Now That She's Gone (31 page)

“Everything about Wyo concerns me. Bravo might want him too. And just so you know, I really don't like how you tried to manipulate Wyo and turn him against me.”

Kendall seethed, but held it together. She was calling him out of a sense of duty, not because she cared about the man.

“Whatever you two have going is twisted and sick and probably, actually unequivocally, unethical,” she said. “Maybe illegal. That'll be for someone else to decide. And really, Pandora, stay of out this. You don't know what you're doing. You never have.”

“Look, bitch, just because you have a badge doesn't mean you can boss me around.”

Kendall ignored the psycho psychic. Disregarding Pandora was the only thing she could think to do. “Look,” she went on, “I'm warning
you
, Wyatt. She's very dangerous and your life could be at risk.”

She was talking about Brenda, but she felt the same way about Pandora.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY-FIVE

B
irdy Waterman retreated to the green linoleum-tiled kitchen for a cup of coffee. The new offices for the coroner had experienced some construction delays, and while she loved new technology and all the bells and whistles that had been built into her autopsy suite, she'd miss the house on Sidney Avenue. It was old, decrepit, and completely behind the times. Yet it had history and she always loved that. She looked out the window toward the back parking lot between the coroner's office and the other county buildings. All had been built for their ascribed purposes—the courthouse, the jail, and the sheriff's department. The house on Sidney had been drafted into duty.

Her mind went back to that long trip to Wyoming when she was younger. Her sister, Summer, and she were close back then. Booze, jealousy, and envy hadn't supplanted their genuine bond of sisterhood.

They sat in the backseat of their father's old Ford the whole time from Neah Bay across Washington, the Idaho Panhandle, through never-ending Montana to Wyoming with nothing but the rustic and rugged western landscape to entertain them. Their mother, Natalie, paid little attention to her daughters—she was always focused on herself. That would never change. When they arrived in Wyoming to camp with a horde of cousins, it was their father who insisted they see the famed Western art museum.

“Not Makah,” Mackie Waterman said, “but our people nevertheless.”

The museum was massive. Birdy remembered taking in all the paintings, the collections of Plains Indians artwork and the stories told by the docent there. All of it provided a connection with the other Native American people whom she'd seen portrayed on TV, but who seemed so foreign in culture and art. The Makah were people of the Pacific Ocean, shellfish gatherers and whale hunters. The Plains people commanded a vast world of countless acres of rolling grasslands, horses, and bison. They were the Indian people that everyone knew.

Birdy and Summer each bought a seed-beaded bracelet that spelled out the name of the city.

She nearly dropped her coffee cup just then. She was a blur as she ran from the kitchen to her phone. She dialed Kendall, but it went to voice mail.

“Kendall! Call me! The museum isn't just in Wyoming! It's in Cody, Wyoming!”

 

 

Brad James kept the sheriff's radio on instead of background music as he went about trying to figure out if he could weather the storm he'd created with the
Spirit Hunter
debacle. He'd set up two K9 officer visits to local schools, an occurrence that usually brought in a measure of good press in the local weeklies. He'd been foolishly ambitious and knew it. He'd burned a major bridge with both Kendall Stark and Birdy Waterman—allies who were needed and specifically requested by media all the time.

He stopped what he was doing—looking online for a new job—when he heard the code for a potential school shooting. A jolt ran though his body and he jumped from his chair and ran down the hall to find Kendall.

He knew what school Cody attended.

She looked up from her work and glared at him.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Kendall, I just heard it on the radio. Something's going down at Cody's school.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“I heard it on the radio. A possible shooting at the Cascade School.”

Kendall felt for her gun and grabbed her keys. A second later, she popped the siren onto her SUV and was barreling down the road. Her heartbeat was like a drum inside her. Pounding in her head. Telling her that Cody was all right. That all the kids were okay. That Brad James had screwed up again. And yet, she knew he hadn't. The dispatcher had sent a patrol deputy to the scene. She called in too.

“I'm en route,” she said. “I know the school. Is SWAT there?”

“No need for SWAT,” the dispatcher said. “Woman in the office had a heart attack or a seizure or something.”

Kendall relaxed a little. Not that she didn't care about the woman. She probably knew her. She was just grateful that her son was safe.

“Is she all right?” she asked.

“Looks bad. Paramedics from the fire station are there.”

 

 

When Kendall pulled up to the school, she could see the logjam of people around its pristine entrance. There were a few kids, some people from the neighborhood, and the whirlwind of activity that comes with a paramedic team. She threw her car into park, wrenched the brake into position, and jumped out. Inside, she felt the kind of urgency that comes when any mother feels that her child is in danger. It's a kind of pleading pain that drives the mother closer to the danger, like a heat-seeking missile that had been launched into enemy territory. No real mother ran from trouble. Kendall was also there as a public servant. She felt for her shoulder holster.

Seeing Kendall, Kara Watanabe ran over to her. For a woman in her sixties, she was fast.

“What happened?” Kendall asked, seeing the unmistakable look of horror on Kara's usually calm face.

“Student teacher collapsed,” Kara puffed. “I don't know what's wrong with her. She seemed fine a half hour ago.”

“No shooting?” she asked.

“God no. Whatever gave you that idea?”

It wasn't a what, but a
who.
Kendall didn't tell her it was the PIO from the sheriff's office. Brad James had muffed it again. He'd sent her bolting through traffic to get there because the circumstances warranted it. There was no gun violence.

“Are the kids all right?” Kendall asked.

A mother Kendall had seen at a school meeting ran over to Kara.

“Where is Cinnamon?” the mom asked, her voice dripping with desperation.

“She's fine,” Kara said. “She's in the classroom. All the kids are fine. It was just Reeta that passed out.”

Passed out. It was more than that. It was swift and decisive.

“Is Reeta all right?” Kendall asked.

Still out of breath, Kara kept her eyes on Kendall and shook her head. “Kendall, I think she's dying. She might even be gone. I don't know what happened. I don't. A seizure or something.”

The other mother stepped away, taking in the scene.

Kendall and Kara pushed back toward the front door where the paramedics were preparing Reeta for transport. The blank stare in the young teacher's eyes and stillness of her body indicated Reeta was not going to make it.

A paramedic shook his head in Kendall's direction. He didn't need to mouth the words or call over to her.

“She was fine,” Kendall said, pulling Kara into the conversation. “Kara Watanabe is the office administrator. She was just with her.”

Kara stared to crack a little just then. She'd been unflappable for most of the dramas that come with working at a school, but this felt too close to home. “Yes,” she said, her lower lip trembling as she tried to remain composed, “I left her in the office and she was okay. I mean, I don't know if she has any medical issues. If she does, they would have been confidential anyway. I'm thinking she didn't because the teachers that do have, you know, something wrong with them have to take meds in the nurse's office. I never saw her do that.” She pivoted and faced Kendall. “She was fine when I left her. I had to run those cookies that your sister-in-law made over to Cody.”

Kendall thought she misunderstood. She didn't have a sister-in-law.

“Kara, what are you talking about?” she asked.

“Whitney,” the older woman said, her words now mixed with tears. “She came with some snickerdoodles for Cody.”

Kendall's eyes flickered. “Steven was an only child,” she said, her tone stiff, but her voice louder than it needed to be.

Kara completely lost it. The recognition of what might have happened became so clear just then. She pressed her hand to her stomach. She felt sick.

“I . . .” she said, her words now coming in the smallest bits, the syllables standing alone and away from each complete word. “I did something wrong, didn't I? Whitney was so nice. She knew all about you and Steven. I didn't . . . I'm so sorry.”

Kendall grabbed Kara's shoulders. “Where are the cookies?”

Kara flinched. Kendall's grip was strong and while she didn't shake her, there was an implicit promise to do so if she didn't answer quickly.

“I set one aside and gave the bag to Cody's teacher,” Kara said, keeping her eyes riveted to the detective's. “She said they were a special family recipe or something like that. I don't remember. Everything is happening so fast.”

Drugs could be quick. Some poisons were fast too.

“She had been eating something,” the paramedic said. “We found something in her mouth when we intubated her.”

“Look around the office,” Kendall said, completely unsure about what was going on at the school that she'd scrimped and saved to send her son to for a fighting chance at an independent life. Undone by poison? She could never have imagined that in a zillion years. Who would give poison to a child? Her brain downloaded some cases she'd studied. One in particular had a kind of macabre resonance. It was a case in which a woman named Laurie Dann had delivered poisoned baked goods to kids in her Illinois neighborhood.

Kendall didn't know who Whitney was. Not for sure. But she had a pretty good idea.

“I'm going after my son,” she said.

 

 

A few kids were looking out the window at the scene outside, but most others carried on with whatever they were doing. Candace Donahue met Kendall at the door.

“Candace, where's Cody?” Kendall said to the teacher without saying hello.

“He's over there,” Candace said, looking alarmed, but not sure why. “Kendall, what's happening?”

“Did you give him the cookies?” Kendall asked as she scanned the room. She couldn't find Cody's shock of blond hair. Not a sign of him anywhere.

The teacher nodded.

“What's going on?” Candace asked.

“I don't see Cody,” Kendall said.

Candace looked over. “He was in the quiet area. I don't see him there now.”

“What's happening? Is Reeta all right?”

Kendall didn't answer. She couldn't think about Reeta just then. She was probably dead. She'd eaten something before she died. A cookie. She'd been drugged or poisoned. In a second, she was in the quiet area where Cody was lying among the blocks with a cookie in his hand.

She screamed and scooped him up.

“Baby!” she called to him. “Breathe!”

She started toward the doorway, barely turning to call over to Candace.

“Candace, get the cookies! Don't let anyone touch them.”

While the rest of the kids and Ms. Donahue looked on in horror, Kendall ran down the hallway carrying the most precious thing in her life. She could feel Cody's heart beating against her own. It was a warning drum. She'd thought of all the times she'd held him and how she'd never imagined a moment like this. She prayed to God that He would spare her son from whatever Brenda Nevins had given him. Cody coughed, struggled for air. He was awake, but having a hard time breathing. Kendall caught the scent of bitter almonds and knew that cyanide had been the poison.

“The cookies are poison,” she said as she made her way to the open doors and the commotion outside. “Keep them away from the kids!”

She was fast as she ran toward the paramedics, tears coming from her own eyes. It was the first time in her life that she'd ever cried without making a sound. It was as though her eyes were raining, dripping, oozing the pain she was feeling inside.

“Guys! My son's been poisoned!” she called out. “Cyanide, I think.”

The paramedic team ran to meet her.

 

 

At Harrison Hospital in Bremerton, Kendall Stark watched through the ICU window as the team of doctors and nurses kept her son alive. He'd had a small dose of cyanide and he was going to be fine. She managed to get Steven on the phone and he was already on his way home to Port Orchard.

He'd wanted to surprise her.

“I'm north of the Bay area,” he said. “I'm going to turn around so I can get to the airport.”

“No. Don't do that. They aren't going to admit him. It was a scare. A very big scare at that. But we're going to be all right.”

“Are you sure?”

Kendall was speaking about their marriage and their son at the same time.

“We are. We can get through anything.”

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“Jesus, Kendall,” he said, choked with emotion. “Why Cody?”

Kendall knew the answer. Yet she didn't want to say it to her husband. She knew that she had been the cause of her boy's near demise. Her job. Her relentless pursuit of the bad guy.

“There is no reason when it comes to crazy,” she said in the phone

And yet over and over it came to her. This was Brenda's payback. Brenda had made things very, very personal. The Kitsap County investigator didn't know where she was right then. She imagined that Brenda had watched as the scene at the school played out. That she'd loved every minute of Kendall's agony. What Brenda might not have known is that she'd made something abstract very, very personal.

That was too bad for Brenda Nevins.