Paradise Falls

by Jacobs, Jonnie

  Karen had disappeared in October, Caitlin in March. The girls shared a youthful energy, but aside from that they were nothing alike. At least on first impression. Caitlin’s coloring was dark, Karen’s fair. Caitlin was an honor student while Karen ran with a crowd that liked to party. Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Not that any of them were really bad kids.

  Karen had disappeared on her way home from a friend’s house in the middle of a late night storm. Her car was found broken down by the side of the road. Caitlin had last been seen at school in the early evening. Still, the parallels were strong enough to grip Rayna’s heart like a vise. Had her failure to apprehend Karen’s killer led to his taking a second girl?

  And if she didn’t find him soon, how many others would there be?

  Chapter 5

  Grace was cold. Freezing, even under the heavy down comforter. She scooted closer to Carl and pressed her back against the cocoon of his warmth. Without waking, he draped an arm loosely across her middle, and Grace hugged it around her like a cloak.

  Carl hadn’t complained at all about their spoiled weekend plans. He was shocked and maybe a little hurt that it had even crossed Grace’s mind.

  “Good God,” he’d told her. “Caitlin’s my stepdaughter. How could I be anything but worried about her? She’s part of my family. You and Caitlin, along with Adam and Lucy.”

  He’d tried to comfort Grace, too, but she could tell he didn’t buy into his reassuring platitudes any more than she did. She saw the distress in his face, and knew it bothered him that there was nothing he could do to make things right.

  Carl was a fixer. If there was a problem, he looked for a solution. When there were no solutions, he sought a patch. Tonight, he’d been able to offer neither. After the others had gone, he’d spread his hands bleakly, then held Grace tight and cried with her. Even if he couldn’t magically bring Caitlin home, Grace took solace in knowing he was there, sharing her pain.

  She knew that Jake was worried, too. It was just that he was, by nature, so self-absorbed he was incapable of reaching out. Instead of fixing things, he fixed on himself. But he had to be feeling the same desperation and dread Grace felt.

  When Caitlin was born, Jake was too busy studying for law school exams to take off more than the day of delivery—and even then, he’d left the hospital once Caitlin had been pronounced healthy. But Grace had woken many a time in the following months to find him standing silently by Caitlin’s crib, smoothing the dark fuzz on her head and singing to her softly. While he hadn’t been as involved in Caitlin’s life over the years as Grace—and Caitlin, although she wouldn’t admit it—would have liked, Grace never doubted he genuinely loved his daughter. She hoped Starr had some inkling of what he was going through right now.

  Beside her, Carl rolled onto his back and began the ragged, uneven breathing that would soon erupt into full-blown snoring. Grace eased herself out of the bed. She slipped into her robe and padded down the hall to Caitlin’s room, where she pulled back the covers and slid between the sheets, breathing in the scent of Caitlin’s apricot shampoo.

  Grace’s heart felt so heavy she thought she would die under the weight. A part of her welcomed the prospect. Death would put an end to her pain. She couldn’t imagine going on, day after day, stumbling through the bleak fog of despair. The small sliver of hope that Caitlin might be returned to them was all Grace had to hold on to.

  She was still awake an hour later when Carl looked in on her with a cup of herbal tea. “I thought you might be able to use this,” he said softly.

  He’d pulled on his boxers and the ratty old sweatshirt that served as a robe substitute on cold nights. His hair stood in tufts on the left side of his head where it had been pressed against the pillow.

  Grace sat up and held the steaming mug in both hands. “Thank you.” The warm liquid soothed her throat and eased some of the tension from her body.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Carl asked.

  “Not really.”

  He sat on the bed next to her and began rubbing her neck and shoulders.

  Grace closed her eyes. “I keep wondering where she is right now. Is she alive? Hurt? Cold? Scared? And if she isn’t alive—”

  “Don’t go there, Grace. It doesn’t help.”

  “And if she isn’t still alive,” Grace continued stubbornly, “what were the last moments like for her? She must have felt so alone. So terrified.”

  “Don’t torture yourself like this. There’s nothing to be gained.”

  Grace shook her head. “I can’t help it. I can’t not think about her.”

  “No, I guess not. I just wish—”

  She put a finger against his lips. “I know.”

  “I put myself in your shoes. If it was Lucy—”

  “There’s nothing either of us can do right now except wait and pray.” Grace didn’t believe in a God who answered personal prayers. There was way too much turmoil and tragedy on this earth for that. Nonetheless, she’d been pleading with God all night for Caitlin’s safe return.

  Carl kissed her hand. “I wish I could bear this burden for both of us. I’d do anything to make it easier on you.”

  Even if it meant Lucy was missing rather than Caitlin? Grace doubted Carl’s love, genuine as it was, went that far.

  ~~~~

  Over coffee the next morning—neither of them had the stomach for food—Carl looked at her sheepishly and said he thought he should spend time with his kids.

  “I hate leaving you alone,” he explained. “Even for a short while. But Adam and Lucy need me, too. They were pretty upset last night when I told them what had happened.”

  Grace nodded. Though part of her resisted, she understood. Carl’s kids had been part of Grace’s life for three years now, part of her household for over two. There were rough edges to being a stepparent, but there were soft spots as well. She knew they must be reeling from the news of Caitlin’s disappearance, and despite her own pain, her heart went out to them.

  “Should I come along?” she asked, mostly because it seemed the right thing to offer.

  Carl’s face softened. “I’d love it. But only if you want to.”

  The local paper had run the story about Caitlin’s disappearance on the front page, along with speculation about a predator in Paradise Falls preying on teenage girls. Grace knew that friends, curious acquaintances, and reporters would be calling the house throughout the day. She’d already talked to her closest friend, Sandy, who was organizing volunteers. The phone call, and the shared tears, had been therapeutic for Grace. But the others would be a burden, more than she could face right then.

  “I do want to,” Grace said. “I think it would be good for all of us to be together.”

  Carl finished the last of his coffee and rinsed the cup. “I’ll call over there in a bit and see what their plans are. I don’t want to wake them.”

  Grace felt a lump form in her throat. While Adam and Lucy were comfortably ensconced in dreamland, Caitlin was . . . where? Not comfortable and not safe. Possibly not even alive.

  “We might as well get that polygraph out of the way, anyway,” Carl said. “Having us take the test doesn’t make much sense, but I guess I can understand why the cops think it’s necessary.”

  “Why don’t you call the station and see if they can fit us in this morning.” At least then Grace would be doing something about her daughter’s disappearance.

  ~~~~

  Detective Godwin was out, presumably doing what it took to find Caitlin, but she’d made arrangements for the polygraph test. Grace went first, while Carl waited in the tiny reception area of the police station. A uniformed cop opened the wide door next to dispatch and led Grace to a room at the end of a short hallway. It was a small room, but not unpleasant, furnished with three straight-back chairs and a table. Inside, a heavyset, balding man was fiddling with a machine that reminded Grace of the EKG machine that had monitored her mother in the days following her heart attack.

  “I’m Sergeant Mo
ran.” He gestured to a chair next to the machine. “Have a seat.” When she’d settled in, he strapped a cuff to her arm.

  “You comfortable?” he asked. His tone was pleasant without being especially warm.

  Grace nodded.

  “I’d like you to answer my questions verbally, please.”

  “That was a test question?” When he didn’t respond, Grace said, “Yes, I’m comfortable.”

  “Tell me your full name.”

  “Grace Ann Whittington.”

  “How do you feel about being here today?”

  How did she feel? Like she’d been skinned alive. “My daughter is missing,” she said. “I’m worried sick.”

  “When did you last speak with her?”

  “Yesterday.” Grace cleared her throat. “Yesterday morning.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Yes.” The questions continued. Ask. Answer. It wasn’t so bad, Grace thought. They couldn’t possibly suspect her anyway. The test was just a formality.

  “Have you ever lied to get out of trouble?” Moran asked.

  The question threw her. Grace couldn’t actually come up with an occasion when she had, but she must have, right? Didn’t everybody lie at some point in their lives? And what did he mean to get out of trouble? It had to be a trick question.

  She hesitated, then mumbled, “No.”

  The examiner didn’t blink. Maybe no was the correct answer.

  “Are the lights on in this room?” he asked.

  “What?” Was this another trick question? Grace felt herself begin to sweat. “Yes, they are,” she replied.

  “What kind of relationship do you have with your daughter?”

  That caught her by surprise. It was the first question that struck Grace as being relevant, and there was no simple answer. “Overall, we get along very well. But she’s a teenager. There are times I have to say no. Times when she’s angry at me or I’m angry at her.” Grace swallowed. “She’s the most precious thing in this world to me. I think . . . I hope, she knows that.”

  “Is she open with you?” Moran asked, his eyes on the wiggles of the readout rather than Grace.

  “Open?”

  “Does she talk to you about her feelings? About what’s going on in her world?”

  “Yes.” Grace saw the arm of the machine jump. Had they caught her in a lie? “Usually,” Grace qualified. “But, like I said, she’s a teenager. She wants her privacy.”

  In fact, Caitlin had grown less open in the last couple of years. Since Grace’s remarriage. That was what happened as kids got older, wasn’t it? It wasn’t something that made Grace happy, but her friends told her it was normal.

  “Do you ever wish she hadn’t been born?”

  “My God, no.” Grace felt as if the wind had been knocked from her. “Never.”

  Moran took a moment to adjust the roll of paper in the machine. “What’s her relationship like with her father?”

  “Decent. He lives about fifty minutes away so he only sees her on occasional weekends.”

  “And her stepfather, your current husband?”

  “They get along very well. In many ways, she’s more like Carl than either Jake or me.”

  Moran gave her an encouraging smile. “We’re almost finished here.”

  “Okay.” Grace was beginning to feel pressure in her bladder. She needed to use the restroom. She probably needed a shower as well. Her underarms and chest were clammy with perspiration.

  “What was your daughter wearing the day she disappeared?”

  To her horror, Grace realized she didn’t know. But admitting that sounded wrong, like she wasn’t a very good mother. “Jeans,” she said, nodding her head to affirm what was only her best guess. Caitlin often wore jeans, so it wasn’t a complete stab in the dark. “I think she was wearing Jeans. And a T-shirt. Also, her red parka.” Caitlin had been wearing the parka as she left the house, Grace was sure of that.

  “Did you have anything to do with your daughter’s disappearance?”

  “No,” Grace said emphatically. At last, a question that was as clear-cut as it appeared. “Absolutely not.”

  ~~~~

  Lucy and Adam arrived half an hour after Grace and Carl returned home. Grace was watching from the front window as Adam pulled the car into the driveway. Both kids had house keys, yet they hesitated at the front door, and she realized they were unsure of expectations now that they were on uncharted territory. Caitlin was missing and they had no idea what that meant for the family.

  Grace saved them the awkwardness by greeting them at the door. “I saw you drive up.”

  Adam held back, looking at his feet. He was a gangly kid, not unlike his dad. Only Carl’s body had filled in and softened with age, whereas Adam was all angles. He tugged at the baggy cargo pants and fidgeted before raising his gaze to meet hers.

  Lucy hesitated only for a moment, then flew into Grace’s arms. “You must feel so terrible,” Lucy wailed, and started to cry.

  She was a bit on the chubby side, soft and cuddly like a downy puppy. Her body molded into the arc of Grace’s arms, and Grace felt the grip of her own panic recede, if only for a moment.

  Chapter 6

  Detective Rayna Godwin set the brake and turned off the car’s engine. She pressed a palm to her forehead where she felt pressure building.

  She was tired. She hadn’t slept well, her mind racing with worry about Caitlin Whittington’s disappearance and her own culpability in failing to find the monster who’d taken Karen Holiday. If he’d struck again . . .

  The prospect made Rayna’s stomach turn. She closed her eyes to stop the thoughts.

  Blaming herself wasn’t going to do any good. There was no saying the cases were even related. Caitlin Whittington was her focus right now. Find the girl, assuming she was still alive. Track down her killer if she wasn’t.

  Either way, the answer was lodged somewhere in Caitlin’s life—friends, family, and associates —or at the juncture where her life intersected Karen Holiday’s. Two very different scenarios, but in terms of investigational ground, there was a lot of overlap. It meant Rayna would need to be vigilant about keeping an open mind.

  The dull pressure in Rayna’s skull was turning into a full-blown headache. She reached into the glove compartment for the Motrin and popped two with the dregs of yesterday’s bottled water.

  Too bad today was Saturday. It was much easier to talk to kids on campus, even under the watchful eyes of the school administration, than to track them down at home. Half the time when she showed up at a kid’s house, the parents went ballistic. Cooperation was a rare thing. Too many cop and lawyer shows on television. Or maybe parents didn’t really trust what they knew about their children. But Rayna couldn’t afford to wait until Monday. She ran her fingers through the feathery wisps that had curled so nicely at the hairdresser’s but never since, then climbed out of her car and headed up the walkway to the Cross residence.

  She didn’t recall interviewing Ty Cross during the Karen Holiday investigation, and doubted she’d be able to pick him out of a crowd, but she knew the name. Ty was captain of the school’s winning football team as well as an ace hitter for the less successful baseball team. He was one of those kids whose name everyone knew, even if they’d never met the boy. Rayna had heard his name bantered around the station, too, but again it had been third-hand. Ty had been picked up once for reckless driving, and while there was some talk of open beer cans having been tossed from the car before it was pulled over, Ty’s reputation as a local sports hero, along with pressure from his politically connected father, had led to charges being dismissed. Rayna recalled several other incidents as well, but none had been serious enough to warrant a detective’s involvement.

  The Cross home was in one of the better neighborhoods of Paradise Falls. It stood on a small knoll with a view of the raging river in the distance. A sprawling single-story house with an abundance of brick work and carefully manicured landscaping. Rayna faced the carved,
double-entry door and rang the bell.

  The woman who answered wore gray wool slacks and what Rayna guessed was a cashmere sweater. The sort of outfit Rayna might wear for a special luncheon date but certainly not around the house on a Saturday morning. Not if she had any hopes of saving the outfit from a trip to the cleaners.

  “Mrs. Cross?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Godwin of the Paradise Falls Police Department.” Rayna flashed her ID. “I’d like to speak to Ty.”

  “Is something wrong?” Mrs. Cross’s mouth twitched but her face remained expressionless.

  Botox or too much Valium? “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” Rayna said. “Caitlin Whittington is missing.”

  “Yes, it was in this morning’s paper. Has there been a new development?”

  “No, nothing yet.”

  A man appeared from somewhere inside and stepped in front of Mrs. Cross. “George,” she said, addressing him, “this is Detective Godwin. She’s looking for Ty.”

  “He’s not home.” George Cross had a broad forehead and strong chin. His tone was curt.

  “Where might I find him?” Rayna asked.

  “What do you want with him?”

  “It’s about Caitlin Whittington.”

  “That’s over. He knows nothing about her being missing.” Cross stepped back as if preparing to shut the door.

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “He didn’t have to tell me. I know my son.”

  “I’d like to ask him myself.”

  “Ty’s upset enough already. Maybe he and Caitlin weren’t together anymore, but he dated her for six months.” Cross softened some. “This is hard on him.”

  “I understand that. I’m hoping he can give me some insights.”

  “Insights?”

  “About her routines and habits and the like.”