The Last Thing She Ever Did(101)

A young nurse came out of Charlie’s room. “Mrs. Franklin needs you to come in.”

“She does?” Liz asked. “Now?”

“Yes. Go right in.”

Liz’s hands started to shake, and she put one in her pocket. It’s over, she thought. Charlie must have remembered something and told it to Carole. Slowly she entered the room.

“Liz,” Carole said very calmly from her place on the bed next to her little boy. Charlie was awake but quiet. Someone had given him a stuffed dinosaur, and he clutched it in his little hands. “You did this.”

Liz’s heart nearly jumped from her chest. She was going to die. Right there in a hospital. Carole knew! I deserve everything that happens to me now, she thought.

“I’m sorry, Carole,” Liz said. “I’m so, so sorry.” Her knees were weak, and she could feel her bones crumbling in her legs. She nearly lost her balance.

“Come here,” Carole said, getting up and extending her arms. “We’re all going to be okay. You did this, Liz. You made all of this happen and I will never, ever forget it. If not for you, Charlie might be gone forever.”

Liz felt herself melt into her friend’s embrace.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Doctor says he’s fine,” Carole said. “Scared. Confused. But fine.”

The boy looked up at Liz and smiled. She smiled back. Inside, she could feel the horror of what she’d done rise up. Charlie was alive. She’d ended a tragedy that she’d ignited that day she backed out of the driveway. She wondered why she couldn’t feel any real joy.

Shouldn’t she?





CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR





TEN DAYS AFTER BEING FOUND


More than a week after the Bend miracle filled pages of newspapers and the feeds of bloggers and news sites, Esther still couldn’t shake the loose ends of a case that continued to trouble her. She reviewed the tape that canoeist Matt Henry had made on his GoPro. It suggested that Dan Miller had been on his side of the river when the boy was abducted. It was possible that he’d come across the bridge and scooped up Charlie, but surely someone would have seen him. Plus the man was in his seventies. Physically, was he able to do what needed to be done? To carry a boy? Quiet a boy? Make sure that he got him home unnoticed?

And in broad daylight, no less.

It seemed like all kinds of impossible. And yet, there could be no other explanation for what ultimately occurred among the neighbors on the river. It was a fact that Charlie had been rescued from Dr. Miller’s house. It was true that the three-year-old had been held captive there. That was undeniable.

She flipped through the reports that littered the top of her desk. Dr. Miller was dead. Liz Jarrett had killed him. She’d told Esther and the responding officers that she fought for her life. There was no arguing that she’d been injured. There was no way to deny that she’d saved Charlie and brought him home.

But how? How was it that Liz was over at the doctor’s house?

“I was worried about him,” she had said. “I thought something happened to him. He’d pretty much vanished.”

Jake poked his head into Esther’s office.

“You look deep in thought,” he said. “How about shutting it down along with the rest of us and going out for a beer after work? Decompress a little?”

Esther smiled faintly. “I need to take care of some things.”

The young man looked down at the papers in front of his mentor. Among the documents were the DA’s statement that Liz Jarrett had acted in self-defense when she killed Dr. Miller. She would not be charged with anything.

“You’re still on the case,” Jake said.

Esther picked up Charlie’s photo. “I guess. Can’t help it. When I step back a little from it, I still see a spiderweb.” She tapped on the boy’s face with her fingertip. “Charlie’s in the middle. Carole and Liz and Owen and David are all caught up in it. Off to the side, we have Brad Collins and Dan Miller. All spun up. All of them.”

“How do you mean?”

“We know that Owen told David he’d seen an Ohio plate at the park.”

“Yeah, right. So?”

“I don’t know,” she said, still trying to work it all out. “I mean, David told his lawyer that the tip about the park was what had convinced him to go after Collins. Yet Collins never said he’d been at Columbia Park. If he had, he would have told us. He isn’t a liar. No, I’m thinking Owen Jarrett fired David up and sent him after Collins—with a lie. Why would he go to the trouble of doing that?”

Jake pressed the side of his head against the doorjamb. “Or maybe he just saw some other Ohio plate at the park.”

“Maybe. Maybe.” She sat still for a moment. “And then there’s Dr. Miller . . .” She fumbled through the photos and picked up the autopsy report.

Jake really wanted that beer, but Esther was working things out and he knew he had a lot to learn from her. “What about him?” he asked.

Esther looked up. “It doesn’t make sense, Jake. I don’t know why that old man would snatch that boy. But then again, my spiderweb. As you know, Liz had a history with Dr. Miller.”

She pointed to the news clipping about Seth Miller’s death.