Girl Lost: A Detective Kaitlyn Carr Mystery

by Kate Gable

  "Tell me what happened. I can help you."

  "You can't help me with anything. You think I killed her for nothing."

  "Tell me what happened and what you did. I'm here to help you."

  "You're a detective. You're here to find out what happened to the victim," she says, the coldness returns.

  "Okay. Then what do you want to do?"

  "I'm going to kill you," she says.

  I swallow hard. I need to buy some time. I need to figure out a way to get out of here, but she's completely unpredictable.

  One minute she's her best friend and another one she’s this killer, which I never expected.

  "You don't want to do that," I say slowly. "Whatever happened with Karen, you must have done it for a reason, right? There must have been a why. If you kill me to get away, that's not going to be good. Not for you, not for your baby."

  "Don't bring my baby into this." She shakes her finger at me briefly letting go of the gun, but then quickly readjusts her grip.

  I kick myself for missing my chance to grab it.

  "That baby's the whole reason why I'm in this mess in the first place. He said he was going to leave her. He said that if we had a baby together, then we would be together."

  "What?" My mouth drops open. Then it hits me. "The baby is Robert's?" I ask in a half whisper.

  "Of course," she snaps. "Are you an idiot? Of course the baby is Robert's."

  "How long were you seeing each other?"

  "Long enough. Robert likes to have girlfriends on the side, and he likes to get them pregnant. That's what happened to Margaret right around the same time that he was seeing me. He started seeing her. How dare he cheat on me?" she snaps.

  I blink a few times trying to make sense of everything that she's saying. Is she really mad at Robert for seeing another woman when he was already married and seeing her?

  "He said that Karen didn't understand him. He said that I was the only one who did. He said he loved me. He said that he hadn't slept with Karen in months. Then I find out that he has a girlfriend in Reseda." She narrows her eyes.

  "Why did you kill Karen? Why not Robert?" I ask.

  “We were going to run away together. You happy to hear that? He was going to leave her. We were going to be together, but then I thought that if she found out about the affair, she would leave him, or he would finally leave her. I thought that would get the ball rolling."

  "So, you found out about Margaret first?"

  "I tracked him. Then I wanted Karen to find out. I wanted her to leave him so that he would be mine."

  "What about Margaret?"

  "That little skank? She never stood a chance."

  I shake my head.

  "You don't believe me?" she says, whispering because the baby in the other room starts moving around.

  I just see it as she was dating a man who was already married and who got his mistress pregnant, he got her pregnant, and he got his wife pregnant all around the same time.

  Why would she want to be with him in the first place? I want to ask, but I decide against it. My goal is to soothe her, relax her, and to get her to let her guard down.

  "What about your husband?" I ask.

  I shouldn't have asked that. I realized that that would just make her flare up even more. Her nostrils widen and she shakes her head.

  "I don't need you judging me, or my actions. Okay? You're a dead woman already."

  I think she wants me to beg for my life, but I'm not going to. I also think that she wants to tell me what happened.

  Sometimes when people do something extraordinary, I don't mean great, but so huge and monumental like this, they want people to know about it.

  "My husband is a fool," Elin says. "Things have been off with us for a long time. It didn't help that I started seeing Robert. Robert and I had all these plans that we were both going to leave our spouses and be together, but time just kept slipping by and he wouldn't do anything. I got pregnant. I was going to tell my husband and he was going to tell Karen, and that would be the end of it.”

  “So, what happened?” I ask, taking a deep breath.

  “I found out that he was cheating on me."

  I blink.

  She notices it and explains, "With Margaret."

  "How did you find out?"

  "Karen was stupid. Karen believed everything he said. She thought that they had this happy marriage, but I was the one who had to tell her about checking his text messages. I was the one who had to tell her about putting a GPS on his car. I did that first. That's how I found out about Margaret. That's how I found out about his other baby and that he had no plans of leaving Karen."

  "I still don't understand," I whisper. "Why did you take her out there? Why did you take her hiking? Why did you do that to Karen?"

  "You don't know anything, do you?" Elin snaps.

  She takes two steps away from me and then forward again. She's pacing. She's trying to figure out how much she wants to tell me.

  "Karen got pregnant. She got pregnant and that meant that Robert was never going to leave her. He told me he wouldn't. He told me he was already married and if Karen got pregnant, that would be it. He'd stop fooling around with me."

  "What about the children?"

  "I don't care about her child,” she hisses.

  "Okay. What about yours?"

  "He said that Karen could never find out. He said he wanted her to be a secret. It's like he didn't care that we had all these plans. He didn't care that our baby existed. He was going to start a new life with his wife. That was just unacceptable." She looks away for a moment.

  A tear builds up in her eye and that's when I lunge at her. I topple her over and we fall onto the coffee table, which snaps under us.

  She kicks me between my legs, and I throw her hands over her head trying to knock the firearm out of her grip. It takes a few tries before it actually works, but not before she shoots a bullet through the window.

  I punch her in the stomach and then climb over her to grab the gun but she pulls me down and wraps her long fingers around my neck and starts to squeeze.

  She squeezes hard.

  I try to punch her in her sides, but with my airway closing, I start to feel weaker and weaker.

  She climbs on top of me, the weight of her body pressing me into the floor. She lets go briefly and I gasp for air and reach for her to stop her from getting the gun.

  She presses on my windpipe with the weight of her body. I don't have much time.

  With all of the strength that I have left, I start to feel around with both hands for something sharp or heavy or both to get her off of me.

  She pulls away from me and I get another big gasp of air. That's when I see the gun in her hand again, the barrel right in front of my face.

  "Goodbye, Detective Carr," she says.

  At the last moment, my fingers curl around something sharp and I stab her in the neck with it.

  Blood sprays out covering both of us. She cries out in pain and I grab the gun, moving it out of the way just in time for a bullet to hit the floorboard right next to my ear.

  The sound deafens me.

  I pull the sharp object out of her neck and stab her again and again, blood gushing out, but I don't stop until she's dead.

  After I push her limp body off of me, I get up.

  I sit up and stare at the carnage with tears running down my cheeks.

  My breaths are still haphazard and sporadic, but at least I'm breathing.

  “I'm okay," I say out loud just to make sure that I can hear.

  28

  After police and the ambulance arrive, they clean me up and take my statement. I don't have any injuries that require me to go to the hospital, but I do have a pounding headache.

  Armed with a few Advil, I head back to the precinct to give my account and get a fresh change of clothes. Captain Medvil meets me up front and gives me a hug.

  "I'm glad you're okay, kiddo," he says.

  I smile. It's the first
time he's ever called me that. I appreciate it.

  We go to the conference room, the unofficial interrogation room used for police officers. I pull out the recorder and place it on the table.

  "What's this?" Captain Medvil asks.

  "I had it in my pocket when I went out on the patio to talk to you. I started it as soon as she sat me down on the couch. I hope it got at least part of what happened.”

  We rewind the tape and plug it into the computer. Our whole conversation comes on loud and clear, except for a few places where the recorder rubs against the inside of my pocket.

  Everyone listens, but I have to excuse myself because I can't bear to relive it quite yet, if ever.

  A little bit later, a deputy calls me back in.

  "You had to do what you did," Captain Medvil says. "You know that, right?"

  "Yeah. Just would have been nice if it went to trial and everything came out in the open."

  "Well, we're still going to investigate. We're going to get to the bottom of this, but from that conversation and from what we found on the tape, I don't think that Robert or Margaret were involved," the captain says.

  I nod.

  "We'll do more interviews, but right now you need to go home and get some rest."

  After I get home, I sleep for what feels like days, but it's really just a very long twenty-four hours. The findings from the medical examiner confirm that Karen was indeed pregnant at the time of her death.

  We find a lot of evidence on Robert's laptop that corroborates the relationship that he had with Elin going back years.

  In another interview, not conducted by me, he confirms that he did indeed have a relationship with Elin. At one point, they’d planned on leaving their spouses, but he wanted to try to make it work with Karen, despite the fact that he had two children with two other women.

  The reason it seems why he was so cagey with me in all of the interviews is that he didn't want anyone to find out about those children, least of all Karen.

  Elin had lured her out on that walk and she may have told her everything, or perhaps she pretended that she was her friend until the end. We will never know. I didn't get a chance to ask, and there are just certain things that people take to their graves.

  When I wake up, I see that I have a number of missed calls from Luke along with a number of messages telling me that someone had called him about what had happened and that he wants to know how I'm feeling.

  His voice is concerned, sweet, and loving. I want to talk to him more than anything. The fifth time he calls that evening, I answer.

  He immediately gets onto FaceTime, even though at first, I don't want to get on. I look tired and worn out, but he tells me that I look beautiful, which given how I exhausted I am, is an exaggeration if not a complete lie.

  "I wish I were there," Luke says. "I should have helped you."

  "Helped me with what? This is my case."

  "I know. I just keep blaming myself."

  "There's no reason for that. You're investigating my sister's case. I just should have brought backup, but I'm glad that it all worked out."

  "So, you killed her with a pencil, huh?" he asks, rubbing his fingers across his lower jaw.

  He looks so sexy and beautiful. I can't help but lick my lips as I imagine his arms around me.

  "Yeah, that's what they told me. All I knew was that it was sharp and pointy, and that was the only thing I found."

  "That's some spy crap right there," he laughs, "disarming an enemy with a pencil."

  I laugh and so does he.

  Making light of the dark is the only way to get through this. We talk some more, and we laugh.

  For a little while, it feels like we're normal people, a normal couple even, catching up on the day.

  Then my thoughts return to Violet. When I ask about her, his face drops.

  "What?" I ask. "Did you find something? Did you find her?"

  He shakes his head no but doesn't say a word.

  "Tell me,” I insist. “What is it?"

  "We found the clothes that she was wearing that night," he says quietly, "about a mile away from the observatory."

  "What do you mean?"

  “We found her puffy forest green jacket, jeans and a beanie as well as her Uggs. Your mom confirmed that the clothes are hers and Nancy, Kaylee’s mom, confirmed that she dropped her off wearing those clothes.”

  “I don’t understand.” I gasp.

  “We found every single thing that she was wearing, Kaitlyn,” Luke says. “Down to the socks and the necklace.”

  “Why would she change her clothes?” I ask, not really expecting an answer.

  “There’s something else,” he continues after a long pause. I hold my breath.

  “All the clothes were found neatly folded in a plastic bag tucked under a fallen tree.”

  "What does that mean?" I shake my head.

  "I have no idea," he says, "but we're going to find out.”

  Thank you for reading! I hope you loved Detective Kaitlyn Carr’s investigation. The next book in the Kaitlyn Carr series is GIRL FOUND….

  A college student is found dead in the apartment of a US Marine who has disappeared.

  Where is he? Did he kill her and run? And if so, why? Detective Kaitlyn Carr will stop at nothing to find out what happened.

  Back home, Violet’s disappearance is becoming a cold case to everyone but Kaitlyn. Every lead has been a dead end, but she can’t give up now…

  One-Click GIRL FOUND now!

  Can’t get enough of Kaitlyn Carr? Make sure to grab GIRL HIDDEN (a novella) for FREE!

  A family is found dead in their home. The only survivor is the teenage daughter who managed to escape the burning house.

  Who killed them? And why? Detective Kaitlyn Carr has to bring their killer to justice.

  A year before her disappearance, Violet, Kaitlyn’s sister, comes to stay with her after a bad fight with their mom. She can’t stand living at home as much as Kaitlyn once did and wants to move in with her.

  What happens when the dysfunction of her own family threatens to blow up her face and let the killer off for good?

  GRAB GIRL HIDDEN for FREE now!

  If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to write a short review on your favorite book site and maybe recommend it to a friend or two.

  You can also join my Facebook group, Kate Gable’s Reader Club, for exclusive giveaways and sneak peeks of future books.

  Want to be the first to know about my upcoming sales, new releases and exclusive giveaways?

  Sign up for my newsletter:

  https://www.subscribepage.com/kategableviplist

  Join my Facebook Group:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/833851020557518

  Bonus Points: Follow me on BookBub and Goodreads!

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21534224.Kate_Gable

  About Kate Gable

  Kate Gable loves a good mystery that is full of suspense. She grew up devouring psychological thrillers and crime novels as well as movies, tv shows and true crime.

  Her favorite stories are the ones that are centered on families with lots of secrets and lies as well as many twists and turns. Her novels have elements of psychological suspense, thriller, mystery and romance.

  Kate Gable lives in Southern California with her husband, son, a dog and a cat. She has spent more than twenty years in this area and finds inspiration from its cities, canyons, deserts, and small mountain towns.

  Write her here:

  Kate@kategable.com

  Check out her books here:

  www.kategable.com

  Sign up for my newsletter:

  https://www.subscribepage.com/kategableviplist

  Join my Facebook Group:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/833851020557518

  Bonus Points: Follow me on BookBub and Goodreads!

  bookbub.com/authors/kate-gable

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21534224.Kate_Gable
<
br />   Also by Kate Gable

  All books are available at ALL major retailers! If you can’t find it, please email me at

  kate@kategable.com

  Girl Missing (Book 1)

  Girl Lost (Book 2)

  Girl Found (Book 3)

  Girl Hidden (FREE Novella)