Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1) Read online

  Watch Her Vanish

  An absolutely gripping mystery thriller

  Ellery Kane

  Books by Ellery Kane

  Rockwell and Decker Series

  Watch Her Vanish

  Contents

  Prologue

  *

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  *

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  *

  Chapter 14

  *

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  *

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  *

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  *

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  *

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Epilogue

  Hear More From Ellery

  Books by Ellery Kane

  A Letter from Ellery

  Acknowledgments

  For Gar

  My partner in crime

  I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them?

  —Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds

  Prologue

  Bonnie McMillan sat alone in the theater, relishing the anonymity of the dark. Tonight, she didn’t have to be anybody’s mommy, or wife, or teacher. No sticky little hands grabbed for her popcorn. No one whispered to pass the soda. Her cell phone stayed tucked in her purse, mercifully silent.

  She hunkered down in her seat, her face lit by the screen. Behind her, the old-school film reel whirred. Here, she could simply be Bonnie, the same breathless, eager teenaged girl who’d first watched Vertigo at a Hitchcock marathon in San Francisco fifteen years ago. Back then, she’d dreamed of writing scripts and directing films herself.

  That girl with big city ambitions seemed light-years away from Fog Harbor, with its bone-cold ocean and dreary winters. For a long five months a year, the tourists vanished like migrant birds, taking their rental cars and fat pocketbooks with them. Many of the locals worked at Crescent Bay State Prison, like her and James. The others lived behind its walls. Permanently.

  Bonnie couldn’t remember the last time she’d caught a Wednesday midnight showing at Fog City Cinema, the one-feature relic on the outskirts of town, and it had been ages since she’d been to a movie alone. Certainly not since Noah was born. It felt deliciously strange, indulgent even, to be here, and on a weeknight no less. But when James had offered to take the boys on an overnight trip whale-watching at Ecola State Park, she’d known exactly how to spend her first free evening.

  Leaning forward, Bonnie tensed; on the screen, a middle-aged Jimmy Stewart chased Kim Novak up the stairs of the bell tower, where he stopped short, disoriented and perspiring. The woman screamed as her body hurtled toward the ground. Bonnie couldn’t look, so she shoveled another bite of popcorn instead, licking the salt from her lips.

  A thin blade of light sliced the theater’s shadowy entrance and Bonnie heard the soft thud of approaching footsteps. The man didn’t look up as he rounded the divider, his face obscured by the hood of his coat. He lumbered up the aisle, dripping rainwater and tracking mud with his boots, and took a seat somewhere in the darkness behind her. Worry prickled at the back of her neck.

  She focused her mind back on Vertigo’s spiraling soundtrack. The trills, the brass crescendo, the shuddering dissonance. Pitch-perfect for a cinematic study on obsession. Hitch did crazy better than anybody. And she knew crazy. She’d taught creative writing in the prison’s education department for eight years running.

  Squinting at her watch and anticipating the final, fatal scene, she planned to bolt for the door as soon as the film was over. James would’ve laughed at her for her skittishness. The boys too. Silly Mommy. Nevertheless, as the credits rolled, Bonnie quickly gathered her things—purse, umbrella, jacket—and headed for the EXIT sign, its blood-colored letters eerie in the dark. She pushed through the swinging door and into the empty lobby, clumsily putting on her jacket as she crossed the dingy red carpet. Though she heard no one behind her, her heartbeat quickened. Beyond the lobby, she couldn’t see past the rain-streaked outer doors, but she knew the parking lot would be wet and deserted. It was well after two in the morning in a town that fell asleep by nine. Only the liquor store and the Hickory Pit stayed open past midnight.

  Bonnie didn’t bother with the umbrella, though she hated the thought of her designer boots getting wet. James had spent way too much on them last Christmas, which had started everybody at the prison whispering behind her back. These boots made her feel like the vivacious San Francisco Bonnie. Not the gray Fog Harbor girl she’d turned into. So, she didn’t care where that money had come from. After ten years of marriage, she’d perfected the art of looking the other way.

  The cold rain stung her skin as she ran. Her hair whipped and lashed about her face, covering her eyes, but she pressed on, her car beckoning like a lighthouse, a safe harbor in the storm.

  It might’ve been the rain, or the wind, or her writer’s imagination, but the man seemed to loom in and out of her periphery. Working at the prison, she knew what men could do to women on their own for a night. That knowledge had buried itself in her brain, a dormant seed just waiting for the right moment to burst open.

  When Bonnie reached the car, she felt the heat of him behind her, heard the hungry splash of his boots. She didn’t turn around, certain she would freeze like a rabbit if she saw him there.

  She flung open the car door and collapsed into the seat, locking herself in. The rain beat its tiny fists against the windows, b
ut she was safe now in a world familiar to her. James’ favorite baseball cap sat on the passenger seat—he’d be furious he’d left it behind. Two booster seats in the back, and Cheerios scattered like confetti on the floorboard.

  Bonnie turned the key, cranked the heat, and listened to the sweep of the wipers on the glass, the static on the radio. By the time she could see clearly, the man had vanished. As if a seam had split open in the predawn quiet and simply swallowed him whole. If he’d ever been there at all.

  *

  Fog Harbor Gazette

  “Search for Missing Fog Harbor Mother Intensifies”

  by Heather Hoffman

  Authorities in Fog Harbor, California, are intensifying their search for Bonnie McMillan, the married mother of two who went missing three days ago. According to Fog Harbor police, thirty-two-year-old Bonnie McMillan was last seen in the early morning hours of Thursday, December 12th, when security footage captured her leaving Fog City Cinema around 2:30 a.m. The following day, her Toyota Corolla was found abandoned with a flat tire on Pine Grove Road, just one mile south of the entrance to Crescent Bay State Prison (CBSP). Both McMillan’s wallet and her cell were found in the vehicle, leading authorities to suspect she may have been a victim of foul play. Local authorities have partnered with the state police in the investigation and have deployed K-9 units to search for the missing woman, but their efforts have been hampered by poor weather conditions, with one inch of rain falling in Fog Harbor on the night of McMillan’s disappearance and another winter rainstorm forecasted for this week.

  Police confirmed McMillan’s husband, James, was traveling with their two young children at the time. Sources close to the family say that the couple seemed happy and enjoyed working together in the adult education department at CBSP, where James manages the GED program. Bonnie had been employed there as a creative writing teacher.

  Lester Blevins, Warden of CBSP, issued the following statement regarding their missing employee: “Bonnie is a highly valued member of our staff and is well respected by her colleagues and students. We are doing everything we can to assist in the search and pray for her safe and speedy return.”

  Police Chief Sheila Flack also issued a statement Sunday morning urging anyone who may have seen McMillan on the evening of December 11th or who may have information regarding her disappearance to contact the Fog Harbor Police Department. McMillan is described as five feet, four inches tall, with an average build, blonde hair, and blue eyes and was last seen wearing blue jeans and a beige raincoat. A public vigil for McMillan is planned for Sunday, December 15th at 4 p.m. at Grateful Heart Chapel in Fog Harbor.

  Chapter One

  Olivia hesitated outside the door of the chapel. No one should be afraid to set foot in a church, but Olivia was terrified, frankly, and with good reason. Every time she’d pushed open those heavy oak doors, crossed the threshold, and seated herself in a pew, something terrible had happened. It started on the day her mother had forced her into a dress and itchy white tights and dragged her into a church near their apartment in the Double Rock Projects, where they’d dropped to their knees to pray. That very night, the jury had returned with a decision—guilty—and the police carted her father away to the place he still called home. Prison.

  “Going inside?”

  The voice, a man’s, belonged to the hand on the bronze door pull. The door pull that stood between her and the curse which had begun with her mother at Holy Name’s in San Francisco, but hadn’t ended there. Not even close. The man’s nails were clean and cut short. His grip, strong and capable. The middle knuckle bore a faded bruise and a small knife scar marred the skin between his thumb and forefinger.

  The man opened the door without effort, and held it there expectantly, while she gaped at the somber crowd already gathered inside.

  “You expecting a formal invitation?”

  Olivia bristled at his tone. She could go toe to toe with any smartass even on her worst day. But when her eyes left his hand, she went mute, swallowing the razor-sharp comeback on her tongue. Not because he carried a gun and wore a Fog Harbor police badge on his waistband, but because she didn’t recognize his face. And in Fog Harbor—population 6,532—that was something of a miracle.

  “Thank you,” Olivia managed, taking a quick breath as she breached the doorway. Done. No turning back now. At least it was warm inside.

  She took a vigil candle from the basket at the entrance and lingered near the back of the church, assessing her options while Mr. Wise Guy Detective settled himself into the last row of pews. A few up, she spotted a smattering of familiar faces, some of the fifteen or so staff members she supervised as chief psychologist at Crescent Bay State Prison. Leah waved her over, but Olivia couldn’t bear to walk down the aisle.

  The moment she’d start that walk she’d be eighteen again, with the trumpet announcing her arrival, the organ playing Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”. The congregation would stand and Erik Ziegler, not Bonnie McMillan’s family, would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle the way he had seventeen years earlier, his eyes brimming with the kind of love she’d hoped would fill the dad-sized hole in her heart. But they hadn’t even cut the wedding cake before she’d caught Erik in a broom closet with one of her bridesmaids. And the worst part? She’d been so desperate to leave Fog Harbor that she’d given him five hundred and fifteen more days of her life before she’d sent him packing. Him and his last name.

  So there you go. She leaned against the wall, claiming this spot as her own, the sting of betrayal as sharp as ever. Cursed.

  Anyway, she liked it better back here where she could make a quick getaway. As she watched Bonnie’s husband drag himself up to the podium, their two boys clinging to either hand, she suspected her position close to the exit would come in handy. She already felt hot, stripping off her coat and lifting her hair from the nape of her neck.

  Olivia scanned the crowd for her sister. Emily had promised to be here. Granted, she’d been half asleep and still hungover when she’d mumbled yeah, yeah, yeah to stave off Olivia’s nagging. But Emily had known Bonnie, too, even better than Olivia. Since the state cutbacks a few years earlier, Crescent Bay’s education department had shared space with the dental clinic, where Emily worked as a hygienist. She’d even babysat the boys a few times. Yesterday afternoon they’d both joined the search outside the prison grounds and beyond, tromping around with the other volunteers. Looking for the tiniest clue that might tell them where Bonnie had gone. What had become of her.

  Olivia checked her phone again. No new messages. She did another sweep of the crowd. No Em. Plenty of cops though, everywhere, in plain clothes and uniform. She understood it, but the unease that had been swirling in her stomach since Bonnie disappeared ratcheted up a notch. Cops meant something bad had definitely happened. Cops also meant she might see Graham. Which meant she might have to explain why she’d never called him back. Why seven perfectly adequate dates and one semi-awkward night were enough.

  When the church bells marked 4 p.m., the doleful peals thrummed straight through her and resurrected another long-dead memory: her mother lying cold and still in a cherrywood coffin in this very church two years ago, Emily falling apart at her side. Little sisters could do that, while big sisters had to prove their mettle, had to put up prison-worthy walls around their hearts. Big sisters got stuff done. Big sisters showed up, curses be damned. And little sisters, well—Olivia searched once more for Em’s strawberry-blonde curls—they arrived late or not at all, leaving big sisters alone and fretting.

  James McMillan tapped the microphone, bringing everyone’s focus to the front of the church. She squinted up at him, trying to recognize him as the boy she’d gone to Fog Harbor High with years ago. Somehow, in the last four days, he’d grown smaller. His frame shrunken, his cheeks sunken in. Grief and worry could do that to a body. She’d seen it in her father. In the inmates who sat across from her every day. In her mother too, and then, for a time, in herself.

  James lit t
he candle in his hand and dipped the flame toward the vacant-eyed woman on his right who looked a lot like Bonnie. Her mother, Olivia guessed. The woman did the same, reaching up toward a somber Warden Blevins. One by one, the candles began to glow in the dim room, casting shadows and light that reflected in the stained glass.

  “Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through this, but I’ll give it my best shot. As you all know, Bonnie has been missing since early Thursday morning, and the boys and I…”