Riley’s eyes popped open and she scrambled for her computer. She typed in “Kirky skateboarding” and immediately got an address for a local skate shop.
“Oh!” she said out loud to no one.
According to the hours posted on the website, they were open until 8. If she hauled ass, she might be able to get there before closing. She called Nina.
“Hey, Ry. Long time no talk,” she said, laughing. “What’s up?”
“I think I have a lead on the kid who helped Iris,” she said, a little breathless. “If we hurry, we can get there in time.”
“I’m free in twenty. Send me the address and I’ll meet you there.”
After doing that, Riley brushed her teeth, wrangled her hair into some semblance of a bun, grabbed her purse and keys and was out the door in a few minutes.
Kirky Skate was only twenty minutes away. More notably, it was only a few blocks away from Julie’s house.
She waited in the small back parking lot, leaning against her car’s driver side door, for Nina to arrive. The shopping area was tiny, and in addition to the skate shop, it had a pizza restaurant and an aquarium store. The lot she was in now couldn’t have accommodated more than fifteen cars at a time, and the street parking out front was mostly gone, thanks to the grocery store and chain restaurants on the opposite side of the road that were bustling with people this evening.
Nina pulled into the spot next to Riley’s a few minutes later. She walked over, a brow cocked. “So what’s the lead?”
“The kid had a sticker from Kirky Skate on the bottom of his skateboard. I thought if he frequents the place enough to put a sticker on his board, someone here might know him.”
“Nice,” Nina said, nodding.
They walked across the small lot, between the back of the skate and pizza place, and then turned right onto the sidewalk, where the single glass door of the skate shop stood propped open. It was sweltering inside, and Riley immediately wanted to walk back out. It smelled vaguely of sweat and rubber, which was made even more pungent with the heat. When she stepped inside, her foot landed on a thick black mat just inside the door and triggered a chime, letting the worker in the back of the shop know someone had come in.
The right side of the room had a wooden counter with a cash register on it; the front of the counter was so covered in stickers that the wood was hardly visible beneath it. On the wall behind the counter were rows of mounted helmets. To the left, the wall was covered in mounted boards, sans their wheels. The middle of the space was taken up by several turnstiles of graphic tees, while the back wall was devoted to shoes.
“Hey, ladies!” a male voice called from the back. “Sorry for the heat. The air conditioner is trippin’ and we can’t seem to get it to stop blowing hot air. I also apologize for the fact that it smells like a foot. Several feet.”
Nina laughed as the guy reached them, but Riley had frozen. It was him. The same kid who had helped Iris. He was a year older now, and given the patchy mustache and beard he was trying to grow, he was at least past puberty. He still had a very young face, though.
“Hey, uhh …” he said, taking a few more steps toward Riley with his brows raised. “You all right? It’s too soon to get heat stroke, I think. Do you need water or something?”
“We’re here for a slightly bizarre reason,” Nina said. “Maybe we could step outside, though, so she doesn’t pass out.”
“Uhh …” he said, casting a glance behind him, to where a boss or coworker likely was; the place was devoid of customers this near to closing time. “Yeah, sure.”
The bell chimed again as they walked back outside. Riley took in a pull of fresh air. She’d been so excited about her idea, thinking said idea would lead her to another clue on where to find the kid. Not lead her directly to the kid.
“So, uhh … what’s this about?” he asked, arms crossed as his dark gaze flitted between Riley and Nina.
“Does the name Iris Velasco mean anything to you?” Nina asked.
The young man cocked his head. “No. Should it?”
Finally finding her voice, Riley asked, “Do you remember where you were March 15th last year?”
The guy visibly swallowed, then licked his lips nervously. “Oh, man,” he said, uncrossing his arms. “I did my community service for the tagging already. I … I was told that wasn’t going to be on my record since I was a minor.” He glanced behind him. “You guys undercover cops or something? Are you here to tell my boss about that? I can’t lose this job. I’m so close to being able to afford wheels.”
She figured he meant a car, and not skateboard wheels. “We’re not cops. Is the tagging why you were on Gimar Court that day?”
She saw it then, the way the words hit their mark. Not to mention how his eyes had grown to comical size.
“Dude. Is this about that lady? The one who fell off the ladder in her front yard?”
“Yes,” Nina said. “What were you doing on Gimar Court when you found her?”
He swallowed again. “You swear you’re not cops?”
“Swear it,” Riley said.
“Well, I skipped school that day and I was bored. If you cut between the two houses at the end of Gimar Court, it lets out into this field. I don’t know what used to be there, but there’s an area near the back that’s really smooth concrete. I think it was the leftover foundation of a demolished building or something. Anyway, when I cut school, I headed over there a lot ’cause there are usually guys skating. But when I was going down the street, I saw that lady fall off her ladder. She whacked her head pretty good ’cause when I got to her, she wasn’t conscious. I legit thought she was dead at first, but when I poked her, she kinda squirmed.”
“You helped her inside?” Nina asked.
“Yeah. I got her some pills for her headache. I always have Tylenol or something in my bag since I’m good at getting pretty banged up when I’m skating. I broke both my wrists when I was thirteen.” He rolled his wrists in demonstration, which cracked faintly like microwave popcorn. “She was really out of it and kept saying it felt like her brain was soup. Soup, man. What the hell? Kinda freaked me out. I tried to get her to go to the hospital but she said she was okay. I left after that and came here, actually. One of my buddies used to work here before I got the job. I got caught tagging a wall on my walk home.” He chewed his bottom lip. “Can I ask why? Are you her friends or something? She all right?”
Riley and Nina shared a glance, trying to have a silent conversation about how to break this news.
“She … uhh … passed away the day of her fall,” Nina said softly.
“Aw, shit,” he whispered. “Was it because of the concussion?” He went from grief-stricken to panicked in a matter of seconds. Hands pressed to either side of his head, he asked, “Am I like an accessory to murder or something because I didn’t make her see a doctor?”
Riley held out her hands, placating. “Nothing like that. Would you be willing to talk to Iris’s daughter? She’s got some legal stuff to work out, and I think your account of things might help.”
The guy swallowed hard, then lowered his hands. “Uhh … yeah. I could talk to her. I’ve felt bad about that day for a year and a half. I’ve been down the street a couple times since then and a new family lives there. I just kept hoping the lady was okay and moved. This sucks so bad. She was really nice.” He swallowed, and straightened his shoulders, some kind of resolve coming over his lanky frame. “I’ll talk to her daughter. No problem.”
“You’re a good kid,” Riley said, feeling strange saying such a thing to someone not that much younger than herself, but knowing it would hit home with him because it was one of the last things Iris had said to him that day.
He ducked his head, just as he had with Iris.
Nina had her phone out. “What’s your name?”
“Uhh … Randy. Well, Randall. Randall Hale.”
As Randy rattled off his phone number to Nina, she typed it into her phone. When she pocketed it, she said,
“Her name is Amy.”
“Cool,” he said, bobbing his head. “Okay.”
Riley shook his hand.
Nina did the same but she didn’t let go right away. She cocked her head. “Get the green car with the white stripe. The black one is a lemon.”
Randy’s mouth dropped open as they walked away, Riley barely suppressing a smile. She supposed being claircognizant had its benefits.
They stopped behind Riley’s car once they made it back to the parking lot.
“Thank you for your help on this,” Nina said. “You’re far better at the sleuthing part of it than I am. It’s not always needed on the jobs I do, but sometimes it is. If you ever want to join Galvan Investigations as a consulting researcher, I’d love to have you. Just saying.” She started to walk away. “Think about it.”
Nina told her to “think about it” a lot. Riley had to admit, though, that she didn’t totally hate the idea of being Nina’s researcher.
On the way home, Riley’s mind was filled with the disparate details of the other mystery she was trying to solve. Randy being a witness to the events could be the final piece needed to take care of the main thing keeping Iris’s spirit bound to Julie’s house. What witnesses were there in Shawna, Brynn, and Emery’s lives who could shed light on what had happened in the weeks and months before they’d disappeared? Friends, family, partners. Emery was currently too much of an unknown, especially since she was from a state over. But Brynn and Shawna had been from here.
She recalled the conversation she’d had with her mother about Gigi and the man with the buzz cut. Who else might have seen that man? Had he been prowling around, camera held to his face as he scoped out his next victim? Was it a matter of asking as many people as she could find who were around—eighteen years ago—who might recall a man with that description skulking around?
Rodney Elgin, Shawna’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, had been in the same neighborhood as Shawna and Gigi. Her mother had said the guy was out of prison now. Was there a man with a buzz cut in his memory banks somewhere? There could be things he remembered that he either hadn’t shared because no one had asked him, or things that had been discounted, just as Gigi’s account had been, since the police had been so sure they’d already found their killer.
Riley’s mom’s friend Norma had a connection to that neighborhood, too. She planned to call her in the morning.
At just after 8, Riley settled on the couch with her laptop and phone. Scrolling through her messages, she opened the thread with her mom and stared at the text with Norma Kling’s number in it. Riley dialed her number, hoping it wasn’t too early.
“Hello?” a woman answered after a couple of rings, her breath labored. Riley thought she heard the sound of birdsong in the background.
“Uhh … hi. Norma? This is Riley Thomas, Sabine’s daughter?”
“Oh! Hi, sweetie,” Norma said, huffing.
“Are you busy? I can call back …”
“Not at all, not at all,” she said. “I’m just getting my daily walk in. Need to keep fit and lean for the fellas. There’s a real looker at my Bingo hall and I figure if I tighten up these buns a bit, he won’t be able to refuse. I like a mature gentleman.”
Riley fought a laugh, wondering how mature this gentleman was if he frequented Bingo halls. “I respect it.”
Norma chuckled. “So what can I do for you? Sabine said you might have questions about the Mack family?”
“Yeah,” Riley said, not sure how much her mother had disclosed to Norma. “And about your cousin who was almost kidnapped. Your grandma lived in the same neighborhood as Shawna, right?”
“Sure did. My grandma had been friends with Shawna’s grandma. Her grandma was why she ended up in that house to begin with. She and her mama fought like dogs all the time. Two headstrong women who didn’t like being told what to do. It was her daddy’s idea that it would be good for everyone if Shawna stayed with her grandma and took care of her when her health started going downhill. The family figured if the two of them were out of each other’s hair for a while, the distance would help their relationship. Shawna was only fourteen or so when she first got to Taos from Texas. She was all alone there. A couple years later, she got involved with Rodney. I think part of why she put up with his abuse for so long was that there wasn’t anywhere else for her to go. And then shortly after her grandma died, Shawna found out she was pregnant.
“I saw them together several times over the years—Shawna and Rodney, I mean—and when they were in one of their good patches, it was clear how much those two could love each other. And love that boy of theirs. Gigi and me even went out to that recreation area with them a few times … some big group outing where a bunch of the kids in the neighborhood and their friends all went to the river.
“My grandma told me how rough that neighborhood could be sometimes, but the good outweighed the bad, usually. Until Shawna wound up dead, anyway. And then that man tried to snatch Gigi a month later. The whole neighborhood was scared.”
“Were there any other incidents of women or girls being targeted after Gigi?” Riley asked.
“Not that I know of,” Norma said. “Grandma had an ear to the ground there as far as gossip went. If something else had happened, she would have told me. For a good month after the incident with Gigi, Grandma wouldn’t even let me come visit her because she said it wasn’t safe. For months, Gigi’s four brothers and several other men in the neighborhood started their own neighborhood watch program. Bunch of guys walking the streets at night with baseball bats and guns. The cops were convinced Rodney had killed Shawna, and they said Gigi must have misinterpreted what happened to her, so the neighborhood took their safety into their own hands. Maybe that’s why nothing else happened after Gigi. That guy, whoever he was, saw that he’d have an armed mob to contend with if he struck again, so he moved on.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Riley said, lost in thought for a moment. “My mom said Rodney is out of prison now?”
“Yep. I was out to lunch with a friend in Taos the other day and saw him walking out of a grocery store. Most locals still don’t think he did it, but he did do time for fifteen years, so a lot of people give the guy a wide berth. Most of his family is dead or moved away. I don’t know why he’d come back to his old neighborhood, given everything, but maybe familiar places full of awful memories look pretty good after being behind bars for a decade and a half. He also has this … energy about him now. Broken down by the world, dead eyes—that kind of thing. Kind of get the feeling that he wants to be alone, so he is.”
“Do you have any idea if he ever saw the buzz cut guy?” Riley asked.
“That I don’t know,” Norma said. “The buzz cut guy sort of became the neighborhood boogie man—women were looking over their shoulders, worried they’d run into him, and the men were on high alert, ready to tackle the guy to the ground if they saw him. Seems like he stayed around long enough to cause pain, and then left.”
Left to ruin the Bodwells’ and the Dawsons’ lives, Riley thought. Who else was in this guy’s trail of destruction?
“Do you have any idea how I could possibly get a hold of Rodney?” Riley asked, wondering if it was true that the man wanted to be left alone, or if that was the unintentional impression he gave off.
It took Norma a moment to reply. “I could ask around,” she eventually said, but Riley got the distinct impression Norma thought talking to him was a terrible idea.
“Thanks. I appreciate you talking to me.”
“No problem, sweetie,” she said. “What’s got you so interested in this anyway? You were just a little thing when all this happened.”
“I’m deep in a true crime phase,” Riley said.
Norma laughed. “You and every other young woman on this planet!” After a pause, she added, “You take care of yourself, all right?”
After thanking Norma again, Riley hung up and sat back on her couch. Her computer was in her lap a second later. Since she knew Rodney was back in Taos
, she started searching for anything she could find on him aside from articles about his arrest. There was only one social media profile and all it had on it was a single picture. The photo was professional, his smile small but friendly.
Half an hour of searching got her to an employment service website and Rodney Elgin’s profile. A bit more digging told her he worked as a nighttime warehouse worker for a pet supply company.
Clicking back to his social media page, she sent him a quick message, not sure if he’d ever see it. She decided to go the direct route with him; she didn’t want to throw the truth of her ability at him in the middle of a conversation like she had with Carter. Ambushing an ex-con with surprising information felt riskier than doing so with a reporter.
Hi, Rodney. My name is Riley Thomas. I’m not a cop or a reporter. I’m a psychic medium who is looking for answers regarding your ex, based on some information I’ve received. I would prefer to discuss this over the phone if you’re comfortable doing so.
She added her phone number. Assuming he was able to find the message on this maze of a site, she doubted he’d even reply to her vague rambling nonsense. She hit send.
CHAPTER 21
Later that evening, after an exhausting Monday Madness Discount Menu Bonanza shift, she was on a video call with Michael. They were attempting to make a meal together over the phone since their Sunday together had been replaced by her road trip into Taos.
“So why did you have to cover Fran’s shift this time?” Michael asked while opening a can of tomato sauce. “Is her kid really sick this much, or is she lying to get out of Monday Madness?”
Shuttered Secrets Page 26
