Envy (35 page)

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.

SNEAK PEEK!

RUNNING AS IF THEIR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT was the only thing Hayley and Taylor could do just then. Because they
did
depend on it. Anything else would mean turning themselves over to the man pursuing them—and the deadly edge of his hunting knife.

And there was no way either girl was going to do that.

In two short minutes their world had shifted. The bright sunlight and safety of friendly neighborhood backyards had changed into the moist darkness of the woods. The man had appeared suddenly, from nowhere, begging, cajoling, and then hurling threats like pipe bombs. The glint of the blade as he pulled it out from behind his back was all they saw before they hit the asphalt.

Their legs pumped … faster, faster, past an empty swing set, over perfect Port Gamble lawns, straining against the temptation to stop. Hayley and Taylor knew they only had three options: run, hide, or die. When they reached the last house and the forest tree line, they didn’t hesitate for a second before plunging ahead.

It seemed surreal, which was amazing considering all they had been through in the past few weeks.

He was coming after them.

Hayley and Taylor thrashed wildly through the forest, their feet landing hard against the black dirt in escalating rhythm with the blood that was jackhammering through their bodies. They were on the run in a place where screams melted into the green folds of the woods. The twins knew they should stay together, and they tried not to look over their shoulders, hoping they wouldn’t get caught, wondering what horrors would happen to them if they did.

The heavy lumbering noise of a large body crushing decaying leaves and brushing past mossy logs told the teens their pursuer was closing in. Then they heard the bristly sound of his thick voice, pleading, calling to them.

“Stop! This is just a big misunderstanding. I only want to talk. I won’t hurt you.”

Lies.
The word floated through Hayley’s mind as she imagined his real intention:
Come here. Closer. So I can take this knife and slit your pretty, slender throat like a chicken.

As Hayley tunneled through a tangle of salmonberry bushes, small circles of red bloomed across the white field of her T-shirt, another idea flashed through her mind:
berry juice
. In her heart of hearts, though, she knew it wasn’t. Salmonberries are bright orange. Not red.