The Mia Quinn Collection Read online

  “So were you in your old house ten days ago? On a Sunday night?”

  “Yeah.” She squeezed the bear.

  “Around eight?”

  Ronni nodded, her hair falling in her eyes.

  “Did you see Colleen get shot?” Mia held her breath as she waited for the girl to confirm that Mercer had been the shooter.

  “No. I didn’t see it.”

  Mia exhaled, and then Ronni added, “I heard it. And then I looked out the window.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing that will help you, to be honest. Someone dressed all in black was looking in the window. Part of it was broken, but the rest was still in the frame. He put his hand up next to his eyes like this”—she cupped her left hand around the outside of her left eye—“so he could see inside. He was wearing gloves. Another man was standing on the curb holding something in his right hand. When I saw that it was a gun, I dropped to the floor. I was so afraid he would turn and shoot me.”

  “Did you see their faces?”

  “Only the guy with the gun. And it was more just like an impression. About all I could tell you was that he was white. Once I saw the gun, that was all I could see.”

  “Was he fat, thin? Tall, short?”

  Pressing her lips together, Ronni shook her head. “Average height, average weight. I guess.”

  “Old? Young?”

  A shrug.

  “What did you do then?”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I don’t have a phone anymore. They’re too expensive. And the nearest pay phone is at least a half mile away. While I was still trying to decide, I heard the sirens. When I peeked out, the men were gone, so I pulled the blinds back down and watched through the crack.” She sighed. “But the police were too late. Colleen was already dead. And I didn’t even see how the guy who killed her left or what he looked like or anything. I didn’t see anything that could help you find whoever killed Colleen.”

  Mia didn’t tell her not to worry, that the killer was already dead. Because something Ronni had said didn’t fit.

  CHAPTER 47

  Charlie glanced sideways at Mia as she drove through Seattle’s stop-and-go traffic. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster. Jeremy, who was supposed to be on their side, was actually the one who had hacked Darin’s Facebook. Charlie had admitted his shameful secret to Mia. And then both of them had watched Seth Mercer die right after hearing him confess to murder.

  Charlie had spent enough time with Mia in the past week that he could see on her face the toll it had taken: her shadowed, slightly puffy eyes, her downturned mouth. And now Ronni had given them something new to think about. After talking to her, Mia had waved Charlie over, introduced him to the skittish girl, and then had her repeat what she had seen.

  Ronni had not understood their interest. She was sure what she had seen had been too little to help them. And maybe she was right. But Charlie couldn’t wait to get back to the office to check Colleen’s murder book. Something the girl had told them didn’t jibe with what they remembered.

  But first they had to figure out what to do with her.

  There was no easy answer. Ronni was an adult, so they couldn’t force her to go back to live with her family in an overcrowded house. Besides, what kind of mother would let her daughter squat in a foreclosed home? Charlie might not be a parent, but even he knew that was wrong.

  The problem with Ronni was that she didn’t fit neatly into any charity’s mission. Still, Charlie had his contacts and so did Mia. They would spread the word, in the hopes that a church or even a family might take her in and allow her to finish her senior year at the same high school.

  Mia nosed her car into a parking space in front of the Crown Royal Motel. As a stopgap measure, Charlie and Mia had decided to pitch in and pay out of their own pockets for three nights. Charlie knew the motel well because he had made a number of arrests here. The staff were cooperative with police and the rates were low. And it was safe enough if you didn’t leave your room at night.

  “For you, we give discount,” the clerk said. Her name was Ksinia, and she had brown, deep-set eyes. Charlie had dealt with her a time or two.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary,” he said. But after she insisted a second time, he took it. Thirty bucks was thirty bucks, and it wasn’t as if he had flashed his badge and asked for it.

  He came back to the car, and then he and Mia carried Ronni’s stuff inside. The carpet was sticky, the walls were smudged, and there were cigarette burns on the bedspread, but at least the room had a dead bolt. Ronni put her teddy bear down on the thin pillow and pronounced it perfect. They gave her a few more dollars for food. Before they left, the girl hugged both of them. When her thin arms went around his neck, for some reason Charlie found himself having to clear his throat.

  Mia drove them back to his office. Without Ronni in the car he was free to talk.

  “It doesn’t make any sense, Mia. I remember what that spot was like in front of Colleen’s window. Soft. Even muddy. But the crime-scene techs didn’t pick up any strange prints from her yard. How could someone have pressed up against the window and not left any marks on the ground?”

  Inside the station, she followed him into his cubicle, where he flipped through the murder book until he came to the photos of the crime scene. Mia pointed. “I thought you said there weren’t any prints.”

  One photo, taken just outside the shattered window, showed a clear boot print plus a smudged partial. The center of the full print had an indented narrow oval. Each side of the oval was marked by a distinctive zigzag pattern. Underneath the arch of the foot you could clearly read the word Danner.

  But just because there was a boot print didn’t mean it was a clue. In fact, this was the exact opposite.

  Charlie explained it to her. “I wasn’t saying there weren’t any prints at all. All the crime-scene techs wear that style of Danner boots.” Wearing the same boots meant they could easily distinguish their own prints from those of the bad guy as well as the victim and witnesses. For exclusionary purposes, the crime-scene techs had taken photos of the bottom of Charlie’s shoes as well as those belonging to the uniforms and the paramedics.

  “So some crime-scene guy stepped on the real print and obliterated it?” Mia asked, her brow furrowing. “That’s pretty clumsy of them, tromping on the evidence.”

  Charlie took a magnifying glass from his drawer and held it over the boot print. The full print was clear, the mud on either side of it untouched. It didn’t make any sense. Even if the crime-scene tech had deliberately lined up his boot with the existing print, it still shouldn’t be that clear.

  Mia took the magnifying glass from his hand. “Look at it.” She jabbed it with her finger. “Do you see what’s wrong with it?”

  Now Charlie focused on the boot print itself, not the soft ground around it, but he couldn’t see what was causing her excitement. “Actually, I don’t. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

  “That’s the thing, Charlie. That looks like a brand-new boot. The tread is perfect. There’re no marks, no defects, no signs of wear.”

  He looked closer. “You’re right.”

  “So what are the chances that one of the crime-scene techs has brand-new boots and is clumsy enough to step on the evidence?”

  They both knew the answer. Zero. The chances were zero. Charlie reached for his phone. “I’m gonna call all the team members to see if anyone has new boots.”

  “And if they don’t, then the person wearing those boots wasn’t a tech. It was one of the killers—and they wore them because they knew that was the brand the crime-scene techs wear.”

  Charlie said, “And the only people who know that . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Mia looked around the room to see if anyone was listening. In a voice barely above a whisper, she finished the thought for him: “Are people who work in law enforcement.”

  If what they were thinking was right, then whom could they trust? On the short
drive back to Mia’s parking lot and then as they made their way to her office, they talked about what they had just discovered. But they stopped whenever anyone else was within earshot. Had Colleen tangled with a judge, a criminal defense attorney, even a cop? For now it seemed safer to keep their suspicions to themselves.

  Judy let Charlie into Colleen’s office. For the hundredth time he began to page through her files. But this time he was looking for clues that someone inside the system had been the killer. Looking for evidence that Colleen had stumbled across something she shouldn’t have known, that she had rubbed someone the wrong way, that she had had a secret relationship with a judge or a cop or even a defense attorney that had turned sour.

  Mia knocked softly and then opened the door and stuck her head in. “I’m going home.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow.” He paused. “And watch your back.”

  Mia’s eyes met his for a long moment, and then she nodded.

  Charlie continued to search, continued to ponder, but finally he had to give up. He used Colleen’s keys to relock the file drawers. He fingered the keys on the ring. He had already established that there were no mystery keys. Instead, there was the key to her Volvo and the black fob to unlock it. Keys to the front and back doors of her house and the mailbox on the curb. A small brass key fit the fire safe he had found in Colleen’s home office. It had held Social Security cards, passports, birth certificates, and even the license for her long-defunct marriage to Martin.

  The three small silver keys he had just used were for her filing cabinets. They had been unlocked when Charlie originally searched Colleen’s office. But then again, she wouldn’t have needed to take the extra step of locking the filing cabinets if her office was locked at the end of the day, which seemed to be the norm here.

  All the keys were accounted for.

  Suddenly Charlie straightened up.

  It wasn’t what was on the ring that was a clue.

  It was what wasn’t on the ring.

  Where was the key to Colleen’s office? Judy had let him in today, just as she had the day he first searched it.

  No wonder he hadn’t found anything in Colleen’s office.

  Someone had been here before him.

  He grabbed his phone and punched in Mia’s number, but it went straight to voice mail.

  CHAPTER 48

  For the last two days Gabe’s school had been buzzing. On Tuesday Zach had been spotted being escorted down the hall by the school’s “resource officer”—a.k.a. cop—with his hands cuffed behind his back. In five minutes the news had spread all over school via whispers and texts. That same day four other football players had been pulled out of class and not come back—including Eldon and Rufus. Gabe had spent the remainder of the school day feeling sick, wondering when someone was going to point and call him a snitch, but no one did. Coach Harper had canceled Tuesday’s practice and announced that on Wednesday they would have a meeting to discuss the team’s code of ethics.

  Because Gabe had come forward, and because he hadn’t taken anything, Tracy Lowe, the lady from the Juvenile Unit where his mom worked, the one with long red-painted nails that looked like daggers, had decided not to charge him. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or guilty. Tracy had told his mom that most of the others would likely be sentenced to community service. All of them would probably also have to pay a fine.

  Except for Zach, the rest of the football team was back in school on Wednesday. After school, the team gathered in the locker room and waited without speaking. Most of the guys—most of the school—knew by now what had happened at the Sunshine Mart on Saturday. Gabe and Eldon and Rufus and the other two guys who had been there looked at each other, but didn’t speak. When Coach Harper came in, everyone straightened up.

  “You have probably heard,” he began, “about the incident that happened Saturday. A flash mob that included some members of our team robbed a convenience store. When I heard about it”—he paused while they all waited, not even breathing—“I won’t lie to you, I felt low. Very low. You all signed a code of conduct. But our ethics are more than words on paper. Our ethics are about much more than being a football team. They’re about what makes us men.” He looked from face to face, lingering on those who had been involved. “And real men acknowledge when they have made mistakes and ask for forgiveness. I think those who participated owe the team that.”

  Gabe was the first on his feet. He felt all those eyes fasten on him, but he just focused on Coach’s face. “Coach Harper, I’d like to apologize to you, the other players, and to my friends and family for what I did.”

  “Thank you, Gabe. I appreciate that.”

  One by one the others followed. A few minutes later Coach Harper dismissed them, shaking hands with each of the boys as they filed out. When it was Gabe’s turn, he gave him a nod and tightened his grip. Gabe looked him straight in the eye and didn’t flinch. He left feeling oddly light. The worst was over.

  Forty-five minutes after leaving the meeting, Gabe was in his kitchen, sliding a grilled cheese sandwich out of the frying pan and onto the cutting board. His mouth watering at the aroma of toasted bread and melted cheddar, he took one of the knives from the wooden block. A chef’s knife, he thought his mom called it. She didn’t like Gabe to use her “good knives,” but he had planned to wipe it on the kitchen towel and slip it back into the block with no one the wiser.

  He was cutting the sandwich in half to share with Brooke, who was upstairs playing in her room, when he heard someone walk onto the porch.

  Who could it be? The mail had already come. He waited but didn’t hear a knock. Gabe’s heart started to pound. He tried to remember what his mom had said to do about strangers who might come to the door. Was he supposed to ignore them? But what if they knew someone was home? Was he supposed to talk to them through the door without opening it? Open it but keep his hand firmly on the knob? He thought of Colleen, shot through a window. It was all on his shoulders to decide what to do. He was the one in charge. Had he turned the dead bolt as his mom was always nagging him to?

  The knife in his hand was big, maybe ten inches long. Gabe carried it with him as he tiptoed down the hall. Finally he risked a peek through the small paned windows at the top of the door.

  His breath let out in a whoosh. It wasn’t a stranger. It was that lady from his mom’s office. The one with the frizzy blond hair. The one they had sat by at the funeral for Colleen. Katrina. That was her name. She was holding some ski equipment. When she saw him, she gave him a wide smile, and his racing pulse began to slow.

  He set the knife down on the entryway table, turned the dead bolt—he had thrown it—and then the doorknob.

  “It’s Gabe, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Sorry if I scared you. Your mom said I could bring my stuff for her garage sale.”

  “Sure. Let me help you.”

  He took the skis from her, but then, not knowing what to do, he laid them flat in the hall, against the wall. Katrina put the ski poles next to them. She stopped short when she saw the knife on the table.

  “Oh, Gabe, did I scare you? Did you bring that knife out to defend yourself?” She threw a smile over her shoulder, a smile that said the knife was sort of pathetic.

  From inside her purse, her phone began to play music that sounded like the beginning of a symphony. Horns, the clash of cymbals, some kind of stringed instrument.

  A ring tone. Gabe had heard that snatch of sound once before. But when?

  And then it clicked into place. He knew exactly when he had heard it. That ring tone had been the last sound he had heard on the phone right after Colleen’s bubbling breath stopped. He had heard the same series of sounds repeated twice. Right before he dropped the phone and ran in to see why Brooke was screaming.

  He had thought Colleen had been listening to music, music he could finally hear because she had stopped struggling to pull air into her lungs.

  But no. He had actually heard the ring tone of som
eone who had been there when she died.

  The snatch of music played again.

  The ring tone that belonged to Colleen’s killer.

  Katrina. The woman standing in front of him.

  The murderer his mother had been hunting? It was someone who worked beside her.

  Gabe kept his face blank.

  Katrina reached into her purse and pressed a button to silence the phone. And when she did, he saw something else in there, glinting darkly. Gabe couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was a gun.

  What was she really here to do? And how could he stop her? The knife was on the hall table, which was right next to Katrina. One phone was in the kitchen, another in the family room, a third upstairs.

  All too far away to help him.

  Katrina was looking at him curiously now. And then her gaze sharpened. Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. And looking at her bony face, her flat blue eyes, Gabe knew that whatever she was thinking was bad. Very bad.

  “Is something wrong, Gabe?” Katrina’s voice was precise and ice cold.

  For an answer, he leaned down and grabbed his skateboard from underneath the entryway table. Then in one motion he stepped back while hoisting it over his shoulder.

  And with every ounce of strength he had, Gabe swung the skateboard at her head.

  CHAPTER 49

  When Mia turned onto her street, a strange car was in the driveway. Although it wasn’t completely unfamiliar. She had seen the car someplace before, but it didn’t belong to any of her friends. And it wasn’t the car that Zach from the football team had been driving. Still, seeing it made her uneasy. Her cell phone started ringing, but she ignored it.

  Through the windows at the top of the front door, Mia glimpsed something that turned her blood to icy slush. A blur of moving heads, swinging arms—it looked like there was some kind of a fight going on inside her house.

  Throwing the car into park and turning it off, she scrambled out so fast that she left the keys still in the ignition and the car door wide open. All Mia’s energy was concentrated on getting to her kids.