by Cindi Myers
“I’m sorry, Detective,” she said and walked over to stand hardly a foot from him. She was so close he could smell her fragrance, something flowery and clean, like the scent of a spring day. The top of her head barely came to his chin. She was fine-boned beneath the gauzy floral fabric of her blouse. So slight, and he imagined Selene must have been built much the same. It bothered him to think any man would beat on her.
“We had no indication of domestic abuse when we investigated,” he said as Rhea removed some papers from her folder and laid them out for him on the smooth mahogany table.
With a shrug of her slight shoulders, she said, “She never told me, but I had sometimes seen bruises on her arms. She always had an excuse for them. After she...disappeared, I found out that Selene had gone to a domestic violence support group. Just once. Only once...”
Her voice trailed off, and she fixed her gaze on the papers, avoiding his.
Jackson placed his thumb under her chin and applied gentle pressure to urge her to face him. “It’s hard for people to admit they’re being abused.”
“And it’s even harder to admit that someone you love killed themselves,” she shot back, clearly anticipating what he would say, but Jackson didn’t want to fight with her right now. You had to pick your battles, and he intended to save his ammunition for what would happen after he looked at her evidence. For when he might have to tell her that she was “barking up the wrong tree.”
“May I take this information? Take a look at it?” he asked, intending to review the materials later that night after he had finished his shift.
Rhea hesitated, almost like she’d be trusting a stranger with her only child. It bothered him, but he tried not to show it. “I’m the one shot you have to reopen this case, Rhea. You’ve got to trust that I’ll look at this objectively.”
She laughed harshly and twisted away from him. Her loose blouse swirled around her slim midsection and then she faced him again with a heavy sigh. “I bet the chief told you to bury this. Am I right about that, Jax?” she said, emphasizing his name in a way that said they were anything but friends.
Since he believed honesty was the best policy, he said, “He did, but I’m not the chief. If I give you my word that I’ll look at this with an open mind, you can bank your money on it.”
“The Code of the West? Or the Blue Code? Which will it be?” she challenged, one dark brow flying up like a crow taking wing.
Exasperated, he blew out a heavy sigh and jammed his hat on his head. “I gave you my word. So what will it be?”
She settled her gaze on him, assessing him again. Then in a flurry of motion, she gathered all the papers and stuffed them into the folder. Grabbed it and handed it to him. “Don’t disappoint me, Detective.”
He cradled the binder to his side like a fullback cradling a football, put a finger to the brim of his Stetson and nodded. “Like I said, I give you my word.”
He pivoted on his cowboy-booted heel and marched out of the room, intending to make good on his promise no matter what the chief had said.
The little voice in his head pestered him with, What will you do if Rhea is right?
I’ll fight that battle when I get to it, he responded.
* * *
RHEA WAS TOO wired to finish unpacking after the detective’s visit. So she did the one thing she always did when she needed peace. She drew.
She grabbed her knapsack, which always held a sketch pad, pencils, erasers and a blanket she could spread out to make herself comfortable while she worked. She snatched a jacket against the spring breeze, slung her knapsack over her shoulders and hurried out of the inn and onto Main Street.
The inn was at the farthest end of the street, away from the nearby highway that ran all the way from where her sister lived in Avalon to Denver, where Rhea had her home and art gallery. Her pace was hurried at first since she was in a rush to sketch, but there was a peacefulness about the town that was impossible to ignore. It seeped into her body, replacing the earlier chill she’d experienced. Slowing her headlong flight, she took the time to window-shop, appreciating the eclectic mix of shops.
By the time she reached the end of Main Street, her itchiness to draw because she was upset had been replaced by a desire to capture the charm of the quaint town nestled beneath a cloudless sky and the jagged snow-frosted peaks of the mountains in the distance.
A low stone wall with a wide granite ledge ran across the end of the block, marking the entrance to downtown. She opened her knapsack, pulled out the blanket and her materials and began to sketch. With swift determined strokes, an image of the town took shape on the paper. The trim and neat shops with their wooden signs and shiny windows. The many pots of flowers and shrubs before the shops. The wooden posts with streetlights that looked like old-time gas lanterns.
Beyond that, the slopes leading up to the nearby mountains, thick with evergreens in shades ranging from deep green to the bluish-gray of the spruces. Here and there big clumps of spring green identified groves of aspen that in the fall would turn golden, making for a spectacular display against the darker evergreens.
It popped into her brain that dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of aspens were often joined underground by a single root network, making them a massive living organism.
It made her wonder if the loss of one of those intertwined trees caused pain to the others. If they felt the connection the way she did with Selene. A connection that hadn’t diminished despite Selene’s disappearance. It was the reason she believed with all her heart that her sister was still alive, not that she would tell the detective that. He would dismiss it without question, so she had kept it secret to avoid dissuading him from reopening the case.
But she knew that eventually she would have to tell him, because if they couldn’t confirm that Selene’s husband, Matt, had killed her or that Selene had killed herself...
She shut her sketch pad abruptly. She’d finish the sketch later, when her mind wasn’t as distracted. Packing everything away, she put on her knapsack and marched to the side of the street she hadn’t visited yet.
Little by little peace filtered in, but it was tempered by the reality that her sister’s last steps might have been down these streets. That these were the last images she might have seen.
Or that maybe they were the images she still saw if she was alive.
As she neared the spot opposite the inn where she was staying, she paused and turned, feeling as if someone had been following her. But there wasn’t anyone there who seemed to have any interest in her. Shoppers went from store to store, or just strolled up and down the quaint downtown streets.
She rolled her shoulders, driving away the uneasiness, and did a quick look around to once again confirm she was just imagining the sensation. Satisfied, she returned to the inn to drop off her knapsack and relax before going in search of dinner.
Not that she could really relax with Detective Whitaker’s decision hanging over her head. A decision that would make all the difference to her sister’s case and maybe even help find Selene if she was still alive.
She hung on to that thought and the hope that Detective Whitaker would keep his promise. That he would keep an open mind to look at the evidence she had diligently gathered over the last six months.
An open mind that would help her find her missing sister.
CHAPTER THREE
It had been a tiring day, filled with the kinds of routine things Jackson had come to expect in Regina.
A fender bender when someone had pulled out of a parking spot without looking.
A couple of tickets for speeding or running a red light. Another for someone failing to leash their dog in one of the public parks.
At a pub located close to the highway, which sometimes hosted a rougher crowd, he had been forced to issue a warning about a minor public disturbance.
Mundane things. Some might even say bo
ring, but Jackson relished it after the many years he’d spent in the military. He’d seen too much death and destruction in Afghanistan, which was why he’d turned down jobs in other areas for the peace and tranquility of his hometown of Regina.
Selene’s disappearance six months earlier had upset that serenity. From the moment the BOLO had come in and Jackson had discovered her car by the lake, it had been days of nonstop action. Securing and scrutinizing a possible crime scene. Coordinating with the Avalon Police Department and, after, searching the lake for Selene’s body. A body that had never been found and maybe never would be if the spillway had been open, allowing her body to go over the dam and down the river.
It had taken a few weeks for things to die down. For the press to stop pestering the police and people in town about Selene’s disappearance.
Things had gone back to normal, but now Rhea was here and determined to ask questions, possibly upsetting that peace.
But Jackson had never refused any mission in the military, no matter how scary or dangerous. He’d led his team on assignment after assignment and was proud to say he’d kept them safe with a level head and preparation.
He would do that with Rhea’s request.
Much like he had prepared for a mission, knowing all he could about the terrain and the enemy, he intended to do the same with Rhea and find out more about her.
He put up a fresh pot of coffee, poured himself a big mug and sat down at his hand-hewn cedar kitchen table. Grabbing his laptop, he logged on to his police department account and searched through their resources for any information on Rhea Reilly. No criminal record of any kind. Not even a speeding ticket.
Hitting that dead end, he shifted his focus to a search of public information on the internet and quickly had hundreds of hits. Rhea Reilly was apparently a critically acclaimed artist who worked in several different disciplines. Oils, watercolors and mixed media. She owned the building where she lived and had a number of tenants who rented apartments, and a shop, from her.
The building was located on the 16th Street mall in Denver, a popular location for both locals and tourists. She also had an art gallery at the location, and he surfed to the gallery’s website. From the portfolio on the site, it was clear that Rhea sold not only her work, but that of local artists, and not just paintings. Photographs, jewelry, pottery and other art pieces were proudly displayed on the site.
He scrolled through the images but was pulled back to Rhea’s work time and time again. He understood why Rhea was so successful. There was so much...life in her work. Passion. The images jumped off the screen with their vibrancy, much like the woman he had met earlier that day.
Filled with life. Filled with passion for finding out what had happened to her sister. Stubborn, too. He had to throw that one in, as well, and he suspected that she wouldn’t back down even if he refused to reopen the case.
The case, he thought as he set aside his laptop and pulled over the bulging folder with Rhea’s evidence.
Opening it, he found it as neat and organized as any case file he’d ever prepared. The pages held timelines of Selene’s husband’s possible movements from Avalon to Regina and back, and then up to his client’s building location in the mountains just outside Avalon.
The timelines she had documented, if true, deviated from the account Selene’s husband, Matt, had provided in the days after his wife’s disappearance.
Matt’s testimony about the bonfire in his backyard was also contradicted by Rhea’s evidence. According to the neighbors she had spoken to, Matt had kept the bonfire going almost overnight and not just for a short time to dispose of some leaves and branches.
Had he done it to dispose of Selene’s body? Jackson wondered. Was it even possible to cremate someone so completely in a home bonfire?
Rhea had also reviewed the state of Matt’s SUV the morning after Selene’s disappearance. She had combined photos of his newly detailed SUV with those of his client’s building location and the road leading to it, graveled and in relatively good condition. Not a dirt road that would have muddied his SUV, as Matt had claimed.
Not to mention the nighttime trip to a building location. It had hit him as implausible when he had heard that detail from the Avalon police, but they had investigated and found that the alibi held water.
But as Jackson went through all of Rhea’s detailed notes, photos, maps and more, it was impossible for him to ignore the discrepancies that were piling up, deeper and deeper, like the winter snows when they came.
He leaned back in his chair, cradled the now almost-empty coffee cup and scrutinized the materials. Sucking in a breath, he shot to his feet and poured himself another cup. He searched through the junk drawer for a pen and pad and sat down once again, taking notes as he went through the papers a second time. He added his own questions to those that Rhea had raised until he had filled a few pages in his pad.
An ache blossomed in his back, and he tossed his pen onto the paper. He rose slowly, unfolding his large frame vertebrae by vertebrae into a stretch until the ache died down. Pacing around his kitchen, he ran his hand through his hair as he considered all the questions jumping around in his brain. Once the ache had been relieved, he returned to the table, leaned his hands on the top rung of the chair and examined all the materials again. Stared at his own pad of growing notes and questions.
With a sharp shift of his shoulders and a jagged exhale, he realized that there was only one thing he could do.
* * *
THE HAMBURGER SHE’D eaten hours earlier sat heavily in her stomach, keeping her awake.
It had been a large burger and quite tasty. Since she hadn’t eaten all day, she’d scarfed down the burger and fries, but was paying the price for it now.
She was about to give up on sleep when the thump against the French door frame drew her attention.
Is someone trying to open it? she thought and held her breath, listening intently for any other sounds.
A rattle and another slight thump came again, louder. As if someone was jerking the door handle, trying to enter.
Her heartbeat raced in her chest as she carefully reached for the smartphone beside her bed, telling herself she was mistaken about what she was hearing. But the rattle came again and was followed by a scratching sound against the frame of the door.
She had no doubt now that someone was trying to break into her room.
She leaped from the bed, her phone in her hand and held it up, shouting as she did so.
“I’m calling 911! You hear me! I’m calling 911!” she shouted, while also engaging the camera and snapping off a burst of shots of the French door, hoping to capture an image of whoever was on the other side of the glass. For good measure, she raced toward the fireplace and grabbed a poker from the andirons. She held it up and said, “I’m armed! I’ll use this!”
Heavy footsteps pounded across the balcony and down the fire escape, confirming that she hadn’t been wrong. Someone had been out there.
Her own heart pounding as loudly as the footsteps, she raced back to the night table and snapped on the light. She pulled out Detective Whitaker’s business card and dialed his number, hands shaking as she did so.
He answered immediately, almost as if he had already been awake. “Detective Whitaker.”
“It’s Rhea. Someone just tried to break into my room.”
* * *
JACKSON RACED OVER to the Regina Inn, where a police car sat in front, watching the building.
He pulled up behind the cruiser, got out and approached the officer behind the wheel.
“Good evening, Officer Daly. Have you seen anything since I called?” he said.
The young man shook his head. “Nothing except the innkeeper coming out to ask what was happening. She’s upset that someone might have tried to break in, but also that we’re drawing too much attention.”
Jackson understoo
d. “Do me a favor and pull around the corner where you’re not as visible. That might help if someone was here and decides to come back. They won’t spot you on the side street.”
He pulled his flashlight from his belt and walked the grounds around the inn. At the fire escape there were clear signs of footprints on ground softened by yesterday’s rain.
To avoid any further upset, he dialed Rhea to advise her that he was coming up and also dialed the innkeeper.
The innkeeper met him at the door in a bathrobe she had tossed on, her face filled with worry. Lines of tension bracketed her mouth and her hair was in disarray, as if she had repeatedly run her fingers through it.
“Mrs. Avery. I’m so sorry to drag you out of bed at this late hour,” he said with a tip of his head and swept his Stetson off as he entered.
“Is everything okay? Do we need to worry?” she asked, clutching the lapels of her robe with age-spotted hands.
He hated to cause upset but had no choice. “There’s evidence someone was in the area of the fire escape. I need to check Rhea’s room and balcony just to confirm and will let you know once I finish my investigation.”
“Investigation?” she hissed and glanced up the stairs to the guest rooms.
“If something happened, I don’t think you have to worry about the other guests, and we’ll try to keep things quiet,” he said, understanding the older woman’s concern.
Jackson went up the stairs, careful not to make noise so as to not wake the other guests. He tapped softly on her door, and it flew open.
Like the innkeeper, Rhea had a robe wrapped tightly around herself, dark hair tousled. Her face was pale and she worried her lower lip for a second before she said, “Thank you for coming so late at night.”
“Just doing my job,” he said, although he had already started thinking of Rhea as something other than just a job. “May I check the door?”