by Jenn Vakey
Maloy looked away and nodded. When he did, Ben released him and they walked out of the room, leaving Maloy sprawled out across the table.
The moment the door shut behind them, Rilynne turned around and grinned at Ben. “That was impressive,” she said. She was still smiling up at him moments later when Wilcome stuck his head out of the observation room door.
“Davis, I want that sample run against every database you can think of,” he said. “With any luck, we can tie him to a case somewhere and lock him up.”
He nodded and walked back toward the office. When he rounded the corner, Rilynne stepped into the observation room.
“Do you really think it will work?” Lori asked. She was sitting on the back table with Kim asleep in her arms. “Do you think he will actually buy it and stay away?”
Rilynne looked through the two way mirror. Maloy was sitting back in his chair, smoothing down his shirt where Ben had stretched it. The smile that had been on his face during the entirely of his stay was gone. Instead, there was a single tear rolling down his cheek. He was grieving.
“For a while, at least. Even if he finds out that you’re really alive, there's still the chance that my threats will keep him away.” She turned back to Lori. “There's no guarantee. As bad as it is to say, I think your best hope will be if he finds someone else to attach himself to. Wooldridge will keep an eye on him, though. As soon as he has a reason, he'll get him off the streets.”
“Have you thought about moving again?” Wilcome asked. “I really don't want to lose you, but it's probably your best bet to keep him from finding you.”
“No,” Lori said without needing time to think it over. “I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to live in fear, running from a man that may or may not be coming after me.”
Rilynne was happy she wanted to stay but still wanted what was best for her. “What if he comes back?” she asked. “What if he realizes I was just bluffing and learns that you're alive?”
“Then we'll handle it then. Between what Ben's already done to him and what we both know Joe will do, I don't imagine it will take much to scare him off,” she chuckled. “And who knows, maybe a more severe anti-stalking law will be put in effect by then. All I know for now is this is my home, and I'm not leaving it.”
Rilynne crossed the room and sat down next to her.
“I was kind of hoping you bringing him in with a gun to his head might kill the affection he has for you. No such luck, though.”
Lori groaned and looked up at Wilcome. “Yeah, about that…”
He waved his hand and dismissed her thought. “You were an officer bringing in a criminal. As you were alone and had no way of restraining him, you improvised.”
Rilynne looked at him wide eyed and grinned. Though she was shocked, she didn't question him for fear he might change his mind.
“Well, I'll be having him escorted to the airport in half an hour. If you want this charade to hold up, it would be best if you weren't where he could actually see you,” he said. “Be with your daughter. I'll see you in a couple days.”
He walked out without waiting for a response, leaving them sitting alone with the sleeping child. They both stared at Maloy for five minutes in silence before Rilynne slid off the edge of the table.
“Ben will probably be a while,” Rilynne said. “I'll drive the two of you home. I'm sure that fiancé of yours is eager to see you.”
“I thought you rode with Ben?”
Rilynne nodded. “I did. But I can drive you home in your car.”
Lori rolled her eyes and eased her way off the table, careful not to wake Kim.
Rilynne couldn't remember ever seeing everyone as happy as they all were when they walked through the office. Even all of the officers in the lobby were watching them with friendly smiles. She was sure they would have all approached to offer enthusiastic congratulations had Kim not been asleep.
Lori climbed in the back with Kim and held her quietly until they pulled up in front of her house ten minutes later.
“Are you coming in?” Lori asked. Rilynne reached down and helped her out of the car. She was careful to avoid the bandaged wound on her arm. Luckily, Lori had put her vest on before they went out on the search. It caught the bullet that struck just above her heart, but a fragment broke off and pierced her arm. The wound was not serious, though it did leave Rilynne with just enough blood on her hands to make her story convincing.
“No,” she replied. As she shut the door, Rilynne glanced up and saw Joe and Harper rushing toward them. “You be with your family. I'll be here if you need anything. Give her a big hug for me when she wakes up.”
Lori reached out with her free hand and pulled Rilynne in for a hug. “I can never thank you enough for everything you did. Not many detectives would take a psychics word and follow a lead. If you hadn't, I might never have seen my baby again. I owe you my life.”
Rilynne didn't know what to say, so she just kissed Kim gently on the back of the head and gave Lori a warm smile before turning and walking away.
The cool air felt relaxing as she walked down the poorly lit street. For the first time in over a week, she felt like nothing could go wrong. Even all of the pre-wedding stress she had the days leading up to the rehearsal dinner was gone. As she walked up her walkway, all she could think about was climbing into a steaming hot bath. Before she could reach the door, though, her phone started to ring. When she looked down at the screen, she cursed and turned to her car. Even with everything that happened during the day, she still couldn't believe she'd forgotten.
“What’s the news?” she asked as she climbed into her car. “Did I miss it?”
“No,” Matthews said. “She's getting close, though. I know you're swamped with the case, but I wanted to let you know.”
She swung the car out onto the street. “I'm already on my way,” she said. “I just dropped Lori and Kim off, so I'll be there soon.”
“Okay,” he said. She could hear what sounded like relief in his voice. “I'll see you soon then.”
Rilynne berated herself after hanging up before picking the phone back up to fill Ben in. She heard him yell for someone else in the lab to cover for him before the elevator ding sounded across the line. By the time she stopped in front of the hospital fifteen minutes later, he was pulling up behind her.
“Did we miss it?” he asked eagerly.
Rilynne looked up at him and grinned. “I thought men usually preferred to be late to these sorts of things. You know, messy and screaming.”
He shook his head and took her hand as they hurried to the door. “I have no desire to actually be in there,” he said. “I just want to be there for Matthews when he walks out with the news.”
When they walked into the labor and delivery waiting room, they found nearly the entire homicide unit was already there. The only two not present were Wilcome and Lori. After making their rounds, Rilynne and Ben dropped down in two chairs near the back wall.
“So no desire at all?” she asked. Ben gave her a puzzled look, so she continued. “You said you had no desire to be in there with all the pain and screaming. So when you say no desire, does that mean…”
Ben grinned and kissed her forehead. “No,” he said. “That means I don't have any need to be in there while Katy is having her babies. Besides, I think a woman has a fundamental right to kill her husband if he isn't by her side.”
Rilynne laughed and nodded. Before she could respond, though, Matthews came rushing out of the door. He was pale as a sheet, but there was a stunned smile on his face.
“I have a daughter,” he said. His eyes were wide as they swept across the room. He turned around without another word and rushed back through the door. The room filled with excitement as everyone anxiously awaited news on the second child. Katy and Matthews had decided not to learn the sex of the babies, so there had been a pool in the office. As it was, nearly half of the room had already been eliminated. Rilynne had wanted to enter, but Ben insisted it wouldn’t be
right given the fact that she already knew what they would be. Just as she had seen, Matthews returned twenty minutes later and announced the birth of a second daughter.
“Congratulations,” Rilynne said as she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. “How are they? How's Katy?”
He grinned widely. There was an excitement in his eyes she had never seen before. The color finally started to fill his cheeks. “The girls are perfect. They're just… perfect. And Katy had some complications, but she's fine now.”
Rilynne felt a twinge of guilt as she pulled away. She’d had a dream months before about Katy having complications, but she had completely forgotten about it until now. Luckily, reality didn't have the same outcome.
“Stick around,” he said quietly. “Katy will want to see you and I want you two to be the first to meet my girls.”
Rilynne and Ben both nodded before walking back to their seats. After sitting, she dropped her head down on his shoulder. “This has been an eventful week,” she said. “We should be married and sitting in some beach chairs right now.”
Ben laughed. “On the second day of the honeymoon? I wasn't even planning on venturing out of the hotel room until at least the third or fourth day.”
Rilynne felt her cheeks start to burn. She turned and buried her face in his chest so no one else would notice. When she regained her composure, she sat back up and said, “I'm actually glad it got pushed back a little. I would have hated to not be here for Katy and Matthews.”
He pushed her off and looked down at her suspiciously. “Glad?”
She smiled and chuckled to herself. “Careful, Mr. Davis, you're starting to sound a little nervous.”
“You're the one who said glad.”
She dropped her head back down and rubbed it gently against him. “Glad the trip was pushed off,” she said as she laced her fingers with his. “Not glad our wedding was delayed.”
“Not even a little bit?”
Rilynne shook her head. “Are you kidding? Do you know how excited I was to get a piece of that cake? It was, by far, the best cake I've ever tasted.”
He groaned.
* * *
“Oh, Katy,” Rilynne said as she cradled one of the babies. “They’re gorgeous.”
She wasn’t lying. They were strikingly beautiful for newborns. Though their heads were slightly cone shaped, they were both covered in thick dark hair. Their eyes were huge, and one of the deepest blues she had ever seen. Looking down at them, she almost forgot her own fears about having children.
“That one’s Jordan,” Katy said. “And Ben has Teagan. I think.” She hesitated as she looked a little closer. “Jordan has the purple socks and Teagan has pink. Luckily, Teagan has a small birthmark on her lower back, so I won’t have to worry about mixing them up.”
As Rilynne gently bounced Jordan, she glanced over at Ben and grinned. He seemed strangely comfortable holding a newborn, especially given his lack of experience with them. He smiled down at Teagan, making funny faces at her, completely oblivious to everything else going on in the room. She had a strong feeling that he would be volunteering them to babysit whenever Katy and Matthews were ready to start going out.
“Did you see where Todd went?” Katy asked.
Rilynne nodded as she peeled her eyes away from her fiancé. “He went out to get some coffee,” she said. “Of course, that was awhile ago. Here, you take this precious little thing and I’ll go find him.”
Careful to support her head, she handed the baby to her mother before looking back to Ben. She considered asking if he would care to join her, but he was too captivated by the child to even notice she was leaving.
She chuckled as she stepped out the door and started walking down the hall. It didn’t take long for her to find her partner. He was sitting down on a bench next to the coffee machine, sound asleep.
Rilynne sat down next to him for a few moments, allowing herself to truly feel the joys the day brought, before elbowing him gently in the side.
His head jerked up so fast that she couldn’t help but grin. It took a moment for the scene around him to register. When it did, he looked over at her with a dumbfounded expression.
“What happened?” he asked.
Rilynne laughed. “Well, you left about half an hour ago to get coffee, and it appears you stopped to take a little nap on the way. You were so close, too. The coffee machine’s only a few feet away.”
“Sure, laugh at the exhausted man,” he said. “Just remember this the next time you do something and wonder why I laugh.”
She nodded and patted his knee. “Come on, I’ll help you get the coffees. Your wife is starting to miss you.”
“Already?” he chortled tiredly. “I didn’t think I was on duty until after we left the hospital. Aren’t the nurses supposed to be picking up the slack for me now?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, reaching down to help him to his feet. “My mom is helping take care of everything so the two of you can get as much rest as you can. She’s even somehow managed to talk them into allowing her to supervise everything that takes place in the nursery, so she can make sure all of Katy’s wishes are upheld. She apparently threatened bodily harm to a medical student who tried to give Teagan formula.”
Matthews chuckled as he pulled a cup of coffee from the machine and handed it to Rilynne. “Are you sure she doesn’t want to stick around for a little while? You know, until they’re potty trained or something.”
“Careful saying that around her or she might just take you up on it,” Rilynne said, taking a second cup from him. “I don’t think we’ve had a single conversation over the last year that didn’t somehow turn to me having kids. It only got worse after Ben and I got engaged. I see her moving down here as soon as I get pregnant.” She struggled to keep her uneasiness from showing. Other than her mom and the few short conversations she and Ben had had, she’d never really talked to anyone about the prospect of her having children. “I would honestly be surprised if her house wasn’t already on the market.”
“It’s not,” he said. He grabbed the last two cups and they started back down the hall. She looked at him with puzzled amusement. “She was talking to Katy about it,” he explained. “She’s been talking to a realtor, but that’s as far as things have gone.”
Rilynne shook her head slowly as they stepped back into the room.
Chapter Seventeen
“What are you doing here, Evans?” Wilcome asked. “The case is closed. Don’t you have wedding plans you should be taking care of?”
“Do you really think I could take off without getting all of the answers?” she asked with a grin. “That would be like stopping a puzzle without putting in the last few pieces. We both know I would go crazy.”
He nodded in agreement. “Well, lucky for you... Who am I kidding, lucky for your fiancé who I’m sure is anxious to get your wedding back on track, I happen to have a list of answers for you.”
Rilynne grinned and sat down on the edge of his desk. “So what made him wait so long before trying to make contact?” she asked. “Why didn’t he come forward when Kim was born and try to get custody of her?”
“Well, it would appear that Kim’s biological mother was not the only girl to get pregnant in that school. Erin married his girlfriend right after graduating and they had a little girl just a few months after Kim was born,” he said. “Last month his wife and daughter walked in on a home invasion. He came home an hour later and found them. She had been brutalized badly but was still hanging on. Erin found his daughter in the backyard.” He slowly shook his head. “It appeared that she tried to run away but they stopped her. His wife survived the attack but has been in a coma since.”
“Oh, that’s horrible,” she said as she thought back to the vision she had the night Kim was taken. Despite everything he had put them through, she still couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. “Did they find out who was responsible?”
He shook his head. “They know from the DNA collected
from his wife’s body that there were at least two attackers, but there was no match in the system.”
“So he lost his child and hoped he could replace her with another.”
“That’s what it looks like,” he replied. “All he would say was he ‘found her a new one.’ I’m assuming he was talking about finding his wife another child.”
“I can’t even imagine everything he must have been going through,” she said.
Wilcome leaned back in his chair and said, “We were able to match his prints to coins in the payphone, and we found both his and Kim’s prints all over his motel room. It would appear that he was working entirely on his own.”
“Where was he staying?” she asked curiously.
He let out a quick laugh. “Believe it or not, he was staying at the same motel as Maloy,” he said. “He was just a few doors down in room nine when you raided Maloy’s room. He said that was one of the reasons he decided to move her when he did.”
Rilynne cursed under her breath. The vision had been telling her where to look the whole time. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to check into room nine after Maloy was cleared. If she hadn’t been so caught up with her assumptions, she might have been able to find Kim sooner.
“You know, of all the people in the office, you were probably one of the last I would have imagined taking the word of a psychic,” he said.
Rilynne struggled to keep from laughing but was unsuccessful. “She is not a psychic,” she said dramatically. She grinned at his bemusement and continued. “Everything she knew about the case she either picked up while hanging out at Travis Bar or from the news. The few guesses she did make were wrong. Like with the tattoo. She was adamant that the kidnapper had a tattoo, but Erin doesn’t have a single one. He doesn’t even have a birthmark that could have been mistaken for one.”
“She still called it on the woods,” he said.
Rilynne groaned. As hard as she tried to sidestep it, she knew there wasn’t any argument she could give to convince him it was just a coincidence. It would undoubtedly be easier to just let Young have the win, but she couldn’t.
