by Rick Mofina
Grace answered no to each of them.
“Has she ever run away in the past?” McDowell asked.
“No.”
“To be safe, we’ll get San Diego police to watch your house there in case she went back,” Elsen said.
“Is she undergoing any therapy or psychiatric care?” McDowell asked.
“No, not anymore.”
“Not anymore?” Elsen repeated.
Grace took a moment then said, “When her father, my first husband, died, we both received grief counseling.”
McDowell exchanged a subtle glance with Elsen then resumed the questions. Does Riley abuse alcohol or drugs? Had she ever been charged with any offense?
Grace answered no.
“You are Riley’s biological mother?” McDowell asked.
“Yes.”
“How is your relationship with her?”
Grace blinked away tears, half smiling, shrugging.
“Typical mother–teen daughter. Aside from Caleb, we argue about friends, clothes, tattoos, makeup, screen time.”
“Would you say you are close?”
“Yes. After her dad died, it was just the two of us. We needed each other. Then I met John.”
“How did your first husband die?”
“In a car accident.”
McDowell nodded and let a moment pass before continuing.
“How’s Riley’s relationship with John and his son—” she glanced at her notes “—Blake?”
“Good. It’s good. We’ve been married for two years now, adjusting to being a blended family. I guess you could say we’re a work in progress.”
“Are there any stress points in Riley’s relationships with others in the family?”
“No. I mean, we’re each finding our way.” Grace got a tissue and touched it to her eyes. “John lost his wife and daughter, too. So we’re survivors, hanging on to each other, doing the best we can.”
“How did John lose his wife and daughter?”
“It was a boating accident. They drowned in a storm when their boat capsized near San Diego.” Grace paused and looked to the detectives. “What does any of this have to do with Riley? We need to be searching for her.”
“We’ve put out alerts, we’ve got people looking for your daughter,” Elsen said. “These questions are relevant, so bear with us.”
McDowell resumed. “You’re a registered nurse?”
“Yes.”
“You would be familiar with child abuse cases and how they’re investigated?”
Grace eyed both of the detectives. “Why?”
“Has your daughter ever told you, or have you ever suspected, that she’d been abused sexually, physically, or otherwise, by someone in the family?”
Shock and hurt creased Grace’s face. “What? No!”
“By anyone outside your family?”
“No!”
“Do you know of anyone who would want to harm your daughter?”
“No.”
“Has your husband or son ever struck her?”
“No, why’re you—”
“Have you ever struck her?”
Grace swallowed. “God, no. I can’t believe you would ask me this!”
“Are you involved in your daughter’s disappearance?”
“No!”
“Do you believe your husband, or son, are involved?”
“No! My God! We left her behind by mistake and you’re talking to me like we’re a family of monsters!”
“Mrs. Jarrett,” Elsen said. “People lie to us all the time. We take the case of a missing fourteen-year-old very seriously.”
“Is Riley sexually active?” McDowell asked.
Pushing back tears, she didn’t answer.
“Grace,” McDowell said, “do you think she’s sexually active, given her relationship with Caleb?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would she have confided that to you?”
She looked into her hands. “Maybe not.”
“Do you think she’s ever sexted, sent explicit photos of herself?” McDowell asked.
Grace looked away. “It’s possible.”
“Could she have connected with someone online and arranged to meet them?” Elsen said.
“But how? We stopped here on impulse and I had her phone.”
“Maybe she had a burner phone, one that you weren’t aware of,” he said.
Grace stared at Elsen.
“It happens,” he said. “Kids are good at keeping secrets from their parents.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Grace, do you or your husband have drug or gambling debts, financial pressures?” McDowell asked.
“No.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm Riley for any reason?”
“I can’t.”
“Has your family been threatened?”
“No.”
“Has anything strange happened to your family in the time leading up to your trip?” she asked. “Any strange calls, wrong numbers, emails, deliveries, visits to your house, people following you?”
“No.”
The detectives leaned back, suggesting they were done, but something unsettling telegraphed between them.
“One last thing,” McDowell said. “Please don’t read anything into this, but it’s something we have to ask.”
The air in the room tensed.
“Would Riley know or have any familiarity with a girl by the name of Eva Marie Garcia?”
Staring at McDowell and Elsen, Grace’s mind raced but the name didn’t ring a bell.
“No. Why?”
“Again, we have nothing to say there’s any relation to Riley,” McDowell said, “but about a year ago, seventeen-year-old Eva Marie Garcia was on a group trip to Las Vegas. She and her friends were returning to Riverside, California, when they stopped at Primm, not far from here. They reported her missing. Searches yielded nothing.”
“Did they ever find her?”
McDowell shot a glance to Elsen before she answered.
“Forty-four days after she’d disappeared, her body was found in the desert a few hundred yards from Interstate 15 near the California border, a few miles from here.”
“The case remains unsolved,” Elsen said.
Grace covered her face with her hands as warm tears rolled over her bandages and her fingers.
“This can’t be happening.”
McDowell touched her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Grace, but we had to ask you about any possible connection. We’ve found nothing to suggest Riley’s been hurt. We’re searching. We can still find her. You’ve got to believe that.”
Grace nodded but her heart was flooded with fear.
Ten
Nevada
In a room across the hall from where detectives were questioning his wife, John Marshall paced.
He hated waiting alone in here, unable to search for Riley, not knowing if they’d found her.
His pulse still thudding from the crash and the standoff at the pumps, he stared at his phone hoping that maybe, just maybe, Riley would contact him if she could.
But nothing showed on his phone.
John rubbed his forehead.
She could be anywhere. Anything could’ve happened.
This whole thing was unbelievable and he blamed himself for it, for uprooting his family, tearing them away from their lives in San Diego. He’d expected some resistance to moving to Pittsburgh, especially from Riley, but he’d underestimated how much. Riley’s painful accusations from the argument in the RV echoed in his head.
Did her blowup with Grace set events in motion?
He should’ve done more. He should’ve gotten Riley up when they stopped but he didn’t. He yielde
d to Grace. Maybe because it was easy, because deep down John sensed that in addition to Riley’s continuing struggle adjusting to their new family, she didn’t like him because in her eyes he could never measure up to her father.
And maybe on some level he gave Riley the same impression; that he was always measuring her—her behavior, her attitude and her appearance—against his beloved daughter, Courtney.
Like the time he went to the movie theater to pick up Riley and her three girlfriends. Her friends, all about fourteen, were wearing T-shirts, shorts or jeans. But Riley was wearing a low-cut top, a skirt that was way too short and lots of makeup. All of this in addition to the fact she’d started dating Caleb Clarke, a boy much too old for her.
John was so upset he barely spoke while driving Riley and her friends home because he was thinking of Courtney. In his heart he knew that, even at sixteen, Courtney would never have dressed like that. He’d mentioned Riley’s appearance to Grace when she came home from the hospital. Grace talked to Riley privately, and John never saw her wear that skirt again. But she was cooler to him for the next few days.
Was he being unfair comparing Riley with Courtney? Or was he being a concerned dad? He didn’t know. He’d made so many mistakes in his life. He should’ve done more in the RV, should’ve insisted they got Riley out of the back before driving off. Blake lying about checking on her only made things worse.
Maybe their move, the breakup with Caleb, the meltdown in the RV, was connected to Riley being missing? Maybe she was pulling a stunt to get back at them?
He hoped so because the alternative terrified him.
He’d already lost one daughter. He couldn’t lose another.
God, I’ve made so many mistakes, grave mistakes.
John stopped pacing. He kneaded the knot in the back of his neck, and in an instant he was reliving the deaths of his wife and daughter...the whipping wind, the heaving waves, the terrible rolling...then—the door opened.
A man and a woman entered the room.
John’s eyes went to their badges, then to their faces.
* * *
Detective McDowell and Detective Elsen introduced themselves.
“Did you find her?” John asked.
“No.”
At a loss, John absorbed the fact that Riley had now been missing for three hours.
“Mr. Marshall,” McDowell said. “Please have a seat so we can talk.”
John refused. “Tell me what you’re doing to find her. Time’s slipping away! Why isn’t every truck and car being searched? Why aren’t there roadblocks, an Amber Alert or search teams?”
“Mr. Marshall,” Elsen said. “We’re putting out an Amber Alert. Keep in mind, we’re still in the process of determining what may or may not have transpired but we are taking action.”
“We told you what happened! She’s been missing for almost three hours!”
“John—” McDowell was calm “—we’ve got people looking for Riley, we’ve circulated her picture, her details to all police units and we’re expanding our efforts. Search and rescue people are on their way. We understand this is an anxious time, but we need your help.”
Blinking quickly, John took a breath.
“Please, John. Sit down and cooperate with us so we can find Riley.”
Releasing some of his anger, he sat. McDowell set her tablet to record, and for the next several minutes John recounted events with the detectives asking questions.
“So after the argument, Riley went to the back to sleep?” McDowell asked.
“Yes, that was around Baker. Later when we got to Nevada, I wanted to stop here because I’d read how this new complex was one of the largest truck stops in the world and thought the kids might like it.”
“If that was the case, then why didn’t you wake Riley?” Elsen asked.
“I wanted to, but Grace wanted her to sleep because we’d been up so early, and she was in a mood. Grace left her a note.”
“How long were you away from the RV?” Elsen asked.
“Twenty minutes, give or take.”
“Was she locked in the RV?” Elsen asked.
“No. It was locked from the outside, but she could get out.”
“It has a keypad lock and you need a PIN to unlock it, correct?” Elsen said.
“Yes. I created our PIN for this trip. The rental company instructed me,” John said.
“Who else has the PIN?” Elsen asked.
“Grace, Blake and Riley.”
“Why didn’t you wake her before you drove away from here?” McDowell asked.
Staring at the floor, John shook his head. His haggard, whiskered face bore scrapes from the crash.
“We just assumed she was there sleeping. My son said he checked on her.”
The detectives let a moment pass.
“Did you, Grace and Blake stay together when you came inside?”
“Except for using the bathrooms, yes. We went to the store for food and things, that’s it.”
“Then what?” Elsen said.
“We left, heading for Las Vegas, for our hotel, the Golden Nugget. We were five, maybe seven miles past Jean when Grace asked Blake to wake Riley and that’s when we realized what had happened, that she was gone and didn’t have her phone. Grace called here for help and I turned around at the first U-turn, then we crashed.”
“Tell us about the crash,” Elsen said.
“After the U-turn we’d gone less than two miles when this car came out of nowhere on my left and cut us off.”
“Any chance you got the plate number, or state, make or model?”
“No, it happened so fast. It was a sedan, that’s all I know.”
“Did it hit you?”
“No, it blurred by, shocking me. I had to brake then we swerved and crashed.”
“Was it a dark or light colored car?”
John shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Did the RV have a dash cam?”
“No,” John said, “but you’ve got cameras along the interstate, right?”
“We’ll check with Transportation,” McDowell said. “It could be a case of road rage arising from your U-turn.”
“Take us back to the argument you and your wife had with Riley,” Elsen said. “It sounds like your daughter was very upset?”
“Yes, she was.”
“Did she at any time give any indication that she would leave, or run away? Maybe go back to San Diego, or try to reconnect with her boyfriend?”
“No. Caleb left the country with his family. Riley was upset about the move, but she gave us no sign that she was going to run away.”
“Has she ever run away in the past?” McDowell asked.
“No, not since I’ve known Grace.”
“All right, can you give us a timeline of the day?” Elsen said.
For the next few minutes John recounted how they’d left San Diego just before sunrise then detailed their route and how once they cleared all the Greater Los Angeles traffic they kept going, stopping in Fontana.
“Did you ever get a sense you were followed?” Elsen asked.
“No.”
“When you stopped in Fontana were there any altercations or incidents there, or anywhere else along the trip?”
“No.”
“Who else knew the route you took?”
John gave it some thought: “A few days before we left we had a farewell party at our house in San Diego, and I mentioned to friends that we planned to take 215 past San Bernardino then 15.”
“We may need a list of people who attended the party,” McDowell said.
John nodded.
“Have you ever driven this route before?” Elsen asked.
“Years ago when I was in college, with friends for a weekend in Las Vegas.”
“Noth
ing more recent?” Elsen asked.
“I flew to Las Vegas about two years ago for a conference.”
John watched Elsen make notes.
Another twenty minutes passed with the detectives asking John a number of questions, covering a range of areas before McDowell said: “Can you tell us again, why you’re moving to Pittsburgh?”
“I have a new opportunity there in corporate communications with a large company. It’s a promotion with a bigger salary.”
“Have you ever been in trouble with the law, John?” Elsen asked.
John stared at him, then McDowell at the sudden change in questioning.
“No. Unless you count a speeding ticket a few years ago.”
“Prior to marrying Grace, you lost your wife and daughter in an accident?” Elsen said.
John hesitated at another abrupt shift in questioning. “Yes.”
“How old was your daughter when she died?”
An uncomfortable silence passed before John said: “Sixteen.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t see what this has to do with any—”
“Please, John,” Elsen said. “It’s important we have as much background as possible, and we’d appreciate your cooperation.”
John swallowed and blinked several times, recounting the tragedy.
“We’d gone sailing when late in the day the water got rough. There was a storm surge. We were trying to get home. The wind and rain were relentless. We were in San Diego Bay, off the tip of Point Loma, trying to get to Buoy One, when our boat capsized and we ended up in the water clinging to the overturned hull. My wife and daughter got swept away and they drowned.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Elsen said. “So you and Grace have been married two years, now?”
“Yes.”
“How would you describe your relationship with Riley?”
John inhaled then released a slow breath.
“Good, but I can’t replace Tim, her biological father, and she lets me know it. I think she’s having a hard time accepting me as her stepdad and Blake as her stepbrother. I think our moving is a challenge for her, leaving friends, you know?”
McDowell nodded.
“John—” Elsen leaned closer to him “—have you ever struck Riley or abused her in any way?”
“What?”
