Paradise Falls

by Jacobs, Jonnie

“Stay in touch,” she said.

  He looked surprised. “You mean that?”

  She’d spoken without really thinking, but now she nodded. Maybe she hadn’t resisted temptation entirely. That didn’t mean she was ready to succumb to it, but she didn’t want Neal Cody to disappear from her life forever.

  At the door he hesitated and Rayna wondered what she’d do if he tried to kiss her. She needn’t have worried. He smiled, let his gaze linger for a moment, and then trotted down the steps and into the night.

  Exhausted, she decided to forget both the book and DVD and head for bed. As she slid between the sheets, she remembered the phone call she’d received during her bath. She hit play on the machine.

  “Hello, Rayna.” The voice sounded male, although it was difficult to be sure. The caller spoke slowly, drawing out each syllable. “Have you been enjoying your fifteen minutes in the spotlight? It’s not over. In fact, the fun has just begun.”

  Chapter 29

  Grace sat motionless on the living room sofa, as she had all afternoon, waiting for the sound of Carl’s car pulling into the driveway. She was half afraid he would storm past without acknowledging her. Half afraid he’d confront her with his fists, although Carl was in no way a violent man. But he’d been so upset with her, so furious over Adam’s arrest, she no longer knew what he was capable of doing.

  Last night had been a long, horrible night on the heels of an equally horrendous weekend. Carl had gone to the police station immediately after getting Adam’s call, but they hadn’t let him see his son. He hadn’t returned home until after eight. Hadn’t even called until Grace, who, frantic to know where Carl had gone and frazzled from dealing with an overwrought Lucy, had phoned his cell so often he finally answered. Not then, and only with some difficulty once he’d arrived home, had Grace been able to pull the details from him.

  Adam was under arrest, in jail. If convicted, he might be there for the rest of his life.

  Through the recommendation of one of the secretaries at the college, whose own son had a history of legal missteps, Carl had been able to locate an attorney to take on Adam’s case. The attorney, a man by the name of Norm Sandman, didn’t seem particularly interested in Adam’s guilt or innocence, Carl told her. Didn’t seem particularly empathetic to Adam’s plight, either. But the secretary had told Carl that Sandman was a good attorney, and what other choice did he have?

  Carl had no idea how his son was holding up. Mimi, however, was hysterical. And again, it was all Grace’s fault.

  She had lain awake all night, alone in the large king-size bed while Carl slept downstairs in the den.

  A single refrain pounded in her brain—what had she done? It wasn’t so much a question she asked intellectually—she understood why she’d done it and knew that if she had it to do over again, she’d do the same thing. But emotionally, the question reverberated without end. I’ve destroyed my marriage, Grace thought. I’ve betrayed Carl. Betrayed Adam. I’ve lost everything that matters to me. And to what end?

  What if she was wrong? What if Adam had nothing to do with Caitlin’s disappearance? What if she’d started this free-fall calamity for no reason? Grace’s stomach turned. No, she couldn’t let herself think that.

  Carl had returned to the jail early this morning for some sort of meeting with Sandman and the DA. It was now late afternoon and she’d been sitting on the sofa, waiting for his return, since the moment he’d driven off.

  She had visions of a trial. Carl and Mimi and Lucy on one side of the courtroom, herself alone on the other. No, not alone. Jake would be there. And Starr. But that image brought Grace little comfort.

  What have I done?, she asked herself for the hundredth time. What in God’s name have I done?

  ~~~~

  When Grace heard Carl’s car in the driveway, she panicked. She wanted to know what had happened at the jail. She wanted Carl’s arms around her, and yet she feared facing him. She felt she might shatter under the force of his anger.

  Carl blew through the door like an icy gale. He went straight to his end of the sofa, where he dropped down without saying a word, without so much as glancing in her direction. He had the weary, dazed look she’d seen on the faces of people who survived major catastrophes. She wanted to reach out and touch him but she didn’t dare.

  “What happened?” she finally asked.

  Carl pulled air into his lungs with heavy, labored breaths, then said, “They released him. For the time being. Into Mimi’s custody.” He turned to Grace. “They didn’t consider releasing him to me because of you.”

  How was she supposed to respond to that? I’m sorry didn’t quite cut it. Besides, she wasn’t. “So he’s free?”

  “They decided not to charge him right now, but that’s not the same as free. Sandman explained that several times. It’s good news in the short run, but he warned us not to get our hopes up that this would all go away.”

  Grace studied her hands.

  “Twenty-five hundred up front,” Carl said, sounding a bit more like himself. “It could go a lot higher. I don’t even know if the guy’s any good.”

  “He got Adam out of jail, didn’t he?”

  “I’m not sure he had much to do with it.” Carl stood and began pacing the room. “I don’t know, maybe he did. But I’m trusting my son’s future, maybe his life, to this guy and he looks like someone you’d see at the hardware store and figure he worked there.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s not a good attorney.”

  “Well, he doesn’t inspire confidence.” Carl walked to the window and looked out, his back to Grace. “Jesus, how can life fall apart so quickly?”

  “I did what I thought was right, Carl. What I had to do. You understand that, don’t you?”

  When he didn’t answer, she continued. “I don’t want Adam to have been involved. I hope to God he’s not. I’d like nothing better than for the police to clear him.” Then maybe we can go back to being a family, she added silently, although she knew that would never happen. “At least tell me you can understand why I had to tell them.”

  Carl’s mouth and chin were tight. “It’s not just what you told them, Grace.” He returned to the sofa and leaned forward, palms pressed against his temples. “There’s more. Sandman learned the police found photos on Adam’s computer when they searched Mimi’s house. Photos of Caitlin in the shower and . . . and such.”

  Grace choked. She thought she might be sick. “And such?”

  “I didn’t see the photos, Grace. I’m only telling you what Sandman told me.”

  She had once taken a yoga class. She’d never mastered even the most rudimentary poses but she’d learned to breathe. She reminded herself now to breathe.

  “That necklace of Caitlin’s they showed you? They found it at Mimi’s. They also found initials scratched in stone down by the river. A spot where Adam supposedly likes to go.”

  “Initials?”

  “Caitlin’s and Adam’s.”

  “Oh.” Grace’s heart raced. On the one hand, she was glad they’d found evidence that supported her suspicions, but she took no pleasure in hearing the details.

  Carl closed his eyes and took a breath. “And they found some paper towels in the Dumpster with Caitlin’s backpack. They’re special towels that Mimi buys for her dental practice.”

  It took a moment for Grace to make the connections. Caitlin’s backpack linked to Adam.

  “My God!” Grace’s mouth felt dry. “What does Adam say?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him alone. Sandman was there the entire time. He didn’t want Adam answering any questions. And then, after they released him, Mimi hurried him off like I was a viper or something.”

  “Oh, Carl. How awful. I can imagine how terrible you must feel.”

  “Can you? I doubt it, Grace. I doubt it very much.” Carl dropped his hands to his lap and looked at her, the anger gone, replaced by anguish. Tears formed in his eyes. “God, Grace. What if Adam did harm Caitlin?”

/>   She knew this was a delicate moment. A moment of grave importance. But she didn’t have the slightest idea what to say.

  ~~~~

  Rayna hadn’t slept well. The message on her answering machine had frayed her nerves and kept her awake until dawn. She’d finally slept a little, but her day had started off with spilled coffee (thankfully, she’d managed to miss her keyboard) and the news that Adam Peterson was being released. Then she closed the file drawer on her thumb. So it was only fitting she’d run into Seth Robbins in the elevator on her way to meet the DA.

  “Care to comment on this morning’s hearing?” he asked, raking his fingers through his pointy little beard.

  “No.”

  He whistled under his breath. “That was succinct.”

  Rayna kept her eyes forward, wishing she’d taken the stairs and avoided the obnoxious twerp.

  “Do you have other suspects in mind?”

  She bit her tongue.

  “Is the Peterson kid someone you’re still interested in? Should the townspeople be worried that he’s free?”

  The elevator dinged its arrival and the doors opened. Rayna stepped forward, but Robbins blocked the exit.

  His face was inches from hers. She smelled stale coffee on his breath. “How will you feel if another girl disappears?”

  “You’re in my way,” Rayna said.

  “Or maybe, detective, missing girls give you some perverse satisfaction. Do cases like this help remind you that you aren’t the only one who’s lost a daughter?”

  “You’re full of crap,” Rayna snapped.

  Robbins smiled and stepped aside.

  Rayna stormed down the hallway to McKenna’s office, muttering under her breath.

  Ray McKenna was a balding former defense attorney with the face and bark of a bulldog. He was hard to read, short on explanations, and totally without a sense of humor. He looked up from his desk as Rayna entered the room, then continued leafing through the papers in front of him.

  “Be right with you,” he said. He found what he was looking for, buzzed his secretary, then turned to Rayna.

  “If you’re here to gripe about this morning, don’t waste your breath.”

  “I don’t intend to gripe. But I’d like to understand what else we need on Adam Peterson to make the charges stick.”

  “A body would be nice,” McKenna said.

  “But not absolutely necessary.”

  “Not in the abstract, but in this case, pretty damned close. We can’t charge Peterson with Karen Holiday’s murder. There’s nothing solid linking him to it. And until we have concrete evidence that Caitlin Whittington is dead, we can’t charge him with her murder.”

  “Her backpack and wallet were in a Dumpster,” Rayna pointed out.

  “Doesn’t mean diddly.”

  “Only if what you’re most concerned about is your conviction rate.”

  McKenna leaned forward and looked Rayna in the eye. “He’s a juvenile. If we charge him as a juvenile, he’ll be out in short order. To do this right, we need to charge him as an adult. And without irrefutable evidence, a jury is going to resist convicting a seventeen-year-old kid who’s a straight-A student and never been in a lick of trouble before.”

  “What if he goes after another girl?” She hated that she sounded like Seth Robbins.

  “That’s a stupid argument,” McKenna said, “and you know it. We can’t lock people up because they might commit a crime. Besides, Caitlin isn’t some random girl. You’ve focused on Adam because of his supposed infatuation with her.”

  These were all thoughts Rayna had had herself, but once they’d made the arrest, and even though she wasn’t entirely behind it, she wanted it to stick. The DA’s refusal to charge Adam made the police look bad. Made her feel incompetent. And she worried that it might cost another girl her life.

  “Maybe he was infatuated with Karen Holiday, as well,” she said. “And who knows, he may have another girl in his sights.”

  “Find me something, then. You’re the detective. My office can only work with what you give us. If you want the charges to stick, give us the tools to make it happen.”

  ~~~~

  Walking the two blocks back to the station, Rayna got doused with a spray of muddy water from a passing car. The day was not turning out to be one of her finest.

  At her desk, she blotted the mud stains with tissue and considered the direction of the investigation. It was time to regroup. They had good reason to believe Adam was involved in Caitlin’s disappearance, less to connect him to Karen Holiday—nothing, in fact, aside from the tutoring program. They needed to look at the Holiday investigation anew, with Adam in mind, but for the moment, she wanted to focus on Caitlin.

  Trouble was, she found it difficult to focus at all. The call on her machine last night had shaken her more than she cared to admit. A prank? Or something more sinister? Caller ID had been useless—unknown name, unknown number. The phone company trace hadn’t helped. The call had come from a disposable cell phone.

  She tapped her pen against the pad of paper on her desk and forced her mind on the task at hand.

  Working backwards, they needed to find the evidence that would prove Adam guilty—a fairly standard strategy. Not a good one, though, and Rayna had resisted it for most of her career. The better approach was to follow the evidence with an open mind. Granted, that had led them to arrest Adam Peterson in the first place, but the evidence was the place to begin. At the same time, they’d take a fresh look at other possible suspects. Eliminating them would bolster the case against Adam.

  Opening the file, Rayna read through it, page by page. She made notes, laid out charts, wrote questions to herself in the margins. She had a crick in her neck and a stiff back by the time she’d finished. Unfortunately, she hadn’t come up with any brilliant insights or clear plan of attack.

  Hank returned to his desk as Rayna was stretching her cramped muscles.

  “Anything?” she asked. He had been following up on the most recent tip from their abduction hot line. The calls had poured in after Caitlin’s disappearance, then tapered off until the discovery of Karen Holiday’s remains. None of the calls had proved useful, but each needed to be looked into.

  “Not unless you think there’s a chance space aliens are involved.”

  “I think that’s about the only thing we can rule out with absolute certainty. Everything else is pretty much open for consideration. You heard that Adam Peterson was released?”

  “Yeah, I caught it on the news. Some days I wonder why we bother to bust our butts bringing in a suspect.” Hank hung his rain jacket on one of the hooks near their desks. “Guess Neal Cody shoulda’ stuck around after all.”

  Rayna knew she should call Cody and tell him about Adam being released, but since she hadn’t asked for FBI help to begin with, she figured she wasn’t officially obligated to keep him up to date.

  “What’s next?” Hank asked. “Dig up more on Adam Peterson, or are we back to the beginning?”

  “Both. I want us to go through the list of possible suspects one more time. Look at each one with an open mind. Also see if there’s any way to connect Adam to Karen Holiday’s murder.”

  “Right.” Hank sounded anything but enthusiastic. “Was Cliff able to get an ID on that Romeo guy who contacted Caitlin on-line?”

  “Not yet. He probably pulled back when we focused on Adam.”

  “Romeo seems like a good bet, though. When I started in the business, there was no such thing as an on-line predator. Now it seems like they’re everywhere. What a world we live in, huh?” He colored slightly, looked at his feet. “Guess I don’t need to tell you, of all people, about the dangers.”

  Part of the reason Rayna had kept her past to herself was to avoid this sort of awkwardness. Since Seth Robbins’s column, Hank seemed unsure how to deal with her, as if she suddenly needed to be treated with kid gloves.

  “I’ll check with Grace Whittington and see what she knows about who Caitlin might have
been in contact with.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “See if you can shake something out of Ty Cross or Rob Hardy. And I guess we’d better see if we can dig up a new name or two, someone with ties to both Caitlin and Karen.”

  “If it was that easy, Rayna, we’d have done it already.”

  “Have you got a better idea?”

  “No,” Hank conceded.

  Rayna thought again of the phone call she’d received last night. The fun is just beginning. She hadn’t told Hank or the chief about it because she didn’t want to be considered part of the problem. But she couldn’t keep it to herself forever.

  They needed to figure this thing out. And soon.

  Chapter 30

  Adam doused his scalp for a second time, pouring on the shampoo until he had a full foamy lather going. He washed his body a second time, as well, scrubbing his skin raw with some of the gritty exfoliating gel Lucy kept in the shower. He was desperate to wash away every trace of the past twenty-four hours.

  Jail. He’d actually spent the night in jail. He shivered under the stream of hot water.

  It had been worse than he’d thought. The thin, slightly damp mattress on the narrow bottom bunk. The scratchy, moth-eaten blanket that did a miserable job of keeping him warm. The filthy open toilet. The snores and phlegmy coughing fits of his cellmate, a heavily tattooed man with bulging biceps who was, he’d told Adam proudly, most likely on his way back to prison for good. Adam hadn’t dared ask the man what he’d done. He’d tried to say as little as possible. He’d tried to make himself invisible.

  Relieved to be back home at his mom’s, he tried to focus on that and not dwell on the harrowing experience of being locked up. But the attorney had told him it wasn’t over, and that thought kept pounding in his head. What if he was sent back to jail, or worse, to prison? He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. Whatever it took, he wouldn’t spend another night behind bars.

  The water began to run cooler. He must have gone through the whole tank of hot. If not for that, he would have stayed in the shower forever. Even though his mother was waiting for him downstairs.