He didn’t need to remind her. If it was anything like today, she was already dreading it. Endless walking and talking and no results. She climbed into the shower and let the water wash away the stress. It didn’t help. She slipped into a nightgown and curled up in the bed, facing the crack of the door, praying Avery would come in and give her some comfort.
Her clock read four when she got up. Avery wasn’t beside her. She checked outside, noticing the starry sky. She frowned.
With bare feet stepping softly, she walked down the cold wooden stairs and into the hall. In the nearby study, Avery slept in the recliner with an open book resting on his chest. Trisha headed for the kitchen and removed a bottle of wine from her refrigerator. She poured half a glass… a whole glass, and sat her rump on the island. As big as the kitchen was, the walls constricted her. As clean as the air was, she had trouble breathing.
Fed up, she headed to the front door. It swung open slowly. The early morning breeze kissed her skin. She closed her eyes, sipped her glass, and imagined her daughter’s smile. Trisha wouldn’t take Keisha for granted again, if she did take her for granted. She didn’t know.
Avery mumbled in his sleep, and Trisha almost jumped. She turned back to the dark hallway and looked at her wine glass, tempted to chug it down. She looked to the starry sky, took a much-needed breath of air, and got ready to tip the glass into the yard when she noticed it.
A small, red velvet box.
Her eyes got wide and she looked both ways, unable to see anything but her front yard and driveway. Slowly, she grabbed the box and lifted it to her eyes. It was for a ring, but why was it here? She placed her glass down and popped open the box. Her face scrunched up in confusion and then she screamed.
Falling out of his seat, Avery bolted down the hallway, baseball bat in hand. “Trish!”
He slowed next to his wife at the doorway. With pure horror written across her face and a shaky finger, she pointed at the box.
Avery froze. The bat went limp in his hand.
Resting on the flagstone was an open ring box. Inside was a little black pinky finger.
5
Held In Question
The phone call woke Anna and sent terror down her spine. Flashing blue and red lights echoed through the woods before the Rines’s house came into view. Squad cars swarmed the premises. A forensic photographer snapped photos of the front door and flagstone path while police officers walked the lawn. Standing off to the side, Avery rested a large coat on Trisha’s shoulders. The distraught woman wore a crimson nightgown and chewed on her thumbnail. Her caffeinated eyes switched between the uniformed strangers bombarding her home. She flinched at every flashing light. Avery stood beside her, listening to Sheriff Greenbell’s condolences but not hearing a word.
Anna parked across the street, studied the scene, and took a breath. An unexpected chilly breeze prompted her to grab her jacket from the backseat. It was a quarter after five, and the stars and moon lit the black sky. She jogged across the street with her eyes on the Rines and her mind in a thousand different places.
A beefy officer obscured her path. “Ma’am, you need to step back.”
Anna fished out her wallet and flashed the P.I. license. “I’m working for Mrs. Rines,” she said, wasting no time.
“Wait here.” The officer marched to Trisha.
Anna tapped her foot anxiously. The annoying limited access made her miss being lead detective in Miami. As a consultant, she had some benefits i.e. interviewing witness and suspects, reviewing evidence, etc. Not always visiting the scene of a crime.
Hearing the officer’s words, Trisha looked up slowly. Confusion left her mouth agape as she studied Anna. It didn’t take a psychologist to see she was hit hard. She doesn’t remember calling me.
Trisha nodded and the brawny officer allowed Anna to enter. Slipping through the crowd, she landed in front of Trisha and Avery.
Greenbell gave her a curt nod. “Anna.”
“They found…” Trisha’s voice trailed.
“You told me,” Anna finished, feeling queasy but staying strong for her sake.
“She’ll never play again,” Avery mumbled as if a curtain had just been torn out from under his world.
“Was there anything else in the ring box?” Anna asked directly.
Trisha shook her head. “Only the…”
Greenbell stepped up and, with a sympathetic tone, said, “You’ve been through a lot. Take some time to gather your thoughts and we’ll talk more in a few hours. I know of a few homely hotels not far from here if you’d--”
“We’ll stay with my mother,” Trisha interrupted.
Avery mumbled a few indistinguishable words, none of which were kind.
The sheriff sent them off with a pat on the back. Anna crossed her arms as she watched the Rines climb into their BMW.
“I wasn’t done talking to them,” Anna growled at Greenbell.
His ocean blue eyes followed the car out the driveway. “The poor lady could barely finish a sentence.”
“There’s a little girl missing, Garrett, and it was no accident her pinky finger was left at their front door. Every hour we waste could mean another severed appendage.”
Greenbell glared at her. “You want to help out? Work at my pace or back off.”
Anna clenched her teeth. She’d never seen her father’s friend treat her so poorly. Feelings aside, she needed to act. “Was there a ransom letter or any list of demands included in the box?”
“Nothing. All we know is that the Rines turned in around 9 p.m. and the finger was found at 4 a.m. By the looks of it, the perp expected they would discover it in the morning.”
“How fresh was it?”
“We’re looking into that now, but our initial overview marks it within the last few hours.”
Keisha wasn’t far, Anna knew, and neither was her abductor. The information narrowed the geological profile, but that still left dozens of miles to canvas. From the Ozark Mountains to the north to the muddy Arkansas River westward, Anna’s confidence dwindled. She needed a plan and quickly.
Anna turned to the road leading to the Rines. It twisted and turned in a rural sprawl. A commercial hub was a few miles back and could provide some much needed insight. Anna wiped the sweat from her palms on her slacks. “Find the nearest road cam, traffic or otherwise, and see what cars passed by within the last few hours. You know this town. Make calls, and let’s get some volunteers plastering Keisha’s face on lampposts and social media. With all the attention, the guy will either have to show his cards or fold. If he takes the bait, we even might get a ransom letter.
“I’ll ask Avery for an extensive list of the Opera House patrons and start crossing off names. Any local sex offenders within two hundred miles will be added to list along with those affiliated with any nearby extremist groups: Neo-Nazis, New Age cults, whoever would desire to hurt an eleven-year-old black girl. This is Charles Manson level-twisted. We flip enough stones and we might find ourselves a snake.”
Greenbell looked at her for a moment, slightly dumbfounded and with wounded pride. “I’ll get started,” he said and folded into the chaos of the crime scene.
The chilly breeze returned. Anna rubbed her hands together. She was in it now.
Sheriff Greenbell and the Van Buren Police Department followed Anna’s direction and got the town searching. Parties of twelve or more would branch out, searching fields and woods all through the morning. Churches of varied ethnicities and ideological stances congregated together for the first time and hosted prayer vigils and neighborhood watches. The Internet and local news networks blasted Keisha’s sympathetic little smile. Greenbell even managed to coax Trisha and Avery to appear on television, pleading with every mother and father to help their cause and for the abductor to make himself known. Their emotions were raw and real and acted as dual-edged sword.
Anna witnessed the panic from her dingy office. Gaggles of people pulled their children from school and locked them away inside. Wor
kplaces let out early, and restaurants offered discounted food to volunteers. It seemed like the whole world stopped for the recently maimed pianist. Anna had never seen anything like it. Not even in Miami, where missing children were a dime a dozen.
She made another call. Most of the patrons from the Saturday night showing had the same response: went to bed after enjoying a glass of wine. Some Anna had spoken to the day prior to the finger’s appearance, but she did a secondary check-up anyway. Nibbling on her pen, she reviewed her list comprised of three columns: Alibi, No Alibi, and Failed to Pick-Up. The names with No Alibis quickly changed columns after Anna did further research of their homes in proximity of the abduction site. If they were more than two hours from the train tracks behind the Opera house, it probably wasn’t them.
Periodically throughout the day, Greenbell would email her names and photos of local shady figures fitting the description of a Caucasian male with facial hair. There were thousands. She also got a copy of the school’s security footage and replayed it on loop, trying to match face with face and getting dismal results. One after another, she made phone calls and house visits. They hated cops and when she explained she was a private investigator, they suddenly hated them, too.
Anna had gotten to those with the last name starting with D before she returned to her office and brewed more coffee. It was her fourth batch today, and everything she ate now tasted bitter and dry. A jiggle. She withdrew her cell phone and answered.
“We need you down at the station,” the sheriff said with urgency.
Anna shut her eyes, waiting for the bad news. “What’s up?”
“Just hurry up, Anna. As a family friend, I’d rather do this in person.”
That did not sound good. “I’ll be there in five.”
Grabbing her sunshades, she climbed into her Silverado and sped out down the road. Just out of sight, an old Corvette lingered.
Sheriff Greenbell and Officer Ashburn--a rustic man with a misshaped head spiked with little gray hairs--waited for her in the back parking lot. A cigarette hung from Greenbell’s thin lips and hovered over his white beard. The friendly sheriff persona was shattered by tired eyes and stress fatigue.
Anna clicked “Lock” on her key chain, heard her truck beep, and approached the men. “Any word from the perp?”
Greenbell blew smoke. “No.”
“I think we’re all a bit busy. Spill it.”
“We’ve comprised a list of possible suspects, as you know. Seedy characters, pedos, the usual roughhousers.”
“Any hits?” Anna checked her watch. It was nearly sunset and it felt like nothing was getting done. They should’ve started on this days ago, Anna complained to herself, but back then, there was still a chance that Keisha ran away at her own volition and there were no solid leads. Apart from the school footage and severed finger, there still weren’t any solid leads. Frustration squeezed her.
Sheriff Greenbell stomped out his cigarette. “Yes. Evan Dedrick.”
Anna took a step back. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“We spoke to your father,” Ashburn injected. “He told us that Evan came into town a few days back. A few days back before the abduction.”
“This is my brother we are talking about.”
Greenbell smiled sympathetically in the way he always did. “I went to visit Richard. He let me see Evan’s room. The boy’s entire luggage was gone along with his car. According to your father, he hasn’t been seen in two days. Plenty of time to--”
Anna felt the world spin. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. “My father isn’t the most reliable source. Besides, this is Evan we are talking about. You watched him grow up right here in Van Buren.”
“You’ve been staying with him, right?” Greenbell asked, knowing the answer. “When was the last time you saw Evan?”
Anna shook her head. “We’re missing something.”
“You’re right,” Ashburn said with a smug smile. “Your brother.”
The comment angered Anna to no end. What made her more furious was that they were making sense. I’ll call Evan. He’ll listen to me and come home, she thought. When her fingers slid into her pocket and touched the phone, she realized that she never got his number. Hell, she’d only talked to him for five minutes in the last fourteen years.
The Sheriff knocked on the back door and an officer opened it. “We should discuss this inside.”
Anna glared at him.
“Just for a minute,” Greenbell bartered. “Think about Keisha.”
They led Anna into a small interrogation room with an aluminum table, chairs, and voice recorder. She plopped down on the chair, taking note of the camera in the corner and the two-way mirror adjacent to her. It smelled like cheap air freshener, and the AC didn’t work. Greenbell closed the door. It locked. Quietly, he placed in himself in the opposite seat.
“When did Evan run away?” Greenbell asked.
Anna crossed her arms. “Fourteen years ago. We were making funeral arrangements. When he saw the different coffins, he bolted out the door. We thought he was venting but when he didn’t come back, we knew he was gone. The note on his bed sealed the deal.”
“How old was he?”
“Sixteen. I was twenty,” Anna adjusted her posture. She looked at the camera’s again. “Is that really necessary?”
“Yes,” Greenbell said sternly. “Was he ever abused before that time?
“No,” Anna shook her head, honestly. “Not that I knew of.”
“How about you?”
Anna eyed him, trying to get a read. “That doesn’t have to do with anything.”
“What were you doing before you returned to Van Buren?”
Anna frowned, taken back by the question. “I was a lead detective in the Miami PD. You know this, Sheriff.”
“And you turned in your resignation?”
“Two weeks prior. The 23th of July. I was out by the 7th,” Anna said. “What does this have to do with Evan?”
“Only collecting information, Ms. Dedrick.”
“Ms. Dedrick?” Anna said with scoff. “It’s Anna. You always call me Anna.”
“What day did you leave Miami?”
“August 10th.”
“And you arrived on the 14th?”
“Yes,” Anna said, getting progressively more uncomfortable. She reminded herself it was for Keisha Rines. If answering Greenbell’s useless questions help, it’s a small price to pay.
Greenbell jotted down some notes. “What were you doing between the 11th and 13th?”
“Driving.”
“Anyone to back that up?”
“I called my father on the 10th.”
“So no one to account for you on the 11th through the morning of the 14th?”
“I have gas receipts,” Anna said, getting annoyed. “Can we talk about Evan?”
“In a minute,” Greenbell shut down her request. “What about the 13th?”
Anna filled up her tank the night before. She packed sandwiches for the trip, eating them for most meals. “I was on the road, like I said.”
“Curious. It’s only a two-day drive from here to Miami. You took nearly four.”
“Your point?”
“According to our sources, you and your brother should have arrived around the same time: August 12th.” Greenbell pierced Anna with a gaze. “Keisha Rines vanished the night after. Tell me, Ms. Dedrick, where were you last night when Keisha’s finger was discovered on the Rines’s doorstep? We know you weren’t at your father’s house nor your office.”
Anna froze. Her eyes went wide. She could feel her heart about to tear out of her chest.
Ho-ly crap.
6
Disqualified
“I’m done here,” Anna stood. She felt the gazes from beyond the two-way mirror.
Sheriff Garrett Greenbell remained in his seat. His blue eyes locked on her. “Sit down.”
Anna slammed her hand on the aluminum table and shoved a finger at the
man. “I’m not going to waste my time in here while that girl is still out there.”
“Your missing brother is lead suspect--”
“And you’re blaming me?” Anna was ready to burst.
“No,” Greenbell said cautiously. “But look at this from my perspective. Big city detective moves back home looking for fame. Recovering a missing girl seems like the golden ticket. Let me ask you, though, was the finger really necessary, or was that your brother’s idea?”
Anna couldn’t even process that. She gnashed her teeth and rapped her knuckles on the door.
“Anna,” Greenbell pulled himself from his seat. “Wait.”
“Unless you have something solid to hold me, I’m out.”
Greenbell quieted. He gestured to the camera and the door opened soon after. “You’re making a mistake. If we find out--”
“You have my number,” Anna said and marched into the hall.
She exited the parking lot and exercised her diaphragm in an attempt to control her breathing. You lost your cool in there, she convicted herself. That isn’t who you are. Being reminded of her abuse muddled her reason, and she hated herself for it. She straightened her posture, refocusing on a battle plan: find Evan and learn the real reason why he was home.
She called her father, telling him that she was coming home. Across the street, a news anchor talked to a video camera. A photographer, part of a local crew, snapped pictures of Anna. She turned her back to him and finished her call.
Richard greeted her at the front door of his home and gave her a welcoming hug. “I made some sandwiches. Ham and cheese with a little bit of spicy mustard. Just how you like it.”
“I appreciate it, Dad.”
They moved their conversation to the small dining room table big enough for four. Richard had set out the sandwiches and two glasses of store-bought iced tea. “Evan’s in trouble, isn’t he?”
Anna shrugged. “The police seem to think so.”
“Do you believe them?” her father asked innocently.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 39
