Victim Six by Gregg Olsen Page A

possible. She had left with a physician’s bag of drug samples. No charges were pressed because Donna was able to retrieve the missing samples. Donna had been pulling strings for Marissa since the day they brought her home from the agency.
    After Midnight’s return and the impending pregnancy, however, things started to change. It started with a few phone calls. Mother and daughter met for lunch a couple of times at a drive-through in Navy Yard City, on the edge of downtown Bremerton. By the time Tasha was born, her mother and grandmother had come to an understanding: if the little girl was to have any semblance of a home life, they’d have to work together.
    Donna never knew who the father was, and understood that it was probably something her daughter didn’t know for sure. She told herself that it didn’t matter. No man was needed. She’d help out however she could, and she’d be there whenever Midnight needed her, no matter the conditions. The terms, as she eventually learned, were to watch the baby on weekends and after shifts—but only when asked.
    “I’ll call you when I need you, Mother. Don’t think about interfering with my life or my daughter’s. As long as you get that, we’ll be fine.”
    Donna didn’t argue. She knew that Midnight had no real job. The money that she used to pay for her apartment over one of Port Orchard’s downtown junk shops was from prostitution. Or maybe selling drugs. Whatever it was, it was bad news. Over the first few months of Tasha’s life, Donna could see a change in her troubled daughter, and she held out hope that someday things would work out after all.
    Not only for the baby but for her own broken heart.
     
    It was Tuesday, and Donna Solomon hadn’t heard from her daughter since Saturday. She knew the rules. She knew that trying to involve herself in Tasha’s life was a risk. Too much interest might feel like a hard shove to a daughter whose love she wanted more than anything.
    After work, she parked her car in the lot behind the aptly named Pack Rat’s Hideaway and climbed the stairs to her daughter’s apartment and knocked.
    No answer.
    She pushed the bell.
    Again, nothing.
    She listened, and she could hear the sounds of a baby crying.
    “Tasha?”
    No answer.
    “Marissa!”
    A man wearing oil-soaked blue jeans and a red flannel shirt poked his head out of the apartment next door. His face was the picture of annoyance and anger, a pinched mouth and eyes that told Donna Solomon that a smart person wouldn’t mess with him.
    “Can you tell that ho to keep her kid quiet?” he asked. “Jesus, some of us have real jobs and need to get some shuteye. The kid’s been crying all night. Day and night. I don’t give a shit about the day, but I don’t like putting up with some brat squawking when I need to get some sleep. I get up at four a.m. Kid’s going all night.”
    “I’m sorry. I’ll tell her,” Donna said, defusing the man’s anger with complete understanding.
    “You better. That’s what I say.”
    “I will. I said so.”
    “Fine. That bitch is a piece of work, you know.”
    Donna shot the man a cold stare. “Yes, I know, sir. That bitch, as you call her, is my daughter.”
    The man, slightly embarrassed, retreated into his apartment.
    Donna tilted her head and listened as the sound of a cry emanated from inside the apartment.
    “Marissa! Open up!”
    She jiggled the doorknob. Locked.
    The sound of the crying grew louder. With a surge of adrenaline—the type that turns a frightened mother or grandmother into Wonder Woman—Donna rammed her shoulder against the hollow-core door with such force she could feel the frame bend and break.
    And she nearly dislocated her shoulder in the process.
    “Marissa!”
    Once inside, Donna hurried into the expected disorder of the living room. If Donna kept a spotless home, her long-troubled daughter was the opposite. Things were never filthy, but nothing was put where it ought to be. Magazines and clothes were