Page 34 of Her Last Whisper

“Did she give you any details?”

“No, she just said she thought someone was trying to find her.”

Katie paused a moment, observing Marco and deciding that he was likely telling the truth. His eye contact was a bit inconsistent and she couldn’t tell if he was deceiving her or not. “Did she say why or who?” She watched his hands, which he kept wringing, rubbing his thumbs against the sides of his index fingers, unable to keep them still.

He shook his head. “I tried to get her to tell me, but I wasn’t sure if she knew. But I can tell you that she was scared—really terrified.”

“Was she dating anyone?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What makes you say that?” Katie asked.

“It’s what she said, how she was hiding and scared to go out, especially at night.”

“What do you think?”

“About?”

“You’ve known Amanda for a while. Did this behavior seem normal, or out of character?”

“See, that’s just it. The way she had been acting, even before her attack, didn’t seem like her. I don’t know what to tell you, Detective. I think she was very afraid of someone.”

“Do you know her friend, Emily Day?” Katie asked.

“Don’t know her personally, I’m sorry. Amanda mentioned her a few times.”

“Is there anything that you would like for me to know?”

“I can’t think of anything,” he said and leaned back, clearly upset.

Katie stood to leave. “Thank you, Mr. Ellis, I appreciate your time. Here’s my card if you think of anything that might help us; please call me anytime.” She handed him a business card.

“I hope you find him,” he said as Katie left.

Katie rushed back to the elevator, pressing the button frantically as she waited for it to return.

When the doors finally opened, she rode the elevator up and exited out into the bustling ground floor hallway. She rushed to finally step outside and took a few deep breaths—still seeing the bodies on the gurneys and smelling death.

Twenty-One

Early Saturday morning

Katie had a difficult time trying to sleep, tossing and turning, worrying about what to do next in Amanda’s homicide investigation. Every time she closed her eyes and tried to rest, she could see Amanda’s body at the crime scene. Facedown. Naked. Katie’s name on a business card clutched in her hand.

Why Whispering Pines?

Why strip the body?

Why restrain her after she died?

Katie finally relented and threw her covers back, letting the cool air from the room float over her body. Cisco grumbled from his chair in the corner of the bedroom but didn’t want to rise just yet. Katie sat up, swung her feet to the floor and headed to the shower to try to clear her head, but all she ended up doing was reworking the case from the beginning, the very beginning; the moment Amanda stepped in front of the patrol car. Katie’s mind jostled between that night and Amanda’s final resting spot at Whispering Pines, searching for a link. But only one thing became clear: she needed to visit where it had all had been set in motion.

Katie drove slowlythrough the abandoned neighborhood, formerly known as the Basin Woods Development, on the south end of town. It had been a thorn in the side of Sequoia County for several years now, the total opposite of everything Pine Valley resembled. Even in the daytime the houses appeared more like props on a film set than what was once a thriving residential area. It was unclear to her why they never invested in improving it, except that the land was probably more valuable than the cheaply built houses that sat on it. That was typical for California property.

Still rolling slowly, Katie saw there were subdivisions with chain-link fencing cordoning them off, but much of the neighborhood was old and falling down, decorated with rusting “no trespassing” signs. The copy of Deputy Windham’s police report lay on the passenger’s seat beside her, the addresses of the local houses they had searched highlighted, and also land parcel identifications from the county. Katie had also printed out an assessor’s map showing the addresses with an overview satellite map and had studied them carefully before heading into the derelict neighborhood.

Cisco popped his head up between the two front seats, ears alert and eyes clocking anything that didn’t appear normal down both sides of the street. His anxious panting made it clear that he wanted to get to work.