by Jenn Vakey
They knew it would be impossible to track down every person the third victim had come in contact with during his time working out of their precinct, so they concentrated their focus on the other eight. Rilynne had picked the cases that came in contact with the fewest people. If they could find a common person on these, then it would be easier to compare it the larger ones. She and Detective Matthews were half way through the third case when the last ray of sunlight disappeared from the window.
“We are going to have an easier time eliminating people than anything. Just on the three we have looked at so far, there are over twenty people in common,” she said to Detective Wilcome as he walked past her desk. “It is not like we have a huge department. There is going to be a lot of overlap.”
“It is a starting place. We can use that list and start crossing people off who were not involved in any of the other cases. We can’t eliminate any one entirely, though, unless they have a sound alibi. As you said, it’s not a huge department. Even if someone was not directly involved in a case, it does not mean that they didn’t know the details of it,” he explained.
“It should only take us another hour or so to finish up with this last one. How are the lists going on the other six victims?” she asked.
The other cases had been split up between the other teams of detectives. Ellis Reynolds, the fourth victim, had been involved in six separate cases, and had to be split up between two groups.
“Slowly. Some of the cases were pretty big, and it will take a little while to track everyone down. I’m going to have them start checking their lists against what you have so far. I want to get this as narrowed down as possible before word gets around where our focus is now.” He was right there. The public was going to panic when they found out the serial killer that had been terrorizing them could be a member of the police department. That would lead to distrust, and inevitably a rise in crime.
Rilynne couldn’t help but think that if the perpetrator knew how close they were getting, he might try to run, or worse, kill as many men as possible before he got caught.
It was almost midnight before the final list was made, showing everyone who handled every case. While it had been shortened, there were still fifteen names on it. They wouldn’t be able to start looking into people’s alibis until the morning, so Wilcome told them to call it a night.
Rilynne was asleep before her head hit the pillow. As tiring as the past few days had been, the thought of what would come tomorrow left her exhausted.
Suddenly she found herself back in that darkened hallway. Her feet were throbbing, with several pieces of glass now stuck deep in them. It was all she could do to push forward, but nothing was going to stop her from reaching the door. Looking down at the dark puddle coming from the room, she reached her free hand up and pushed gently on the doorknob. The door swung open, revealing a scene of utter horror.
The wall above her bed was streaked with blood, and the sheets, which had once been a soft blue, were now stained red. She could no longer keep herself upright, and fell down to her knees. “No,” she moaned loudly. She knew she needed to go in, but she couldn’t make herself. She reached down for her phone and pulled it to her ear. “There is too much blood,” she heard herself saying. “He’s…he’s… there is just too much blood.” She let the phone fall to the floor without another word. I have to see, she told herself. I need to know.
She finally forced herself to her feet, but before she could even take a step, the pain she was feeling inside was surpassed by something else. Fire spread across her back and she was dropped back to the floor. As everything started to go black, she saw a shadowy figure coming toward her.
After her eyes opened, it still took several moments for the pain in her back to vanish. She rolled over to check the time, and found it was just after four. While her body told her to go back to sleep, she couldn’t make herself close her eyes again. It felt like her insides were being twisted and her heart was being ripped out all over again. She curled up in a ball and let herself cry like she had not cried in a long time. When her tears dried up ten minutes later, she leaned over and grabbed her phone.
“Did I wake you up?” she asked when the ringing stopped.
“No sweetheart. I have the morning shifts all week,” her mom replied. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just had a bad dream.”
“The same one?” Amber asked.
“My back actually hurt when I woke up this time. Now I’m too afraid to go back to sleep. I really hate this sometimes.”
“I know babe. Just try to take your mind off of it. Tell me about work? How is your case going?”
“Not great. We have narrowed our suspect pool to people who have access to police reports. I don’t have to tell you what that means. We are starting to look into people’s alibis tomorrow, well… today I guess.”
“That’s not going to be easy. On one hand you want to be able to rule out all of the good guys. On the other, you just want to find the guy and end this thing.”
“Yeah. Some of the people on our list are friends of mine. Talk about an awkward interview. ‘I had a really great time at the bar the other night. So tell me, where were you when the last victim was abducted?’ I’m not looking forward to it.”
“So speaking about friends, are you still hanging out with that crime scene tech?” asked Amber.
“Yeah, she lives downstairs. I couldn’t stop spending time with her even if I wanted to. She tends to push herself into people’s lives.”
“No, not that one. The guy, you know, the cute one.”
“Okay, now you are starting to sound like Nicole,” said Rilynne.
“She thinks he’s cute too I take it?”
“No, she thinks I should think he’s cute and that we would make a really cute couple. She’s trying very hard to get us together,” explained Rilynne.
Her mom chuckled. “I can’t say I blame her. It is about time you started dating again, and he seems like a good place to start.”
“Even if I wanted to start dating again, which I do not, the department has a strict no fraternization rule. I would lose my job if anything ever happened between us.”
“Honey, I really do think that it’s time for you to get back out there. If you can’t date this, what was his name again?” asked Amber.
“Ben.”
“Right. If you can’t date Ben, why don’t you get out there and find someone that you can? It will be good for you.”
“You know why I can’t mom,” stated Rilynne.
“It’s been over a year baby. You know you can’t hold on forever. Eventually you will have to stop waiting.”
“I know mom. I know.”
“Well, I have to start getting ready for work,” Amber said. “Good luck today. Call me if you need to talk.”
“I will mom, thanks. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
Deep down, she knew her mom had a point, although she would never admit it to herself. She knew that eventually she would have to let go, but she was not ready yet and didn’t see herself getting there anytime soon.
At last, she let her eyes close again. To her relief, she slept dreamlessly for the rest of the night. When she woke up two hours later, the knots in her stomach were gone and she actually felt refreshed.
When she stepped in the shower, the hot water felt like the best thing to have ever touched her. Instantly her entire body relaxed, and she had an overwhelming desire to stay in there forever. If the water heater hadn’t gone out fifteen minutes later, she might have.
Today is going to be a big day, she told herself. They were going to start interviewing the officers involved first before branching out to the other people on the lists. It would be easier to keep the investigation under wraps that way.
Rilynne had just poured herself a cup of coffee when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she yelled, without turning around.
“Seriously?” Ben asked as he walked
in. “Your apartment was just broken into yesterday, and you still aren’t locking your door? I swear you have a death wish.”
She turned around to see Ben holding two evidence boxes in his arms. It was the first time she had seen him since he came across the photograph in her album. While she knew that eventually they would have to talk about it, she wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet. She just hoped he would not bring it up before she was. “I would love to see someone try to get in while I was here,” she said quickly, hoping to direct the conversation to a safe place. “I’m an excellent shot you know. What do you have there?”
“All of the stuff we took yesterday,” he said casually. If he had any desire to question her about what he had seen, he was not showing it. Actually, he seemed abnormally at ease. “I stayed late last night to make sure everything was processed so we could get it back to you as soon as possible. You were already gone by the time I finished, so I thought I would drop it off this morning before you went in.”
“You could have just given it to me at the station you know,” she said, though she couldn’t keep the grin off of her face.
“I have to take my car in to get looked at this morning, so I won’t be making it in until late if I go in at all,” he explained. He put the boxes on the table, and took the chair across from where Rilynne had sat down.
“Ah,” she didn’t want to point out that anyone else in the lab could have given her stuff back to her. “So, what’s wrong with your car?”
“I think my clutch is going out. That’s what I get for lending it to Nicole. She thinks she can drive standard, but she isn’t very good at it.”
“That is why I don’t let anyone drive my car. The last thing I need is for someone else to mess it up. I do enough of that on my own,” she laughed.
Ben gave her a confused look and asked, “You have a car?”
“Of course I have a car.”
“Then why don’t you ever use it? I have never seen you out when you weren’t walking.”
“Are you kidding? With gas prices what they are these days, I would rather walk. Besides, it’s healthier.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” he replied. “Well, I better be going. I’m supposed to be there in fifteen minutes.”
She walked him to the door. “You have fun with that. See you at work.”
After closing the door behind him, Rilynne grabbed the boxes and carried them to the living room. Huh, she thought to herself. Usually items that had been processed were returned covered in finger print dust. Looking at the items on top, it appeared that Ben had cleaned them off for her. She started to flip through them, but after a couple minutes she decided to put it off until later. Instead, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.
As her door swung open, she saw something drop to the floor. She reached down, but her fingers stopped just short of touching it. “No,” she heard herself say as her purse dropped to the floor. Leaving her door standing open, she ran down the hall looking for anyone, but it was empty. She shot down the stairs and out the front door, but it was too late.
She struggled to grip her phone, hands shaking as she pressed the numbers. “Please. Please,” she repeated aloud to herself. She fought the urge to throw it when the call went straight to voicemail. She was about to call again when she spotted the car parked across the street. She wanted to run towards it, but she knew there was no point. Holding her phone back up, she dialed another number.
“Can you meet me at my apartment? And bring the crime scene investigators. Bring everyone.” She hung up without waiting for a response. She was still standing in the street, staring at the car when the tires screeched to a stop in front of her just minutes later.
“Evans, what is going on?” Wilcome called out as he jumped out of the car. Rilynne felt her whole body go numb as she shifted her eyes from the car to Wilcome. “There was a note,” she didn’t even realize that it was her answering until she recognized her own voice. “There was a number at my door. He took Ben.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rilynne kicked her purse out of the way as she walked back through her still open door. Even if Derek Hartley’s abduction had not been a message for her, Ben’s certainly was. She could not deny it any longer; the killer was playing games with her, and using human pawns.
If the purpose of the game was to throw Rilynne off, it was working. Whatever happened to Ben would be because of her, and she didn’t see any way of being able to stop it. She wanted to scream. How could she have not seen this coming? She should have been able to stop it. She spent her night dreaming about things in the past that she couldn’t change, when she should have been able to see what was really important.
Detective Wilcome had set up in her living room, while the other detectives started going door to door in the building. Rilynne knew she should be up doing something, but she could not make her body move. She wasn’t even able to keep her attention on what was being said around her, only picking up a few words here and there; road block, surveillance, state troopers. She hadn’t even noticed that someone set a coffee down on the table in front of her until it’s strong smell overwhelmed her.
She sat listening to the knocks ringing up and down the hall for what seemed like hours. It all sounded like a really bad musical number, full of knocking, doors opening and shutting, and footsteps echoing from the floor above. It wasn’t until Detective Wilcome placed his hand on her shoulder that she was jolted back into reality.
“I need you to tell me what happened this morning,” he told her. The look on his face was more than just concern, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Rilynne reached for the coffee in front of her, and searched her memory. “Ben came over around 6:45 to drop off my stuff that had been taken to the lab yesterday. I was already gone last night when they finished processing them, so he dropped them off this morning before I went in. He said he had to go take his car to the shop, so he wouldn’t be at work until later, if at all. He left maybe ten minutes later. I found the note about five minutes after that when I was on my way out.” She could tell he wanted to ask her another question, but appeared to have decided to keep it to himself. He didn’t have to ask, though, for her to know what he was thinking. She knew exactly what it looked like. “It’s really not like that,” she offered to ease his concern. “He is just a good friend.” He gave a half-hearted smile before standing up and walking into the hall.
No doubt that rumors would be flying soon, if they had not already. She couldn’t worry about that now; there were far more important things to worry about than being accused of fraternization.
She took one last deep breath to pull herself together, then followed Wilcome out. “Where do you want me?” she asked when she found him by the stairs with Detective Matthews. He hesitated for a moment before sending her with Matthews to Ben’s apartment.
“Are you okay?” Matthews asked as he started the car, which was still parked in the middle of the street.
“No,” she answered bluntly. “This is my fault. What ever happens to Ben will be on me.”
“You can’t think like that,” he told her. “You are not doing this. You are not the one out there kidnapping these men and killing them.”
She felt herself getting angry. “The only reason Ben was taken was because he and I are close. First he abducts the man from the apartment above mine, and then he breaks into the scene while I was home. Then he goes further and breaks into my own apartment, not to take anything, though, just to mess with me. Of course the next step would be to take someone I care about from my own doorstep.”
Matthews stopped the car abruptly in front of Ben’s building and turned to look at her. “There is no way that you or any one of us could have seen this coming. You can either dwell on it, or let it motivate you,” he said sharply. “But I will tell you that you are by far the best detective I have ever worked with, and if anyone can get Ben back alive it’s you.”
“Okay,” she said as she p
ushed her door open. She knew he was right. If she let him get to her, Ben truly would not have a chance.
“Huh…” she said aloud when she followed Matthews into the apartment.
“What is it?” he asked. She reached for the light switch next to the door. “It’s just not what I expected.”
She didn’t know exactly what it was that she had expected, but it sure was not this. The first thing she noticed when she walked in was the big, open kitchen. In most of the men’s kitchens she had been in, she was lucky to find a toaster or a blender. Ben’s was stocked with gizmos that would melt the heart of anyone who truly loved to cook.
The living room had a large salt-water fish tank that took up almost the entire wall. It was stocked full of vibrant fish, and even had a couple small stingrays. In lieu of a couch, he had two gamer chairs set up in front of a large flat screen television. Now, that one actually did not surprise her.
As she approached the bedroom door, Rilynne hesitated. Ben had been so adamant about not going into a woman’s bedroom, it just didn’t seem right somehow for her to go into his. “I’ll take out here,” she told Matthews as she turned back to the living room.
Unlike Hartley, Ben did not seem to keep any receipts. Rilynne didn’t see how it really mattered, though, because she already knew how the perpetrator picked Ben.
She flopped down in one of the gaming chairs, rubbing her hands over her face. As she let her head fall back, she caught the familiar scent of peaches. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the smell, but all she saw was darkness.
After a few minutes, she pulled herself out of the chair and walked to the bookcase at the end of the room. His book collection was as expected, comprised mainly of books relating to forensic studies. At the end of the bottom shelf she found a file that was full of different awards he had received. She had heard around the station that he had won a few commendations, but there were close to twenty there, including one from the mayor. He really was outstanding at what he did. She wondered why he had tucked them away.
