Point Last Seen: Blood Will Tell Part 9

Paul continued on as if he hadn't even heard him, as if it were just him and Myers. Most killers wanted to justify or explain what they did. All you had to do was offer them that opportunity. "Did you show her the knife just to scare her? Was it an accident? Or"-he managed to say it as if it were even a reasonable possibility-"did she come at you? Try to attack you again, the way she did in the bar? And you had to defend yourself?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? I don't own a knife. I've never owned a knife. And the last time I saw Lucy was right outside that bar. We all walked off, but then I cut over and caught up with Jasmine. I was with her until three in the morning." This story of his had the benefit of providing both him and the other girl with an alibi. One that Jasmine, at least so far, was backing up.

"You were the last person to see Lucy alive," Rich pointed out.

"I'll take a lie detector test. I'll do whatever you want." His reddened eyes pleaded with them both. "But I didn't kill Lucy. I love her."

"Which is why you were running around on her." Rich snorted.

Myers raised his head. "It's not that black and white. But I'm telling you, I didn't kill her. I didn't."

Go where the evidence leads, was Paul's rule.

But right now, it didn't feel like they had enough evidence to follow.

CHAPTER 26.

K.

TUESDAY.

SO HARD IT HURT.

Thwack! Kenny's produce knife flashed down, revealing perfect pale green flesh. The produce knife Mr. Strickler had originally supplied him with had had a fully squared-off edge and a flimsy plastic handle that didn't even have a guard. Eventually, Kenny had bought his own knife from a kitchen-supply company, a knife that ended in more of an angle, giving him a sharp corner to work with.

He swept the browned tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs from the end of the celery bunch into the garbage can. No, he reminded himself with a little frown, into the compost. Strickler's was no longer the only high-end shop in town. It had to compete with stores like Whole Foods. Even some of the rich people who shopped here were starting to ask if his produce was "locally grown." When, this time of year, eating things grown within a thirty-mile radius would result in a sad, drab diet of cabbage, parsnips, and rutabagas.

Most customers, though, didn't care if their fruits and vegetables were in season or not. They didn't even care if it had to be jetted in from another continent. If you were determined to serve fresh raspberries, you didn't mind if they cost six dollars for a six-ounce green cardboard container. You didn't blink at paying seven dollars a pound for out-of-season asparagus, the spears thinner than pencils. People who shopped here thought you could get fresh cherries and nectarines in November.

And you could. If you were willing to pay.

A woman's voice made him start.

"Kenny! Look at this!" A woman in her late sixties thrust a head of romaine at him.

"What's the problem, Mrs. Whiteside?" He had tried getting people to call him Ken, but it never took. A lot of the customers had known him for twenty years, and to them he was still the nice boy who worked here after school.

Only maybe he wasn't so nice anymore.

"It looks wilted. I can't serve my dinner guests wilted lettuce."

"There's a truck coming in with a new shipment, but it won't be here until tomorrow."

She frowned. Her lipstick had bled into the tiny lines that feathered out from her lips.

"Well, I won't pay for that. It's not even fit to be rabbit food."

He didn't point out that no one was making her pay for anything. Instead, he trimmed off the dark outer leaves until he was left with the pale green heart.

She made him repeat the process for three more heads. Once, she turned away from him, and for a minute, his spine stiffened. His hand clenched the handle of the knife so hard it hurt, despite his calluses. How would she act if she knew what he was capable of? Would she continue to treat him so dismissively?

She took the lettuce without even saying thank you. He was a fixture. About as human as the silver metal cart he pushed between his displays.

Ah, but the displays. Even if people didn't notice him, they did notice his displays. When he was a kid, he had wanted to be an artist. And he was, in a way. Everyone said his produce displays were like works of art, contrasting colors and shapes. He had even seen people take out their phones and snap photos.

Today a silver bowl of orange k.u.mquats sat in front of a mound of purple cabbages. On one side, zucchini were lined up in neat rows. Not a one marred by a fingernail mark. On the other side, plump Meyer lemons glowed like suns.

The night it had happened, he had been here late rearranging things, playing with colors and shapes until it all just seemed right. The store had closed, but he had stayed behind, shifting items, trying color combinations, placing baskets and boxes to add visual interest.

Now he brought his knife down again, exposing the beautiful white swirls within the head of purple cabbage. Did everything have a secret heart?

CHAPTER 27.

ALEXIS.

WEDNESDAY.

CLUE AWARE.

When she came home Monday night, Alexis had found her mom in a corner, rocking on her hands and knees, whimpering. At first, Alexis had been afraid someone had hurt her. Then she had realized that the pain was inside her mom.

How long had it been since Alexis had made sure she was taking her pills? At least a week, maybe more. She had been too caught up in herself. Selfish, selfish.

Finally, she had managed to get her mom into bed. And that was where she had been ever since. She slept and she cried, and sometimes she cried in her sleep. She got up only to go to the bathroom, shuffling down the hall, her head hanging like a heavy flower on a broken stem.

In the past few days Alexis had forced her to start taking her meds again. Made her open her mouth and stick out her tongue to make sure they were gone. But they didn't seem to be working. At least not yet.

On Wednesday, Alexis came home from school and found the apartment dark. It was clear her mom hadn't been up. She let her eyes adjust and then walked back to her mom's room.

"Mom?" She stood in the doorway. She heard the sound of breathing, so her mom was still alive. Everything her mom could use to kill herself was now locked up in an old metal toolbox. Alexis kept the key in her pocket. "Mom?" she repeated.

"What?" Her mom sounded like she was being forced to talk.

"Did you get up at all today? Did you eat?"

No answer.

"How about if you take a shower? I bet that will make you feel better."

"No!" It was almost a shout. Then her mom added in a softer voice, "I don't like the water. It scares me." She sighed. "I'm sorry, baby. I know I should be taking care of you, not the other way around."

Alexis nodded without saying anything. She didn't know whether to be sad or angry or worried. They had been down this road before. Many times. But would there come a time when her mom wouldn't return?

Three hours later Alexis walked into the sheriff's office for SAR cla.s.s. New recruits had to attend every cla.s.s, and certifieds were expected to attend as many as they could to refresh their knowledge and to add the voice of experience.

After waving h.e.l.lo to the deputy behind the bulletproof gla.s.s, Alexis walked back toward the meeting room, where she settled in between Nick and Ruby.

"That's a big sigh," Nick said. "You okay?"

Alexis hadn't even been aware she'd made a sound. "I'm fine. Just a little tired." She never talked about her mom. It was too embarra.s.sing. Too personal. Plus all the adults in this room were mandated first reporters for child abuse, and child abuse also covered child neglect. Alexis didn't know if it mattered that she was sixteen now, and she wasn't about to find out. So far, keeping quiet had kept her out of a foster home.

The only person who knew the truth was Bran. The thought made Alexis sigh again. She didn't know what was wrong between them, or how much was her fault. She only knew that she had texted him twice since Sunday and he hadn't answered either time. Fine. She didn't need to be hit over the head. For whatever reason, he didn't like her anymore.

Jon stepped to the front of the room. "Tonight we're going to be talking about clues. There are five types of search clues. Can you think of one type?"

"Things you find?" Max said. "Like stuff they dropped?"

"That's right." Jon wrote "Clue Types" on the whiteboard and then added "physical" under it. "That also includes footprints or other marks left behind."

Nick's mouth twisted. He must be thinking about the footprint Nick had half destroyed. That and the girl's boot print were the only prints they had found in the vacant lot.

"What the people tell you," Dimitri offered.

Jon translated this to "testimonial."

"Doc.u.mentary," Ruby said. "Like a summit log or a trail register."

"Someone's been reading ahead," Jon said as he wrote it down. Ruby's face turned nearly as red as her hair.

The other two types turned out be "events"-such as the subject flashing a mirror or yelling to get attention-and "a.n.a.lytical"-knowing that if a subject wanted to go from A to C, he would have to go through B.

Search clues seemed like the kind of things cops would look for, too. Alexis had been following the story of the dead girl online. Police had identified her as a twenty-one-year-old college student named Lucy Hayes. She had abruptly left a bar called the Last Exit late Sunday after getting into some kind of argument.

"Sometimes being clue aware means going that extra step," Jon said. "Say someone at a campground has gone missing. If you talk to the people in the tent next door before you even begin the search, you might hear that the lost person has been fighting with their parents. That's going to change the dynamics of the search in pretty important ways."

Alexis half listened, her thoughts bouncing from Lucy to her mom to Bran. She hated this time of the year, when the nights seemed to last twenty hours. What if she turned out to be like her mom, going from highs to lows, ricocheting between different kinds of crazy? Maybe Bran had noticed something she hadn't yet. After all, most of the time her mom thought herself perfectly sane.

"We have to be careful not to jump to conclusions," Jon said. "It's too easy to only look for clues that fit our theories and ignore those that don't."

Alexis shifted in her seat and caught a glimpse of Nick's latest drawing. A guy kneeling behind a p.r.o.ne woman. What looked like blood on the floor. He wasn't much of an artist, so she couldn't tell if he was drawing Mariana or Lucy or something straight out of his imagination. Of course, this being one of Nick's typical drawings, there were also arrows flying through the air and a dinosaur in one corner.

When cla.s.s was finally over, Alexis walked out with Nick and Ruby. Someone was waiting in the lobby.

Bran.

Her heart started beating faster. She walked over, trying to keep her expression neutral. "Hey. What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you." It was hard to read his expression.

"Now?" He had hurt her, and suddenly she wanted to hurt him. "I'm kind of tired."

"Look, it's important, okay?"

Relenting, she said good-bye to Nick and Ruby and followed him out. He didn't say anything until they were in his car. But he didn't start it.

"I need to tell you something. It's about that callout on Sunday night."

"For Mariana?"

"Not so much that. It's what happened right after they found her."

"What-you mean when she got hit by that poor guy in the pickup?"

"Is that how you see him?" His voice was strangled with some emotion. Anger? "That poor guy?"

"I wasn't there, but from what Ruby and Nick said, it was an accident. He might have been going a little fast, but who's going to expect some kid to just run out in front of you?"

Instead of answering, Bran sat silent. It stretched out so long Alexis was afraid to break it.

Finally, he said softly, "Do you remember I told you once that someday I would tell you why I was in TIP? It's because I did something bad. Something terrible. And it's not something I can ever take back, or fix, or make right."

She absorbed this without saying anything. Bran? Something terrible? Those two things did not go together.

"Two years ago my parents got divorced, and we moved from Eugene to Portland. I started in the middle of the school year. It was tough. I didn't have many friends. That summer I got a job at Fred Meyer and I saved up enough to buy a car. This car." He slapped the dash so hard she started. "This same car. A lot of people can't believe I still drive it. But it's not like I can afford to get another one."

Alexis didn't ask why. She just nodded.

"See, all summer I had imagined driving it to school. How maybe people, I don't know, would think I was cooler if I had a car. On the second day of cla.s.ses, I came over a hill. It had been dark at the bottom of the hill, but at the top, all of a sudden, there was the sun. Blinding me. Just when these two girls from my school decided to cross the street."

"Oh no," Alexis breathed.

In a broken whisper, Bran told her the rest. She saw it in her mind's eye.

Bran drives over the hill and into the sun. He squints. And then all of a sudden there they are. Right in front of his b.u.mper.

No time to scream. No time to brake. No time to react.

A split-second later, the nearest girl and the car's b.u.mper meet. A horrible, heavy thump rocks the car. Underneath Bran is the sound and feel of something caught and then let go.

At the same time, the other girl is sprawling over his hood. She slides up until she hits the windshield. It cracks under her weight.

Bran brakes so hard that she flies off the front of the car.

And then he is screaming.

He pulls open the car door, still screaming. Just a single word, over and over. No. No. No. They have to be dead. They have to be.