What terrible thing was yet to happen?
THIRTY-THREE
On Rice Street they saw nothing. Mark, Chief Davis, and Kaycee spread out across the road, speaking little, heads down. Kaycee was on the left, Mark in the middle, Chief Davis on the right. “Look for anything,” the chief told Kaycee. “A button, a thread. Anything.”
Kaycee’s neck tired of straining downward, and a headache set in. She trudged along, the sense of being watched so severe she wanted to curl into a ball. Were they out there, sneaking behind buildings, watching as the three of them sought a single clue?
Was that blood on the photo Hannah’s?
Three times of their own volition, Kaycee’s right fingers raised to her nose. She swore she could still detect a faint metallic-sweet scent of blood.
As they rounded the corner onto Walters Lane, the other senses from Kaycee’s dream flooded her head. Screams, the running footsteps, a dark and closed space. Her limbs trembled. She took deep, steadying breaths and drew her arms tight across her chest.
In her peripheral vision Kaycee saw the stately gray Potters Inn B&B slide by on her right. Beyond it, Mark spotted something in the middle of the street. “Here.” He bent over low. “Looks like blood.”
Kaycee’s stomach fell to her toes. She stumbled over, heartbeat on hold, a buzz in her head. Chief hurried to the spot and squatted down.
The area was only about three inches long and smeared. Color — brownish red. If it was blood, it had long since dried. A few small pebbles were also stained.
“Look here.” The chief pointed to another spot about a diagonal foot away.
They stared at it. Kaycee couldn’t speak.
“Maybe she fell.” Mark held out his right hand, palm down. “She went down on a knee and threw out a hand to catch herself. The skin would be scraped in both places.”
“If she was wearing shorts.” The chief looked to Kaycee. “But she had jeans on in the video.”
Mark cupped his jaw, surveying the first area. “Maybe they tore.”
“We need to secure the street. But let’s see what else we can find.” Chief Davis pushed upright. “Kaycee, please move over to the grass.”
Kaycee obeyed as the two men quickly searched a little farther up the road and past its edges onto dirt and grass. They saw nothing unusual. The chief told Mark to run back and get his vehicle. “Put tape at the bottom of Rice until Seth gets here.”
Mark took off, arms pumping. Kaycee watched his retreating back in a fog of disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Blood here on the road. Blood on the photo.
A car pulled out of Bethel Pointe and turned left, in their direction. Chief Davis strode toward it, hands out and fingers spread. The driver slowed to a stop. Kaycee remained frozen, vaguely hearing the chief ask the man to turn around and go the other way.
Her eyes cut back to the dark stain on the road. She was looking at a potential crime scene.
Mark returned in his car. Chief Davis told Kaycee to walk alongside the road up to her house. She needed to leave the area.
From South Maple, Kaycee watched as the two men strung a second line of yellow crime-scene tape just feet beyond her. Now all of Walters Lane and Rice Street was secured. Looking down Walters, Kaycee could see residents gathering at the Bethel Pointe entrance, other neighbors craning necks from their lawns and porches. Vaguely, she wondered what would happen if any of them needed to drive somewhere.
Officer Ed Freeling was called to guard the tape where she stood. He was in his late forties, a rotund man with a balding spot at the back of his head. In one hand he held a clipboard. Anyone having to go in or out of the area would be noted, Ed told Kaycee. The officer stationed at the bottom of Rice Street would do the same.
“How long?” she asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “Until we’re sure we got everything we need. At least till the dog comes through.”
They watched together as the chief squatted by the stained pavement. Using a flathead screwdriver, he loosened red-brown flakes and gathered them up. These, plus the small stained pebbles, were carefully placed in an evidence bag, sealed, and labeled. Chief Davis and Mark then searched within the area at a meticulous pace, looking for more blood, footprints, whatever they might find.
Time blurred. Neighbors gathered near Kaycee, asking Officer Freeling what was going on. Mrs. Foley was not among them. She’d consider it gauche to be so obvious. Kaycee glanced toward her living room window and saw the woman peeking out.
The people around Kaycee whispered and shook their heads. A child vanished — in Wilmore. The town had never seen such a thing. Kaycee heard the talk and could only draw away. This was her fault, and the knowledge was going to break her apart. If she’d just stayed home last night. If she’d fought her downward spiral after Mandy’s death better, the sight of some dead man’s photo in her kitchen wouldn’t have thrown her for such a loop.
Mark had been right about her columns, no matter how he’d tried to backtrack. Fear had become her identity, even her livelihood. Maybe after fighting it all these years, she didn’t know how to let go.
“No more.” Kaycee said the words aloud. A young woman who’d walked over from Jessamine Village frowned at her. Kaycee’s cheeks heated. Shoving the strap of her purse further up her shoulder, she swiveled and walked up the steps to her porch. She stared at the front door, knowing she should wait for the tech before going inside. Not that she wanted to enter that invaded house anyway.
Tears bit her eyes. Kaycee dug her fingers into the back of her neck and let her head tip up. “God.” Her voice cracked. “You’ve got to help me through this.”
Her chin lowered. She stared at her toes, wondering what to do, where to go. Her mind only half registered the sound of a car driving up the street. Its engine cut suddenly. A door slammed. Kaycee looked around to see Ryan Parksley jumping from the passenger seat of a police vehicle. Officer Sam Walsh, whom Kaycee only knew in passing, was getting out of the driver’s side. Ryan gawked at the crime-scene tape and the officer guarding it, then turned toward Kaycee, as if wondering who to talk to first.
“Hi, Ryan.” Kaycee walked down her porch steps.
He made his way over with the gait of someone lost. Ryan was in his mid-thirties, solidly built, with hair and eyes the color of his daughter’s. Now he looked more like sixty. His expression mixed hope and dread. Lines etched his forehead, and his eyes were dull.
“We left Gail at home.” His voice sounded rough, like an old man’s. “Just in case Hannah shows up.”
Kaycee nodded.
He gestured over his shoulder toward Walters Lane. “They said she’d been down there. An officer took a piece of clothing.”
For the track dog. Kaycee glanced at Sam Walsh as he sidled over to talk to Ed. “Yes. We saw her on the video. We just don’t know how far she got.”
Ryan’s throat convulsed in a swallow. His lips pulled downward, fingers flexing in and out. He opened his mouth but no words came.
Kaycee’s heart lurched. “They’re going to find her, Ryan.”
His head bobbed, even as his shoulders slumped. “Yeah. They will.” He turned halfway to stare at the yellow crime-scene tape, tongue poking out to lick his lips. Disbelief rippled across his profile.
Wordlessly, he wandered toward the two officers.
Kaycee backtracked up her porch steps and hovered there, wedged between two nightmares. In time she saw Seth and his hound advancing up Walters Lane. Kaycee ran down her sidewalk and across the street to join the onlookers near the yellow tape. She pushed in to stand at Ryan’s side.
Nose to the pavement, the dog sniffed its way along with much excitement, dragging Seth in a trot.
The hound led its owner right to the blood stain.
It’s Hannah’s!
Kaycee’s hands gripped each other so hard she thought her fingers would snap.
Ryan moaned.
Some thirty feet beyond the stain, on the left side of the road — Seth’
s dog lost the scent.
THIRTY-FOUR
After the hound lost Hannah’s trail, Chief Davis, Mark, Ryan, and Officer Sam Walsh gathered for a quick meeting on Kaycee’s porch. They had numerous things to discuss. Ryan slumped against a white pillar with one hand thrust in his hair, his face slick with sweat. He stared at his feet, barely blinking. Guilt gripped Kaycee as she watched him. This was what real fear looked like. Her petty frights were nothing.
Chief told her and Ryan that the evidence bag of blood from the street, plus the photo she had found, would soon be on their way to the Frankfort lab. They hoped to hear by tomorrow afternoon if the blood was human and the types were the same. Hannah’s type was O, the most common. Even if the blood in both evidence bags was O, there was still a big chance one or the other wasn’t hers.
Ryan frowned, as if his brain just registered the conversation. “What photo?”
Gently, Chief Davis explained the events at Kaycee’s house. Kaycee let him do the talking. By the time he finished explaining, Ryan’s mouth hung open. He stared at Kaycee, his eyes darkened. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I — I didn’t think they were linked.”
“How could you not think that?”
“Because — ”
“Mr. Parksley — ” Chief Davis raised a hand.
“No. I want to hear it from her. You’re my daughter’s best friend, Kaycee. She thinks the world of you.” Ryan’s words thickened. “Less than an hour after you visited last night, she ran away to come here. And you don’t think what happens with you is ‘linked ’?”
Kaycee shrank back. “I didn’t want to bother the police with my problems, I just wanted them to look for Hannah — ”
“It’s a little too late, don’t you think?”
“Ryan.” Chief laid a hand on his arm.
Ryan shook it off and stepped toward Kaycee. His cheeks flushed. “Why did Hannah walk all that way in the dark to come here? Tell me that. What’ve you been filling her ears with? Is she crying to you about my marrying Gail so soon, and you’re just going, yeah, yeah, poor thing, your dad’s such a louse? You standing there, judging me?” Ryan’s lip curled. He swung his head from her to the three officers, a dead man come to life. “You’re all judging me! You got no idea what I’ve been through. No idea!”
“Ryan.” Sam gripped his shoulder. Ryan pivoted away. He wrenched himself two steps toward the street and hung there, breathing hard. Peering toward the spot where Hannah vanished.
Kaycee’s eyes stung. She raked a despairing glance at Mark and saw a compassion that tightened her throat. He shook his head — You didn’t deserve that.
Ryan dug his fingers into his scalp, his spine folding over. His legs seemed to crumble out from under him. Sam jumped to his side and caught him before he toppled. Ryan hung on like a drowning man thrown a lifeline and broke into sobs.
The sound tore Kaycee’s heart in two. Turning away, she covered her face and cried.
A presence materialized beside her. “It’s okay, Kaycee.” Mark’s voice. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t. Nothing was okay. Still, she nodded and gulped back the tears.
After a minute Ryan quieted. He drew himself up, wiping both cheeks with the back of one hand. “Sorry.” His voice sounded raw.
“No need to apologize.” Chief Davis looked worn. He had two children of his own. Kaycee knew the pressure on him to bring Hannah home safely must be crushing.
The five of them looked at each other, the air heavy with unspoken thoughts. Defensiveness wafted from Ryan, as if he knew he’d tipped his hand to his own guilt.
He stuttered a sigh. “What do we do now?”
Chief stood with one hand on his hip. He looked to Kaycee. “We’ll get someone in your house to dust for prints soon. And we’ll get your car back to you. Meanwhile we’ve got to decide what to do with you tonight. I suggest you stay with your friend again. We’ll keep watch on your house, see if we can catch anyone lurking around.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ryan, we really don’t know if these events are linked to Hannah’s disappearance, but we need to act on the assumption they are. Which means trying to catch who’s doing this is of utmost importance, even as we take all the other steps to find Hannah.”
Ryan nodded. His mouth opened then shut, as if he didn’t trust himself to speak. He wouldn’t look at Kaycee.
“I’m staying here.” The words popped from Kaycee.
Chief Davis pulled in the corners of his mouth. “That might be pretty frightening.”
“Doesn’t matter how frightening it is.” Kaycee’s words sharpened. “I have to stay here. Most of the stuff has happened inside my house. How are you going to know what’s going on in there by just driving by now and then? And we have to remember whoever’s doing this is aiming it at me. If it has anything to do with Hannah, it’s probably only because she got in the way.” Kaycee’s voice cracked. She swallowed hard. “I have to do this. I left last night, and look what happened. I’m not leaving tonight.”
Ryan surveyed her for a moment, then looked away.
Mark rubbed the back of his neck. Lack of sleep drew ridges around his mouth. “I don’t know that it would’ve made any difference if you were home.”
“I’m not leaving, Mark. I’m not walking away from this.”
Chief Davis looked from Kaycee to Ryan and back. Sighing, he turned to gaze down Walters Lane. The crime-scene tape bounced in a slight breeze. Ed stood behind it, legs apart, holding his clipboard and looking their direction. Kaycee could practically see the wheels of decision turning in the chief’s head. So many details to handle, with a finite amount of officers. And despite his patience, Kaycee sensed his drive to get moving. Any further searching on foot for Hannah would be far more difficult after dark.
He cleared his throat. “There is a benefit to you staying. If you’re here, that may draw these suspects out. Then we can move in. But your safety comes first. I’ll put two officers on your house tonight.”
“I’ll do it,” Mark said. “You haven’t slept.”
“Let me go sleep now. I’ll come back on duty at nine or ten, whenever you want.”
Kaycee threw Mark a look of gratitude. “But that would mean less officers looking for Hannah.”
The chief shook his head. “No it won’t. Soon as I get back to the station I’ll be calling the State Police for help with this case. There’s too much for us to handle. We’ll need more officers — plus volunteers — to help in grid searches. I might request the State Police to provide the second officer to watch this place tonight. I’m thinking one officer in the black barn to cover the left side of your property and one in Mrs. Foley’s house to cover the right.”
Mrs. Foley, great. Kaycee pushed hair off her face. “Mrs. Foley might not want to cooperate. When I found that picture in my car I went a little crazy. And she saw it.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Chief said.
Panic spiraled through Kaycee’s chest. This plan, her staying here tonight — it could really happen.
“This is workable, if you think you can handle it.” Chief Davis must be reading her mind. “Officer Burnett and the second man will be only a minute away if you need them. With lights off in Mrs. Foley’s first level, Mark can move from front to back to see out windows, and that barn’s dark at night. Plenty bowed slats to look through. Keep your cell phone with you at all times, and the officers will have theirs. I’ll remain on duty all night as well, and I won’t be far away.”
“Okay, but . . .” This was going to sound so paranoid. “Whoever these people are, they’re watching.” Kaycee whisked nervous fingers up and down the bottom of her purse strap. “If they see Mark going into Mrs. Foley’s house . . .”
If Chief Davis thought she was being crazy, he didn’t show it. His “velvet touch” at work. “Mark, dress in civilian clothes and wear a hat. Park across the street in your own personal car. Carry your weapon and laptop in a small suitcase. You’re a guest vi
siting for the night.”
“Okay.”
“As for the other guy, we’ll station him as unobtrusively as possible, also in plainclothes.”
Kaycee glanced from Mark to the chief. She was suddenly having trouble processing oxygen. “So . . . what exactly do we expect to happen?”
The chief spread his hands. “None of this is predictable. But with three episodes at your house in less than twenty-four hours, it’s not unlikely whoever’s bothering you will come around again. This time we’ll get them. And let’s hope they can lead us to Hannah.”
Let’s hope.
“You okay with this?” Chief raised his eyebrows. “The alternative is to go stay with your friend.”
Kaycee thought of the dream her watchers had somehow caused her to have at Tricia’s house. The “wrong number” call there asking for Belinda, a haunting name that had to be connected to all this. “If I’m not here, they’ll know. They . . . see things. They know.”
“Oh, brother,” Ryan muttered in disgust. He turned toward the crime-scene tape, hands at his temples. His eyes closed, and the cynicism drained from his features, replaced with abject pain. “This sounds so crazy,” he whispered. “But just . . . make it work. Bring Hannah back.”
Yes, God, please. But it only worked if they showed up. Which would be beyond terrifying.
The meeting broke up. Sam and Ryan wandered back to Sam’s vehicle to return to Ryan’s house — and wait. The chief crossed the side yard to knock on Mrs. Foley’s door. Kaycee could imagine their conversation. The old woman would play like she was being put upon while privately basking in her incredible fortune. She’d get to help a police officer snoop.
Mark lingered on Kaycee’s porch. She surveyed him, vulnerability swirling in her chest. Ryan Parksley’s words still bit deep.
Exposure Page 14
