Lucky Like Us

by Jennifer Ryan

  Focused on Chris, he asked, “We understand you took Dianne to the dance at school last month.”

  “Yeah. So.”

  “So, what happened that night?”

  “We went to the dance, partied, and I took her home. She had a good time.”

  “I’m sure she did. I heard you guys left early that night. Where did you go?” Most teenage boys wanted to brag about their conquests. Tyler hoped Chris was stupid enough to spill his guts.

  “We parked out by Monroe Park and did a little backseat dancing. After, I took her home. She didn’t even miss curfew.”

  “You guys had sex?”

  “Yeah. What of it?” Chris stood, crossing his arms over his thin chest to appear tough, but looking defensive instead.

  “Did she give her consent?”

  “Hell yes. I don’t need to force anyone. Just ask Ashley, there.” He pointed to the young girl driving away from the curb in an old yellow Beetle.

  “I think we’ll spare her the embarrassment. Your relationship with her is quite obvious,” Tyler said with a frown. He must be getting old if he thought it inappropriate for teenagers to give in to their raging hormones. He’d been young and dumb once, letting his smaller head think for his big one.

  “Relationship, shit. I’m tapping that well until it runs dry. I’m not getting myself tied down. Dianne thought just because we’d done it together we were in some romantic relationship, together forever. Hell, I told her I’d pretty much gotten what I wanted. She wasn’t even that good. I didn’t want her clinging to me. I’m leaving this fall for college anyway.”

  Tyler hoped he was never this callous with the girls he knew in high school. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “All the time before she disappeared. She constantly followed me around school, asking to talk to me. The day she went missing, she came here.”

  Tyler was surprised by Chris’ easy admission. “How did she get here? She didn’t have a car. Did someone bring her?”

  “She walked, I guess. The school bus lets out pretty close. It’s about halfway between here and her house. I talked to her for a few minute before I took off in my truck. Last I saw her, she was standing in the driveway. The next day, her picture’s all over the news.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police, or tell her parents you’d seen her that day?”

  “I didn’t think anyone would care.” He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “She was fine when I left. I figured she’d walk home and finish crying there.”

  “Why was she crying?” Tyler hoped to get the details of what really happened to Dianne, or at least a good lead he could chase.

  “She wanted to get back together with me. I told her I didn’t believe her lies, and I certainly didn’t want to marry her. She couldn’t take a hint.”

  “What did she lie about?”

  “Said she was pregnant,” Chris said reluctantly. Putting his hands out to his sides, he let them fall and slap his thighs. Maybe he had some concern for her well-being. Tyler wasn’t so sure Chris was involved in her disappearance directly.

  “She used it as an excuse for us to get back together. We’d only had sex once. She couldn’t have gotten pregnant. It was her first time.”

  Chris really wanted to believe that. Being a teenager, denial was the best course of action when faced with something so life altering.

  “Did you use a condom?” Tyler asked.

  “No, but we only did it once. It didn’t even last that long,” he said, embarrassed by the admission. A car drove up, causing Chris to turn an even deeper shade of red.

  “What’s going on here, Chris? You do something wrong?”

  “No, Dad. They’re asking about Dianne. She’s still missing.”

  Mr. Hillman approached and stood beside his son. “Well, my boy doesn’t know anything. These young people today think they can do whatever they want. She probably took off with some friends.”

  Tyler ignored Mr. Hillman’s statement and concentrated on the man’s manner and stance. He was hiding something, or nervous about them being there. Maybe Chris didn’t know anything about Dianne’s disappearance, but Mr. Hillman did. Tyler thought his choice of words was interesting at least.

  “Mr. Hillman, I’m Special Agent Turner with the FBI and this is Detective Sanders. Did you know your son saw Dianne the day she disappeared?”

  “I did. She tried to cause some trouble. She’s a young girl trying to hold on to her first love. Chris didn’t feel the same for her. I told her it was just a crush, and she’d get over it.”

  “When did you tell her this?” Tyler never took his gaze from Mr. Hillman, who swiped his fingers over his mouth, startled. He hadn’t meant to give up that information, and Tyler was chomping at the bit to get him to reveal even more.

  “I came home after Chris left Dianne in the driveway.”

  So Chris wasn’t the last person to see Dianne.

  “I asked her what was wrong. She was upset Chris didn’t return her feelings. He’s attending college this fall, has a scholarship lined up. Nothing’ll stop him from going to school. Not if I have anything to say about it. Isn’t that right, Chris?”

  “Yeah,” Chris grudgingly agreed.

  “What happened when you told her she’d get over it, Mr. Hillman?” Tyler thought it insensitive to say to a young woman in love for the first time with the man’s son.

  “She got even more upset, and I told her to leave. My son doesn’t need an anchor like her around his neck, dragging him down.”

  “Did she leave after you told her to go?”

  “I guess. I went back to my shop, since Chris wasn’t home. I figured I’d get some work done and pick up dinner on the way back,” Mr. Hillman rambled.

  “Did you see her leave?”

  “Not really. She walked down the driveway when I left. I don’t know where she went after that.”

  Tyler looked to Detective Sanders to see if he had any other questions. This was the best lead they had so far. Looking around the front yard, Tyler noted the ugly pea soup-green house with brown trim. It needed a paint job, and not because of the hideous color. The garage door was closed. The front yard was bare, but the lawn had been cut recently. No trees, just some scraggly bushes. If Dianne was beneath the grand oak, it sure wasn’t here at the Hillman house.

  “Is Mrs. Hillman home? Perhaps she saw where Dianne went after you left?”

  “Mrs. Hillman left years ago. We divorced. Chris was seven, so I guess it’s been about ten years.”

  “Dad’s more the love ’em and leave ’em kind. Isn’t that right, Dad?” Chris’s voice dripped with scorn.

  Obviously, there’d been a number of women in and out of Mr. Hillman’s life. From the way Chris spoke, he didn’t approve. Tyler wondered if Chris realized he was doing the same thing his father had been doing for years.

  Maybe only a few years older than him, Mr. Hillman was young to be the father of a teen. A teenage father, Tyler guessed.

  The thing about history, it had a way of repeating itself. Dianne had told Chris she was pregnant. What if she’d also told his father?

  “Mr. Hillman, what type of shop do you run?”

  “I own a furniture business. We make and sell custom furniture.”

  “What’s the name of the shop?”

  “The Oak Warehouse.”

  Tyler gulped down hard. Everything in Morgan’s message was coming together. He could feel it. “You’re sure you don’t know what happened to Dianne?”

  A trickle of sweat slid down the side of Mr. Hillman’s face before he answered. “No. Listen, I need to get a few things done around the house before Chris and I have dinner. If you have any more questions for my son, you’ll have to ask them later. Chris, let’s go in now.”

  Father and son headed for the front door. Tyler took a good look at Mr. Hillman’s car. A red Mustang, maybe a ’94 or ’95. He took a look at the license plate; he’d use it to run a check on Mr. Hillman. The vani
ty plate surprised him. His whole system felt electrified when he read the letters: KNGHRTS.

  “Mr. Hillman. That’s quite a license plate. King of Hearts. Is that some kind of nickname from the ladies?”

  “Something like that. It’s a leftover nickname from my youth. It goes with the tat.”

  “I’m sorry. The what?” Tyler knew he meant a tattoo. He hoped he’d get a look at it to connect to the message from Morgan. God, she was creepy.

  “My tattoo. See.” Mr. Hillman pulled the collar of his button-down shirt aside and revealed the red heart with a gold crown surrounding it. “I got it when I was eighteen. I thought I was real hot shit back then. My wife got me the license plates when I bought the Mustang. She left me a month later when she found out I was having an affair. Said I was the King of Assholes.” He shrugged and followed Chris into the house.

  Tyler let him go. He didn’t have any evidence that pointed to Mr. Hillman, or that he’d done anything to Dianne. All he had was the tattoo matching the message from Morgan and a hunch Mr. Hillman knew exactly what happened to Dianne after Chris left.

  “Sanders, what do you think?”

  “He knows more than he’s saying. I don’t think Dianne Wales left this property of her own free will. Did you notice how adamant he was that Dianne not drag Chris down? He appeared overly concerned Chris take that scholarship and go to college. I wonder if Dianne mentioned to Chris’s father she was pregnant, and he decided to make her disappear, so Chris wouldn’t give up school.”

  “That’s my line of thinking as well. Now we need some evidence to back it up, so we can get a search warrant. I’d like to get into the house, the car, and the store. I think he took her to his shop. Let’s get a few officers to canvas the neighborhood, see if any of the neighbors remember seeing Dianne here that day, and whether or not she left with Mr. Hillman. Maybe you can hit the shop and find out if any of Mr. Hillman’s staff can verify he came back that day, or if anything has been off with him since Dianne disappeared. See if you can get a judge to issue warrants on the basis Mr. Hillman was the last to see Dianne. It’s thin, but maybe we’ll get lucky. Make sure you put a man on him until we finish investigating. I don’t want him to disappear on us too.”

  “You got it. I have to say, you really took nothing and made it into something. Not one person I talked to ever mentioned Chris, including her best friend, Leslie. I guess all her friends believed they weren’t seeing each other anymore, so it wasn’t important enough to mention. Looks like I blew this one.”

  “You didn’t blow anything,” Tyler assured the detective. “I read the file. You did a top-notch investigation. I got lucky. That’s all. Let’s follow up on this and see if we can’t find out what really happened. Unfortunately, I don’t think this case will end well.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  * * *

  TYLER SCANNED UP and down the street at each of the neighboring houses, hoping someone might have seen something. Directly across the street, the drapes on an upstairs window fell back into place. The same creepy feeling he got whenever Morgan gave him a message reverberated through him.

  “Sanders, let’s check out the house across the street. Someone’s been watching us from the upstairs window. Maybe they know something and can help us.”

  “It couldn’t hurt. So far you’ve gotten me further on this case in a few hours than I’ve been able to get in weeks.”

  They stood at the front door of the two-story house. A little old lady opened the door and stood before them, all of five feet nothing, wearing gray slacks and a crisp white blouse. She reminded him of his grandmother. Tightly curled hair crowned her head, and he’d swear he smelled lavender. She held her trembling hands together in front of her.

  “Are you the police?”

  “I’m Special Agent Reed with the FBI, ma’am. This is Detective Sanders. Do you need to speak with us?”

  “Aren’t you going to arrest him for what he did to that poor little girl?”

  “Which him are you referring to, ma’am? And what did he do to the girl?” Tyler’s gut tightened. This was it. They had a witness.

  “That terrible man who always has those floozy women over. He’s not setting a very good example for the poor boy, who lost his mother. She left years ago. A nice woman, but very young. That man always yelled at her about how she ruined his life. Seems it takes two to make a baby, and it isn’t the baby’s fault it gets made.”

  “Ma’am, did you see Mr. Hillman hurt a girl?”

  “Yes, he did. She had short blonde hair, very pretty, even though she was crying. Her picture was on the news. I was out clipping the roses by the picket fence. She spoke to the boy first, but he left. When the man came home and found her there, she was still crying in the driveway. He took some things out of the trunk and put them in the garage. He came back to talk with her. She must have said something he didn’t like because he hit her with a hammer he took out of his trunk. She fell to the ground. He put her in the car and left with her.”

  Good God. “Was she dead? Could you tell?”

  “I don’t think so. She moved, trying to get away from him when she lay on the ground. He picked her up to get her into the car. Blood ran down her face. I thought maybe he’d do the right thing and take her to the hospital. He came back later and told me that if I said anything he’d kill me. But now that you’ve come to arrest him, I can tell what happened. You’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt me.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we will.” Tyler took the photo of Dianne out of the file and handed it to the woman. “Is this the girl you saw across the street?”

  She studied the photo for a long time. “This is the girl. This isn’t the same photo they had on the TV.”

  Tyler exchanged a look with Detective Sanders, who walked away with his phone to his ear. This would definitely get them the search warrants they needed to search Mr. Hillman’s properties and hopefully find Dianne.

  Tyler turned to the detective. “Sanders, when you get the warrants, I want to search The Oak Warehouse. I think we’ll find her there.”

  Tyler gave the older woman a reassuring smile. “Ma’am, an officer will come and stay with you and take your statement. Okay?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll put on some coffee. The officer will stay until you take the man to jail, right?” Mr. Hillman had certainly made sure the death threat appeared credible.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll take good care of you.” Tyler smiled reassuringly. “You go inside while we get things coordinated. I’ll come back and see you when the officer arrives.”

  The woman closed the door and threw the bolt into place.

  Unbelievable—in a matter of hours they’d managed to find the suspect and a witness. Now all they had to do was find Dianne.

  He didn’t think they’d find her alive, but in any missing person case it was better to find the person dead than to not find them at all. Dianne’s parents deserved closure, no matter what the outcome. Without Morgan’s message, he would have never asked about Chris taking Dianne to the dance. He would have never discovered Mr. Hillman had been the last person to see her. Now, because of the part of the message regarding the grand oak, he had a feeling they would find Dianne. And it was all thanks to Morgan.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  Sunday, 1:44 A.M.

  TYLER HAD ONE hell of a night and needed to decompress. Hell, he needed to get the image of Dianne out of his head. Sam was in a bad state, but he’d wanted an update on Dianne’s case. Tyler dialed Sam’s cell, knowing Sam wouldn’t mind the late-night call. You couldn’t tell just anybody about the types of things you saw on the job. Sam would understand without Tyler having to explain every detail. Surprisingly, Sam picked up on the first ring.

  “Turner.”

  “It’s Tyler. What are you doing up so late? Is everything all right with Elizabeth?” Tyler hoped nothing else had happened. He still couldn’t get Sam’s devastated face out of his mind. He didn’t think he’d ever
seen Sam in such despair.

  “Is it late? I was sitting here staring out the window watching the city. As far as I know, Elizabeth is the same. I called and checked on her a while ago, and they said there’d been no change. Nothing. She hasn’t woken up.”

  Still in a coma, and they had no idea if she’d wake up. Sam had locked himself up in his room with a bottle of whiskey as soon as he and Jenna returned to the penthouse. He’d been sitting in the leather chair by the window in his room looking out at the city. The sunset had been spectacular. He’d watched the fog roll in and envelop the city. The lights in the buildings came on and lit up the night, casting an eerie glow against the fog. He’d sat there hoping and praying and drinking, his mind always on Elizabeth.

  “Sam. Are you drunk?”

  “Pretty much. I’m about half a bottle of whiskey shy of oblivion. Want to come over and finish the rest with me? We could sit here wondering if she’ll ever wake up again while we watch the sun come up in a few hours. I’ve already watched it go away, might as well see if it comes back again.”

  “I think you need sleep. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Why are you calling me so late? Did you catch a lead on the Rose Princess? Did you find the King of Hearts, ’cause it sure isn’t me. I’m more the ‘see-how-many-times-you-can-get-a-woman-almost-killed’ kind of guy. Or maybe I’m the guy that’s really great to date because he’s dangerous and mysterious with a cool job with the FBI, until he isn’t around when you want and need him. Maybe Elizabeth would say I’m the guy who’s never there when she’s being attacked. What do you think? Which guy are you?”

  “I’m the guy who’ll call you in the morning and make sure you’re okay. Sleep it off and remember this isn’t your fault. Getting drunk won’t do you, or her, any good.”

  “It certainly couldn’t hurt. In fact, my back hasn’t bothered me in hours. Come on, why are you calling?”

  “I found her. She’s dead.”