Paradise Falls

by Jacobs, Jonnie

  “How about some ice? Or better yet, a Popsicle. Do you prefer orange or cherry?”

  “Orange,” Adam said, and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  “I have to check on a few other patients first and then I’ll be back.” She patted his hand. “I won’t forget you, I promise.”

  For some reason that brought tears to Adam’s eyes. He closed them so she wouldn’t see. The psychiatrist told him these ricocheting emotions he was feeling were normal, but Adam thought the guy himself was so far from normal he wouldn’t know. And now they were going to send him to the nut house for a week or so.

  Yes, Adam was paying the price for his stupidity. Again.

  He was such a failure he couldn’t even kill himself. How pathetic was that? On the other hand, there were moments when he was glad he hadn’t managed to pull it off. Another sign of weakness, but there it was.

  Assuming they let him out of the nut house, he was going to live with his dad—not that Adam had been consulted about the plan. His dad had rented an apartment so the two of them could spend more time together.

  “You’re my number one priority,” he told Adam.

  He appreciated what his dad was doing, but he’d miss the old arrangement. Lucy hated living in two houses. She hated that she had to shuttle back and forth between their mom and dad like some distant out-of-town relative. But Adam never saw it that way. The households were different, and they offered a nice balance.

  Footsteps echoed outside his door. Hesitant, not quick and purposeful like the staff’s. He opened his eyes just as Grace came through the door.

  “Hello, Adam.”

  His heart skipped a beat. He’d known he’d see her again sooner or later, but not here, not yet. He needed time to work out what he felt. Part of him wanted to ignore her, shut his eyes, turn his back on her, and will her away. But Grace had the same gentle kindness his nurse Bridget did. He found it hard to turn away from kindness. It was a pretty scarce commodity in his life.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, moving to the side of his bed.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m glad. I’m glad to know you’ll be fine.”

  “You are?” That surprised him.

  Instead of answering, Grace asked a question of her own. “Another girl was killed. Did you know that?”

  “My dad mentioned it.” Which was a big part of the reason Adam wasn’t headed directly to prison. He felt grateful to the girl for being murdered and disgusted with himself for even thinking such a thing.

  Grace plucked at a wrinkle in the bedspread. “I feel sort of like I let a bull loose in a china shop.”

  It took Adam a moment to figure out that she was talking about going to the cops with her suspicions about him.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” she continued. “But I wasn’t out to get you, Adam. I just wanted to find Caitlin’s killer.”

  He nodded. What was he supposed to say to that?

  “I caused you a lot of pain and I can never undo the hurt.”

  He looked away, not sure what she wanted.

  “Still, I have some questions. Things I’d like to know to settle my own mind. Like Caitlin’s initials and yours carved in the log at that spot down by the river. And her ring. How did they get there?”

  She knew how, Adam thought. What she really asked was why. And that was sort of embarrassing. “It was my own way of . . . I don’t know, connecting with her.”

  “Connecting? After she was gone?”

  “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, I know, but her being missing upset me.”

  “So you buried her ring?”

  “I told you, it doesn’t make sense.” Although it did to him.

  “And her necklace? The one the police found in your mom’s basement. How did that get there? Was that also part of some ritual?”

  “I don’t know how it got there. Truly, I have no idea.” He didn’t like the way she said “ritual” like he was some crazed killer or something.

  “What about the photos, Adam? You took secret pictures of Caitlin. Why?”

  Talk about embarrassing. If he was worried that the ring and the initials didn’t make sense to others, this was a hundred times worse. He decided not to say anything.

  “Caitlin was your friend, wasn’t she?” Grace insisted. “Is that any way to treat a friend? To sneak around taking pictures in moments that should be private?”

  Guilty as charged. “I don’t think we should be talking about this,” Adam said.

  “Why not? If you didn’t kill Caitlin, why not help me understand?”

  Because she never would, no matter how much he tried to explain. “I’d never hurt Caitlin. Never, ever. You have to believe that.”

  “I’d like to believe it.”

  “It’s the truth. I swear to God. I miss her too, you know. I really, really miss her.”

  To Adam’s chagrin, his voice broke and he felt himself begin to tear up again. Luckily, Bridget came into the room with his Popsicle.

  She handed it to him. “Here you go, honey.” She turned to Grace. “Are you a relative? The only visitors allowed are immediate family.”

  “She’s my step—” Adam stopped short when he saw the uncertainty reflected in Grace’s expression. He knew what she was thinking. They’d once been family, but no longer.

  “I was just leaving,” she said. “Get well, Adam.”

  Chapter 49

  “I’m not saying you should resign,” the chief said, resting his arms on his cluttered desktop. “But there’s a danger in fueling this guy’s killer-lust by keeping you visibly involved. He’s made it personal.”

  “So I fade into the background and he simply goes away?” Rayna shook her head. “I doubt it’s that simple.”

  “Rayna’s right,” Hank offered. “I don’t see him stopping.”

  “Are you willing to risk another girl’s life to find out?”

  That was the dilemma. In a sense, their killer had already won. “Of course I don’t want another girl to die,” Rayna said. She’d been going in circles over this all morning. “But how do we know that he won’t make it personal with whomever takes my place?”

  “We don’t.” The lines in the chief’s bulldog face grew more pronounced. “You’re sure it’s not this Romeo fellow?”

  “Almost positive,” Rayna said. Hank nodded agreement.

  “Or Adam Peterson?”

  “He was in the hospital when Terri Lowe was killed.”

  “But not when Caitlin and Karen were.” Chief Stoval ran a hand over the bristle of his crew cut. “Maybe this latest murder is a copycat.”

  “Or Caitlin’s murder was,” Rayna noted. “There are differences in the way she died, and her body turned up in the river rather than the woods. I didn’t get a stuffed animal when she disappeared, either, although I did when her body was found.”

  “Christ. In the ten years I’ve been chief here, we had one murder, and that was a domestic dispute. Now we’ve got three, with another one possible any minute. And maybe more than one killer.” Stoval stood up and began pacing around his office. “We’ve put every available officer on duty, and the eyes and ears of the community are on alert. Yet I’m scared to death he’s going to take another girl right under our noses.”

  “We all are,” Rayna said.

  The chief returned to his desk. “Hank, for the time being you’re going to take the lead on this investigation. I want a press conference held today, as soon as possible, and I want you to conduct it. It’s not so much what you say as the fact that it’s you, not Rayna, who’s in charge.”

  “What?” Hank squeaked. “I don’t want—”

  “I don’t care what you want, that’s the way it’s going to be. You’re the only two experienced detectives I’ve got.”

  Rayna swallowed. “You really want me off the case?”

  “No, of course not.” The chief brushed air impatiently. “But I want it to look that way. If we put the right spin on it, maybe o
ur killer will be satisfied. It might at least buy us some time.”

  “It’s not going to work,” Hank said.

  Rayna silently agreed. But the chief had spoken. She was glad the decision had been taken out of her hands.

  Back at her desk, Rayna fumed for a few minutes, then turned to Hank. “I’m going to talk to Ty Cross and Rob Hardy again. If what Jordan says is true and Caitlin knew about Ty and Rob, she might conceivably have been killed to keep her from talking.”

  “Which doesn’t help us at all with the other two murders.”

  “Probably not.”

  Hank groaned. “What am I going to do about the press conference? I don’t want this role. We’re a good team, Rayna, but I’m just the foot soldier.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. Besides, I’ll help you set it up.”

  Rayna debated going by the school and trying to corner Ty privately, but in the end she opted to do it by the book. If he did admit to anything, she wanted it to be admissible in court. She called Mr. Cross at his office, endured a barrage of insults, but refused to back off. In the end, he agreed that she could come by the house about five.

  ~~~~

  Grace wasn’t the only adult picking a child up from the school. A long stream of cars lined the street, waiting to pull into the oval. Parents were scared. The whole town was on edge.

  “How was your day?” Grace asked Lucy as they pulled away from the campus.

  She shrugged. “How was yours?”

  “Okay.” Grace wondered if Lucy could see through the lie.

  “It’s weird how life goes on, isn’t it? Yesterday was Caitlin’s funeral, today I’m at school like nothing’s happened. But it doesn’t feel the same.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “It’s worse for you. You’re being very brave, Grace.”

  “It’s not a question of bravery. There’s no alternative. The world doesn’t stop just because we want it to.”

  Lucy slouched down in her seat. “God, look at my nails. They’re such a mess. I thought I’d broken the habit of chewing them.”

  “Mine need help, too. How about we go get a manicure?”

  “Now?”

  “Sure. Maybe a pedicure, also.” A little pampering appealed to Grace. “Do you have time?”

  Lucy brightened. “Of course.”

  The nail salon was one Grace hadn’t been to before, but she knew they took drop-ins. And they had big, comfortable-looking spa chairs. She’d noticed them through the window whenever she went to the camera shop next door.

  “Can I get a French manicure?” Lucy asked.

  “Whatever you want.”

  Grace settled in to the massage chair while a slender Vietnamese woman went to work on her feet. For the first time in days, she felt herself begin to relax. Lucy smiled at her across the room where another manicurist was showing her an array of polishes. She had the expression of a little girl dressed up as a princess, thrilled with the whole experience.

  Grace added the afternoon to her short list of things she had to be grateful for.

  ~~~~

  “We’ve agreed to cooperate,” Mr. Cross said as he opened the front door to Rayna’s knock, “because we’re concerned about these murders. But I want it known that your continual questioning of my son borders on harassment. It has to stop.”

  “I hope this will be the last time,” Rayna told him.

  “Good.”

  She followed him to a rich-hued wood panel den off the living room, where Ty and his lawyer were already seated in leather armchairs. Mrs. Cross was nowhere to be seen.

  “Hello, Ty,” Rayna said. She took a seat on the upholstered bench at the foot of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Mr. Cross sank into the chair behind his desk.

  The boy rubbed hands together. “I don’t even know Terri Lowe.”

  “Actually I’m here about Caitlin. And your friend Rob Hardy.” Ty wasn’t stupid. He picked up on the emphasis. He shot a quick sideways glance toward his father. “What about them?”

  “They weren’t involved, were they? Romantically, I mean.”

  “No way. I told you that before.” He didn’t hesitate, even for a second.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because Rob’s—” Ty stopped short and cleared his throat. “I’m just sure.”

  “You and Rob are pretty good friends, right?”

  “Our families are friends,” Ty said. “So we’ve known each other since we were in diapers.” He blushed. The phrase was undoubtedly one his parents had repeated so often, Ty echoed it without thinking. “But it’s not like we’re close friends or anything.”

  “Really?” Rayna shot him a knowing smile. From the look on his face she was sure he understood where the conversation was going. “Could Rob have been jealous of Caitlin? What I mean is, you two were friends, however you want to qualify it. Then suddenly Caitlin was getting all your attention. It makes sense he’d want to be rid of her.”

  “Rob’s not like that.”

  “Maybe not. But yesterday someone told me that Caitlin was really upset by stuff Rob told her.”

  Ty shrugged, not quite as nonchalantly as Rayna imagined he’d intended.

  “Stuff concerning what you and he had done,” she added.

  Mr. Cross was clearly losing patience. “What’s this about? So what if Caitlin was upset?”

  The color drained from Ty’s face. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he said suddenly, and bolted from the room.

  Mr. Cross sighed loudly and turned to the lawyer. “Do you understand any of this? If she’s worried about Rob, shouldn’t she be talking to him?”

  The lawyer spoke up, addressing Rayna. “I’m not going to allow a fishing expedition.”

  She almost laughed. If she’d had doubts about his experience as a criminal attorney, they’d just been confirmed. The line was right off the big screen, only it was usually the judge who said it.

  Ty returned, looking green around the gills. The hair around his face was damp, like he’d splashed water on it. “I’d like to talk to the detective in private,” he told his father.

  “What? I didn’t haul my attorney over here for no reason.”

  “Please, I know what I’m doing.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  To Rayna, Ty said, “Let’s take a walk.”

  “I forbid it,” Mr. Cross said, rising to his feet.

  “Trust me Dad, it’s the only way.”

  The attorney looked uneasy, but neither of the men stopped Ty as he left. Rayna followed him.

  He led the way down the long, cobblestone driveway. Once they were away from the house, he asked, “What did you hear about me and Rob?”

  “That your relationship is more than a friendship.”

  Ty swallowed hard. He looked like he might be sick. “What do you mean?”

  “That you and Rob are lovers.”

  Ty cringed but he didn’t deny it. “Who told you that?”

  “An Internet buddy of Caitlin’s. Not anyone connected with the school or the town.”

  “It’s not like it sounds. It just happened. I didn’t mean for it to. We were just goofing around, you know? Rob made it into a big thing.”

  “For him, maybe it is.”

  “Yeah.” Ty kicked a stone from the sidewalk into the street. “That’s one of the things I liked about Caitlin. She was safe, not always pressuring me about sex. Then Rob told her about us and she went ballistic.”

  “Did she threaten to go public with it?”

  “No. She was mortified, like somehow it reflected badly on her. She wouldn’t have told anyone.”

  “Did Rob know that?”

  “Hell, he didn’t care if word got out. A lot of kids already suspect he’s gay.”

  “And if I talk to Rob, he’ll corroborate what you’ve told me?”

  Ty didn’t respond for a bit. “He’ll say it was more than once.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes. I tried not
to. My dad will kill me if he finds out. And the guys on the team . . .” He looked at Rayna. “You won’t tell them, will you?”

  “I don’t see why I would, unless it has something to do with Caitlin’s death.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Except that it does give you a good motive for killing Caitlin.”

  “Never! She would never have said anything, and I would never hurt her.”

  “Then maybe Rob did. Out of jealousy or spite.”

  “No way. He couldn’t have.”

  “So where were you the Friday evening Caitlin disappeared? Were you really running errands?” Rayna had a hunch she knew, but wanted to cover all the points.

  “I was with Rob.” Ty refused to look at Rayna, addressing his words to the pavement at his feet. “There’s this place we go, a friend of Rob’s. He lets us use it while he’s at work.”

  “You and Rob should have gotten your stories straight from the start.”

  “We didn’t have a chance. You questioned me the next day.”

  For once, Rayna thought, something she’d done right in this investigation.

  ~~~~

  Rayna was back at her desk, finishing up for the day before she headed home, when Grace called.

  “It’s about Lucy,” Grace said, speaking rapidly. “Carl’s daughter. I picked her up after school and dropped her off at her house.” She paused and took a breath. “When Mimi got home, she wasn’t there. I watched her go in, and Mimi said her backpack was there, but there was no note that she’d gone out. And. . .”

  “And what?”

  Another deep breath. “You asked about stuffed animals. Mimi found one propped in the middle of Lucy’s bed. A little brown dog.”

  Chapter 50

  Seated on Mimi’s oversized floral print sofa, Grace experienced a horrifying sense of déjà vu. A few of the players were different, and it was Mimi’s house rather than her own, but the living room was thick with the same feeling of helplessness and inexorable fear as the night Caitlin disappeared.

  Now, as then, Rayna Godwin struggled to put together a time line on a missing girl. “You brought Lucy home from school, right Grace? And you saw her go into the house?”