The Night She Disappeared Page 12

  Anna shifted gears, backed out of the driveway, and then headed down the street. She didn’t say anything.

  She’d always thought Beebe was a flake. As for the kids, they had enough problems already. Their self-centered, phone-obsessed, fourteen-year-old daughter drove George crazy; and the eleven-year-old boy was being bullied at school and getting straight Ds. Beebe fancied herself an artist. She made clunky earth-tone plates, mugs, and vases that were scratchy to the touch, impractical, and butt-ugly. Last year, when the station had thrown Anna a surprise birthday party, Beebe had given her a couple of vases—atrocious even by Beebe’s standards.

  Anna had sent her a thank-you card. I have the perfect place for these remarkable pieces, she’d written. The eyesores were still stashed in the toolshed alongside the houseboat.

  Anna always tried to be cordial to her. But during practically every encounter they had, Beebe would say something snide or catty to her. The last time, it had been at another work-related function the day after Anna’s segment about a beloved teacher dying of cancer had aired. “Well, Anna, you sure know how to do maudlin, don’t you?” Beebe said—with a little laugh. “Oh, how I wish George would get assigned to some real news stories.”

  George was always apologizing to her for his wife’s bitchiness. “Beebe’s just insecure—and jealous of you. She wants to be taken seriously as an artist, and she’s still trying to find her way. Meanwhile, you’re a local celebrity—with this glamorous job. You’re talented and beautiful—and well, she knows how I feel about you. She knows our friendship is extremely important to me. And that drives her crazy. Anyway, it’s my fault if she seems kind of cold and snippy around you.”

  That was as close to a declaration of love as George had ever given her.

  Now Beebe had brought it out in the open. Hell, she’d screamed it.

  Staring at the road ahead, Anna winced. “Beebe said she kicked you out of the house last night. So, are you staying in the apartment over your garage?”

  “For the time being, until I find a place of my own,” George replied. “That should be pretty soon, because the ghost of my mother-in-law is haunting me in that garage apartment. I apologize again. Beebe has completely lost it. She’s delusional. But it’s true that she and I are breaking up. I can’t do this anymore. The kids have had it, too. It’s an unhappy house. Something has to change.”

  “I’m so sorry, George. You poor guy.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you were swept up in it.”

  She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “How do you think Beebe got such a crazy notion about the two of us? It’s so utterly ridiculous.”

  “Well, thanks a lot.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Beebe’s accusations aren’t totally out of left field,” he confessed. “She’s right to be jealous of you. But that’s my problem, not yours. You never did anything. You’re blameless. You never encouraged the situation. You wouldn’t intentionally do anything to break up a marriage. You’re not like that.”

  Anna swallowed hard and squirmed a bit in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t look at him. She felt awful. Would he still hold her in such high regard if he knew the truth?

  She couldn’t help thinking that Beebe was right. Knowing George had a little crush on her made her feel desirable—important. Plus he was safe. Anna had always figured nothing would ever happen with him—as long as he stayed married.

  He’d just admitted he had feelings for her. Did he expect her to say something?

  Her phone rang. His went off at the same time.

  Anna kept her hands on the wheel. George took his phone out of his pocket and checked it. “It’s a text from Josh—for both of us. He’s asking again if you can get an interview with your friend Dr. Knoll. Looks like Josh got a tip from his pal in the police force. The luminol test they did in Dr. and Mrs. Knoll’s living room—”

  “Luminol, is that the glow-in-the-dark blood residue test?”

  “Yeah, and their place lit up like a pinball machine. The cops found blood in the living room, the bathroom, and out on the back deck.”

  Suddenly Anna felt sick to her stomach.

  George worked his thumbs over his phone as he responded to the news director’s text. “Well,” he said, sighing. “This just went from a missing person case to a murder investigation. It doesn’t look very good for your doctor friend, does it?”

  Eyes fixed on the road ahead, Anna tightened her grip on the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “No, I—I guess not,” she heard herself say. She shook her head. “Tell Josh I tried, but—but Dr. Knoll isn’t talking to anyone but the police.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sunday, July 12—11:47 A.M.

  This close to lunch on a Sunday, the newsroom was deserted. So Anna used a phone on one of the empty desks to call Russ.

  She could see George through the glass partition of Editing Bay C. He was at the computer, pulling up sound bites and unused bits from the profile piece on Courtney. That included photos of Courtney and Russ together. They’d use the material in the news story for tonight.

  Anna had told him that she would give Dr. Knoll another try to see if he would agree to an interview. Now at least she had a legitimate excuse to get in touch with Russ. And if his calls were being monitored, the police would see that this call was from someone at KIXI News and not her private phone.

  Sitting at the edge of the desk, Anna counted three rings. She wasn’t sure Russ would pick up. His caller ID might show KIXI-TV, and if it did, would he realize it was her?

  She heard a click. “Hello?” he asked, sounding guarded.

  “It’s me,” Anna said. “I’m at the station. How are you?”

  “I was going stir-crazy at the hotel,” he said. “So now I’m walking around Chandler’s Cove.”

  A marina on Lake Union, Chandler’s Cove wasn’t far from Anna’s house. The hub used to have some popular restaurants and stores, most of which were closed now. Before Russ and Courtney moved into her neighborhood, Anna and Russ used to go for walks there. Holding hands, they’d look at the boats moored in the marina and take in the view of the lake and Gas Works Park. Those seemed like such sweet, simpler times.

  “Well, you seem pretty calm,” Anna said, fidgeting with the phone cord. She stole a glance at George, still at the computer with his back to her. “I’m in shock. I can’t believe they found all that blood.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The tests the police did.”

  “Which tests?”

  “The tests that showed traces of blood in your living room and other parts of the house.”

  “Anna, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You didn’t know? I can’t believe the police haven’t told you yet! The police did a test and found evidence of blood—a lot of it, mostly in the living room. Apparently, it looked like someone had tried to clean it up. I found out about twenty minutes ago. Somebody on the force leaked it to our news director.”

  “Jesus,” she heard him murmur. “I—I had no idea. I should have seen this coming when they found that drop of blood on the bookcase. This—this isn’t happening. My God, Anna.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew.”

  “Then something happened to her in the house,” he said—seemingly to himself. “That explains the missing towels.”

  “What towels?”

  “Detective Baumann and I did a room-to-room search yesterday, and I noticed there weren’t any bath towels in the linen closet. Baumann stuck one of her Post-its on the closet door. Courtney and her hotel-quality white towels—with her initials on them. Someone must have used them to wipe up the blood.”

  Anna swallowed hard. “The police probably think it was you—or me, or both of us.”

  “Jesus, I kept thinking there was a passable—benign explanation for all of this. But she’s not coming back, is she? She’s dead.”

  �
��Russ, you mentioned that you went for a drive after you left my place on Thursday night. Where did you go? Did anyone see you? Did you talk to anyone?”

  “Baumann already asked me that—”

  “Well, now I’m asking you. Where did you go?”

  “I ended up driving over to that park off Magnolia Boulevard.”

  Ella Bailey Park. He’d taken her there a couple of times. It was one of Russ’s favorite spots. The view of the city was phenomenal. But that was during the daytime. At night, the water and the mountains probably weren’t visible.

  “Did anyone see you there?” Anna asked.

  “I—um, I didn’t talk to anyone. I got out of the car and looked out at the city lights. Then some teenagers came along at around one-thirty in the morning. I don’t think they even noticed me. They were loud and obnoxious. Then they started lighting off fireworks. So I left.”

  “Did you tell this to Baumann?”

  “Yes, she said she’d check with the Magnolia Police.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Anna said. “If anyone called the cops about the fireworks, that’ll prove you were there.”

  “I guess so,” he murmured.

  She could tell he was still trying to wrap his head around the news about the blood. “Russ, they want me to cover the story for tonight’s five o’clock news. They want me to ask you for an interview. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.” She once again glanced over toward George in the editing bay. “If I interview you on TV, and it gets out about us, then let’s face it, that interview will be shown again and again and dissected to death. But I—I have to ask you, what was your reason for not going directly home after you left my place Thursday night?”

  “You know why. Courtney was impossible—”

  “Yes, I know. But I’m asking you as a reporter. People will want to know.”

  “Okay.” There was a pause. “Courtney had too much to drink, and she was being very difficult. I thought if I drove around for a couple of hours, she’d be asleep by the time I got home. Instead, she was gone.” There was another pause. “Is that a good answer?”

  Anna grabbed a pen off the desk and scribbled it down on a notepad. “Yes, thank you. I’m sorry, Russ.”

  “I just can’t believe she’s dead. But if they found traces of blood, there’s no other explanation. Someone must have killed her, cleaned up the mess, and took her body away.”

  Anna put down the pen. “There’s another possible explanation, Russ. Did Courtney ever read Gone Girl? Because that’s what this whole thing reminds me of.”

  There was no response on the other end.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said. “But how can you be sure Courtney didn’t set up this whole thing just to make you suffer? Correction—not just to make you suffer, she’s putting me through the wringer, too. What’s more, think of all the media attention this will draw, all that publicity. Think of the book sales.” Anna took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Am I awful and terribly out of line to suggest this?”

  She heard him sigh. “No, I’ve considered it, too—even before you told me about the blood. Courtney and I saw the movie when it first showed on Netflix. And I know she read the book.”

  “Do you think it’s possible she’s doing something like Gone Girl?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Courtney copied another author’s idea.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She stole the whole idea for The Defective Squad from someone in her old writers’ group.”

  Anna heard a knock. She glanced over toward the editing bay, where George was standing on the other side of the glass partition. He stopped knocking on the glass, shrugged, and pointed to his wristwatch.

  She nodded at him and quickly turned away. “Courtney stole that idea?” she said into the phone.

  “Yeah, the group was pretty hostile toward her after the first book came out. To hear Courtney tell it, the whole thing was just a misunderstanding. But no one from that group will have anything to do with her anymore.”

  “Listen, I’m getting the hurry-up signal from George here,” Anna said. “It sounds crazy and warped, but I still hope Courtney’s just screwing with us.”

  “You and me both,” Russ said. “I guess I better call Detective Baumann and ask if there’s anything else they’re not telling me. I’ll get in touch with you after your newscast, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. She turned toward the editing bay and saw George was back at the computer. “I love you,” she said under her breath.

  “Love you, too,” he replied.

  Anna listened to the click on the other end. She hung up the phone and headed into the editing bay. George brought an image up on the computer screen. It was a photo of Russ and Courtney, looking beautiful and happy.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You and the doc were sure chatting up a storm. What did you do, interview him on the phone?”

  “Something like that,” Anna answered. She steered a chair on wheels over to the computer, and then she sat down beside George. Frowning, she watched the photo of Russ and Courtney dissolve into another shot of them together, and then another. “Did you create a montage?”

  “Yeah, I figured that’s how we’ll show the husband. Why? Don’t you like it?”

  “No, it’s good.”

  “You seem anxious,” George said.

  She shrugged. “I still don’t have a clue how I’m going to handle this. I mean, I’m part of the story.”

  “If I were you, I’d leave myself out of it as much as possible. Look what I found in our archives.” George typed on the keyboard.

  On the screen appeared a video showing a sleek BMW driving up to the entrance of Canlis at night. For a moment, Anna felt as if she was back outside the midcentury modern restaurant, ready to walk in and meet Courtney for dinner.

  “That’s good,” Anna managed to say, though her stomach took a turn. “Um, you can use that shot for about five seconds, when I mention that we met there for dinner. Then we’ll cut to a shot of their floating home.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sunday, July 12—5:08 P.M.

  With yellow tape, the police had cordoned off the end of Russ and Courtney’s dock. Anna stood as close as she could to the DO NOT CROSS line for the introduction of her live report for the five o’clock news.

  Considering all the police activity at the end of the dock, Anna was amazed more reporters weren’t on the scene. Except for her and George with his camera, only one other person with a camera was in the vicinity. A tall, skinny man with long black hair and a goatee stood about fifteen feet away on the dock, recording everything—including her. In fact, he seemed focused mostly on her. He didn’t look like a cop or news reporter. But his video camera appeared to be professional grade. Anna tried not to let him distract her.

  Three men—one of them in a police uniform—stood at the end of the dock, manipulating telescoping boat hooks in the water. A diver had just come up from under the lake’s slightly choppy surface. He had on a gray diver’s suit with a mask and an oxygen tank. He sat at the edge of the dock and took off his breathing apparatus for a moment. A police boat and two skiffs hovered nearby on the lake. Earlier, when Anna had been interviewing Detective Baumann, a police helicopter had loomed overhead for a while.

  At first, Anna had wondered if the police had thought Courtney had drowned. But if they’d found traces of blood in the living room, bathroom, and on the back deck, then that ruled out drowning as Courtney’s cause of death. The police must have figured that Courtney had been murdered in the house and then been taken outside and thrown into the water from the back deck.

  But Anna had come up with that hypothesis on her own. Detective Baumann hadn’t given her much to go on during the interview. For the press—or at least, for Anna—she was acting as if this was still a missing person case, not a murder investigation.

  Perhaps that explained why, except for the lone, long-haired cameraman, no other news crews had
come to this potential crime scene. The only reason KIXI-TV was interested was because Anna had profiled Courtney on KIXI-TV on Friday. And now they had this unconfirmed news leak about the blood in Russ and Courtney’s home.

  Working with George, Anna had used the editing equipment in the news van to put together the prerecorded portion of the news story. The van was parked about two blocks down from the entrance gate to Russ and Courtney’s dock. Anna had also recorded her voice-over for the piece while in the van. She felt like a fish out of water. Hard news wasn’t her specialty. And she was still worried that her crucial involvement in the story would make her reporting on it seem absurd. Plus, after building up Courtney as this noble, inspiring author in her profile on Friday, here she was, two days later, painting her as an argumentative drunk who may or may not have walked out on her husband.

  Anna had swung by her place to pick up a pressed dark blue short-sleeve blouse and white slacks for the live TV introduction. She’d put on her makeup and fixed her hair in the news van. With Russ and Courtney’s floating home in the background, Anna was poised in front of George’s camera. She held a mic and waited for the cue from the newsroom to come through on her concealed earpiece.

  At last, she heard the anchorman introduce her, and Anna started in: “Seattle author Courtney Knoll, whose young adult series, The Defective Squad, recently sold to Hollywood, has been reported missing since early Friday morning.”

  Then she got to relax for a couple of minutes while the TV viewers saw her narrated, prerecorded news story. It started with clips of Courtney autographing books and speaking or signing with customers at Elliott Bay Book Company on Wednesday night.

  Anna’s prerecorded voice-over came on: “Just thirty-two hours after celebrating the release of Silent Rage, the latest book in her popular Seattle-based series, Courtney Knoll disappeared. I was still editing an exclusive profile on the deaf author, whose writing has been an inspiration for disabled teens.”