Betrayal

As they turned the corner by the water tower, they watched a white Mercedes coupe turn toward the police station.

For the first time in a long time, the driver was back in town.

Chapter 27

BRIANNA CONNORS’S MOTHER entered A

“I want to see my daughter,” Brandy said, forcing herself in through the doorway. A

The police chief hadn’t seen Brandy in a couple of years, with the exception of the video clip in which she stood in front of the library in Seattle and told a TV reporter that she was devastated by the disappearance of her daughter. When the focus of the investigation had swung toward Bria

“You shouldn’t see her,” A

“I’ve seen a dead body before. My mother. My father. I want to see my little girl.”

A

The final imprint of that image could never be erased.

“Please,” A

Brandy shook her head. “I don’t want to sit. I drove all the way from Seattle once I heard on the news that you found her. All the way. Three long hours to get here. Traffic was a nightmare.”

“Sit,” A

Brandy undid the buttons of her long pink coat and sat.

“I’m so, so sorry,” A

Even if it was the worst possible mother.

“Was what?” Brandy asked, tapping her nails on the top of A

There was no way of sugarcoating it. “Battered,” A

Brandy tried to furrow her Botoxed brow. “What do you mean?”

A

Brandy didn’t flinch, and yet she felt the need for a tissue. “She was buried, correct? I already know that from the news. At least they get to the point.”

A

“Yes,” she said stiffly, lowering her eyes, “the news media does a good job of getting the word out, although what they say isn’t always accurate. The killer tried to hide Bria

The statement quieted Brandy for a second. Finally. Her relentless push to see the body had finally abated.

“We have to be sure it’s her,” Brandy said.

“We’re sure. Your former husband identified her.”

Brandy made a face—or tried to. She’d been so worked over by a plastic surgeon that it was hard for A

“Oh, he did, did he?” she said, shaking her head. “Nice. Great to see that prick involved in his daughter’s life.”

A

But Brandy had missed the ferry.

Worst mom ever.

“Who issues the death certificate? Your office or Kitsap County? I’m a little confused here, Chief Garnett. I don’t know who is in charge here.”

“I’m in charge of the investigation,” A

“Then I want you to know that I blame you for my daughter’s death.”

“Me?” A

“You should have caught Olivia’s killer before he had a chance to kill again. If Drew is dead too, his father, Chase, will sue you and your soggy little town for letting this happen. I’ll bet he’ll want answers—and damages too.”

A

“There was no evidence to support that theory,” she said emphatically. “In fact, we have a pretty good idea that the suspect was not a serial killer.”

OVER IN ENGLAND, Edward Grant faced the cameras with wife Wi

“I want to be respectful of the American system of justice,” he said in his perfectly clipped accent. “But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that this latest development has made things crystal clear. The system failed our Olivia. That girl, that horrible Bria

For a second, it appeared that his resolve not to show any emotion was begi

“I want to say something,” Wi

The reporter nodded. “Yes, go ahead.”

“My daughter and I were very, very close. I don’t think I will be able to go on as long as I know that her murderer is out there free in a society that seems to cater to the perpetrator while ignoring the victim.”

The camera zoomed in on a small lapel button on Edward Grant’s coat. It was a photograph of Olivia with the words: JUSTICE FOR OLIVIA GRANT.

Chapter 28

PUGET SOUND HOSPITAL for the criminally insane was located a few miles north of Seattle’s city limits in Edmonds. In the 1960s, the state legislature voted to drop “for the Criminally Insane” in favor of the shorter, less descriptive moniker Puget Sound Hospital. Built of gray and red brick with a neat fringe of Douglas fir trees around its perimeter, the place gave off the vibe of an Ivy League college campus—albeit a campus with a scary student body. There were no guard towers, razor wire, or any of the accoutrements that made the institution look like a prison, even though that’s exactly what it was.

That Valerie Ryan would choose to work in such a place might have raised a few eyebrows from those who knew her as a teenager and, later, in college. Those closest to her knew that for Valerie, growing up on McNeil Island had been difficult.

“I’m sure that growing up in the suburbs, like you, was a nightmare of its own peculiar kind,” she had told her college roommate, Daphnia. “But just between us, I couldn’t wait to get off that island. I’ll never, ever go back.”