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Back Snow Creek Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Books by Gregg Olsen
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Hear More from Gregg
  55. Books by Gregg Olsen
  56. A Letter from Gregg
  57. Acknowledgements

I find a spot in the parking lot at Chelan County Sheriff’s Office. Before going inside, I make a call to the school that Ellie had offered as part of her arrangement with the prosecutor’s office. I speak briefly with the head administrator, Paul Singer, asking if the subject is there. I tell him only very little, but I can easily sense his distress. I text him a photo.

“Yeah,” he says, “that’s her. Can you come after the kids are out? Staff stay an extra hour or so to plan the next day.”

“That would be perfect. I’m at the sheriff’s now and will be there no earlier than four.”

“Okay,” he replies.

Forty-Four

Paul Singer sits silently in his bleak, impersonal office, a whiteboard, some drawings his dad had made when he was in college, a poster of the private school’s mascot, a falcon. The call from Jefferson County Sheriff’s Detective Carpenter has rattled him big time. She’d indicated that his most recent hire was in major trouble. Criminal trouble. Sweat begins to bloom under his arms. He’s made a mistake, something he was loath to do.

A big one too.

He thinks back to the new teacher’s interview at tiny Orchard School. Becky Webster was everything the kids between Leavenworth and Cashmere had hoped for in a small school. Young, kind and beautiful. She wore her hair shoulder length and dressed in stylish clothes. The kids at the school were a lively mix of disadvantaged locals and seasonal agricultural workers who toiled up and down the West Coast. Teachers worked there for the love of what they did, certainly not for money.

While the detective didn’t specifically say what trouble Becky was in, he knew the fallout would not be pretty. He was worried for himself, of course, but also for the school. The work they were doing was important.

He reaches for the tissue box to capture the excess moisture under his arms.

Becky told him that her paperwork was in her luggage that had been lost on the train, but her credentials were solid.

She was so damn beautiful.

No problem, he’d told her, smiling. It was a lingering smile.

His jaws tighten, then relax.

He looks down at her application, remembering.

Sorry about your folks.

Car accident. Went off into a ravine in the mountains out West.

That’s awful. No emergency contact? Sibling, maybe?

None.

Forty-Five

I check my rearview mirror: two deputies follow my Taurus as we speed past row upon row of apple, cherry, peach and plum trees. Ripening fruit dangles from propped up branches and I crack my window. I’m not sure but I think I can smell the Honey Crisps that are my go-to apple. I peek at my phone, noting new texts from Mindy and Dan. I don’t read either. My focus right now is to bring home a killer.