“You’re thinking maybe he picked her up from school?” Stoval added Romeo to his list.
“Possibly, except everyone seems to agree that Caitlin is a mature and level-headed girl.”
“Means nothing,” Cody said. “I’ve seen teens, especially girls, who managed to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes before. I’ve also seen mature adults make horribly bad decisions. I say this Romeo is worth pursuing.”
Rayna shifted in her chair. “We also need to keep looking at Ty Cross and Rob Hardy. There’s something there that doesn’t add up.”
“Hardy’s a bit of a nerd, is all,” Fritz said.
“Those are the kind you need to keep an eye on sometimes,” Hank said, with a quick glance at Cliff Leavitt. Rayna wondered if Hank was even aware of what he’d done.
“Cross is the boyfriend, right?” Stoval asked. “His father’s paid me a couple of visits.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Rayna corrected. “And Rob is a family friend of the Crosses. He and Caitlin had a discussion of sorts where Caitlin ended up in tears. Ty claims he only knows Rob because of the families, but Rob makes it sound like they are close friends.”
Two more names added to the big board.
“Any point of overlap between the two missing girls?” Stoval asked.
“Social networking and school. That seems to be about it. Different types of girls, different classes, different crowds.”
The chief turned to his chart and drew a big X through the information. “No real suspects, no leads, no new developments, no plan of attack.” He twirled the pen in his hand. “Not acceptable, folks. We’ve got two missing girls, most likely dead. And nothing to show for our efforts. It’s a disaster. People move to Paradise Falls because they want a safe place to raise their families. They want a police force that protects them.” His face reddened as he stabbed the chart with his pen. “I hope I’ve made myself clear.”
Another stab of the pen and he left the room.
“Jesus,” Fritz mumbled. “Does the guy want us to pull a rabbit out of a hat?”
“I realize you guys are putting in long, demanding days on this,” Rayna said, wanting to soften the chief’s harsh reproach. “It’s hard not to feel discouraged. But diligent work will pay off in the end.”
The meeting broke up. As Rayna gathered her notes, she heard Cody say, “You feel like grabbing a beer or something after work?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Caught off guard, Rayna blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I have plans to go out with Hank.”
She hadn’t seen Hank behind her, and she heard the surprise in his voice when he said, “Yeah, it’s kind of a private thing or we’d ask you to join us. Come on Rayna, I’ll walk you to your desk.”
As they neared their alcove, Hank said, “I’m tied up tonight, Rayna. Bowling, with Earl.”
Earl’s name had come up frequently in recent months. He was part of Hank’s circle of lonely male pals. The men spent evenings bowling or playing pool or simply drinking beer. Earl also fished, which especially endeared him to Hank.
“That’s okay. I needed an excuse. Sorry to put you in a bad spot like that, but thanks for covering it.”
“Cody seems like a nice enough guy. Maybe you ought to give him a chance.”
“It’s complicated,” Rayna said. “And personal.”
“Look, why don’t you come with me and meet Earl. He’s interested in you.”
“That’s absurd. He’s never even met me.”
“Guess he’s heard me talk about you. Probably saw you on TV, too. He’s a nice guy, Rayna. A widower. His wife and kid died in some horrible accident a while back. I think you’d like him.”
“I appreciate your looking out for me, Hank. But I’m really not interested in dating, or even meeting men.”
“I figured you’d say something like that, but I thought I’d give it a shot. You need to get out more. And Earl does seem interested.”
Rayna shook her head in befuddled amusement. Hank was a golly-gee kind of guy without a lot of sophistication, but he had a good heart and good cop skills. As irritating as he could be at times, she counted herself lucky to have him as a partner.
~~~~
At six o’clock Rayna decided to head home. She stuffed the reports she still wanted to read into a manila folder. Outside, the sky was inky black and rain had begun to fall. She’d finish her reading at home, curled up on the couch.
As she left the building, she crossed paths with Neal Cody.
“What happened to your plans with Hank?” he asked.
“He forgot he had a conflict.”
“Offer’s still open. A night like this, some pleasant company might be nice.”
She wasn’t sure if he was talking about himself or her, but either way, she realized he was right. It was a miserable night following a miserable day.
What the heck, nothing was waiting for her at home but more of the same. “Okay,” she said.
On Rayna’s recommendation they headed to Logger’s Loop, a popular and noisy tavern near the station. They managed to snag one of the few tables. It was near a wall, which she remembered was Neal Cody’s preferred location.
“I don’t suppose they make a fine martini here,” he said, taking in the boisterous, mostly blue-collar crowd.
“Not even a fine wine. I’d suggest you stick with beer.”
He went to the bar and returned a few minutes later with two bottles of Pacifico, along with a dish of nuts and pretzels.
“This the local cop hangout?” he asked, sliding into his seat.
“Cop and everyone else. Options are limited in Paradise Falls. If you’re willing to include seedy, you have a somewhat wider choice.”
He laughed. “You like living here?”
“It has its pluses and minuses.” She actually liked the town, and the job, more than she’d expected. At the time she’d moved here, her focus had been more on leaving the bad memories.
Hooting erupted from a raucous game of darts near the bar, and Cody turned to look. “People seem to be enjoying themselves.” He turned back to her, picked up his beer, and clinked her bottle in a toast. “Is the chief as much of an asshole as he seems?”
“He’s all right, really. I think he’s just feeling the heat.”
“Like you.” Cody watched for a moment in silence. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m doing just fine, thank you.” She bristled inside. “Did you think I might not be up to the job?”
“I don’t have any doubts about your abilities, but I know it’s got to be hard on you personally.”
“It’s a hard job.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me.” Cody’s voice softened. “I know you, Rayna, remember?”
She glowered. “You think you know me. But you don’t know shit.”
“You’re angry with me.” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“I don’t care enough about you to feel anger. Or anything else.”
He wrapped both hands around his beer bottle and studied it in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry, Rayna,” he said, looking into her eyes. “More sorry than you can imagine.”
She looked away. “I’m not interested in apologies.”
“I can see how you might feel I was thinking only of myself, but that’s not the way I saw it at the time.”
“Oh, please. It’s been years.”
“And I’ve kicked myself ever since. I hurt you, and for that I’m sorry. But I hurt myself, too. I loused up something that was good and I regret that.”
“You never called after your divorce.” Rayna hated herself for sounding so pathetic.
“I was embarrassed and ashamed. For misleading you. For leaving you.”
“For using me.”
“I didn’t use you. Please, you have to believe that.” Cody leaned forward. “What I felt for you was real.”
Rayna shook her head in disgust.
“I couldn’t do anything about Kimberly, and that’s another way I failed. I wanted so much to bring you some answers. I haven’t stopped trying.”
Rayna’s throat grew tight. “Spare me,” she said, looking away. “I don’t need this crap from you.”
“It’s not crap.”
“You want to make nice? Find Caitlin. And the creep who’s terrorizing Paradise Falls.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “I’ve got to head home.”
“Can’t we work together like civil adults?”
“I am being civil. I’ve got a big day ahead.” She grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair and headed for the door without a backward glance. She was afraid if she hesitated, even for a moment, she’d never make it to her car.
~~~~
It was a night of exhausting dreams and broken sleep. Rayna woke to her alarm, turned it off, and closed her eyes again. Half an hour later, she bolted out of bed, cursing herself for the late start. She scanned the newspaper over a quick cup of coffee. Caitlin’s disappearance was no longer front-page news, but the discovery of her backpack warranted a short article on page three. She was halfway to the sink to rinse her coffee cup when she reached the back section. Seth Robbins’s column stopped her cold.
Lead detective in missing girls cases no stranger to tragedy.
There, in black and white, Robbins had laid out her entire past. Her husband’s death. Kimberly’s disappearance, recounted in agonizing detail, along with quotes from Rayna and a five-year-old photograph of her tear-stained face. The discovery of Kimberly’s body, the leads that went nowhere. A case gone cold. Robbins concluded by asking if the ineffective investigation of the Paradise Falls disappearances might not be clouded by the detective’s personal and emotional blinders.
To the casual reader, it might appear that Robbins was offering a sympathetic analysis. Rayna knew better.
But what hit her like a cannonball to the gut was the nagging question of Robbins’s source. Who’d told him about her past? Grace? Cody? The chief? They were the only people in town who knew. Of course, Robbins, being a reporter of sorts, could have taken it upon himself to dig for information. Still, she felt betrayed. As well as ripped raw.
She was so intensely occupied with the column that her phone’s ringing didn’t register at first.
She answered, still distracted. It was Chief Stoval.
“Better get down here right away,” he said. “We just got a report of a body. Couple of hikers stumbled on it when they got off the trail a bit. Looks like it’s a young girl.”
Chapter 21
Grace had volunteered to type out a draft of the science report she and Lucy had worked on last night. The gesture was wholly out of character for her. Grace believed that teenagers needed to take responsibility for their own work. Normally she limited herself to offering an explanation and maybe a suggestion or two (not that Caitlin had asked for either in a long time), but these were hardly normal times.
She settled at the computer with a fresh cup of coffee and began typing. Outside, the day was overcast and dreary. The rain and wind from the night before had given way to an icy drizzle. Grace was glad to be inside, and grateful to have a mindless task to keep her occupied.
She heard the mailman drop the day’s mail through the slot, and as soon as she finished the report she picked it up. She set aside a couple of envelopes she knew would be notes of sympathy and support from friends. It was an effort to read them. Junk advertising, a few bills, and a Seventeen of Caitlin’s. Grace took the magazine to Cailtin’s room and set it on her desk, next to the package from Amazon that had arrived the day before.
Caitlin’s purchases from Amazon were mostly CDs and DVDs. Grace wasn’t strong enough to face the rush of emotion she was sure would come if she opened Caitlin’s order. The memory of her daughter’s soft voice singing along with whatever song she was listening to, something Caitlin regularly did with heartwarming abandon, was painful enough. Besides, Grace had always prided herself on respecting her daughter’s privacy.
And then, as though the ground had shifted beneath her feet, Grace again came face to face with the dizzying certainty that Caitlin was never coming home. She would never know if Grace had opened her mail or not.
Heaviness tugged at Grace’s heart. She missed Caitlin so much, loved her so fiercely, the anguish was almost unbearable. She longed to keep her daughter close in whatever way she could. Grace picked the box up, shook it gently, and then looked more closely. It was a standard Amazon box, but the address label was handwritten. And there was no return address. Not an Amazon order after all.
With a newfound sense of urgency, Grace found scissors and cut the sealing tape. Inside, surrounded by plastic peanuts, was a square package wrapped in purple tissue paper and tied with a gold ribbon. Purple, Caitlin’s favorite color. There was no accompanying card. Grace debated, gave in to the pressing need to know, and ripped through the wrapping.
It was a web cam, factory sealed. Grace knew a number of people who had them. Adam had one on his computer at home. Caitlin had showed Grace the slightly fish-eyed view of Adam waving at her during an Instant Message exchange. And Grace knew a woman at work who had installed one in order to check on the nanny. It wasn’t the camera that struck Grace as odd but the fact that it was a gift. From whom? And why? Caitlin’s birthday wasn’t until July. Grace again checked for a card, then examined the postmark. She couldn’t make out the town but it was definitely Oregon. One of Caitlin’s friends? Ty, maybe? Or maybe the older guy Caitlin might or might not have been interested in.
When the doorbell rang, Grace put the camera aside, mentally rehearsing how she’d explain the opened package to Caitlin. Then she caught herself. Explaining would be a blessing. It would mean Caitlin had come home.
Grace opened the door to Sandy, who greeted her with a soup pot. “It’s homemade minestrone,” Sandy said. “The weather is so awful, I thought soup might fit the bill.”
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Grace said, taking the container from her friend’s hands and heading for the kitchen. “You have your own family to take care of.”
Sandy followed. “I want to do it. I have to do something. Just reheat it when you’re ready.”
“Thank you. I’m really grateful, not just about the food, but for your friendship.”
“Where would we be without friends? You’ve certainly done a lot for me.”
Grace put the soup in the fridge. “You want some coffee?”
“Sorry, I can’t stay. Zack has an orthodontist appointment. I’m on my way to the school to pick him up.”
The simple, everyday acts of mothering that were no longer a part of Grace’s life. She experienced an unexpected surge of sorrow.
“I might be able to come back later this afternoon,” Sandy hastened to add. “If you’d like company.”
“No, I’m fine.” Grace leaned back against the cool tile counter.
“You don’t sound fine.”
Grace swallowed hard. “They found Caitlin’s backpack yesterday. It was in a Dumpster at the mall. That’s where Karen Holiday’s purse was found, too. I think it’s a bad sign.”
“Oh, Grace.” Sandy embraced her in a hug. “It might not mean anything. You can’t let your fear take over.”
Grace could recall numerous times when she’d done just that. The time Caitlin got lost in the crowds at Disneyland when she was five. The time she’d been hospitalized with meningitis, and more recently, the night she’d been over an hour late coming home from a date with Ty, who was driving. The first niggle of worry had exploded into full-blown panic. Every time, Caitlin had been okay, but this was different.
“You sure you don’t want me to come back later?” Sandy asked.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t let me keep you. I know you need to get going.”
Grace walked Sandy onto the porch. In the distance, she could hear the pulsating thrum of a helicopter circling overhead.
“Thanks for
the soup.”
“My pleasure.” Sandy gave Grace a final hug. “Don’t put too much stock in finding the backpack at the mall.”
“That’s what Carl says.”
“Well, he’s right. As usual. You’ve got a good one there, Grace.”
“He is, I agree.”
Sandy made a dash to her car through the rain. Grace waved goodbye and glanced up at the sky, annoyed. There ought be a law against those things!
Inside the house, the thumping of the helicopter continued to aggravate her. It was circling a mile or two in the distance, now joined by a second chopper.
A moment later it hit her.
Had they found Caitlin?
Heart racing, Grace flipped the radio on to the local news talk station and caught the wrap-up of a newscast.
“Again, for those of you just joining us, there’s late-breaking news that a body, possibly one of the two missing girls, has been found in the mountains west of town.”
Grace felt her stomach drop.
A Body.
No. Please, no.
She frantically searched the stations, enduring commercials, snatches of discordant music, and lame discussions on both ends of the political spectrum. Nothing more about the grisly discovery in the mountains.
She called the radio station where she’d caught the news, but the lines were apparently jammed. She sat through one round of “Your call is important to us, please stay on the line” before hanging up and racing to the computer to check the station’s web site. There, under the news heading, in smaller print than a teaser for most popular video downloads, was a short blurb. Police were on the scene investigating the discovery of a body in an isolated area used for logging operations. Although authorities were remaining tight-lipped, sources close to the investigation had indicated that the body was that of a young woman, possibly one of the two missing girls from Paradise Falls.
Grace’s head pounded and her chest tightened. Caitlin or Karen? Did she really want the answer? Was it better to know for sure or to hold out hope?
With a shaking hand, she called Carl, although knew he was in class and would have his phone turned off. When the ringing rolled over into voicemail she hung up without leaving a message and dialed Jake. She had to talk to someone.
Paradise Falls Page 13
