by Rick Mofina
“Look good?” Elsen said.
“I like chicken,” Rykhirt said.
“Okay.” Elsen turned the tablet back. “Here’s the deal. We’ll get food for you after you tell us where Riley is and what you did to her.”
Rykhirt’s jaw tensed and ever so slightly his nostrils flared. He swallowed then raised his chin in defiance.
“Oh and here’s something else on the menu,” Elsen said.
McDowell cued up the video from Fontana and played it for Rykhirt.
He watched in silence as the detectives watched him.
Then they replayed it.
Then they replayed the video taken at the Silver Sagebrush showing Rykhirt touching Riley. Then they showed him the evidence photos of his gruesome sketch, titled “Riley.”
Rykhirt’s face was blank.
“We know you stalked her, that you followed them, looking for the right moment to strike,” Elsen said. “They stopped at the Sagebrush and the opportunity presented itself, a golden opportunity.”
Rykhirt closed his eyes.
“There’s no way out for you,” Elsen said. “You’re going back to prison.”
“Now’s the time to help yourself,” McDowell said. “Either we tell the district attorney that you cooperated, or we tell her you didn’t. It could make a difference at sentencing.”
“Frayer,” Elsen said. “Where is Riley Jarrett?”
Rykhirt took in a long breath, released it slowly then opened his eyes.
“I know what you’re attempting,” Rykhirt said. “It’s an exercise in futility.”
“We just want you to admit the truth,” McDowell said.
“It’s too late.”
A chill shot up McDowell’s spine.
“Did you hurt her?” Elsen asked.
Rykhirt was silent.
“Maybe,” McDowell said, “you didn’t mean to hurt her, maybe something went wrong; maybe it was an accident.”
He stared hard at McDowell and repeated: “An accident?” He smiled. “You want the truth?”
Blinking, Rykhirt stared off as if watching a movie playing on the wall.
“She was beautiful. Incandescent,” he said. “I was awestruck when I first saw her.”
“Where was this?”
“Fontana.” Eyes on the wall, remembering, he swallowed. “The urge to possess her was instant and overwhelming. It burned inside me.”
“So you followed the RV?”
“In my heart we were meant to be together.”
“What happened?” Elsen asked.
“When they got to Nevada, I parked near them at the truck stop, watched them all get out of the RV, but not her. I was surprised, unsure of what to do. I was weighing my options when eventually she got out.”
“Did you approach her in the parking lot?”
“No, I followed her inside. I needed to buy some things.”
“Did she notice you?”
“No. She was looking for the others but she never saw them, and I never saw them. When she returned to the lot, the RV was gone. I was shocked that they’d left her. She returned inside, understandably upset—then—” Rykhirt stopped, his eyes to the wall, his drooping face, crumpling, awash with sadness.
“Then what?” Elsen said.
“You won’t understand.”
“Help us understand,” McDowell said.
“I wanted to help her. I wanted to be her friend, her everything. I wanted to date her.”
“Date her?” Elsen repeated. “Is that what you call it?”
Rykhirt’s head snapped up, his face reddening. “You two think you know everything,” he said.
“No,” McDowell said.
He began shaking his head, tears rolling down his face. “You can’t possibly know what it’s like for me.” Rykhirt was silent for a long moment.
“Listen good, Frayer. Because here’s what we do know,” Elsen said. “You bought duct tape and scissors to bind her.”
Rykhirt stared at Elsen. “The driver’s side mirror on my car came off its mounting,” he said. “I needed to secure it.”
“We found the sketch of Riley in your motel room,” Elsen said.
“I saw the TV news reporting that she was missing and I fantasized with a doodle.”
“Stop lying.” Elsen tapped and swiped the tablet, turning it. “Look at these pictures of what our crime scene people found in your car.”
Rykhirt glanced at the photos of a tarp, a pick and shovel.
“I’m a part-time cemetery worker in Riverside. I dig graves.”
“The officers who arrested you at the Dreamy Breeze motel report that while Mirandizing you, you stated ‘It’s so messed up. I just wanted to be her friend.’”
“I told you—I—”
“I’m not finished,” Elsen said. “Riverside Homicide says you live ten blocks from the home of Eva Marie Garcia, the seventeen-year-old girl whose body was found in a shallow grave near Primm, not far from the Sagebrush where you were the last to see Riley Jarrett.”
Rykhirt’s jaw muscles pulsed.
“Did you stalk Riley Jarrett like you stalked Eva Marie Garcia?”
Rykhirt said nothing.
“As we speak our forensic experts are studying all the evidence,” McDowell said.
“Frayer, stop lying to us,” Elsen said.
Rykhirt stared at his handcuffs, his raspy voice devolving into a groan of anguished rage. “I ached for her.”
“Tell us the truth,” Elsen said. “Where is Riley Jarrett?”
Rykhirt’s face stretched into a feral grin. “She’s with me. She’ll always be with me.”
Thirty-Seven
Nevada
John scanned the desert, sweating under the sun and boiling with anger about the stranger in the photos the detectives had shown them.
Rykhirt.
No one had told John anything more about him and he wanted to rush to Las Vegas, find where Rykhirt was in custody and demand answers about Riley.
John’s stomach churned with chilling images. He swiped his hand over his face to blot them out, his fingers brushing over his scrapes and stubble.
This was not supposed to happen. This isn’t what I planned.
For a moment, John was alone with his thoughts while he searched in the desert with the others, then his phone rang with a blocked number. He answered.
“Is this John Marshall?”
“Yes.”
John didn’t recognize the caller’s voice.
* * *
Fourteen-year-old Claire Nakamura was scared for Riley.
She had come from San Diego with her friends, Dakota and Ashley, their parents and other friends to help search for her. This was so serious.
Last night, and again this morning, while on their way here, Claire, like Dakota and Ash, had talked to the detective on the phone, telling her that she’d been talking to Riley just before she went missing. Claire didn’t have the texts because they were using apps with self-deleting messages, but she told the detective how Riley was livid, really angry at her parents for forcing her to break up with Caleb and move away. It was pretty much all Riley talked about before she just went silent. At first Claire figured Riley was in a dead zone, but then she got worried when she couldn’t reach her.
Then the police called and things got worse.
The girls had heard all the rumors; like how some creep got arrested after he was in the truck stop the same time as Riley; like how a girl was also murdered around here; about drugs in Riley’s RV.
With all those things going on, Claire didn’t know what to believe.
It was frightening.
The main thing was they had to find Ri.
Claire, considered the most mature among her girlfriends, the one who coul
d easily talk to adults, was thinking how Riley’s mom and dad were so freaked out. She wanted to tell them to be strong, that they were going to find Riley.
Spotting Mr. Marshall by himself in the desert and not far away, Claire headed toward him, trotting down a narrow gully. Stepping from it and approaching him, she heard him talking on the phone. His back was turned. She was within a few yards but could hear him, upset with whoever he was talking to.
“What’re you saying to me? I don’t have that kind of money. What you’re demanding is crazy! We’re not going to pay that—”
At that moment John, phone to his ear, turned, surprised to see Claire, her mouth open in astonishment before she said: “Sorry!”
Embarrassed, she turned and fled.
* * *
John’s hands were shaking when the call ended. Rippling through him were his anger at the caller, and the fact that the end of his side of the conversation was overheard.
He’d tried to wave Claire Nakamura back, but it was too late. She’d run off to join the others. He wasn’t sure of how much, or what, she’d heard.
He looked around in an effort to think. But the call had left him at a loss. Then, something he’d overlooked, a new set of circumstances flared from the allegations by the police that their rented RV was used to transport drugs.
What’s going to happen when his new employer in Pittsburgh learns about the drug accusations?
Pittsburgh’s our lifeline, our way out. If I lose Pittsburgh, we lose everything.
Again he cast around, feeling insignificant, powerless in the emptiness.
Grace is not aware of what I did, of what’s at stake.
His mind swirled just as new voices carried on a breeze tumbling over the desert, jerking him from his thoughts.
Far off, up ahead amid the scrub, several yards from the paved shoulder of the interstate, a few people were clustered in excitement.
They’d discovered something.
Thirty-Eight
Nevada
Blake checked his burner phone for some sort of answer. Nothing.
It was hopeless. He wanted to talk to them again, demand the truth, not caring if they’d warned him never to call.
This is life and death for Riley.
But he couldn’t call, not now with Ashley and Dakota walking so close to him, consumed with their own fears, going on about how devastating it was for Riley to break up with Caleb.
There were way more important things to think about, Blake thought. Like the creep.
When the detectives had shown his family the guy’s picture, they were so grim. And now, with the focus shifting to this Rykhirt perv, it changed everything.
Did he take Riley out here somewhere?
Did he take that other girl the police and press people had talked about, the one who was killed out here a year ago? A thousand scenarios blazed across Blake’s mind, like those he knew from video games and movies.
But this was not a game.
He thought of Riley then his mother and sister. And how they’d died.
Biting back on the images and swallowing hard, he resumed examining the ground, golden tan under the hot sun. Its sandy, rocky texture crunched under his shoes as he checked it and the randomly spaced shrubs for any trace of Riley.
“Hey, Claire,” Ashley said.
Panting, Claire Nakamura had trotted up to them.
“What is it?” Dakota said. “You look weird.”
Claire swallowed water from her bottle, wiped her mouth. “I went to talk to Mr. Marshall but something’s going on.”
“Like what?” Blake looked past her at his father in the distance.
“I went to give him our support, to tell him to stay strong, but he was on the phone with someone.”
“So?” Blake said.
“It’s like I surprised him, interrupted him. Anyway your dad sounded angry, practically yelling at whoever was on the line.”
“Who was it?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know but it was a pretty heated conversation.”
“What’d he say?” Blake asked.
“Something like, ‘I don’t have that kind of money, what you’re demanding is crazy, we’re not going to pay that!’ That’s what I heard before I realized I shouldn’t be there, so I left.”
“Whoa, that is weird,” Dakota said.
“Yeah, like a ransom call or something?” Ashley said.
“Ransom?” Blake said, staring back at his father with puzzled concern, trying to decipher what Claire had just reported.
“What do you think, Blake?” Claire asked him.
“I don’t know. He’s under a lot of pressure. I don’t know.” Blake looked at Claire. “Did you tell anybody?”
“No, it just happened. I’m telling you.”
“Okay, keep it to yourself, all of you. Leave it with me. I’ll talk to him.”
Some searchers in the distance started shouting. Up ahead a group was gathering in the scrub not far from the interstate. Some were waving and calling with urgency. Some were squatting, or bending over at a shrub, all focused on the ground.
Two Silver Sky searchers in fluorescent orange vests joined them with one of them talking quickly into her radio.
Thirty-Nine
Las Vegas, Nevada
No one will ever understand.
Frayer Ront Rykhirt could only guess at how long he’d been alone with his thoughts in the interview room. He stared into his hands then closed his eyes, lifting his face to embrace the vision seared in his memory.
She was standing before him.
Radiant. Celestial.
Stirring his hunger.
He’d employed all of his skills to possess her. But he’d lost control, made mistakes—like not having cash at the truck stop. He thought he had cash until he opened his wallet and saw that he didn’t and was forced to use his credit card or lose her—and now he grieved that things had ended the way they did.
The door opened. The detectives took their seats across from him, their faces stone-cold.
“Have you considered your situation?” Elsen said. “Are you ready to cooperate?”
They hadn’t brought food. He was beyond hungry but didn’t care. They played games, but he had the upper hand and was a better player.
Rykhirt closed his eyes. “It’s not what you think,” he said.
“Make it clear to us,” McDowell said. “What did you do to Riley Jarrett?”
He took in a breath and let it out. “You would not, or could not, possibly comprehend.”
Elsen’s palm slammed on the table. McDowell flinched but not Rykhirt.
“Stop the bullshit!” Elsen said.
Rykhirt’s jaw muscles bunched as he glared back, his mouth trembling and twisting with burning emotion, working to form words.
“You don’t know my pain!” Rykhirt’s voice was a phlegmy cry. “I ached for her!” He dropped his head, burying his face in his arms, sobbing.
“Did you kill Riley Jarrett?” Elsen asked. “Did you kill Eva Marie Garcia?”
He didn’t answer for the longest time, then, his voice barely audible, he said: “You’re going to feel my pain for all the years I suffered, just for loving them.”
Rykhirt then wept for several minutes before collecting himself and raising his tearstained face to the detectives. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.
Elsen and McDowell looked at him while deciding.
“All right,” Elsen said.
A moment later the door opened. An officer entered. The chain clinked as he unfastened it from the metal loop on the table, then Rykhirt stood with his handcuffed hands in front of him, eyeing both of the detectives before leaving the room.
* * *
In the hall, the officer took a firm grip of Rykhirt’s u
pper arm.
“This way, to the left, at the end,” the officer said. “I’ll be with you the entire time. Don’t give me any trouble and this will go smoothly for you.”
Relieved at being freed from the confines of the interview room, Rykhirt took stock of the surroundings. The hall was empty. They passed doors to offices, a water fountain, then the elevators and more office doors. He could feel the officer adjust his grip on his arm when he indicated the sign for the bathroom just ahead on the right.
A few paces farther, Rykhirt saw the sign for the emergency exit.
He began turning for the bathroom door but broke free of the officer’s grip, bolting for the emergency exit.
The startled officer’s curses echoed behind him as Rykhirt thrust his palms against the exit door’s push bar, bursting into the stairwell. Without hesitation he hefted himself over the metal railing into the vertical shaft that was clear to the bottom, plunging five floors, his body bouncing and thudding against the steel railing and concrete edges, level after level, as he fell to the ground floor.
Forty
Nevada
Catching on to the activity near the interstate ahead of her, Grace began moving toward it.
Her heart beat faster as she neared the group that had huddled around a patch of brush some twenty yards from the paved shoulder at the bank of desert wash.
Some people were crouched. Others were leaning over them to look.
Oh God, what did they find?
Jazmin and Sherry were there, on their knees.
“Grace!” Jazmin’s face creased with concern when she saw her coming. She nudged Sherry, who turned.
“Oh, Grace!” Sherry said.
People were clustered around a shrub, a desert senna. The round bush was about two feet tall, two feet wide, leafless and dead looking.
Embedded in the base of the bush was a sneaker.
Its aquamarine color was brilliant against the brown scrub, rocketing Grace back to six months earlier at the mall with Riley.
These are so cute, Mom. They were laceless slip-ons, lightweight canvas mesh with thick foam padding and white soles... Riley pulled them on, loved them. Like I’m walking on marshmallows! Can I get them please?
