“I’ll give you a hint. And you’d better get it, or I’m carving up Lucy over there.”
Think. She had to think. San Jose was a lifetime ago.
“Bethany Keeler,” he said. “Does that name ring a bell?”
Bethany. The young girl who’d been killed by her mother’s boyfriend a few months before Kimberly was killed.
Oh, God. It couldn’t be, but it was. How could she have been so blind? “You’re Bethany’s father,” Rayna said softly.
The man she’d helped get a restraining order against and later arrested on kidnapping charges.
“And to think I was worried you might recognize me that day at lunch. Of course, I’ve changed. Prison will do that to you. And I was careful, growing a beard and all. At least you remember my daughter.”
“Of course I do.” Hadn’t she told Grace that story last week?
“And do you remember what happened to her? She was murdered! My daughter was murdered because of you.” Earl kicked her in the ribs, and when Rayna cried out and curled in pain, he kicked her again in the head. “It’s all your fault. If you hadn’t helped my wife take Bethany from me, she’d be alive.”
Rayna had trouble breathing and she couldn’t open her left eye. Her lip was split. She struggled to lift her head. “You were hardly a model father. That’s why your contact with her was cut off.”
“She was mine! That’s all that matters.”
Keep him talking, Rayna reminded herself. Don’t provoke him. She wiped the blood from her mouth. “Why go after innocent girls now?”
His lips pulled tight into a menacing smile. “As I told you, I’m having fun. At first, it was just going to be Kimberly. An eye for an eye, a daughter for a daughter.”
Dear God, no. Rayna felt the bile rise up in her throat. “You killed my daughter?”
“It only seemed fair since you killed mine.”
Rayna thought she might be sick. All these years she’d wanted to confront Kimberly’s killer, and now she lay broken and bleeding at his feet.
“Thing is,” Earl continued, “I discovered I enjoyed it. It’s an amazing high being the instrument of that moment when life passes to death. The ultimate power.”
Rayna thought of her precious daughter lying in the dirt, scared and bleeding, and Earl drunk with his own depravity. She gagged.
He smiled again. “Trouble was, your daughter’s death didn’t destroy you the way I thought it would. You moved on and made a life for yourself. A promotion, no less.”
A life for herself? Hardly. And now she was going to die and he’d get away with it again.
“You needed to be brought down. You needed to see what a mess you make of things. What an incompetent, interfering bitch you are.”
The words were like a knife in her gut. Four dead girls. Her fault. Rayna struggled to put the images out of her head. “You’re killing random girls just to get at me?”
“What’s the matter, detective? You haven’t figured it out yet? Your observational skills are deficient. Except for Lucy here, my victims were the same age Kimberly would have been, if I’d spared her. The same fair coloring, blue eyes and straight blond hair. I’m surprised you didn’t see a resemblance to your daughter.”
In a way she had, but Rayna’s focus had been elsewhere. “Caitlin wasn’t blond,” she said, tasting the blood from her torn lip.
“I’m afraid I can’t claim Caitlin for my own. It worked out well, though. I owe someone a word of thanks. And now I have Lucy, Caitlin’s stepsister. It’s a nice symmetry, no?”
With her one good eye, Rayna glanced toward Lucy, still motionless on the dirty floor.
“You’re both going to die, Rayna. Maybe people will wonder if you were in on the killings. Demented mom, gone crazy after the loss of her own daughter. Who knows how the press will play it? I’m sure there will be questions.”
“Hank will figure it out.”
“I doubt it. No offense, but Hank’s not the brightest bulb in the pack. Good for what I needed him for, but not much else.”
Earl was wrong, Rayna thought. Hank was a very good cop. But the knowledge brought her little comfort.
“To tell the truth,” Earl said in disgust, “he can’t even bowl worth a damn.” The barn creaked and Earl looked quickly over his shoulder, then back to Rayna. “I have to tell you this has been fun for me. Did you enjoy the stuffed animals? I thought they were a nice touch. Kimberly loved the stupid things, didn’t she?”
“How would you know?”
“Careful observation. Something you should have been better at.”
“There was no animal when Caitlin disappeared.”
“At the time, it never occurred to me that Caitlin’s disappearance would turn out as it did. Ah, well, as I said, I had a lot of fun. I’d have liked to keep it up a bit longer. I had hoped you wouldn’t back down quite so easily.”
If Earl looked away again, maybe she could grab his knife. Not likely. He was a big man who could overpower her under the best of circumstances. With one eye swollen shut and God knew how many bruises and broken bones, there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d succeed. But she had to do something.
He pulled a roll of twine from his jacket pocket and took a step toward her.
“You need to tie me up to kill me?”
“I thought maybe you’d hang yourself out of remorse after starting a fire. It’s all set up. Take a look up there.”
Rayna glanced up. A narrow platform, a sort of half loft, hugged one side of the barn about ten feet from the floor. A coarse rope noose hung from a thick rafter overhead. Her heart skipped several beats.
“Come on, get up.”
Earl yanked her arm and Rayna cried out. The pain was quick and sharp.
“Move it!”
Somehow Rayna dragged herself to all fours and then, unsteadily, to her feet. Go for his eyes. Or his groin. Do something.
He nudged her toward the makeshift steps leading to the platform. At the bottom step she turned abruptly and aimed all ten fingers at his eyes.
He caught her wrists and slapped her across the face. When she fell, he dragged her, feet first, up the rough stairway. Each time she managed to curl her fingers around something solid, Earl yanked harder, and her grip gave way, scraping the skin on her hands.
How could she have let this happen? No wonder she couldn’t protect the girls of Paradise Falls. She couldn’t even take care of herself.
Once they’d reached the top, Earl hauled her to her feet, slipped the noose over her head, and pulled the scratchy rope tight around her neck. Already Rayna had trouble breathing.
Earl tied her hands behind her with twine, then grabbed a red metal can and poured gasoline at her feet. He went back down the steps and sloshed more gasoline around the barn’s perimeter.
“It’s your choice, Rayna. You can hang yourself and get it over with quickly, or die by fire. See, I’ve left you some final control. But then, I’m a thoughtful guy.”
He lit a match, watched it burn for a few seconds, then dropped it onto a gasoline-soaked pile of debris. Flames leapt to life.
“Happy hereafter,” Earl said as he turned to leave. “Say hi to Bethany for me.”
The fire quickly snaked along the floor, fueled by twigs and debris. Rayna felt light-headed, and concentrated on keeping her balance. Any misstep and she’d plummet from the narrow loft, yanking the noose tight around her neck. When the fire got close enough, she might welcome the quick death of hanging, but for the moment she was paralyzed by fear.
If only she could free her hands. She twisted and tugged them until the twine cut into her flesh, but she couldn’t break free. Then she saw an old rusty nail jutting out of the wall behind her.
Could she get to it without falling? Inch by inch, she carefully backed toward the nail. When she reached the wall, she felt blindly for the nail and began to frantically saw against it with her wrists. The nail scraped her skin as often as it caught the twine. Smoke filled her lungs and stung
her eyes. Dear God, she had to hurry.
Finally, the twine snapped and her hands were free. Rayna tugged frantically at the noose, pulling it from her neck, and then felt her way unsteadily down the makeshift stairs.
Lucy. She had to find Lucy.
Fire danced along the floor. Smoke clouded the air. Pain from her head and ribs screamed at her. Fumbling, Rayna felt her way to Lucy. She tried to rouse her, but quickly gave up on the idea. There wasn’t time. She’d have to drag Lucy. But Lucy was a dead weight, too heavy to manage in Rayna’s present condition.
She heard the barn door rattle, and froze. Had Earl come back?
“Rayna? Rayna are you in there?” Seth Robbins pushed through the smoke toward her.
Was he working with Earl?
She picked up a nearby shovel. “Don’t come near me, Seth!”
“The fire department’s on its way, Rayna. Come on, you need to get out now.”
Not a friend of Earl’s after all? She made a split-second decision to trust him.
“Lucy’s in here, too. She’s tied up and drugged. Help me get her out.”
Together, they dragged Lucy into the clear air. Collapsing onto a patch of dead leaves, Rayna heard sirens. As the fire engines roared down the dirt road, the barn roof caved in.
Chapter 52
The doctors insisted on keeping both Lucy and Rayna in the hospital overnight. Lucy was out of it enough that she didn’t protest, but Rayna did. Yes, she felt like shit and yes, her body felt as though it had been through a meat grinder, but she wanted to be home.
She lost the battle and steamed silently while the nurse fiddled with an IV and plumped the pillow under her head.
By the time Hank showed up several hours later, she was glad she’d stayed, if only because the IV pain medication was much more effective than anything she could have taken on her own. Elephants danced in her head and the pain had been banished to some vague distant planet.
“How are you feeling?” Hank asked.
“To tell you the truth, I’m floating. Are you sure I didn’t die?”
“Jesus, Rayna don’t joke about that. Do you know how close you came? I feel responsible.”
“That’s silly. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Earl was my friend. Or I thought he was. I never had the slightest idea—”
“Of course not.”
“He used me, Rayna. Used me for information about you, about our investigation. I feel like such a complete idiot.”
Even in her fuzzy state, Rayna could tell how deeply Earl’s betrayal shocked Hank. She promised herself she’d be more understanding of Hank’s loneliness in the future.
“Have they caught him?” she asked.
“Not yet. That’s why I’m posting a guard outside your door.”
She started to protest, then realized she’d feel better knowing she had someone protecting her. She was certainly in no state to protect herself.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth about having nothing to do with Caitlin’s murder?”
“Yes, unfortunately. The night she disappeared we were at a bowling league dinner together. His alibi is airtight.”
Rayna had suspected all along that Caitlin’s murder was different from the others. “Adam?”
“That’s something the two of us will have to figure out.”
“The two of us?”
“The chief is reinstating you. He didn’t process your resignation. Didn’t even put it in the system. You’ll come back, won’t you?”
Would she? She wasn’t sure. “Is Lucy doing okay?”
“She’s going to be fine. Her mother and father are with her. One of them will stay the night.”
At least she’d managed to save one girl. One out of four. Five, if you counted Kimberly. Not very good odds. And she hadn’t done it alone. “What was Seth Robbins doing there?”
“From what I understand, he’s been following you, hoping to get a big scoop.”
“Well, he certainly got that.” Rayna closed her eyes for a moment. This was one story she wouldn’t begrudge him. “Earl killed Kimberly, my daughter. I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry, Rayna. We’ll get him. That’s a promise.”
“He knew she loved stuffed animals. He’d been watching her, following us. That’s how he lured her to his car.”
“Try to get some sleep.”
Rayna closed her eyes again. She felt Hank brush a tear from her cheek, then leave the room.
It was the last thing she remembered until the next morning.
~~~~
Grace sat at her kitchen table staring at the front page of the morning Tribune. Seth Robbins’s column was at the top of page one, accompanied by photos of Rayna Goodwin, a craggy looking man, and last year’s school portrait of Lucy. Carl had spent the night at the hospital, along with Mimi. He’d told Grace last night over the phone that Lucy had been heavily drugged but not otherwise harmed. She would recover, physically at any rate.
Grace had managed to patch together only bits and pieces of what had happened. Rayna Godwin had apparently found Lucy bound and drugged in a burning barn and managed to pull her to safety with the help of the columnist Seth Robbins. Grace didn’t know why they were together. Robbins’s column had been the stuff of adventure, not explanation.
According to Carl, Rayna had been abducted, although there was no mention of that in the news. A man Grace had never heard of, Eric Turloff, known locally by the alias Earl Tobias, was wanted in connection with Lucy’s abduction and the recent murders. There was a warrant out for his arrest. She studied the newspaper photo. Grace was sure she’d never seen him. He’d tricked Lucy into opening the door to her house by pretending to be a repairman from the gas company. Grace wondered what trick he’d used on Caitlin.
She didn’t understand why he’d done it. The newspaper said he was a violent man with a criminal past. Maybe that was all it took.
Just after noon, Carl’s car pulled into the driveway. He looked haggard and exhausted. His clothes were rumpled, the circles under his eyes dark. Hesitantly, Grace reached out to embrace him. To her immense relief, he collapsed into her arms and hugged her tight.
“It’s going to be okay,” he told her. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Grace wasn’t sure if he was talking about Lucy or about the two of them.
“Is Lucy still in the hospital?”
“No. She’s home with Mimi. She’s shaken and frightened, of course, but I guess it’s a blessing she was drugged. She remembers very little. By the time she came to, it was all over. We are so lucky Detective Godwin found her in time. If she hadn’t—”
“She did. That’s what’s important. Go take a shower and I’ll fix you some lunch.”
Carl kissed her cheek. “It’s good to be home.”
Home. Grace felt heartened. Maybe there was hope for them yet.
She took some homemade chicken soup from the freezer, and while it heated, she made grilled cheese sandwiches. Comfort food. Food she knew Carl enjoyed.
Carl reappeared fifteen minutes later, eyes red from lack of sleep, but freshly shaved with clean clothes and hair still damp at the ends.
She put the sandwiches and bowls of soup on the table and they sat down.
“It feels wrong to be so happy that Lucy’s safe,” Carl said, “when we’re still reeling from Caitlin’s death. I’m not insensitive to that, Grace.”
“I know. And I’m happy about Lucy. It would be too much to bear if we’d lost her, too. I just hope they find this guy soon.”
“The police have roadblocks on all the major routes and his photo is in the papers and on the news. He can’t get far.”
“Do you think it would be all right if I called Lucy? I’d like to tell her how relieved I am that she’s okay.”
“You can go see her if you want,” Carl said. “She was asking for you. Mimi said it would be okay.”
“Thank you.” The knot in Grace’s chest r
elaxed and in its place she felt the bud of hope.
~~~~
Grace waited until the next day before visiting anyone. First, she called Rayna at home and asked if she could stop by.
“I’d love it,” Rayna said.
Grace took her soup and flowers, and was going to pick up the funny soft monkey she saw at the florists, before she remembered that stuffed animals had played a role in the recent murders. She decided on an oversized Peanuts card instead.
The detective’s house was small, with a well-kept front yard and a cozy feel. Grace rang the bell.
“Oh, my God,” she said when Rayna opened the door. The left half of the detective’s face was raw and swollen.
Rayna put a hand to her bruised cheek. “It will take a while to heal.”
“I had no idea. Oh, Rayna. Can I do anything for you?”
“Come on in. I’ll be fine as soon as I stop hurting. Tea? Or coffee?”
“I can’t stay. I’m on my way to see Lucy. But I wanted to thank you personally for all you did.” Grace handed Rayna the flowers. “I brought you some soup also. I hope you like lentils.”
“Love them. This is really nice. And totally unnecessary.”
“Carl and I are both grateful to you.”
“So you two are—”
“You were right about people being resilient,” Grace told her with a smile.
They’d moved into Rayna’s kitchen, which was a tidy, efficient space Grace found very appealing. She set the soup on the counter. “I thought you resigned.”
“I did.”
“And yet you still managed to track that awful man down and save Lucy. I can’t tell you how grateful we are. How grateful I am that Caitlin’s killer won’t get away with it.”
Grace had the distinct impression Rayna was about to say one thing but changed her mind. “I’m afraid I can’t take credit for tracking him down, Grace. He came after me.”
“Why?”
“Remember the story I told you about Bethany, the little girl whose father abducted her?”
“Yes, of course. Her mother’s boyfriend killed the mother and girl. Who could forget a story like that?”
“Earl is Bethany’s father. He blames me for her death.” Rayna took a breath before continuing. “He killed Kimberly to get back at me.”
Paradise Falls Page 31