Текст книги "Envy"
Автор книги: Gregg Olsen
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 20 страниц)
chapter 49
IT WAS AFTER 2:45 A.M. when Shania, Colton, Hayley, and Taylor got back into the car. For the first few moments, no one said another word. Even after what they’d seen on the video and heard from Savannah Osteen with their own eyes and ears, it seemed as if there were no words to convey whatever anyone was thinking. Hayley caught Colton’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror. He’d protected her and her sister by getting rid of the tape.
But what did he think of her now?
“How do we solve a problem like Moira?” Taylor asked.
In another time and place, Hayley might have teased her sister with singing some corrupted lyrics from their mother’s all-time favorite movie, The Sound of Music.
How do you crush a reporter with your hands?
But not then. She resisted the temptation. She kept her mouth shut.
“Let’s go talk to her,” Colton said, looking first at his mother before turning to face the girls.
Shania didn’t answer. She merely looked at her son and nodded. Her eyes were focused and free of the shock of the others in the car.
“When?” Taylor asked.
“Now,” he said.
“Now? It’s literally the middle of the night,” Hayley said, looking at her phone, grateful that their parents hadn’t discovered they’d slipped out of the house.
Shania put the car in gear—the wrong gear—and it lurched forward into the fringy bank of cedar boughs.
“Sorry,” she said, releasing a small laugh, a laugh that was almost a therapeutic exhale. “A little bit harder than riding a bike. I agree with Colton. We need to get to the reporter’s house.”
“We don’t know where she lives,” Taylor said.
Colton held up another MapQuest printout. “Oh, yes we do,” Colton said. “Moira must have left this at Savannah’s. We just have to follow it from here to her place in Paradise Bay.”
“We have to reason with her and tell her to back off,” Hayley said.
“That’s right,” Shania said.
The Camry headed up the highway, on its way to the seemingly wrongly named Paradise Bay.
VALERIE RYAN’S EYELIDS POPPED OPEN at 3:21 A.M. No sudden noise. No flash of light preceded it. Just the gentle and predictable unshuttering of her sleeping eyes as they had done countless times over the past decade.
Valerie lay in bed looking at the big, fat digital numbers on her bedside clock.
3:21. March 21. The first day of spring, the day when her daughters and the others from the Daisy Troop plunged over the side of the bridge into the choppy waters of Hood Canal.
Without waking Kevin, she got up and slipped on her bathrobe, a Christmas gift from her daughters the year before. That night, she felt a compulsion to check on the girls. It was as if she was being called to do so, quietly, maybe in the way that dogs can only hear certain whistles.
Valerie crept up the stairs and turned the low knob on Hayley’s door. Moonlight flooded the room, and it was clear that the bed was empty. Racing to Taylor’s room across the narrow landing of the staircase, she saw that Taylor’s bed was empty too.
Where on earth were they?
Her brown eyes puddled, but Valerie Ryan didn’t cry. And then she felt it: a mother’s intuition. She touched Taylor’s pillow, still molded with an imprint of her head.
My babies are OK.
LIGHTS FROM A DISTANT NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE sparkled against the black water of Paradise Bay as the tide slowly, sluggishly shifted in the stillness of the night. Shania cut the headlights and pulled into the driveway. No one in the car spoke—partly because there was no making real sense of what they’d seen, but also because they’d wanted to catch Moira off guard.
“I’m calling her,” Taylor said, as she pressed her ear to her phone. “Ringing now.”
“Moira Windsor? I know this is late. It’s Taylor Ryan,” she said.
“Taylor Ryan? Really?”
“Yes,” Taylor said. “You’ve been calling.”
“Yes, I have. I want to talk to you.”
Taylor delivered the understatement of her life. “You’ve really been a pain—like some kind of stalker. Facebooking us! Leaving annoying messages! Bothering our friends. We’re kind of pissed off. But, yeah, my sister and I will talk to you.”
“That’s great,” Moira said, indifferent to anything other than what she’d wanted. “When?”
“How about now?”
“Okay,” Moira said. “I’d rather do it in person, but fine. I’ll put you on speaker so I can take notes.”
Taylor smiled; as nervous and tired as she was, she loved every moment of this.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “We’re here. At your house. Right now.”
A curtain in the window by the front door parted a sliver, then widened. Moira peered out over the gravel driveway toward the idling Camry.
“So you are,” she said. “Hang on. I’ll let you inside.”
Colton got out, but his mom stayed in the car. A trail of exhaust curled from its tailpipe into the cold air.
Moira, fully dressed even at that ridiculous hour, opened the door and came down the steps, squinting into the light from the car. She could see the teenagers silhouetted in the light. The scene was eerie and beautiful.
Hayley immediately recognized Moira as the young woman who’d been arguing with their father at the pizza place.
“I’ve seen you,” she said. “You were yelling at my dad.”
“Actually, he was doing the yelling,” Moira said.
Why hadn’t their father said something about Moira that night? What had she said to him if she wasn’t a fan wanting a free book?
“Who’s that?” Moira said, indicating Colton.
“My sister’s boyfriend,” Taylor said. For the first time, the words felt good instead of acid reflux-inducing. “His mom is here too.”
She looked over at the car, still running. Shania had rolled down the window and moved her hand. It wasn’t a wave—just an indicator that a person was there.
There was no need to be friendly. This wasn’t about that at all.
“Just what do you want with them?” Colton asked, now standing slightly in front of both girls. He was clearly on their side of things.
“This is between us,” Moira said, looking at the girls, bypassing Colton’s glaring stare. “And they know what I’m after.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his warm, angry breath leaving puffs of white vapor in the air.
“Do you mind? This has nothing to do with you.” She looked at Colton and then turned back to Hayley and Taylor. “I saw the tape,” she said.
“So what?” Taylor said. “Tape’s gone.”
Moira looked puzzled. “Gone? How so?”
“I burned it up,” Colton said.
“You’re a lot of trouble, aren’t you?” Moira stared hard at Colton, annoyed that she had to deal with anyone other than the twins. She took a breath and held out her phone. “Savannah’s tape might be gone. That is, if you were stupid enough to burn it. Doesn’t matter to me. I made a copy. Not the best quality, but good enough.”
“I don’t believe you,” Hayley said. “Show me.”
Moira looked down at her phone and pressed a button to start the video. The image was miniscule, but it was good enough to see the pasta message. “Then you’ll talk to me?” she asked.
“If you have the video, what choice do we have?” Taylor asked. Taylor was stringing Moira along, of course. She would never talk to her. Never.
Moira brightened a little, glad that things were going her way. “None. None that I can see. By the way, do you know what I’m thinking now?”
Hayley wanted to say something about how there were no synapses firing in Moira’s head, but she actually did know what she was thinking.
So did Taylor.
“You need to leave us alone,” Hayley said.
Shania tapped the horn, and the teens looked over at the car. Moira turned too, but the clouds blocked the moon and it was hard to see in the dim light.
A dog started barking, or rather, yapping. It was a very familiar bark-yap.
Hedda!
Taylor lost it right then. “You’re the one who took our dog? You took our effing dog?”
She pushed past Moira, nearly shoving her to the ground, and rushed up to the porch. Her eyes were darts of anger. Colton was at her heels.
Stunned by being strong-armed, Moira steadied herself. “It wasn’t like that. I found her. I was going to bring her back to your place tomorrow.”
“You are such a big liar,” Hayley said.
Moira started to sputter. “I promise. I was. I was going to bring her back. I saw on your Facebook wall that she was missing.”
Taylor opened the door, bent down, and picked up the dog—the laziest, fattest, ugliest doxie in the history of the world was in her arms. At that moment, no one could have taken that dog from her.
“What a liar!” Taylor repeated. “We’re getting out of here.”
Hayley tugged at her sister. “Wait! What about the recording?”
“I don’t care,” Taylor said. “I don’t deal with people like that.”
“I’m sitting on the story of stories,” Moira said. “And I’m going to tell the world about you. About what you two can do.”
“Just shut up, you psycho dog-stealer!” It was Colton. “Shut it!”
“Wait! We can work something out!” Moira said. Her voice was pleading, desperate. She didn’t want to lose this opportunity. She needed to talk to those girls. “You can trust me to do a good job!”
“This isn’t about a news story, and you know it,” Taylor said.
Moira was frantic, spinning around and trying to figure out a way to get them to stay. Her light eyes flashed with fear. Everything she needed, wanted, had to have, was slipping away.
“Don’t leave! You’ll be sorry if you do.”
What came out of her mouth then were the words of truth. Whatever she wanted, it was important enough to threaten them.
You’ll be sorry if you do.
Just then, the headlights were adjusted to the bright setting and the Camry’s engine revved. Hayley, Colton, and Taylor turned to face the car.
It started across the driveway, gaining speed.
Moira opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. It was just that quick. She was over the hood, then down on the ground, and finally, over the embankment to the water below.
What had Shania done?
“Mom!” Colton said, nearly crying at the shock of what had happened. “Mom, what did you do?”
“Get her phone and get her laptop out of the house. Don’t touch anything else.”
Colton locked eyes with his mother and nodded.
Shania had just done the unthinkable, but it was apparent that she had, in fact, thought of everything.
It took only a second and Colton found the laptop on the dining table amid a nest of empty sparkling-water bottles and a half-empty bottle of wine. He snatched up the computer, yanking it from its power cord as he hurried back to the car. While Colton was inside, Hayley recovered Moira’s phone in the gravel of the parking area. She shoved it into her pocket.
Instinct told her to look for Moira, but when she scanned the water below the bulkhead, she saw nothing—not even a shore bird. Just the ripples of the tide. Moira was dead and gone, and Hayley, scared and worried, felt relief.
And that bothered her. Deeply.
It happened so fast. Like gas poured on a bonfire. Whoosh! In less than a minute after Moira was pitched into the black waters of Paradise Bay, the stunned teenagers had piled into the backseat of the car. Hedda was safely in Taylor’s arms, already asleep despite the horrific turn of events that had just occurred. Hayley leaned into Colton, breathing hard, scared and unsure. He took her hand and gripped it.
Shania looked in the mirror, her sad, dark eyes assessing each of the kids.
“Take a deep breath,” she said. “All of you. It had to be done.” Her voice was full of emotion. “I had no choice. I protected what had to be protected. There are things she should not know … or repeat to anyone. I made a promise to Valerie all those years ago …”
The teenagers looked at each other, unable—or unwilling—to speak. Each knew what the other was feeling inside. They were breathing hard, their eyes wide with shock. All three were scared to death over what they’d done, but deep down they were glad that Moira was gone. As Shania James had said, there was no choice.
It had to be done.
postmortem
AFTER THE FLURRY OF POLICE ACTIVITY that had marked the weeks following the winter holidays had finally died down, Port Gamble began to return to its more sedate (at least on the surface) and familiar mode. To outsiders, it once more appeared to be the pretty town on the water with the happy faces of visitors and residents, all enjoying views of a stunning bay as spring took over the ice and snow.
Most who lived there, however, wouldn’t really say that it was quite the same as it had been before Katelyn Berkley’s unfortunate double-tallskinny death in the bathtub. For many, things were very, very different.
Harper and Sandra Berkley sublet the remainder of the lease on the Timberline and made plans to start over in a place where there weren’t as many memories. It wasn’t thoughts of their beloved daughter they were running from, but the recollections of living next door to the hurt and hate that had caused her death. They knew that Katelyn’s resentment of Starla had been the spark of the tragedy, but it was easy to lay the blame squarely on the occupants of house number 21. The hatred Sandra had for Mindee, Starla, and Teagan had a strange effect on her. She was able to use that emotion to replace the other that had marked her life since she stood on the Hood Canal Bridge, saving only her own child.
Hate felt better than regret. Better than guilt or shame.
The Berkley house was rented three days after it went up for lease—fast by anyone’s standards, especially considering what had occurred in that upstairs bathroom. A new girl named Amanda O’Neal moved into Katelyn’s bedroom and was working her way into the circle of friends at Kingston High.
Next door, a vindicated Jake Damon stood by button-pusher Mindee Larsen, though he was about the only one in town who really did. Mindee tried her best to prove that she was sorry for the cruel game that she had initiated to such a tragic outcome, and she was grateful when the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s Office gave her probation for her relentless cyberstalking of a teenage girl. She never told anyone that Starla had been involved too. Teagan was required to attend two years of counseling sessions to deal with what he’d done. It had, of course, been a terrible accident.
Starla turned her mother’s evil plot and her brother’s freak-show infatuation with Katelyn to her advantage, causing even more Kingston High teens to fall at her feet in awe. In envy.
“My dysfunctional family is part of my backstory,” she said. “A messy backstory is essential to true stardom. Ask just about anyone in Hollywood.”
Moira Windsor’s body was recovered and her death was also ruled accidental. The Jefferson County sheriff’s department reported that while her blood-alcohol level wasn’t beyond the legal limit had she been driving, it apparently was much too high to walk with sure footing. They concluded it was the booze that had caused her to tumble down the bank to her rocky death in Paradise Bay.
Neither Colton nor his mother talked about what happened that night. In fact, a week after Moira died, people in town noticed that the old Camry was gone. Shania James had donated it to a children’s charity in Tacoma. Many assumed she had finally decided she wanted no more reminders of the incident that involved the car.
They were right, of course, but wrong about exactly which incident.
When Kevin Ryan called the North Kitsap Herald to launch his new book, he mentioned Moira’s name to offer his condolences to the editorial staff. They’d never heard of her. If she had been working on a story, it wasn’t for their paper.
Or maybe any other paper at all.
Hayley and Taylor continued to talk through the outlet between their bedrooms. They knew they had to keep quiet about Shania, but everything about that night kept resurfacing in their thoughts during the weeks after the incident. They were relieved their secret was safe. But did the ends justify the means?
They continued to get the feelings and visions that had been a part of them long before that plunge off the bridge. Whenever they could, they revisited what occurred when they were five years old and fighting for air in the icy waters of Hood Canal.
Sometimes they talked about it, speculated, even made jokes. Other times, new details emerged in dreams, bits about Shania, their mother, Moira, and someone else, someone sinister they couldn’t quite see. Taylor had one that came over a series of consecutive nights the week after Teagan confessed to sneaking into Katelyn’s bedroom.
That dream again. Official-looking papers. A file. One word:
REVENGE
She rubbed her eyes and leaned over to whisper to her sister on the other side of the wall.
“Going to get a drink,” she said. “Want anything?”
“What time is it?” Hayley asked. Her voice was groggy from what had to be a much sounder sleep than her twin’s.
Taylor sighed. “Late. Too late.”
“You aren’t going to guzzle some water to recall something,” Hayley said.
“No,” Taylor said. “Just thirsty.”
Hayley smiled and turned to roll back into the cozy slumber of the bed she shared with Hedda that night. “Good,” she said. “We’ve had enough drama around here for a while.”
Hayley was right, of course. And yet, as Taylor started down the stairs, she knew that the deep chill that came with that terrible December was the start of something dark and dangerous.
She could feel it.
TRUTH IN FICTION
WHILE THE CHARACTERS and the plot of Envy are fictional, the story line in the novel takes some cues from a famous case involving the October 17, 2006, suicide of Missouri teenager Megan Meier.
The case involved Megan, thirteen years old, who had a falling-out with her neighbor, Sarah Drew. Sarah’s mother, Lori Drew, created a phony MySpace account and pretended to be a teenage boy named Josh Evans. She and others used the account to harass and taunt Megan as retaliation for the fight with her daughter, which may have led to Megan’s suicide.
In 2008, Drew was indicted and convicted, but her conviction was reversed on appeal in 2009. Megan’s tragic case sparked a greater awareness of cyberbullying.
And though awareness has increased, so have the crimes. Cases in which adults are the perpetrators of cybercrimes against children have been widely reported. Crimes in which young people seek to discredit, inflict pain, humiliate, and embarrass others are on the rise.
In 2010, two teen-aged girls in Lee County, Florida, allegedly created a fake Facebook page, accumulated 181 friends, and systematically sought ways to humiliate their classmate by digitally combining photos of the victim’s head with a naked body and posting the manipulated photos online. The case led to charges against the fifteen– and sixteenyear old of aggravated stalking of a minor.
Unfortunately, cyberbullying crimes involving younger victims and perpetrators have also been reported. In the spring of 2011, two girls from King County, Washington, were arrested for hacking a classmate’s Facebook account and posting lewd content. The girls were eleven and twelve years old, and they have been charged with cyberstalking and first-degree computer trespassing.
Both the Florida and Washington cases are pending.
For more information about the nonfiction behind the fiction in Envy, as well as a discussion guide and resources about cyberbullying, visit www.emptycoffinseries.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AS I WRITE THIS, the sun has made a rare appearance here in the gloomy Pacific Northwest, and yet I find myself grateful and happy for all of the support I’ve received with the publication of Envy, the first in the Empty Coffin series.
It goes without saying that publishing a book—and publishing it well—is a total team effort. I’m fortunate to have the amazing and cheerful (even when we’re talking about murder) Cindy Loh at the helm at Sterling’s Splinter. There’s no mystery here. She’s simply the best editor (I wonder if she’ll put that in bold type?). I can’t think of a better, more creative designer than the terrific Katrina Damkoehler. Thanks to her, not only for the great care she put into the cover but also in the design of what’s between the covers. And to Judi Powers, Sterling’s ace publicity director, and her associate Meaghan Finnerty—thanks so much for all you’ve done to spread the word about the new series.
Thanks to the usual suspects: agent Susan Raihofer of the David Black Literary Agency, and early readers Tina Marie Brewer, Maizey Nunn, Annette Anderson, Mary Anderson, Hannah Smith, Jessica Wolfe, Anjali Banerjee, Randall Platt, Shana Smith, and Jim Thomsen. I would also like to acknowledge Sharlene Martin and Bree Ogden for bringing this idea to me.
I want to take this space to acknowledge M. William Phelps, my true crime author protégé, who has become a master and whose friendship over the past decade has meant so much to me. Thanks, Matt, for all the great times we’ve had talking about serial killers and publishers. Who’s scarier?
On a personal note, I can’t ignore the contributions of my family. We’ve traipsed through crime scenes, looked for body parts in the woods, and had some killer conversations—literally—with people on either side of homicide. Thanks and love to Claudia, and our girls, Marta and Morgan, for sharing my life of crime.
