The reporter went on to talk about how David Roche had replaced real bullets with blanks, knowing that Jessie Cole would most likely return fire to protect herself and others. They went on to show clips of the video Jessie had taken, circling the area with a red pen where David Roche was clearly visible. Both men were charged. David Roche was taken into custody, and Parker Koontz would soon be transported to the prison infirmary.
Jessie shut off the television and headed for bed. It was late, and she still had trouble sleeping since the Heartless Killer incident. For the next few hours, she tossed and turned. Finally giving up, she lay awake, her mind churning. During the first week after Arlo Gatley’s release, she’d talked to him more than once. During their last conversation, she’d been glad to hear that he was making a concerted effort to meet the neighbors. Whether out of guilt or shame for judging Arlo based on his looks and mannerisms and thinking the worst of him, or sheer compassion, the neighbors had come out in full force, plying him and Zee with home-cooked meals and invitations to barbeques. Mrs. Dixon, a longtime widow and Arlo’s next-door neighbor, had invited him to dinner. He’d been surprised to admit that he’d enjoyed being in her company.
Despite solving the mystery of Parker Koontz, and her tremendous relief in knowing that the Heartless Killer had finally been stopped, she couldn’t stop thinking about Ben Morrison.
A week after he’d saved her life, and others, he’d called her and asked to meet with her, telling her it was imperative that they talk. She’d met him at the office. After hearing what he had to say about Sophie, she’d been angry that he’d waited so long to tell her what he’d heard. At the time, she had a court case looming, so she’d pushed it out of her mind.
But now, as she lay in the dark, she thought about Sophie’s friend Juliette Farris. After Sophie had disappeared, Jessie had met with Juliette on more than one occasion. She remembered Juliette coming across as quiet and sort of standoffish. Long before Mom ran off, Jessie had realized Sophie was a troublemaker. There was the time Sophie stole a pack of gum from the grocery store, and then was suspended from school after forging their mother’s name, excusing herself from school due to illness. There were other things, too, but a car thief? Luring strange men away so she and Juliette could steal their money?
Sophie had a wild side, and she’d liked to let loose every once in a while, but Jessie also knew the Sophie who cried easily at movies and spent more than one weekend baking cookies to raise money for families worse off. All Jessie had to do was shut her eyes to see Sophie spending endless, sleepless nights watching over Olivia when she was sick with croup.
Ben Morrison, Leanne Baxter, and Juliette Farris had nothing to gain by making up lies about her sister.
And yet every time she talked to Ben, it seemed there was one more link between him and Sophie. And it always pointed to the last day Sophie was seen alive.
Her stomach tightened.
No matter how Jessie twisted the sequence of events around in her mind, Ben and Sophie’s connection seemed to begin at the Wild West and end at the scene of the accident—an accident that had changed the course of Ben Morrison’s life.
Ben had said they should focus on Sophie’s last day.
Jessie began to tick off everything she could remember.
When Jessie had returned home early from work, Sophie was wearing a red dress. Her dark hair had been curled, and the way she’d done her makeup had made her look much older. She’d been antsy to get out of the house. They had argued. Jessie had lectured Sophie about being irresponsible. She had a daughter to look after. Jessie recalled telling Sophie that she needed to have a life, too.
But Sophie had always been selfish, and she’d marched around the house gathering her purse and sweater. The last thing Jessie had said to her was, “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.”
Jessie swallowed the lump in her throat.
She thought about the stolen car Ben had talked about. Everyone had assumed Vernon Doherty had stolen the car, which made sense at the time because authorities assumed, rightfully so, that there had been only two people in the car.
But things had changed. According to Ben, the owner of the car’s son had confessed to having taken his father’s car without permission to a friend’s house in Sacramento, not far from Jessie’s house.
Did Sophie steal the car?
The last time anyone saw Sophie was when she’d left the Wild West with two men: Vernon Doherty and Ben Morrison.
If Leanne Baxter’s account of what happened was to be believed, Sophie broke a bottle in the parking lot and used it to get Vernon Doherty to back off. Did she hurt him? Possibly even kill him?
Continuing with her line of thought and the sequence of events that day, she recalled what Ben had said about Vernon Doherty’s autopsy. The report revealed that he was most likely dead before the car caught on fire because there had been no smoke in his lungs or carbon monoxide in his blood. There were two possibilities, as far as Jessie could tell.
Doherty could have died on impact, or he could have been dead at the Wild West before he was placed in the car. If that were the case, then that would mean Sophie could have been driving the vehicle that night.
Jessie’s insides twisted as something occurred to her.
Her heart raced as she climbed out of bed, grabbed her computer, and took it to the family room to search the Internet for information on Ben Morrison’s accident.
As she skimmed through one article after another, she already knew that if everything happened the way she thought it did, then Sophie’s last day could only have ended two different ways.
Sophie either escaped without injury and walked away, or she was thrown from the vehicle.
The first scenario would mean Sophie could still be alive. The second scenario would lead Jessie to believe her sister had perished but her body was removed . . . or never found.
She clicked faster now. She stopped scrolling when she came to an image of the overturned vehicle. It was still in flames when the picture had been taken. It wasn’t the car or the wreck that grabbed Jessie’s attention, but the deep gorge beyond.
Jessie’s hand went slowly to her mouth as she whispered, “Sophie.”
Even if everything she’d learned about her sister was true, nobody could convince her that Sophie would have abandoned Olivia.
And that was when it dawned on her with such clarity she could no longer sit still. She made note of the name of the road where the accident had occurred and then went back to her room and pulled on hiking boots and a coat.
Next she went to the kitchen, grabbed a flashlight from the drawer, then left a note for Olivia in case she woke up while Jessie was gone.
FORTY-EIGHT
For two hours Ben had been sitting at his desk, looking over the accident report from his crash. Years ago he’d had every photo taken of the Ford Pinto—before and after the accident—blown up to eight-by-tens.
After the wreck was towed up the hill, it was placed on a flatbed. The windshield was broken—a large, gaping hole. If Sophie had been driving, and if she had not been wearing a seat belt, she could have easily been propelled forward into the night, before the car burned and rolled.
He thought of his last trip to the place where the accident occurred. In his mind’s eye, he saw the ravine made up of a mixed species of woodland, dead trees, shrubs, and an uninterrupted patch of thorny blackberry bush that would be difficult if not impossible to traverse.
Why hadn’t he seen it before?
Because he’d never once thought anyone else was in the car with him. His heart quickened as he looked at the time. Moving quietly through his bedroom, he made his way into the walk-in closet, where he dressed quickly. Ten minutes later, his wife found him in the garage piling tools into the back of the van.
“It’s late, Ben. What are you doing?”
He kept working. “It’s about Sophie Cole. I think I know what might have happened to her on the night she disappeared.”
“She’s been missing for ten years. It can’t wait until morning?”
He slid the side door shut, then came around the van to where his wife stood and placed both hands on her shoulders. “This is important to me.”