The Forgotten Child

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  She had to admit that even if nothing came from the names she got from the newspaper clippings, seeing that look on Walter’s face when he first saw the locket had been worth the trip.

  “You’re considering it. Good.” He started her car.

  “Stop reading my face!”

  “It’s like a freaking neon sign, that face.”

  Riley did her best to read the photographed articles on her phone while Michael drove, classic rock playing in the background again. A text alert appeared at the top of her screen, breaking her concentration.

  It was from Mindy.

  I think Hank found me.

  CHAPTER 21

  Riley called Mindy immediately. She picked up on the first ring. “What do you mean he found you?”

  “Hello to you, too.”

  “Mindy.”

  “Okay, okay. Two days a week, I work at a record store. My friend owns it and knows about my panic attack issues, so she pays me under the table and lets me pick my own hours. The times I go in can vary drastically.

  “Anyway, I went in today and one of the guys said someone named Francis has called looking for me the last couple days.”

  “Shit.”

  “Luckily the guy knows my history—what I’ve told him anyway—so he knew better than to tell some random dude when I’d be in. Just said he hadn’t seen me in a while. When my co-worker asked Francis yesterday if he could take a message, Francis just said no and hung up.” She sighed loudly. “That name wouldn’t even mean anything to me if it wasn’t for you. I told them to say I don’t work there anymore if someone asks.”

  “How did he find out you work there?”

  “Only thing I can figure is that he’s been stalking me through my friends’ pages.”

  “But yours is private.”

  “Even still,” Mindy said, “if you visit someone’s page, it starts suggesting people you might know. Especially since he sent a friend request; I’ve been too scared to reject it so it’s still pending.

  “Cheryl says she’s the owner of the store on her page. Maybe he’s just shooting in the dark, contacting all kinds of people to see if he hits something.”

  “Or he’s physically following you.”

  Mindy whimpered. “I feel sick.”

  Riley hadn’t told Mindy about Francis’ surprise visit to her work, mainly because she didn’t want to scare her. That clearly hadn’t been a good call.

  “He showed up at my job Friday night.”

  “What?”

  “I think he was just fishing for information,” Riley said quickly. “He stalked me online too and found out about my ghost-seeing tendencies.”

  “So, what, he was trying to figure out if you’d seen Renee at the ranch or something?”

  “Maybe? I really don’t know,” she said. “He might have just been trying to get a read on me. See if I’d freak out if he showed up unannounced. I think I played it off okay. He probably assumed I would be terrified about him tracking me down if I knew he’d murdered and assaulted someone.”

  Mindy sighed heavily. “What do I do?”

  “Don’t go into work again for a while, that’s for sure,” Riley said. “Maybe get a restraining order?”

  “Not sure what good a piece of paper is going to do if the guy breaks down my door.”

  “It’d be good to have a record of complaints against him. It’d help build our case later.”

  “Okay. I can try that tomorrow. Assuming they even issue one … someone asking about me isn’t exactly harassment. Can’t I just plan to never leave my house again?”

  “Don’t let him ruin your life.”

  “Too late,” she said. “Talk to you later. I need to go put my head between my knees.” She hung up.

  When Riley dropped her phone in her purse, she realized they were only a few minutes from her apartment. She turned to Michael, whose mouth was bunched up on one side. “You okay?”

  It took him a while to finally respond, and it wasn’t until he’d pulled her car into her spot. “Maybe just go to the cops now. Lay it all out. Then back off it and let them do their thing. At least for long enough that you’ll drop off Francis’ radar.”

  “I’m not sure one drops off that guy’s radar once they’re on it.”

  “You’re not making me feel better.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching up and cupping his face. He leaned into her hand. “Frank and the other guys are still walking the girls out to their cars at night. Everyone’s been warned to be on the lookout for him. Unless he’s followed me home—and at this point, why would he?—all I can really do is be as alert and as safe as I can.”

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “I was thinking of writing up a sample article and sending it to him. Tell him it’s a rough draft, but I wanted him to see the progress I’m making. Maybe it’ll make him less paranoid if I keep the reporter angle.”

  “Maybe.”

  She unfastened her seat belt and leaned over the console to kiss him.

  “Call me the second you think something is fishy, okay? Whether it’s here or work, and I’ll drive as fast as humanly possible to get to you.”

  “Okay,” she said, kissing him again.

  Moments after exiting the car, he had her pushed up against the driver’s side door, his mouth on hers. It made her go a little weak in the knees and she needed the resolve to tell him he should go home. They both needed to sleep.

  “I can stay with you tonight,” he said, lips a mere inch from her ear. Then he kissed her neck and all coherent thought flew out of her head for a moment. “What if we solemnly swear to be asleep by midnight?”

  “You’re going to be miserable in the morning.” She had his shirt bunched in her hands on either side of his waist.

  Nipping at her ear, he said, “But it’ll be totally worth it.”

  The next morning, he was twenty minutes late for work. But he was right: it was worth it.

  The following evening, she finally replied to Nina. The unanswered email had been in the back of her mind since she received it.

  “Dark room” and “Hank … lied” replayed in her head at night, Orin’s voice sometimes incorporating itself into her dreams. She recalled the tone Francis had taken on during his surprise visit at the Laughing Tiger. Though “dark room” had meant nothing to Nina or herself, and Mindy thought it might just be another term for the cellar, Riley wondered if it’d mean anything to Francis. How on Earth she’d bring that up in conversation, she didn’t know.

  Dear Nina,

  Thanks for passing these along. I can’t say I enjoyed them, but they were an interesting listen. I have no idea what significance “dark room” has, and “Hank lied” is vague, but it meant more to me than the first one. Though the bar was low.

  They mean nothing to you? I assume “dark room” has some connection to the ranch—you know it better than I do. If only Orin had been more chatty. Ha ha ha.

  Hope all is well,

  Riley

  That done, she set about looking up all the officers and reporters’ names that had appeared in the articles Walter kept.

  There were two associated detectives: Perry Mason—which was a cruel twist of fate, Riley thought—and Reginald Howard. The first had retired, but Howard was still at it.

  Howard had been fresh out of the academy when he’d been put on the case with Mason. From what she could glean, about four years after the Renee Palmer case went cold, Howard had taken the detective’s exam, aced it, and transferred to Santa Fe.

  Of the two reporters, one woman had written four of the five articles in Walter’s possession. Riley couldn’t find a newspaper either were still associated with. Social media revealed that the reporter who’d written the one article passed away about ten years before. The other reporter seemed to be taking the grandma thing very seriously in Maine.

  If Howard didn’t pan out, Riley would put in the work to track down the woman’s number.

  The fo
llowing morning, Riley woke early to phone the Santa Fe Police Department. After navigating an automated system and going through a directory, she wound up at Howard’s voicemail.

  “Hi, Detective Howard. My name is Riley Thomas and I have some questions about opening a cold case you worked on back in 1983. The victim’s name was Renee Palmer. If you could please return my call at your earliest convenience, I would greatly appreciate it.” She rattled off her phone number and hung up.

  Her hands shook. If she hadn’t spent the better part of an hour rehearsing that, she was sure the message would have been one long “Uhh …” followed by expletives and her phone number. Assuming she remembered it.

  She told herself to give the guy three days, and if she hadn’t heard back, she’d call again. And email him. And call. And call and call and call.

  When a blocked number called her cell two days later on Saturday, her heart lurched into her throat. Her first thought was that Francis had somehow found her number. But then she figured it was standard practice for cops to block their numbers. Did cops work on the weekend? She supposed crime didn’t care about the day of the week.

  “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Riley Thomas?” His voice was deep and a little melodic. It reminded her of Morgan Freeman.

  “That’s me.”

  “Hi, Riley. This is Detective Howard returning your call,” he said. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  Still in pajamas, her teeth not yet brushed, and her hair a rat’s nest, she was glad he couldn’t see her. “Yes. I’m happy you called back so quickly. And on a Saturday, no less.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” he said. “I had to make a couple calls on my end before I called you, otherwise it would’ve been sooner. The Palmer case was my first.”

  “I know,” she said. “I mean, I saw that when I was doing my research.”

  “So why don’t we start with why you think this case should be reopened.”

  He wanted to get to it immediately. Wanted to dismiss her as a nutjob right away so he could get back to more pressing cases. But she knew she had his interest piqued, at least. He wouldn’t have called back so soon if he wasn’t curious.

  But if he was skeptical before she dropped the psychic/medium/I-see-dead-people bomb, she figured this would be a short conversation.

  “You’re going to think I’m insane.”

  “Try me. Not much surprises me anymore.”

  With a deep breath, she told him about her “ability.” “Pete Vonick, Orin Jacobs’ first and only male victim,” however, was reduced to “a spirit from the ranch.” She figured adding in yet another victim to the story would complicate it even further, especially since said victim was semi-haunting her apartment. Somehow, she hoped that solving Renee’s murder would lead Riley to Pete’s resting place. That one would bring her closer to the other.

  “I have worked with psychics and mediums in the past,” he said. “I won’t discount any of what you tell me solely based on your claims of being gifted.”

  Well, there was that, at least.

  The detective remained quiet for the rest of her explanation, though she occasionally heard the clack of keys in the background. Hopefully he was taking notes, not answering work emails while he pretended to listen.

  When she got to the part about being in contact with Mindy, he interrupted her. “If Ms. Cho was fearful of this boy, why didn’t she come forward sooner, back when she first escaped?”

  Riley pursed her lips, glaring ahead as if Howard sat across from her and not in a police station an hour away.

  “I’m not passing judgement, Ms. Thomas. I’m merely trying to get the full picture.”

  “For one, she only knew him as Hank, not his legal name. Two, she’d been kidnapped—lured there by Francis—and had been beaten by Orin for months. The other girl who’d been there with her—Janay—died while Mindy was there, so the threat of that was very real. Francis tried to rape her while there. And she was sixteen when it happened. She was scared. Once they got out, Francis started stalking her. So her nightmare followed her to where she thought she’d be safe.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, and she could picture him using placating hand gestures. “I’m not accusing or blaming anyone for anything.”

  Riley’s heart pounded.

  “Do you happen know where Francis is now?”

  “He’s in Santa Fe too,” she said. “I met with him once—”

  “Under what pretense?”

  Was this something she should admit to an officer? “Uhh … I told him I was a reporter doing a piece on him for a magazine about reformed criminals?”

  “And you’re … not a reporter.”

  “I’m a waitress.”

  He sighed very loudly. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that.”

  “I guess I was hoping he’d be super repentant and open up about it or something.”

  She could almost hear his expression. “Oh, you naïve girl.” What he actually said was, “If you truly think he’s dangerous, it’s not a good idea to pursue any of this yourself.”

  “I know,” she said. “He’s clearly … not repentant.”

  “If he’s truly gotten away with murder, people like him usually aren’t. And they grow both more confident and paranoid at the same time.”

  “So you believe me?”

  “Let’s talk a little more about Renee.”

  Which wasn’t a yes. Riley heard the shuffle of papers.

  “Describe the scene for me as best you can.”

  So he was testing her. Trying to assess what she knew in comparison to reports and photographs that likely hadn’t been made public since it was still technically an ongoing investigation—just a frigid one.

  She told him everything she could remember from the dream, closing her eyes to let the images play like a film reel against the backs of her lids. She told him what colors Renee had been wearing, about the pepper spray canister in her hand, the headphones around her neck, the cassette in the player, and how many times Francis had hit her.

  “Geez,” he muttered when she was done. If she didn’t know better, she would think he was actually impressed. “Now, I have to ask—why should I believe you saw all this in a dream and there isn’t something else going on here?”

  “Like what? I’m twenty-five,” she said. “I wasn’t even alive when any of this happened.”

  He remained silent.

  “I was drawn into this case for some reason. I don’t know why. But I can’t figure it all out alone; I need the police’s help. DNA is what’s going to put him away, not me.”

  “Oh?”

  “In 1985, Francis was convicted of statutory rape of a thirteen-year-old girl when he was eighteen.” The clack of his keyboard sounded in the background as she spoke. “He would’ve given DNA samples when he was convicted, right?”

  “Yes. Sexual-related crimes, even then, more than likely would have resulted in a cheek swab at least.”

  “More than likely? There’s a possibility they didn’t?”

  “The late ’80s and early ’90s were when DNA profiling started to gain speed, but so many cases from that time have gone unsolved. In 1985, there wasn’t even a state DNA database yet.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep. In fact, it wasn’t until 1997 or so that every state adopted one. The national database launched in 1998.”

  Riley thought about that. “So, in an ideal world, if his samples from Renee’s body had been run and put in some kind of system—”

  “The DNA samples collected after the statutory rape conviction two years later should’ve resulted in a match to the DNA sample from the Palmer case.” Howard huffed. “New Mexico has the largest backlog of untested rape kits in the country. There are some from as far back as 1980 that haven’t been tested yet.”

  “So it’s possible the DNA sample from Renee’s case is still sitting in a box somewhere and the statutory rape conviction is the only time his DNA was catalo
ged? Maybe he didn’t get pinned for Renee after the fact because Renee’s kit was never processed in the first place?”

  Howard huffed again. “It’s very possible.” After a long pause, he said, “Let me work on this. The evidence should still be in lockup back in Silver City. Requests to open old cases and to run samples can both take a while. I’ll see what I can do and will keep you updated. In the meantime, keep your head down, okay? What’s the best number to reach you?”

  Once they’d hung up, Riley felt a little better. Howard sounded like he was going to try to resolve this and he had more resources than she did. He’d told her just before he disconnected the call this would likely take weeks, though.

  But, she figured, as long as she kept her head down as instructed—and Mindy did too—Francis’ paranoia would mellow. She could still write up that bogus article to keep him under the assumption that she was writing a piece on him. She could drag this out for a couple more weeks.

  When Francis was arrested, and Howard realized she was the best damn medium ever, she’d tell him about Pete. Find his body. Put the poor child to rest. Then she could wash herself clean of all things related to that godforsaken ranch.

  CHAPTER 22

  A full week went by with little fanfare. Riley worked most weekday nights, actually attended a game night at Jade’s with the same group who’d gone to the ranch—she and Rochelle started texting obsessively about Tiana’s Circle a day later when a surprise episode was released—and she had dinner at her parents’ Friday night. She spent the weekend with Michael.

  Her mild concern about Pete’s inability to manifest had morphed into a constant worry that buzzed around in the back of her mind like a trapped fly. Most nights, she’d wander her apartment and ask him to show her a sign of his presence, as if she were conducting a paranormal investigation in her own home. Occasionally she’d see a flicker of something in her peripheral vision. One night she asked for a sign and a broom immediately toppled over in the kitchen. The beanie had yet to move on its own again, but Riley was also too nervous to touch it, so it lay untouched on her dresser.

  While Michael was in the shower on Sunday morning—Baxter snoozing in her lap—the game she played on her phone got interrupted by an email alert. She clicked over to her inbox, hoping Detective Howard had sent her an email full o’ evidence.