by Rick Mofina
Seventy-Two
San Diego, California
McDowell leaned closer to Blake. She and Elsen stared at him.
“You’re involved in Riley’s disappearance?” Elsen said.
“I think I am.”
“You think?” Elsen said. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t give us any BS. How are you involved?” Elsen said.
His lips and chin trembling, Blake stared into space. “When my mom and Courtney drowned, I couldn’t deal with it. It was like, why them and not me? You know?” His voice quavered. “I didn’t care about anything. I started gambling because it was the only time I felt anything.”
“Did your father know?” McDowell asked.
“No, I set up online bank accounts, got debit and credit cards. There are ways around security. The online gambling I did wasn’t really legal. It was on the dark web. I was up and down with winnings. But I always had it under control. I just couldn’t stop.”
“You were addicted?” McDowell said.
“Pretty much. Then dad married Grace and about a month before our trip, I made bigger bets, had bigger losses. I couldn’t get ahead of it. One day when I went to the bathroom I left my computer on. That’s when Riley saw what I was doing, how much I was losing.”
“What did you do?” McDowell asked.
“I freaked out. I said that if she ever told anyone we’d be in serious trouble because it was around that time that I learned that the gambling site I used was a front operated by drug cartels.”
“How much did you owe?” Elsen asked.
“Twenty-two thousand dollars.”
“What did you do?” Elsen asked.
“I couldn’t go to dad for the money, or Grace. I panicked. I told the people I owed that I needed time to pay. I was thinking I could sell drugs to other kids to get the money. I knew a dealer at school. I called him but he was cold to the idea. He didn’t trust me. Then two men in a car, strangers, stopped me on the street. They knew everything about my debt. They said that if I didn’t pay, our house might burn down and my family might get hurt.”
“What did you do?” McDowell asked.
“I begged them to give me time. I said that we were moving, taking an RV trip to Pittsburgh. They were suddenly interested in the trip, asked me about the RV then made me a deal.”
“What sort of deal?” Elsen said.
“My debt would be erased if they could ship drugs across the country concealed in our RV. All I had to do was call a number when we got to Pittsburgh. They’d do the rest. I had no choice. They secured bundles underneath.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. I think they came loose when we crashed and somebody found them in the wreckage in the chaos. A lot of people pulled over, so much was going on.”
A moment passed.
“What else do you know about these drug people and this deal?” Elsen asked.
“I think the drugs were part of a large shipment that came into the US through a tunnel from Mexico. They’d had a problem with some distributors. They said that an American family in an RV would draw no suspicions moving drugs from California to the east.”
“We’re going to need names from you and a statement,” Elsen said.
“I have no idea who they are. I only know some first names and nicknames.”
“That’s a start.”
“How did you communicate?” McDowell asked. “You talked to them yesterday?”
Blake handed her his burner phone. “They gave me a number to memorize and told me to use burners.”
McDowell passed the phone to Elsen. “Did they give you proof they had Riley?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did they send photos, put her on the phone?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did they make a ransom call?”
“Not yet. But they told me that they’re not finished with me. I was thinking of giving a friend a tip so they would get Riley’s reward fund, then I could take twenty-two to pay my debt.”
The detectives looked at him.
“Don’t you see?” Blake said. “We never shipped their drugs! They disappeared in the crash! I still owe them! They’re pissed off and they have Riley!”
Seventy-Three
San Diego, California
Grace paced near the window in her kitchen, one hand holding her forehead while she stared at her phone. Her reddened eyes had dark circles under them. She hadn’t slept. Her insides had been twisted tighter ever since John and Blake had left for police headquarters earlier.
“It’s going to be okay.” Sherry touched her shoulder. “Sit down, I’ll make you something.”
Grace stood still. Worry lines were carved deep into her face before she managed the beginnings of a smile. “Thank you for coming. I’d be alone, lost without you.”
“I’m glad you called me. Don’t worry. We’re going to find her.”
“Why’re McDowell and Elsen talking to John and Blake again?” Grace raised her phone. “John hasn’t got back to me, not a single word. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have access to his phone. You know, maybe they had to give them to security? Sit down and take a breath.”
“I’m going out of my mind. I believed with all my heart that they’d found her in Rancho Bernardo yesterday, I mean with Caleb missing, too. But now I’m just—just—” Her eyes went around the room. “And they’re still searching in Nevada. Is she here? Is she there? Do police know something they’re not telling me?”
“You’ve got to sit down and breathe.”
“I prayed last night. I prayed that she really ran off with Caleb because if she did, it means she’s alive and we can get her back, but if she’s not with Caleb—”
“Don’t, Grace, you mustn’t think like that.”
“It means the creep got her, that she didn’t get away, and I think of that other girl they found out there last year, and those pictures of Rykhirt, that monster—” Grace’s shoulders shook as she cried.
Sherry got her to sit down then made tea and joined her, both of them looking at nothing in the silence as little by little Grace found some composure.
Rubbing her arms, Grace said, “A karmic wheel has turned. Now I’m paying the price for the things I’ve done. Things no one knows.”
“What’re talking about?”
“I’m thinking that if I confess, if I tell someone, it’ll help in some way.”
“Confess what? You’re not making sense.”
“It’s about Tim, something I’ve been keeping locked up inside, something I want you to know.”
Sherry stared at Grace. “What is it?”
“It’s about what happened the night Tim died.”
Seventy-Four
Nevada
That morning, some three hundred miles northeast of San Diego, Jazmin Reyna slid her forearm across her moist brow then replaced her sunglasses. Her water bottle swished as she shifted the straps of her backpack so they wouldn’t chafe. Then she glanced up at the clouds streaking the sky.
It was the fifth day of Riley’s disappearance. Soon after sunrise, volunteers had gathered at the Silver Sky Search and Rescue command post in the Sagebrush parking lot. There were fewer people involved and fewer news cameras now that the focus had shifted to California. But the determination to locate Riley had not waned.
“We won’t quit searching until we find her,” Warren Taylor had told searchers before teams headed out to their assigned areas earlier.
The fact was, they had done nearly all they could, had searched everywhere—old roads, pathways, forgotten trails and far-reaching outlying areas.
Today Jazmin’s search partner was Leland Dysart, a retired lawyer who kept a few yards f
rom her as they rechecked a zone not far from the interstate.
She welcomed a breeze of hot, dry air as they moved across the desert, threading around brush and scrub with the other volunteers in the distance. She looked at the line of poles paralleling the interstate as the highway traffic hummed. It underscored the desolation and the loneliness of the region.
Jazmin missed her daughter, Cleo. She’d wanted to be here helping, but she was with her father visiting his relatives in New York. Jazmin then thought of Riley and the news reports of the false sighting in San Diego. The agony Grace must be feeling.
Pushed by a sudden gust, a fragment of tumbleweed bounced near her and Jazmin’s thoughts turned to her own anguish; how she’d lost her mother to the virus in the hospital where she and Grace worked.
I should’ve been there when she died. Not Grace. It’s irrational, I know, but it’s like she took something from me.
Then there was Jazmin’s marriage and her recent separation from Miguel.
What went wrong with us? We’d been so happy.
But no matter how many ways Jazmin looked at it, she couldn’t find the answers. Things between them had deteriorated around the time Tim Jarrett had died. They had all been close. Miguel and Tim had been good friends, coaching the girls’ soccer team together. Miguel was devastated by his death. That’s when it all started going wrong, with Miguel gradually becoming distant, withdrawn. It lingered like a sickness and when Grace married John, Miguel seemed to be unhappy with Jazmin.
She asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t have an answer. She found the courage to suggest they see a marriage counselor, but Miguel refused. That’s when he asked for a trial separation.
“Look.” Leland pointed his walking stick. “What’s that?”
Jazmin followed his direction, spotting the sun glinting on a piece of broken glass. “A bottle, or something?” she said.
Leland moved his stick with short gestures. “No, to the right, at the base of that cholla. Let’s go.”
As they got closer to the stand of cactus shrub, a patch of bright color flashed. Aquamarine.
Wedged against the plant was a sneaker; canvas mesh, laceless, white sole. A girl’s right sneaker.
“Oh my God,” Jazmin said. “It’s Riley’s other shoe.”
Seventy-Five
San Diego, California
“The number you have reached is not in service...”
Elsen stroked his chin while staring at his phone, which was on speaker. He’d dialed the only number that was in Blake’s burner phone; the one for his drug contact.
“No surprise there,” McDowell said.
“We know it’s nearly impossible to get something from a burner, but we can pass this to forensic people,” Elsen said.
McDowell set two coffees on the table in the empty meeting room Moore had found for them. It was down the hall from where they’d questioned John and Blake Marshall.
They’d requested John and Blake remain at San Diego police headquarters, indicating they would continue interviewing them. The detectives were aware they had no grounds to hold them. Not yet. They wanted to nail down every possible angle they could while they were in San Diego.
“All right.” McDowell took a hit of coffee, sighed then began working on her tablet. “Where do we go from here?”
“We step back,” Elsen said. “We look at everything; follow the strongest evidence we have. So far that’s Rykhirt. We have him stalking the family in Fontana. We can place him with Riley at the Sagebrush. We have his sketch, his photos of her on his devices.”
“It’s strong.”
“But it’s still circumstantial. We couldn’t get any trace, any latents from her sneaker,” Elsen said. “Then we have Blake telling us the story about his gambling debt and the drugs. But we have no strong evidence so far. No ransom call, nothing giving us a clear connection to Riley but his story. All the video recordings we have show Riley with Rykhirt—no one else. We’ve got this burner number from Blake, which dead-ends. Some witnesses, but no names.”
“We could charge him with conspiracy to traffic based on his admission and the dog,” McDowell said.
“But is it strong enough to stick?”
“Maybe reasonable suspicion, maybe smuggling, just to hold him?”
“Maybe,” Elsen said. “We’ll talk to Blake again, press him for more information leading to Riley. We can’t let his story go. We can bring in San Diego Narcotics to pursue this with the FBI and other agencies.”
“And then we’ve got John.”
“Again, no hard evidence. A lot of disturbing factors, deaths, embezzlement, insurance, all troubling dots, but it would be a stretch to connect them to a crime against Riley at this stage.”
“We’ve got Caleb, and Riley,” McDowell said. “Their texts on her phone, he’s missing, one of the family cars is missing, statements from their friends.”
“The runaway thing is maybe the strongest scenario with them,” Elsen said.
“We’ve got a lot of possibilities,” she said, “but nothing pointing us one way conclusively. Cards on the table: I think she ran off with Caleb.”
“To me, it all points to Rykhirt,” Elsen said then thought for a moment. “We have to guard against making our case fit our ideas of what we believe happened. The evidence has to tell us that.”
McDowell’s phone rang and she answered. It was Jackson at the command post. “Hey, Lieutenant.”
“We found Riley Jarrett’s other shoe.”
“What, really?”
Elsen’s tablet pinged with a notification, then McDowell’s.
“I’ve just sent you photos,” Jackson said.
“They found her other shoe,” McDowell said to Elsen, who was already scrolling through the pictures. Crisp shots of a brilliant aquamarine sneaker in the desert brush.
“We’re sure it’s hers?” McDowell asked as she put her phone on speaker.
“The color, size and style all match. This is a right shoe. We already have the left. We’ve got the area sealed, and Crime Scene is on the way to process it.”
“It’s Elsen, Lieutenant. Did you find anything else at the scene?”
“Nothing so far.”
“Who found it and where?”
“Two volunteers. Leland Dysart, a retired lawyer from Las Vegas, and Jazmin Reyna, a nurse and friend of Grace Jarrett’s from San Diego. Hold on.” Radio dispatches crackled in the background. “It was on the same side of the interstate as the first sneaker, about three hundred yards north and about forty yards from the paved shoulder.” More dispatches were heard. “Gotta go. We’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” McDowell ended the call.
Elsen folded his arms in front of his chest, leaned back in his chair, submerged in thought.
“This points to Rykhirt,” McDowell said.
Elsen stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head slightly.
“What?” McDowell said.
“This shoe thing is strange to me.”
“Maybe they were tossed from a car? Maybe he changed her appearance on the way to Vegas?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, but something about this new discovery seems a little off.”
Seventy-Six
Death Valley Road, California
The two-lane highway cut across the stretch of flat, empty desert for as far as the eye could see before disappearing on the horizon.
Visually stunning, Lynn Lange thought.
She would know. Lange was a news photographer who’d been laid off from the Los Angeles Times, yet she remained optimistic about her fading industry. Her brother-in-law was talking her up for a possible job at his paper. Smaller city, but a job’s a job.
Until then she was surviving as a freelancer with magazine gigs and shooting stock. This morning she wa
s driving to Shoshone to meet a local historian—that’s what he called himself. He was going to take her to an abandoned gold mine where she’d take pictures for a Japanese magazine that paid well.
Lange had just left her motel in Baker where she’d gassed up her RAV4, bought plenty of water and food. The last sign of life she’d seen was a small, low-standing apartment building at the edge of town. Then nothing. Not another vehicle or anything. After a few miles or so, it was like she’d driven into a deserted world.
She took in the desert, the mountains, which she believed were the Silurian Hills, and got thinking about the German, French and British agencies she’d been sending her images to and how they paid pretty decent royalties.
“Look at the fantastic heat shimmer on the road ahead. What do you say we pull over and I shoot some stock?”
Her partner, Mason, a four-year-old German shepherd, barked.
“All right,” Lange said, slowing down, easing her SUV to the shoulder, bringing it to a stop and dropping the windows for Mason because with the air conditioner off the interior wouldn’t stay cool for long.
“Nobody here but us.”
She got out and inventoried the area, loving the barren solitude, the utter silence of it, before she rummaged in her equipment for her camera, lenses and her monopod.
“I’ll be quick. Promise,” she said. Ready with her gear, Lange moved to the front of the vehicle while assessing the shots she wanted.
Mason barked a different bark this time, but Lange was concentrating on her work.
“Hold your horses, buddy.”
Lange put everything together and took a look through the viewfinder when Mason barked again. She knew that one. He had to go.
She groaned. Better deal with it now. She hefted her monopod with her camera and lens attached, went back to the RAV and let him out, leaving the door open for him, thinking she’d give him some water before they pulled out.
“Go do your business but stay off the road. And watch out for snakes.”