Page 27 of Everything She Feared

She closed her eyes because her worst fears were looming.

Now, with today’s tragedy—please don’t let it be true! It can’t be true!

11

Seattle, Washington

Later that night,while Sara Harmon’s neighborhood slept, a vehicle moved slowly down her empty street.

No dog walkers, late-night joggers or delivery people to see it, only crickets chirping in the stillness.

A solitary cat padded down the sidewalk.

The vehicle came to a silent stop near but not directly in front of Sara’s house, as if to avoid any home security cameras.

It sat there, idling quietly.

The driver’s side window lowered, giving whoever was in the vehicle a clearer view of the house and the Trailblazer parked in the driveway.

They watched without fear, without a need to hurry away.

They watched with the patience of a hunter.

They watched for nearly twenty minutes before the vehicle pulled away as slowly as it had emerged, vanishing into what was left of the night.

12

Seattle, Washington

Across the cityin the hour before sunrise, Detective Pierce was home, poring over case files, statements, videos and notes.

She’d gotten in late last night.

Her son and husband had already gone to bed. She’d tried to sleep, too, but had risen after three hours, working under the glow of her desk lamp and leaving the rest of the house in darkness.

As she sipped coffee, her thoughts went back a few hours to when she and the team had returned to headquarters. She was there with Grotowski, Tilden and Benton. She’d started debriefing Detective Sergeant Acker when Benton jumped into the conversation.

“I’m telling you, Art, this is a wilderness accident. Tragic, but she fell.”

Grotowski and Tilden watched in silence, but Acker saw Pierce’s jaw muscles bunching.

“Carl,” Acker said. “Kim’s the lead. Go on, Kim.”

“There’s an indication she’d just broken up with her boyfriend but—”

“Are you saying she jumped?” Benton said.

“No. But we can hardly draw a conclusion at this stage,” Pierce said.

“Our only witness is a nine-year-old girl,” Benton said. “I can’t see criminal intent here, so...”

“Carl.” Acker glared at him before nodding at Pierce to continue.

“The boyfriend is only one element,” Pierce said, flipping through her notebook. “We still have to get warrants. The forensic work isn’t complete. The scene needs to be processed. The area needs to be gridded for her phone, the medical examiner’s not finished and we still haven’t canvassed every person who was in the park at the time of Anna Shaw’s death.”

“Alright,” Acker said. “We’re just getting started. We’ve got a long way to go before we nail this down. We all know that it’s part of the job to challenge each other, and some of you are still a bit jacked—it’s been a long day. Go get some sleep. Get back to it in the morning.”

Pierce had arrived home to find a note from Webb, her husband, on the kitchen table.

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