“No boys,” Mr. Lowe said decisively. “Terri knows how we feel about that. She’s not allowed to date until she’s out of school.”
Rayna was beginning to get a feel for the seeds of Terri’s hints at rebellion. The Lowes—both husband and wife—struck her as stern and regimented. Mr. Lowe worked for the postal service and Mrs. Lowe, while insisting she was a full-time mother and the girls’ teacher, also worked as a bookkeeper three afternoons a week. The Lowe’s house was small and dark, tidy but not particularly inviting. They had three children, all girls. Terri was the middle child. The older one lived and worked in Portland.
“Does Terri have a computer?” Rayna asked.
“There’s one computer in this house,” Mr. Lowe said, “for use by the entire family. I monitor it closely so I doubt you’ll find any clues to her whereabouts there, but you’re welcome to look.”
Mrs. Lowe was anxiously clasping and unclasping her hands. “Terri didn’t run away,” she said emphatically, “and she didn’t run off with some boy. She was kidnapped, just like those other two girls. Please find her before it’s too late.”
“Local authorities as well as those in neighboring towns have been alerted. The media is on it, as well. Your daughter’s photo will be on the news later tonight and in the papers tomorrow morning. I understand that you are worried, believe me. I’m as concerned as you are. That’s why I need to know your daughter better, to examine her habits and hope we find common ground with the other girls who disappeared. It’s our best hope of finding her.”
“Dear God.” Mrs. Lowe had been trying valiantly to control her tears, but she finally lost the fight. She grabbed a handful of tissues. “Why Terri?” she asked between sobs. “She’s a good girl. How can this be happening? What is a maniac killer doing in Paradise Falls? We moved here because it was safe.”
Rayna had asked herself the same question. And she was as perplexed and frightened as the Lowes.
~~~~
Rayna met up with Hank back at the station.
“Nothing,” he said in disgust, tossing his clipboard onto his desk. “A clerk at a gift store thinks she remembers seeing Terri, but that’s it. No one was with her at the time, and no one appeared to be following her.”
“Do we know the time of the gift store sighting?”
“No. The clerk couldn’t even be sure that the girl she remembered was Terri.” “Has someone checked the Dumpster?”
Hank nodded. “Nothing of note.”
Rayna put her head in her hands. She felt queasy. She’d skipped lunch because she’d had a dinner date with Paul, now canceled, and she hadn’t had time to eat since.
“You doing okay with this?” Hank asked.
“Yeah. I’m having the time of my life.” His face fell and Rayna immediately regretted her sarcasm. Hank meant well. “Sorry, I guess I’m not doing too well.”
“We’ll get him, Rayna.”
“Maybe. But how many girls will he get first?”
“It stinks, that’s for sure. We’ve never had anything like this before.” Hank rolled his shoulders and stretched the muscles of his neck. “What did you learn from the Lowes?”
“Terri is a quiet, serious girl with a small circle of friends. None of the ones I talked to had any idea what might have happened to her, except they all agreed she wouldn’t have run away. I asked about Adam Peterson—”
“He couldn’t have done it,” Hank pointed out.
“I know that, but I asked anyway. I ran Ty and Rob’s names past them, also. Nothing. And they only knew Karen and Caitlin from the news.”
“Shit!”
“That about sums it up. We might as well head home for the night. Maybe something will break by morning.” Rayna didn’t believe it and she knew Hank didn’t, either.
After he’d left, Rayna again studied Terri’s photo. Her coloring was fair, bordering on bland, her features too small for her face. Whereas both Karen Holiday and Caitlin had been attractive girls—Karen in a voluptuous way and Caitlin with an athletic sparkle—Terri appeared mousy and dull. Why these three girls? What did they have in common? Caitlin had thick, chestnut colored hair. Karen and Terri were blonds. There seemed to be no common thread at all.
Funny that of the three girls, Rayna found Caitlin to be most like the teenager she imagined Kimberly might have become. Yet Kimberly, too, was blond, and like both Karen and Terri, she’d had baby fine, straight hair.
Rayna felt the ache of her own loss. Her eyes stung with tears. Damn, she was supposed to be stronger than this.
She leaned her arms on the desk and indulged in a few minutes of self-pity. She needed to leave this job. She’d thought she was somehow paying tribute to her daughter by going after the bad guys, but it dawned on Rayna that she wasn’t doing anyone any good. She was a lousy cop. Seth Robbins had been right all along. And now it looked as though her incompetence might cost another girl her life.
She began to imagine how Robbins would gloat if she resigned. Or was fired. She blew her nose and sat up straighter. She wasn’t going to give the little piranha that satisfaction. She might leave this job at some point, but she wasn’t going out in defeat.
Before she left for home, she called Paul Nesbitt. It was not a night she wanted to be alone with her thoughts.
“Sorry about canceling for dinner,” she told him. “I seem to be making a habit of that lately.”
“It’s not your fault. A missing girl isn’t something you can leave sitting in your inbox for the next day.”
“You’re a very understanding guy.”
“Tell that to my ex-wife.”
“She must be nuts.” Rayna knew very little about Paul’s previous marriage and divorce. Just as he knew almost nothing about her past. It was what had made their relationship work. Sex and companionship, but nothing too personal. “I know it’s late, but do you want to come over?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. And it has to be pretty soon or I’ll have faded into slumber.”
“Half an hour, how’s that?”
“Perfect.”
~~~~
When Rayna arrived home, she fed Anastasia, then headed straight for the shower. Clean and fresh, she slipped into velour yoga pants and a matching tee. Her hair was still damp at the nape of her neck when she opened the door for Paul.
He leaned in and kissed her. “You smell nice. You feel nice, too.”
“Ditto.” Paul’s signature aftershave was a fresh, gingery scent she associated only with him. She slipped an arm around the back of his neck. “I’m using you, you know. Full disclosure requires me to tell you that.”
He laughed. “Do you see me objecting?”
“Just so you’re forewarned.” They had this exchange, or something similar, periodically, yet Rayna could never be sure Paul understood.
“I brought brandy,” he told her. “Let me pour us a drink and you can tell me about your day.”
Rayna followed him into the kitchen where she watched as he pulled two brandy glasses from the cupboard as comfortably as he would in his own home. She liked watching him move, easy and fluid. She liked his lack of pretentiousness.
“You’re a nice guy, Paul.”
“Nice guy but not right for you, I know. We’ve been over this, Rayna. Would you please forget it. At least for the time being.” He stroked the small of her back. “Let’s take our drinks into the bedroom.”
“Good idea.” Rayna felt better already. She didn’t love him, but Paul was a good antidote for what ailed her.
She set her drink on the bedside table, pulled back the coverlet, and screamed.
Peeking out from beneath the pillows was a tiny toy kitten.
Chapter 44
Caitlin’s funeral was Tuesday morning. Grace viewed it largely as something she needed to get through. That was the mantra she played over and over in her mind—just get through it. If she stopped to think about what it meant, what had come before, or what was happening now, she knew she’d crum
ble like ancient parchment.
The mortuary chapel was packed, which Grace knew should make her feel somehow comforted, but it didn’t. She recognized faces—Caitlin’s friends from school, teachers, neighbors. And co-workers —hers, Carl’s, and even a few of Jake’s, although they’d had to drive in from Portland. But she avoided making eye contact with any of them. She clutched a damp handkerchief in her hand and dug her nails into her palms. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead, warding off the reality of the moment.
She had managed to avoid breaking down completely by slowly counting backward from one thousand. Now it was almost over. Jake finished delivering an impressive eulogy and all that remained was for the minister to offer a final prayer.
One hundred ninety-three. One hundred ninety-two.
Finally, blessedly, the service ended. Grace could breathe again.
Sandy had offered to organize a reception to follow, but Grace said no thanks. She wouldn’t have the strength to be gracious. And she wanted to be alone.
She walked out into the lobby with Jake, but Carl and Lucy, who’d sat to her left during the service, followed close behind. She left them for a moment when she spotted Rayna Godwin.
“It was nice of you to come to the funeral,” Grace said.
“It seemed right.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Grace, I know how hard this is for—”
She brushed her hand through the air. She didn’t want to talk about it, even with someone who’d been there before. Not now. “Please,” she said. “I can’t—”
“That’s okay. I understand.”
Grace swallowed. “The new girl, Terri something—I’m sorry my mind can’t retain anything lately—the one who’s missing. Do you think her disappearance is connected to what happened to Caitlin?”
“We don’t know, but there are similarities.”
The air left Grace’s lungs. “Then it wasn’t Adam?” she whispered. Ever since she’d heard the first reports about another missing girl, she’d felt choked by the ether of guilt and regret. Had she made a terrible mistake?
“If the same person is responsible for all three girls, then no, it couldn’t be Adam.”
“Oh, my God!” All the hate she’d directed toward Adam, and now this. She supposed she should be glad, but all she felt was a tidal wave of loss. How could she have been so wrong? “So you don’t know who killed Caitlin?”
The detective shook her head. “I understand how unsettling, how agonizing, how unfair it is that whoever did this terrible thing hasn’t been caught.”
“Yes. Yes, it is. You’d think it wouldn’t make such a difference, but it does.”
“It’s important to us, too.”
“Adam’s no longer in critical condition,” Grace told her. “He’s going to pull through, although there may be complications.”
“Yes, I got a call from the hospital this morning.”
“What have I done? I feel so responsible.”
“It wasn’t you who forced him to swallow the pills, Grace.”
“I’ve been telling myself the same thing.” Grace felt a knot in her throat. “It was easier when I thought he’d killed Caitlin.”
“Did you know Terri Lowe? Does her name ring a bell? Might she and Caitlin have had some common ground somewhere?”
“The name means nothing to me,” Grace said. “I asked Lucy when I first heard it because I wondered the same thing. I thought maybe Caitlin might have said something to her. Lucy’s younger than Caitlin by a few years, but they shared stuff.”
“Lucy didn’t recognize the name, either?”
“No.”
The detective seemed to hesitate for a moment, then she asked, “Do stuffed animals have any special meaning for you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. You asked Mimi something similar the other day, didn’t you?”
“Right.”
“If it’s about Caitlin’s murder, she loved stuffed animals as much as the next kid, but there’s no special significance attached to them.” With a sudden pang in her heart, Grace remembered Lucky, the floppy-eared velveteen dog that had been Caitlin’s constant companion as a toddler.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you with questions at a time like this,” Rayna said.
“It’s not a problem. I’ll do anything to help catch the person who killed my daughter.”
~~~~
Following the funeral, Carl and Lucy returned to the house with Grace. Jake, who’d all but abandoned Starr to be by Grace’s side at the service, had suggested they go out to lunch, but Grace declined. The company of others required more effort than she could muster. It was as if she were half dead herself, her batteries depleted and her body hollow. Sorrow hung over her like a dark shadow, but she felt nothing.
At home, Lucy offered to fix Grace a sandwich, but she felt as though she were suffocating. She needed space to herself.
Finally, she sent Carl off to teach his afternoon seminar (having missed two classes in the past week, he offered only a pro forma protest) and suggested to Lucy that she head back to school.
“Are you sure you don’t want someone around? I could stay here and not bother you.”
“Thank you, honey, but I’d actually prefer to be alone right now.”
“Okay.” She sounded reluctant. “If that’s what you really want.”
Carl hugged Grace and whispered in her ear. “You need me, you call, understand?” Then he kissed her on the forehead. Caring, yet reserved. Still, it gave Grace some hope they might yet have a future together.
But it was Lucy’s unrestrained hug and “please be okay, Grace,” that, like an electric shock, jolted Grace back into the land of the living. Fierce emotion, painful yet welcome, rose sharply in her chest.
The moment she was alone, Grace gave into the tears she’d fought all morning.
Chapter 45
On her way back to the station following the funeral, Rayna stopped by the Java Mill and bought a large black coffee to go. It was hot and strong, and she hoped it would kick the cobwebs out of her head. And just maybe help her keep her eyes open for the rest of the afternoon.
She’d gotten no sleep last night. The stuffed kitten on her bed had frightened her more than she cared to admit—there’d been a madman in her house, for God’s sake—but it had also fueled her anger. Now more than ever, she wanted to nail the guy.
There’d been no obvious sign of a break-in that she and Paul could find, but when the forensics team had arrived a little before midnight, they’d found the lock on the rear door had been jimmied.
“Don’t you have an alarm system?” one had asked her. Guys in forensics worried a lot about personal safety.
“I do but I only use it at night, when I go to bed.”
“I tell me wife to set it every time she goes out. Even to visit the neighbor. You pay the same if it’s set or not, right?”
“Good point.” Rayna wasn’t cavalier about intruders but she found setting the alarm every time she left the house to be a nuisance. And none of the bad things that happened in her life could have been prevented by an alarm. Still, from now on she’d keep the damn thing set.
It wasn’t simply that someone had been in her house, creepy as that felt. It was that the hunt was about more than murder. For whatever twisted reasons, this perp not only got off on killing innocent young girls, he needed to rub Rayna’s nose in it as well.
She was nearing the station when she pulled a U-turn and, instead, drove to the offices of the Tribune. Seth Robbins had it in for her, too. Maybe if she understood why, she’d see a new angle on this animal thing.
Hell, maybe Seth was the killer. Wouldn’t that be something? How she’d love to haul his ass in. She smiled at the thought.
~~~~
Rayna got past the receptionist with a minimum of fuss by flashing her badge and not slowing down. It was only after she’d reached the labyrinth of waist-high cubicles in the newsroom that she asked directions to Seth�
��s station. A sudden hush fell over the room and Rayna was aware that all eyes were on her. For once, she relished the audience.
She found Robbins talking on the phone, with his feet, in their stretched and badly scuffed loafers, propped on his desk. Smug little twit.
“Let me call you back,” he said into the phone. “Something interesting just walked in.”
Rayna removed a stack of papers from a vinyl-cushioned chair, dropped them without decorum onto the floor, and took a seat.
Robbins smiled, revealing pointy eye-teeth, but he took his time removing his feet from his desk. “To what do I owe this honor, detective?”
“I’d like to know what it is you have against me.”
“Besides the fact that you’ve got your head up your ass? Nothing, really.”
“Do you have a friend or relative in the department? Is that it? Someone who wanted my job and was passed over?”
He chuckled. “Afraid not, but that would be a tidy little explanation, something you might see on the big screen.”
“You’ve been on my case from the day I got here. You did a ‘meet the new detective’ sort of column that was snide and belittling.”
Robbins rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. It was tongue-in-cheek. You need to work on your sense of humor.”
She needed to refrain from slugging him. “You don’t believe in playing fair, do you?”
“My job is to attract readers. Nobody likes namby-pamby reporting.”
“I’d hardly call what you do reporting.”
He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. “You’d be amazed how many people regularly read columnists whose views they despise. They like to be outraged.”
And Seth Robbins obviously didn’t mind feeding that outrage. “You’ve been giving these disappearances a lot of coverage. A disproportionate amount some might say.”
“Readers eat it up. I couldn’t ask for better material.”
“You call two dead girls and another girl missing material?”
“Isn’t it?” He seemed to be enjoying himself.
“The kind of story you’d die for,” she said.
Paradise Falls Page 26