Whenever they went out, they’d have pancakes at the same restaurant, in the same booth.
“Make mine banana pecan,” Steven said with a wink.
“Strawberry for me.” Kendall shot back.
It was always banana pecan, strawberry, and blueberry. Each member of the Stark family had a prescribed meal, time, and place. To deviate was to cause unease and ruin what was a pleasant dinner—or, in this case, breakfast—out.
“How’s your day going?” Steven asked.
“Oh, you know.” She set Cody down and gave her husband a quick peck. “Kind of slow.”
“Any sign of the missing girl?”
Kendall and Steven talked shop only on the most cursory level. He’d tell her if he closed a big ad sale; she’d mention if a perp had been nailed or a case stymied. But she didn’t like to bring her work into their personal lives. They’d agreed to take his car to eat, then drive back to the Sheriff’s Office parking lot so Kendall could take Cody home.
“I’m worried about her,” she said, sliding into the passenger seat of the nine-year-old red Jeep Wrangler that they’d purchased just slightly used a couple of years after Cody was born. Despite his age and size, Cody was secured in a car seat, behind his parents.
“I thought she bolted. I mean, Jesus, she was working two jobs. I’d leave town too.” Steven glanced at Cody in the rearview mirror. He was watching the world slip by his window.
“Josh talked to Celesta’s sister in El Salvador. She’s as worried as Tulio is.”
“Boyfriend troubles, maybe?” he asked, turning onto Sidney Avenue and heading south to Tremont.
Kendall turned on a CD, a Raffi recording that Cody loved. She turned around, hoping to catch a smile, but the little boy just stared out the side window.
“I really don’t know. Can we talk about something else?”
“I drove over to Inverness this afternoon,” Steven said. “Just to check it out.”
Kendall felt his words stab at her, although she knew Steven meant no harm. The idea of the alternative school for their son hadn’t really set in yet. She wasn’t ready for it to set in.
“I thought we’d do that together,” she said.
Steven let a sigh pass from his lips. He took his eyes off the road and looked at her.
“I was making a run up to Bainbridge to meet with an advertiser. It was on the way home.”
“I see. I guess that makes sense,” Kendall said, looking away.
Why are you pushing this? she thought. Putting him there is one step closer to saying he’s never going to get better.
As much as she loved Steven, there was no doubt there was a wall between them. She knew that some walls can never be scaled. Not even with all the love in the world.
Chapter Eight
April 1, 10 a.m.
East Bremerton, Washington
The Azteca was a quintessential cookie-cutter Mexican restaurant, one of the type that sprouted all over America around the time that salsa overtook ketchup as the country’s best-selling condiment. Frothy frozen margaritas in flavors that God (or a decent bartender) had never intended—peach mint, cantaloupe, and blackberry—and tortilla chips warm from the deep fat fryer, served until the meal itself becomes an afterthought.
Kendall took a call from an Azteca busboy named Scott Sawyer, looked at her watch, and decided she’d head north from Port Orchard and time it for lunch. Josh was out pursuing a lead on a drug dealer near Wye Lake, so she drove up alone.
“I have something important to tell you,” Scott had said in a voice that cracked in a way that suggested he was barely out of puberty. “It’s really important. About the case you’re working on.”
“Can you give me a hint?” she asked, wanting to find out before she left if the kid had anything worth telling.
“Celesta had something going on here with another waiter. Tulio was so mad I thought he was going to kill her.”
That was certainly enough for the drive up the highway to Bremerton.
Peeling off his apron, Scott Sawyer slid into an orange and brown vinyl booth in the back of the restaurant. He was blond, pale, and as lanky as an orchard ladder. He introduced himself and apologized for keeping her waiting. She’d had to tell the server twice she didn’t want any more chips, although she’d barely touched her basket. She wondered if anyone ate the red and green chips, a tip of the hat, or rather sombrero, to Mexico’s flag.
To Kendall, it always seemed more like a nod to Christmas.
“First off, I just want you to know that everyone here really likes Celesta. She’s our best hostess by far. She trained me.”
Kendall smiled. “I’ve heard nice things about her.”
“When the boss remodeled the restaurant in Port Orchard, she was the one he selected to hostess the grand reopening.”
The waitress brought a taco salad and silently set it in front of her. For a second, Kendall thought she detected the server rolling her eyes slightly. It was subtle and could have been a nervous tic.
“I made the dressing,” he said. “Good stuff. Not good for you, but good stuff.”
Kendall speared a piece of lettuce and dipped it into the spicy sour cream dressing.
“Anyway,” Scott went on, “Celesta liked me. I could tell. I knew that she was hooked up with Tulio, but she just, you know . . .”
“No, I don’t know.”
Scott rested his bony hands on the table. A tattoo across his knuckles spelled out ROCK AND ROLLA.
“She could do better,” he said. “Tulio wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t like the brush thing. She wanted to move forward here, not run around the woods with a clipper trying to make a buck.”
The server—who wore a name tag that said MARIA but, with her green eyes and blond highlights, looked more like a Mary—shook her head as she cleared the table on the other side of the restaurant. She caught Kendall’s eye, and the detective made a mental note to speak to her before leaving the restaurant.
“You said on the phone you had some information that could be helpful in finding her,” she said to Scott. “Do you know where she went? Did she say anything to you about leaving town?”
Though clearly enjoying the attention, Scott looked a little impatient. He wasn’t ready, it seemed, to cut to the chase.
“I’m getting there. I’m getting there, Detective Stark.”
“All right. We’re trying to find a missing person, Scott.”
“You’ll find her. But she’ll be dead when you do.” His words were delivered matter-of-factly.
Kendall felt a chill. “How do you know that?”
Scott flexed his tattooed knuckles and grinned. “Because I bet you money that Tulio killed her. I read the article in the paper. That’s why I called. Tulio and his brothers are big liars. They want to act all lovey-dovey and whatnot, but that’s a big fat lie.”
Now Kendall could see where this was going. “How do you know this, Scott? Is this an opinion or what?”
“No. One time Celesta and I were messing around in the back.”
“‘Messing around’?”
“Well, not like that. It wasn’t messing around. I had a tear in the strap of my