Page 149 of Everything She Feared

“We’re going to take a little break from Dr. Sally.”

“But I like going to her office, to see the fish and the giraffe from Africa.”

“Katie, listen, this is important.” Sara struggled to keep from coming apart. “What happened, what really happened on the cliff?”

Katie took the heart of the necklace into her fingers and stroked it.

“Pullleeesee, Mom! I told you a million times!”

“Honey, you said you had bad thoughts, scary thoughts. You have to tell me what they are so I can help you, and so I—” Sara’s voice grew tender. “So I can protect you.”

“I didn’t push Anna. She fell.”

Katie sobbed, shaking her head, gasping.

“I’m not bad, Mom! I’m not bad!”

71

Seattle, Washington

“We got thisfrom her psychologist, who was concerned enough to come forward,” Pierce said.

Sitting at his desk, staring at his monitor, Art Acker glanced at Pierce.

“One little girl and two deaths, Art,” Benton said.

“So she was present at another death.” Acker scraped his hand over his face. “How did we miss this?” He glanced at Benton, then resumed studying his monitor. “How?”

The sketch was titledThe Park.

“Art.” Benton leaned forward as they all took in the two stick figures and the dialogue. “This is a damning admission or confession of a disturbed young mind.”

“That’s your read?” Acker said.

“Think about it. Anna goes over the cliff, and guess what? Katie’s got her necklace. No witnesses. Perfect crime.”

Acker continued studying Katie’s drawing.

“Maybe not so smooth, though,” Benton said. “Katie either hit her with the rock first, or Anna did fall to the branch and Katie used the rock to finish her off. Whichever, I think Katie’s artwork here is damning.”

“Could be she’s trying to help her,” Pierce said.

“Come on, Kim. She may have been involved in a previous death.”

“Just keeping an open mind, looking at all possibilities,” Pierce said. “What do you think, Art?”

Acker shook his head. “How the hell did we miss this?”

A soft knock on the doorframe and Grotowski stood there, holding his notebook.

“Come in, Larry,” Acker said. “What is it?”

“This is big.” Grotowski consulted his notebook. “So, from the get-go, I’ve been running background on Sara and Katie Harmon—our local and state databases, NCIC, the usual. We got nothing but the traffic violation, a speeding ticket years ago for Nathaniel Harmon, Sara’s deceased husband, Katie’s dad.”

“Right. We know that,” Pierce said.

“And I checked with the Canadians, got the RCMP to check on their national databases. And they got nothing.”

---