CHAPTER ONE

      Homicide investigator Kendall Stark didn’t know it, but she wouldn’t be in need of a second tuxedo mocha that morning as she arrived in her offices at the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office in Port Orchard.

      The email link that was about to be forwarded to her would provide enough of a jolt.

      The new public- and media-relations specialist, Daphne Brown, cornered the detective and spoke with a kind of breathless excitement that tempered everything that came out of her mouth.

      East Port Orchard Elementary wants you to talk about stranger danger safety! Tonight!

      We are out of creamer in the break room! Where do we keep it? I need some!

      We have a serial killer on the loose!

      Do you like my hair this way?

      Kendall said good morning and waited for whatever urgent missive only-one-speed Daphne had.

      “We’ve already heard from all the morning shows,” Daphne said. “I’m so excited. They want you on.”

      Kendall shook her head. “I’m not doing it,” Kendall said. “I’m not doing any of it. I’ve learned my lesson.”

      Daphne pulled at one of her curls, and it bounced back into position. “You don’t even know what it’s about,” she said. “How can you say that?”

      “Its not a what, Daphne. It’s a who, and I know that the who is Brenda Nevins.”

      The younger woman’s eyes widened, but before she could speak, Kendall preempted her.

      “There’s nothing you can do,” Kendall said. “I’m not required to go on camera. You are. You can do it.”

      Daphne dialed down her pushy enthusiasm. She’d been to a conference in Seattle the week before and had learned new techniques to influence what she considered a “resistant personality type.”

      Daphne fiddled with her department-issued smartphone.

      “You better watch the link I’m about to send you.”

      “Why?” Kendall asked.

      Daphne glanced up, a satisfied look on her face.

      “Watch it,” she said. “Then call me so I can work my PR magic.”

      Kendall didn’t acknowledge Daphne’s boast. She had no plan whatsoever of encouraging Ms. Brown to do anything, let alone work any kind of self-professed public relations hocus-pocus. She was so sick of Brenda Nevins that she couldn’t imagine enduring one more minute of thinking about her. Brenda was on the front page. Brenda was the top-of-the-hour news. Brenda had even been featured on the front page of USA Today. She was a murderous prison escapee, and that made her a problem for the special agents of the FBI, not the investigators from the local Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. Not for Kendall.

      After extricating herself from Daphne, Kendall made her way to her office and, against her better judgment, powered up her laptop and immediately went to her message inbox.

      There it was, an email from Daphne Brown. No message. Just a link to a YouTube clip. Kendall clicked on the link and waited for the advertisement for a trip to Greece on a luxury liner reached the ten-second mark so she could X it out.

      The video was entitled: How My Story Began, Part One.

      Kendall could feel her heart rate accelerate a little as the clip worked its way from start to finish. Feeling a little sweat collect at the nape of her neck, she pushed her chair away from her desk and dialed Birdy Waterman’s number at the medical examiner’s office.

      “Hi, Kendall,” Birdy said. “What’s up?”

      “Are you in your office?”

      “Yes,” Birdy said. “Gloves about to go on.”

      “Can you come over here?”

      Birdy hesitated. “I’m about to start an autopsy on a crash victim from yesterday.”

      Kendall pushed. “But you haven’t started, have you?”

      “No, but . . . what’s this about, Kendall?”

      Kendall looked at the YouTube video queued up on her screen.

      “Put the corpse back in the chiller and get over here,” she said. “Brenda Nevins has posted a video blog. You need to see it.”

      “Video blog? What is she, fourteen?” Birdy said.

      “This is no joke,” Kendall said. “Come over as soon as you can.”

      “Send me the link,” Birdy said.

      Kendall moved her mouse to copy the link, but thought better of it.

      “We need to watch this together,” she said.

      “You’re making it sound like a premiere of some show, Kendall.”

      Birdy was right.

      “I think it is,” Kendall said.

      * * *

      The image was high-definition clear and left no room for doubt. Brenda Nevins had not ever been a person who could lay low. She took the microphone, looking at the camera.

      “The light is on, so I guess you can see me. Or you can see me when I post this. I’m not stupid enough to do this live. It pissed me off to lose the chance to be on TV to tell the world my true story. The morons in the legal system really screwed me on that one. I don’t like to be screwed with. I’m the one who does the screwing. Right, Janie?”

      She turned and tilted the camera to Janie Thomas, who was bound and gagged on a chair. Silver duct tape cocooned her forearms to the armrest. Her feet were out of view. The gag appeared to be black fabric, some clothing item.

      “Looks like underwear,” Birdy said. “Wonder whose?”

      Kendall didn’t answer. Her eyes were bonded to images on her computer’s screen. In particular, Janie’s terrified eyes riveted the detective. Though farther back in the shot, there was no mistaking the pleading coming from them, an urgent message that was stronger than words.

      Help me.

      Brenda let the camera linger on Janie, then on herself. She wore full makeup and a teardrop necklace that Erwin had reported Janie was wearing to work the day she went missing from the prison. The teardrop, an amethyst, nestled between Brenda’s breasts.

      Brenda was nothing if not consistent. She was always one to make sure people’s eyes landed right there, Kendall thought.