by Gregg Olsen
Katelyn hated to admit it, but it was the truth.
Katiebug: no $$$.
Cullant: get some.
She hesitated only a moment.
Katiebug: WHERE?
And then the words that would motivate her to do the unthinkable:
Cullant: FIGURE IT OUT, BABE.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The wood-fired pizzeria in Poulsbo was one of those strange restaurants in that its appearance didn’t match its cuisine—like a sushi bar in a log cabin. The tiny building on Front Street was like a lot of the themed edifices there, a Norwegian-style facade with stucco and exposed beams. The Ryans didn’t care how the restaurant looked as long as the pizza was good, which, thankfully, it usually was.
The outing was supposed to help cheer everyone up. Hedda still had not returned, and Valerie in particular thought a change of scenery was in order. However, Hedda was just one item on the twins’ growing list of worries.
Hayley texted Taylor in the car on the way over.
Hayley: You bring it up.
Taylor: can’t u?
Kevin, Valerie and Hayley shared the spicy Portuguese sausage, the Linguica, while vegetarian flip-flopper Taylor ordered a small Herbivore. While they waited for the pizzas to bake, all melty and crispy in the wood-fired oven, Kevin and Valerie talked about the events of the day over a couple of beers. Ordinarily the girls didn’t mind hearing such updates. Their mother was very discreet about the patients at the institution. She never mentioned a name or any specifics that anyone could use to positively identify who it was she was talking about. She dropped a few words, however, that usually ensured that the interest meter was going at full speed.
“A screamer today stabbed a student nurse with a plastic fork,” she said. “Other than that it was the same crazy, just a different day.”
Kevin set down his beer and surveyed the quiet restaurant. A couple two tables away sat side by side, a seating arrangement that was meant to be cozy but always looked like another party had stood them up.
“Mine wasn’t much better,” he said. “Except my crazy is my editor who thinks my book is going to be done on time. Still can’t get the perp to give me an interview. Now she wants the questions in advance.”
“You’ll charm your way around that,” Valerie said. “You always do.”
With her sister engrossed in texting Colton, Taylor saw a break in the conversation, and she went for it.
“Mom, Dad, we need to talk about something.” Her tone came off as a little strange and she worried for a second that her parents would think she was going to drop some major bomb on them—that she was pregnant, gay, or both.
“What is it?” Valerie asked, clearly anxious as she reached for her drink.
Kevin didn’t say a word. This was Valerie’s territory.
“Wait, it isn’t anything about me or Hayley.”
Both parents deflated a little and relaxed in their chairs.
“Of course not,” Kevin said. “Didn’t think anything was up, not at all.”
Our parents are such dorks! Cool sometimes, but dorks! Taylor thought.
“We need your help. We think—” Taylor said, noticing that Hayley had finally put down her phone. She thought Hayley’s thumbs must need a good soaking after they’d had such a workout texting. “We think,” she repeated, “it’s really only a hunch…”
Kevin narrowed his focus on the girls, looking at one, then the other, ping-pong style. “What is it?”
It popped into Hayley’s mind right then that they could say Katelyn was gay and pregnant, just as a way of getting out of a conversation that didn’t seem to be going as they’d planned. But she didn’t.
Taylor took up the slack. “Dad, Mom, we think that someone was playing Katelyn. Messing with her. Mindf—” She wisely cut herself short.
The waiter brought their pies and the family sat in silence for a beat.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Valerie said. She wasn’t mad, but a slight reprimand went with the business of being the mother of a teenager. In her case, times two.
“I didn’t say the entire word,” Taylor said, passing napkins around the table.
“You have a better vocabulary than that,” Valerie said.
“So what’s up with Katelyn, besides the fact that she’s dead?” Kevin asked, a remark far more flippant than he’d meant it to be.
Valerie shot him a look, and then looked over at her girls. “Tell us. We’re listening.”
Taylor told them about the note she’d found in Katelyn’s coat, and how she and Hayley had gone to see Starla and what she’d said about Katelyn’s supposed rendezvous in Seattle with her mystery boyfriend.
“You don’t think there was a boyfriend at all,” Kevin said.
“No, we don’t,” Taylor confirmed, picking at the crust of her slice.
“I think she thought she had one,” Hayley added.
Taylor nodded emphatically. “Someone was playing her.”
Kevin swallowed a big bite of pizza. He’d been taking in the conversation, watching his girls and wife as they circled around what had happened to Katelyn and, if, just if, there was some reason behind it. He was a little skeptical.
“All right, I know we run on feelings around here quite a bit, but what proof do you have that something like that was going on?”
“We don’t have any proof,” Hayley said. “I mean none that would hold up in court, if that’s what you’re asking.”
It was kind of a dig, but he let it slide.
“If you think someone had been pushing her, abusing her,” he said, “then we need to know who. And we need proof.”
“Not everything has to end up in court,” Valerie said, eyeing her husband. She’d have preferred a more supportive approach with the girls.
“Who would play a cruel game like that?” he asked.
Neither girl had an answer.
“No idea,” Taylor said.
“But we want to find out. It isn’t right, Dad,” Hayley added.
He nodded.
No, it wasn’t.
“But you need proof. Something more than a feeling,” he said.
Neither girl said so, but both knew that the answer to their father’s challenge rested back with Starla Larsen. She had been close to Katelyn and she had to know what Katelyn’s state of mind was at the time of her death. She’d also be the best bet for knowing the source of the taunts, but if she knew, she wasn’t talking. Indeed, she’d blown them off at the pink beanbag interrogation in her bedroom.
Just as the family was leaving, Kevin excused himself to talk to a pretty young woman with red hair who’d been sipping wine of the same hue all night at another table.
“A fan,” he said, exchanging looks with Valerie. “Give me a minute.”
Valerie and the girls headed out the door. As they crossed the parking lot, Taylor caught a glimpse of her dad and the woman through the restaurant’s window.
Kevin was animated, but not in a happy way. He was moving his hands to make a point. Even from that distance, Taylor could see the vein that popped in his temple whenever he was angry. It looked like he was scolding the young woman. She didn’t seem the least bit put off by whatever he was saying.
When he returned to the car, he had a worried look on his face.
“What was that about, Dad?” Taylor asked.
Kevin exhaled—a sure sign that he was angry—and turned the key to start the car.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You look really upset,” Taylor said.
“People always expect you to give them a free book, and when you don’t, they get mad,” he said.
Valerie exchanged a quick look with Kevin and turned on the car radio, a not-so-subtle signal that the conversation was over.
From their places in the backseat, Hayley turned to Taylor, pointed to her phone and started to text.
Hayley: who was dad talking 2?
Taylor: that wz no fan. 2 young
4 dad’s bks. Wndr wat pissed him off so much?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The words churned in her head as Taylor lay in her bed staring into the darkness of her tiny bedroom. She knew that whatever she and her sister had hoped to find in the letters that came to her underwater was still there to be unscrambled. The letters by themselves were absolutely correct. It was the order that was all wrong. Maybe they’d tried too hard to make sense of them? Some things were better if they didn’t push so hard.
If there was a Laura Folk, for example, she surely never lived in Port Gamble.
“Hayley,” she whispered into the hole in the wall. “You awake?”
No answer.
“Are you up?”
Hayley murmured something about needing to get some sleep. “Big test tomorrow,” she mumbled.
“Going to get the Scrabble.”
“Why can’t you just use an app?”
Taylor allowed a slight smile. Her sister was off in slumberland if she thought that even for a minute. “Doesn’t work like that. Go back to sleep.”
“All right. Good night.”
Taylor grabbed her favorite fuzzy yellow robe, stuck her feet into her fleece-lined slippers and padded down the hall. She could hear her dad snoring and the insufferable wall clock ticking. It was after 1:00 a.m. Even though they were twins, Taylor didn’t require as much sleep as her sister. She was a night owl. The darkness, the calming quiet, the sense of being alone resonated in her soul in a way that even Hayley didn’t understand. From the base of the staircase, she looked out the front door window at the bay.
The water was still, glassy and very sad.
Taylor conjured up some memories of Katelyn and the last time she had seen her. They were riding the bus home the Friday before the holiday break. Katelyn sat in the front, her head leaning against the fogged-up window. In the din of the kids yammering about their holiday plans, Taylor remembered how she had tried to say hello to Katelyn but the other kids pushed her past her seat. They had locked eyes for only a second and Katelyn managed a smile.
A sad smile, Taylor remembered just then, though she wondered if her memory had been tainted by what happened on Christmas night. Her father told her that nothing turns a victim into a saint faster than their untimely and unexpected demise. After a crime took place, good and evil were always rendered in bold strokes.
She pulled the old, battered Scrabble game from the shelf and sat on the floor. The embers from the fire glowed eerily, and the warmth felt good. She quietly fished out the letters and arranged them on the carpet.
LEWD HOT ROD KOALA FURL SELF IVORY
Taylor clamped down her eyelids to shut out the ideas that she’d had about what words could be formed with the Scrabble tiles and what words she believed Katelyn might have wanted her to grasp. She and her sister didn’t consider that they actually spoke to the dead—they merely felt that they could read an imprint of a moment left behind by those who crossed over. Although it was tougher to do, they could sometimes gauge the thoughts and feelings of those who were still among the living. The living were always tougher than the dead. She and her sister didn’t know why for sure, but they agreed that perhaps it was because the breathing still had reason for lies and subterfuge. The dead, well, they just didn’t have anything left to lose.
When Taylor opened her eyes, she found herself drawn to the word SELF. It was as if there was a pulsating energy in the word. The others, not so much. Next, she pushed all the words together and ran her hand across their smooth surfaces, mixing them without rolling them over.
“Talk to me, Katie,” she said softly. “Tell me.”
The Word YOUR pulsed from the mix. She studied the letter tiles spelling out YOURSELF.
Taylor closed her eyes again, and without any consideration for what she was doing, she smoothed out the tiles.
Her eyes popped open and the word FAVOR seemed to leap up at her. She set it next to YOURSELF.
She shut her eyes and tried again, but nothing. Why is this so hard? She closed her eyes once more, unaware that her sister had just entered the room.
“Taylor?” Hayley asked.
Taylor looked up, startled. “Geez, Hayley! Thanks for the warning.”
“You should have dragged my butt out of bed.”
“Your butt’s too big to drag,” Taylor said.
Hayley sat on the floor, facing her sister. “That means yours is too. We have the same butt, remember?”
“Don’t remind me,” Taylor said. “I see it every time you walk in front of me.”
Hayley dropped the butt talk. She studied the letter tiles spelling out YOURSELF and FAVOR. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s why you’re here now. Give it a try.”
Hayley closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the game pieces. When she opened them, she immediately saw the word WORLD.
“I feel something about that too,” Taylor said, moving the tiles next to FAVOR and YOURSELF.
In the remaining letters—L I K L A H T E D O—Hayley saw the words HATE and KATE, but, while they seemed to play into the events of what happened to Katelyn, they didn’t seem right.
She reached for the last of the wooden tiles and slowly moved them to spell KILL.
Without saying another word, Taylor arranged the remaining game pieces to spell out:
DO THE WORLD A FAVOR KILL YOURSELF
She looked up at Hayley. Even in the dim light of the living room, it was clear to see that the color had left her face.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Taylor asked, tears coming to her eyes. She hated when she reacted like that, but she couldn’t help it.
“You already know I am thinking it,” Hayley said.
Taylor rubbed her eyes dry with the sleeve of her robe.
“Someone wanted Katelyn to kill herself,” she said.
Hayley started to gather up the pieces of the game, a game that would never, ever seem like fun again.
“Who would want that?” Taylor asked.
The sisters started toward the narrow staircase, lowering their voices to a whisper as they walked.
“Someone with a very black heart, that’s for sure,” Hayley said.
Taylor nodded. “Someone we’re going to find.”
“And we will make them pay,” Hayley whispered. “Big-time.”
It wasn’t a threat, but more of a promise. All lives have a purpose. Taylor and Hayley Ryan knew whatever gifts they’d been given were powerful and they intended to use them for the right side.
For Katie.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The next morning, Hayley found their father in his office writing and drinking coffee, which, judging by the dark ring at the mug’s midpoint, she was sure was left over from the previous day. Kevin Ryan was on a don’t-disturb-I’m-in-the-homestretch-of-something-really-really-important work jag. It was Groundhog Day, and all indications were that this exact scene would be repeated until he was done.
“Got a minute?” she asked.
Kevin swiveled his office chair to face her. He hadn’t shaved for two days and he was of the age where stubble wasn’t cool, where it looked more bum than stud.
Not that thinking of her father in that way would ever cross Hayley’s mind.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Hayley hated when he talked like that, but this wasn’t the time for a coaching session on which colloquial phrases were really in and which were used only on beer commercials written by completely unhip advertising copywriters.
“Dad,” Hayley said, framing a lie, a small but necessary one, “I was reading about a case in Nebraska or Nevada about a woman who committed suicide because her husband said she was fat.”
“I haven’t seen that story,” he said, glancing over at his idled keyboard.
“I saw it online,” she went on. “The husband kept calling her names, leaving her bags of food with nasty notes.”
“He sounds like a pig,”
he said.
“You don’t know the half of it. Well, I’ve been wondering about him. I mean, can he be held liable for it?”
“I don’t think so.” Kevin slid his computer glasses down the bridge of his nose. “He mostly has to live with himself for being an ass.”
“Isn’t it like someone yelling fire in a crowded theater? You know, and causing someone to get trampled to death?”
“Not really. I mean, even if she were unstable and fat and he merely taunted her, that wouldn’t mean he was responsible. After all, the woman in Nebraska or Nevada—”
“Maybe New Hampshire,” Hayley said, adding a shrug for good measure.
“Right. Whatever N state she was from, makes no difference. The woman was an adult and responsible for her actions.”
“But her husband urged her to kill herself.”
Kevin, smelling a crime story, seemed more interested just then. “How so?”
“He told her to do it. Bullied her. He left her notes and told her to do the world a favor and kill herself.”
“That’s different,” he said. “If she was vulnerable and he told her to do that… By the way, how did she kill herself?”
Hayley hadn’t thought that one through. If she’d really read the story online—if there had been a story online—it would have mentioned the cause of the heavy woman’s demise. For a split second she considered offering up something totally off the wall, like the dead woman ate a hundred waffles and died of a perforated stomach, but she refrained. She knew her dad would Google the case then.
Waffles + suicide. Hit search.
“She jumped off a roof.”
“Wow,” he said. “That’s hard-core.”