Page 40 of Everything She Feared

Katie had come down to the kitchen in her pajamas and was seated at the table. Sara stroked Katie’s hair.

“How’re you doing, honey?”

Katie shrugged.

Sara kissed the top of her head, noticing that Katie was wearing Anna’s necklace as she served up their breakfast. Neither of them had much of an appetite. They ate a few forks of scrambled eggs, a few bites of toast and nibbled at bacon. Katie spent most of the time staring at the small gold heart of the necklace.

“It was so awful on the cliff, Mom. So awful.”

“I know, honey.”

“I miss Anna and it hurts so much.”

“I know.” Sara lowered herself next to her chair, took Katie in her arms and held her. “I know.”

Minutes passed, then Katie went upstairs to get dressed. After cleaning up, Sara went upstairs to get ready, too.

Opening her closet, she glimpsed the flannel of one of Nathaniel’s beloved L.L.Bean shirts. Taking a moment, she studied it, took it from the hanger and pressed her face into its softness, breathing in its scent. On those agonizing nights when she’d first lost him, Sara had sprinkled his cologne on his side of the bed.

Tricking myself into thinking he was still here.

More memories pulled her back until suddenly, standing at her closet, she heard Nathaniel.

“Come on, Sara, we have to.” They were driving through the city, a car had pulled over, the hood raised. Nathaniel stopped to help. It didn’t matter, day or night, rain or shine, the interstate, the city, if someone needed help, Nathaniel, the Good Samaritan, would render aid. “You got to show a little kindness.” That’s how he was raised and that’s how he lived.

Sara needed to believe, as her mother did, that Nathaniel’s virtues were woven into Katie’s DNA.

After she showered and dressed, she paused for a moment outside of Katie’s bedroom door.

Katie was sitting at her desk, bent over her spiral-bound sketchbook. She was drawing carefully, pencil in hand, the chain of the necklace folding on the paper, lost in her work.

Let her be, Sara thought.

As she headed downstairs, she thought she heard Katie humming.

18

Seattle, Washington

Lynora and ChuckShaw were on their knees, working in the garden of their front yard.

It had been several days since their daughter’s funeral and Pierce’s heart broke again for them.

Benton slowed the unmarked SUV at the Shaws’ house. The garage door was up and Pierce recognized Anna’s bike inside, having seen it in her social media posts. She imagined Anna growing up here, dreaming all of her dreams in the short time she lived in this world.

Pierce shut her eyes briefly, her thoughts pulling her back several days, before the funeral, back to Anna Shaw’s body on the cold polished steel table; Mia Ryu, the medical examiner, working to the sound of her tools; the formaldehyde smell dominating the room. “It appears death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head and massive internal injuries,” Ryu said later in her office, giving Pierce and Benton her preliminary assessment. “Consistent with a fall from the height indicated to rocks below.” Ryu then discussed other aspects of her findings. Pierce noted it all before the detectives returned to headquarters, where Detective Sergeant Art Acker nodded as he listened to Pierce’s update.

“Looking at what the ME says, where are we?” Acker asked.

“I think we’re done,” Benton said. “No foul play, an accidental fall.”

“No,” Pierce said. “Ryu didn’t rule out other possibilities. We still have loose ends, locating everyone who was at the park at the time of her death. We haven’t recovered her phone and we haven’t fully processed the parking lot security video. There’s a glitch with the park’s system.”

“Alright, keep working and keep me posted,” Acker said.

Then, earlier today, he’d notified Pierce and Benton that forensics had finished processing Anna Shaw’s backpack and its contents.

“We have all we need, should it be deemed evidence later,” Acker said. “We don’t need to hold it.”

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