Closer Than Blood

“That’s lovely.” He wanted to speak, but he didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She was in control and he was going along for the ride, happily, hungrily. Her fingertips slipped under his shirt and caressed his chest. He leaned backward, pushing his pelvis toward her.

“I know what you want,” she said. Her voice was soft, yet playful.

“Yes, I know you do,” he said. She undid his belt, then his jeans. Her fingers found his zipper and she pulled.

“A little tight,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, dropping to her knees. He was breathing heavy by then. He closed his eyes and she put her mouth on him. She stopped.

“Keep going,” he said.

“I will. I’ll get you there. Just let me do what I do best.” And she did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kitsap County

Cooking dinner in the Stark household was the kind of communal endeavor that artists so charmingly sketched for the Saturday Evening Post and that modern-day advertisers with buckets of guilt and products to sell still employed to remind people that the family that ate their meals together stayed together. Kendall and Steven alternated the roles of sous chef and head chef. On days when she was up to her neck with criminal investigations and the people who populated the files of her in-basket at the sheriff’s office, Kendall liked the feel of a sharp knife in her hands as chief chopper. She enjoyed the way carbide made its way through a potato or an onion. The cut felt good. A release. The day had been consumed by thoughts of the reunion, Lainie, and, of course, Tori. That her partner Josh Anderson was coming to dinner might drag the day to a new low. She pulled herself together. Focus, Kendall. Good things. Happy things. She looked around the kitchen. Things didn’t get much better than what she saw. It was—her son, her husband, her home—what she had dreamed about as a girl in Port Orchard. The Starks had recently remodeled the kitchen, with Steven doing most of the work except the fabrication of the limestone slab countertop. Kendall sanded the cupboards before Steven lacquered them with a creamy white, but quickly learned that there was no glory in sanding. Increasingly, it was clear that the kitchen had been designed with Steven’s preferences in mind, anyway. Kendall didn’t care. The backside of the new island had, by default, become her domain. She prepped the salad—a mix of arugula, romaine, and fennel—and looked at the clock.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. Steven stirred the contents of a saucepan.

“You mean an evening with To-Know-Me-Is-to-Love-Me?”

“I felt sorry for him,” Kendall said.

“Josh almost cost you your job. But, no, if you can forgive him, I can, too.” Kendall turned to Cody, who was sitting at the kitchen table working on arranging dried pasta into an intricate design that suggested both chaos and order. Kendall was unsure if it was a road in a mountainous landscape or something else. Pasta was linked up, one piece after another, and fanned out into a kind of swirling shape. Cody had always been adept at puzzles—sometimes putting them together with the reverse side up, using only shapes and not imagery to fit each piece together.

“You doing okay, babe?” Kendall asked. Cody looked up, a faint smile on his round face. Whatever he was thinking about at that moment was a pleasant thought. It might have been dinner. It could have been the stars in the sky. Cody spoke, but not often. He was not an alien like some spiteful people consider those with autism, but a gentle spirit who had an awareness of everything around him—even when it seemed he let no one inside.

“Good. I’m good,” he said.

“I know you are,” she said. Cody had become more verbal in the past few months. And while his responses weren’t exactly lengthy, they did get the point across, and they gave his parents and doctors hope that his particular form of autism might not be as severe as once thought. It was true that he’d likely never be able to function without continued support and guidance; he wasn’t going to end up in some hospital somewhere. He was only nine, of course, but the Starks feared the day that they were gone and what their son would face in life without the love of those who knew him.

“Lasagna’s ready to come out,” Steven said. Kendall squeezed a lemon into the salad dressing she was mixing with a wire balloon whisk in a small glass bowl. She dropped in a little Dijon, some minced shallots, and a sprinkle of cayenne. With the tip of a spoon, she tasted the dressing, made a face, and added another squeeze of honey from a plastic bear-shaped bottle.

“Perfect timing,” she said, catching the sight of a BMW as it moved into the parking area behind the house.

“Josh is here now.”

Josh Anderson had been an infrequent guest in the Stark residence for the past year. He’d heard about the remodel and had even offered to help out, but his proposal was halfhearted and the relationship was somewhat strained following their last major case, the so-called Kitsap Cutter, and subsequent media brouhaha. He stood at the doorway, bottle of Oregon pinot noir in hand and a somewhat nervous smile on his face. At fifty-two, Josh no longer looked like he was trying so hard to be the ladies’ man that he’d once been. The gray at his temples was more pronounced, as though he’d given up on coloring it to “just a touch of gray.” His jacket, an ill-advised tweed with elbow patches that seemed a little more “professor” than “detective,” was a little tight around the middle.

“Ninety-two points on this one,” he said. Steven took the bottle.

“I’d probably like it if it had sixty points.” Kendall motioned for Josh to come inside. She looked at Steven and rolled her eyes. It was a playful gesture, not to repudiate him for a lack of knowledge.

“My husband, the wine connoisseur,” she said. Steven, however, took the bait.

“It isn’t that I don’t like a good bottle of wine,” he said, “I just don’t usually know the difference between the notes of this or that.”

“It was twenty bucks,” Josh said, hanging his jacket over the back of a chair.

“I buy by price, not points.”

“Something we have in common besides Kendall,” Steven said. Josh ignored the sarcasm, intended or merely the result of Steven’s attempt at making a quip.

“Hi, Cody,” he said. Cody looked at him, but said nothing.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing better. Every day is better,” Kendall said.

“Wish I could say that about me.” Josh Anderson may have been knocked down a peg in the past year, but he was still surprisingly adept at putting himself back into any conversation as its focus. Steven uncorked the wine and poured it into the bulbous globes of Kendall’s grandmother’s stemware—the only thing they had in the house that was reserved for company. Josh somehow rated. Steven almost said something about that, but thought better of it. He kind of liked a kicked-to-the-curb Josh.

“Cheers,” Steven said, swirling the syrupy red liquid in his crystal wineglass. Three glasses met in the clinking sound that comes with the promise of a good evening. They went into the living room with its windows taking in glorious nighttime views of Puget Sound. The choppy waters had been sliced by a passing boat, leaving a foamy V from its engine to the rocky shoreline. They had a few moments before dinner and they chatted about the weather, the view, the things that they were doing around the house.

“How’s that class reunion coming along?” Josh asked. Kendall set down her wine.

“Don’t get me started.” Steven looked at Josh and grinned.

“Don’t get her started.” Kendall laughed.

“Since you brought it up, Josh, I’ll ask you to remind me never to get involved in another committee.” She glanced in Steven’s direction.

“Someone here could have saved me a lot of trouble.”

“Don’t get me involved in this. You’re a Wolf through and through,” he said, invoking the name of the South Kitsap High School mascot.

“So, really, how’s it going?” Josh asked. It seemed that he wanted to talk about something other than himself or the gossip around the sheriff’s office, which was fine with Kendall. There was a subject she really didn’t want to get into, though she knew the conversation would go that way eventually. She talked about the process of selecting everything with a group of people who had nothing in common other than they came from the same graduating class.

“Ask me about napkins sometime and I can bore you for a good two hours.”

“Napkins can be tricky,” Josh said.

“Not that I’d know much about that.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” she said.

“You seemed more the kind of guy who’d use your shirtsleeve to wipe off your mouth.” She paused.

“Not that there’s really anything wrong with that.” They laughed a little. It was always fun to zing Josh. Zinging the pompous was always a good time. With a lull in the conversation, Steven spoke up.

“You did have one thing worth talking about today. Tell Josh about your old schoolmate, Tori.”

“She was your old schoolmate, too,” she said.

“I told him.” Josh looked at her.

“What’s up with your old pal? Win the lotto or something?” Kendall shook her head.

“Not hardly. I mentioned it today in the office. Tori’s husband was shot and killed in Tacoma. She was shot, too. Her sister Lainie’s on the reunion committee.” Josh narrowed his brow and Kendall’s demeanor had changed. If Kendall had mentioned it, it had been so fleeting that he’d missed it. He could have called her on it, but there was no point in that.

“What’s up with Tori?” he asked.

“I’m getting the vibe here that she’s not in your top ten.” Years on the job had allowed Josh and Kendall to understand each other only too well. He could read her and she didn’t like that. Not at all. She set down her wine.

“We had our moments. I won’t lie. But really, I was better friends with her twin.” Kendall seemed uncomfortable and that made Josh dig a little deeper.

“Twins?” This time Steven jumped in.

“Yes, exactly the same, but completely different.” Kendall looked at her husband, quietly acknowledging what he said was true, then turned her attention back to Josh.

“I like Lainie,” she said. Her tone was surprisingly defensive, as if she needed to back up the so-called good twin. For some reason or another.

“And honestly, I have no idea how she could share the same genes with her sister.” Kendall stood to go to the kitchen.

“Dinner’s ready,” she said.

“Be prepared, Josh, to have the best lasagna made by a non-Italian. My husband’s a pretty good cook.” She faced the lasagna pan and started cutting, the sharp knife slicing through layers of pasta and cheese, clear, distinct strata of white and amber. Each piece came from the pan in a perfect rectangle. There would be no messy, ill-shaped portion served for the cook or his wife.

“So what’s the prognosis for Tori?” Josh asked. Kendall handed him a plate. As steam curled from the food to the ceiling, he breathed in the garlic and oregano as if it were a drug and smiled. Steven beamed. He knew he was a pretty good cook.

“I don’t know,” Kendall said.

“I really don’t know much more than what I’ve told you.”

“Did you call Tacoma PD?” Josh asked. When Kendall didn’t answer right away, Steven echoed the question.

“Did you, Kendall?” She looked at her husband. It was a hard look, the kind of expression meant to shut down that line of questioning before it went too far. Josh picked up the subtext of the conversation and pounced.

“I didn’t know you were that close,” Josh said.

“Tori and I were schoolmates,” she said.

“End of story.”

“We all were,” Steven said, taking a bite.

“But then so was Jason Reed.” Jason Reed. Kendall let out a quiet sigh at the mention of his name. She really didn’t want to discuss Jason in front of Josh Anderson. Talking about Jason always brought back a flood of sad memories. Sometimes it brought tears, and with tears came too many questions. Steven spoke up.

“Tori was driving a car that killed the guy. Back in high school.”

“Parm? I have some shredded in the kitchen,” Kendall said, in a completely ungraceful attempt to alter the direction of the conversation.

“Killed the guy?” Josh said, putting down his fork.

“It was an accident,” Steven said.

“Wreck on Banner. At the Jump. Tori actually did some time for it in juvenile detention. Some people thought she did more and deserved more time. Not all accidents are accidental, you know.”

“Some class you SK Wolves must have had back then,” Josh said.

“I guess so. Jason’s death hit us hard,” Kendall said, putting herself back into the conversation, seeking control.

“He was so young and it was so final.”

“So, are you going to look into Jason’s case?” Steven asked. Kendall shook her head, a rote response to a question she’d already considered.

“No,” she said, watching her son slide into a chair next to her.

“Of course not. But I am worried about Lainie.” The shift in conversation interested Josh. It was like the second half to an ongoing dialog that Steven and Kendall must have engaged in earlier.

“Why dig into it now?” he asked. Again, Steven answered for Kendall.

“You cops like the word hinky, don’t you? Something about the case that bothered people. Rumors. Gossip, whatever. There’s always a lot of time for speculation in Kitsap County. Not a lot of other things to do.” Kendall didn’t want to cause an argument at dinner, but she was irritated with her husband.

“There were some rumors, yes,” she said.

“Look,” Josh said, leaning closer to her, “I know you. You’re gonna dig.” Kendall knew he was right. They both were.

“All right. Probably. Four deaths around one person, that’s pretty remarkable odds.” Josh knitted his brows as he swallowed his 92-point pinot—a number he’d exaggerated when he presented the bottle at the front door. It was only an 88. He held out his fingers and wiggled three of them.

“Four?” Josh ticked off two of them.

“Jason Reed and her husband in Tacoma? That’s two.” Steven nodded as he prepared to drop the bomb.

“And the husband before that. Never knew the guy. None of us did. And her mother—that was quite a few years ago. A suicide.” Josh nearly spilled his wine.

“You’re shitting me.” Kendall looked over at Cody, who was happily enjoying the gooey top layer of his lasagna. Seeing the boy, Josh Anderson’s face went a little red. Despite what everyone thought about him, he knew better than to curse in front of a kid.

“Sorry,” he said, lowering his voice.

“But you’re kidding, right?”

“Afraid not,” Steven said.

“Husband number one bit the dust on a Hawaiian vacation a few years back.” Josh leaned across the table toward Kendall. Clearly, he was enthralled by the conversation.

“Nice. That Tori seems like trouble.” Kendall didn’t respond and Steven poured more wine into each of their glasses.

“Yeah, as I recall, that Tori was like a whirlpool,” Steven said.

“She can suck everyone down in her misery.”

“I guess,” Kendall finally added.

“Like a whirlpool.”

Kendall Stark rinsed the dinner plates of the sticky residue of pasta and ricotta before aligning them just so into the open grate of the dishwasher. The breeze had kicked up a little and the flowering plum by the window had lost most of its petals, sending a creamy pink drift across the patio. Josh had gone, and Cody was tucked in down the hall of the old house. She slid the dishwasher shut with her hip as she dried her hands on a white-and-red checkered towel. The evening had not been bad. Not one hundred percent bad, anyway.

“Look,” Steven said after Josh left, “I know you cared about Jason. I get that. He was special to you and he’s gone. I’m not threatened by that.” His words were undeniably heartfelt, yet they made Kendall feel uncomfortable. There were areas that had been off limits even in a marriage as good as theirs had been. Jason Reed was one of those areas.

“I know,” she said, lying a little to make him feel better. The minute she said it, she questioned it. Why do I do that? she thought. Why do I care about making someone feel better all the time? As the dishwasher started to hum and Steven went to turn off the lights, Kendall thought of Jason and how she’d been so haunted by his death more than fifteen years ago. The dinner that night. The talk about Tori’s latest tragedy, if that’s what it was, had released old feelings. Feelings she avoided. She wondered what her life might have been like if Jason hadn’t died. She wondered what everyone’s life might have been like. Most of all, she felt sad that those thoughts hadn’t evaporated over time. Not as she’d been told they would. Not as they should have. Fifteen years, she assured herself, was long enough to grieve.

With Cody already asleep, Kendall turned off the red, white, and blue tugboat lamp by his bedside. She brushed her lips against his straw-colored hair and kissed him good night. She lifted the always-sticky double-hung window a crack to let in a little night air. Not too much. Just a trickle of cool. Cody was one of those kids who slept hot, often kicking off the covers by morning. Sleep, my baby, she thought. By the time she got to their bedroom, Steven was already in bed, smelling of toothpaste, and looking at his sales call sheet for the morning. Kendall had a visit with her mother in mind for the next day, but given the late hour, it was the next day.

“Don’t you ever take a break?” Kendall asked as she undressed.

“When you’re on commission,” he said, “there’s no such thing as a break. Particularly in this day and age.” The publishers of the magazine Steven represented had made a big push to focus on electronic advertising. Steven had gamely gone along with the change. The results were not as encouraging as he’d hoped. It appeared that hunters and fishermen didn’t necessarily take their laptops when they went out in the sticks. It appeared that Wi-Fi had not caught up with the great outdoors. Sales were down sharply and he was feeling the pressure.

“Tomorrow’s a busy day all the way around,” she said, slipping into a chambray blue pair of pajama bottoms and an oversize T-shirt.

“I’m going to see Mom. Run some errands. Solve a crime.”

“Sexy look, girl,” he said, eyeing her as she crawled next to him.

“I’ll show you sexy.” She kissed him. That was all the cajoling Steven needed. He set down the paperwork that had held his attention. His hands found the softness of her skin underneath the T-shirt. She let out a sigh. They were tenderly entwined, tangled in the bedsheets.

“Didn’t take much,” she said.

“Did it?” Steven’s stubbled face skimmed the surface of her breast as he slid lower into the bed. She still felt the excitement that came with the touch of her husband.

“No, baby. Not much.” Neither one said another word about Jason Reed. If his ghost had hovered around the dining room only a couple hours ago, he’d vanished once more.

CHAPTER NINE

Tacoma

Tears filled her eyes and there was no stopping them. I shouldn’t feel this sad, but I do, Laura Connelly thought. Her ex-husband’s death had left her feeling bereft in a way that she would have told someone a week ago was completely impossible. Alex had left her for another woman. Betrayed her. Left their son. And yet my heart aches? Why? At her home in Fircrest, just south of Tacoma, a brokenhearted Laura moved about her seventeen-year-old son’s bedroom, picking up what he’d carelessly left on the floor. It was early in the morning, and Parker hadn’t come home. He’d been doing a lot of that lately—staying with his best friend, Drew. Laura was a petite strawberry blonde, with green eyes that she made the color of clover with tinted contact lenses. In her mid-forties, she was a single mother with no prospects for being anything but. Her world was about her son. It had been that way for a very long time. Until that week, Parker had his dad, too. But no more. She shook her head as she looked around. Parker was no more a slob than any boy his age, but she’d noticed a little improvement in areas that mattered. He’d asked her to buy new jeans and a couple of new shirts. He even wanted new underwear.

“Not boxers, Mom, boxer briefs. They fit better.” Point taken. In fact, everything Parker wanted those days seemed to reflect a need to improve his appearance. He’d been working out, bulking up his adolescent frame to one that showed the definition of a young man’s physique. Not quite six-pack abs, but getting there. When he wasn’t Skyping on his computer, he was out running or lifting weights in the basement. Parker was growing into a young man, and whatever she thought of Alex, she knew that only in death—senseless, untimely, tragic—would he leave his son behind. A pair of Tacoma police officers came the morning after the shooting to let them know what happened. Parker got up from the breakfast table and bolted for the door. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even take his backpack to go to school. He just left. Come home, baby, she thought over and over. I’m still here. I won’t leave you. Everything in her son’s room took on an unbridled poignancy. Laura smiled when she came across his cache of personal hygiene products on top of the cherry highboy. A bottle of body spray, a tube of acne medicine that he’d begged her to buy off a TV commercial, and a hair product called Bed Head. Her teenage son was growing up. He was still somewhat distant, but the signs were there. He was interested in girls. That was good. While her relationships with men had not gone the distance—her failed marriage to Alex was only one of four longtime relationships that had ended—she hoped that Parker would have better luck in that arena. His relationship with his father and stepmother had also improved. The cellular phone bill indicated a sharp increase in phone calls to his father’s. That was good, too. In putting away his neatly matched socks in a top drawer that was only organized when she did the arranging, she noticed a flash of red and white, a greeting card. Its red heart with an arrow indicated a valentine. She opened it and read the message:

Our love is forever. I will wait for you. Will you wait for me?

It was signed, somewhat cryptically, Me. Tears flowed freely as she thought of Alex and how they’d met on the stainless-steel dance floor at the Black Angus in Bremerton. He was young, handsome. Attentive. A naval officer with plans for the future that included getting a master’s degree in finance. The message on the card reminded her of their own love story. Alex was transferred to San Diego for a year. And, yes, she waited for him. When he returned to Bremerton the following year, he had a new tattoo on his chest and a diamond engagement ring for Laura’s finger. Underneath the first card, she found a second one. This one featured the image of two swans, their necks forming the shape of a heart. It was wrong to invade Parker’s space and his mom knew it. Yet she couldn’t help herself. Her son had been so unhappy, so wounded. Few mothers can resist the urge to learn more about the girl who had given her boy a reason to smile.

When one swan dies, so does the other. I can’t live without you.

The handwriting was a neat script, the same script as on the other. Teenagers. Everything is so dramatic, she thought, closing the drawer.

Before Alex’s murder, Laura considered Parker’s eighteenth birthday as a personal and financial game changer. The substantial child support that Alex had faithfully sent each month since their divorce would cease. It was far from a gravy train, but its derailment was going to be tough. She was unsure exactly what she would do to get by. It was true that she had investments and a decent nest egg, but the cash flow that came from Alex’s account to hers was the kind of money that made the difference between being comfortable and having strained finances. She could buy what she wanted. Eat out whenever she liked. She could even afford to have her car detailed once a month. All of that would be off the table when the support checks stopped. Alex wasn’t blameless in all of that, of course. And, though she loathed to admit it to herself, she’d once hoped that Alex would drop dead of a heart attack. He had a sizable life insurance policy and she was the beneficiary. She could have lived nicely on that. She could have avoided the embarrassment of giving up a big house, European vacations, and platinum tennis bracelets. But Alex didn’t drop dead before they were divorced. And there was clearly no stopping Tori. She popped into her husband’s life at a time when Laura and Alex were at odds, when the excitement of their marriage had faded into a world of obligation. She saw Tori as a schemer who used her considerable charms to snare a man who wanted that last gasp of youth that comes in one’s forties. A wife the same age was only a mirror to the passage of the days and months of his life. Laura hated Tori for coming into their lives. The blonde with the perfect body had wriggled her way into their affairs like a beautiful virus. She wanted what she saw—a husband with a bank account that would keep her in expensive clothes, a nice house, and a car that would be the envy of those who care about such things. Alex had other affairs during their marriage, but none lasted. None had morphed into anything other than sex and secrecy. Yet Tori would have none of that. She played to win. As Laura saw her, Tori was one of those women who knew that the power in their beauty was a commodity that was never to be given away without something in return.

“Don’t worry, Laura,” Tori had said over the phone, when Laura had called to discuss Parker’s declining grades.

“I don’t want to take your place.”

“Really? That seems to be exactly what you’ve done.”

“I mean with Parker. I don’t want to be his mother and I won’t even try. I want him to think of me as a friend.”

“He doesn’t need another mother, and to be frank, he doesn’t need a friend, either. He has plenty.”

“That’s good to know,” she said.

“He seems a little lonely. He shares so much with me that I just want to be helpful. It isn’t easy being a child of divorce. I want to be there for him.” Laura held her tongue, which was the only thing a decent person could do. Tori was Alex’s problem. Certainly she wanted to blast the bitch and say something about the fact that she had caused the divorce, but there was no point in that.

“Thanks for your concern,” she said before hanging up. She seethed a moment and went for a vodka tonic. Absolut vodka today, Brand X tomorrow. All of that had felt so foolish now. All of her worries about how she was going to survive after her son’s birthday were an embarrassment now. She’d never say a word to anyone what her hopes had been. No one would understand.

CHAPTER TEN

Port Orchard, Washington

The Landing at Port Orchard was the newest assisted-living residence for seniors “who need a little extra care” in the small city on Puget Sound. The first floor was beautifully if predictably appointed: leather couches, wingback chairs with brass nailhead detailing, and a gas fireplace that was perpetually on. The river rock–faced hearth was outfitted with a raffia-bound bundle of birch twigs and an old-fashioned popcorn popper, the kind that would be used over a campfire. Above the fireplace, illuminated by a trio of halogen lights, was a three-foot model of a red canoe. Most of the design—from the colors of the fabrics and walls to the nostalgic artifacts placed around the entire first floor—was in what the center’s director called “memory chic.” None of it was real, but all of it was designed to help residents and visitors recall a time when they could remember. When they didn’t need a schedule or a prompt to remind them what to do next. In reality, the ambiance of the Landing was that of a slightly overdone theme restaurant in which artifacts were used to suggest, rather than to recall, specific memories. Bettina Maguire had been at the Landing for more than three years, having survived a car accident on an icy road in northern Kitsap County that killed her husband and Kendall’s father, Ben. A retired high school shop teacher, Ben had been driving when a deer stepped out of the shadows; he did what he told his daughter and wife never to do: he swerved, his own advice of “hitting the animal will kill it, but hitting a tree will kill you” unheeded. Bettina’s brain had been damaged in the accident, as had her once indomitable spirit. She’d also taught school for decades, specializing in art. Before the accident, she often talked about the lovely mosaic that she helped the children create; it had been featured in the Seattle Times. Bettina’s depiction of Port Orchard’s history was told through the tiny shards of broken pottery, glassware, and one very upset student’s mother’s prized wedding platter. Kendall arrived at the Landing feeling tired from a sleepless night full of thoughts about a criminal case in which she had no stake. Tacoma PD can deal with the likes of Tori, she thought. She had parked her SUV and headed inside to sign in when her cell rang. She looked down at the display. The incoming call was from Adam Canfield. She pushed the button to send it immediately to voice mail, then she reached for one of the pens embellished with roses that were stuck in a flower pot on the reception desk.

“How’s my mom?” she asked Samantha, the young woman whose name tag suggested she was a “Landing hostess” and not a desk clerk.

“You know the way it is around here. Good days, bad days. Your mom’s having a bad one.” Samantha’s voice was chirpy and relentlessly upbeat.

“I’m sure.”

“One thing I’m sure about is that she will be so very happy to see you!” So very happy. Kendall made her way to Room 14, on the first floor of south side of the building. She passed by a group of old women moving puzzle pieces on a tabletop and smiled at the one who looked at her. The building’s three floors told the story of an occupant’s status. Those on the upper floors were, generally, in better health. Mobile. Put together. Cognizant. Those attributes dwindled closer to the first floor. Bettina Maguire had stayed on the second floor for only two months before they moved her to the first floor, close to the medical staff. Her health had been failing, and failing fast.

“It’s better for everyone,” the director had said.

“Easier, you know, if she needs help.” The steel door that was more hospital than residential was open, and Kendall went into her mother’s room. Bettina was in bed, her face turned away from the window. Her right hand held the steel tube of the bed rail. Her fingers no longer looked like the mother’s hands that had once caressed her daughter. They were gnarled sticks, dipped in a milky blue. Her once-marmalade hair was now white.

“Mom?” Bettina’s head turned, her eyes flickering with recognition.

“Kendall, you’re here.” Kendall bent down and kissed her mother’s rice-paper skin.

“You warm enough?” she asked, fussing with the pale yellow coverlet that had been her mother’s favorite.

“I’m fine, dear. Daddy and I were talking about you last night.” A nurse had told Kendall that correcting her mother was not necessary and, if it didn’t bother Kendall too much, to play along.

“You can’t change what a person knows, even if it is wrong,” the nurse had said. Kendall patted her mother’s feet.

“What were you two conspiring about?” Bettina smiled.

“Just how proud we are of you.” Kendall shook her head and poured some water from a white plastic pitcher on a stainless-steel tray that the staff had brought in. She glanced around the room, noticing that her mother’s collection of miniature porcelain shoes had been boxed up. The room was looking more and more institutional. Bettina lifted her head and sucked on the straw, her lips groping the tube as if she were feeling it instead of attempting to drink. Her eyes met Kendall’s with a look of warmth, appreciation. She nodded as she leaned back on her pillow, which Kendall had fluffed slightly in the moment that she had been able do so.

“You’re a good daughter, Kendall.”

“I try. Would you like me to sit with you?”

“That would be nice. Tell me, dear, what are you working on?”

“Same old, Mom. Bad people doing bad things.”

“Sending lots of people to jail, I hope. Might do them some good.”

“Some, not all,” Kendall said.

“Remember, sending people to jail doesn’t make anyone better.” Bettina smiled.

“No, it doesn’t. But it makes me feel better.” It was funny how that moment would recur between Kendall and her mom now and then. She was an officer of the court, a detective no less, and she could clearly see that her mother and she had both been right: sending someone to jail didn’t do much for the inmate, but it did make everyone else feel a little better. She thought of Tori and Jason. She hadn’t been sure if she would bring it up to her mother. Bettina had known both of them back in the day. She’d be interested, for sure. She might even be a little judgmental. Her mom could be that way.

“Mom, we got some news that Tori O’Neal’s husband was killed.”

“That was a long time ago,” Bettina said. Kendall shook her head. Her mother was having a very “good” day indeed.

“Not the husband in Hawaii. Her new husband. He was shot in their home in Tacoma.”

“Tacoma?”

“Yes.”

“I never liked that girl,” Bettina said. Kendall nodded.

“I know, Mom. You’ve told me. Tori’s latest trouble made me think of Jason.”

“Jason was very handsome, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. He was.” Kendall didn’t allow her eyes to tear up. She couldn’t start that now.

“I loved him, Mom,” she said. Bettina’s washed-out blue eyes studied her daughter’s face, looking for something, but not seeing it.

“I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did,” she said. Kendall nodded.

“I know. I’m just not sure about everything back then. If . . .” Her words trailed off.

“I know where you’re going, honey,” she said.

“And we can’t talk about it.”

“Can’t we talk about it now, Mom? It has been such a long time.”

“Leave it alone, honey. Keep doing the right thing. You were made for doing the right thing.” Bettina closed her eyes, her signal that she was either tired or the conversation was over. Kendall couldn’t quite be sure.

“All right, Mom,” she said, leaning down to kiss her good-bye. They had never been able to talk about it. It was clear that no matter how much time had passed, there would be no good time to discuss Jason or any of it. Heading out the door, she played her message from Adam.

“Kendall, you’ve got to find out what’s up with Tori. Don’t you have a friend over there in Tacoma? Someone you can call with some kind of police referral? I don’t know anyone, or I would. See you at the meeting. Only seven days to go and we get our freedom back.” Kendall didn’t need a nudge to find out what was up in Tacoma with their old classmate. She’d already decided she’d do so as a professional courtesy. After all, she thought, they probably have no idea who they’re dealing with. Tori was always pretty good at fooling people. She had written down the name of the lead detective on the case: Eddie Kaminski.

A guilty conscience can be akin to a thermos of black coffee at midnight. Eyes cannot stay shuttered. Muscles cannot relax. Sleep is a quest beyond the grasp of those who wrestle with the wrongs they’ve done. The clock is a snare drum. Darius Fulton couldn’t sleep. He’d tossed and turned the entire night. A loose bedsheet nearly encircled his neck and choked him. He’d wished that it had. Every time he almost drifted off to sleep, he saw the smear of red on Tori Connelly’s nightgown. It had pooled above her thighs in a swirling pattern that he was certain was caused by her hurried run across the street to his house. Her skin was white. Paler than he’d ever seen. She wasn’t a serial tanner like so many of the younger women he’d dated after his wife had dumped him. She had seemed classier, kinder. And while her charms were more than just her physical attributes, those were unquestionably the reason why he’d slept with her. It was only one time. It was a mistake and he knew it. She was married. Yet it felt so good. They’d come across each other at a lecture at the Washington State History Museum in downtown Tacoma. The museum was in a completely refurbished 1911 train depot and was considered—along with a new museum dedicated to glass arts—a cornerstone of the city’s rebirth. They’d noticed each other going inside.

“We’re neighbors,” she said, walking toward him, “at least I think so.”

“Welcome to the City of Destiny,” he said.

“I guess I should have brought over a pie or something.”

“Oh, does your wife bake?” she asked, looking at the pale band of white skin where his wedding ring had once been.

“I’m separated. That’s why I’m here alone.”

“My husband is a workaholic,” she said.

“That’s my excuse. And I’m sticking with it.” Two days later, he was over at her house ostensibly because she was having problems with the alarm system. Tori put her hand on his shoulder, letting it loiter as he peered into the wiring with a flashlight. She let her hand slide down his back, landing at the leather of his belt. He turned around and looked at her. Her touch was an unexpected invitation and Darius took it. He leaned closer and kissed her.

“I’m so lonely,” she said.

“I am, too.” They kissed again.

“Tori, this isn’t right.”

“It seems right to me,” she said. Ten minutes later, they were sprawled out naked under the canopy of a big bed in the guest room. She was, without question, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. It was as if he’d been captured by some kind of superior being from another world. Her touch was electric. Her voice, her breath, all of it made his body throb with pleasure.

“Tori,” he said, “you are an amazing woman.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” she said. The next day, her husband out of town, Darius showed up with a bottle of wine. She met him at the door, but she didn’t invite him inside.

“Darius,” she said, “I think you might have the wrong idea here.”

“I wasn’t being presumptuous,” he said, before reading her body language and the cool expression on her face.

“I mean, I’m sorry.” There was no smile on her face, no trace of anything that indicated any kind of sympathy for the awkwardness of the moment.

“I’m not interested,” she said. He lowered the wine bottle to his side.

“We’re not lovers,” she said.

“What happened was fun, but only a little bit fun.” His face went red. Tori Connelly was dismissing him. If he’d felt that he might have gotten his game back the night before ... if he felt that whatever his cheating wife had done to him was now erased by sex with a beautiful woman, he was misguided.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I guess I made a mistake.” Darius didn’t know it at the time, but he was so right about that. So very, very right. And now Alex Connelly was dead. He dialed the number Detective Eddie Kaminski had left the night of Alex Connelly’s murder, the night that Tori Connelly had been shot. It went to voice mail and he did as commanded.

“Darius Fulton here. I want to come in and talk to you. In person.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tacoma

Corazón White rolled a cart with a snack for Tori Connelly, a task that a nurse would never have to do if not for the budget cutbacks that left the hospital short staffed. Mrs. Connelly had somehow managed to make a bad situation worse. The gunshot victim’s latest annoyance was her request for an egg white omelet and side of whole wheat toast “no crust please” and “a dark juice of either acai or pomegranate.”

“We have orange, tomato, or pineapple,” Corazón said while she took her order and did her vitals for the doctor’s rounds earlier that morning. Tori frowned and fussed with the IV line again.

“This is a hospital, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course it is.”

“Surely, you’ve heard of the benefits of dark juices.” She wanted to play dumb and say her name wasn’t Shirley. Mrs. Connelly was getting on her nerves.

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, your dietician here ought to have his or her work permit pulled. The juices you offer might as well be colored sugar water, because you’re not giving your patients anything of value.” The “work permit” phrase was a slam and Corazón knew it. She’d also waitressed through nursing school and knew that such arguments can never be won.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. It turned out she could do next to nothing. Mrs. Connelly wasn’t getting any pomegranate juice. She was getting orange like everyone else on the floor.

“Best I could do,” Corazón said, wheeling the tray into the room.

“Your best is not going to be noted on my comment card. If you have one here. I guess one would be surprised if you did.” Corazón wanted to say something rude back, but she held her tongue. The woman with the wound on her thigh and the perfect haircut thought she was in a spa or hotel, not a hospital. She sure wasn’t acting like a woman who had just lost her husband in a violent shooting. She started to pull the curtain, even though the room was without a second bed.

“I know you’ll want some peace to eat your meal, Mrs. Connelly.” After her encounter with “the bitch in 561D,” Corazón did only the minimum required. She saw the patient. She tried not to engage her. The woman on the other side of the perma-drawn curtain didn’t seem to mind. Being alone and being the subject of hospital gossip didn’t trouble her one iota. Corazón stalled when she came to get the food tray. Tori Connelly was on the phone and Corazón didn’t want to disturb her. Instead, she parked herself a few steps inside the doorway.

“Do not call me back,” Tori said. A short pause.

“Are you listening? I do not want to talk to you. Not for a while.” Her tone was demanding and exceedingly direct.

“I won’t say another word about it and neither will you.” The next pause was a bit longer.

“You will do what I say. Good-bye.” Corazón wasn’t completely sure what she heard, but she’d been browbeaten by Tori Connelly once and that was enough. She waited a second, and then made her presence known by rattling the metal cart.

“Hope you’re feeling better,” she said. Tori looked at the young nurse when the curtain parted. She was wary. Her eyes fixed on Corazón’s.

“Talking to my sister just now.”

“Oh, your chart says you don’t have any family,” Corazón said, careful not to sound like she was anything but bored with her patient. She disliked this lady, but she knew the type. They’d make trouble for anyone they could. Making trouble was a sport for those who could afford to play the game.

“She’s coming from Seattle,” Tori said.

“Seattle’s pretty.”

“And boring. You’d like my sister.” Corazón wasn’t sure who was the subject of the put-down—the sister or her. She was just glad that whenever Tori Connelly was discharged, she’d be rid of her. Her sister, poor thing, was stuck with that woman for the rest of her life.

“I want to see the doctor. A real doctor. Not a nurse. Not a trainee.” Tori pulled herself up.

“I want out of here. I can rest more comfortably at home.” Corazón figured they both could.

“The doctor will be in soon. Just rest, okay?” She left the room glad that the patient wanted to leave and feeling sorry for the sister who was stuck with such a . . . Class-A bitch, she thought. Yeah, that’s what she is.

There was something oddly gratifying about the e-mails—knowing that she would see them, react to them, and they’d make love.

I miss you. I miss how you feel in my arms.

You are being cold to me. How come?

What have I done?

I saw you yesterday outside. I waved but you ignored me. I don’t get it.

Your husband is a fool. He’s not taking care of you. Not like I would.

Please. Don’t do this to me. Give me another chance.

Not every message got a reply, but those that did were unfailingly direct.

Stop.

I don’t want to see you again.

My husband knows what happened and he loves me enough to forgive me.

It is over.

Smooth jazz played from the stereo in the other room, but it did little to abate the tension in the air. The lovely little house in Fircrest never held a vibe that matched its charming Cape Cod exterior. Laura and Parker Connelly were mother and son, but they were increasingly at odds. Alex Connelly’s brutal murder on the other side of town had done nothing to bring them together. The two residents in that little house knew firsthand that times of crisis aren’t always measured in the positive. Sometimes there was no bright side.

“Honey,” Laura Connelly said, putting her hand on her son’s shoulder as she cleared the dishes from the kitchen table, “I’m worried about you.” She had fixed him his “unhealthy favorite” fish and chips with chipotle mayo and a carrot-and-cabbage slaw. It was a thousand calories a serving and the house smelled like a fast-food joint. Laura didn’t mind. She noticed a widening gap in their relationship and she wanted more than anything to win him back. Whatever secrets he’d been keeping had been wearing on her.

“I’m doing okay, Mom,” he said unconvincingly. He fished a French fry off her plate as she started for the sink, a wobbly stack of dishes in hand.

“Are you, really?” Without turning around, Laura started rinsing plates in preparation for loading the dishwasher. Avoiding eye contact was a strategy. Her son hated confrontation.

“You haven’t talked much about your father’s death.” Parker pushed back his chair and looked over at his mother.

“There isn’t much to talk about.” She turned off the faucet and reached for a kitchen towel. Again, no eye contact.

“It would be all right to be mad at him, if that’s what you’re feeling.”

“I am mad at him, but I really am not having any kind of struggle about him dying. He treated all of us like a big jerk. You, me, Tori.”

“Tori?”

“Yes, her, too.”

“How did he treat her? I thought they’d been happy.” He shook his head.

“I’m not going to get into it, Mom. Tori’s a private person. I just know stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Parker knew that on some level his mother had every reason to hate Tori. Yet he wanted her to know that she was wrong for doing so. Tori was a victim, too.

“Dad was cheating on her,” he said. Laura didn’t say it, but she wanted to. What goes around comes around.

“All right, let’s change the subject. Tell me about this girlfriend of yours.”

“Have you been spying on me again?”

“A mother looking out for her son isn’t spying, Parker.”

“She’s just some girl. She’s cool. That’s all you need to know.”

“When do I get to meet her?”

“I don’t know, Mom, maybe never.” Part of him wanted to shout it in the middle of the mall that he and Tori were lovers. But his mother would never, ever understand. He didn’t think anyone could understand. He also knew that what he and his stepmother were doing was illegal.

“If she’s so cool, why can’t I meet her?” Laura asked.

“Because you can’t,” he said.

“I don’t want to see you get hurt.” The idea of his mother dispensing that kind of advice set him off. His face went red. She could be so stupid. Tori warned him about women like his mother. They say they know best because they don’t want you to find what eluded them, she said the first time they made love. I know best. I can give you what you need.

“Jesus, Mom, there’s no chance of that. I’ve found my soul mate. Look at you. You’re alone. You don’t have a freaking soul who cares about you. You think I want to end up like you?” He got up from the table and started for his bedroom.

“And I don’t appreciate you going through my stuff, Mom. That’s over the line, even for a control freak like you.” Laura didn’t dissolve into tears, though she felt like it. Her son was growing up. He was trying to find his own way. He was such a good, sweet boy. She was sure that whatever girl he was dating was going to be just like him—good, sweet. She could not have been more wrong. Parker’s phone buzzed. He looked down at the text message and took a deep breath.

HAVE U LEFT YET?

THE SOONER THE BETTER.

MISS U.

LOVE, ME.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kitsap County

Kitsap County forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman kept a completely well thought-out workspace, even if her surroundings suggested more of the makings of a gruesome garage sale than the offices of the county coroner. The house at 704 Sidney was exactly that, a house. County commissioners and law enforcement had resumed talks about the need for a state-of-the-art facility, but money remained in short supply. Recently, jail and administrative offices had been renovated and rebuilt, and clamped-handed conservative taxpayers were not in the mood to shell out more so soon. So the sad little house pressed into service by a tight budget had been the place of a thousand autopsies in its dank, cement-floored basement. Like Hollywood deaths, Kitsap deaths often came in threes. That month the tragic ending to a trio of lives had already crammed the first week in May of the coroner’s calendar. The first was a Southworth toddler who’d been run over by her father as he backed out of the driveway in a hurry for work. The second found its way to the basement morgue in the remains of a Port Orchard man whose hand had become tangled in a fishing net with no time to free himself before being pulled underwater just west of Blake Island. The third was a Poulsbo woman who had packed up all of her belongings to make her getaway from a husband who’d used her as a punching bag whenever he drank—which was daily. She’d made a run for it one night, but she wasn’t fast enough. He severed her jugular with the splintered end of a Monarch vodka bottle. That last one echoed scenes from Birdy’s own childhood. Not the murder, of course, but the darkness that came with living in a household in which booze was the dominating force behind every act of evil done to her mother. And there were too many of those moments to forget. Outside, Kendall Stark peered into the small window of the basement autopsy suite of the Kitsap County Coroner’s Office. It was dark, which was in its own way a relief. Kendall didn’t mind dealing with the aftermath of an actual crime scene when gathering evidence. Those moments came with a kind of adrenaline surge to ensure that everything was done with complete urgency, as if a dead person’s life depended on it. Which it did. On the other hand, autopsies were slow, mechanical, and sad. Though they were often the start of the real investigation, they held no adrenaline surge for the practitioner or observer. The hemline of Kendall Stark’s black slacks wicked water from a puddle as she went around the coroner’s office toward the front door. The detective always felt a little funny about going inside. Walking up the wet sidewalk between the overgrown shrubberies, up the concrete steps to the front door, felt like one was visiting a friend, not a county government office. She buzzed, identified herself, and went inside. From the small foyer, she passed the desk of the administrative assistant, a capable silver-haired woman who’d been with the office longer than anyone. Kendall smiled at Pamela, who was on the phone negotiating a warranty on a Stryker saw that had gone kaput. She walked toward Dr. Waterman’s office, across green hi-lo carpeting that had been splattered with stains made by God-knew-what. Leaking bags of bodily fluids? Or the dribble of tea from the kitchen in the back of the office? Birdy, her black hair swept back by a bright red clip, hovered over her work. A plastic and foam tote holding the fragments of a woman who’d been shot three times in the head by her estranged boyfriend sat on her desk, the focus of her attention. She was in the midst of marking chain-of-custody paperwork that would take the tissue samples to the state crime lab in Olympia, where toxicologists would examine everything for drugs—prescription or otherwise.

“I thought you might be downstairs,” Kendall said.

“Heard about the crash on the highway last night.” Birdy looked up. She slid a manifest about what was being dispatched to Olympia into a glassine. She scooted the tote aside.

“The girl was seventeen. Died at the scene. Broken neck. Honestly too many broken bones to count, but I logged in every one. Once you find a severed spinal cord, you don’t need to look for another cause of death.” Birdy let out a sigh and ran a line of evidence tape down the center of the tote, over the glassine, and under the bottom of the container.

“Driver, a drunk from Gig Harbor, walked away without so much as a scratch.” Kendall sat in one of two old typing chairs being used for visitors in a place that seldom had many, or rather, many visitors who were living.

“Seventeen,” she said.

“That’s so young.” That’s the same age as Jason.

“Almost everyone who comes through here has died too young, Kendall. But you’re right. This is a heartbreaker of the worst kind. The girl was a straight-A student and captain of her tennis team. Pretty. Smart. Athletic. The kind of girl you’d want your daughter to be.” Fifteen years ago, Kendall was that girl.

“Notification?” As Kendall slid her coat off her shoulders and let it fall over the chair back, its sleeves tumbled to the awful green carpet and she pulled them onto her lap. Birdy nodded.

“Handled. The parents were at the scene when they brought her in.” The words were so painful, Kendall was grateful that this was one notification she didn’t have to make.

“Nothing is more difficult,” she said. Birdy looked at the clock on the wall behind Kendall.

“She’s in the chiller. The guys from Rill’s Chapel will be here in an hour.” The doctor and the detective were friends, and they used a few minutes of their time to catch up. At forty, Birdy had married the owner of a Port Orchard restaurant the previous summer. Her life had seemed to run in a series of long-delayed changes. She never looked happier. A sparkle in her eyes. A smile on her face. Birdy Waterman was a late bloomer, a woman who’d put her career ahead of personal aspirations and desires. She once told Kendall that she’d forgone marriage and all that went with it out of a sense of duty, a need to achieve all she could.

“You know,” she said.

“Because of where I came from and how what I do reflects on my people.” Kendall had understood, yet there was nothing to which she could personally relate. She’d had the nice middle-class life in Small Town, America. Her parents adored her and her sister, and they’d never really gone without. If they needed something, they got it. It wasn’t always the best quality, but growing up in Port Orchard, they didn’t necessarily know the difference between Walmart and Nordstrom. Birdy had been born on a reservation to an alcoholic mother and a father she barely knew.

“My people need something to hold on to, and every time I go home, I am reminded of that. It is loud and very, very clear.” Kendall knew that was true. One of the rare times was when she’d been over to Birdy’s new place on the bluff overlooking the Southworth ferry landing, she’d overheard bits and pieces of a phone conversation.

“Are you all right, Mom?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Mom, just go to bed. Just crawl under the covers.”

“No, there is nothing I can prescribe for you; you need to see Dr. Bergman.”

“Mom, don’t do this now.” Kendall had seen the hurt and fear in Birdy’s eyes after she hung up the phone. Awkwardness had penetrated the air.

“I’m sorry,” Birdy said.

“My mother has problems.” Kendall considered Birdy one of the most accomplished women she’d ever known. Certainly, she knew she’d grown up poor, but somehow she hadn’t let it pass through her mind that the stunning black-haired woman with the medical degree had any battles left to fight.

“I’m sorry,” Kendall said.

“If there’s anything I can do . . .” The offer had been genuine, but words uttered in that sequence rarely carry much weight. People mean well most of the time, but sometimes they only mean to put a period on an uncomfortable moment. An offer of kindness that will never be cashed in, never be due.

“You’re not here about the crash vic this morning, are you, Kendall?” Kendall shook her head.

“No. Something from quite some time ago. You probably don’t have it.” Birdy smiled.

“I sense a little trepidation there. You must know about our wonderful filing system.” She looked toward the stairway to the attic.

“I’m sure it’s better than ours,” Kendall said, recalling the difficulty the sheriff’s office had when the records division went to a fully computerized system some years ago.

“What’s the case? And, almost more important, when was it?”

“November or October 1994. A fatal accident on Banner Road. The victim was a seventeen-year-old-boy named Jason Reed.” The forensic pathologist took in the information, but her face was without recognition.

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” she said.

“It’ll take some looking. I can dig around this afternoon.” Kendall thanked her, stood, and reached for her coat, a long lapis peacoat that was more suitable for winter than for spring. Washington weather for you, she’d thought, when she put it on that morning. Never warm when it should be.

“No big rush,” she finally said to Birdy, though she really didn’t mean it.

Kendall walked back from the coroner’s office across the parking lot toward the rear entrance of the Kitsap County sheriff’s offices. The rain had slickened the lot, leaving a dozen puddles swirling with the iridescence of motor oil. She drew her hands into her pockets to hike up her pant legs. She needed to do something about those pants. Ordering online was easy, but the fit was never right. She wondered how it was that so many years had passed since she thought of Jason and the night that he’d died. In the months following the accident, she doubted that a day went by without her thinking of it. Jason Reed’s death had changed the trajectory of so many of their lives. Especially her own.

It took about two minutes for the staff in the Tacoma PD crime lab to validate that the gun recovered from the Connelly residence had been, in fact, the murder weapon. Three casings retrieved from the scene and slugs from Alex Connelly’s brain were fired from a 357 Ruger. DNA analysis on the gun had confirmed it. Traces of blood and hair—belonging to Alex Connelly—were found on the outside edges of the barrel. A second person’s DNA was also captured along the underside of the gun’s barrel. There was a partial print, but it was barely there at all. Also missing were the weapon’s identification numbers. They’d been somewhat crudely scratched out.

“An attempt to obliterate the serial numbers was made by someone,” a technician named Carol-Ann told Kaminski when he sidled up next to her behind the counter, where she’d placed the gun under a microscope outfitted with a camera. He leaned as close as he could without interfering with her personal space. Carol-Ann could be touchy.

“You read anything?” She barely glanced at him before answering.

“Of course. That’s my job. I’ll run some prints for you, but the printer’s in its god-awful cleaning cycle—ten minutes or ten hours.”

“Just read ’em. I’ve got a pen.” She read out the numbers and Kaminski jotted them down.

“Wonder where this will lead?” he said.

“Back to Connelly’s front door,” Carol-Ann said.

“I’m not a detective, but I’d say a random intruder might shop at Target, but I doubt they’d bring the bag to the crime scene and dump it off right in the bushes or pond or whatever.” He almost corrected her by calling the store Tar-zhay, as Lindsey did, but he didn’t think that would get Carol-Ann to smile. Nothing ever did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kitsap County

Kendall hadn’t suggested any real urgency, but Birdy Waterman was never the type to hear a request made more than once. She found the 1994 Jason Reed file in the attic in a plastic tub of other files that had never been converted to microfilm or destroyed as a matter of disposal protocol. That wasn’t unusual, given the cost of the conversion process, but it was fortuitous. She went into the coroner’s office kitchen with its view of the county’s administrative buildings, courthouse, and always-jammed parking lots. At one time the homeowners who lived there when the house was new probably had views of the Olympics and Sinclair Inlet. She poured some coffee from a formerly white, then brown Mr. Coffee machine that had been there longer than she had. The file folder was thin: a single X-ray film, a death certificate, and a partial police report covering the basics of the accident. Tori O’Neal had been the driver, with the victim Jason Reed in the passenger seat. Her sister, Lainie, had been in the backseat. The twins’ statements were identical. They’d been to a party where there had been drinking. The roadway was wet. Tori was driving at least ten miles an hour too fast—but, she insisted, not much more than that. The file was interesting for what it didn’t contain—an autopsy report. Yet, a death certificate had been issued. A predecessor had signed off on it—internal injuries the result of impact in a car accident. Birdy set the film against the light box and flipped the switch. It was an X-ray of Jason Reed’s chest, indicating several broken ribs. The fractures were consistent with the crash described in the report. She looked closer, fumbling for glasses she still was not used to wearing. The fractures did not indicate that they’d splintered and pierced any organs. Nor was there any pooling of blood. She looked closer yet. Although the previous pathologist had likely meant only to cover only the dead boy’s chest, at the top of the frame Birdy’s dark eyes fastened on the horseshoe-shaped hyoid bone. It had been broken. In a boy the age of Jason Reed, that particular bone was not likely to have broken in the impact of the crash—it was known for its flexibility as it hadn’t completed the process of ossification. Yet Jason’s was broken, crushed, smashed. She set down the film and called Kendall.

“You in your office?” she asked.

“I am.”

“Good. I feel like taking a walk. I’ve got something to show you.”

Birdy Waterman smiled at the photo of Cody and Steven on Kendall’s desk. It was an image Kendall had taken of the two of them crabbing off the dock in Harper. Though they hadn’t caught anything of consequence, it was clear that father and son were enjoying the sunny weather, the water, and the pleasure of just hanging out and having a good time.

“Cody looks happy,” she said, taking a seat.

“That was a great day. We’re having a lot of those lately,” Kendall said, not wanting to jinx it, but happy to acknowledge that life had become better, more joyous, over the past months. Hers was not like anyone else’s family, but she was feeling a lot better about their lives and the road that they’d been on since Cody’s autism diagnosis.

“I have something to show you,” Birdy said, turning the banker’s lamp on Kendall’s desk upward. She pulled the film from an oversize envelope.

“Jason Reed,” she said. Kendall nodded and looked on.

“I knew you’d find him.”

“I don’t want to lie and tell you it was difficult. There seems to be a method to the madness in the attic.”

“Sounds like a horror movie,” Kendall said. Birdy missed the reference and looked unsure.

“The Madness in the Attic starring some TV actor.”

“Yes, Tony Danza.” Kendall laughed.

“I like it. Random, but I like it.” The forensic pathologist held the film to the light, darkening the room. She pointed out her discovery.

“Is this conclusive?” Kendall asked. Birdy didn’t think so.

“Not at all. But given what we know about Tori O’Neal now, it might be wise to take another look.”

“Why didn’t they catch that the first time?” Kendall asked. Birdy shook her head.

“I’d like to say that I’m a lot better at my job than any of my predecessors, but I won’t. Mistakes happen.”

“Are you thinking, what, a second autopsy?” Birdy’s dark eyes flashed.

“Yes. And sadly, you know what that means.” Kendall’s eyes landed on Cody’s photo, his halo of blond hair, his blue eyes, and the smile that spoke of a cherished moment and the promise of more to come.

“No mother should ever have to go through that twice,” she said.

Mary Reed knew that the rhythm of her life had been interrupted. At fifty-nine, she was a woman who had always liked order. She’d found comfort in ensuring that everything lined up in ways that it ought to. She did that for more than twenty-five years as a custodian at the Kitsap County Courthouse. All of her cleaning supplies were set on her swiveling-caster cart in a sequence that made perfect sense. She always worked from top to bottom: glass and mirror cleaner (no streaks), counter surface cleanser (disinfects, too), and the industrial floor cleaner that she was sure would give her lung cancer someday, despite assurances that it was not toxic to humans. Mary, a woman of some girth and muscle, considered the sequence of things in everything she did. And yet, she knew there was a great failure to her theory that one thing should always follow the other. A child should never die before his or her parents. Never should a mother watch her baby’s coloring move from the pink of life to the blue of death. Never. Ever. As she rubbed out the spitty spray above the sinks in the second floor’s women’s bathroom, she saw her own reflection for the first time in a long while. She was no longer a young woman. New creases bolted from the corners of her pale blue eyes. The same color as Jason’s. She pulled back a fallen strand of her dark-from-the-bottle brown hair. The color of her hair belonged to no one, not anyone on earth. She rubbed at the streaks with greater vigor, first with her fingertips, then with the heel of her palm. Harder. Faster. The streak was getting worse, not better. The damn mirror cleaner was no good. Probably eco-friendly. Damn! She stopped for a moment and turned around.

“Are you all right, Mary?” It was Grace, another custodian. Mary shook off the intrusion.

“I’m fine.” Grace, a Korean woman of about twenty-five with too-short bangs and overwhitened teeth, stepped a little closer. Her brown eyes were intense with concern.

“But you’re crying,” she said. Mary dropped her cloth and blotted her eyes with the inside of her elbow.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Give me a second, Grace.” The younger woman, not really convinced whatsoever, nodded and backed away. Mary wasn’t fine, of course. She’d been thinking of Jason and how he’d be in his thirties had he lived. A husband maybe? A father? A police officer? A lawyer? A TV star? She would never know what he would have been because he was gone, a tight, sad slipknot in the sequence of what she knew to be the proper progression of things in an ordered, fair world. There was no one to talk to about it anymore. It had been nearly fifteen years. Mary’s husband, Doug, had specifically told her on more than one occasion, maybe a hundred occasions, their son’s untimely death was no longer a subject he’d consider for conversation.

“I feel as you do, babe,” he said.

“But we have a daughter. We have a marriage. Our lives can’t be about the loss we’ve suffered. Our lives should be about the joy we had with Jason and the future that Sarah brings to our lives.” She knew Doug’s sentiments came from the survivor’s part of his heart, the little place that somehow recognized that with each beat of life, a person must go on. With a daughter at home there was no other option. No curl up and die. No way she could pour a handful of pills down her throat and pray that God would forgive her for what she’d done. Mary Reed studied her image in the mirror once more. The whites of her eyes were now braided with the tiny fissures of red that come from crying. She wrapped her arms around herself. It was as if she could pull herself together in a way that felt as though someone, Jason maybe, had given her a hug. She took a deep breath into her former smoker’s lungs and conjured the memories of her baby. The one taken from her in a bloody crash Tori O’Neal caused on Banner Road.

Kendall Stark knew where to find Jason Reed’s mother. She’d seen Mary Reed at least once or twice a week at the courthouse when she was chatting with deputies working the security detail by the main entry, or when she was headed into court to testify. It was just before her shift when Kendall found Mary in the locker room in the courthouse basement. Mary smiled when she saw the detective.

“Great minds think alike,” she said.

“Hi, Mary,” Kendall said.

“How so?”

“I’ve been thinking about you lately, wondering if we’d be talking.”

“You’ve been following Tori O’Neal’s case, have you?” Mary nodded.

“Like everyone else.” She pulled on a deep-pocketed smock and stuffed a cleaning rag and a small squeegee into the front panel.

“Let’s sit,” Kendall said, indicating the bench. Mary complied.

“I used to feel sorry for Tori, so young, so pretty. Her whole life ruined by an accident. Not anymore. I never thought she was that sorry. She seemed sorrier about missing senior prom than the fact that she killed my boy.”

“I was only a teenager then,” Kendall said.

“I remember things about the accident, how sad we were about losing Jason. I don’t know if I ever told you how sorry we were. I was at his funeral, but I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

“That’s all right, Kendall. I know you care about people. I know that’s why you do what you do. Me, I’ve spent my life cleaning up the mess. Maybe it’s because I could never clean up, make right, what happened to Jason.” Kendall didn’t completely understand, but she put her hand on Mary’s. It was a gesture that was meant to comfort, and it did.

“I know. I wanted to talk to you about something very important, but it is also very difficult.” Mary fixed her eyes on the detective’s, but she stayed quiet, letting Kendall speak without interruption.

“We’re looking at Jason’s death with fresh eyes. It isn’t that we think that there is anything there other than a tragic accident, we just want to make sure.”

“Because of Tori’s husbands?”

“Something like that.”

“I wasn’t there that night, and I don’t know what happened.”

“I know. But I need your help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Dr. Waterman wants to do a full review of Jason’s case.”

“All right. That’s fine. You mean reinterviewing people?” Kendall narrowed her focus and looked Mary in the eyes.

“More than that,” she said.

“We want to conduct a second autopsy on Jason.” Mary’s eyes started to flood, but she didn’t cry.

“How can you do that?” she asked.

“That’s the hard part and that’s why I’m here. I want to ask you something that no mother would ever want to be asked. And I don’t take it lightly,” Kendall said.

“I want to ask you for permission to exhume his body.” Mary shook her head.

“I don’t know about that.”

“I know this is hard, Mary,” Kendall said.

“No, I won’t allow it.”

“You want to know the truth, don’t you?”

“We know the truth, don’t we?”

“I’m going to tell you something very important and something very confidential.”

“What is it?”

“The file on Jason is very, very scant on information. We have the accident report and a single X-ray. No photos. No nothing.”

“Yes.”

“The X-ray shows a slight irregularity,” Kendall said.

“It appears that Jason’s hyoid was compressed, broken.” Mary looked confused.

“Hyoid?”

“A bone in his neck,” Kendall said.

“From the accident?”

“Not likely.” Mary looked down at the chamois that she’d been absentmindedly balling up in her hands.

“I’ll have to think about it a while. My baby’s been undisturbed for fifteen years.”

Kendall Stark looked at her phone. There was still plenty of time to get over to Tacoma to talk with Detective Kaminski. The round trip across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and back took about an hour. She dialed his direct line and he answered right away.

“Not a good day today,” he said.

“Things stacking up a little on our case. Maybe later in the week?” Kendall understood completely. She knew how impossible it was to get everything done, every procedure done correctly, in the beginnings of a murder case.

“We have an exhumation in the works,” she said.

“An irregularity appeared on the films of the dead boy.” It felt strange to call Jason the “dead boy” when she knew him. It seemed so impersonal and she didn’t like the way it came out of her mouth. But it also struck her that Jason would always be a dead boy, never a man. Never anything that he had dreamed about.

“Interesting,” Kaminski said.

“But just so you know, we don’t like your friend for this shooting. In case that’s where you’re going with this.” Kendall took a moment.

“No, not at all. Going for the truth, that’s all.”

“That’s the name of the game,” he said.

“What else are you doing on the Reed case?”

“There’s not much we can do. Only three witnesses, an addict who came on the scene and the two sisters.”

“Addict around?”

“As a matter of fact, he is. He’s a pastor of a church in Kingston.”

“Parker, you let me down once,” Tori Connelly said, her voice decidedly stern, the kind of icy, emotionless tone that reminded the teenager more of his mother.

“You can’t do it to me again. You need to be a man now.”

“I am a man,” he said.

“You’re acting like a loser. I want to be with a winner.”

“I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it then. You know that. I’m not like you.” She let out an exasperated sigh.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve given you everything I have, my heart, my soul, and you have failed me time and again. I don’t know why I bothered to fall in love with you. I wish I didn’t. I wish that I’d fallen in love with a man who would protect me. Save me. Take care of me.”

“I don’t know.” Tori seemed exasperated, possibly a little bored.

“You will. Parker, your fingerprints are on the gun used to kill your father. Your hair is on that ski mask.”

“It isn’t my hair,” Parker said.

“It’s his hair.”

“It is, baby. I had to do something to make sure that you’d stay strong and fight for me.” There was a long silence.

“Parker?”

“Yeah, you did that to me?” His voice was shaky. He wasn’t a man after all.

“Pull yourself together, Parker. Are you listening to me? I did it because I love you. I love us.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kingston

It was late, the time of day when Mike Walsh wanted nothing more than to go home to his little house in the woods, feed his cat, and watch some reality-show trash. The reality-show TV schedule was key. Those shows that reminded him that not only were there others to save out in the world, there were many who could not be saved. On the bulletin board facing his computer screen was a bumper sticker that riffed on the motto of AA, an organization that had helped save his own life.

ONE SOUL AT A TIME.

He heard footsteps and a knock on the door.

“Come on in, Susan,” he said.

“ ’Bout ready to leave for the night.” The door lurched open.

“I’m not Susan.”

“Son, do I know you?” Parker stood still, his eyes dark and lifeless, the kind of eyes that refuse to divulge or betray any emotion. His hands were tucked inside the front pockets of his Western Washington University hoodie.

“I’m new. Are you Pastor Mike?”

“That I am,” he said, looking down and noticing that the teen was rocking slightly on his heels. Was he drunk? High? Nervous? All three? “What can I do for you?” Pastor Mike smiled. It was a wide smile, but a jarring one. His teeth had been damaged by years of drug abuse. They were more gray than white. In the illumination pouring in from a solar tube skylight, it was clear that his skin had been ravaged, too—pockmarks long since healed dotted his cheeks.

“Will you pray with me?” the teenager asked, as he started to cry. Pastor Mike felt the surge of emotion that comes from seeing a person in need make that step to the Lord.

“Let’s pray side by side in the Lord,” he said. Parker didn’t say anything as Pastor Mike led him from his office out to the sanctuary. Its pink-hued fir woodwork cast a warm glow, even as the darkness fell in the woods that framed the Quonset hut church. They both knelt down. The pastor closed his eyes and folded his hands, but Parker didn’t. He needed to see what he was doing. He wanted to hold that hunting knife. His hand shook as he gripped it. The minister was deep in prayer. The prayer was for him. Parker knew that he needed it. He also knew that what he was doing was the only way he could ensure that his dreams come true. That he would be with her.

“I need you to stop that.”

“I’m praying for you.”

“I don’t want you to do that.” He showed the blade.

“What are you doing with that?”

“Lie on your stomach.” Pastor Mike shook his head.

“You don’t want to do this. You don’t need to do this. We don’t have much money, but you can have what we have. It’s yours.”

“Get on your stomach now.” His eyes now filled with the solid black of his pupils, Pastor Mike complied.

“Hands behind your back.” He did so. Parker unspooled the bright red duct tape from the pocket of his hoodie. He climbed onto Pastor Mike’s back and started to bind him. It surprised him that the man on the floor didn’t fight. Didn’t he want to live? Had his own dad gone so willingly, too? Was it that easy to take a life? “Why are you doing this? There are other ways to make money, son.” Parker was doing his best to follow the plan but the walls were closing in on him. Fear was taking the place of the excitement of the moment.

“This isn’t about money. This is for love. And I’m not your son. My piece-of-shit dad is dead.” Parker plunged the knife into the side of the minister’s neck. Blood immediately started to shoot forth. It was a darker red than he imagined. Like the color of the wine that Tori had shared with him the first time they’d made love in his father’s bed. Parker pulled back and then shoved the knife into the minister’s side, then again. And again. The room was turning red.

“I’m sorry. But I have to do this. You are in the way.” Mike tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He was choking on his own blood.

“Help me,” he said, the words sputtering from his bloody lips.

“Jesus will help you. Jesus loves you,” the teenager said, without a bit of irony in his voice. He suddenly felt strong, empowered. He stood up and looked himself over. He was clean. There was blood everywhere, but not a drop on him. It was as if God had been watching out for him. For his love. For his soul mate. All of this was meant to be. As the syrupy pool of red spread over the floor, Parker stood there. Scared, happy, excited, and proud. It was all good. He was the man that she needed him to be. The money pouch from the week’s collection sat on the pastor’s desk. What he did was for love, not money, but the teenager grabbed the pouch anyway. A little cash could come in handy on the trip that would take him and Tori to their new lives. A little money was always a good thing.

Something wasn’t right. Laura Connelly knew teenagers either took inordinately lengthy showers—or none at all. But after Parker returned to Fircrest from a day at the skateboard park in Port Orchard, he’d taken a half-hour-long shower. He also loaded the washing machine and washed his jeans, T-shirt, and underwear. Clean was good, of course, but such devotion to helping around the house was out of character.

“Honey, what is it?” she asked Parker when she found him holed up in his bedroom. He was in bed, facing the wall.

“Leave me alone, Mom.”

“Parker, did something happen today?”