Entanglement

  Entanglement

  By Max Ellendale

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Entanglement

  Copyright © 2019 Max Ellendale

  Cover Artist: Victoria Miller

  Editor: Deadra Krieger

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Max Ellendale

  www.maxellendale.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  "It doesn't count as kidnapping if I'm eighteen, right?" Eleanor asked while we drove across the state lines from Montana, to Idaho, and now Washington. She grinned around the hefty bite of cheeseburger crammed into her mouth. I chuckled at her, though noted the relief that brought light to her previously dimmed features. We didn't look anything alike, I reflected. We should a little, at least.

  "It does not count unless I'm taking you against your will." I narrowed my brows, pursed my lips, and forced my face into a serious scowl. "Are you willfully engaging in this endeavor, Eleanor Olsen?"

  "Yes!" she squeaked, and smacked my forearm. "Don't be creepy." A giggle escaped her before she lifted her milkshake. "Kidnapping and junk food. Best sister ever."

  "You know it." A smile curved my lips as I pulled my gaze from the road to glance at her. Eleanor settled comfortably in her seat, her eyes on our path ahead, while she indulged in the frozen treat. "Do you want me to drive yet?"

  "Not yet," I said, patting the steering wheel. "I've got another hour or so in me."

  "Oh goodie. Just enough time for me to digest."

  I laughed, nodding my agreement. "Yep. So how does it feel to be a high school graduate?"

  "Useless. Think I'll get into the University of Washington?" she asked, her tentative gaze on me.

  "With your grades, yes. We'll just have to wait and see. I mean, the letter could be sitting in the mailbox in Seattle. We used your new address, remember? Newly emancipated Washington resident."

  "Oh yeah." She perked up at that. "I hope it is." A pause followed. "How will we afford it, Billie?"

  "Scholarships and student loans." I reached over and poked her cheek like the annoying big sister that I am. "You broke the rule. No worrying about money."

  "It's hard not to. Robbie is working?"

  "Of course. And paying for school all on his own. We'll be fine. You can work while you study."

  "Okay." Ellie drew in a deep breath. "I won't worry about money—Wait—do detectives get paid well?"

  I chuckled at her question, shaking my head. "Yes, El. We're fine. I'm fine. I've been on the force for almost fifteen years and the benefits are good. No more questions. Eat your fries."

  "Fine." She groaned dramatically, but the way her posture relaxed told me that even though I might not have told her exactly what she wanted to hear, she trusted my answer.

  It took us about half a day to drive from our tiny home town to the busy streets of Seattle. My heart swelled the moment the Space Needle came into view and the contentment that followed settled the swirling sensation in my gut. Of course, I worried about uprooting my sister, the same way I worried about uprooting my brother seven years ago. We were all safe and together now. That's what I had to focus on.

  We unloaded Eleanor's bags into the apartment, and she smiled while looking around. She'd visited me here before, but I imagined what it must've felt like for her to be in a home where she could be herself. She glanced over her shoulder at me, and her brow wrinkled suddenly.

  "Are you sure we can share a room?" she asked.

  "Of course." I dropped her duffle bag down by the sofa. "We'll get a bigger place soon. It was more important to get you out here first."

  "What if you have someone over?"

  "Like who?" My brow furrowed as I moved to the kitchen table where a foil-wrapped dish sat in the center. In our brother's elegant scrawl, the words, Welcome Home, Ellie! filled a card on top. "Look what Robbie did."

  "Ohhh." Eleanor grinned at the card then unwrapped the plate. "Brownies! Are y'all trying to make me fat?" She snatched one up and devoured it in half a second.

  "Showing our love through indulgences. He'll be home from work around eleven."

  "I'll take it."

  "Go settle in." I waved her off toward the bedroom. "Half the closet is yours and the entire chest-of-drawers. All my stuff is in the dresser."

  "Okay." Ellie tossed me a smile before swiping another brownie then dragging her duffle off to the bedroom. "Billie?" she called out from the doorway.

  "Yeah?" I glanced to her after picking up the stack of mail on the hall table.

  "Thanks."

  She disappeared before I could respond. A sense of safety settled in my heart, and I knew that we'd made the right decision.

  ***

  "You look frowny," I said to Lubbock as I set a cup of coffee down on her desk. "Who died?"

  "I'm not sure who's worse, you or Eve." She scowled and lifted the coffee. "Thanks."

  "Welcome. You're acting like we don't work for the homicide unit. This isn't the hope and recovery unit, Angie." I patted her on the head which made her pop me in the side with a closed fist. "Ow!" I laughed through my pain, clutching my side as I dropped into the chair at my desk.

  "I warned you about touching my hair." She smoothed down her perfect mane of black. "Especially when I just got it done."

  "I touched your head! It's not my fault your hair was there."

  "Idiot. Like I said, you or Eve," she rolled her eyes, but laughed. "How's your sister settling in?"

  "She's good." The question swiped the frivolity away from the moment. I logged into my computer to check email while we chatted. "Happier than I've ever seen her. Thanks for reminding me about Jordan's salon, by the way. She got a job there."

  "Jordan will treat her good. Her workers are a great group of girls and they'll steer Ellie in the right direction. I mean, she might turn out a rainbow-colored lesbian in a few weeks, but she'll have good role models." Angelina wagged her brows at me from over her computer monitor. "Think your parents will die over having three gay kids?"

  "Ha. They're nearly dead over having two. They treated Robbie the worst though. Sometimes I wish they just outright hated us and kicked us out, rather than the constant, 'I'll pray for you every day. We'll save your soul, honey,' bullshit they did." I clenched my fists at the thought of my little brother suffering through that.

  "Well, no matter what, they've got a great big sister who supports them. Gay, straight, and everything else," she said. "A big sister who is old enough to be their mother, just in case you were wondering if you're old or not."

  "Angelina!" I laughed and thwapped my hand on the desk. "Completely untrue."

  Her hearty chuckles echoed in the near-empty office at eight in the morning. "Aw, c'mo
n. At least Ellie. You could've birthed her at seventeen."

  "It takes more than willingness to birth a kid," I retorted.

  "Like what?" Angelina crossed her arms, a single brow risen as she stared at me.

  "A dick." I gestured down myself. "Which this body has never wanted."

  "You win." She stood from her seat, lifting her coffee with her. "C'mon, we've got a body near U.W."

  "And we circle back to the frowny." I gripped my own hot cup and rose to follow her. "Today will be a day."

  "A very day day."

  Angelina drove us out, fighting clusters of morning traffic here and there. Twice she donned the sirens just to get us through. Seattle summers, somewhat warmer than usual and occasionally bright, always made the days feel longer and more stressful for some reason.

  My thoughts wandered while I rested my chin on the hand of the bent arm I propped on the window ledge. Eleanor settled in nicely, received her college acceptance letter, and found a job all within a month or two of moving. Robert's happiness escalated with her arrival, and now with our household full, my chronic worry for them waxed and waned. I no longer obsessed about the plans to remove Eleanor from our parents and without that to occupy my mind, I didn't have to concern myself with the rubbish they poured into her belief system. All three of us proved to be unusually resilient, and with our liberation came rest.

  But I didn't know how to rest.

  "Olsen, head out of the clouds." Angelina jerked the car before she parked. "We're here."

  "Where's Moreno?"

  "Up ahead with Sorensen. C'mon."

  As far as crime scenes go, this one wasn't any different. Yellow police tape and barricades blocked the public from coming too close to the alleyway where law enforcement flooded the streets. Crime scene investigators snapped photos, and the medical examiner crouched beside a tarp covering the body. Alleys proved to be the deadliest places for humans these days. Bodies loved to pile up in them. One day, murderers would get more creative.

  "What've we got here, Monson?" Angelina called out to the medical examiner.

  "Female vic, early twenties. C.O.D. appears to be strangulation and asphyxiation. Questionable sexual assault." Doctor Monson stood, removing her blue gloves and depositing them in an evidence bag held open by one of her assistants. "Won't know for sure until we get her back to the office."

  "Strangulation by what?" I crouched down to examine the body beside one of the CSIs plucking up evidence. The congested face of the olive-skinned woman brought a lurch of anger to my gut. Her face, partially frozen in a wide-eyed gasp, had me considering her last moments almost as much as the scratch marks on her throat. Around her neck, the thick white zip tie burrowing into her flesh answered my questions. "Shit," I said. "Lubbock, it's another zip tie."

  "Second one this month." Angelina stood over me, holding up the tarp.

  "We might have a serial," I said as I rose to stand beside her.

  "My concerns as well." The M.E. gave my forearm a squeeze which drew my attention to her. "Have the FBI been alerted?"

  "If they haven't, they will be," I responded, my brow furrowed at her unusual hold on my arm. "What's the deal, Ainsley?" I gestured to her hand.

  "You seem upset," she chirped. "Or is it simply your unrelenting seriousness, Billie?"

  "For Pete's sake." I smirked and shifted away from her. "We need to find Moreno. I'll talk to you later."

  "Alrighty then." Ainsley snickered as she returned to her work when her assistant handed her a clipboard.

  "She and Jordan are nothing alike," I muttered to Angelina.

  "I think that's why they're perfect for each other. C'mon."

  Moreno and Sorensen stood together with a slew of bagged evidence on the hood of their black SUV. Moreno, with his brow narrowed and grumpy expression, rarely matched Sorensen's neutral gaze. Or was it a glaze? One could never tell.

  "You got an I.D.?" I asked as I approached.

  "Dinah Simon." Moreno held up one of the plastic bags with the woman's identification. The Seattle driver's license coupled with the University of Washington I.D. told the story of an attractive young woman, smiling in each photo. "She was a student here."

  "I see this." I leaned over the hood to sift through the rest of the objects. Papers with strange diagrams and a small bottle with some kind of rocks inside stood out to me the most. On the bottle, the number ninety-two appeared handwritten in permanent marker. I picked up the bags with the papers, examining them as Angelina looked on.

  "S'from a notebook," she said.

  "Did you find one, Sorensen?" I asked.

  "Not yet." He pointed at the paper in my hand. "Do you understand this, Olsen?"

  "Some of it. It's physics." I set the handwritten paper down on the SUV again. "This number here—" I pointed at the string of numbers beginning with six. "Is Planck's Constant. It’s used in quantum physics. I can't remember what though. Something with electromagnetic something."

  "This looks like a page from a syllabus." Angelina tapped the other paper. "It mentions dates of assignments due for a Doctor Lewis."

  "All right." Moreno finally joined the conversation. "Olsen and Lubbock, you head up to the campus and see if you can find this doctor. We need last contacts with the vic to create a timeline. Sorensen, you head back to the station and work with tech to scan for CCTV footage of the area. The M.E. places the time of death at least twelve hours ago."

  "On it." Sorensen saluted him. "What will you do?"

  "Finish up here and call my old pal Agent Donovan with the FBI." Moreno tugged his cell phone from the breast pocket of his shirt. "Time for a consult."

  "And we're off," I said, turning on my heel with Angelina, and returning to our vehicle.

  "Onward. I'll drive," I offered, and beat her to the driver's side door.

  Again, in the quiet, Angelina glanced in my direction before shoving my shoulder. "What's wrong with you today? Monson was right. You're off."

  "I'm fine." I kept my eyes on the busy streets as we made our way to the main campus of U.W. "Call the school and find out where we can locate this Doctor Lewis so that we're not running around for two hours through this massive place."

  "You're not fine. You're very flat and emotionless. Why?" She continued to press.

  "I don't know. Can we just focus on work, please?"

  "I'm not calling the school until you tell me what's bothering you. You can't work if you're distracted. You know this."

  "Angelina, come on."

  "You were less distracted when your sister was still stuck in Montana. Now she's here and safe. And happy, if I understand it correctly. What's the worry?"

  "I don't know. I told you already." I pulled my gaze from the road while we hovered at a traffic light. "It's almost like I don't have to worry now."

  "Ah. Vacancy. I get it." She smirked, her copper lips curving in a mock-seductive manner. "Not to mention that dead girl back there as a possible U.W. student, and near your sister's age and all…"

  "Maybe that, too."

  "Nervous mom." Angelina chuckled, shaking her head. "It's okay to be a nervous mom."

  I drew in a deep breath as the light turned green and we took off again. "She's adjusted well. Is it possible all three of us escaped my parent's brainwashing bullshit?"

  "With the way you've supported each other, it's possible." Angelina tugged her phone from her pocket and called the school as I requested. "Take it one day at a go, Billie. That's all we've got."

  "I guess so."

  After some mild investigation and half a dozen phone calls through various departments of the university, we discovered Doctor Lewis to be a professor in the physics department, validating my suspicion.

  "Considering what we found, it makes sense," I commented as we headed through the busy hallways of the school. The heels of my boots clicked obnoxiously in comparison to the dozens of sneakers, flip-flops, and slippers belonging to the carefree young adults. Angelina wore a face of utter disgust while
staring down a guy who wore flannel pants hanging from his waist.

  "Don't they care how they look?"

  "No." I laughed at her reaction and tucked my thumbs into the pockets of my jeans as we waited for the crowd to disperse so we could ascend the stairs. "Did you care when you were twenty what you looked like when you went to class?"

  "Hell yeah." She scoffed, clicking her tongue when a messy-haired girl shot her a glance. "My hair was done every day. Never knew what hot guy would come my way. Were you a slob?"

  "I'm pretty sure I was. I'm still a slob." I gestured down my body and she downright glared at me.

  "You are not. Did you ever watch Criminal Minds way back when?"

  "A little."

  "You dress like Agent Jareau with your black pants and belt every day, coupled with a nice sexy button-down or tight tee." She tapped her bottom lip with her index finger. "Your hair is similar, too. Just brown."

  "You're making this awkward. Stop describing me like a bad vice in a movie." I adjusted my side arm and cleared my throat. "And stop looking at me or I'll tell your husband that you're a lesbian now because you hang out with so many lesbians."

  "That's hardly a threat." She laughed as we finally headed up the two flights toward the classroom of our objective. "Bentley would cream himself if it meant he'd get to watch me make out with a girl."

  "Gross."

  "Why's that gross?"

  "Men creaming themselves is gross."

  "God. How are you and Eve not friends? You say the same shit," she teased, shaking her head at me.

  "We're friendly enough." I pointed ahead of us at the sprawling corridors. "This building is beautiful. I always liked it."

  "I forgot that you went here," she said, glancing at me. "Did you take physics?"

  "A few of the basic physics classes. Criminal Justice, obviously, was my major. I really wanted to be a bomb disposal technician, but how could I take care of my siblings if I was running into danger like that every day, you know?" I shrugged as we rounded the corner toward the double doors of the lecture hall.

  "Being a cop isn't much different."

  "It's definitely better."