by Jenn Vakey
“Thanks, Lisa,” Rilynne nodded, pushing off of the bar. “Call me if you think of anything else.”
Both men were exactly where she said they would be, but neither knew anything about the mystery person. Cole thought that it might have been a man, but said he couldn’t be sure. As they walked down the long hallway toward the staff rooms, Rilynne couldn’t help but feel discouraged.
“This is Nancy’s room,” she said, reaching for the closed door just in front of them. It was locked. Without hesitation, she reached in her back pocket and pulled out her lock picking kit. In no time at all, she swung the door open and they stepped in. “It doesn't look like much has changed since I was here last. Other than this.”
Matthews crossed the room and looked over her shoulder at what she had found. Sitting on the dresser, just behind a cluster of pictures of Nancy and what appeared to be her parents, there was a framed picture of Ben.
“Where did she get this?” Matthews asked.
Rilynne grabbed a handkerchief that was folded on top of the dresser and used it to pick up the picture. “I threw this shirt out last year,” she stated, looking at the grey t-shirt he was wearing. “He was wearing it when that car crashed just outside of that robbery scene and it got splattered with blood from the driver when Ben went out to help. It must have been taken sometime last summer.”
She studied the photograph carefully. She couldn’t see much of what was going on around Ben, but he appeared to be outside. If she had to guess, he had no idea a picture was being taken. It was only focused on him, but he seemed to be talking to someone standing near him.
“It’s creepy,” she stated, placing the frame into a bag Matthews held out for her. “Having a picture of him in her room just makes me feel... disgusted wouldn’t be an exaggeration. I can only imagine how Ben will feel about it. It’s just... creepy.”
“She’s been planning this for a while,” Matthews muttered. He shook his head before turning and working his way through the rest of the room. “I’m going to have the guys look into her past. It’s not likely that Ben was the first person she attached herself to. Well, second if you count the chauffeur. Maybe there’s another man out there who will have some information about who she could have been working with. I don’t want to give her any sort of out, but it could be that someone else has been pulling her strings for a while. If that’s the case, she might not be the only person being played. It could be this other person has no connection to you or Ben at all, and they just enjoy using people like Nancy for a bit of entertainment.”
Rilynne didn’t want to think it was a possibility, but it made sense. Nancy would be more likely to follow the advice of someone she knew well, especially when it came to doing something as dramatic as kidnapping someone. On the other hand, what she told Lisa made it sound like this person had recently come into her life. Even if that were the case, it still didn’t rule out Matthews’ theory about the mystery person.
“I can’t be in here,” she said, making her way back to the door. “You finish this up and I’ll go see if I can track anyone else down in the house. I’ll also see what I can do about getting the surveillance footage from the gate. It won’t tell us much, but it might help to determine if it’s possible that she brought my gun here.”
Matthews just nodded as she turned and walked back into the hall. Rilynne roamed around without giving much thought to where she was actually going. She’d already talked to everyone she cared to, and she didn’t care whether or not she actually found anyone else. Being in Nancy’s room while it was searched was just too much for her to take. She didn’t know if she would be able to handle it if they found anything else that pertained to Ben. When she came to the open door leading to Jared’s office, she honestly didn’t really remember how she had gotten there.
“Are you finding everything you need?” he asked, sitting behind his large desk. Not surprisingly, Jared’s dachshund was sound asleep in the dog bed at the end. “I hope everyone is cooperating.”
“They are,” she stated. “Matthews is in Nancy’s room right now looking for anything that can help us. We would like to get a copy of your gate footage for the last year. It could help us narrow down when she was meeting this mystery person, as well as help track her movements over the last week.”
“Of course.” Jared leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face roughly with his hands. “I feel like this is my fault,” he stated. “I don’t know how I could have missed something like this. I’ve been spending so much time with my own little antics that I haven’t been observing the behaviors of the people in my own house. You’d think I would know better after what happened last year with Brittney.”
“You couldn’t have known something like this was going to happen,” she said. She pulled the chair back from in front of his desk and dropped down into it. “It wasn’t a secret she could be a little obsessed, but no one saw her really crossing the line like this. I sure didn’t, and I deal with people like this a lot.”
Her words made him smirk, but she could tell they did nothing to ease what he was feeling.
“It’s a good thing the former Mrs. Lewis isn’t still around,” he said, his voice lighter than it had been moments before. “She would be having a conniption at the thought of having to hire a third maid replacement in a year and a half. So much for me being a good judge of character. Although I didn’t think it was possible, I’m going to have to tighten my security checks. I wonder if there’s a way of having psychological tests done on everyone before being hired. Might be something worth looking into.”
Rilynne let out a quick, involuntary laugh. “You know people already see you as neurotic.”
“Crazy,” he stated. “You mean to say that people in this town think that I’m completely out of my mind crazy.”
Rilynne knew he was right, so she didn’t even try to argue with him. Instead, she just turned her attention to the dog, still sound asleep on the desk.
“Are you still torturing that poor little thing?” she asked, remembering the shade of purple that covered her fur the first time they met.
He shrugged. “She plays her part from time to time, but she’s still the happiest little pup in the world. I will admit that I’ve started taking it a little easy on her. Outlandish isn’t as young as she used to. Now she’s at half as many pranks and twice the pampering days. If she could talk, I don’t think a single complaint would come from her.”
Rilynne laughed again. “I guess not. How are the kids doing? Still having trouble with the loss of their mother?”
“It’s not as bad as it was at first. Lorraine has gotten past the guilt she felt for her mother going to prison. It took some time, but she’s finally accepted that it isn’t her fault. She still has some nightmares from time to time, but other than that she’s been doing pretty well. Charlie has more anger than anything else toward Cyndi. He’s old enough that he understands she had a choice to make, and she made the wrong one. He goes to all of the visits with her, but he isn’t letting her play the victim card,” Jared explained. “She still tries from time to time, but that’s usually when he shuts down and stops talking to her. He even stood up and walked away once. I think he’s worried about the effect it has on his sister.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must have been on the two of them,” she said. “I know it sounds bad, but at least she wasn’t the main female role in their lives. I mean,” she paused, trying to pick her words carefully. “From what I observed, Cyndi let Sydney handle most of the day to day things with the kids. At least they still had someone around. Does that make sense?”
She regretted bringing it up the moment she did, but Jared didn’t seem to have any qualms with the comment. Instead, he actually seemed to agree with her.
“I don’t know how I would have gotten them through this without Sydney,” he responded. “Before things turned sour with the two of us, I didn’t really like the idea of having a nanny to take care of the kids. Especial
ly given the fact that Cyndi wasn’t working and was fully capable of caring for our children herself. I’m glad I caved on the decision, though, because the children seemed to take a back burner to a lot of the other things in her life. That’s never how I wanted them to feel or be treated. Having Sydney here gave them someone they could always count on, even if it was her job. She’s always made an effort to make them feel loved.”
“I don’t think for a second she sees those children as just a job,” Rilynne stated, remembering how Sydney always looked when she was with them. She didn’t just care for them; she loved them like they were her own. That possibly had something to do with infatuation she had for Jared, though he seemed completely oblivious to it. “On another note, how are things going with you? Any new women in your life?”
Jared groaned and leaned back in his chair.
“You’d think with all I have that it would be easy for me to find someone,” he said. “I don’t want to drop the charade in the event that I end up with another Cyndi situation, but that also makes it all the more difficult to actually meet a nice woman.”
Rilynne grinned and shook her head. “Have you tried just coming off as playful and eccentric instead of completely insane?”
“That’s the problem!” he laughed loudly. “I’m struggling with that happy medium. I just don’t want to wind up stuck in another marriage with someone who’s only in it for the money. Do you think if I donate all of my money to charity and start over that it will make things easier?”
“No,” Rilynne stated bluntly, rolling her eyes and she took in his playful smirk. “You could always do as my husband did, though, and not let the women know you have money until you know you’ve found someone worth having around.”
“That’s easier said than done,” he replied. “Ben hid his money from everyone from the get-go. All it would take was one search for me online and she’d know exactly who I was. I guess I could plant a bug to erase every mention of me off the internet. It might take me a little while to get it working, though. I wouldn’t want to get it wrong and accidently erase all of my assets along with it. Then I really wouldn’t have anything for a woman to go after.”
“You’re joking,” she stated, though she didn’t know for sure that he was. She’d seen that look in his eye before. It was the same one he had whenever he was constructing one of his elaborate pranks. “Why don’t you just adopt a pseudonym of sorts? Use a different last name until you are to a point in a relationship when you feel you can be honest. I’m definitely not one for lying in relationships, but lying about having money is something I find pretty forgivable. I imagine it would make your trips over all more enjoyable. You wouldn’t have to worry about having random people stop you to propose their ideas anymore. You could actually act like an average person.”
He pulled his hand up and ran it over his chin and he thought over what she had suggested. With each passing second, he seemed to become more excited with the idea.
“I always knew you were a brilliant woman,” he said after a few moments. “That husband of yours is one lucky man. I hope the two of you know that I’m here if you ever find yourself in need of anything. Especially after this horrible situation. All of my resources at at your disposal when it comes to tracking down the other person responsible for this.”
“I might just take you up on that,” she said as Matthews walked in behind her.
“I think we’re about done here,” he stated. “Other than the picture, I didn’t find anything to connect her to Ben. There also wasn’t anything that could lead us toward the identity of the person she’s been working with. I’ve got the guys out combing the bars in town to see if anyone recalls seeing her with anyone. We’ll also collect all of the surveillance tapes and hope they go far enough back to find something.”
“I’ll have all of mine sent to the station later today,” Jared added. “I’m also going to pull everyone together tonight to see if I can learn anything they might have held back. I’ll let you know if I find something.”
He stood and walked them back to the foyer, pulling Rilynne in for a tight embrace before seeing them out the door.
“Thanks for all your help, Jared,” Rilynne said, starting down the steps toward the car. “And back to your other problem, you might be going at it all wrong. As fun as it would be to go out incognito, perhaps you should try looking closer to home. Much closer.”
Rilynne grinned as she climbed into the car, leaving Jared with a dumbfounded look on his face. As smart as he was, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to work out what exactly she was telling him, but that only made it more enjoyable.
“I’ll take you back to the hospital,” Matthews said when he climbed in and started down the long driveway. “Ben should be pretty lucid by now. I imagine all of the drugs will have worked their way out of his system by now. Maybe he’ll be able to tell you something that can help us.”
“Are you going to stay for a while?” she asked.
She stared out the window at the colorful trees as they passed. Fall was just kicking off, and with it the leaves were starting to change. Nowhere was it more apparent than on Jared’s long driveway. If she had to guess, she’d say he intentionally made sure all of the trees that were immediately visible were ones that would provide the best view. Only a few trees still held green leaves, while the rest were vibrant shades of red, orange, yellow, and purple.
“I’ll let you two have your time together,” Matthews responded. “You both need it after this horrible week. I’ll head back to the station and see if there’s anything else I can get out of Ms. Santos. Let me know if Ben can think of anything. I don’t want either of you to worry about it too much right now, though. You both need your rest and to just be with each other.”
As much as she wanted to get the case wrapped up, nothing sounded better to her than curling up in Ben’s arms. With everything that had happened over the last week, she honestly didn’t think it was a place she’d ever find herself again. Even with him back where she knew he was safe, the thought of it was still nearly debilitating. She didn’t want to be away from him for a minute longer than she had to.
Ben was wide awake when she walked into his hospital room. By the looks of it, he’d had quite a few visitors since she left. The number of flowers and balloons had nearly tripled in the few hours she’d been out.
“Rye,” he said, his face lighting up the moment he saw her. “Tell me you’re here to rescue me from this place.”
“I think you’ve actually used your allotted number of rescues this month. How are you feeling?” she asked, dropping her purse in a chair as she crossed the room toward his bed. “You look ten times better.”
Even that was an understatement. The color had returned to his face, the warm smile he gave her making it only more apparent. Had his leg not been propped up in the funny metal contraption, she’d have never known just by looking at him that anything so serious had happened.
“I’m fine,” he stated, inching over on the bed so she could sit. She could tell that it was a painful act, but he tried hard not to show it. “How are you?” he asked. His eyes passed over every inch of her face, taking in every bruise she still donned. “She didn’t hurt you, did she? I mean, no more than what was caused by the accident itself. How bad is your wrist? Boy, aren’t we going to be the odd pair.”
Rilynne reached up and brushed the shaggy hair from his eyes, grinning warmly as she considered exactly what to tell him. After a few seconds of hesitation, he seemed to know that there was something she was holding back. His eyes moved from joy to worry as he waited for her to respond. At that point, she knew she couldn’t keep any of it from him.
“Physically, I’m fine,” she stated. It did nothing to ease his worry. “My wrist has a small break and I have a fractured rib, but it doesn't give me much trouble. I did hit my head during the accident, and it left me a little confused for a while. I’m fine now, though.”
“How confused?” he asked, trying
to make sense of exactly what she was saying.
Rilynne squirmed slightly where she sat on the edge of the bed. “I lost everything for a few days,” she stated, unsure why she was avoiding the one word that would explain it all. Something about saying it let her nervous, though.
“As in you forgot everything?” he asked, his worry quickly turning to full panic. “You had amnesia?”
She nodded. “I don’t want you to think that I wasn’t still looking for you, though. Even though I couldn’t remember anything, I was doing everything I...”
Before she could finish, Ben reached out and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he stated. “This is all my fault. I should have just let you handle this from the beginning. If I’d told you about it last year when it started to get serious, we could have put an end to it before it ever reached this level. I can’t even imagine how scared you must have been. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here with you to help you through it.”
Rilynne wanted to laugh, but the tears rolling down her cheeks prevented it. Only Ben could have gone through everything he had and still feel guilty for not being there for her when she was simply scared and confused.
“I’m all right,” she said, pressing her head into his chest. The sound of his heart drumming through her ears only made the tears build. “Besides, do you really think a little bump on the head was going to stop me from finding you? It just took me a little longer than I’d have liked. I can’t even imagine everything you must have been going through while that nutcase had you.”
“To be honest, I don’t really remember much of it. I think she kept me drugged most of the time,” he admitted. “I don’t know if she did it for the pain, or if she didn’t want me to try to leave, but I only had a handful of lucid moments the entire time I was there.”
“When you’re up to it, there are a few questions I’m going to need to ask you about the time you were there. Do you want to get them over with now?” she asked, pulling away from him and sitting up.
