“Last night, a fourth box was discovered in the department’s mailbox. It did not belong to Keisha Rines.” Mathis let the revelation settle in the breathless room. “Our analysts are running the tests now to match the DNA, but Victim Two remains an enigma. We won’t know where she came from or who she is until the test comes through. However, that doesn’t have to stop us from searching for her, starting with any parent who’ve not seen their child for over twenty-four hours.”
Anna gulped down her coffee. Finding one missing girl was hard enough. Now they were looking for two. There were no other known pianists who’ve been reported missing, but that wouldn’t deter Anna from searching. This guy may have a type, one she could add to his slim profile.
“How old?” Agent Rennard asked
“Twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Maybe earlier,” Anna replied without hesitation.
“He means the girl,” the sheriff sharply corrected.
“Between eight and eleven.” After Anna said the words, she felt a lodging in her throat. Mathis gave her a look, quickly reminding Anna that she wasn’t lead detective. Heck, getting access to this room was a rare deal. Luckily, being a P.I. kept her somewhat from the police hierarchy, but she still needed to respect the one calling the shots.
“We’ll be separating into two teams,” Mathis explained. “One directed to the discovery of Keisha Rines and the other to finding Victim Two. Avoid the vultures. They’ve already spun the story multiple times and will continue to do so. Any questions?”
The seated officers shook their heads.
“Good. Let’s get some work done.”
Anna sat down at the far seat in the front row as Sergeant Mathis separated the various officers and specialists into two core teams. Both would be transparent with one another, but he thought it best to divvy up the workload. Mathis unsurprisingly assigned Anna to the Rines case. Agent Justin Rennard had the freedom to assist both teams with Mathis. More officers left the briefing room as their name was called. When he got a chance, Rennard scooted a few seats down, stopping next to Anna. “Vultures?” he whispered.
“The media,” Anna replied. Nothing like this had ever happened in Van Buren, and the media would eat their fill and then some. “They even brought my brother into this. After we got Edger Strife--the guy in ‘90s Corvette I was tailing--and Victim Two’s box arrived, my brother Evan was cleared to leave, but the police are keeping an eye on him.”
“Rough,” Rennard said sympathetically. “Tell me about Strife.”
“He’s…” Anna felt the world spin. She closed her eyes, overcoming the sense of vertigo. Hearing his name felt different from saying it. When she spoke it, there was a sense of control, but being reminded from an outside source awoke a tide of harsh memories.
“You okay?” the agent asked.
“Yeah. Tired.” Anna replied and spoke directly. “Strife’s a child molester who’s gotten away with his crimes for too long.”
“Looks like his reign of terror has come to an end,” Rennard replied. Anna found some comfort in the statement.
“Help the others review security footage,” Mathis ordered the last officer still in the room. “I want to know how this guy delivered a package to our mailbox without anyone seeing him.”
The door shut.
Sheriff Greenbell, Sergeant Mathis, Agent Rennard, and Anna were all that remained. They gathered around the whiteboard.
“Helluva case you all have got here,” Rennard pointed out. “It would be nice to talk to this Strife fellow.”
“Be my guest. He’s the smug, silent type.” Mathis said. “We brought him in last night and found him up in his neck in CP and other sick videos. He claims to have taken Keisha, but there’s little trace of the girl at his residence. I’m letting him gel in the big house for time. Give Bubba the opportunity to loosen his lips before our next chat.”
“Fair enough,” Rennard replied. “I’ll have a go at him anyway. Is there anything else I should know?”
“There was a shootout at his property. Strife tried to kill Ms. Dedrick when she went to question him,” Mathis explained. “Needless to say, he’ll be going away for some time.”
Anna looked at her feet, unsure why she felt ashamed of the fact. Rennard offered his condolences and made slight allusion to the paint flakes and debris on Anna from yesterday’s shootout. That was the same day of the car accident. What she’d do for a shower right about now.
Mathis noticed her expression. “If you want to rest for a few hours, Ms. Dedrick, do so.”
“With the Sheriff’s office, police station, and FBI working together, one consulting private investigator won’t make a difference,” Greenbell added, not in a friendly way.
“I brought in Edger Strife,” Anna glared at him. “The man confessed.”
“Barely,” Greenbell snorted. “While he was in confinement, the real perpetrator was mutilating another little girl.”
“I found Keisha’s dress in his house along with tapes linking him to dozens of rapes throughout the last twenty years. The monster stalked me. Tried to put a bullet in my head when I confronted him.”
The sheriff glared at her with his sharp blue eyes. “You got the wrong monster.”
Anna boiled, struggling to keep her cool. If you only knew a fraction of what he did to me.
“Cut the crap,” Mathis ordered. “I won’t put up with you two butting heads. Not on my watch, and not while we have the whole town counting on us.”
Greenbell knocked his knuckles on the table and headed for the door. “I’m going to talk to the reporters outside. Off the record. Maybe one of them saw something when they were gathered last night.” Not waiting for a reply, he exited and let the door slam behind him.
Anna watched him go, unmoving. She took a breath and put the petty squabble behind her.
Agent Rennard shook his head at the absent sheriff but said nothing.
“I’m serious, Anna. You want rest. Get it now,” Mathis offered.
“I promised the Rines that I’d find their daughter. If they’re up, I’m up.” That, and the Rines wrote her a fat check that she would feel guilty about if she didn’t clock in the time they paid for.
They looked over the photographs and hasty notes scribbled via a black dry erase marker. Rennard stroked his chin as he regarded the ring boxes.
“You want to work 24/7, I won’t stop you,” Mathis said. “Hell, we’re going to need all the help we can get. But don’t kill yourself over it. You’re no longer a big-wig Miami detective.”
“That’s by choice,” Anna replied honestly, but, when she looked over the whiteboard and macabre images, she felt like she was back in vice city. Instead of dealing with cadavers, crackheads, and the Florida sun, she dealt with Pentecostal church-goers and a rural sprawl in place where child abduction and human cruelty were almost myths. Almost.
Leaving Mathis to his own devices, Anna and Rennard traveled out to the bullpen and devised a plan of attack. “I’ll keep running through the list of opera house patrons and likely suspects from the night Keisha went missing and speak to the Rines again. Make sure they don’t have any enemies they failed to mention,” Anna explained and handed the agent her phone.
“Good idea.” Rennard input his contact info. “Talking to Strife and going through the FBI database will keep me busy. I’ll explore similar cases, sightings of high-alert traffickers, and get a geological profile mapped.”
“Geo profile is done,” Anna texted her findings to him. “I did it at 4 am. Here’s everything else I’ve got.”
Rennard scrolled through the files. He turned his eyes up to her, catching the screen’s illumination under his chiseled jaw and dimpled chin. “This is some impressive work.”
“I’m a natural,” Anna joked dryly.
Rennard looked her up and down and smiled. “I’ll call you if I learn anything.”
“Likewise.”
After a moment’s pause, they went their separate ways.
Back at her dinky P.I. office, located on Seventh street and home to a slew of sleazy lawyers, Anna washed her hair and changed into a fresh button up and slacks. She filled her coffee cup for the umpteenth time, concealed her pistol on her belt, and got cracking.
She cut through a healthy chunk of neo-Nazis, obsessive fans, and the common low lives interested in harming little girls. Taking time to make calls to family and friends of such individuals whilst exploring their social media profiles, she developed a well-rounded understanding of her targets before visiting them. To maximize efficiency, she grouped the individuals into similar locations and went from door-to-door as a humble P.I. concerned about the recent abducted child. Her real intention was obviously to probe the suspects, looking for tics, using trigger words to provoke a reaction, and excusing herself to the bathroom to get the lay of the land. She went to the restroom twenty-seven times and only used it three times.
Overall, Anna got four hits.
Karl Cuthbert, a local art museum curator/collector and past lover of Trisha Rines, who, despite saying he cared not about the woman, kept a photo booth picture of the two of them in his desk drawer. He did well in hiding the restraining orders filed against him by two ex-girlfriends after his relationship with Trisha Rines, who both said he allegedly stalked them for weeks post breakup. By reaching out to the girlfriends--identified in Cuthbert's undeleted social media posts--Anna learned that Cuthbert had a violent side. Unaware of this fact and believing him to be a distant friend, Trisha invited him to the recital at King’s Opera House the night of the abduction. He left early and wasn’t seen for the rest of the night.
Failed Broadway critic, Tina Lindon--currently living in the neighbor city of Fort Smith--lost her fan following after publicly criticizing Keisha’s piano capabilities. In one article, she wrote “...someone without fingers would play better than this pampered and utterly unoriginal ‘prodigy.’” When Anna spoke to her, Lindon stood spitefully by her statement and believed that the Rines were solely responsible for her unemployment. Though Anna suspected a man, it wasn’t unusual to see couples committing crimes together.
Arrested years ago for sexual assault on a minor, Ian Dersley, taxidermist and secret practitioner of witchcraft, had gigabytes of photos of Keisha Rines on his hard drive. While sneaking a peek at his computer in his bedroom filled with occult paraphernalia, Anna also discovered multiple forum posts where he fantasized about using a particular girl in his newest ritual to bring fear and dread to the local predominantly Pentecostal churchgoers. Who better to use than a renowned child pianist that the local paper called “The Blessing of Van Buren”? The article’s headline was tacked above his shrine.
Lastly, Tanner Rickman, a seemingly average man with a wife and two sons. Working at the local farmers’ market, Tanner lived a simple and pleasant life in his birthplace of Van Buren. Nothing struck Anna odd about the man. However, she added Tanner to the list after she called him out for the Keisha Rines tickets he had purchased over the years, to which he replied, “They were meant to be a treat for my wife and boys.” He had only bought one ticket for each show and, even more strangely, never once attended.
Anna would watch them thoroughly in the nights to come. She dialed the Rines.
“And you are sure there was no one that wished you ill? Anyone else who believed you wronged them years ago?” Anna asked Trisha and Avery Rines over the phone.
“None,” Trisha replied in her soft voice. She was a short woman with a round face, alluring eyes, and wavy black hair that gave her a look of classic elegance.
“No one,” Avery said more forcefully. Tall, forty years old with defined cheekbones and a salesman’s background.
Anna leaned back in her office rolling chair. The yellow sunrays cut through the window blinds behind her and streamed over her cluttered wooden desk.
On the other end of the line, Trisha and Avery sat around the dining room table in their safe house.
“You don’t believe us?” Trisha asked innocently.
“Of course I do, but I find it hard to believe that with three years of international stardom, no one got jealous.”
“There was that critic,” Trisha replied.
“You’ve already told me about Tina Lindon. I’ve marked her down.”
“Look,” Avery said. “We’ve sent you our fan mail, the names of all our friends and attendees to every show, Keisha’s dairy, and a million other little things and still, we are nowhere close to finding my daughter.”
Anna sat up in her chair. “Not true. We’ve got a suspect in custody and multiple promising leads. My goal here is to figure out if there is anything we might have missed. Any overlooked detail that could lead us to your daughter.”
“If we knew, we’d tell you,” Avery said soberly.
Anna looked at the picture of Keisha on her desk next to the photo of the other victim’s finger.
“Help us, Ms. Dedrick.” Trisha said quietly and with tears. “I don’t know how much more of this we can take.”
Anna found herself parked outside of her father’s home: a simple one-story home with minor wear-and-tear gleaned over the last thirty-five years. Her large Chevy Silverado rumbled in place and displayed the scratches and dings from her crash and the bullet holes of her shootout with Edger Strife. She took a breath and turned the key, killing the engine. Tired, she hiked across the lawn, passing by her father’s old Chevy pick-up and her brother’s sedan. She lifted the house key from under a rock and opened the front door. Her mind held on to the idea of a quick meal before spending the evening on the prowl.
Shrouded in darkness, a figure watched from a distant cluster of trees. The stranger’s gloved finger adjusted their video camera’s zoom and traced Anna’s journey inside.
3
Over Rushing Waters
Anna had always been a hamburger type of girl, but the blackened trout and spears of asparagus displayed neatly on the old glass plate made her belly rumble. At the other end of the old table, her father watched with anticipation. His wide eyes traced Anna’s fork into her mouth.
“And?” Richard Dedrick asked.
Anna nodded as she chewed. “Just how Mom used to make it,” she said with a mouthful and gulped down a glass of iced tea.
Richard let the tension out of his shoulders and slumped victoriously in his chair. Anna’s father had aged well at sixty-three but could not escape a wrinkled forehead. Gray curls twisted out from under his frilled fishing cap and tiny ashen hairs speckled his boxed jaw. “Evan gave me her recipe book. He’s been helping me cook.”
“Her cookbook has been missing for years,” Anna said, eyeing her brother.
“I stole it after she passed,” he replied without remorse and continued munching on a chunk of spiced fish. Seasoning sprinkled his red and black plaid shirt. He had a goatee, thin lips, and tired eyes with crow’s feet even though he was only thirty. “I planned on giving it to Grace, but she insists that her mother’s recipes are better.”
“How is Grace doing?” Anna asked as she checked the time under the table. She adjusted her posture, trying to enjoy her few minutes of free time before going back to work. “Have you spoken since you got out?”
Evan shook his head. “No. She hasn’t been returning my calls and won’t buzz me into the apartment. Being accused of abducting a little girl must’ve royally pissed her off. Especially with Lily becoming a bigger part of my life.”
“Lily’s the one you told me about?” Richard asked.
“She’s the granddaughter you met,” Evan replied.
“Oh. Right…” Richard averted his gaze.
Anna pitied him with soft smile. Her father’s early onset Alzheimer's slowly ate away at his mind and memory. Some days, he was sharp as a tack. Other days, Anna struggled to keep up. She desired to invest more time in his life, but the Rines case kept her busy and away from home. At least her estranged brother had returned to town to help. Anna had walked in on him updating her father’s memory journal wi
th all that had happened since he arrived and couldn’t help but feel pride for her family and the strides they’ve made.
“I’ll get a job tomorrow,” Evan said with full confidence. “Grace will respect proof of income.”
Anna chewed her asparagus, thinking of her brief encounter with Grace Kendale. Like Evan, the woman’s live-by-night lifestyle caught up with her early. Though she was a little rough around the edges, Anna could see Grace loved Evan and their nine-year-old daughter. Knowing Grace might become her sister-in-law one day, Anna put aside any prejudice and hoped for their daughter's sake, they’d tie the knot soon. Evan was prone to skip town when the going got rough. Their daughter Lily might be his anchor.
“If you need work, I could use an extra hand,” Anna offered.
“I don’t know, Anna. I’m not a people person.”
“Come on,” Richard said, abandoning his minor state of depression. “Dedrick’s Private Investigative Services could you use a man like you.”
Anna raised a brow at her father. “You’re my recruiter now?”
“I don’t see why not,” Richard said. “My doctor says I need more exercise.”
Anna chuckled. “I expect your application on Monday. As for you, Evan, I don’t need you to interact with anyone, only watch them.”
“So you want to pay me to stalk people?” Evan said, finding the irony in the situation.
“That’s what P.I.s do,” Anna said matter-of-factly. “Only instead of spying on marital affairs--as tantalizing as that may sound--I want to know where our suspects might be keeping kidnapped little girls.”
Evan thought on it for a moment. “Can you afford it?”
If you knew what the Rines were paying me. Anna smiled coyly. “Money won’t be an issue, just don’t blow your cover.”
Evan cracked a small smile. “I’ll grab my Sherlock hat.”
Anna texted him the addresses of Tina Lindon, the failed Broadway critic, and Karl Cuthbert, a merchant at the local farmer’s market. “Both of their daily schedules are relatively mundane so tracking any strange activity should be fairly easy. Take note of where they go and how they act when away from family.”
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 46
