Paradise Falls

by Jacobs, Jonnie

  “What’s going on over at the school?” Grace asked, pushing the uneaten chicken stew around on her plate.

  “Same old stuff,” Lucy replied. “We’re reading Pride and Prejudice in English. I liked the movie better.”

  Grace smiled a little too brightly.

  “Is the teacher any good?” his dad asked. “That’s what’s important. A dull teacher can ruin anything.”

  Adam cleared his throat. They’d both missed the point. “I think Grace meant, what are kids saying? About Caitlin.”

  “Oh.” Lucy looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Grace said, but she shot Adam a look of gratitude. He doubted she was even aware she’d done it.

  “Everyone’s in shock,” he reported. “And worried.”

  “You’d tell us if there were rumors, wouldn’t you?”

  “If there were any,” Adam said with a self-deprecating laugh, “no one would share them with me.”

  “Rumors about what?” Lucy asked.

  Grace didn’t answer. Turning to Adam, she said, “Do you know Rob Hardy?”

  “I know who he is. He’s kind of a loner. A little dorky in a Goth kind of way. The kids used to make fun of him when we were younger, but now they mostly leave him alone. Why?”

  “Detective Godwin said she’d heard that he and Caitlin had a conversation not long ago. Caitlin seemed pretty upset. You wouldn’t know what it was about, would you?”

  Adam shook his head. Rob wasn’t Caitlin’s type. Any more than Adam was. Caitlin went for hunks like Ty Cross. Although she’d broken that off, so who knew what she really thought?

  “What about the assistant volleyball coach? Rusty something. What do you know about him?”

  “Not much. He’s a student teacher. He has a couple of history classes and a study hall. Kids say he’s pretty cool, but I’ve only seen him around.”

  His dad leaned on the table. “What is this, Grace? Why are you grilling the kids over dinner?”

  “Leave her alone,” Lucy admonished. “She’s just trying to figure out what happened. And we don’t mind, do we, Adam?”

  “No, not at all.”

  When they were done eating, Lucy got up without being asked and began clearing the table. “I’ll take care of the dishes,” she said, hugging Grace over the back of the chair. “We know you’re upset. But things will work out.”

  “Adam, help your sister.” His dad turned to Grace and picked up her hand in his own. “Let’s take a walk. The fresh air will be good for both of us.”

  ~~~~

  The night air was more than fresh; it was bitterly cold. Grace shivered in her coat and scarf, tucking her gloved hands into her pockets. Carl, impervious to the cold, wore a light windbreaker.

  He draped an arm around her shoulder and gave a squeeze. “I’m sorry I jumped on you over dinner,” he said. “I probably overreacted.”

  “Probably?” Even Lucy had come to her defense.

  “Grace, I apologized. Give me a break. My nerves are frayed, too.”

  “But you haven’t got a missing daughter.”

  “No, I haven’t got a missing daughter. You act like that’s a defect or something on my part. Like I’m at fault.”

  Grace tucked her chin further into her scarf and hunched her shoulders against the cold.

  “Look,” Carl said, “I just wanted a normal dinner with my kids.”

  “Normal? How can we have a normal dinner when Caitlin is missing?”

  Carl took a deep breath. “I guess wanting to hear about my kids’ day was asking too much.”

  There was an edge to his voice Grace hadn’t heard before. “I didn’t say we couldn’t talk with them, Carl.”

  “They like you, Grace. And they like Caitlin. We’re a family. This isn’t easy on them. They’re frightened and worried, too. Don’t you think we ought to be concerned about what they might be going through?”

  He was right. Grace was in such agony she’d lost sight of the fact that others might be in pain also. Good parents put their children’s feelings before their own. And Carl was a good father.

  “They are both trying to be understanding,” Grace said, offering an olive branch. “I appreciate that. I really do.”

  Carl kissed her check. “I love you, Grace. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “After your kids.”

  “No, right up there with them. You and Caitlin and Adam and Lucy. I love you all. And I’m grateful you get along so well.”

  Grace was grateful, too. She knew of other second marriages where that hadn’t happened. Where stepkids tried their best to sabotage the new marriage. Where the blended family was more like oil and water, and sibling rivalry akin to tribal warfare. She knew of stepparents who resented their new spouse’s first family. Women, in particular, who did nothing but complain about their husband’s children. She didn’t want to be like that.

  The one role in life Grace thought she was actually cut out for was being a mother. She loved the soft neediness of a baby, the ready, laughing acceptance of a toddler, the imaginative and often unanswerable questions that sprang naturally from a child’s mind. The teen years, which everyone warned her about, proved to be just as satisfying. She delighted in having Caitlin’s friends around and listening to their take on the world.

  She’d wanted another child, or two or three, but Jake hadn’t. And then he’d left, which put an end to whatever dying hopes she’d been clinging to. In marrying Carl, she’d gotten her wish. Lucy and Adam were good kids. She’d enjoyed getting to know both of them, even Adam, who was a bit more of a challenge. But now, without Caitlin, it didn’t feel like a family at all. It felt like a gigantic black hole sucking her toward the void at its center.

  Chapter 15

  Rayna’s head throbbed. Either the Motrin she’d taken earlier hadn’t kicked in yet or it was outgunned by the monster headache. She reached into her desk drawer for the bottle and popped two more pills, washing them down with the bitter remains of lukewarm coffee from the bottom of her cup. She should probably call it a day and head home. She felt exhausted, and feared she was doing little but chasing her tail.

  But if Caitlin Whittington was still alive—

  She wasn’t. Any more than Karen Holiday was alive. Rayna could feel it in her bones.

  Pressing her palms against her forehead, she closed her eyes and rested her elbows on the top of her desk. Less than two years on the job and already she’d flubbed the most serious pair of investigations the town had ever seen.

  She heard the shuffle of footsteps behind her, and then a soft drawl. “A pillow would be more comfortable.”

  She tensed, recognizing the voice. She opened her eyes and spun around in her chair. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you asked for FBI assistance.”

  “Hardly.” She didn’t want help from the Feds, and especially not from Neal Cody. Jesus, could things get any worse?

  “Funny,” he said. “The call came in a couple of days ago. Something about a killer targeting young girls.”

  Neal Cody pulled up a chair next to her desk and sat, stretching his long legs out straight in front of him. She felt the gaze of his smoky blue eyes, and the rush of way too many memories, good and bad.

  “It wasn’t my doing,” she said. “It was the chief.” She crossed her arms. “If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be here either. So at least we’re in agreement about that.”

  Because of her? Did he find the memories that distasteful?

  “I thought you loved your job,” she said. “You seemed ready to go anywhere on a moment’s notice.” The Neal Cody she’d known had lived and breathed the bureau. Catching bad guys was his life’s blood.

  “It’s a long story.” He rocked forward. “Now tell me about the missing girls.”

  “We don’t know if the two cases are related.”

 
Cody brushed the air with his hand. “That’s something we’ll have to figure out.”

  “Karen Holiday disappeared at the end of October. She was a senior, just shy of her eighteenth birthday, and given to occasional lapses in good judgment. Caitlin Whittington was a sophomore—”

  “Was?”

  “Is. An honor student and by all accounts responsible. She was last seen around five-thirty on Friday in front of the high school where she was waiting to be picked up from volleyball practice.”

  “Witnesses? Tips? Theories? Anything at all?”

  “You think we’ve been sitting on our hands? We’ve got reams of stuff.” Anything at all? Insulting bastard!

  “And?”

  Rayna sighed. “Nothing solid. Yet. The Holiday case has pretty much gone stale, not that we haven’t been working it as hard as we can. Now we’re looking at areas where the girls’ lives might have overlapped. Caitlin’s mom found out the mechanic at the local auto shop she uses is a registered sex offender. Both families have taken their cars there, so that’s one avenue. The most obvious link is the school. We vetted the teachers and staff pretty thoroughly last fall, but we’ll take another look.” She told him about the volleyball intern and the possibility that Caitlin was interested in an older guy.

  “That’s definitely worth a follow-up.”

  “Could be whoever did this picked the girls at random. Assuming it’s even the same person.”

  “Is it all right if I take the case files tonight? The sooner I get up to speed the better.”

  “Suit yourself.” She didn’t have the energy for a turf war, especially one she was bound to lose.

  Cody gathered the files and prepared to leave. “I’m going to grab a bite to eat. Why don’t you come along and we can continue the discussion over dinner.”

  “No, thanks. This is work, not a social event.”

  “I wasn’t talking candlelight and fine wine. Just a burger or something. You have to eat, don’t you? And I’m starving. Friggin’ planes these days don’t even spring for pretzels.”

  Rayna hesitated. She was hungry and her fridge was bare. On the other hand she looked like shit, and probably smelled that way too. It had been a long day.

  What the hell did it matter? Whatever there’d been between them had ended a long time ago.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “But I’ll drive myself.”

  He looked at her with surprise. “I hadn’t considered anything different.”

  Rayna gave him directions to the Black Bear Diner in the center of town. It was a popular place, but the folks of Paradise Falls ate early and by now the evening rush would be over.

  “See you in a few minutes,” he said, easing out of the chair. He tucked the case files under his arm.

  As soon as Cody had gone, Rayna headed for the rest room to see if freshening up was a lost cause.

  ~~~~

  Cody polished off the last of his meatloaf and mashed potatoes and ordered a second beer. He eyed Rayna’s largely untouched pile of French fries.

  “Help yourself,” she said, inching the plate across the table toward him.

  “You sure?”

  “They’ll go to waste otherwise.” Better that than to her waist, she joked silently. The silly pun was a favorite of Hank’s.

  Cody snagged a handful of fries and leaned back in his seat. “So you’re a lieutenant now. Big honcho chief detective.”

  “Until they fire me.” She hadn’t meant to let that slip. “It’s a small department. Chief detective doesn’t mean much anyway.”

  “Beats being a squaw.”

  Now she was getting bad jokes from Cody as well as Hank.

  “Why would they fire you?” he asked after a moment.

  “Not everyone is happy about having an outsider in charge. And a woman at that. There’s also a fairly vocal element who consider Karen Holiday’s unsolved abduction a glowing example of my incompetence.”

  “And now you’ve got another missing girl.” He worked the label on the beer bottle with his thumb. “That’s tough.”

  “Yeah. Especially since serious crime was almost nonexistent in Paradise Falls until I got here.”

  “I didn’t mean just the public pressure, but the nature of the cases. You doing okay with that?”

  If his tone hadn’t been so gentle, she might have bristled. But it actually felt good to have someone acknowledge her own loss. Someone concerned for how she might be feeling. Few people in Paradise Falls knew she’d had a daughter, much less one who’d been murdered. She kept her private life private.

  “It gets to me, sure. But I knew when I decided to stick with police work I’d run into something like this. It’s why I stayed in the field. Getting the creeps off the streets is my way of getting even.”

  He rolled a torn bit of label into a ball. “Any new developments on Kimberly’s homicide?”

  Rayna shook her head. She didn’t trust her voice.

  Her daughter’s killer remained at large. He was able to smell the honeysuckle in spring and wood smoke in the fall. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin, the prickle of winter’s frost, the soft downiness of a puppy’s fur. Perhaps even a lover’s touch. Kimberly couldn’t. He’d stolen everything from her. And from Rayna, who didn’t even have the satisfaction of seeing him put away.

  Cody put his bottle of beer aside and looked into her eyes. “I didn’t cut and run, you know. Even when I was officially pulled from the case, I kept after it, scanning databases, keeping my ear to the ground, staying in touch with the local authorities. I wanted to find him. I wanted to give you that much.”

  She’d be damned if she was going to thank him. Cody had come onto the case when it looked as if Kimberly’s disappearance might have been tied to a string of abductions in the northwest. But that killer, when caught, happily confessed to the murder of five young victims and led authorities to their graves. Neal Cody had gone back to D.C. by then to be near his wife, who suffered periodic bouts of severe depression. But not before he’d comforted Rayna by taking her into his arms, and his bed, on numerous occasions, while failing to mention that he even had a wife.

  She had felt betrayed and used and taken advantage of at a time when she was most vulnerable. But when honest with herself, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have willingly done what she’d done even if she’d known. The anguish and desolation had been so overwhelming, Rayna had felt as though she were sliding toward an open crevasse. Losing herself in Cody’s kisses and caresses and passionate lovemaking had been all that had kept her from going over the edge. He’d been a lifeline when she needed it most.

  “How is your wife?” Rayna asked.

  “Better, or so she says. I wouldn’t know. We’ve been divorced almost a year now.”

  And he hadn’t bothered to contact her. Not that Rayna would have wanted him to. She certainly didn’t harbor any romantic notions about their brief affair.

  Cody’s jaw twitched. “I didn’t ask for this assignment,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I tried damn hard to get out of it. But it looks like we’re going to have to work together.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hold your feet to the fire about the past.”

  A flicker of a smile touched his lips. “And here I thought I detected a less than warm welcome.”

  “I wasn’t happy about having the FBI involved even before you showed up. If I have any chance of proving myself to the doubters in town, I need to be in charge. My case. My perp.”

  “Fine by me. It’s not exactly a plum assignment.”

  She bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t take it personally, Rayna, but it’s a nothing assignment. Two girls in some podunk, nowhere town—”

  “Missing kids are missing kids. What does it matter where they live?” She could feel her throat grow tight. How could she not take it personally?

  “The girls are important. Of course, they are. I wasn’t implying they weren’t. Only that it’s a
low-profile assignment. Especially for agents at my level.”

  Rayna pushed back her chair to leave. “You’re disgusting. All you care about is yourself and looking good to your bosses.”

  Cody grabbed her arm to keep her from rising. “Didn’t you just tell me ‘my case, my perp’? Seems I’m not the only one who wants to look good.”

  His touch sent an unexpected jolt through her. Despite her anger, she could feel a tingle all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Jesus, she didn’t need this.

  “It’s not the same,” she said.

  “Recognition is always a factor. But it’s not the main one, Rayna. Not for me. And not for you.”

  She pulled her arm free. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, and left the diner without looking back.

  Chapter 16

  Rayna had just stepped from the shower the next morning when her phone rang. Hair still dripping, she wrapped the towel around her shivering body and went to answer it.

  “Something here you might want to take a look at,” Hank said.

  Rayna held her breath. Not a body, please. And not another missing girl. “What is it?”

  “We may have found Caitlin Whittington’s backpack.”

  She exhaled. “Where was it?”

  “In a Dumpster near the mall. Not the one where Karen Holiday’s purse turned up, but awfully close.”

  Rayna felt her skin prickle. Another similarity between the two cases. “Who found it?” she asked.

  “That’s not entirely clear. A couple in their late teens, a guy and a girl, were trying to buy CDs at Wal-Mart using Caitlin’s credit card. The clerk recognized the name and called it in. The kids claim they found it in the Dumpster. They could have dumped the backpack there themselves, of course, but my take is that they’re telling the truth. Their stories match to a tee, and they even admitted to taking the twenty-three dollars inside.”

  “Any idea how long it might have been there?”