Cold Case Reopened

by Caridad Piñeiro

  Jackson wasn’t above hard work. His years in the military and on the police force had been filled with long days. Tough days, like the day he’d finally had to close Selene’s case as a suicide. It had bothered him then because, much like Rhea, it had been hard for him to understand how a beautiful and vibrant woman with so much to live for could just walk into the lake and end her life.

  “Whatever you need me to do, Chief,” he said with a dip of his head to confirm his acceptance of any task his boss assigned to him.

  “I want you to look at Rhea Reilly’s information and then tell her she’s barking up the wrong tree.”

  Chapter Two

  Rhea had barely finished unpacking her things when the knock came at the door.

  She hurried there and threw it open, expecting to find room service with the extra blanket she’d requested. That earlier chill hadn’t left her, not that a blanket would end it, but it had been worth a try.

  It wasn’t room service. It was six-plus feet of lethal male, dressed in police blues, with a white Stetson held in hands that he shifted uneasily on the brim. He had shortly cropped sandy-brown hair that screamed former military and eyes the gray of lake waters on a dreary day. He clenched and unclenched his chiseled jaw as he stood there, obviously hesitant, before he finally said, “You should be more careful and check to see who it is before you open the door.”

  Anger ignited instantly at his chastisement. “I was expecting room service. Not the police.”

  He tipped his head, seemingly sorry, but he didn’t strike her as the type to apologize. Not willingly anyway. And it occurred to her then that he was the officer she’d run into outside the police station. The one who’d helped her pick up her papers and whom she hadn’t thanked.

  “Rhea Reilly,” she said and held out her hand. “I’m sorry I was so rude before. I was upset.”

  “I understand. Detective Jackson Whitaker. Jax to my friends.” A ghost of a smile danced across full lips, and he enveloped her hand with his big calloused one.

  His touch roused a mix of emotions. Surprising comfort. Unwelcome electricity and heat.

  “We’re not friends...yet,” she said as he continued holding her hand, longer than expected. Longer than necessary. She withdrew her hand from his and wrapped her arms around herself. “And I doubt that you can possibly understand.”

  That slight dip of his head came again, as if accepting her statement, and he motioned inside her room with his Stetson. “Do you mind if I come in?”

  She both did and didn’t mind. Something about his presence was unnerving, but if he was here, maybe it meant that the chief had reconsidered her request.

  “Please,” she said and waved him in.

  He entered and, as he did so, his gaze swept the room, assessing. Observant. A cop’s eyes taking in the scene and immediately focusing on the thick folder sitting on a small bistro table beside French doors to a balcony facing the lake. The lake was a constant reminder of why she was here.

  “May I?” he said and pointed toward the folder.

  “Is that why you’re here? Did Chief Robinson change his mind?”

  JAX HATED TO burst her bubble so quickly, but he also didn’t believe in lying. “The chief asked that I review your information.”

  Rhea narrowed her eyes, a bright almost electric blue that popped against creamy-white skin and dark, almost seal-black hair. “He just wants to shut me up, doesn’t he?”

  “Whatever he may want, I promise you that I’ll be objective when I look at your information,” he said and meant it.

  Rhea focused her eyes even more pointedly and then suddenly popped them open, as if surprised. “Detective Whitaker. You were the officer who found Selene’s car.”

  He nodded. “I was. I also secured the scene and took part in the investigation afterward.”

  “And you agreed with the conclusion that Selene killed herself,” Rhea pressed and laced her fingers together before her. An assortment of silver and gold rings decorated her slender fingers while a mix of bracelets danced on her delicate wrist.

  With a quick, negligent lift of his shoulders, he said, “The evidence we had available indicated that, Rhea. I know that’s a hard thing to accept—”

  “Selene would not do that. She was too full of life to just throw it away,” she said and shook her head, sending the shoulder-length locks of that dark hair shifting against the fine line of her jaw.

  Jackson couldn’t argue that it had seemed unlikely at first to him, as well. That her disappearance was likely foul play at her home prompted him to ask, “Why didn’t you go to the Avalon police with your information?”

  Rhea looked away and worried her lower lip and in that instant he knew. “You went to them and they didn’t believe you, did they?”

  She shook her head again, a softer almost defeated motion, and as she glanced his way, her gaze held the sheen of tears. Damn, but he couldn’t handle tears. They were his kryptonite. He held his hands up and said, “I’m sorry, Rhea. But you have to understand that we’re both small towns with limited resources.”

  “And what’s one missing woman, right? Do you have any idea how many women go missing every year? How many women deal with domestic abuse every day? End up dead because no one believes them?” she said, her voice husky with suppressed tears and anger.

  He nodded and juggled his Stetson in his hands. “I do. My sister...” He hesitated, the reality all too real for him still. “She was lucky. She got out.”

  “I’m sorry, Detective,” she said and walked over to stand hardly a foot from him. She was so close he could smell her fragrance, something flowery and clean, like the scent of a spring day. The top of her head barely came to his chin. She was fine-boned beneath the gauzy floral fabric of her blouse. So slight, and he imagined Selene must have been built much the same. It bothered him to think any man would beat on her.

  “We had no indication of domestic abuse when we investigated,” he said as Rhea removed some papers from her folder and laid them out for him on the smooth mahogany table.

  With a shrug of her slight shoulders, she said, “She never told me, but I had sometimes seen bruises on her arms. She always had an excuse for them. After she...disappeared, I found out that Selene had gone to a domestic violence support group. Just once. Only once...”

  Her voice trailed off, and she fixed her gaze on the papers, avoiding his.

  Jackson placed his thumb under her chin and applied gentle pressure to urge her to face him. “It’s hard for people to admit they’re being abused.”

  “And it’s even harder to admit that someone you love killed themselves,” she shot back, clearly anticipating what he would say, but Jackson didn’t want to fight with her right now. You had to pick your battles, and he intended to save his ammunition for what would happen after he looked at her evidence. For when he might have to tell her that she was “barking up the wrong tree.”

  “May I take this information? Take a look at it?” he asked, intending to review the materials later that night after he had finished his shift.

  Rhea hesitated, almost like she’d be trusting a stranger with her only child. It bothered him, but he tried not to show it. “I’m the one shot you have to reopen this case, Rhea. You’ve got to trust that I’ll look at this objectively.”

  She laughed harshly and twisted away from him. Her loose blouse swirled around her slim midsection and then she faced him again with a heavy sigh. “I bet the chief told you to bury this. Am I right about that, Jax?” she said, emphasizing his name in a way that said they were anything but friends.

  Since he believed honesty was the best policy, he said, “He did, but I’m not the chief. If I give you my word that I’ll look at this with an open mind, you can bank your money on it.”

  “The Code of the West? Or the Blue Code? Which will it be?” she challenged, one dark brow flying
up like a crow taking wing.

  Exasperated, he blew out a heavy sigh and jammed his hat on his head. “I gave you my word. So what will it be?”

  She settled her gaze on him, assessing him again. Then in a flurry of motion, she gathered all the papers and stuffed them into the folder. Grabbed it and handed it to him. “Don’t disappoint me, Detective.”

  He cradled the binder to his side like a fullback cradling a football, put a finger to the brim of his Stetson and nodded. “Like I said, I give you my word.”

  He pivoted on his cowboy-booted heel and marched out of the room, intending to make good on his promise no matter what the chief had said.

  The little voice in his head pestered him with, What will you do if Rhea is right?

  I’ll fight that battle when I get to it, he responded.

  RHEA WAS TOO wired to finish unpacking after the detective’s visit. So she did the one thing she always did when she needed peace. She drew.

  She grabbed her knapsack, which always held a sketch pad, pencils, erasers and a blanket she could spread out to make herself comfortable while she worked. She snatched a jacket against the spring breeze, slung her knapsack over her shoulders and hurried out of the inn and onto Main Street.

  The inn was at the farthest end of the street, away from the nearby highway that ran all the way from where her sister lived in Avalon to Denver, where Rhea had her home and art gallery. Her pace was hurried at first since she was in a rush to sketch, but there was a peacefulness about the town that was impossible to ignore. It seeped into her body, replacing the earlier chill she’d experienced. Slowing her headlong flight, she took the time to window-shop, appreciating the eclectic mix of shops.

  By the time she reached the end of Main Street, her itchiness to draw because she was upset had been replaced by a desire to capture the charm of the quaint town nestled beneath a cloudless sky and the jagged snow-frosted peaks of the mountains in the distance.

  A low stone wall with a wide granite ledge ran across the end of the block, marking the entrance to downtown. She opened her knapsack, pulled out the blanket and her materials and began to sketch. With swift determined strokes, an image of the town took shape on the paper. The trim and neat shops with their wooden signs and shiny windows. The many pots of flowers and shrubs before the shops. The wooden posts with streetlights that looked like old-time gas lanterns.

  Beyond that, the slopes leading up to the nearby mountains, thick with evergreens in shades ranging from deep green to the bluish-gray of the spruces. Here and there big clumps of spring green identified groves of aspen that in the fall would turn golden, making for a spectacular display against the darker evergreens.

  It popped into her brain that dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of aspens were often joined underground by a single root network, making them a massive living organism.

  It made her wonder if the loss of one of those intertwined trees caused pain to the others. If they felt the connection the way she did with Selene. A connection that hadn’t diminished despite Selene’s disappearance. It was the reason she believed with all her heart that her sister was still alive, not that she would tell the detective that. He would dismiss it without question, so she had kept it secret to avoid dissuading him from reopening the case.

  But she knew that eventually she would have to tell him, because if they couldn’t confirm that Selene’s husband, Matt, had killed her or that Selene had killed herself...

  She shut her sketch pad abruptly. She’d finish the sketch later, when her mind wasn’t as distracted. Packing everything away, she put on her knapsack and marched to the side of the street she hadn’t visited yet.

  Little by little peace filtered in, but it was tempered by the reality that her sister’s last steps might have been down these streets. That these were the last images she might have seen.

  Or that maybe they were the images she still saw if she was alive.

  As she neared the spot opposite the inn where she was staying, she paused and turned, feeling as if someone had been following her. But there wasn’t anyone there who seemed to have any interest in her. Shoppers went from store to store, or just strolled up and down the quaint downtown streets.

  She rolled her shoulders, driving away the uneasiness, and did a quick look around to once again confirm she was just imagining the sensation. Satisfied, she returned to the inn to drop off her knapsack and relax before going in search of dinner.

  Not that she could really relax with Detective Whitaker’s decision hanging over her head. A decision that would make all the difference to her sister’s case and maybe even help find Selene if she was still alive.

  She hung on to that thought and the hope that Detective Whitaker would keep his promise. That he would keep an open mind to look at the evidence she had diligently gathered over the last six months.

  An open mind that would help her find her missing sister.

  Chapter Three

  It had been a tiring day, filled with the kinds of routine things Jackson had come to expect in Regina.

  A fender bender when someone had pulled out of a parking spot without looking.

  A couple of tickets for speeding or running a red light. Another for someone failing to leash their dog in one of the public parks.

  At a pub located close to the highway, which sometimes hosted a rougher crowd, he had been forced to issue a warning about a minor public disturbance.

  Mundane things. Some might even say boring, but Jackson relished it after the many years he’d spent in the military. He’d seen too much death and destruction in Afghanistan, which was why he’d turned down jobs in other areas for the peace and tranquility of his hometown of Regina.

  Selene’s disappearance six months earlier had upset that serenity. From the moment the BOLO had come in and Jackson had discovered her car by the lake, it had been days of nonstop action. Securing and scrutinizing a possible crime scene. Coordinating with the Avalon Police Department and, after, searching the lake for Selene’s body. A body that had never been found and maybe never would be if the spillway had been open, allowing her body to go over the dam and down the river.

  It had taken a few weeks for things to die down. For the press to stop pestering the police and people in town about Selene’s disappearance.

  Things had gone back to normal, but now Rhea was here and determined to ask questions, possibly upsetting that peace.

  But Jackson had never refused any mission in the military, no matter how scary or dangerous. He’d led his team on assignment after assignment and was proud to say he’d kept them safe with a level head and preparation.

  He would do that with Rhea’s request.

  Much like he had prepared for a mission, knowing all he could about the terrain and the enemy, he intended to do the same with Rhea and find out more about her.

  He put up a fresh pot of coffee, poured himself a big mug and sat down at his hand-hewn cedar kitchen table. Grabbing his laptop, he logged on to his police department account and searched through their resources for any information on Rhea Reilly. No criminal record of any kind. Not even a speeding ticket.

  Hitting that dead end, he shifted his focus to a search of public information on the internet and quickly had hundreds of hits. Rhea Reilly was apparently a critically acclaimed artist who worked in several different disciplines. Oils, watercolors and mixed media. She owned the building where she lived and had a number of tenants who rented apartments, and a shop, from her.

  The building was located on the 16th Street mall in Denver, a popular location for both locals and tourists. She also had an art gallery at the location, and he surfed to the gallery’s website. From the portfolio on the site, it was clear that Rhea sold not only her work, but that of local artists, and not just paintings. Photographs, jewelry, pottery and other art pieces were proudly displayed on the site.

  He scrolled through t
he images but was pulled back to Rhea’s work time and time again. He understood why Rhea was so successful. There was so much...life in her work. Passion. The images jumped off the screen with their vibrancy, much like the woman he had met earlier that day.

  Filled with life. Filled with passion for finding out what had happened to her sister. Stubborn, too. He had to throw that one in, as well, and he suspected that she wouldn’t back down even if he refused to reopen the case.

  The case, he thought as he set aside his laptop and pulled over the bulging folder with Rhea’s evidence.

  Opening it, he found it as neat and organized as any case file he’d ever prepared. The pages held timelines of Selene’s husband’s possible movements from Avalon to Regina and back, and then up to his client’s building location in the mountains just outside Avalon.

  The timelines she had documented, if true, deviated from the account Selene’s husband, Matt, had provided in the days after his wife’s disappearance.

  Matt’s testimony about the bonfire in his backyard was also contradicted by Rhea’s evidence. According to the neighbors she had spoken to, Matt had kept the bonfire going almost overnight and not just for a short time to dispose of some leaves and branches.

  Had he done it to dispose of Selene’s body? Jackson wondered. Was it even possible to cremate someone so completely in a home bonfire?

  Rhea had also reviewed the state of Matt’s SUV the morning after Selene’s disappearance. She had combined photos of his newly detailed SUV with those of his client’s building location and the road leading to it, graveled and in relatively good condition. Not a dirt road that would have muddied his SUV, as Matt had claimed.

  Not to mention the nighttime trip to a building location. It had hit him as implausible when he had heard that detail from the Avalon police, but they had investigated and found that the alibi held water.