“Working on it. Seems a private citizen stopped and changed the tire for her. I followed up more generally, too. Doesn’t appear to be any animosity between Grace Whittington and her ex over the divorce or the re-pairing. Jake Whittington is well-liked, both by the people who knew him here in Paradise Falls and his partners in Portland. He appears to be a straight arrow.”
“I’d still like to see them take the polygraph.”
Hank nodded. “No recent activity on Caitlin’s ATM card, by the way.”
Cliff Leavitt, their new IT guy, pushed his considerable bulk back from the computer he’d been working on three desks down and shuffled to the supply closet at the back of the room.
“That guy gives me the creeps,” Hank said, lowering his voice. “He never says a word. Never smiles. I’m not sure the muscles in his face even move.”
“Maybe he’s intimidated by you.”
Hank’s gaze followed Leavitt. “Somehow I doubt it.” He turned back to Rayna, who’d perched on the corner of her desk. “Fritz is still out at the school. He was going to follow up with Rob Hardy and a couple of others.”
“Good.” Rayna and Fritz Burns had been at the high school this morning to talk with teachers and students. Rayna had come away with the feeling that Caitlin was considered friendly enough but that she kept to herself and wasn’t really close to anyone except Fern Daniels, who’d moved away over the summer.
Rayna knew what it was like to be outside the loop in high school, only in her case her friends hadn’t left, she had. Every year her father’s job took them to a new location, and Rayna ended up at a new school. At least Caitlin had had a boyfriend, which is more than could be said for Rayna. Her late husband, Marc, had been her first boyfriend and one true love. She’d thought his death was the worst thing that could happen to her, until she’d lost Kimberly.
The door opened and Hank looked up. “Speak of the devil.”
Fritz grinned. “So what were you saying about me?” Fritz was young, and a bit too cocky. He was good looking and knew it. Six feet of masculine, blond, eye candy. But Rayna had no idea what was on the inside. He’d started with the department in September, a month before Karen Holiday went missing, and Rayna still felt she didn’t have a sense of the man.
“Were you able to talk to Rob Hardy?” she asked Fritz.
“Yeah. A bit of an oddball, if you ask me.”
“How so?” She’d seen her share of Goths and geeks and heavily pierced or tattooed kids at school that morning.
Fritz shrugged. “Just a feeling I got. Nothing specific.” He slid into the chair at his desk, then rolled it closer to them. “Man, some of those high school girls are babes. You shoulda been there, Hank.”
“About Rob,” Rayna reminded him.
Fritz winked in Hank’s direction and turned to Rayna. “When I asked him about the scene with Caitlin, he tried to brush it off, like he couldn’t remember. But when I pushed him, presto, his memory snapped into sharp focus.” Fritz smiled as though he’d said something clever. “He says Ty was the one who broke up with Caitlin, not the other way around. She tried to get Rob to intercede. That’s what the big scene at school was about.”
Rayna frowned. “Why would she go to Rob? Aren’t there guys Ty’s tighter with than him?” Ty had told her he and Rob were only friends because their families were friends.
“I’m telling you what the kid told me. I didn’t get a sense there was anything between him and Caitlin, though. She was kind of a non-issue as far as he’s concerned. Nothing anyone else said indicated otherwise. As for Friday afternoon, he says he was home messing around on the computer. In fact, he and Ty were playing some on-line virtual reality game.” Fritz must have seen Rayna frown. “Real time,” he explained. “On the computer.”
“I know about on-line gaming. It’s just that Ty told me he saw Caitlin at volleyball practice about the same time, so he couldn’t have been on the computer.”
Hank pressed his palms together. “We might be able to get a record of the exchange if it’s important,” he said. “But we’d have to get a warrant, and even then I’m not sure what we’d find.”
“Probably not worth it,” Rayna agreed. But there was something about the threesome—Caitlin, Rob, and Ty—that didn’t sit right in her mind.
“Doesn’t look like we’re going to get this wrapped up in time to fend off FBI involvement,” Hank said.
Rayna pushed herself off the desk. “I’m not giving up.”
“You’ve got”—Hank checked his watch— “less than twenty-four hours.”
“The Feds show up tomorrow? Where did you hear that?”
“From Stoval, less than half an hour ago.”
While Rayna was holding a press conference. An end run. The chief knew she wasn’t happy about bringing in the FBI so he’d announced their arrival when she wasn’t around. Rayna felt a flash of anger and tried to brush it aside. Petty political power plays annoyed her. But worse, they were distracting. Better to focus on getting the job done.
The phone on Rayna’s desk rang and she picked it up. “Detective Godwin.”
“You are not, I repeat, not, to talk to my son again unless both my attorney and I are present.”
“Who is this?” she asked, although she had the feeling she knew.
“George Cross. This is twice now you’ve interrogated Ty, who is a minor in case you’ve forgotten, without a parent present.”
“I didn’t interrogate him, Mr. Cross. He and I spoke Saturday and again today at school where we interviewed a number of students.”
“I don’t give a damn what you call it. You go through me from now on. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly.” Rayna paused. “Since you feel that way, why don’t you both come down to the station tomorrow.”
“What?”
“It shouldn’t take long.”
So much for ignoring power plays. But it felt good, and she did want to clarify Ty and Rob’s stories.
~~~~
It was close to nine o’clock when Rayna arrived home. The small, single-story bungalow was dark and cold. Not worth turning on the heat, she decided. She’d be in bed in an hour. She thought of making a cup of hot tea but opted for a cold beer instead. Sections of the morning paper were still scattered on the kitchen counter where she’d left them. Seth Robbins’s column, with its insipid accompanying photo, mocked her.
“How does a teenage girl simply vanish into thin air?” Robbins had asked. “Twice now in less than a year, right here in Paradise Falls. How many more girls will disappear before the monster responsible for these depraved acts is caught? It’s time to ask ourselves if our local cops, with their fat benefit and pension plans, are doing all they can. Don’t we deserve that much?”
Rayna tossed the paper into the recycle bin in disgust. Did he think the detectives were sitting idly by twiddling their thumbs?
The message light on her answering machine blinked. Rayna hit play.
Two hang ups, and then Paul: “Nothing important. I saw you on the news and thought I’d say hi. Guess you must be pretty busy with the latest disappearance, but give me a call if you want to get together for dinner sometime.”
Paul Nesbitt was a nice man. A county prosecutor she’d met not long after she’d moved to Paradise Falls. It wasn’t his fault that Rayna wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship. Not with him or anyone else. She’d been there, done that. She and Paul had dated for a couple of months last fall, nothing serious, and he claimed to have understood when she explained that it had nothing to do with him, it was her. He still called, and occasionally she succumbed to the lure of male companionship and went out with him. But it wasn’t, and never would be, anything serious.
She took her beer into the den. On the bookcase by the window, Anastasia was curled up in the soft wood shavings at the bottom of her cage. As always, Rayna experienced a momentary fear that she’d discover the hamster had died. She knew it would happen at some point. No creature
lived forever.
Rayna set the beer down on her desk and reached into the cage for the soft, warm, golden ball of fluff. She pulled the hamster out and cradled it in her hands. Anastasia had been Kimberly’s hamster, a gift from her dad when he was going through chemo. The three of them—father, daughter, and hamster —were an instant team. One of Rayna’s favorite snapshots was of Marc and Kimberly together on the old family room sofa, with Anastasia proudly displayed front and center. Marc had died six months later, Kimberly less than a year after that. Only Anastasia remained. Tears stung Rayna’s eyes. How could a stupid little rodent be such a powerful reminder of all she’d lost?
Rayna returned Anastasia to her cage and filled her food dish. She brushed her tears away. She was tired, that’s all. Tired and worried. She had a killer to deal with. Or at the very least, a kidnapper. Not to mention the FBI. She couldn’t let herself be distracted by her own problems.
Chapter 12
Out of habit, Grace washed her face with the special non-drying cleanser the saleswoman at Macy’s had told her helped eliminate wrinkles, then smoothed the peach-scented night cream over her face, careful to avoid getting it in her eyes. But she was only going through the motions. Her mind and heart were being held captive far away in a dark and frightening place.
Caitlin had been missing now for seventy-six long, awful hours.
The last thing Grace cared about was the state of her skin. She felt silly—ashamed and guilty even—going about her regular routine. The once familiar habits felt as alien to her as if she’d suddenly found herself in a stranger’s body. Yet she clung to her nightly ritual because to abandon it would bring her face to face with chaos.
How odd, she thought, to live in parallel worlds simultaneously.
At the sink to her left, Carl brushed his teeth, splattering the mirror and dribbling toothpaste onto the faucet, as usual. Tonight, his carelessness irritated her.
“Can’t you brush your teeth without making a mess?” Her tone was caustic, surprising her with its sharpness.
Carl looked hurt. “Apparently not to your standards.”
His response irritated her further. “Your standards might be higher if you were the one cleaning the bathroom,” she snapped.
“What put you in such a foul mood?”
Grace was dumbfounded. Had he forgotten about Caitlin? What kind of mood did he expect her to be in? Anger boiled in her veins. How could he be so obtuse? So callous.
“My daughter has disappeared,” she said. “Or have you forgotten? Did you think I’d be feeling upbeat?”
This was what really bugged her, she realized. Her daughter was missing and Carl’s life hadn’t come to a screeching halt.
Over dinner, she’d told him about her visit with Karen Holiday’s mother, tried to explain how she’d totally lost it at work. Carl’s responses were appropriately sympathetic, but she knew him well enough to know that he’d been only half there. As soon as they’d finished eating, he’d headed for the television to watch a basketball playoff. He’d been distracted by thoughts of the game all along.
Carl wiped his mouth, then toweled down the faucet. “I’m sorry, Grace. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“But you did say it.” Grace felt the sting of tears. “It was cruel and heartless. It was so . . . so uncaring.”
“I do care, honey. I care very much. I thought you knew that. I’m worried sick, and I’m trying my damnedest to be supportive and reassuring. To give you what you need. I just never—”
“I know you are,” Grace said, feeling suddenly deflated. “But sometimes I think your heart isn’t in it.”
“How can you say that? It’s not true!”
Grace shook her head. “You’re worried, yeah. But mostly you don’t want me moping around and being upset.”
“Of course I don’t want you to be upset.” Carl put his arms around her and pulled Grace close. “But I am worried about Caitlin. You must know how much I care about her. I’m worried and sick and scared. Just as I would be if Adam or Lucy were missing.”
No, Grace thought, it wasn’t quite the same. But the anger was no longer exploding inside her. She could hardly fault Carl for being more invested in his own children than hers. She knew that if the situation were reversed, her concern for Lucy wouldn’t match his. And if it was Adam . . . well, to be honest, she’d have to dig a bit deeper to find a reservoir of compassion.
“I hate not being able to do anything,” Carl said. “I feel helpless. And maybe that makes me seem less there. But I do care, Grace.”
As he smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, Grace felt her anger fully dissipate. Carl was a good man. A loving husband who embraced Caitlin as his own. Why was she turning on him?
She stepped back and kissed his mouth, which was fresh with the minty taste of toothpaste. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” she offered. “It’s just that I’m so afraid, I feel I’m about to erupt.”
“You can lean on me, Grace. Let me help you. I’m here for you. Always.”
Grace decided this was not a good time to tell him she didn’t want Adam and Lucy staying at the house this upcoming week.
Chapter 13
The next morning, Grace remained in bed until almost ten, long after Carl had left for work. Sleep was beyond her—had been for much of the night—but throwing back the covers to face the day took will and energy, and Grace had neither. That didn’t stop her mind from reeling, however, and what finally propelled her from the soft warmth of her cocoon was the hope that movement might somehow silence the agonizing scenarios that played relentlessly in her head.
Caitlin hurt and scared. Caitlin alone and lost. Caitlin tethered to a stake in some dark, dank basement. Or locked in an airless box.
Caitlin suffering from unimaginable torture.
Caitlin dead.
Grace shuffled unsteadily into the bathroom where she splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. She noticed that Carl had gone out of his way to wipe down the bathroom counter and faucet, and she experienced a moment of guilt over her outburst last night. It wasn’t fair to take her anxieties and fears out on him. It really wasn’t. Carl was a kind, generous, and loving man. He cared about her deeply. But at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling an edge of resentment that his kids were alive and safe.
In the kitchen, Grace poured a cup of lukewarm coffee from the pot that Carl had made earlier, then perused the morning paper without actually reading it. She did read the news story about Caitlin, however, dismayed to find that her daughter’s disappearance was no longer front-page news. And she read the editorial piece by Seth Robbins, which was, as usual, critical of police efforts. Part of her was grateful that he seemed to share her frustration with the lack of progress, but she thought he also delighted in being inflammatory. She was willing to bet he was more interested in stirring things up than in finding Caitlin. Grace had never met the man in person, but she’d seen the photo that ran with his column so often that his narrow face, bushy brows, and silly little goatee were as familiar as though he lived next door.
Stuffing the newspaper into the recycle bin, she experienced a moment of déjà vu. She shook her head to clear it.
Then she remembered. Caitlin and Adam one morning last fall, soon after Karen Holiday had disappeared. Grace had been gathering the morning paper for the recycle bin when Adam reached for the front section.
“Don’t toss this yet,” he said. “There’s a story I want to reread.”
“Karen Holiday, I bet,” Caitlin taunted. “You’re like a ghoul.”
“I’m interested. It’s creepy and fascinating at the same time.”
“Like I said, a ghoul.” But her tone was more playful than contemptuous. Then she’d turned serious. “Do you think she’s dead?”
Adam shrugged. “Might be better than some of the alternatives.”
Grace had silently agreed with Adam. Now she wasn’t so sure.
~~~~
Grace spent t
he next hour on the Internet reading every story she could dig up about Karen Holiday’s disappearance. None of it was new, and none of it brought Grace any closer to understanding what might have happened to Caitlin. The two girls were nothing alike. Caitlin was dark and athletic, Karen blonde and curvy. Different grade levels, different circles. The circumstances surrounding their disappearances weren’t similar, either. Was Seth Robbins barking up the wrong tree with his ranting about serial killers?
Still, two girls from the same school in less than six months. Both gone without a trace. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Although she knew the police had been down this path before, Grace checked the list of locally registered sex offenders. There were more than Grace expected. Most, surprisingly normal in appearance. A white-haired, fatherly looking man, an attractive Latino who appeared to be in his thirties, a toned and clean-shaven man with closely cropped hair who would have looked at home in the hallways of any corporation in America.
Which might very well be the case. That thought brought Grace up short.
But it was nothing like the shock she received when she scrolled further down the page.
“Oh, my God!” Her hands flew to her mouth. It was the middle-aged mechanic at the shop where she took her car to be serviced. At least, it looked like him. The same straight, lank hair and gap-toothed smile. Lance Richter, according to the name under his photo.
The man had always been friendly and helpful, certainly not someone you’d be on your guard around. Thinking back, she tried to recall if there were red flags she should have picked up on. Nothing came to mind. But seeing his photo there on the screen along with a list of his offenses sent a nerve-jarring chill down her spine. Lewd or lascivious acts with a child under fourteen. Sodomy with a person by force. Oral copulation with a child of fifteen. Grace felt her skin itch. Had Caitlin ever gone with her to get the car fixed? She couldn’t remember, though it was certainly a possibility. She wondered if Beth Holiday used the same mechanic.
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