Obsession With Murder

by Jenn Vakey

  “She?” she asked, tracing his steps without really paying attention to where they were going. “Aren’t most serial killers men?”

  “That’s right,” he said, grinning over his shoulder at her. “And that’s what we assumed, too, until Hartley managed to get away from where she’d been holding him and identify her in the hospital. That wasn’t until after she had taken Ben, though. In the year she had been killing, Nicole Benson had taken steps to cover her tracks and make any forensic evidence that we found point directly to Ben. He had actually jumped to the top of our suspect list until Hartley woke up and informed us otherwise. Then we had the heart wrenching realization that what had happened to all of the other men was going to happen to Ben. Luckily, she had other plans for him, though, which included following you and knocking you out, then taking you to where she was holding him.”

  “That’s where we’re going now?” she asked, though it wasn’t as much of a question as a statement. She had no memory of any of the events he was recounting, but part of her just knew where it was all leading. “I’m guessing that’s one of the blows that landed me in this situation.”

  “The first of many, sadly,” he chuckled again. “Oddly enough, Ben was actually involved in all of the ones I know about. You were actually the lucky one on half of those occasions, because his injuries ended up being much worse than yours. I swear, the two of you just seem to attract trouble.”

  Before she could respond, they rounded a corner and a large building stood out in front of them. It looked like something out of a horror movie, down to what was left of the police tape that still clung to the stone balusters. She looked at it in the hope that it would spark some instant recollection, which would no longer require her to go inside and have a look around, but nothing came.

  Rilynne didn’t wait for him to take the lead before walked up to the large doors of the mausoleum. Part of her expected to see some evidence of a gruesome event that had taken place there, but other than a few empty beer bottles scattered about, it looked like your everyday mausoleum.

  “What happened here?” she asked, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  Matthews walked up to the doorway but did not enter. Instead, he leaned against the frame and folded his arms in front of him. She couldn’t determine if he wanted to give her space, or if he didn’t want to relive the events himself, but either seemed to be possible.

  “After Nicole grabbed you, she put you in that room to the left where she was already holding Ben. From your statement, he had already been badly beaten when you regained consciousness. Nicole brought you formal clothes and stuff to get yourselves fixed up. When you came back out here, the whole room was set up for a wedding,” he said. When he hesitated to continue, she decided to give him a break and explore. Leaving him standing in the entryway, she pulled open the heavy door to the left and stepped into the dark room.

  The smell of it sent an uncomfortable shiver through her body. Every inch of her was screaming for her to turn back around and walk out, but she pushed forward. The memories of what happened in that place were there, but she couldn’t reach them. It was like a heavy veil that was preventing her from seeing what was happening in the next room. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, hoping to trigger anything, even the slightest glimmer, but there was nothing. The harder she tried, the thicker the curtain seemed to grow until there was nothing left at all.

  Rilynne opened her eyes and after taking one last look around, retraced her steps until she found her partner.

  “This is hopeless,” she said, annoyed at the lack of progress. “Ben is probably out there right now thinking that his wife is searching high and low for him, and instead I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs just trying to remember who I am. I wouldn’t even know my own name right now if I hadn’t been told. How am I supposed to remember something important enough as to what happened or where he is? He’s going to die because I’m this incredible klutz who can’t go more than a few months without taking a blow to the head. You’re just wasting your time here with me. You should be out there doing something productive to help him, because I’m obviously not going to be able to do it.”

  Matthews opened his mouth to respond, but he didn’t seem to know what to say. Instead, he just eyed her with the same look of sympathy she was quickly growing tired of seeing. It wasn’t until she defeatedly walked past him back onto the cemetery grounds that he managed to find his words.

  “We are using every resource we have to locate Ben, and that includes you,” he stated. “He’s not the only one in trouble right now, though. You need help, too. You’re my partner, and I know you well enough to know that if you just took a step back right now and allowed yourself to feel useless, you would hate yourself when you managed to get your memories back. And they will come back. But for now, I’m not going to let you feel sorry for yourself, because that’s not going to help anyone, especially Ben. He needs you right now just as much, if not more, than he needs the rest of us. You are the only one who was there when whatever happened happened, and you are the only one who can tell us what exactly that was. We’re focusing everything we have on finding him, but you are the only one who can tell us where we should start looking. It will come back to you. You will get through this. In the mean time, you are going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and push your fears aside so you can do whatever you need to do to help us find your husband.”

  Rilynne was shocked by his bluntness toward her. She hadn’t expected it, but it was greatly appreciated. Everyone had been walking on eggshells around her, almost like they were afraid she would break if they said the wrong thing. This was the first time anyone had treated her like a real person since she walked into the emergency room.

  “What’s next?” she asked, not knowing what else there was to say.

  Matthews smiled, instantly casting away the tension his words had brought. “I can’t really help you with the next step, but I’ve found someone at the station who can,” he responded, leading her back to the car.

  She wanted to ask what he was talking about, but he seemed to be taking pleasure in the surprise. She decided just to go with it.

  The drive back to the station took no time at all. It was busier than it had been the last time she was there. Rilynne felt eyes on her from all directions as they walked through the lobby, but she kept her head down to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze. It wasn’t until they stepped into the elevator and the doors closed that she looked up and turned back to Matthews.

  “So what’s the next step?” she asked, tired of waiting.

  “Ben taught you how to pick locks,” he stated. “Your sister felt that it might be beneficial if you were to practice it for a while. Muscle memory isn’t always affected with these kinds of traumas. Exercising that might help to get other things flowing.”

  “So you think if I’m able to unlock a real door, it might work like unlocking a door in my head?” she asked, not hiding the fact that it seemed ridiculous from her voice.

  He shrugged as he reached out and pushed the button for the fourth floor. “She ran it by the doctor and he said that it could help. Even if it doesn’t, you’ve told me on more than one occasion that you find it relaxing. You could use a little of that right now.”

  “We’re grasping at straws at this point, aren’t we?” Rilynne asked, glancing over to him for a reaction. He didn’t respond. “I know this is hard on you,” she continued. “You have a personal relationship with Ben and we’ve worked together for a couple years now. With as helpless as I’ve been feeling lately, I can only imagine how it must be for you.”

  Matthews let out a slow sigh, but kept his eyes on the elevator doors. Neither spoke again until they reached the forensic lab.

  “She’s all yours,” he called out to Elise. “I’ve got a few things I need to check up on, so I’ll be in the office if you need me. Try not to break any locks,” he said, peering over at Rilynne. “We’re already dealing with you being
locked up in that head of yours. Let’s not have to focus on getting you out of a locked room as well.”

  He chuckled quietly as he walked back out of the room, leaving Rilynne standing by Elise’s desk. When she turned her gaze from him to her sister, she found a mischievous grin resting on her face.

  “What do you have planned?” she asked, knowing without needing to ask that they would be doing more than simply trying to unlock a handful of padlocks.

  “Well, I thought we might try working on some actual doors in the station, because that should be more familiar to you,” Elise explained. She picked up the kit sitting on her desk and took Rilynne by the arm, leading her back out of the lab. “Now, we can’t try on the secured rooms like the evidence storage locker or the holding rooms, but pretty much everything else is ours to play with.”

  Rilynne looked over at her suspiciously. “That still doesn’t explain why you look like a teenager who just found the keys to his parent’s liquor cabinet.”

  “Well,” Elise said, leading her to the elevator. “There’s this door on the fifth floor that’s always locked and no one I’ve talked to seems to know what’s behind it. When I was talking to the captain about using the doors for practice, I might have intentionally left that one out when I named the doors we wouldn’t even attempt to open.”

  “Why does this all seem more like a ploy to get a look in that room than in actually helping me remember anything?” Rilynne asked as Elise pushed the button for the fifth floor.

  Elise answered with a shrug and a grin.

  It took Rilynne a little longer than she liked for her to be able to open the first door they attempted, but it became easier after that. By the time they finished the last door on the fifth floor, she could get it unlocked in just a matter of moments. Elise found it much more exciting than what had actually been locked in the secret room. Perhaps she should have just left it a mystery, because the few unused desks that stood behind the door left them both heavily disappointed.

  “We can hit another floor if you want some more practice,” Elise offered as they walked back to the elevator.

  Rilynne shook her head without needing to think it over. Even though she enjoyed being able to get the locks open without any trouble, they did nothing to help her open the one in her head.

  “Let’s head back down to the office and see if they’ve found anything,” she stated. “Maybe they’re having more luck than we are. Then I should probably head back home. It looks like it will be dark soon. I think my mother will probably send out a search party if I’m too late.”

  Elise laughed. “Without a doubt.”

  The office was nearly empty when they walked back in. With every lead called in being investigated by one of the detectives personally, that wasn’t surprising. Although they hadn’t turned up anything useful, she overheard Tylers and Steele talking about the large number of calls coming in a day. Even with them splitting up instead of going out as pairs, it still took most of the day just to run through all of them.

  “Anything?” Matthews asked, the hope now barely visible in his tone.

  “No, you?” Rilynne asked, sitting in one of the chairs at the conference room table.

  He shook his head. “We’ve gone over all of the blood and trace collected, but nothing helped to determine where you were when this happened. We have officers driving up and down every road within the range you could have walked, but nothing out of the ordinary has been found yet. Wilcome has called in for state troopers to join in the search tomorrow. We’re going to start searching all vacant buildings in the city.”

  “What about the glass that was pulled from my leg? Was that able to help at all?” she asked, sitting in the closest chair to the conference room door. When everyone turned toward her, it was clear no one had any idea what she was talking about. “There was a shard of glass in my leg that was taken out when I was in the hospital. Wouldn’t that be able to help narrow down where I was when this happened?”

  Wilcome stood without a word and walked into the office, picking up his phone as soon as he reached his desk. As he started dialing, Rilynne turned back toward Elise and Matthews.

  “That’s right,” Elise stated. “There are many types of glass, each with their own composition and properties. When we examine it, we can determine if it was from a window, a car, or even someone’s eye glasses.”

  “Okay, so let’s do that,” Rilynne stated. “At least it could help us narrow things down a little.”

  Elise and Matthews exchanged a look before they both turned back toward her.

  “No glass was sent over from the hospital to be examined,” Matthews explained.

  “And it doesn’t look like we’re going to be getting one,” Wilcome said, stepping back into the conference room. “It would appear that during all of the commotion, the glass was thrown out.”

  Rilynne dropped back in her chair, not trying to hide her disappointment. “How could they have just thrown it away?” she asked. “Aren’t they supposed to keep anything related to a case? Is there any way we could find it? It was a decent size piece, so it should be easily spotted if they still have the trash bags.”

  Wilcome shook his head. “If it was covered in blood, it would have gone into the hazardous waste bin, which eliminates any chance of it being retrieved. Elise, why don’t you head up to the lab and go over everything that was sent by the hospital and see if you can find any trace of glass. There might be some slivers on her clothes that were missed.”

  Elise nodded and stood without a word. After giving Rilynne a quick squeeze on the shoulder, she disappeared out the door.

  “So you seriously mean to tell me that we could’ve had the piece of the puzzle that made everything clear, but someone decided just to toss it out?” Rilynne asked, moving her gaze between Matthews and Wilcome. She was growing increasingly frustrated the more she thought about it. “I mean, it’s not like someone’s life is hanging in the balance here. Even if there wasn’t, a woman shows up covered in cuts and bruises with no memory of who she is, and someone thinks it isn’t important to save something that was actually pulled from her body.”

  She had a feeling they both knew she was just venting, because neither man tried to offer an explanation or excuse. Instead, they looked just as annoyed as she was.

  They all sat in silence for close to thirty minutes before Elise popped back in.

  “It’s safety glass,” she said, panting to catch her breath. It was clear she had run back down to the office after making the discovery. She held onto the back of the empty chair she’d occupied earlier, apparently too excited to actually sit. Rilynne couldn’t blame her as she fought the urge to jump up from her own seat. “It’s the kind used for side windows in cars. I found a small piece tucked into the cuffs on the shorts you were wearing.”

  “So I was around a car window as it was broken,” Rilynne said, running quickly over every scenario she could in her head. “That could explain why the car hasn’t been found yet. If it were involved in the attack, whoever is behind this would have probably wanted to keep it out of sight.”

  “I don’t think it’s likely that it was a simple carjacking since Ben is still missing,” Wilcome stated. “Although it can’t be completely ruled out. Someone could have attacked the two of you and knocked you over the head before leaving with the car. If it was in a remote area, you could have gotten up and found your way to the hospital while Ben remained there, injured or unconscious.”

  Or dead. No one was saying it, but she knew it was a possibility.

  She closed her eyes as the others talked and tried to concentrate of the evidence. Despite what Amber said about the difficulty of seeing anything when she was stressed, she was desperate. Perhaps that just added to the tension she was already engulfed in, but she had to try. After several minutes, though, she resigned to the fact that nothing was going to happen and turned her attentions back to the group.

  “Donovan and LaShad have handed out photos of you a
nd Ben to all of the business owners between your last known stop and the three grocery stores you are likely to have stopped at,” Matthews stated. “The department has offered a reward to anyone who can find either of you on surveillance tapes. The same offer will go out on the news tonight. That will help to cut down on the amount of tape we have to go through, and it will also give us the opportunity of finding him on cameras we wouldn’t gain access to. A business owner who might insist on a warrant before allowing us to look at surveillance footage might be more willing to look themselves, especially if there is a reward involved. We aren’t going to have complete cooperation, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Rilynne was impressed. Although it could end up costing the department a good bit of money, especially since the reward was being offered just for spotting them, even without providing evidence of where Ben was now, the offer would provide them with an opportunity for a wider coverage over the city. Even if they only turned up on one or two tapes, it would help them to narrow down where to start searching for Ben.

  “Is there anything else you need us for tonight?” Elise asked. “I should probably get this one home. Then I’m going to swing by the hospital and see what I can do about tracking down that piece of glass. Perhaps we can get lucky and it managed to just be misplaced instead of tossed out.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to have anything else tonight,” Matthews replied. “I’ll be here all night to look over any tapes that are sent over. I’ll call the moment we find anything.”

  Rilynne nodded in appreciation before following Elise out of the office.

  “I can’t believe those idiots didn’t make sure that piece of glass was collected and sent over,” Elise grumbled as they stepped onto the elevator. “It’s one thing if it’s someone who just comes in with a simple injury and they throw out the glass. For someone in your condition, it’s unacceptable. They better hope it turns up or someone’s going to be in trouble.”