you need to go home and take a shower. Put on some clean clothes and run a comb through your hair. Shave those day-old whiskers. Because right now, you look worse than a street bum. No offense.”
Will caught sight of himself in his truck window; he had to admit JB made a good point. Surely, a hot shower and a decent meal would set him straight. He would look like a detective, and this case would start making sense again.
“Don’t worry. I’ll hold down the fort till you get back.”
After they parted ways, Will hauled himself into the driver’s seat and autopiloted home in a stupor. He went in via the garage, hoping Cy had returned through the hole in the siding, but his food sat untouched, his bed empty.
Feeling worse than ever, Will inhaled a slice of leftover pizza, barely pausing to taste the congealed cheese and stale pepperoni. Then, he stripped down to nothing, setting the water as hot as he could stand it.
With a towel around his waist and one foot over the tub’s edge, his cell phone’s ringing stopped him. The familiar number of the crime lab flashed on the screen. He couldn’t let this one go to voicemail.
“Tell me you got something good.”
“Well, it’s not bad. Not worst case, anyway.” Steve Li really knew how to sell it. “We’ve got no useable prints. The messages in the gold mine appear to have been applied with a brush, a rag, or a gloved finger. And the blood that you found in those mine carts doesn’t belong to Thomas.”
Will withstood a surge of relief, bracing himself with an arm against the wall.
“We ran a precipitin test. It’s not human at all. It belongs to an animal.”
“What kind of animal?” The steamed bathroom began to close in around him, sweat pricking at his pores. Yet, he felt cold.
“Hard to say. We’ve overnighted a sample to the forensic veterinarian in San Francisco, but it’ll take time to get the results. And yes, before you ask, I told them to rush it.”
Will hung up without saying goodbye. He dropped the towel to the floor and let the water pummel him.
Not Thomas’s blood.
Not Thomas’s blood.
Not Thomas’s blood.
That’s a good thing, he reminded himself. Still, he found himself dripping water onto the tile floor and heaving into the toilet, upchucking the only decent meal he’d had in twenty-four hours.
Fifty-One
Olivia returned to the sofa, her father’s secret numeric code in hand. “Dad probably figured we wouldn’t know about the black light. This looks like a simple alphabet cipher.”
“How did you know?” Emily asked. “About the black light?”
Settling in, Olivia recounted the entire story. The two black suits who had shown up at her door, demanding her father’s sketchbook she’d collected from the prison. On a whim, she’d ripped out the last drawing he’d done of their life at the Double Rock, mostly because it
filled her with bittersweet nostalgia and made her dad seem not so far away. But, like her sister, she’d suspected the sketch held secrets. Days later, a note had turned up in her office—from Will’s brother, Ben, she’d assumed—with two words.
“The note said ‘black light.’ So I gave it a try. Dad’s handwriting glowed in the margins.”
“What did it say?” Emily bit at her bottom lip anxiously.
Olivia knew it by heart. “That the officer who escorted him to the holding cell where he died was involved in drug smuggling. That he was getting close to IDing the General and needed more time.”
“More time.”
They both released a weary sigh, before Olivia forced herself to buck up. If nothing else, for her sister. “Let’s see what Dad wanted us to know.”
For each number, she called out a corresponding letter of the alphabet that her sister recorded on a sheet of paper. “I… F… I… D… I… E—”
Em gasped. “If I die… Jeez.”
“C… B… D.”
“If I die, CBD.”
Olivia puzzled for a moment until she understood. But her father’s instructions didn’t make her feel any better. Because she already had. “If I die, see BD. Ben Decker.”
“Oh. Will’s brother. You talked to Ben though, right?”
“It’s okay.” Olivia rubbed Emily’s arm. Big sisters could smooth a bumpy ponytail or mend a loose button. Pop the head back on a favorite doll or correct algebra homework. But some things even big sisters couldn’t fix. “Maybe he hoped Ben would tell us about the black light. Which he did.”
“Do you think Ben knows more than what he’s saying?”
“Possibly. I’m sure he’s looking out for himself, too. He doesn’t want a target on his back any more than Dad did.” She gave her sister a pointed look. “And I don’t want a target on yours. You need to steer clear of Nick.”
With a groan, Emily shrugged off her hand and slumped off the sofa. “You can’t leave it alone, can you? It’s not about Dad or a target on my back. You just don’t want me to figure anything out on my own. About Dad. About Nick. You want me to be a little girl forever. That way everyone can think you’re the capable big sister and I’m helpless without you.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.” But Olivia’s protest carried no weight. It flattened like a blade of grass beneath Emily’s stony anger.
“You haven’t even asked me if I’m interested in Nick. You just assume I’m the same boy-crazy teenager I was years ago. But I’m twenty-five years old, and I can run my life just fine on my own.”
Emily disappeared inside her room, banging the door behind her. When she flung it open a minute later, teary-eyed and red-faced, Olivia gaped at the bag in her hand. “Where are you going?”
Slinging it over her shoulder, Emily silenced her with a stake to the heart. “It’s none of your business.”
After Emily stormed out, Olivia retrieved her laptop, searching for a distraction. Truthfully, she knew Em felt heartbroken, wishing their father’s last message had firmly pointed a finger at his killer. Or at least had been longer than nine letters. Seeing her own longing mirrored in her sister’s eyes, Olivia realized how desperate she’d become in her hunt for answers. So desperate, she’d skirted the prison rules and done a favor for cold-blooded Javier Mendez. A favor that wouldn’t be without consequence. Though it ached, she knew she had to be okay with not knowing. It had to be enough that her father died doing the right thing. For once, he’d stood up on the side of the good guys.
As she mindlessly scrolled down the screen, perusing Hannah’s notes about various reject clients, Olivia thought, too, of Thomas. Of his stuffed toy flung to the dirt in the middle of the woods. Of the message scrawled in blood on the wall. Ten X. With the entire Fox family missing or dead, who was it meant for?
Fifty-Two
Will splashed his freshly shaven face with cold water and wiped the steam from the mirror, comforted to find he still bore a vague resemblance to Detective Will Decker. Even with his swollen eye and dark circles and crippling self-doubt. He swiped the razor once more under his chin, cleaning up a missed spot of stubble.
“Shit.”
The razor dropped into the sink as blood seeped from the nick in his chin. Will wiped it, blotting the cut with a tissue. Hoping the damn thing would stop, he left a small piece sticking to the wound as he dressed. Black slacks, light blue button-down—his standard detective uniform. Before leaving, he fastened his badge to his belt, right next to his gun holster. Today, he felt the weight of it, the heft of expectation, like never before. Four people, dead. A little boy, missing. Will at the center of it all, trying to make sense of the unimaginable.
He exited the house through the garage to take one more look for Cy. He scanned the periphery of the basement and poked around in all Cy’s favorite hiding places—behind the tool chest, inside a bucket where Will stored his boxing gear, atop the highest, dustiest shelf. He called out for the cat, disturbed by how worried he sounded. He’d told JB Cy did his own thing, but that wasn’t entirely true. At first, Cy had led the life of a bachelor tomcat, ghosting Will whenever he felt like it. But, the last couple of months, he had solidified his commitment to domestication, spending most nights asleep at Will’s feet.
That damn cat should be the last thing on his mind. Still, Will couldn’t help himself. As he prepared to slip out beneath the garage door, he took a last glance over his shoulder. His mouth hung slightly open as he gaped at the box in the corner. It hit him like a rogue wave, threatening to knock his feet from beneath him. For the second time that day, bile rose up in Will’s throat. He’d been dead right about that message scrawled in blood. It had been meant for him.
Will fired off a message to JB, letting him know he would see him at the station just as soon as he spoke to Olivia. His skin still crawling, Will knocked on her front door. He heard the definitive click of the deadbolt before Olivia’s face appeared. Worry clouded her bright green eyes, tugged at the corners of her mouth. She ushered him inside the living room, and, for a moment, he pulled her close on the sofa, hoping that the soft, warm scent of her would calm his nerves.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her, trying not to sound panicked.
“Emily and I had an argument. She stormed out of here thirty minutes ago and won’t answer my texts.” Olivia noticed the book in his hand. “What’s that? Why do you—”
He laid the book out in front of her on the coffee table, open to the twisted dedication Drake had intended for him. “‘What you did to me will be done to you ten times over.’ I think Drake Devere is involved in this somehow.”
The subtle crease between her eyebrows sank his heart. She didn’t believe him. “Drake is what?”
“Drake’s exact words to me are written in blood in the mine.”
Olivia studied the dedication again. Her face softened in a way he couldn’t stand. Like she pitied him. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but…”
“But what?”
“Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? Why would Drake murder an entire family? Why would he kidnap a little boy? It’s not his MO. Besides, he’s been in the wind since December.”
“It’s about me. About what I did to him.” Will drew her eye to the faded scar between his thumb and forefinger, the raised flesh white and waxy. “I killed Drake’s girlfriend, Isabella.”
“You what?”
“I convinced her to give up evidence on Drake. We knew he’d killed those girls, but we couldn’t prove it. Everything we had was circumstantial. So, I bought her one too many drinks at the bar and begged for her help. I promised her we wouldn’t pursue the death penalty. I threatened to charge her with obstruction, told her she’d be responsible if any other women died. I’m not proud of it, but I’d probably do it again it if meant putting Drake behind bars.”
“How did she end up… dead?”
In the long pause that followed, Will wallowed knee-deep in his
shame. “After we arrested Drake, Isabella started to feel guilty. She said I coerced her into giving evidence, but nobody bought it. She even tried to reconcile with Drake, but he refused to see her. Then, she found out I lied to her about the death penalty. One night after work, she attacked me and my partner with a knife outside the station, slashed us both. She had him on the ground, with the knife raised, and I shot her.”
“You had no choice.”
Will raised his shoulders in a sad shrug. “That’s not entirely true. By the time it came to that, I’d made a lot of choices. Bad ones.”
“So had she.”
“I should’ve known better. I swore an oath to serve and protect, not to manipulate and deceive.”
“You did the best you could, Deck. You picked the lesser of two evils. Anyone would have done the same.”
Dismayed, he leaned back against the sofa and sighed, as if he’d heard it all before. “It doesn’t always feel that way. Especially when I had to explain myself to the Torro family. No father wants to hear that shooting their little girl was justified.”
She leaned with him, their shoulders touching. Knees too.
“Drake has been biding his time, and now he’s back to get his revenge.” Will reached for the book again. It felt heavy as a millstone in his shaky hands. Olivia stopped him, wrapping her fingers around his.
“Have you had a chance to take a nap? To eat?” she asked. “Your hands are shaking. And you’ve got…” She plucked the piece of tissue from the nick on his chin. “You cut yourself.”
Will wrested his hand from hers, staring at the knife scar between his thumb and forefinger. “So it’s just a coincidence then? Cy suddenly disappearing. The message written in animal blood. The noise from the garage the other night. He’s probably been watching me. You too.”
“Oh, Deck. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound a little paranoid. What about that case file I emailed you? The Holts? Surely, we can come up with a better suspect than Drake.”
One Child Alive: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with nail-biting suspense (Rockwell and Decker Book 3) Page 21