Nice Girls(83)

The address could have been random. But Paul Bleeker had put it on his business information with Doberman Productions—that would have involved other legal and financial documents. He couldn’t have used a fake address on everything without getting flagged.

And he wasn’t flagged because it was legal. Paul Bleeker really did own the auto shop. Only his identity was fake.

There was no Paul Bleeker in Liberty Lake. But there was a registered owner of the auto shop. His real name had to be tied to the property.

It was a tenuous lead, but the only thing I had.

The car behind me honked angrily as I made an illegal U-turn. But I crawled back east in the direction of the library, the despair closing in on me.



I’d forgotten the library. I hadn’t been inside it since high school, but it remained unchanged: the white study rooms where Madison and I had locked ourselves for SAT prep; the slim floor-to-ceiling windows that striped the walls; the dark circular desk where the librarians worked; and the large skylight overhead that was now powdered with snow.

It was like I’d never left.

I brushed off my jacket and boots and quietly slipped toward the back of the library, where the archives lay. The hush around me was comforting.

After I passed the empty help desk, the bookshelves dipped down to my waist. There was a section of thick hardbound volumes that contained Liberty Lake property records by year and address. Some of them went back as far as the late 1800s. Most of the records were only available in person—I’d learned that during a high school project.

I crouched down and skimmed through the bindings, moving down the shelves until I reached the end. The most recent volumes sat in a bottom corner. They were dated 2011–2012. I yanked off the volume labeled “M–Z.” When I reached the listings under “V,” I trailed down the column with a finger, almost afraid that I would miss it.

Ventura Way was on the next page. I skimmed through the buildings and then stopped. Number 656 was labeled as “Private Property.”

My blood ran cold.

Listed after the address was the property owner: “Stack, Jo.” Shorthand for John Stack.

Dad’s client.





40




At West End Park, John Stack had barely glanced at Olivia’s remains. As her mother mourned at his feet, he’d been more enraptured by the lake. All those days that John Stack had watched Dad and his men as they worked on his roof—he was making sure that no one found anything suspicious. And the prayer that he’d led at the search had been a perverse lie.

I’d shaken his hand, too, not knowing that that same hand had butchered two women.

This whole time, we’d been friendly with a serial killer.

I sat back, my finger still glued to the page.

Oddly enough, I felt a strange calm.

I finally had something steady in front of me. It was certainty in the form of John Stack. He had lured two young women with promises of easy money. He might’ve even helped them for a bit. But when the time came, he’d gotten rid of them.

If he was friends with the Willands, then John Stack probably lived nearby in one of the wealthier suburbs. There would be security cameras and watchful neighbors. John Stack couldn’t have brought the girls home without getting caught. It seemed likely that he’d used the auto shop for the killings.

As I checked the entry again for 656 Ventura Way, I saw another line beneath it: “Additional Properties: See 66th Ave.; Darling Rd.”

I recognized 66th Avenue—that street was located in the suburbs, not far from Olivia’s house. That was likely his home address.

I clawed for one of the other volumes on the floor. I shuffled through the pages so roughly that I heard paper rip. But I was so close. I leafed past the listings from “A” through “C.” I found Darling Road hidden in the middle of a page. There was only one entry beneath it: “725 Darling Road Cabin, Darling Road.” It was followed by a set of GPS coordinates and the name of the property owner, “Stack, Jo.”

My hand was trembling as I typed in the address on my phone. As the screen loaded, each second felt like an eternity. I suddenly realized how sweaty I’d gotten in the library, hunched over on the floor in my jacket.

But there were no images of the cabin. The screen showed a single red pin on a map view of Liberty Lake. The pin was down south, just a little past the southern lakeshore. The forest blocked off the Sewers from the west. The area down there was packed with trees that served as a natural boundary line for the city. As far as I knew, no one used those woods recreationally.

The cabin was secluded from the suburbs, a perfect murder site to dispose of two women. It was close enough to the southern shore of the lake to dump a few body parts. During the fall, there would be days where the mist would gather over the water and the trees. John Stack would have no worries about being seen by anyone.

And when he was done, he would go back to his lovely house in the suburbs. There, he would take a warm bath and fall asleep in a soft bed. At peace.

I felt the anger rise up like bile.

He needed to be put away.

I took a picture of the property entry for 725 Darling Road Cabin and closed the volumes. Then I stacked them together and left them on the floor. I hurried past the librarian, who asked me if I had any questions.

Outside, the snow continued to fall. The wind nipped at my face.