detective.
Across from her a woman cradled her bleeding arm. Knife wound. Under the thin stained gauze Julia recognized a tear in the flesh. Probably a kitchen knife, serrated blade. All she needed was a glance at the red- faced man accompanying the woman to guess it had been a domestic case, an endgame compromise—I’ll forgive you but you have to take me to the emergency room to get patched up. No incident report would be filed. The exhausted intern would ask the volley of questions but end up writing in whatever “accident” the woman invented.
Julia was moving on to the next victim when Rachel stepped out of the exam room. Her eyes were wild and frantic and searching for Julia.
It took Julia a second or two before she could stand.
She couldn’t remember the last time her knees actually wobbled. Is this what being in a relationship was all about— anxiety, stress, fear? Why did she think she was missing out on something? She had been fine on her own.
No, that’s not, true.
She weaved her way through the line waiting for the desk clerk. She steeled herself, the way she did when entering a crime scene. This was different. So different.
The relief on Rachel’s face when she finally saw her made Julia’s stomach fall to her feet. She was looking to her partner for strength. That expectation, that obligation fell like a weight on Julia’s shoulders. She couldn’t do this. Didn’t have it in her.
Rachel reached for her hands.
“They’re running an IV. CariAnne’s really dehydrated.” Rachel’s lower lip trembled. There was something more. Julia could see it in her eyes. “They said other kids from the school are ill, too. They won’t tell me what all is going on.” She shot a look over her shoulder, not wanting CariAnne to hear her. “It’s bad. I think it’s really bad,” she whispered.
Her grip on Julia’s hands was so tight it hurt.
“I can’t lose her,” Rachel said.
“You’re not going to lose her.”
In the past Julia had always left herself escape hatches. She constructed them almost as soon as she entered a relationship. It was—she truly believed—a smart survival tactic. She never allowed herself to feel so much that she couldn’t resurface. She was Houdini, looking out for number one because if she didn’t, who would?
“Go back in with CariAnne,” she told Rachel.
“I’m so scared. Come with me.”
Julia cringed. So this was what it felt like to have your heart break.
“I’ll be right here,” she told Rachel. “There’s something I have to do.”
She was surprised how convincing she sounded. Rachel nodded, wiped her face, took one more squeeze of Julia’s hands, and went back to her daughter.
Julia leaned against the wall. She sucked in gulps of disinfected air. When she pulled out her cell phone, her fingers shook so much she could barely hit the correct numbers.
The phone rang forever and she was torn between anger and frustration. He wouldn’t recognize her number.
Finally an answer.
“This is Benjamin Platt.”
“I need a favor,” she said, forgetting to even tell him who was calling.
SIXTY-SEVEN
NEBRASKA
When Maggie finally cut the zip tie it didn’t immediately fall from her wrists. Blood had caked and dried around it, and she had to dig the plastic strip out of the deep groove it had cut into her flesh. She found alcohol under one of the stainless-steel counters. Opened the bottle, held her breath, and poured it onto her first wrist. She closed her eyes tight and almost bit through her lower lip trying to silence her scream.
The second wrist was easier. Everything would be easier now that her hands were free.
She hadn’t needed any light once inside the field house. Her eyes had quickly adjusted to the glow from several tanks distributed throughout. Without much effort she had discovered a pair of pruning shears. It had taken several attempts at handling the shears before she cut the plastic tie.
Now she stashed the shears in the pocket of her shorts and hunted for a better weapon.
One section of the building looked like a high-tech laboratory. Another section looked like a small processing center. Opening the thick glass doors Maggie immediately felt the difference. A gust of warm, dry air hit her in the face. It smelled of dirt and plants.
A blue fluorescent track lit up paths in the floor similar to those on commercial airplanes. It was enough to maneuver through the maze. And enough to see the clusters of plants hanging to dry from the ceiling.
Maggie didn’t venture far into the room. There would be nothing here to help her. But as she turned to leave she recognized a bundle of leaves hanging in the rows of drying plants. Even in the fluorescent light she was pretty sure the leaves were similar to the ones in the plastic bag Lucy had found at the crime scene hidden underneath one of the boys. The size of the leaf, the shape—and what she could make out of the color—looked like
Back in the main section of the building Maggie quickly made her way around the counters, opening drawers while watching both doors on the opposite side of the room. Huge fans turned on and off overhead obscuring her ability to hear. Someone could already be inside and she wouldn’t know until he came up behind her. She focused on her other senses. She could smell something wet and musty and saw that her running shoes were caked with a wet sandy mud. Earlier inside the SUV, she remembered that same odor. Had it come from Mike Griffin’s boots?
Didn’t Dawson say he could smell river mud? Now she understood where it came from.
Maggie tried to get a sense of where in the forest she was. What did Griffin tell her? He just wanted to scare the kids. Didn’t want them snooping around the field house. This had to be where they had gotten the salvia. If he wanted to frighten them away, that meant the field house was close to the crime scene.
She couldn’t spend any more time inside. She had already exceeded what she told herself was past high risk. She started to zigzag her way to the back door and that’s when she found the tall cabinet with glass doors, holding a contraption that looked like a rifle.
She went to get a closer look, stepping around one and then another stainless-steel counter. She didn’t see the foot, didn’t see the man hunched on the floor until she was on top of him. She jumped back, ready to run. But the man didn’t move.
In the blue glow she could see his face—eyes wide open, blood trickling from his mouth. Without checking she knew Wesley Stotter was dead.
SIXTY-EIGHT
She had to keep moving.
She could do this. That’s what Maggie told herself as she stumbled under the weight of the backpack with the rifle slung over her shoulder. Up ahead she saw the yellow crime-scene tape flapping from several trees. Just the sight pumped another surge of adrenaline. She could do this. She couldn’t think about Stotter right now. She had to
