by Vakey, Jenn
“Sure you do,” he said bluntly. “But you should have your closure by now. I think it’s time you stop and move on with your life. It’s the only way you’ll be truly happy.”
“I can’t let him get away with this,” she said. “You know I can’t. Even if it wasn’t my job, he took you away from me and I can’t just let that go. Don’t ask me to.”
He shook his head, not taking his eyes off of her. “You really are one of the most stubborn girls I’ve ever met.”
He looked her quickly up and down before turning and continuing down the road.
“Help me, Christopher,” she pleaded after him. “Just help me find him.”
“Like I said,” he called out over his shoulder. “You already know where he is. All you have to do is look at it again.”
She groaned again and took a single step forward. “You know those games drive me crazy. Why can’t you just tell me what I need to know for once instead of making a puzzle out of it?”
“It’s right in front of you, Rye,” he said as he disappeared around the bend. “You’re just waiting for a sign.”
“What sign?” she yelled down the vacant road. She tried to go after him, but by the time she reached the bend, he was gone. The only thing to be seen was a large wooden sign standing at the side of the road.
It was old-the wood chipped off in several places-and had a layer of snow sitting on it. She walked over and brushed it off, the cold burning her hand. When she had it cleared, she backed away.
“Welcome to Brooks Hollow,” she read aloud.
She was already half off the bed before her eyes were completely open.
“Brooks Hollow,” she repeated to herself as she pulled out her laptop. To her relief, it didn’t take her more than a few minutes to find exactly what she was looking for.
After researching the small Colorado town, Rilynne quickly dressed as she worked her way through the hotel room, tossing all of her belongings onto the bed. She made one last sweep, checking for anything she might have missed, before hastily stuffing everything into the awaiting bag.
She lugged the suitcase down the hall and into the elevator, her insides tightening with every step. By the time she checked out and stepped onto the sidewalk, she felt as if she would bust.
The drive to the airport was a slow one. This was due to a combination of traffic and the anxiety Rilynne was feeling. When she pulled into the car rental lot to return her car, she could hardly contain herself.
Once she finally walked into the airport, she was met by a long line leading to the ticket counter. After looking over her booking confirmation, she reached for her phone.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a rule about using your cell phone on a plane,” he said when he answered.
“Could the combination of trace you found have come from the small town of Brooks Hollow in Colorado?” she asked, trying to hide her excitement.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Let me check.”
She waited in silence as she listened to the clicking of the keyboard over the line “Actually, yes. Brooks Hollow does have a few small patches of Penland beardtongue,” he said. “What makes you think of there?”
She felt her insides being twisted with guilt, but she knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. “I received a tip,” she said simply. As she did, she tried to rationalize it by convincing herself that it wasn’t far from the truth. As hard as she tried, the argument didn’t ease her upset.
“Well, where does that leave things now?” he asked.
“It means that I’ll be making a detour on my way back to Addison Valley. You were right, chances are he’s no longer in Brooks Hollow after all this time, but I have to try. I’ll talk to the locals and have a look around,” she said. “It shouldn’t take me more than a couple days.”
“Just let me know if you need anything,” he said. She couldn’t help but notice a note of something somewhere between worry and disappointment in his voice.
“I will,” she said, trying to convey her gratitude across the line. “Do you think you can give Wilcome and Matthews an update for me? I’m about to get on my new flight.”
“Of course,” he replied.
As she slid the phone back into her pocket, she stepped up to the counter.
“I need to exchange this ticket for one to Denver,” she said as she slid the confirmation to the agent.
Luckily, the next flight to Denver was scheduled to leave just before her original flight. The sky was clear as they made the trip over the snow-covered terrain and landed in Denver.
After deplaning and renting a car, she still had an hour drive until she came upon the familiar sign. It was just as she had seen it the night before, snow covering all but ‘Welcome’.
She felt the excitement building as she passed the sign and continued down the thin, vacant road. It was another several minutes before the small town suddenly appeared.
She didn’t even have to drive a full block before the large “Sheriff’s Office” sign stood in front of her. The sight of it made her think of an old western movie, though she wasn’t sure why. The building itself looked almost brand new, lined with a mix of red bricks and white stone.
The station was the smallest she had ever been in, with only five desks aside from the two just visible in the back offices. In lieu of a separate holding area, the left wall was lined with three empty jail cells. To the right, she could just make out the corner of a table sitting inside of one of the two open doors. Those must be the interrogation rooms, she thought.
“How can I help you?” asked the young man sitting behind the front desk. He was the youngest person Rilynne had ever seen working in a police station, being no older than sixteen or seventeen.
“I was wondering if I could have a word with the sheriff,” she said, shifting her eyes from the teenage greeter to the offices at the back of the room.
“Is he expecting you?” he asked politely.
She turned back toward him. “No,” she replied. “I’m Detective Rilynne Evans from Addison Valley, Texas. I was actually hoping to get his assistance in tracking down a fugitive.”
As the words left her lips, the boy’s face lit up with excitement. “You’re joking, right?” he asked as he leaned forward. “You think that there’s a fugitive here? No way.”
She couldn’t help but grin. “That’s what I hope to find out. Do you think that now’s a good time, or should I come back later?”
He jumped up from his seat even before she finished the sentence. “Now should be just fine,” he said. “He’ll be right with you, please have a seat.” As she took a step toward the chairs behind her, she watched the boy rush toward the open door at the back of the room.
Shortly after he reached the door, Rilynne saw an older man peer around him toward her.
“Come on back,” the boy called out as he turned back around.
“You don’t just yell across the room,” she heard the sheriff snap at the boy as she made her way toward them. “If I wanted her to be yelled at, I would have done it myself. Please come in, Detective,” he said when she reached the doorway. “Forgive my son for his manners. He tends to forget he has them sometimes.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said as she lowered herself into the waiting chair.
“Go,” he said to the boy. He hesitated for a moment, looking as if he wanted to argue, before walking back to the front desk. “Detective Evans, is it?” She nodded. “I’m Sheriff Eric Stigent, and that was my son Nick. He told me you were searching for a fugitive that might be in our area. Are you sure you have the right town? We usually don’t see anything worse than a few drunk and disorderly calls or maybe some teenage vandalism.”
“Nineteen months ago, my husband was the second victim killed by this man,” she said as she slid a picture of Lamar Mifflin across the desk. “My husband’s body was discovered this week just outside of Madison, Wisconsin. There was some trace recovered that suggests Mifflin was in this area just prior
to the murder. Since he hasn’t been seen since, I was hoping that someone here might remember him and know where he could have gone after leaving here.”
Stigent studied the photograph carefully before handing it back to her. “You say that he would have been in the area nineteen months ago?” he asked as he spun in his seat toward the filing cabinet in the corner. “Do you know an approximate date?”
“Christopher was killed on the twenty-fourth of July. The trace that was found on his remains was from a Rocky Mountain Maple and a Penland beardtongue. Given the amount of both discovered, I would think that he must have been in the area just prior to the murder,” she explained. “He also took his vacation time just two days before the killing, so that would put him here somewhere between the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth. He might have also returned after.”
He flipped open the logbook he had pulled out of the filing cabinet. After several minutes, he closed it again and shook his head. “During that week we had one traffic accident, two mailboxes smashed, and one high school student arrested for peering into a bedroom window. All involved were members of our community. It isn’t often that we have instances involving tourists, but of the few we have had, I don’t recall him ever being involved.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he was successfully able to avoid police detection during the time he would have been in your town,” she said. “He was on the force for eight years prior to committing the murders.”
“He was a police officer?” he asked as he sat upright. She saw the familiar distressed look settle over his face at the mention of a fellow law enforcement officer being involved in a murder. She had grown to despise that look.
“He was my partner.”
As he leaned back and let out a low whistle, Sheriff Stigent pulled his hands up behind his head. Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t seem to come up with a response.
“It appears that he was having an affair with the first victim before killing her. He must have known that it would only be a matter of time before we discovered his relationship with her and he became our prime suspect,” she rattled off quickly. “The best I can guess is that he hoped we would be too distracted if another victim showed up; someone close to the department. We were able to track down the first victim’s phone records the day after he killed Christopher, though, and learned she had been receiving frequent calls from a disposable phone belonging to him. By that time, he had already fled.”
“What makes you thing that he was here?” he asked. “I know that we’re one of the few places where Penland beardtongue grows naturally, but we’re not the only one.”
“I received an anonymous tip this morning telling me to look for him here,” she stated. “I was already heading back to Texas, so I thought I would swing by on my way to see if there was any chance that someone around here could have known him.”
“Well, I’ll do anything I can to help,” he said as he rose out of his chair. She was genuinely surprised by his offer. “My detective is out today, but he’ll be in tomorrow morning if you want to come back then. He’ll be able to help you with anything you need while you’re in town.”
Rilynne stood up and walked with him back to the front desk. “Thank you very much for your time and assistance.”
*
She felt as though she had stepped into a movie set as she drove down the narrow street at the center of town. In the middle of Brooks Hollow stood a giant gazebo surrounded by old benches and neatly pruned pine trees. The buildings surrounding the round courtyard sat close together. There was no more than a two-foot space between them, if one was present at all. The bed and breakfast sitting at the end was the only building she could see that stretched out beyond two floors.
Every person on the street eyed her curiously as she passed, making her feel as though they weren’t accustomed to having visitors pass through their quiet little town.
After passing the bed and breakfast, the buildings along the street changed to homes, with sporadic business mixed in. The last building before the Parks and Services Station at the edge of town was the tallest she had seen, sitting at five floors. Its height wasn’t the only thing that made it stand out in the town. The building itself looked like it had been lifted out of a big city and dropped down on the edge of this small town. She didn’t even have to read the sign before knowing that it was a hotel.
“Welcome to Brooks Hollow Park Services,” the older man behind the desk said when she walked in. His scratchy voice reminded her of her grandfather’s shortly before the cancer took him. “Will you be needing a camping permit?”
“No, thank you,” she replied as she approached the counter. “I was actually wondering if you could assist me with something. I understand that Penland beardtongue grows in this area. Would you happen to have a list of all known locations?”
He looked at her curiously, not moving from his seat. “Now, Penland beardtongue is endangered. Any contact with it should be strictly observational. I can’t have you out there picking it or disturbing its natural environment.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, trying to contain the smirk that was trying to sneak across her face. “It’s strictly for educational purposes.”
He maintained his curious look for several minutes before shifting toward the computer to his right. After clicking away on the keyboard, Rilynne heard a printer turn on from under the desk.
“Now, we have three patches in the area. The first two are fairly easy to reach, but the third requires a hike,” he explained as he handed her a map. “We have guides in town who could take you. Would you like me to call someone for you?”
Rilynne had the sneaking suspicion he was more concerned with her being supervised around the endangered plants than trying to keep her from getting lost. “No, thank you. I won’t be making a trip out today. I’ll let you know if my plans change, though.”
He gave her a grunt followed by a nod as she turned back toward the door.
“Oh, actually you could help me with one more thing,” she stated as she reached the door. “Where can I find a place to stay while I’m in town?”
“Well, as I’m sure you noticed, there’s a large hotel next door,” he said in an almost condescending tone. “There’s also a bed and breakfast at the center of town.”
She gave him a warm smile along with her thanks as she stepped back outside.
She hadn’t noticed how inviting the bed and breakfast was on her first pass. As she parked her car in the small lot aside it, she couldn’t believe how comfortable even the look of it made her feel. It looked like a well kept house her grandmother would live in, down to the white picket fence and deck that seemed to wrap all the way around.
“Welcome,” she heard as she walked through the door, bag in hand. Her eyes swept the entry room until they found a large woman sitting behind a desk in the room to her left.
“Hi,” Rilynne said as she sat her bag down in front of the desk. “I would like a room, please.”
The woman, her silver curls stretching down her back, reached under the desk and pulled out a large guest book covered in a silky maroon material. “Will it be just you?” she asked. Rilynne nodded. “And how many nights will you be with us?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Rilynne stated, quickly thinking over everything she needed to do.
“Not a problem, dear. I can just charge by the day if you like,” she stated warmly.
Rilynne reached in her purse and pulled out her wallet. “That would be perfect, thank you.” While the pleasant woman ran her credit card, Rilynne filled out her information in the book. Despite the size of the town, she was surprised to see that there had been several checkins earlier that day.
“They had to move the high school reunion up a couple months this year,” the woman stated when she caught Rilynne’s perplexed expression. “You’ll be in room three; second floor and down the hall. If you need anything, please let me know.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a ques
tion,” Rilynne asked as she took the key. The woman gave her a friendly nod. “Would you happen to know if this man came in around nineteen months ago? It would have been sometime around the middle to end of July.” She reached in her purse and pulled out the picture of Mifflin.
“Well, let me see,” she replied, pulling out a giant book, similar to the one Rilynne had just written her name in. “Do you have a name for him?”
“His name’s Lamar Mifflin, but he might have been staying under a different name.”
“Would he have been staying alone?” she asked.
“More than likely.”
She thumbed through the pages, searching the entire latter half of July twice before closing the book. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any record of him. During that time, I only have three people check in as singles, and they were all women. The rest of our visitors were either couples or families. Have you checked with the hotel across town?”
“Not yet,” she said, sliding the photo back into her purse. “But thank you for checking.”
Rilynne slipped her phone out as she climbed up the flight of stairs and walked to the end of the hall toward her room. After several unanswered rings, she hung up and dialed another number, balancing the phone on her shoulder as she unlocked the last door on the right.
“Hey, Lori,” she said as she dropped her bag onto the bed. “Is the chief in the station? I tried his cell, but he didn’t answer.”
“No,” Lori replied. “He’s playing golf with the mayor. He should be back in a few hours, though. Did you make it back to Addison Valley all right?”
“Change of plans, actually. I’m in a small town in Colorado named Brooks Hollow,” she stated, knowing just how silly it probably sounded.
“What on earth are you doing in Colorado?” Lori asked. “Surely you didn’t have trouble finding Texas. Just head south, and turn left when you reach the border of Mexico.” Despite her joking tone, Rilynne could hear her confusion.
As it always did, the twinge of guilt hit her even before she had the chance to provide an explanation. “I received an anonymous tip that Mifflin may have been here. I checked with Ben this morning, and he said that this town was one of the few places that the trace found on Christopher could have come from. You know me, there was no way I was going to sit back and wait for confirmation before coming to check it out.”