The One Who Watches Read online

  The One Who Watches

  Knox and Sheppard #4

  Emerald O'Brien

  Copyright © 2019 by Emerald O'Brien

  * * *

  Cover designed by Alora Kate of Cover Kraze

  Interior designed by The Write Assistants

  Editing by Mountains Wanted Publishing

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Printed in the United States of America.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Emerald

  About the Author

  For Shyla.

  Love you more.

  One

  “Where’s the witness?” Grace called down the hill to Officer Malone as she slipped every few steps down the wet asphalt, past the glowing orange pylons, struggling to maintain balance.

  “Mac’s with her at the bottom!” Malone shouted as a second news truck pulled up to the yellow line of police tape he had secured.

  Malone lifted it for Grace, and she thanked him, striding past an empty ambulance. The steep road leveled off; the grisly sight at the bottom of the curve churned her stomach, giving her pause.

  A hot red sports car lay upside down, crunched around a pine tree, before the edge of a steep escarpment. Two firemen with cutters and spreaders worked at prying open the door on the passenger’s side.

  “Hey.” Mac stepped away from the young woman trembling by her car, her clothing soaked, and her dark, wet hair stuck to her face. He met Grace in front of the wreck. “One person, the driver, and he didn’t make it.” He nodded over his shoulder. “She witnessed the whole thing and called it in. Lockwood’s on her way.”

  “Do we have an I.D. on him?”

  “From his plates. Tyler Gibbons. Twenty-eight. Tall Pines resident. Lives less than a kilometer from here, over on Acorn Court.”

  “That’s a decent neighbourhood.”

  “It is.”

  “Stay with her.” Grace shoved her hands in her pockets, staring at the car. “I’ll be there to question her in a moment.”

  Mac stepped aside as Grace approached one of the firefighters standing by.

  “Ma’am.” He nodded to her. “Cooper Watkins.”

  “Detective Grace Sheppard. How was the vic when you got here?”

  “He was still alive,” Jack Holden huffed, stepping beside her. His presence was calm and somehow comforting in contrast to the brutal wreck ahead. “He was in a lot of pain, but he was crunched in there too far. We couldn’t…”

  “Jack.” Grace nodded. “Were you among the first to arrive? Did you speak with him?”

  “I was, but he wasn’t talking much.” Jack cleared his throat as another firefighter joined them. “He said he tried. Didn’t elaborate.”

  “We’re almost ready for extraction,” another fireman called to them.

  “Okay, we need to wait. They’ll need to take pictures,” Jack said. He nodded to Grace and Cooper before walking back to the car.

  “The road conditions are terrible,” Cooper said. “Maybe he tried to slow down before the turn, but he hydroplaned?”

  I wouldn’t have been called out if that were the case, Grace thought. She turned back, trying to examine any skid marks, but couldn’t make anything out across the wet pavement. A paramedic wrapped the witness in a blanket, and as he stepped away, Grace approached.

  “I’m Detective Grace Sheppard. What’s your name?”

  “Mindy.” Her voice trembled as she pulled the blanket closed over her chest.

  “Can you tell me what happened here?”

  “I was driving home from work in Amherst, and this red sports car was behind me since I got off the bridge. He was swerving and speeding, trying to pass everyone ahead, but no one was really letting him in. When we turned off Main Street, he cut me off. It rained after that, and I thought I’d better slow down and keep my distance from him, but we kept going in the same direction, and he wasn’t speeding anymore. I caught up to him after we turned onto Blackrock up there, and at the top of the hill, at the stop sign, he stopped—for a really long time—almost in the middle of the intersection.”

  Grace frowned. “Did he slide to a stop, or?”

  “I don’t think so. It was like he wasn’t paying attention, maybe?”

  Maybe he was intoxicated.

  “So he just slowed down but didn’t stop until he was almost in the middle of the intersection?”

  “Right. I wanted to pass him right then, but it was raining, and he was already so erratic. You know, guys like that in a red sports car. I didn’t want to upset him. It must have been a full minute later, and no one had come up behind me, or gone through the intersection, so I pulled up and tried to get around him into the other lane, and when I drove up beside him, he turned to me. He looked at me like he’d just woken up or something. It was really strange. Then he—he just drove and didn’t stop until…”

  “He stepped on the gas right then, didn’t let you go ahead.” Grace frowned. “How fast was he going?”

  “Just a little faster than normal at first, but he built up momentum down the hill.”

  “Was he swerving like before?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did he turn at the bottom to take the corner?”

  She shook her head.

  “Mindy, what do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, her chin quivering. “His brake lights came on about halfway down, but the car kept building up speed.”

  “So, he tried to brake?”

  “Yes.” Mindy turned to Mac. “Can I please go home?” She shivered with the blanket around her, squinting at them through the mist of rain.

  “Officer MacIntyre will take your number and take you home.” Grace nodded to her. “Come back for your car in the morning, okay? I think you’re a little too shaken up to be driving right now. Thank you for your help, and if you think of anything else, please call me.”

  She gave Mindy her business card, and Mac opened the door for her. After closing it, he turned to Grace.

  “I’ll be back soon.” He dropped his formal tone and added
warmth to his voice as he looked to her for approval.

  “Okay. See if there’s anything else she can tell us right now. I think it was more than just the crash that was disturbing to her. It was how he drove, how he stopped in the middle of the intersection, and the way he looked at her before going down and braking without stopping.”

  Mac nodded and walked around the car.

  “Hey,” Grace called, adding warmth to her own voice. “Drive safe.”

  Mac gave her a tight-lipped smile before getting in the car, keeping his sparkling eyes on her. She watched them drive down the hill as Jack approached.

  “We got him out,” he said. “He was wearing a Bluetooth headset. Might have been talking to someone.”

  “I’ll look into that.” Grace turned to where Tyler Gibbons’ body lay waiting to be collected by the Chief Medical Examiner Raven Lockwood. “Anything else you could see?”

  “That’s all for now.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” Grace shoved her hands in her coat pockets and turned away, looking back up the steep road.

  I need his cell phone records. If someone was speaking with him before or while he drove down the hill, they might be able to explain what happened.

  He might have been trying to explain it…

  “Jack?” she called, turning to him. “What did he say, exactly?”

  “I tried.” Jack’s somber expression broke into one of curiosity as he searched Grace’s eyes. “That’s all. Just—I tried.”

  Two

  Madigan’s bike rumbled to a stop in front of a small, faded beige vinyl-sided house.

  On the way, she passed the elementary school she had attended with Grace while they lived with Eli and Evette, supressing the strange urge to visit the terrible house they stayed in during that time. Instead, she followed a bend in the road, into the low-income housing unit and onto Post Crescent, her biological mother’s last known address.

  She shoved her helmet into her bag as two male voices echoed from within a house a few doors down, shouting profanities at one another. She hopped over a large puddle and stared at the house from the sidewalk.

  A warm porch light illuminated a worn rocking chair beside a white door, riddled with rust along the bottom. As she climbed the steps, movement came from the house on the left.

  A woman with dark gray hair standing in the frame of the upstairs window let the curtain fall in front of her face before Madigan could get a good look at her. She climbed the steps and reached the front door.

  Don’t think about it, just do it.

  She knocked and took a step back, drawing in a deep breath before shoving her hands in her faux leather jacket.

  What if she recognizes me right away? Could she? I’d be hurt if she didn’t, but how can I expect that of her?

  What if she had other children? What if they come to the door?

  What if I’m meeting a sibling and a mother today?

  The door creaked open, and a young woman bouncing a baby in her arms stared up at Madigan with dark circles under her eyes and an orange stain on the shoulder of her pink shirt.

  “Hi. I’m looking for Julia Morris.”

  The woman frowned and rubbed the baby’s back. “You’ve got the wrong place.”

  “I know she used to live here. How long have you been here? Maybe you moved in after her?”

  The woman scowled and leaned forward, grabbing the doorknob. “I don’t know who used to live here, but I do now.” She stepped back and shut the door with a whoosh.

  Madigan sighed, descending the stairs, and hesitated at the bottom.

  The neighbours might know something, although the woman in the window didn’t seem up for a chat. I have to try.

  She turned right and crossed the lawn toward the woman’s tiny front porch. All the dark rooms inside showed no sign of movement.

  She was probably going to bed. I don’t want to wake her…

  She knocked twice and shoved her hands in her pockets again.

  That’s it. You have to do it before you have a chance to talk yourself out of it.

  No sounds or lights came from inside, and Madigan sighed, running her hands through her hair as she walked back to the sidewalk.

  A tall, older man wearing a plaid shirt and worn jeans stood on the road, staring at her bike.

  “That’s a man’s bike,” he said, his low voice barely carrying to her.

  She stopped at the sidewalk, keeping a distance between them, and clutched her bag with her heavy helmet inside.

  “It’s mine,” Madigan said.

  He pursed his lips, staring at her.

  Can I help you? No, I can’t risk my smart mouth getting me into trouble out on a street like this at night.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She shook her head and stepped toward the bike. “Excuse me, please.”

  Why can’t he just leave me alone? Can’t he see I don’t want to talk?

  “I said, what’s your business here?” He widened his gait.

  She stared at him. “You can mind your own business, and I’ll take care of mine.”

  He puffed out his chest and raised his brow.

  Great. And that’s why I should think before I act.

  She grabbed the strap of her bag, ready to take it off in one swift motion and knock it against his head with another.

  “This neighbourhood is my business, Miss, and I’m wondering why a young woman’s wandering around here at night on her own, on a man’s bike?”

  I’m wondering most of that myself. I should have come tomorrow, during the day, but I couldn’t avoid the impulse to get answers any longer.

  I need to know about my mom.

  “Listen, I’m Vic. I live across the street in that house there, and I do my part to keep this street safe. Try as I might, I can’t be everywhere all the time, and so I can say with certainty that this is not the place for you, Miss.”

  “Then back off and let me leave.”

  He pursed his lips, taking a step back. “Fine. S’long as you don’t come back here at night by yourself.”

  Madigan pulled her helmet out of the bag and grabbed one of the handles, hesitating to swing her leg over as he continued to stare from a distance too close for comfort.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve seen too many things in my years here to let a young woman such as yourself wander around on her own in the late hours of the night.”

  “How many years?” she asked.

  “Goin’ on thirty.”

  If that’s true, he could have lived here before my mom ever came.

  “Do you know Julia Morris?”

  His eyes opened a bit wider, and he looked past her, staring toward the house.

  “That’s who I came here looking for.”

  He turned to her again and furrowed his brow. “I did. She hasn’t lived there in years. Decades.”

  Madigan sighed. “I figured. Do you know where she moved to?”

  He cleared his throat and tugged at his ear lobe. “Who are you? How did you know her?”

  Do I tell him the truth? Does he want the truth? There’s something in his eyes right now… He knows where she is, or at least where she went to, and there’s something else.

  “She’s my mom—my biological mother.”

  He pulled his head back a bit and ran his hand over his mouth. “Julia didn’t have children.”

  That you know of. Or maybe I’m the only one.

  “I didn’t live with her or anything, but I am her daughter.”

  He stared at her, his eyes searching her face.

  Does he think I’m lying?

  My mom must not have told him about me. Maybe she didn’t tell anyone. I was her secret. She was ashamed of having me… Or that I was taken away.

  Or maybe it was easier to pretend she didn’t have children. Maybe it helped her in life, somehow…

  “I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head again.

  “You don’t have to. I came here look
ing for her, but since she’s not here, do you know where I can find her?”

  “No. I don’t know where she is,” he lowered his voice. “I never saw her again after she left.”

  There’s pain there. Disappointment. He cared for her in some way.

  “Were you close with her?”

  He pressed his lips together and furrowed his brow. “Listen, I don’t know where she is, but she never came back here. You won’t find her around here.” He took a step back, staring at her old house again.

  “Can you please just tell me where she went? The last place you know of?”

  He shook his head and crossed the street, marching back toward his wooden porch.

  “Hey,” she called, circling her bike and crossing the road after him as she dug through her bag. “Sir, please, I need your help. It would mean a lot.”

  She pulled out the manila envelope with the only information she had about her mother inside as he turned around.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Papers. My birth certificate. Legal documents. I can prove she’s my biological mother.”

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head.

  “I have to find her.” The words struck her as desperate, but she held the envelope up.

  “What does it say about her in there?”

  She frowned. “Not much. Personal information. Proof that I’m her daughter. That she signed over custody of me to my grandma before I was one. That she tried to regain custody of me at one point—”