All The Hidden Pieces Read online

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Table of Contents

  All the Hidden Pieces

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  ALL THE HIDDEN PIECES

  Jillian Thomadsen

  Copyright 2018 © Jillian Thomadsen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events or persons, living or dead are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or featured names are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.

  Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or in part, mechanically or electronically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Cover Design: Cover Me Darling

  Interior Formatting: Athena Interior Book Design

  Chapter One

  September 7, 2017

  There was nothing particularly unusual about the morning the Carpenter family disappeared. Greta woke up early, cooked breakfast for the family and sat at the table in jeans and a sweatshirt while she drank coffee and read emails on her phone. Olivia emerged first – her fine blonde hair matted against her head, her Minnie Mouse pajamas billowing out from her tiny frame.

  “Is Daddy awake?” Olivia asked as she claimed a seat at the table.

  Greta shook her head but Tuck soon proved her wrong. “I’m awake,” a deep voice grunted from behind the doorway and then Tuck stumbled into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. He was a tall man, almost six foot five and husky like a linebacker. Greta could feel the kitchen floor shudder beneath his tread as he grabbed a plate of eggs and then sat down with them.

  Breakfast lasted about ten minutes – its usual length of time. Tuck wolfed down his food and hastened out the door to work. Greta and Olivia lingered a short while longer but there were errands to run, appointments to keep. Greta was just about to clear the table and start the day when the phone rang.

  ***

  It was a short phone call, and Greta said very little. When she hung up the receiver, she was surprised to see that she was trembling.

  Greta took a beat, leaned against the counter and steadied herself. Her skin felt cold and prickly and her breath felt shorter. Her instinct was to lie down and rest, take a few minutes and regain composure. But she knew she had to do exactly the opposite. They had to move and they had to do it right away.

  First she called Tuck. “You need to come home,” she said. He started to protest but she explained the phone call she had received. Then she raised her voice. “Now! We need to go. We need to move now!” He agreed and they ended the call.

  “Mommy, what’s wrong?” Olivia asked.

  Greta walked to the other side of the table and pulled Olivia into a tight hug. The four-year old smelled like baby shampoo and milk, and she squirmed and giggled in response to Greta’s gesture.

  “We need to go, okay?” Greta said. “We need to leave right away.” Although Greta’s body was shaking, her voice was still steady. She stood up and sighed as she took in backyard view for the last time.

  Outside the sun shined down in a cloudless sky. It was cold for early September but the sun cast bright diamonds and triangles across the lawn. Greta had looked at the same maple and spruce trees, the same telephone wires and hummingbird feeder for almost two decades. It seemed impossible to say good-bye to something so familiar.

  Tuck appeared at the back door again and Greta let him in. He looked sweaty and impatient. “I never made it to the office. I’ll need to send them an email to let them know.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Olivia hopped over to Tuck and he bent down and lifted her into his arms. “Are we ready to roll?” he asked Greta. “Or do we have to wait for John?”

  John was Greta’s eighteen-year old son from her first marriage. Somehow—and seemingly overnight—he’d matured from a gawky little kid into an adult. He had pecan-brown hair that used to hang loosely around his shoulders, now fashioned into a trim taper cut. He had grown several inches in the past few years, and Greta marveled that she now had to crane her head when she spoke to him.

  “No, we don’t have to wait,” Greta answered. “We can leave right away.”

  Tuck put Olivia back on the floor and rushed downstairs – presumably to grab an empty suitcase, but Greta didn’t ask.

  Olivia ran her index finger along the stitching of her mother’s jeans and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going on a trip,” Greta answered in a heavy voice. “And we need to get moving. I’m going to pack a bag,” She lifted her foot and stepped over Olivia in the hallway, then walked into her master bedroom.

  The bedroom looked so cozy and comforting, it was impossible for Greta to think that she could be standing in it for the last time. All of these realities had been thrown at her so quickly – they were too large and staggering to digest. This morning she had thrown some eggs into a pan while mentally drawing up her grocery shopping list and now she was removing her clothes from her dresser, playing a real-life game of What do I pack if I might not be coming back for a long time?

  Tuck came into the room, held up an empty suitcase, and shoved her clothes inside, along with some of his. “T
ime to leave, okay?” he asked.

  She nodded but didn’t say a word. Her face was an ashen, drained of color. She followed him out of the bedroom and through the hallway, pausing to scoop up Olivia, who was apparently still clad in Minnie Mouse. No time to change that now.

  Greta took one last sweeping look at the house. Then they all left.

  Chapter Two

  September 14, 2017

  Detective Roberta Hobbs rang the doorbell at 12 Avery Place. She pressed her ear to the door to try to discern any type of noise: a dog’s bark, a child’s toy, or the patter of small feet against a hardwood floor. But there was no sign of activity from inside the house.

  Hobbs’ partner, Detective Martinez, pointed to the driveway where a mint-green Honda Civic was parked. It looked old and worn, a bit of rust around the right rear tire and some dry mud caked to the side. “There’s a car parked right there in the driveway,” Martinez said.

  Hobbs had noticed it too, and she nodded her head in response and wrote a few things down on her notepad. Det. Hobbs was 41 years old and had been on the force for sixteen years. Many described her as hardened although smart and diligent. She was a stunning woman – dark-eyed and dark-haired – and she had a long history of fending off advances from men in the department. Her standard response was that she didn’t think it was appropriate to date within the workplace, but to those few who paid close attention, Hobbs didn’t seem to date anyone at all. She liked to say she was married to the job – dedicated to putting the bad guys behind bars – and her workplace commitment left little time for personal concerns.

  On this particular day, Det. Hobbs was hoping for a simple answer to a nagging question: What had happened to Tuck Carpenter? The call from his law office first came into dispatch on September 12. Tuck was a paralegal, famous in his office for taking very few sick or vacation days. Four business days went by before his colleagues contacted the police to report his disappearance.

  That was Tuesday. The law firm office sat tight for another two days while they waited to hear back from the police. Any number of scenarios was possible. Perhaps Tuck had just taken a vacation and forgot to key it into the shared calendar. Perhaps he’d decided to quit, and in a fit of hostility and irrationality – both traits that belied his character – he hadn’t taken the time to let them know of his decision.

  But Tuck wasn’t answering his cell phone or his email. By Thursday it had been one full week since Tuck first failed to appear at work. On her lunch break, a legal secretary at the law office drove to the Vetta Park Police Station and officially filed a missing person’s report.

  This is how Det. Hobbs ended up on Tuck ‘s front porch, ringing the doorbell and shining her flashlight into the front foyer to see if anything seemed amiss.

  “I’m going to look around back,” Det. Martinez said. He disappeared and then unlocked the front door from the inside a few minutes later. “I was able to open a door to the basement,” he told her once they were both inside.

  Hobbs stepped into the foyer and they both donned a pair of latex gloves. The house looked cluttered and dirty. The stench of fetid eggs permeated the air, causing them both to cough and cover their faces.

  They started in the rancid area, which was the kitchen. Week-old garbage was seeping out of the bin. The remains of an egg breakfast were left in a saucepan on the burner. Hobbs opened the refrigerator and was surprised to find it packed – full of milk cartons whose sell-by dates had recently expired, Styrofoam containers, decaying fruit and a few vacuum-sealed packets of uncooked chicken.

  Hobbs closed the refrigerator door and went down the hall. She cast her flashlight along the interior of a bathroom – nothing unusual. Then she let herself into the master bedroom. The room was tiny – the stale air casting a musty smell. Almost every surface was covered with clothes. Hobbs ran her flashlight over the clothes, the bedspread and a paper-covered desk. Then the shine alighted on a framed family portrait on the back edge of the dresser. Hobbs walked over and studied it more carefully. There was a tall man, a beautiful blonde woman with delicate features, a pig-tailed little girl and an older teenage boy. Hobbs had glanced through their records and knew who they were: Tuck Carpenter, age 45, Greta Carpenter, age 38, Olivia Carpenter, age 4, and John Brock, age 18.

  Hobbs wanted to place the photograph back on its shelf and resume her search but something prevented her. It was the appearance of Greta Carpenter, or more precisely, the way the matriarch’s eyes focused on the camera lens, her heart-shaped mandible that summoned a vague memory.

  Hobbs couldn’t remember context or place but she’d seen the eyes and the face before. It wasn’t just that Greta resembled a 1970s picture art heroine; there was something about the face that had beseeched her in the past. Maybe in a broken down shell of a car on the side of the road, inside someone’s private residence, or maybe beyond the hermetically sealed window in the front area of the police station. Hobbs couldn’t recall exactly what had happened but she knew there was a history. Greta Carpenter had needed help.

  “Something up?” a voice asked.

  Hobbs spun around and saw Martinez a few steps away. She had been too distracted to hear his approach, his heavy footsteps on the carpet.

  “No,” Hobbs said. “Not really. Maybe.” She pointed to the photograph. “Does Greta Carpenter look familiar to you? I think we may have met with her before – maybe on a call or at the station.”

  Martinez studied the photograph, then placed it on top of the dresser. “Never seen her before in my life, and trust me, someone who looks as fine as that? I would remember!”

  Hobbs was about to say something but a voice echoed from the front of the house.

  “Excuse me? Excuse me? Hello?” It was an older woman’s shrill. Greta tossed her latex gloves on the bed, fingered the edge of her holstered revolver, and walked down the hallway.

  In the foyer, a white-haired lady in her late sixties or early seventies cradled a dog. When she saw the detectives, she clutched the animal closer to her flower-dotted housedress, sucked in a few breaths and said, “Is everything alright? I saw the car in the street out front and I thought the family was back. I wanted to make sure everything was okay. Is everything alright?”

  Hobbs glanced at Martinez and back at the woman. “Hi. I’m Detective Roberta Hobbs and I’m with the Vetta Park Police Department. This is my partner, Detective Ray Martinez.” She spoke with a soft tone, her most disarming cadence – a technique most used with small children and rattled eyewitnesses.

  The woman nodded and tried to meet Hobbs at the edge of the hallway but the detective shook her head and pointed towards the front door.

  “We haven’t finished up inside here so let’s talk outside,” Hobbs said. Before the woman had a chance to respond, Hobbs placed one hand on the woman’s upper back and coaxed her towards the door.

  “Is everything okay?” the woman repeated once they were on the front porch. “What happened to them? Where’d they go?”

  Outside, they huddled closely together under the superficial protection of a rooftop eave as small droplets of rain trickled onto the pavement. The dog let out a yap and looked around.

  “We’re trying to get to the bottom of it all,” Hobbs said. “Can I ask who you are and how you know the family?”

  The woman brought the dog closer to her face and stroked the animal’s fur. “My name is Mary Miller and I live next door. I’ve lived here for fourteen years.”

  Hobbs removed her notepad and started writing. “Have you seen anyone from the family lately?”

  “No, not any of them…not for several days. Did they go away? Did anything happen?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to get to, Ms. Miller. Did you see or hear anything unusual on September 7? Exactly a week ago, Thursday?”

  Mary Miller scratched the top of her dog’s head and squinted into the distance. She looked like she was trapped in her thoughts, trying to divine a significant memory from the noise of leaf blowers and d
og barks. After a few moments, she shook her head. “I’m sorry but I just don’t remember anything unusual about that day.”

  “Were you at home all day?”

  “Yes, I’m retired.”

  “Do you usually see their comings and goings?”

  Mary nodded. “I see them almost every day. I see the baby – the little girl I mean – playing in the backyard. I see the husband leave for work every morning and come back in the evening. His car is gone and John’s car has been parked in the driveway for days. I’ve never seen it parked for so long. Usually he’s here and there, this way and that. I mean maybe for one or two days, sure. But never for this length of time. Oh, I hope everyone’s okay.”

  Hobbs placed her palm on the older woman’s shoulder. “Ms. Miller, have you been in the Carpenter house before?”

  “Yes, a few times.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “I came over shortly after Olivia was born to give her a present. I knitted a baby blanket for her – pink and yellow.”

  “Did anything seem strange while you were there? Anything out of the ordinary?”

  Mary shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “Did they seem messy to you? Like overfilled garbage or dishes not done?”

  Mary stiffened. “No, not at all. They were very neat, organized people. Even after the baby was born.”

  Hobbs, nodded, scribbled a little bit more on her pad and decided to try a different route. “What can you tell me about John?” Hobbs asked.

  The rain droplets abated and Mary Miller looked up at the sky, again as though she were searching. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully, rehearsing the lines in her head before she said them aloud. “Well I suppose I have complained to you all about John in the past because the music from the cars could be too loud, late at night. Always in the middle of the night. Rabble-rousers. You know, inconsiderate young teenagers, up to no good. That’s all I can really say.”

  Hobbs nodded and felt inside her pocket for her business card. “Well thank you very much for your time, Ms. Miller, and if you think of anything else…”