You Don't Want To Know

Chapter 31


The trouble with lies is that they continue to grow and grow and not always in a straight line. Sometimes they twisted, like a writhing snake; other times they split as if they were a forked tree; other times they splintered, flying in all directions, shards of the lie cutting deep and showing up where least expected. If you were going to be a liar, and a good one, you had to be at the top of your game, always remembering to whom you said what, which was difficult. Since a lie wasn’t based in reality, there was no sound basis on which it stood, no solid rock; instead it was based on shifting quicksand ready to drag you down and bury you with your inconsistencies.

Fortunately for Ava, lying hadn’t been a problem. She’d always been a straight shooter.

Until now.

“Get used to it,” she muttered, her cell phone to her ear as she stood at her window watching the clouds shift across the bay, waiting for Tanya to pick up. After her discoveries last night, Ava needed an accomplice, someone she could trust—and the people in that category were dwindling fast.

She heard Tanya’s muffled voice as she spoke to someone nearby, then more clearly, “Okay, I checked my schedule and I really can’t get out of here until after three unless I can do some serious appointment shuffling. I’ve got Gloria Byers coming in at one for a cut and color, and it always takes a couple of hours, minimum. After that, I’m good. Russ has kid duty tonight. He’s picking them up after school, trying to play the part of ‘good dad’ again, I guess. It makes me nervous, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ve got the evening off.”

Ava glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was nearly ten already. “I’d like to leave by noon, but see what you can do and call me back.”

“Will do. You know, sometimes it’s just a bitch being a single mother.” She hung up, her frustration still sizzling over the wireless connection, and Ava tried to figure out what she would do if she didn’t have Tanya as her “cover.” Without a friend with her, it would be almost impossible to avoid suspicion about her trip to Seattle for the equipment she needed.

She gritted her teeth, already worried about buying the microphones and video cameras. Wyatt would be able to see the bank statement if she used a credit or debit card, and she didn’t want him becoming suspicious.

She’d always had her own, separate checking account, credit cards, and savings. She’d managed her investment account and created her own financial independence only to lose it upon her admission into the hospital. Since that time, however, whenever she’d brought up the need for her “own” money, Wyatt had assured her that they’d “work things out” once she was “better.”

Him having total control over her finances would have to stop. Directly after this subversive trip into Seattle.

As she was reaching for her sweater, her phone vibrated in her pocket and she saw Tanya’s number flash on the screen.

“Okay, it’s a go,” Tanya said cheerfully. “I managed to switch everything around. Turns out good ol’ Gloria needed to reschedule anyway. Looks like I can get out of here at eleven.”

“Perfect. I’m on my way! Can we use your car?”

“You bet. As long as you buy me lunch. And I’m not talkin’ about a hot dog and a soda at the ferry landing. Uh-uh. I’m talking serious, over-the-top Seattle lunch complete with an expensive glass of wine and a view of the harbor. Treat me like the GD princess I’m supposed to be.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Always.”

Ava laughed for the first time that day. “It’s a deal.”

Thank God for Tanya!



The Reynolds case was going nowhere fast, and Snyder was bugged as he sat at his computer, a cup of coffee long forgotten on his desk. He didn’t hear the phones ringing nor see the two deputies saunter past his desk on their way to the back of the building. He was too engrossed in his work and was reading the autopsy report on Cheryl Reynolds for the third time.

Not that there were any big surprises in the document, but he’d hoped he’d missed something important in the first two passes. According to the ME, Cheryl Reynolds had died because both her jugular vein and carotid artery had been sliced open, after she’d been nearly strangled to death.

So the killer had to be someone strong enough to crush her larynx before slitting her throat from one ear to the other. Brutal son of a bitch . . . and he probably knew her. The attack seemed personal, as if the person wanted to make a point rather than just kill the woman.

He switched the screen and stared, once more, at the list of trace evidence found at the scene. Nothing that would help. Nothing out of place, except for a single black hair, that, for all he knew, could belong to one of the cats or even another of Cheryl’s clients who’d stepped into the laundry room. Nothing stolen, it seemed, and no one even trying to mask the crime as a robbery gone bad.

Again, he thought the attack was pointed and personal.

There were no eyewitness reports of someone lurking about, no neighbor spying a stranger or anyone suspicious on the premises. The tenants upstairs, possibly smoking dope from the scent in their apartment, hadn’t heard a thing.

Typical.

Why, he wondered, would a woman who had lived in Anchorville peacefully for decades, with no known enemies, suddenly be the victim of such a vicious, pointed attack?

Random?

It just didn’t feel like it.

The last known person to see Reynolds alive was Ava Garrison, but her story had seemed to hold water; her statement and timeline about seeing the hypnotist was spot-on and gelled with other witnesses’ accounts who’d helped offer up an alibi for her. But Cheryl Reynolds’s time of death had happened soon, if not immediately, after the Garrison woman had left. And she was far from mentally stable, had even tried to kill herself.

Maybe that counted for something; maybe it didn’t.

Other than her one suicide attempt, there was no history of violence surrounding her. She had been rumored to be a hard-nosed businesswoman once, a bitch by some standards, but that was before she’d had a son and then lost her only child.

He grimaced. Too bad, that.

She’d never given up on the kid, and after she’d shown up at his office a few days earlier, Snyder had pulled the file and reviewed it. There had been no leads in the case from the get-go and none since. The kid had vanished, and when no ransom note had appeared, when no kidnappers had contacted the Garrisons, his theory had changed. Snyder’s private opinion, a theory he couldn’t prove, was that there had been some bad accident, where the kid had died and whoever had killed him had dumped the body—stashing it somewhere before dropping it in the open sea.

The mother? Unlikely.

Then again, she had issues.

Frustrated, he drummed his fingers on his desk while he rolled over all the evidence in his mind.

So lost in thought was he that he didn’t notice Biggs stroll into his cubicle. Only when the sheriff cleared his throat did Snyder look up and find the ponderous man filling the little extra space around his desk.

Biggs’s reading glasses were pushed onto the top of his head, and he was chewing gum with a vengeance. “Anything new on the Reynolds case?”

“Just goin’ over the autopsy and evidence reports, but no, nothing.”

Biggs scowled. Chewed harder. “The press is all over the PIO, and I’d like her to be able to give them something positive to work with.”

It figured. “As soon as I have something that won’t compromise the case, I’ll call Natalie.” Snyder thought about the petite, wiry public information officer and didn’t envy her that job.

“The sooner the better. I can’t have an unsolved homicide on my watch.” He shook his head, the glasses shifting enough that he pulled them from his graying crew cut, folded the bows, and stuffed the readers into a shirt pocket. “And I’m sick to the back teeth of my ex-sister-in-law calling me about all that shit that goes on out on the island. Buried dolls and all that.” He made a disgusted snort. “Virginia, she doesn’t know what ex means.” Frowning, he said, “I suppose there’s still nothing on Lester Reece, right? I’d love to give the press something to feed on.”

“No recent sightings, no, sir.”

Biggs’s eyes narrowed a bit, as if he thought Snyder might be putting him on. “He’s never shown up anywhere, you know.”

“Could have drowned. Been washed out to sea. Eaten by sharks or orcas.” Snyder lifted his shoulder. “It’s been a long while.”

“Nonetheless.”

“We’re always keeping an eye out for him.”

“Good,” Biggs grunted, then shifted and winced. “Goddamned knee. Hurts like a mother sometimes.” Rumor had it that his doctor had suggested knee replacement surgery. That same rumor said Biggs, ever bullheaded, had told the doc just where to shove that idea. Now, still chewing furiously, Biggs headed stiffly toward the back of the office building where the kitchen and restrooms were located.

Snyder turned back to his work and barely looked up when he heard Lyons approach.

“Get the pumped-up ‘we’ve got to catch this sum-bitch and nail his hide’ speech?”

“Yep.” He glanced up at her. “You got something?”

“I found her computer notes. Plan to check ’em.”

“Aren’t those confidential?”

Morgan looked toward the ceiling and shook her head. “Not unless you’re a physician. Or a lawyer. Which she was neither. I just hope to all that’s holy, and unholy, that something in there helps us catch a killer.”





From the watering trough where he was repairing a leaky faucet, Dern surreptitiously watched Ava leave. Twisting a wrench on the pipe, tightening the new stem washer over the spindle, he was finally satisfied that there would be no more leakage as he saw Ava hurry along the street. He would’ve thought it odd she didn’t take the car but figured it was because of the limited ferry schedule, and, he knew Wyatt did keep two vehicles garaged on the other side of the bay.

As she disappeared onto the marina, he replaced the faucet’s handle, managing to resist the urge to follow her. Just. That part, the leaving her alone, was getting tougher and went against all of his ridiculous, primitive yearnings.

Setting his jaw, he jogged back to the stable where he’d shut off the main valve for the outside water. He opened the valve, then returned to the trough where he checked the flow of water pouring from the faucet, then turned the spigot off and checked his work, confirming that no water was seeping out. The new washer was holding. “Good enough,” he said to himself, and felt one of the horses approaching. Looking over his shoulder, he spied Jasper, who snorted softly, shooting twin jets of hot breath from his nostrils.

“Want to help?” Dern asked. “Or maybe a drink, eh?”

He filled the large cement basin that looked as if it had been around for over fifty years, and the horse moved forward, put his head over the trough, and snorted again, sending the fresh water rippling away.

“You know the old saying about leading a horse to water?” Dern asked, and patted the gelding’s broad forehead as he glanced out to the bay and watched a boat head across the steely waters toward Anchorville. “So,” he said to the horse, “how about you and me take a ride?”

Still wondering where Ava was going, he snapped a lead onto Jasper’s halter, then led the gelding to the stable where he saddled up before heading out again. It didn’t matter that Ava had left the island; Dern considered it a good sign that she was getting off this damned rock, but it seemed wherever she went, trouble followed.

And more often than not, trouble’s partner was danger.

Isn’t that hypocritical considering your own agenda?

He stared at the boat speeding across the bay and felt an overwhelming urge to take off after it. “Idiot,” he told himself, and fought back the temptation. He couldn’t tip his hand. Not yet. If he constantly showed up every time Ava was somewhere off the island, and she caught sight of him, she’d become suspicious and he couldn’t have that. She wouldn’t buy the whole coincidence explanation. She wasn’t that crazy. In fact, he suspected, she wasn’t crazy at all. But someone on this island was. The buried doll was proof enough of that.

He glanced at the garden as he swung into the saddle. Who the hell had decided burying a likeness of a missing child was a good idea? Or a bad joke?

Yeah, things were certainly not on the up-and-up here at Neptune’s Gate, but then, he surmised, they never had been. The old mansion built into the sides of the hill held secrets, some much darker than others.

Today, he needed to take advantage of the fact that no one was looking over his shoulder. He needed a few hours alone, without anyone’s prying eyes watching him. The sands of time were slipping by far too quickly, and he had to work fast. He couldn’t be derailed from his mission. Not even by Ava Garrison.

Lord knew she was a major distraction.

“Come on,” he urged the horse, who broke into a smooth lope. Up through the woods he’d ride, only veering south once he was assured no one could see him.

Then he’d sneak into his final destination: the abandoned walls of Sea Cliff.





“So what’s all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?” Tanya asked Ava as they walked along the hilly sidewalks of Seattle. Tanya was dressed in a fur-lined coat and boots with four-inch heels. As they strode along the steep incline, she tried and failed to keep an umbrella from turning inside out in the wind that blew in off of Elliott Bay. “I mean, what’s with the spy cameras and recording devices? Don’t tell me . . . you’re going to become a PI. Good! I’ll have you take pictures or videos of Russell when he’s got the kids.”

“I don’t think I’d make a very good private detective,” she admitted with a laugh. During the drive to the city, Ava had kept mum about her mission. Only now, after they’d gone to an electronics store and, using Tanya’s credit card to avoid any link to Ava, had purchased the items she thought she needed was she ready to explain, if only a little. She owed her friend that much.

“Then why all the James Bond equipment?” Tanya pressed.

“I’m just trying to turn the tables on whoever is gaslighting me.” They sidestepped a man walking a schnauzer in the opposite direction, then waited for a light so they could cross the street to the waterfront restaurant Tanya had chosen for their late lunch.

“You think it has anything to do with Cheryl’s murder?” Tanya asked nervously. She hadn’t been silent about her belief that Ava’s visit to the hypnotist had something to do with Cheryl’s death.

“I don’t see how.” Which was true, but still it bothered her. A lot. Not only had Cheryl’s life been taken brutally, but, Ava, too, worried that there might be a connection.

“Well, it’s weird and scary—no, make that terrifying—and it makes me paranoid!”

“Join the club.”

The light changed and they waited a beat for a maniac driving a Volkswagen bug to zip through the intersection on a red. “Idiot!” Tanya yelled as the driver of a Ford Escape laid on his horn as the escaping yellow beetle careened around a corner.

Once Tanya and Ava were no longer in jeopardy, they quickly crossed the broad street to the waterfront where the air smelled of the ocean and seagulls cawed and wheeled in the gray skies overhead. Ferries chugged across the choppy water, sending up frothy wakes, and in the distance, through a thin layer of fog, the sweeping Olympic Mountains were visible.

As one, they walked to Pier 57, then slipped through the swinging doors of a bistro located over the water and known for its fresh seafood. There were only a few patrons inside, as the lunch crowd had thinned and dinner seating was hours away.

Once seated in a booth near a window with a view of Puget Sound, they ordered drinks and a crab and artichoke dip appetizer that they shared, then individual specials of fish stew and Dungeness crab cakes.

“Okay,” Tanya said, once her pomegranate martini was delivered, “so spill. What’s with the high-tech spy gizmos?” She sipped her drink and eyed her friend from across the table.

Drawing a fortifying breath, Ava unloaded about the night before and how she’d broken into the third floor only to discover the recording device. For once, Tanya didn’t interrupt; she just listened as she sipped her drink and nibbled on the dip and crusty sourdough bread.

“Something’s very rotten on that island,” she finally said once Ava had finished. “But Jewel-Anne? Let’s face it, even if she could climb the stairs, which she can’t, is she really that tech savvy to set up some kind of elaborate system?”

“She could have had help. Her brother, Jacob, is a computer genius. Still in school, but he’s already been contacted by several software companies here, in the Seattle area and Silicon Valley.” She tried her soup and found it hot and tangy, weaving the flavors of tomato, garlic, and fennel to complement the halibut, mussels, shrimp, and bass.

“But why?” Tanya asked. “Why go to all this trouble?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I own Neptune’s Gate.”

“Mmmm. Money. The age-old culprit.”

“Maybe.”

“But then what about Noah? You think they had something to do with his kidnapping?”

Her heart grew heavy again, the fear that she’d never see her son again sometimes so dense she felt as if she couldn’t draw a breath, couldn’t force her lungs to work. “I don’t know.” She ignored her glass of Chardonnay and suddenly found the soup unappealing, too. “I don’t know how.”

Picking at her crab cakes, Tanya said, “You know that gossip runs fast and hot through Anchorville, and one of the hotbeds, of course, is my salon.”

“Of course.”

“So I heard there was a body found buried in the garden at Neptune’s Gate?” She was buttering a piece of bread but stopped long enough to skewer Ava with her gaze. “Is that what you mean by ‘gaslighting’?”

“Not a body. A doll. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it earlier,” Ava explained, and then, deciding she had to confide in someone completely, told Tanya everything that had happened on the island. She didn’t care if her friend thought she was nuts; she laid it all out, from seeing her son’s image on the dock to finding his wet shoes in the nursery, to her believing that her husband was having an affair with her psychologist.

When she was finished, she felt better. Unburdened. Tanya had barely taken a bite. “Wow,” she finally said, “I think I’m going to start calling you Alice. You’ve definitely been down the rabbit hole.”

“Several times.”

They finished their entrées, and when dessert was offered, Ava passed, opting for an espresso, but Tanya ordered a Northwest apple and cranberry cobbler with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream and two spoons. Ava grudgingly took several bites as she sipped her dark coffee.

She’d just finished signing the credit card receipt for the bill when Tanya said, “So on the way back to Anchorville, you can tell me all about Austin Dern.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you fancy yourself in love with him?”

Ava was shocked. “Is that what it sounded like?” The last thing she needed, the very last, was any complication in her love life, and Dern was definitely a complication.

“You didn’t mention him much, but when you did, you actually blushed,” Tanya said, jabbing her spoon at her friend. “Don’t deny it. I’m an expert at these things. I’m a beautician, remember? I’ve listened to women’s life stories for years, and it always involves a man, or more often than not, men.”

“I don’t even know the man, not really, and besides, since you can’t seem to remember, I’m married.”

“Not much, you’re not. Where’re your rings? If I remember right, you had something like a two-carat diamond and a wedding band.”

Good question, Ava thought. She hadn’t thought about that. “I think maybe they’re in a safe somewhere, or a safe-deposit box.” She looked down at her naked left hand and rubbed her fingers self-consciously.

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“You threw them into the bay.”

“What?” Ava gasped.

“I was there.” Tanya casually took another bite of ice cream laced with berries.

“But I would never—”

“Sure you would. Because you caught Wyatt cheating, and it wasn’t the first time.”

“No, I mean, I don’t believe that . . .” But her voice trailed off, and some of the sharp little pieces of the past started fitting together, bit by bit. “With who?”

“Does it matter? In my book, cheating is cheating. No matter who the other half of the equation might be.”

Ava’s insides twisted and she felt sick. There was truth to this. Some truth.

“Come on, Ava, you have more than holes in your memory. You have giant abysses that span months, maybe even years.” Tanya set down her spoon and pushed the rest of the melting dessert aside. “Look, I haven’t said anything because I didn’t want to make you worse. But I’ve seen you struggling, trying to remember, and now things are getting really, really weird. You need to get out. While you still can.” Tanya was serious now.

“You think I’m in danger?”

“Well . . . yeah. Maybe. Probably. Look what happened to Cheryl.”

“That’s something else.”

“Is it?” Tanya’s eyebrows drew together, and lines of worry creased her forehead. “The timing . . . it all seems like it goes together. You know it, too.”

She did. The fears that she’d tried so desperately to fight loomed ever stronger. “No. That’s leaping to conclusions. And really, if anyone wanted me dead, I would be.”

Tanya wasn’t buying it. “It’s not that easy to kill someone and make it look like an accident these days. Nuh-uh. Too much forensic evidence and they always look to the family first. I think they’re hoping you freak yourself out to the point where you do it yourself.”

“No.”

Tanya reached across the table and clasped one of Ava’s arms. Rotating it so that her wrist was partially exposed, parts of scar tissue visible, she said, “I’ve known you a lot of years, Ava, and until Noah went missing, you were the last person I would have believed capable of trying to commit suicide. The very last. You were the sanest person I knew. So what happened that night?”

Ava swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t remember.” But there were murky images, like pictures that had been overexposed, the edges in shadow. She did recall the bathtub with its foaming bubbles, the warm, comforting water around her naked body, and in an out-of-body experience, she had seen the bloom of blood sliding into the water, staining the frothy bubbles a pale, deadly pink. The razor was on the side of the tub . . . so easy to reach . . . to slide against her white, veined skin . . .

Now as she thought about it, her heart was pounding, a metallic taste rising in her throat.

“Think, Ava. It’s important,” Tanya pleaded from somewhere in the distance. It was as if she were suddenly in an icy cave on the shore where the thunder of the waves crashed against the rocks and the wind in the cavern rushed so loudly she couldn’t think.

“Was anyone else in the room with you?” Tanya’s voice. Far, far away . . .

Shaking her head, willing the cloudy memories to clear, she forced the images of that night into her brain. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself, arms and legs seemingly detached from her body, the mirror over the sink foggy with steam from the hot water, the lights dimmed and candles burning, red wax running like the thin trickle of her own blood.

Was there someone with her? No . . .

“Who found you? Wyatt, right?” Tanya’s thin voice again.

Everything blended together, spinning in some great vortex, clouds swirling, but she was there, in the tub, feeling light-headed.

“Ava? Are you okay?”

Was that Tanya, now, here in the restaurant, or someone on the other side of the bathroom door, knocking frantically, trying to break in?

“Who found you?”

She blinked. Realized who she was with. Found herself clutching the edges of the table. Focused on Tanya, who was rising out of her chair as if she expected Ava to faint.

“I . . . I don’t remember, no . . . not Wyatt. Not at first.” That was right, wasn’t it? Yes. She remembered her cousin’s distorted, horrified face. “It was Jewel-Anne. She was freaking out, screaming and crying and . . .” The image started slipping away again, and she grabbed hold of it, certain that she’d seen the girl in the wheelchair, calling for help, yelling and screaming that Ava was dead. And then there had been lights, flashing against the windows, reflecting in the raindrops.

As she’d been lifted from the tub, she’d heard Wyatt’s comforting voice, asking that she please be covered as paramedics tended to her. In the farthest reaches of her consciousness, she recalled the bumpy ride across the water to the hospital. . . .

It was all wrapped in delusions and dreams, a fog created by her own despondency and the pills she’d taken before stepping into the warm, soothing water, enough to make her relax.

As it was, she’d barely escaped with her life, had passed out in the rescue boat, hadn’t awoken until days later.

Now she swallowed hard, the memory causing goose bumps to rise on her flesh as she mentally returned to the nearly empty restaurant and her best friend. “I lied,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I do remember. Just not all of it.”

“You didn’t try to kill yourself, did you?”

“No,” she said, now more certain than ever.

“So who did?”

“That I still don’t know,” she admitted, the possibilities running through her mind, “but I intend to find out.”

“Be careful, Ava,” Tanya advised, looking scared. “Be real careful.”