You Will Pay

  And probably too late for a stakeout, he thought, and let it go, returning home with an excited Roscoe and thinking about Bernadette for most of the drive. At his cabin, he cleaned up a little, then sent the picture of Eleanor Brady in the casket to himself so that he could blow it up on his computer. When he did, he studied the image.

  The woman sure as hell looked like Elle, or what he remembered of her . . . and yet he felt there was something not quite right. Since it had been nearly two decades since he’d seen her, he couldn’t place what was off about the picture, but there was something. He spent forty minutes searching the attic space adjacent to the loft, sorted through some dusty boxes, and discovered his old yearbook, which he dragged to his desk. Leaning back in his desk chair, he sifted through the pages and found several with pictures of a teenage Eleanor Brady.

  As he studied the slightly yellowed pages, he remembered the time he’d been with her, the innocence, the desire. And the guilt. It was during the time when he’d been dating Elle that he’d gotten involved with Naomi, the only time in his life that he’d been sexually involved with two women at once. It had been exhilarating and terrifying, a horny teenager’s fantasy that had quickly become a nightmare.

  When he’d taken up with Bernadette on the heels of the Elle/Naomi debacle, he’d been loyal to her, never once looking at another woman, including Elle and Naomi.

  “Honorable of you,” he scoffed, unhappy with his younger self.

  He wondered about his relationship with Bernadette. If things had worked out differently, if there hadn’t been the horror and chaos of the missing girls, would he and Bernadette have stuck it out? Eventually married? In the back of his mind he had a niggling suspicion that Bernadette Alsace could have been “the one.”

  Well, if you believed in those kinds of fantasies.

  Deep down, he didn’t.

  He compared all of the pictures of Elle in the yearbook to the girl in the casket. Yes, the woman in the casket was blond, with a straight nose and blue, blue eyes, but her lips didn’t seem as full and the dimple in her chin was less pronounced. Was it his imagination, a trick of light, or was she a different woman, posed to appear to be Elle? Of course, she would have to be someone else, someone much younger than Elle if the picture of the woman in the casket was recent. Elle would be close to forty now. And the girl in the picture couldn’t be older than twenty.

  Zooming to enlarge the photo, he studied every detail of the woman in the coffin.

  Of course the picture could have been altered or Photoshopped; the lab would be able to figure that out.

  He felt as if he were missing something, something important. What was it? With no answer, he walked downstairs, found a beer in the fridge, and returned to the loft. His face ached, so he popped a couple of ibuprofen, then with Roscoe snoring at his feet, he studied the woman’s face once more and wondered why all of the women had received the picture. YOU WILL PAY. What the hell did that mean? Pay for what? Monica’s death? The camp being closed? It had to be something to do with Elle, right? But what? Nothing was making any sense, and he even tried throwing Tyler Quade’s confession into the mix and that didn’t help. Yes, Tyler had killed Monica, but what did that have to do with Elle?

  “You will pay,” he repeated. All of the female counselors? For what? What kind of threat was that, and from whom? He sipped his beer, his eyes narrowing on the photograph. The dress, white, almost like a wedding dress, the white rose in her hands, the coffin . . . wait. He studied the rose again and his stomach tightened.

  He’d seen white roses recently.

  In Jeanette Brady’s living room, a bit of white in an otherwise gloomy room.

  A coincidence? He didn’t think so.

  His pulse quickened, though he told himself it could be nothing, the flowers were a thin connection at best.

  But it was the only connection he had.

  And he thought, draining his bottle, he was damned well going to check it out.

  * * *

  Maggie was beat. It was long after three in the morning by the time she’d showered and crashed in bed, Mr. Bones curled up on a pillow next to her. Still, despite the lateness of the hour and her body being exhausted, her mind was racing, her brain far from shutting down.

  She’d spent most of the night at the hotel, then another hour at the station, which had been a madhouse, officers called to duty, the press arriving en masse and demanding answers at the hotel and again at the Neahkahnie Sheriff’s Department. Somehow news of Kinley Marsh’s recording of the homicide had leaked, possibly from the reporter herself, and the story of Jo-Beth Leroy’s murder and arrest of her lover/killer was going viral.

  Kinley Marsh had wanted fame.

  Well, she’d found it.

  The ex-counselors had each opened up, including Reva Mercado, who had admitted to stealing the butcher knife for the prank to be played upon Monica O’Neal. The idea was to scare her, either by Tyler feigning being stabbed by the homicidal maniac Waldo Grimes, the escaped prisoner, or by threatening Monica with the weapon, but never, Reva had sworn, was anyone supposed to really get hurt or die. “That was all Tyler,” she’d insisted, sucking on a cigarette on the front porch of the hotel. “Jo-Beth and I, we had no idea. None. He’s crazy and he went rogue on us.”

  Which, of course, confirmed what Kinley had taped, Jo-Beth seeming upset and surprised that he’d actually killed Monica. And Tyler Quade had as much as admitted to the crime in the seconds before he killed Jo-Beth, both the confession and the homicide caught on Kinley’s hidden camera.

  There was no doubt in Maggie’s mind that Tyler Quade was going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

  Good.

  One less bit of homicidal vermin on the streets, the homicide cases of Monica O’Neal and Jo-Beth Leroy buttoned up. She was even certain that when she reinterviewed Reva Mercado, she would confess to another crime, that of being behind the wheel in the accident that had happened years before. Mercado would be looking at serious charges: Negligent Homicide was just for starters. Then there was the cover-up and lying to the authorities. Yeah, Mercado was going to need a good lawyer. Maggie wasn’t letting that one go. She thought she could, because of recent events and Mercado’s change of heart, convince her to come clean.

  Maybe.

  Time would tell.

  As the cat purred Maggie plumped her pillow, then rolled over, trying to fall asleep, but too many questions nagged at her.

  But what about Eleanor Brady and her disappearance? How did that fit in with Monica O’Neal’s murder? Or was it all coincidental? During the interviews, each of the women had shown Maggie texts that they’d received, pictures of what appeared to be a dead woman in a coffin, a woman who was a dead ringer for Eleanor. The images could have been Photoshopped, an old picture of Elle’s face superimposed on the body in the coffin. But why? And why would all the women receive the same picture—including Jo-Beth—along with the warning: YOU WILL PAY.

  It was troubling, to say the least.

  And what about all the sightings of Eleanor? Sosi Gavin, no, Gaffney now—she said she’d seen Eleanor the night on the beach and again recently when she’d arrived in Averille. Caleb Carter had sworn, though he’d been drunk, that he’d seen her. Annette Alsace had seen the “ghost” on the beach, too, years ago. Now, her sister, Bernadette, had sworn someone who looked like the missing woman had followed her in a blue Ford.

  Really?

  So now “ghosts” had driver’s licenses? And showed up in pictures? It all didn’t make sense, but then, tonight, Maggie’s brain was on overload. Tomorrow morning, if she could just sleep a few hours tonight, she’d look at all the facts and testimony with fresh eyes.

  Once they heard back from the phone company and the lab, maybe they could find answers. Yawning, she yanked the covers to her neck, exhaustion starting to overtake her just as Mr. Bones was waking up, doing his own stretching, and no doubt would want to go outside. Three a.m. seemed the time he chose to stir
.

  He stretched lazily, then came closer to paw her face. “Not a chance,” she whispered, and burrowed deeper under the blankets. She knew he would settle down. Eventually. Until then, she’d ignore him and sleep; a clear mind would help her sort out fact from fiction, and maybe by then the department would discover the source of the pictures of a supposedly dead Eleanor Brady and finally learn what had happened to her.

  Somehow, some way, Maggie thought, her brain finally shutting down, sleep tugging at her mind, the disappearance of the woman kept circling back to Lucas Dalton, her ex-lover and the last person to have admitted to seeing Eleanor alive.

  * * *

  Dawn was still over an hour away when Lucas parked on a side street a quarter of a mile from the Bradys’ house. Once his Jeep was hidden behind a hedge, he grabbed his stake-out bag and jogged through the night to the lane, where he positioned himself on the far side of a fence, his cover being a patch of Scotch broom. Equipped with night-vision goggles, he saw a doe and two fawns leap across a small creek before disappearing into the surrounding brush. Nearby he spied a handful of rabbits hopping through the skeletal berry vines and bracken that were encroaching on the Brady property.

  The rain had slackened, a mist rising as the night wore on.

  The Brady house was dark, no signs of life until nearly six when a light appeared in the window of Elle’s room, a patch of illumination in the dormer, the same window where he’d observed the blond woman the night before. The shades were drawn and he couldn’t make out an image, even with magnifying binoculars, but he was certain he’d seen a woman. Less than a minute later, a smaller window on a side of the house, a bathroom window, glowed bright as a light was snapped on.

  “Bingo,” he whispered to himself, though, of course, this could be nothing, a relative or friend of Jeanette’s she didn’t want to name—nothing more.

  But the little zing firing his blood, that gut instinct that he was on to something, suggested otherwise.

  And someone other than Jeanette, whose bedroom, the one she’d shared with Darryl, was on the first floor. The guest was definitely up very early.

  He considered knocking on the door, but believed whoever was in the house would hide, and he doubted he could obtain a search warrant to flush the visitor out. Jeanette would balk at letting him inside, so he had to wait.

  See what was up.

  Also, if it turned out to be nothing, if the visitor was just some shy friend, no one besides him would be the wiser.

  Either way, he’d find out.

  It didn’t take long.

  Under the cover of darkness he spied a woman emerge from the back door of the house. She walked quickly to a shed at the edge of the yard and unlocked a sliding barn door, then wheeled out a motorcycle.

  In a second, she was astride and kicking the bike to life.

  Lucas didn’t wait. He was on his feet in an instant and running to his SUV. Rather than confront her, he decided to follow her and even if it turned out to be a wild goose chase, he would have at the very least satisfied his curiosity. He couldn’t help but think that because she’d been hidden in Elle’s room there was some thread of connection to Elle, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was.

  Yet.

  He reached his Jeep and threw himself inside.

  Half a minute later, he was giving chase.

  To God-only-knew-where.

  CHAPTER 40

  Averille, Oregon

  Now

  Bernadette

  Another text came in and Bernadette, having just fallen asleep in the hotel room bed, mentally kicked herself for not turning off her phone. She groaned, trying to rouse.

  After being interviewed by the police, she’d eventually been given back her phone; then it had come alive with text after text from the other women who had, too, given their statements.

  Reva had wanted to go to a bar and talk it out, Jayla was opting for a church service, Sosi complained about not being home, and Nell had just said she was “done with this,” whatever that meant. Bernadette figured they never would be done, not as long as they could remember Jo-Beth and Monica. Bernadette had waited for Lucas to return and after seeing that he was all right, she’d finally come up to the bedroom and checked in on Annette. Wearing an oversize T-shirt and pajama bottoms, Annette had lain on top of the covers and used the bed’s oversize pillows to prop her back against the headboard.

  “She stole my diary, you know,” Annette had said, looking up from her novel. “Kinley. She was the one. What a little bitch.” She’d tossed the book onto the foot of the bed. “Now it’s going to be out there, you know? On the Internet for God’s sake, the musings of a seventeen-year-old. It’s so embarrassing. It could go viral or even worse, it could become like . . . like a movie of the week!”

  “Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions?”

  Annette had rolled her eyes. “Maybe. But I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I. And here’s the thing, Kinley’s taking all of the credit for it, so even if she uses the stuff in your diary, it’ll look like it was all hers, I think. She loves to be the center of attention. Good or bad.”

  “Ugh.” Annette had gotten out of the bed and stalked to the window. “I can’t sleep. My mind is going round and round in circles,” she’d admitted, staring out at the night that was finally dark, the strobing of police lights having stopped an hour before. Leaning her head on the glass, she sighed, causing a bit of condensation on the panes.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about Jo-Beth and Monica and Tyler and that damned Kinley.” She’d obviously been wound up. On edge. “Did you talk to Lucas?”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty beat-up.”

  “I thought maybe you’d, you know, be with him tonight?” She’d looked over her shoulder. “You two are kinda picking up where you left off, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe,” she’d said, hopeful.

  “I don’t blame you.” Annette had sighed.

  “Don’t tell me you still have a crush on him.”

  One side of Annette’s mouth had lifted. “Nah, that was a puppy love thing, but you?”

  “Who knows?”

  “I just wish this was all over, you know? Behind us.”

  “It will be. Try to relax. Get some sleep.”

  “Oh, sure. Like that’s going to happen.” She’d turned to face her sister and had rolled her eyes. “I guess . . . I guess I can be glad that at least the diary is in the police’s hands,” she’d said, then frowned. “Maybe I should get a lawyer. You know, try to get it back legally. Then, at least, I’d have control.” She’d looked at her sister. “So irritating.” And then, as if a new thought had hit her, she started rubbing her temples. “What am I thinking? So what if the police have it? I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Kinley made at least one copy.” Annette had sat down on the foot of the bed and hung her head. “This is horrible. All of it. The murders. The fight. Tyler . . . Lucas.” She’d shivered violently.

  “Can’t you Zen it out, do some yoga or meditation or something?”

  “Like I haven’t tried that,” she’d spat out, seemingly angry at the world and especially at Bernadette.

  “Think on it. Right now I’m going to bed.”

  “Just don’t say Namaste, okay? Cuz you don’t mean it.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Bernadette had lied as the word had been on the tip of her tongue.

  And so she’d retired and fallen asleep almost immediately, but now her phone was practically leaping off the bed it was vibrating so loudly.

  This text was from Annette. It just said: Can’t sleep. Going for a drive.

  What? After two in the morning? That seemed sketchy. And how could she do it? She had no wheels, not of her own, not here in Averille. They’d driven from Seattle in Bernadette’s car. Groggily, Bernadette threw back the covers and padded to the window to look out at the parking lot.

  Her car was there, where she’d parked it, in a f
ar corner of the parking area, partially obscured from view by an outbuilding and a low fog oozing through the town’s streets. The night was quieter than it had been, though, the news vans and crime scene vehicle having left the area, just the flapping yellow warning tape and a single cruiser from the sheriff’s department indicating that there had been any trouble.

  So what was Annette talking about?

  Bernadette peered through the open connecting door and stepped into Annette’s darkened room. “Hey?” she called, looking at the bed. “Annette?” When she didn’t get a response, she fumbled for a light switch and snapped it on.

  The room was empty.

  Annette wasn’t in the bed, though the covers were wrinkled, the book she’d been reading on the bedside table near a half-full glass of water. “Annette?” she said, and stepped into the bathroom, reached for the light switch, and snapped it on.

  Nothing.

  What the devil?

  A frisson of fear slid down her spine. She found her phone and typed in, Where are you? before sending the text. Something was wrong. She could feel it. She considered calling Lucas, then decided it was silly to wake him at three in the morning. He’d already been through the trauma of a fight and a stint in the ER, so she’d wait. For now.

  A text came in: In the car. I took your keys.

  What? No! She ran to the window of her sister’s room, where she had a better view of the spot where she’d parked and sure enough, through the thickening mist, she spied Annette behind the wheel. Her mind was starting to clear a bit as she flew back to her own bedroom and checked the bureau where she’d left her key for the room next to her car keys. Sure enough, they were missing. Her fingers flew over the keys of her phone as she sent another message.

  Wait. You shouldn’t go anywhere.

  What was Annette thinking? Bernadette threw on her jeans and a sweatshirt, then snagged her hotel key and phone, stuffing them into her back pocket as she ran out of her room. This was nuts. They needed to stay in place. Even though the danger had passed as Tyler Quade, the murderer, was behind bars, there were still the weird texts with the picture of Elle in a coffin.