Victim Six Read online

  Highest Praise for Gregg Olsen

  Heart of Ice

  “Gregg Olsen will scare you—and you’ll love every moment of it.”

  —Lee Child

  “Olsen deftly juggles multiple plotlines.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Compelling, engrossing…an absorbing, enjoyable read.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Fiercely entertaining, fascinating…Olsen offers a unique background view into the very real world of crime…and that makes his novels ring true and accurate.”

  —Dark Scribe

  A Cold Dark Place

  “A great thriller that grabs you by the throat and takes you into the dark, scary places of the heart and soul.”

  —Kay Hooper

  “You’ll sleep with the lights on after reading Gregg Olsen’s dark, atmospheric, page-turning suspense…if you can sleep at all.”

  —Allison Brennan

  “A stunning thriller—a brutally dark story with a compelling, intricate plot.”

  —Alex Kava

  A Cold Dark Place

  “A page-turner…a work of dark, gripping suspense.”

  —Anne Frasier

  “This stunning thriller is the love child of Thomas Harris and Laura Lippman, with all the thrills and the sheer glued-to-the-page artistry of both.”

  —Ken Bruen

  “Olsen keeps the tension taut and pages turning.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  A Wicked Snow

  “Real narrative drive, a great setup, a gruesome crime, fine characters.”

  —Lee Child

  “A taut thriller.”

  —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  “Wickedly clever! A finely crafted, genuinely twisted tale of one mother’s capacity for murder and one daughter’s search for the truth.”

  —Lisa Gardner

  “Tightly plotted, gripping…an outstanding addition to the suspense genre.”

  —Allison Brennan

  “An irresistible page-turner.”

  —Kevin O’Brien

  “Complex mystery, crackling authenticity…will keep fans of crime fiction hooked.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A top-notch thriller…a powerhouse of a book.”

  —Donna Anders

  “Vivid, powerful, action-packed…a terrific, tense thriller that grips the reader.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Keeps the reader guessing and gulping from the very first page.”

  —Jay Bonansinga

  “Tight plotting, nerve-wracking suspense, and a wonderful climax make this debut a winner.”

  —Crimespree magazine

  “Wonderful…compelling and horrifyingly real.”

  —Seattle Mystery Bookshop

  “Olsen writes a real grabber of a book. If you’re smart, you’ll grab this one!”

  —Linda Lael Miller

  “A compelling story, tightly woven, that kept me riveted to the final page.”

  —Susan R. Sloan

  “A Wicked Snow’s plot—about a CSI investigator who’s repressed a horrific crime from her childhood until it comes back to haunt her—moves at a satisfyingly fast clip.”

  —Seattle Times

  Also by Gregg Olsen

  Heart of Ice

  A Cold Dark Place

  A Wicked Snow

  The Deep Dark

  If Loving You Is Wrong

  Abandoned Prayers

  Bitter Almonds

  Mockingbird (Cruel Deception)

  Starvation Heights

  Confessions of an American Black Widow

  GREGG OLSEN

  VICTIM SIX

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  For Rita Ticen Burns

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE Celesta

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART TWO Marissa

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  PART THREE Skye

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  PART FOUR Carol

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  PART FIVE Paige

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Prologue

  Exact date and time unknown

  Somewhere in rural Washington State

  “Quiet, bitch,” he said. “Be a good girl and do as I say.”

  His words came at her with the smell of sweat and motor oil. They were delivered in a strangely calm, almost soothing, cadence.

  The young woman was terrified, her body, her very presence, shrinking under his power.

  “Don’t!” she said, the words falling from her trembling lips.

  “Good girl,” he repeated.

  Tears rolled. A coppery flavor filled her mouth. It was as if she tasted spare change, yet her mouth was empty. She was bleeding where he had struck her.

  And her pleas for help were called out only in her head, God, help me!

  No answer. Just a slow fade. A curtain pulled. A moon eclipsed. Then absolutely nothing at all.

  That was before. Just how long ago, she couldn’t be sure. Her memories were a mosaic. They came to her, not the seamless movie reel she had imagined people saw in their mind’s eye when their final moments came and their life flashed before their eyes, but in tiny shards and splinters: Her high school graduation. How she and her best friend Danita had bought a bottle of screw-top wine from a mini-mart near the Tacoma Dome, where the ceremonies were held. They’d guzzled it in Danita’s old car. Real tough, she’d thought. The only bad thing she’d ever done in a childhood of helping her mother raise her siblings, making solid-B grades, and working part-time jobs when she could fit them in between her household chores.

  What did I do to deserve this? she asked herself in a blip of lucidity.

  Her mind jumped to how her mother ha
d sat her, her brother, and her sister in a neat row on the old floral davenport that faced the relic that was their TV. Mom snapped off a soap opera and fought back tears. The other kids were younger, but she knew right away before she opened her mouth what this little family meeting was about.

  “Your papa and I…”

  Another splinter drove into her. She recalled how she’d stolen a handful of candy corn from a bin in the produce section in the market when she was seven. She never told anyone that she’d done so, but to that very day the sight of the triangular orange, yellow, and white Halloween confection made her stomach churn with guilt. She never stole anything again, never broke any law. One time when she was stopped by a state trooper, she cried because she thought she’d been speeding and was going to get a ticket. Instead, the affable cop with a soup strainer of a mustache told her that her taillight was out, flashed a smile, and waved her on to the nearest repair shop.

  “Need to be safe,” he said. “Have a daughter of my own and wouldn’t want her driving with a winking tail light.”

  Some thoughts materialized as if underscored by the divine, reminding her not to steal, that parents don’t always stay together, that there are good men out there too. Some were more random. Things that came to her that felt like filler, a recap of moments that had never been important. She lost her car keys the week before. She threw up on a merry-go-round when she was four. She hated ravioli from the can and could remember the slap she got from her aunt when she told her so at the dinner table.

  Shutting her eyes did nothing. The images still bombarded her.

  Stop, she thought. Think. Think. You don’t want to die. Not here, not in this place.

  The man on the other side of the wall that separated them had his own flood of recollections. He steadied himself by leaning against the small doorway. The rumble of an old refrigerator’s ice machine soothed him like one of those cheap motels with Magic Fingers attached to the bed frame. Drop in a quarter, ride the pulsating massage. Feel good. He thought of her begging for mercy.

  “Don’t do this. You don’t want to do this!”

  But he did want to. So very, very much.

  He remembered how, after that, everything had been about the killing.

  Even when he’d watch TV and a potato chip commercial would come on, he’d rewrite the familiar tagline in his head: Nobody can kill just one.

  In the shadows, the young woman was growing a little stronger, a touch more coherent. She felt the rumbling of something outside the space that held her prisoner. She was on her stomach. Her hands had been bound by tape. Her feet too. She realized that she was breathing hard. Fast, out of fear. She told herself to slow down. She didn’t want to pass out. Not like before.

  She remembered his hand reaching around her as he held her from behind. He’d had what looked like a dirty T-shirt balled up in his fist. At that moment she had known she was probably going to die.

  He had pinched her neck and pressed the fetid cloth to her mouth and nose. Tequila? Cleaning fluid? Acetone? She felt the wooziness that comes with too much to drink and maybe too little sleep. She felt her knees starting to bend, although she commanded them to stay locked. The world around her started to grow faint. She couldn’t even hear his breathing, at once so labored and hot against the back of her neck.

  I don’t want to die. Why are you doing this to me? Who… what are you?

  Of course, no words came from her bruised and bloodied lips. Her interior monologue was screamed through the fear in her eyes only. She was falling. The lights were going out.

  Help me. Please, someone.

  Then nothing.

  Her last thoughts were the darkest that had ever gone through her mind.

  I hope he only rapes me. Yes, only rapes me.

  Her wits were nearly gone, but she knew the ridiculousness of her thoughts. She had a friend who’d been raped in a restaurant parking lot. It was nothing to wish for, but in that moment it was the only hope that she had.

  She wanted to live.

  PART ONE

  Celesta

  Doing what I do is hard enough….

  Finding the right girl, the one who knows her place, that’s damn near impossible these days.

  —FROM AN E-MAIL RECOVERED FROM THE SUSPECT’S COMPUTER

  Chapter One

  March 29, 8 a.m.

  Near Sunnyslope, west of Port Orchard, Washington

  The early mornings in the woods of Kitsap County, Washington, were wrapped in a shiver, no matter the season. The job required layers and tools. The smartest and best-prepared brush pickers started with an undershirt, another shirt on top of that, a sweater or sweatshirt, and a jacket. Gloves were essential too. Some were fashioned with a sewn-in cutting hook to expedite the cutting of thinner-stemmed plants like ferns. A sharp knife or a pair of good-quality loppers made easier the business of cutting woody stems like evergreen huckleberry, salal, and in the Christmas-wreath season, fir and cedar boughs. As the day wore on, pickers shed their clothing, a layer at a time. Picking was hard work, and a good picker was a blur, cutting, fanning, and bundling, before bagging floral gleanings in thick plastic bags.

  Instead of garbage in those bags, of course, there was money.

  Pickers often left indicators they’d been through an area. Empty bags of chips emblazoned with Spanish words that touted the snack’s flavor. Sometimes they left torn gloves or leaky boots in the forest. Some left nothing at all.

  Sunday morning Celesta Delgado—along with her boyfriend, Tulio Pena, and his two younger brothers, Leon and Reno—left the mobile home they were renting in Kitsap West, a mobile home park outside the city limits of Port Orchard, just before first light. Behind the wheel of their silver-and-green 1987 Chevy Astro van, Tulio drove northeast toward state-owned property near Sunnyslope where they held permits for brush picking. Celesta and Tulio also worked at a Mexican restaurant in Bremerton, but this being Sunday, they had the time to earn—they hoped—about $60 apiece for a day’s work in the woods. The center seats of the van had been excised so they’d be able to haul their gleanings back to the brush shed, or processing plant, off the highway to Belfair. The two younger ones sat in the backseat amid supplies and the cooler that held lunch.

  Celesta, at just five feet tall, was a fine-boned woman with sculpted cheeks and wavy black hair that she wore parted down the middle and, only at the restaurant, clipped back because it was required. She adored Tulio and tolerated his younger brothers with the kind of teasing repartee that comes with both love and annoyance.

  “You boys are lazy! Help your brother fix the van.”

  “Hey, Celesta, you take longer with your hair than Shakira!”

  At twenty-seven, Tulio was five years older than the love of his life. He was a compact man with the kind of symmetrical muscular build that suggested he worked out to look good, rather than worked hard with his body. The opposite, of course, was the truth.

  Tulio parked the van adjacent to a little crease of pathway into the forest, the entrance to Washington State Department of Natural Resources land that had been cleared by loggers in the 1970s. The second growth provided the ideal growing conditions for the foliage that serves as filler for market bouquets. Anyone who’s ever purchased a bunch of flowers from a grocer has held in his hands the gleanings of dark green to accent gerbera daisies, tulips, delphinium, and other floral showstoppers. They’ve held the work of those who labor in the forests of Washington and Oregon.

  The small group all put on thick-soled rubber boots and retrieved their cutting tools, rubber bands, and hauling bags from the back of the van. Then the quartet started out, their Forest Service tags flapping from their jacket zippers. They could hear the voices of Vietnamese pickers, so they turned in the opposite direction and followed a creek to a narrow valley. Stumps of massive trees long since turned into houses, fences, and barns protruded from mounds of dark, glossy greens. The area had not been over-picked, which was good. It was getting harder to find places tha
t didn’t require a three-hour hike. Tulio had been assured that the area was regulated and in good condition. It was good, though, not to have been misled. He valued their permits and foraged with care rather than with the bushwhacker mentality that denuded sections of the forest. Tulio saw it as a renewable resource—that is, renewing and filling the usually empty fold of his wallet.

  “Don’t cut all the moss, bros,” Tulio told Leon and Reno. “There won’t be any to come back and get later.”

  “Sí!” they chimed back, looking at Celesta.

  Celesta shrugged a sly grin. She’d been the one who over-harvested the moss from the trunk of a big-leaf maple the last time they went out to work in the forest.

  Fog shrouded patches of the valley as the four fanned out to cut and bundle. They set to work. Celesta was the slowest of the four because she sought out sprigs that were of a higher quality. No wormholes. No torn edges. Just beautiful shiny leaves that were often mistaken for lemon leaves by those who didn’t know botany and sought a more romantic origin for their floral displays than the sodden forests of the Pacific Northwest. Bunches of salal were pressed flat and stacked before being bagged.

  The morning moved toward the afternoon, with three trips to the van and then back into the woods. No one saw the Vietnamese pickers they’d heard talking in the woods at the beginning of the day. At the van, Reno and Leon heard the sound of car doors slamming somewhere nearby. They assumed more competitors were on the way, but they never saw anyone.