What was she looking at?

The girl was wearing rubber boots, bright yellow ones that almost glowed against the blackened background of the corridor. Her hands were hidden in large rubber gloves. They were the kind that Valerie Ryan had said she would never use, even if her fingers cracked and shattered from the drying action of dish detergent.

Finally, the girl set down the lantern and reached into the pocket of her lilac robe for a pair of wire cutters. Without hesitating for a single second, she reached up and cut a trio of wires: white, red, and yellow. A shower of sparks fell and she stepped away from it, certain that she’d done the right thing, the only thing. She had saved Tony Ortega, an innocent man.

She had followed the electrical diagrams that she’d taken from her father’s office. She knew the corridors that carried water, power, and sewage out of the prison. She knew which line to cut so that the power to the electric chair would fail.

As she stood there, boots and rubber gloves on, pecks of burns on her face from the falling sparks, Valerie had carried out her plan.

Chapter 33

HAVING DITCHED HER DARK-BLUE Macy’s Woman wool and polyester suit for jeans and a tan-colored down-filled coat from LL Bean, Annie Garnett looked more like a hunter than a police chief, though some would argue they were one and the same. Especially at that moment. Annie and six deputies from the Kitsap County sheriff’s office surrounded the Silverdale Beach Hotel just as the sun started its quick dip behind the Olympics. It had been raining on and off all day, but the clouds had parted to eke out a final drop of daylight.

Mimi, the desk clerk, might just get that Target gift card, after all. She had recognized Drew from TV reports and phoned the police. And while Annie was already on her way there after having talked with Dr. Waterman, she was going to talk to Brandy.

“She was angry because the death certificate for her daughter had not been embossed with the official seal of this office. She actually yelled at me,” Birdy had said.

“She must have really needed that document,” Annie had said.

“Needed it? She would have killed for it.”

A police boat from Bremerton covered the shoreline in front of the hotel with searchlights at the ready in the event they were needed. A pair of ambulances had just eased into the east end of the parking lot in case what was about to go down ended in violence. Two canine officers were also on hand—Ava, who had found Brianna’s body in the woods, and a younger black lab named Cinder. There was no way Drew was going to get away. Not on Annie’s watch. She’d had him in custody the night of Olivia’s murder and she felt sick that she’d ever let him go. In a way, she felt that Brianna’s death had been all her fault. She should have, could have done things differently. All the signs were there. As quietly as possible, first in the lobby, then on the floor on which Brandy had been registered, Annie led the deputies to the room.

This was going to be her bust. No one else’s. Both of the dead girls had been tied to her beloved Port Gamble and she, more than just about anyone, needed to make the arrest.

She owed it to Olivia’s folks. And to Brianna’s family.

Annie drew her gun. “Police,” she said in her most intimidating voice. “Open the door!”

No answer.

She looked over at her backup and nodded. Next, she took the key card that the manager at the front desk had given her and inserted it into the brass slot. The tiny red light instantly turned green. “Coming in,” she said. “Police!”

The door swung open so fast it hit the wall and bounced back as Annie and the others burst inside the dimly lit room. A deputy flipped on the lights, and Annie’s dark eyes scanned the entire space. She didn’t breathe. With her gun pointed like a laser, she covered every inch.

The room was a mess. Amid clothing, papers, and bloody sheets were two bodies. Both appeared to be nude. The one closest to the door was a male. Annie knew immediately it was Drew. He was on his back, with his left arm dripping blood. A gash over his left pectoral muscle looked like a zipper of red had been undone. The figure next to him, a woman Annie figured had to be Brandy, was wrapped in sheets. Her arm dangled from the opposite side of the bed.

Annie touched Drew’s neck and looked up. Her face was as solemn as it had ever been.

“Got a pulse,” she said. “Weak, but alive.”

“This one too,” said Deputy Flinn, bending down to assess Brianna’s mother.

Brandy Connors Baker was tangled up in the hotel room’s luxurious white sheets, splattered with speckles and streaks of red. Her arm twitched, and the light of the now-illuminated crystal chandelier over the bed caught the edge of a sharp and bloody blade.

“He’s got a knife!” the deputy called out.

The erroneous fleur-de-lis tattoo on the right side of his chest twitched. Drew was barely alive. Even so, the police chief wasn’t about to take chances. Annie reached over and with the barrel of her gun, flicked away the knife.

“We need a chopper. These two will be lucky if they make it,” Annie said.

“We’d be lucky if this punk serial killer dies on the way,” Flinn said.

“We don’t administer that kind of justice, Deputy,” she said. “You know better than that.”

Another deputy radioed for a helicopter.

“What do you think happened here?” Flinn asked.

Annie looked at the victims as a horde of paramedics descended over them.

“I don’t even want to think about the headlines,” Flinn went on, “but this looks like we’ve got a love triangle here. Drew was with both the mother and the daughter.”

“Obviously,” Annie said.

“Kid’s a regular Don Juan.”

She shook her head. “Something like that.”

“Grab her ID in case she’s got any medical issues,” Annie said. “His too.”

A deputy picked up Brandy’s purse from the nightstand, and then he fished Drew’s wallet from his pants pocket. In doing so, a condom fell out.

“At least he practiced safe sex,” he said.

“No offense to the victim,” Annie said, letting out her feelings about Brandy Connors Baker for the first time, “but I don’t think any sex with her could be considered safe. Not unless you like cuddling up to a cobra.”

Chapter 34

CARMINE ANGELO AND HIS EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD SON, Ricky, were fishing for Dungeness crab on the other side of McNeil Island in what had been the worst single haul of their year. It had been a lousy year by anyone’s standards. Father and son had been at each other’s throats all day, starting in the morning. It was supposed to be a fun outing before Ricky shipped off for army boot camp and then, more than likely, the Middle East. Carmine had chided his son for the past year, telling the kid that if he didn’t get his grades up, he’d end up being a house painter or something even worse.

A soldier was worse.

Carmine did not want Ricky to come home in a flag-draped box. He loved his boy with all his heart.

“Dad,” Ricky said, looking out at the water. “Check it out.”

Across the bow about twenty yards away, they could see a girl swimming frantically toward them. She approached quickly, closing the gap between them. As the waves smacked against the side of the boat, Ricky Angelo managed to lean over and grab Taylor, and Carmine hoisted her up. A second later, she was lying on the saltwater-splashed floorboards of the boat.

Taylor started to cough. Hard. She was freezing. She was as cold as she’d ever been. Carmine wrapped an old green blanket around her.

“My sister,” she said, her eyes widening with terror. “My sister is in trouble. We’ve got to get her. We were on McNeil. She fell into a well or something.”

Carmine went for his radio. “What were you doing on the island?” Ricky asked.