Colde & Rainey (A Rainey Bell Thriller)

by R. E. Bradshaw

  The storm passed, Danny suggested, “You know things that could help them find the woman that tried to kill you.”

  Rainey shook her head. “She’s gone. I guarantee she had a go-bag ready for just this occasion. By now, she’s on her way to some out of the way airport, headed for parts unknown, with a new identity, a new look, and plenty of cash.”

  “That smart, huh?” Danny commented.

  “Oh, Ellie is calculating and cunning, but she made a mistake.”

  “What was that?” Danny asked with an amused expression.

  “Ellie didn’t kill Graham Colde. He knows what happened. It’s coming back to him. He knows this case better than anyone, but he needs help connecting the dots. Talk to him, before she takes another whack at him.”

  “I thought you were going to say she shouldn’t have left you alive.”

  Rainey started for the door. “Didn’t you tell Graham we don’t hunt them down and exact revenge?”

  Danny’s laughter rang through his response. “I was using that ‘we’ loosely. You will call me when you find her, right Rainey?”

  Rainey stopped and turned around. “Yours will be the first number I dial, if you promise I get to watch the cuffs go on her.”

  Danny’s face lit up with a grin. “Absolutely.”

  Rainey turned back toward the exit and called over her shoulder, “Give my mea culpa to Brad and then let’s go see your godchildren. I’m going outside to refreeze my nose.”

  The doors whooshed open automatically at her approach. Rainey stepped back into the cold night. The chill wasn’t so bad with the warmth of the hospital still clinging to her clothes. She noticed Bill standing by the SUV and approached him.

  He smiled at her. “The mask does wonders for your mystique.”

  A nurse had given her an ice pack, which Rainey produced from her pocket. She squeezed it to release the freezing agents and shook the bag hard, while speaking to Bill.

  “It’s my toddler defense system. Just the thought of one of those little elbows whacking my unprotected nose makes my stomach turn.”

  Bill winced. “Mine isn’t broken and that thought makes me feel sick. Good move on the mask, but you might want to get a football helmet for the duration of your recovery.”

  Rainey leaned back against the SUV and let out a heavy sigh, before tilting her head back and placing the ice bag across her eyes and nose. It had been a long day.

  “Did you see Graham’s mother?” Bill asked, after a moment of silence passed between them.

  “Yes. I assume you called her and filled her in,” Rainey said from under the ice bag.

  “I did, after I called my mom,” Bill explained. “I told her Ellie killed Dad. She couldn’t believe it at first, but then I told her she tried to kill you and Graham too, and that Dad was right about all the deaths being connected. It finally sank in.”

  “Your dad must have asked Ellie the wrong question. He was getting close.”

  “I studied that file all day. He never made any indication that he thought she did it,” Bill countered.

  “He knew something or she wouldn’t have killed him. She murdered for financial gain or to cover her tracks. There was no passion in her motives. Something in that file points to her, we just have to find it.”

  “The file is in there,” Bill said, indicating the SUV with his shoulder. “You can take it home with you, if you think you can find the answer. I just can’t see it. Ellie was smart. She made every accidental death plausible. It’s going to be tough to prove otherwise.”

  “She isn’t going to get away with it,” Rainey replied, confidently.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Rainey peeled up the ice bag and smiled over at the doubting Bill. “A girl-next-door serial killer is international news, especially one that looks like Ellie. She is finally going to be famous. She will have to crow to someone. Her constant need for adoration will override her caution. Pride goeth before the fall is not just an old cliché.”

  “You saw her spots, as my dad would say. She really did confess her sins to you. I wonder why?”

  Back under the ice bag, Rainey answered, “The same reason she’ll show herself again. Ellie’s narcissism will be her undoing.”

  “If you find her, I’ll name my kid after you. I don’t know if Morgan would go for Rainey, though. What’s your middle name?”

  “It’s Blue, as in the color.” Rainey pulled off the ice bag and smiled at Bill. “Billy and my mother were hippie wannabes. Don’t worry about the name, but you can help me find Ellie.”

  “I can?” Bill looked surprised.

  “You, Graham, and Joey are going to help me. Ellie Paxton Read left a trail and we are going to track it right to her doorstep. Her past will tell us what we need to know about her future. When Ellie killed Ely, she lost her confidant, the one person she could gloat to and impress with her superiority among the mere mortals she was forced to tolerate. Ellie needed an audience. She most certainly leaked—they all do. People know pieces of information that mean nothing individually, but combined with what others know will tell a complete story.”

  “Should I be worried about her coming after my family?” Bill’s concern wrinkled his brow.

  Rainey shook her head. “No, she’s gone, long gone. There is no advantage to her ever coming here again. That would require a passion for something lost. She’s not that type of criminal. Ellie doesn’t love or need things like most of us. Ellie loves Ellie and that’s where it stops for her. The Ellie identity burned to ashes the moment she knew she was caught. She’s a new woman by now, flying to a new life she had planned and waiting in the wings for just such an occasion. Ellie doesn’t have regrets, only alibis.”

  “She was in my father’s house, washing dishes, even took time to sit with my grieving mother. Why did not one of us see it? How could she have killed nine people and never batted an eyelash?”

  “Remorse, guilt, empathy—Ellie can’t express those with any truthfulness. She plays the part required to accomplish her goals. She mimics emotions. A psychopath like Ellie is capable of playing the notes of humanity but not the song. She gunned down her parents, drowned her brother, murdered six more, and played the innocent victim to perfection. Would she feel badly about holding your mother’s hand after murdering your father? No, quite the opposite is true. That was duping delight at its zenith. She enjoyed every moment.”

  “She duped us all,” Bill commented, as he shook his head. “No one suspected her.”

  “Ellie is the ideal friend, lover, business partner, or whatever her victim’s desires and needs might be. Psychopaths excel in reading people. The façade of normalcy they work so hard to portray also gives them insight into the weaknesses of others. By the time ‘too good to be true’ proves once again to be an accurate description, the damage is usually done.”

  “She fooled a profiler—” Bill started to say, but Rainey interrupted.

  “I saw her narcissism, just by observing her behavior around the people in your house, but many people have narcissistic traits, including me. A couple of hours with a file are never enough to offer a profile of any kind.”

  The emergency room doors whooshed open seconds before Danny came strolling out. Rainey pointed at him.

  She said to Bill, “He is a profiler and he would have dated her,” she spoke loudly enough for Danny to hear, “at least long enough to enjoy the benefits.”

  Danny laughed, and added to Rainey’s thought, “Psychopaths are great fun in the beginning of the relationship, so willing to please. It’s knowing when to get off the ride that can be tricky.”

  Bill shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to be happily married.”

  Rainey agreed, “Me too.”

  Danny smiled at them. “I’m just doing my part for the dating pool, identifying all the women that should wear “Run Away!” signs on their foreheads.”

  “He really can pick ‘em,” Rainey added, with a chuckle.
<
br />   Danny shook Bill’s hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you and thank you for the help finding my wayward friend here. Trouble should be her middle name.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” Bill replied. “Thank you for coming.”

  Danny smiled over at Rainey. “She’s trouble, but she’s worth it.” He crossed to the driver’s side of the SUV. “Bill, do you need a ride?”

  “No, Morgan is on her way.” He stuck his hand out toward Rainey. “Thank you for believing my mother when I did not. Call me when you feel up to it. We’ll get started on finding Ellie.”

  Rainey shook Bill’s hand. “I don’t usually promise to bring someone in, but in this case, I can assure you I will find this woman. If it takes years, I will never stop looking.”

  “Like father, like daughter,” Bill said.

  Danny rolled the power window down on the passenger side, and called out to Rainey, “Okay, Rain Cloud, let’s get you home, before another front comes through or Katie calls me again.”

  Rainey’s big smile caused a twinge of pain, but she couldn’t stop it. “She can be relentless.”

  Danny chuckled. “Yeah, like someone else I know.”

  Chapter Ten

  Friday, February 14, 2014

  The Bell-Meyers Home,

  12:30 a.m.

  Clear, 34oF, Windchill 28oF

  “Wake up, Rainey. You have to get us through the gate,” Danny said, rousing her from a deep sleep.

  On the drive home, they had gone over what she could remember of her interaction with Ellie, until Rainey could hold her eyes open no longer and fell asleep. She blinked awake now, as Danny slowed the SUV to a stop at the security post guarding the entrance to her neighborhood. A guard stepped out to greet them.

  “Roll your window down so I can talk to him,” Rainey said.

  The window came down all the way before the guard spoke. He was very alert and suspicious. Rainey loved that about him and all the security staff she harassed into paranoia where she was concerned. It was a necessity, as it turned out, because they had all learned trouble did visit the Bell-Meyers family often.

  “Good evening, Agent McNally.”

  “Good to see you again, Cliff,” Danny said.

  Cliff looked over at Rainey. His expression registered the same concern as his tone, when he asked, “Ms. Bell, are you all right?”

  “It looks worse than it is. I’ll be fine in about ten minutes, when I have a very stiff drink in my hand and my feet are finally warm.”

  Cliff didn’t hold them up any longer. “Glad you’re home safe,” he said, and pushed a button on the remote to open the gate.

  Danny drove slowly through the neighborhood to the last house on the left, closest to the lake. The lights came on at their approach and the front door flew open. Through the wrought iron fence that separated them, Rainey saw Katie step onto the porch, with Molly and Leslie flanking her. The thought of never seeing Katie and her children again left a prickle of pain in Rainey’s chest from that moment in the van until now. It vanished with the sigh of relief that escaped from her, loudly enough to draw Danny’s attention.

  As he applied his fingerprint to the biometric lock on the gate, he said to Rainey, “She’s the reason you breathe, isn’t she?”

  Rainey never took her eyes from Katie, when she responded, “You’ll catch her if I fall, won’t you, Danny?”

  As the gate crawled open, she heard him say, “You appear to be immortal, so I doubt my services will be needed, but yes, I promised to take care of your family and I will.”

  “When I thought I was a goner, all I could think about was how she and the kids would make it without me,” Rainey said, finally letting her emotions run wild. “Causing them pain is the last thing I ever want to do.”

  Danny reached over and squeezed her hand. “Rainey, if anything ever happens to you, your family will be safe and loved, trust me.”

  She squeezed his hand and watched Katie come down the steps toward the driveway to greet them. “I do trust you, Danny. I always have.”

  Katie reached for the door handle before the vehicle came to a stop. It wouldn’t open until Rainey pulled the handle on the inside, which she did, but put her hand out in front of her to stop Katie from leaping at her.

  “Whoa, don’t smack me in the nose,” Rainey said, warning Katie off.

  Katie stopped in mid-lunge and took a good look at Rainey. “Oh my, God. That must hurt like hell.”

  Rainey stepped down from the SUV and opened her arms to pull Katie to her. “Yes, it does. Just stand still and let me hold you a second.”

  Katie slid her arms around Rainey and squeezed her tight. “I was so scared I’d lost you.”

  Rainey leaned back so she could look down at Katie’s upturned face. “You do know that you can’t lose me, right? I will always be with you, always.”

  Katie didn’t smile. She looked stunned and said, “You thought you were going to die, didn’t you?”

  “Only long enough to remember why I had to survive,” Rainey said, hugging Katie to her again.

  “Don’t you ever forget that,” Katie replied, nuzzling into Rainey’s chest.

  “I won’t,” Rainey said, and smiled over at Molly and Leslie, cueing them to walk over to where she stood.

  Molly spoke first. “Glad to see you, even if you do look like you went a couple of rounds with Laila Ali.”

  “No, just a homecoming queen with bad intentions,” Rainey said, smiling and accepting a handshake from Molly.

  She couldn’t hug her because Katie wasn’t letting go and Rainey wasn’t going to make her.

  Leslie spoke up next, apologizing, “I took Joey home, but we did speak about the video game. He really did not know it was wrong to help with it. He knows now.”

  “It’s okay, Leslie. Joey was taken advantage of,” Rainey explained.

  Leslie wasn’t finished. “I’m sorry about Theodore spying on you, too. I would never have brought him into your life if I knew he would do that.”

  Rainey reassured her. “He’s not a bad guy. Just a little misguided. He meant no harm. He’s going by his old name now, Graham Dean Colde.”

  “What old name?” Leslie asked. “He’s not Theodore Suzanne?”

  “No, and it’s a long story. I promise to fill you all in as soon as I’ve had a hot shower and put on socks.”

  “Socks?” Katie said, still clinging to Rainey’s waist.

  “I will probably sleep in socks for the rest of winter,” Rainey said, and started moving everyone toward the house. “In fact, I may never be without socks again in my lifetime.”

  Danny, following behind the women, piped up to say, “I think the lavender hippopotamus you were wearing on your head when I found you should become part of your signature look.”

  Molly’s summation of Rainey’s last two days rang true. “Only Rainey Bell could go to a funeral and end up with a story encompassing a misguided stalker, a murdering homecoming queen, and a lavender hippopotamus.”

  #

  1:51 a.m.

  Clear, 34oF, Windchill 27.2oF

  “Hey,” Katie’s whisper tickled Rainey’s ear.

  She was standing behind the couch, leaning over near Rainey’s reclining head. Rainey sat up and realized she had fallen asleep leaning on the cushions in the corner of the couch. Her hands went straight to her nose that began to throb with the sudden movement.

  “Ouch,” she said, stretching the protective mask away from her face.

  Coming from behind the couch, Katie crossed to stand in front of Rainey. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs. There is an ice bag waiting for you and you can take the mask off for a while.”

  “Where did everybody go?” Rainey asked, still holding the mask away from her face.

  “Molly and Leslie went home and Danny went to bed. You passed out pretty quickly after you sat down. I’m surprised you made it back down here after your shower. Danny told us what you went through today.”

  Rainey gent
ly returned the mask to her face. “I think the van got the worst of it. I wonder if our insurance covers murderous intent.”

  “Not sure, but maybe we should look into a floating car,” Katie said with a chuckle.

  “Not a bad idea,” Rainey replied and then added, “By the way, I will never again tease you about stuffing our vehicles full of emergency supplies. Thank you.”

  Katie held out her hand, offering Rainey an assist off the couch. “And thank you for being so hard to kill.”

  Rainey took the offered hand and stood up. She pulled Katie into a hug. “I knew you were looking for me. I’ll always come back to you, Katie. As long as I’m breathing, I will never stop trying to come home to you. Don’t ever count me out.”

  Katie stood on her tiptoes and kissed Rainey ever so gently on the lips. “Rainey Blue Bell,” she said, “that was Ellie Paxton’s mistake. It will never be mine.”

  They held hands walking up the stairs together. Rainey started laughing about halfway up to their bedroom.

  “What’s so funny,” Katie asked.

  “Look,” Rainey said, pointing at the second floor landing.

  The large stuffed bear from the kids’ room sat on the first step to the third floor. He was wearing socks on his feet and on his head rested Weather’s pink tee shirt, with the lavender hippopotamus smiling back at them.

  #

  5:53 a.m.

  Clear, 28oF, Windchill 20.8oF

  The phone rang out loudly on the bedside table by Rainey’s head. She bolted upright, remembered her nose with the first throb, and covered it with one hand, while she reached for the phone with the other. She didn’t take the time to look at the caller ID, fully expecting the person on the phone to apologize for the wrong number at such an ungodly time of morning.

  “Hello,” she said, in her Edith Ann voice.

  “Ooo, it sounds like that nose of yours is really painful.”

  The female on the line was no stranger calling a wrong number before the sunrise.

  “Hello, Ellie,” Rainey said, sitting up at full attention now.