The Other Side Read online

  The Other Side

  Chevy Stevens

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  A Preview for Always Watching

  Also by Chevy Stevens

  About the Author

  Copyright

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  I’d been working the Campsite Killer case for years—ever since I joined the Serious Crimes Unit in Vancouver—and I became close to a few of the victims’ families, which made it worse every time he slipped away from us. The case would get cold for a couple of years, then heat up again when he murdered another woman, always in the summer. I’d been tense that spring, knowing he’d probably hit again soon. What we hadn’t expected was that the Campsite Killer had a daughter—and that he’d contact her.

  My partner, Billy Reynolds, and I traveled over to Vancouver Island from the mainland to meet her and see how legit her claim was. Billy’s a good guy. Fun to work with when he isn’t spouting off his Art of War quotes. Whenever I’m getting too serious, he likes to sing “Oh, Sandy” from Grease. His John Travolta impression is terrible, but he’s pretty easy on the eyes. Younger than me at thirty-six, he’s in good shape, has a shaved head, some Asian symbols tattooed on his arms, and dresses spiffy. Not my type, though—I have a boyfriend, another cop, but we aren’t doing so great lately. He’s pissed that we haven’t had a kid yet, but I have doubts about two cops raising one, plus I just turned forty-two. Billy keeps himself single, not sure what that’s about but it comes in handy when we want to smooth our way with a female witness. They might get bristly with me but they always want to tell Billy and his killer dimples all their troubles.

  I was hoping he could work his magic with Sara Gallagher. If her story was true, then her birth mother was Karen Christianson, the only woman to survive an attack from the Campsite Killer. She changed her name to Julia Laroche, moved to the island, and gave up the child. No one ever knew she’d been pregnant—until Sara tracked her down a couple of months ago. When the news got splashed all over the Internet recently, the Campsite Killer called Sara up, wanting to connect. Terrified, she made a report at her local police station, and they got in touch with us.

  When we met Sara and gave her our business cards, I could tell she was surprised I was the staff sergeant and Billy was the corporal. That reaction used to piss me off, but I enjoy it now. I like the shock effect. People are also usually surprised that we don’t wear uniforms, but my gun is tucked against my side, the weight and rub of it comforting and familiar.

  Sara was thirty-three and very pretty. I realized instantly that with her auburn hair and green eyes she had some of the same physical characteristic as the Campsite Killer, something I don’t think she was too pleased about. She also didn’t look thrilled about working with us, but we needed her help—she was the best lead we’d had in years. We had to be careful how we coaxed her to talk to him the next time he called, and I was sure he would. We finally had a chance to nail this bastard. He’d killed at least thirty people over the years and I didn’t want to deliver more bad news to another devastated family, didn’t want to find the remains of another body left alone in the woods.

  It was obvious that Sara was scared to talk to her father again—can’t say I blame her. My father had only killed one woman. My mother. I was six. She had just enough time to shove me in her bedroom closet and block it before he burst through the front door. He raped her, then strangled her. She never screamed. I think about that sometimes, what it must have been like for her, knowing I was listening on the other side of that door. My dad took off that night and has never been seen again. When I’m not working active cases, I’m working his.

  Two months after that first meeting, we were still working with Sara. Her father—John, as he called himself—had been calling constantly and sending creepy gifts. He was leading us all to hell and gone, and then eventually, just like we feared, he killed another woman. We managed to set up a meeting between him and Sara, hoping to catch him, but he didn’t show. I was frustrated, Sara was a nervous wreck, and I didn’t know what was going on with Billy, but I didn’t like it.

  “You’re getting too close to Sara,” I said one morning when we were driving to get coffee.

  “I thought we wanted me to form a connection with her,” he said. It had become apparent pretty early on that Sara and I didn’t click, but she trusted Billy. We agreed that I’d act as the aggressor and push her hard, and Billy would follow up with the soft touch.

  “It’s starting to look more personal, Billy.”

  “It’s not like that. Not at all. She’s in love with her fiancé.”

  “Just be careful.” Sara did love her fiancé, that was obvious, but I still had a feeling Billy was drifting over the line. It happens, one reason we work in teams. More common is work-related relationships, and my own, to say the least, was rocky. Last night Jeff had come pretty close to an ultimatum on the phone.

  He’d said, “Look, it’s time to shit or get off the pot. We’ve been living together for ten years. I want to get married, I want a kid.”

  “I told you, it’s too late now. We probably can’t even get pregnant—and I’m not doing fertility treatments.” When we first got together we talked about children as something we’d like “someday,” but we were busy with our careers, and I worried about our kid growing up alone, both parents killed by some gangbanger or drug dealer. As the years passed by I accepted that it would probably never happen, it just wasn’t in the cards. Then Jeff got baby fever.

  “You said we probably can’t get pregnant, but we don’t know until we try.”

  “Too old means too old—we missed the bus. You said the same thing yourself last year—but that you were happy with the way our lives are now.”

  “Yeah, I did, but I changed. Now I want to know what we’re doing about it.”

  “You can’t seriously be laying this on me when I’m working this case?”

  “There’s always another case.”

  “So what if I say no?”

  “I just want to know one way or another.”

  But I heard the undertone. If I said no, I could also be kissing my relationship good-bye. We hung up, agreeing to talk again this weekend when I went back to the mainland. I was upset, but I tried to put the call out of my head and focus on the next step in the Campsite Killer case. Things were finally heating up—we just had to push Sara in the right direction.

  Two weeks later things had gone haywire with the case, and I was at the hospital interviewing Nadine Lavoie—Sara’s shrink. Nadine had been attacked and nearly killed by John. A couple of days earlier, we’d gotten Sara to set up another meeting with John, but he called to reschedule at the last moment. Sara had finally lost it and refused to see him. He went after her fiancé, and when she still refused to see him, he obviously decided to attack her shrink. Sara had seen her the evening before at her office, and we suspected John had followed her there before attacking Nadine. I was the first to interview her after the investigating officers had a go at her.

  “Hello, I’m Staff Sergeant McBride,” I said.

  She held out her hand. “Thank you for coming, Officer.” In her early fifties, she reminded me of Sara’s birth mother, Julia, who is also beautiful and has that cultured, professional-woman aura about her. Even with a bandage around her head she had a pulled-together look, the hospital gown unwrinkled, her silver hair tidy.
I wondered how I looked to her in my white dress shirt with a little bit of lunch on it, my hair rumpled and bleached out from too much time in the sun, usually windblown because I like to drive with my window down.

  She said, “You’re working the Campsite Killer case?”

  “That’s correct.” She was a psychiatrist, and from what I understood a very good one. I probably could’ve used her thirty years ago. Though I still have nightmares about my mother’s murder, I’ve never talked to anyone about it—including the therapist my aunt and uncle took me to until they found out all I did was cry the whole time. They decided it was too traumatic and taught me how to kayak instead. Something I still do for recreation.

  “How is Sara?” Her eyes were worried as she studied my face intently, looking for clues, some sign of reassurance.

  “She’s hanging in there.” Interesting that her first concern was her patient, not herself, but she was right to be worried. If John kept escalating, more people could get hurt.

  I said, “I know you’ve already been over this, but do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Can you take me through last night?”

  “I had just locked up the building and was walking toward my car when I felt someone rushing up behind me. Before I could turn around, he hit me in the back, with his body, and I fell to the ground. My head hit the side of the curb.” She touched the bandage, an unconscious movement. “I heard footsteps running away, then I passed out.”

  “You didn’t get a look at your assailant?”

  “No, he came up from behind too fast.”

  “Was there anything else you remember? A scent, a noise, maybe?”

  She paused a few seconds, then shook her head.

  “I know you suspect it was the Campsite Killer, but I’m not sure.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I just didn’t get the feeling it was him. I don’t know why.” She looked perplexed, her gaze drifting over to a glorious bouquet of flowers on her nightstand. Beside them was a smaller, wilted bouquet that looked like it had been bought at a corner store.

  “Is there anyone else you think might have wanted to hurt you?”

  She turned back to me. “The husband of one of my patients is unhappy with my treatment of her. He’s called and threatened me.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Henry Flynn.”

  I made a note. “Can you think of anyone else?”

  She hesitated for a moment, and I wondered what she was holding back. But she just said, “No, no one.”

  “No ex-husbands or relationships that have gone sour?”

  She seemed almost amused by the idea.

  “My husband passed away ten years ago and I haven’t been involved with anyone since.”

  So who’d brought the flowers? I made another note.

  “Any children?”

  “My daughter and a stepson. They both live in Victoria.”

  “Any problems with either of them?”

  She shook her head but looked sad, and I didn’t press. Her attacker had to be John. I didn’t need to know about her family issues.

  “Thanks for your time.” I closed my notebook.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. I know how hard you’re all working to find him, but I hope you can stop him soon. I’m worried that he may be escalating.”

  “We are too, and we’re doing our best.”

  “He won’t give up without a fight. He wants a family and he views anyone standing in his way as a threat. I’m very concerned for Sara and her daughter.”

  I nodded. “I understand, and she’s well protected.”

  Billy also wanted to talk to the investigating officers and Nadine Lavoie, so he asked me to watch Ally, Sara’s six-year-old daughter, while Sara was at the hospital with her fiancé in Pt. Alberni—an hour from Nanaimo, and near where he’d been shot at his fishing resort. We were keeping a close eye on Ally, in case John decided to come for her, and also had an officer posted at the end of the road to Sara’s home. I thought Billy was wasting his time interviewing Nadine, but he said that he needed to assure Sara that she was okay. Again, I wondered if they were getting too close, but we did have to keep Sara calm, and if this helped, so be it.

  While I played with Ally at her house—scrunched down at her Barbie doll table drinking my thousandth cup of pretend tea and nibbling on my pretend cookies—I thought back to my weekend with Jeff. We had decided to give it another couple months, maybe talk to a doctor, and see how we felt. We’d fooled around, but it had a desperate feeling to it, like we knew we were heading for a breakup. I studied the kid in front of me, who was now telling me that she was hungry and asking if she could make lunch.

  “Are you allowed to do that?” I realized the second I asked that it wasn’t like she was going to tell me the truth, but I was stumped. Do six-year-olds use the stove?

  She nodded, her dark hair bouncing in ringlets.

  I decided it would be okay so long as I kept an eye on her.

  “Sure, what do you want?”

  Ally squealed and clasped her hands together.

  “SpaghettiOs!”

  I found the can in the pantry, helped her open it and dump it in the pot. She stood on her little stepstool, her face serious as she stirred. My phone beeped. It was a text from Doug, one of the officers back where I grew up in Kelowna: Call me ASAP. Though Doug was retired now, he’d been on the force a long time and still worked cold cases. He worked my mother’s murder, said he’d never forget pulling me out of the closet. We’d kept in touch over the years. I think he liked that I became a cop.

  I watched Ally scoop her lunch into her bowl, worried the entire time that she was going to burn herself. When I tried to take over, she said, “Nooo! I have to do it!”

  When she was settled at the table I put a glass of milk in front of her, figuring that would balance out the canned lunch.

  “I have to make a call, so you stay here, okay?”

  She nodded, her mouth around a heaping spoonful.

  In the living room, where I could still keep an eye on Ally, I dialed Doug’s number.

  He said, “Hey, kid. How you been?”

  “I’m okay, busy.”

  “I heard you were working the Campsite Killer case. He’s got a daughter?”

  “Yeah.”

  We both paused, and I knew he was thinking about my father. I’d been thinking about him a lot myself lately, seeing what Sara was going through. He’d taken me everywhere when I was a kid, fishing, hunting, never laid a hand on me, but he was a jealous bastard when it came to my mother. Men liked to look at her, a lot, and she liked them looking at her. He blackened her eye one too many times and she finally kicked him out a couple of weeks before she died.

  “I’m actually calling about your father,” Doug said.

  My body stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “Think I got a lead.”

  I sat down hard on the couch.

  “What kind of lead?” The sweet tomato smell of SpaghettiOs suddenly made me feel sick.

  “The guy who was with your mother that last week? Mark Braithwaite?”

  The week before my father killed her, my mom played cards in the kitchen with Mark, the radio on, smoke curling up from their cigarettes as they laughed and talked, their hands occasionally touching. I watched from the living room, an anxious hum in my stomach, knowing how pissed my dad would be if he knew this younger friend of his was at our house.

  “Yeah?”

  “One of my buddies on the force remembered your case and gave me a call. Mark, he was picked up for assaulting his girlfriend. He’s in his sixties but he still did quite a number on her face. Girlfriend says he kept saying he was going to kill her. He raped her too, though he’s saying it was consensual. Thing that’s weird is, he used to be friends with her ex-husband.”

  I was too stunned to say anything.

  “Maybe we’ve
been looking for the wrong man,” Doug said.

  Impossible. It had to be a coincidence. “No. It was my father.”

  “Think back to that night. Are you sure? You never saw him.”

  “Give me a minute.” I closed my eyes, remembering.

  My mother’s face goes white with terror when a truck pulls up outside. She grabs my arm and drags me to her bedroom, shoves me in the closet so roughly I cry out.

  “Sorry, baby, but you’ve gotta be quiet, okay? Real quiet, no matter what you hear.”

  “I don’t want to—” There’s a loud knock on the door. My mom’s expression is frantic. I’m crying.

  She says, “Promise me.”

  “I…promise.”

  “Don’t say a word. No matter what. Don’t say a word.”

  She closes the door and drags something in front, blocking me in.

  I bite my lips hard and cry softly in the dark. In the kitchen I can hear a man’s deep baritone voice—my father’s voice, muffled, then my mom’s voice, pleading. I hear the smack of something hitting against flesh. A body hitting the floor. Dragging noises coming toward me in the bedroom. Then a thud, the body being tossed on the bed. Moans from my mom, clothes being ripped, something dropping on the floor, flesh hitting flesh, a louder moan from my mom. Then the bed, rocking. I know the sound and press my hands against my ears, but I can still hear the headboard slam into the wall, over and over. Sounds of a struggle, gasps, stifled screams. I want to cry out, beg him to stop, but I’m terrified in the dark, a puddle of pee around my feet, my promise to Mom loud in my head. Finally the noise stops. I hold my breath, hoping it’s over. I hear a muffled, “Fuck, Ginny, look what you made me do.”

  No response from my mom.

  Footsteps walk away, a truck’s noise fades. I start screaming. No one comes.

  I was locked in that closet for two days, smelling my mother’s body rotting in the summer heat, hearing the flies buzz. Finally someone from the restaurant where my mom worked came looking for her, found the body, and called the police. By then I was nearly catatonic.