Page 95 of Everything She Feared

“How can I help you?”

Ryan ordered a vanilla latte, then paid. When Ashley stepped away to make it, Avis came to the counter holding a take-out cup.

“Order for Eric,” Avis said.

Ryan was about three feet from her and now had a clearer view. Avis had a double nose ring, studs in her pierced ears. She wore a beige bib apron over a black T-shirt. He could see her arms, and her tattoos: latte art and stars but nothing on the spot of her wrist.

No scar, no tattoo, nothing. His staring was interrupted.

“Have you been served?” Avis looked at Ryan.

“Yes, thanks.”

Ashley brought him his order and he went to a table nearby, sitting so he could watch the staff behind the counter while contending with what he sensed was another miss.

The scar should be noticeable on her left wrist.

But there was also another key fact to consider about Avis. According to Ryan’s source, she had a six-year-old daughter, named Hailey.

Names again. Coincidence? Maybe.

He didn’t know.

Frustrated, Ryan left the shop.

He calmed down outside, sipping his coffee. A car passed with a John Denver song spilling from the radio, one of Carrie’s favorites. He couldn’t give up. He got into his SUV and parked a distance away, but kept his eye on the shop for the next two hours until Avis’s shift ended.

He saw her leave, sipping a drink from a bright yellow can as she walked to the bus stop. He watched her toss the can in the trash before the bus arrived, creaking to a stop.

Ryan walked to the bin and collected the yellow can.

Another DNA sample to ship overnight.

Another possibility.

43

Seattle, Washington

Heidi Wong surveyedher laptop’s screen, then her notes on her yellow legal pad at the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Several days had passed since Tanner Bishop had been charged with stealing a pickup truck, which had put him in the park at the time Anna Shaw died.

At the conference table, rereading updates on the case, Wong shook her head slowly before she raised it to the investigators.

She’d called Acker, Pierce and Benton, along with Grotowski and Tilden, to her building. She’d requested to speak to the main team on the case because of a development.

“So why this meeting?” Acker asked. “You said there’s been a turn of events?”

“Earlier today I was on a call with Bishop’s attorney, Whitney Bowen. Also on the call, we had John James Smith’s lawyer and the lawyer for True Ocean Auto Dealers.”

“Why weren’t we informed?” Acker asked.

“Sorry, Art, it came about quickly,” Wong said. “Smith, due to his own status as an offender, insists that he not be linked in any conceivable way to Shaw’s case.”

“Meaning?” Pierce said.

“Meaning he wants all theft charges concerning his pickup dropped. He has his truck in good running order. And that’s the end of the story, as far as Smith’s concerned. For their part, the auto dealer will refund the repair cost and provide Smith free maintenance service, or something. It’s up to them how they want to handle it.”

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