Love is Murder

by Sandra Brown

  “Donna, I’ll go through the file again. There’s a good chance that Joe or someone else in the department spoke with this girl back then but you weren’t aware of it.”

  “Thank you. I know it’s probably nothing, but I can’t let it rest.”

  “I understand.” Mallory drained her mug of coffee. “Where did the Greeley’s live in Conroy, do you remember?”

  Donna nodded. “On Wister Road, the second to the last house before you come to County Line Road. There’s a farm across the street. I’m guessing that’s the field Virginia was referring to.”

  “Did the Greeleys leave a contact number?”

  Donna nodded. “I wrote it on the back of my pad.” She took the pad from her apron pocket and copied the number onto a napkin, which she handed to Mallory. “Thank you, Detective Russo.”

  It was on the tip of Mallory’s tongue to remind her that she wasn’t detective anymore, but she let it go.

  She paused outside the door of the diner, then speed-dialed a call as she made her way to her car.

  “Robert,” she said when her boss picked up, “I need to talk to you about a case… .”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later Mallory was seated at her kitchen table, going through Karen Ralston’s file looking for the folder that held the witness statements. It took her all day, but by late afternoon, she’d read every report in the file. Nowhere did the name Tripp appear. So how to find this girl, whose first name she didn’t even know?

  She called Virginia Greeley and explained that she was following up at Donna Ralston’s request. Did she recall when she saw Karen Ralston with the Tripp girl? And did she know the girl’s first name?

  “It was pretty close to the time Karen disappeared,” Virginia Greeley told her. “I remember telling my husband right after we heard the news that I’d just seen the two girls walking off across the back field. I don’t recall the girl’s first name, sorry. Don’t know for sure where they were headed or where the other girl lived.”

  “Did you mention this to the police at the time?” Mallory asked.

  “No. Should I have?” Virginia paused. “It didn’t seem unusual. I mean, it was just two girls walking home from school. Why would I have told the police that?”

  Because Joe would have talked to the other girl at the time and filled in that blank and I wouldn’t be trying to do it now, eleven years later.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Greeley. If you remember anything else, would you please give me a call?”

  Mallory hung up, then grabbed her bag and headed for the local library, where she scanned shelves of the local school’s yearbooks. Mallory found Elizabeth Tripp in the same eighth grade book in which she found Karen.

  The city directory had one listing for Tripp. She jotted down the address and phone number. It wasn’t likely that Elizabeth Tripp would answer the phone after all this time, but stranger things have happened. She dialed the number, but no one picked up, and the call never went to voice mail.

  Maybe just a quick drive-by.

  The Tripp home was located in a rural neighborhood of small farms. Mallory counted off the house numbers and stopped when she got to the mailbox that bore the one she was looking for. She paused at the entrance to a long driveway.

  The farmhouse at the end of the lane was small and in need of fresh paint. A shiny new black pickup was parked in front of a barn, behind which a stockade fence enclosed an area that appeared to stretch all the way to the back of the house. Mallory continued up the drive slowly and parked behind the truck. She was just about to open the door when a man appeared from behind her car. He was tall with shoulder-length dark hair, a dark beard and piercing dark eyes—and he looked as if he meant business.

  “Help you?” he asked before she could get the door open.

  “I hope so.” Mallory flashed her best smile. “Is this the Tripp home?”

  “Maybe.”

  “My name is Mallory Russo. I work for the Mercy Street Foundation.” Mallory had to suck in her stomach to slip out of the car, the man stood so close.

  “That’s that place that looks for missing people.”

  “Right.” Mallory took a few steps back. She felt ill at ease with him so close. “I’m looking for Elizabeth Tripp.”

  “Lizzie?” He frowned. “Last I heard, she wasn’t missing.”

  “Are you a relative? Do you know where I could find her?”

  “I’m her brother,” he replied. “What’s this about?”

  “I just wanted to ask her a few questions about someone she went to school with.”

  “Far as I know, Lizzie doesn’t keep in touch with anyone from around here, but if you leave me a card, I can ask her to give you a call.”

  Mallory was about to protest when a child of three or four came running around the corner of the barn. Her pale blond hair was cut short, and she wore a too-long sundress. She froze when she saw Mallory.

  “Hi,” Mallory called to her and waved.

  The man turned to the child. “How’d you get out?”

  Shrinking back, the little girl pointed to an open gate.

  “Get on back inside.”

  The child tilted her head slightly, then smiled tentatively, a sweet little smile that turned up on one side. Mallory’s breath caught in her throat.

  “I said back inside,” the man growled. “And close that gate.”

  The little girl fled through the opening in the fence.

  “If there’s nothing else…” the man said flatly.

  “I was going to give you my card…”

  “Right.”

  Mallory dug in her bag until she found one. He didn’t bother to look at it before putting it into his shirt pocket.

  “If you could ask your sister to call me, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” he said. “But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Assuming you gave her my card, which you clearly have no intention of doing.

  He shrugged. “Lizzie’s just like that sometimes.”

  “Thanks.”

  It had been on the tip of her tongue to ask him about Karen Ralston, but something about him sent a chill right through her. Mallory could feel his eyes on her as she got back into her car. Shaking it off, she put the key in the ignition and looked up to see a young boy peer over the top of the fence near where the back door of the house must have been. Seconds later, a woman appeared momentarily in a side window, her hand holding back the curtain. Following Mallory’s gaze, the man turned, but the boy and the woman were gone.

  Mallory’s hands shook as she secured her seat belt. When she raised her hand to wave, the stony-faced man didn’t bother to wave back.

  The woman had been at the window for only a second and she was too far away for Mallory to get a good look at her. But Mallory had seen the smile on the face of the little girl, and she was pretty sure she’d seen that smile before.

  What if…?

  Don’t let your imagination run away with you, she cautioned herself. Don’t be looking for something that isn’t there. The idea is too preposterous for words.

  * * *

  Mallory tried to process what she’d just seen logically, rationally, but the thought bubbled up inside her like hot tar on a late August road. She knew that jumping to unfounded conclusions had landed many a cop in hot water—but, she reminded herself, she wasn’t a cop anymore. Still, she’d seen the child plainly, and the resemblance to the little girl in the photo Donna Ralston had shown her that morning was uncanny—the tilt of the head, the smile that turned up just slightly to the left. Mallory hadn’t imagined that.

  What if…?

  Joe had always said that her instincts were her best qualities as a cop, and he’d taught her to trust herself, but this time, she wasn’t so sure. If she was wrong, the error would be more than embarrassing. But dear God, if she were right…

  She had to see the child again, and she had to see the woma
n in the window up close.

  The first thing she did when she got home was make a phone call to Lilly Mack, the computer wizard Robert had recently hired. While the call went through, Mallory went through the file until she found what she was looking for.

  “Lilly, did you get all your new software programs installed?” Mallory asked.

  “Everything’s up and running. What do you need?”

  “Could you age-progress a photo for me?”

  “Is that all?” Lilly pretended to scoff. “Piece of cake.”

  “I’m scanning it to you right now.”

  “I’ll do my thing and send it back.”

  “Perfect. Thanks, Lilly.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  While she waited, she called Charlie to bring him up to date and feel him out.

  “I’d say you’re reaching, Mal,” Charlie said. “Walk through what you actually saw.”

  “I saw the brother of a girl Karen was seen with close to the time she went missing. I saw a little girl who was a dead ringer for Karen Ralston at about the same age. I saw that the entire back of the Tripp property is enclosed by a tall stockade fence. I saw a little boy of maybe eight or nine over the top of the fence, and I saw a young woman peeking through the window curtains.”

  “So what do you really have?”

  “A gut reaction to a little girl who bears a striking resemblance to a missing child.” She sighed. “Technically, I got nothin’.”

  “So having nothing other than a wild suspicion, what are you planning to do?”

  “I sent a photo of Karen from the file to Lily to age-progress it.”

  “Then what? You don’t have anything to compare it with.”

  “Well, not now I don’t. But I was thinking, maybe if I went back out and knocked on the door, she’d open it and I’d see if…”

  “Mallory.” Charliespeak for, think about what you just said.

  “Yeah, I know. Long shot. But it’s bugging me. I have to see if it’s her. What if it’s her, Charlie?”

  “Surely other people have seen this woman before, Mal. You can’t hide someone for eleven years, babe.”

  “Two words, my love. Jaycee Dugard.”

  “The woman who’d been kidnapped in California when she was eleven and found eighteen years later,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Living in a compound in the backyard of a house that was in an actual neighborhood, and no one saw her all that time,” she reminded him. “The Tripp place isn’t even in a neighborhood, and the house is set way back off the road. You should see the fence. It has to be ten, twelve feet high, and it looks like it goes entirely around the property.”

  “You get this guy’s first name?”

  “No. I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.”

  “Let me see what I can find out about him. Sit tight.”

  No sooner had the call disconnected when her phone rang again.

  “I just sent that photo,” Lilly told her. “Check your email.”

  “Thanks, Lilly. That was fast.”

  “Technology rocks. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Will do.” Mallory waited impatiently for Lilly’s email. When it finally arrived, she opened it and stared at the image, then printed it out quickly and tucked it into her purse.

  * * *

  It was almost five in the afternoon when Mallory drove slowly past the Tripp farm. She tried to look up the driveway, but there was a car behind her and she had to keep moving. She decided to park off the road that ran behind the house, then walk along the fence to get a little closer without being seen. There was a really good chance that she was ridiculously off base, in which case, being caught poking around—trespassing—could prove embarrassing.

  She studied the photo once more, then followed the fence around the property. She made her way as quietly as she could to the side of the house, where she stood directly under the window, and looked up.

  Startled to see the curtain pulled back, and the face of a young woman staring down at her, Mallory’s heart all but stopped beating. It was the face from Lilly’s age-progression.

  “Karen,” she said softly. “Karen Ralston.”

  The woman’s eyes grew large and round and her mouth fell open slightly.

  “Karen,” Mallory repeated. “We’ve been looking for you. Your mother has never stopped looking for you.”

  “My mother is dead. Go away,” the woman whispered through the screen and began to close the window.

  “She’s very much alive. I saw her this morning.”

  The woman turned sharply and looked over her shoulder.

  She turned back to Mallory and she mouthed the word, “Run” before dropping the curtain.

  Mallory ducked and pressed her body against the side of the house.

  From inside she heard a man’s voice. “What are you doing at the window? Someone out there?”

  Inside her pocket, Mallory’s phone vibrated. She opened it and read Charlie’s text message.

  Subject ID’d as Lonnie Tripp. History of violence. Charged as adult at 16 for assault/kidnapping/rape but charges dropped, victim recanted. No record of employment, no record of anyone living with him at that address. DO NOT APPROACH. Heading home, wait for me.

  Too late, Charlie.

  The front door slammed, and heavy footsteps started toward the corner of the house. Mallory took off for the fence, hoping that maybe Lonnie Tripp would think she’d ducked into the hedge of evergreens and would waste time enough to permit her to make it back to her car. She ran as quickly as she could along the fence line and rounded the back corner, where she ran face-first into Lonnie’s chest.

  Without a word, he spun her around, and pinning her arms tightly behind her, forced her through a gate into the backyard.

  “Some people,” he whispered in her ear, “just don’t know when to leave things alone.”

  “Listen, Lonnie…”

  “Shut. Up.” He latched the gate behind them.

  Mallory did her best to take in as much as she could as they crossed the yard in the direction of the barn. Along the far side of the fence stood a row of stark white crosses. Around each one, flowering vines had been draped. A chill went up Mallory’s spine. Graves of the last curious visitors?

  The back door slammed and the woman Mallory now knew was Karen Ralston came down the steps.

  “What are you going to do?” Karen asked.

  “Get back into the house and stay there.”

  “She said my mother was alive.”

  “She’s a liar. You know where your mother is.” Lonnie jerked his head in the direction of the makeshift graveyard.

  “She said she saw my mother this morning.”

  “And I said she’s lying.” Lonnie stopped abruptly.

  “In that picture, the one you said my mother showed you, what was I wearing?” Karen called to Mallory.

  “A yellow dress with a big green collar,” Mallory called back. “You were holding a stuffed green frog.”

  “My mother always carried that picture with her,” Karen told Lonnie.

  “Then she saw it someplace else.” Lonnie pushed Mallory forward.

  “If Donna Ralston isn’t in that grave back there, then who is?” Mallory asked loudly enough for Karen to hear.

  He shoved her toward the front gate.

  “Who else is buried back there, Karen?” Mallory called to her.

  “My babies,” Karen told her. “All the ones that died.”

  Lonnie opened the gate and dragged Mallory though, then across the dirt driveway where he shoved her into his truck.

  Pick your moment, she told herself. You may only get one shot at him.

  He’d just begun to bind her hands behind her with a length of rope when she landed a kick to his gut, but a second kick bounced off his knee. He grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her air.

  “You saw that little girl this morning? You keep it up and she’ll be joining the others o
ut back underneath the crosses. Understand?”

  Mallory’s eyes widened and she nodded, her stomach twisting with fear and frustration as he bound her wrists tightly. In a clean fight, she could probably take him down. With her arms tied behind her back and the well-being of a child at stake, she wasn’t sure the risk would be worth it. Damn. She should have called Charlie when she first got here.

  Lonnie released the pressure and she slumped back on the seat, gulping for air while he tied her legs together at the ankles. He reached under her seat and pulled out a handgun wrapped in a dirty rag. He shoved the disgusting rag into Mallory’s mouth and pushed the gun back under the seat. She gagged, and he laughed all the way around the front of the truck.

  Lonnie climbed into the cab and jammed the key into the ignition.

  “Stupid goddamned people can’t mind their own business. Gotta poke around and poke around…”

  He slammed the truck into Reverse and backed halfway across the yard before shifting into Drive, hitting the gas and flinging stones and dirt in his wake. He got as far as the end of the lane when three black-and-whites pulled in to block his exit.

  “Goddamn,” he muttered as he hit the brakes. The truck fishtailed and came to a stop. He reached for his gun just as the driver’s side door opened and an arm reached in and yanked him out.

  “Don’t even think about moving. I am not a very happy man right now.”

  Charlie shoved Lonnie up against the side panel of the truck.

  “He’s all yours.” Charlie handed Lonnie over to the uniforms who’d followed him.

  Seconds later, Mallory’s door opened.

  “You okay?” Charlie’s face appeared before her.

  “Errrrrrrr,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

  “Oh. Right.” He carefully removed the rag from her mouth.

  “Thank you.” She grimaced. “That was disgusting and smelled like…you don’t want to know what it smelled like.”

  While he untied her hands and feet, she asked, “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Please. You insult me.” He lifted her from the cab.

  “Karen Ralston is in there with two kids. Well, two that I know of.”

  She started off toward the fence.