All the Shiny Things: A Kate Reid Novel (Kate Reid Series Book 1)

by Mahle, Robin

  “I’m leaving the station now. I need to see you right away. I need to meet you at your motel. You said it was nearby?”

  “It is. I’m at 6291 W. Freeport blvd. The SkyRacers Inn, Room 285.”

  “Fine. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  It was the longest five minutes Katie had ever waited to pass. She caught herself biting her nails; something she only did when anticipating bad news.”

  A knock on the door—“It’s me, Katie. Marc. Open the door.”

  She walked over to the window and edged the curtain back just enough to confirm it was him and he was alone.

  “Come in quick.” She stepped aside to let Marc in. “So? What’d you find out?” She’d expected him to give her that pitiful look from last night. The one people give you when they think you might be crazy.

  “You’re going to need to sit down, Katie.” Aguilar pulled out his notepad. “Sac PD was a dead end. They shut me out the minute I started asking about Wilson’s transfer.”

  “Yeah, I suspected as much. I talked to Detective Avery and he said someone called you out.”

  “Well, if it hadn’t been for a call I got from my guy over in Records, I’d be coming to you with nothing. I got the big fat run around at the station.”

  “So what is it? What’d you find out?”

  “Chief Robert Wilson, formerly Detective Wilson, used to be in the system.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “The foster care system,” he explained. “He had a brother and a sister, all in the system. Wilson isn’t his birth name. It’s Hendrickson. He was born to Elise and Frank Hendrickson in Eureka. Seems the parents hit hard times, split up, and the mother couldn’t afford to care for the kids. She committed suicide and the three of them went into foster care because no one could track down the father. Wilson was five, his brother seven, and his sister was two.”

  While this was an interesting bit of information about the chief, Katie couldn’t yet figure out why it was she had to sit for this one.

  Aguilar must have sensed this and sat down at the edge of the bed next to her. “Wilson went on to be adopted by a nice family in the suburbs of Eureka.”

  “What happened to the other two? Katie asked.

  “An accident killed the toddler.”

  It began to dawn on her why he had instructed her to be seated. “What happened to the sister, Marc?”

  “She drowned in a tub at the children’s home about six months before Wilson was adopted. Joseph, the older brother, claimed it was an accident; said she slipped under the water while he was getting her a towel.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Joseph’s file was sealed after that. The only other information my guy could find was that he had, at some point, been placed into a mental hospital. He tracked down a couple of letters from a hospital in Eureka sent to the state, suggesting that Joseph Hendrickson not be released until the age of eighteen. The guy’s been pretty much a ghost since then.”

  Katie stood up and began pacing the room. It was starting to make sense now. She had taken the chief at his word when she and Spencer first met with him. Saying he was going to talk it over with the DA, see if he could get the case reopened. That first letter sent to the station; a warning for her to stop digging around.

  The chief tried to get her to drop it; tried to persuade Marshall to convince her to let it go. But she didn’t; she kept pushing for answers.

  Everything changed after the last letter was sent to her apartment in San Diego six weeks from the time Wilson was contacted. Looking back now, it seemed so obvious. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

  “Jesus, Katie, you don’t know what you’ve done.” Wilson’s last words to her before she left.

  Katie stared at the cheap oil painting hanging above the bed, her head reeling with this new information. She finally looked down at Aguilar. “It’s his brother, Joseph. That’s why he transferred to Rio Dell. Somehow, he knew his brother was involved in the missing children cases. I don’t know how he found him, or maybe Joseph tracked Wilson down. Either way, the brothers found each other again and Wilson must have seen what his brother had become. I don’t understand why he didn’t stop him the first time? What could have happened to make Wilson look the other way?” Trepidation began to rise in her. “I have to get out of here. There are far too many unanswered questions.” Katie rushed around, throwing what few things she had into the plastic laundry bag which hung in the closet.

  “I’m going with you,” Aguilar said. “You owe me that much after coming all this way.”

  “You can’t release the story, Marc; not until we know more. It’ll only jeopardize the investigation.”

  She knew if this got out now that everyone she loved would be in even more danger. Joseph already killed Sam. He has a name.

  She stared at Marc; begging for his cooperation.

  “Okay. But I’m going to see this to the end. You understand that, right? I get the exclusive.”

  “First thing we need to do is get back to Rio Dell and talk to Marshall.” She grabbed her purse and opened the motel room door. “You coming?”

  24

  Katie hardly said two words to Aguilar as they drove back north. Her mind was racing with all the things that had happened between her and the chief. It was all so damn clear now.

  Somehow, the chief had been able to keep his brother under control, keep him from killing again. Her relentless pursuit of her abductor only fueled a fire the chief had managed, up to that point, to hold at an ember.

  She wanted to purge the rage that was welling up inside her. Wilson knew all along who had killed the children and had done nothing about it. He tried to protect an evil, hellish monster. He could have stopped it, brother or not. He could have turned him in.

  But what if she was wrong? It made sense, but she had no proof. The only way to know for sure was to find a picture of Hendrickson. Like Aguilar said, the guy had been a ghost, completely off the grid. Scarborough would be the only one who could get the records at the mental institution unsealed. There would be a picture in his file—an old picture—but they could run it through facial recognition software and compare it with her sketch.

  She slammed her open palms against the steering wheel of Jarrod’s Honda Accord. Aguilar was startled by the noise.

  Katie caught a glimpse of him opening his mouth, but when she turned to him, he said nothing. She could see he felt for her. “I’m sorry, Marc. I’ve just wasted so much time, been through so much pain over all of this. If you knew who I was before, you wouldn’t recognize me now. For the past several months, my life has revolved around fear and death. I’ve been driven to find a man who destroyed my childhood and my family. And to know now that all of it could have ended so long ago… I just can’t tell you what that feels like.”

  “I wish I could say I understand, Katie, but I couldn’t possibly. I’m just sorry that I didn’t believe you before now.” He looked through the passenger window, the blur of trees whipping past. “As soon as we get there, you are going to tell Detective Avery, right? He has to know. In fact, I would suggest we approach the FBI first. We have to stop him before he kills again, Katie.”

  She understood and knew he was right. She couldn’t risk someone else dying because she wanted to be the one who found him; wanted to be the one to kill him. “I’ll call him now. You’re right; we need to tell them now.”

  She picked up her own cell phone and turned it on. It buzzed several times with pending messages. She held the phone up to her ear to listen to her voicemail.

  Aguilar was watching her intently, but she only glanced his way as if to say, “no news.”

  “It was just Marshall. He’s making sure I’m on my way back.”

  “So, what exactly is going on between you two?” Aguilar asked.

  Katie slipped up and, being a reporter, it didn’t take him long to figure out why she had taken to calling Detective Avery “Marshall.” “He’s been with me t
hrough this whole thing; always supporting me and keeping me going.”

  “So you two are a thing now, I take it? Is that why you broke it off with your fiancé?”

  “Figures you would know about that. But for your information, no it isn’t; that was something completely separate.” She had said that enough times that she actually started believing it herself. “This thing with Marshall; it just kind of happened.”

  “You realize that puts him in a bad situation? He’s supposed to be finding your abductor, not spinning his wheels looking after you and worrying about you.”

  “Yeah, I get that. I know I’ve risked too much by coming down here, but we have answers now. And, he’ll understand that when I talk to him.”

  “Then I guess you’d better call him.”

  She held the phone up to her ear once again as it began to ring.

  “Kate! Where are you?”

  “We should be there in about half an hour.”

  “We? Who’s with you?”

  “Marc Aguilar from Channel 9.”

  “The reporter?” His voice raised to the point that Katie figured Marc must have heard.

  “What the hell, Kate? What’s going on?”

  “Just please calm down, Marshall. Listen to me; I need to tell you something.” She couldn’t tell if he was angry or jealous or a little bit of both. “He was helping me get information on Chief Wilson.”

  “So he was the one asking about him in Sacramento. I thought we talked about this? That little stunt raised a hell of a lot of eyebrows around here. What is it about Wilson that’s got you so freaked out?”

  “Marshall, he has a brother.”

  “Who? Wilson? Okay. What’s that got to do with anything? I’ve got a brother too.”

  “I know. Please, just hear me out.” She was getting increasingly frustrated by his tone. “It’s a long story and I’ll fill you in when we get back, but for now, you have to do something for me. You have to tell Scarborough to look at the chief’s brother. His name is Joseph Hendrickson. Marc’s source could only get so much information, but it’s seems like he may have killed their little sister when they were in a group home. The guy pretty much disappeared after he was released from a mental hospital when he was eighteen. At least, that was as much as the California records showed.”

  “A group home? So, what, the chief was an orphan or something?”

  “Yes. After his sister died, the brothers were split up, and he was adopted by a family whose last name was Wilson. Hendrickson was sent away to a mental institution. No one knows anything after that. You have to tell Scarborough, okay?”

  “So you think Wilson’s been protecting his brother all this time? That he knew what he’d done and sat back and did nothing?”

  “I think maybe it was a little more than that, but yes. I think he’s been protecting his brother. He must have known what his brother did to me and the others and that’s why he wanted to be transferred; so he could protect him from getting caught. It all makes sense now, Marshall. Why the chief’s been so uncooperative.” She didn’t tell him about what she’d found in his office.

  “Look, just get back here and we’ll talk more. I need to understand what it is Aguilar found out exactly. If Wilson’s in on this, I need to see what he’s got before I go accusing the Chief of Police of conspiring to commit murder.”

  “I don’t think he was helping him take the children. I just think he was keeping him from getting caught. Until I figured out who took me, he would have been able to keep it that way. But now, I think he’s lost whatever control he had over his brother and he doesn’t know what to do.”

  “Just get back here. Fast. I’ll meet you back at the Victoria, I’ve got to go. We’re down at the station now. The entire Bureau is over here, Kate. This thing is bigger than both of us now.” Marshall ended the call.

  “He doesn’t believe you?” Aguilar asked.

  “I don’t think he knows what to believe right now. Sounds like the FBI’s taken over everything.”

  “He’ll understand and he’ll be behind you on this. I only hope his delay doesn’t cost anymore lives.”

  Marc was right. Marshall wasn’t going to go telling Scarborough anything until he had a full understanding of the situation. She just didn’t know if they had that kind of time.

  The closer they got to Rio Dell, the worse the weather had become. The rain was coming down hard on the highway. The oil on the asphalt mixed with the water that had collected on the road. It glistened in streaks of blue and purple. The wipers couldn’t go fast enough to clear the windshield for her to see through. She found herself pressing harder on the accelerator, needing to get back to Marshall as fast as she could.

  “Uhhh, Katie, you wanna slow down a little bit?” Aguilar was gripping the arm of the passenger door until it turned his knuckles white. “Katie!” he shouted. “Slow down!”

  “What?” She glanced at the odometer; it read 85mph. “Oh my God!” She lifted her foot, allowing the car to decelerate. “Jeez. I’m so sorry, Marc. I was somewhere else.”

  “Clearly. I’d just like to get back in one piece if that’s all right with you?” His grip loosened only slightly and the blood began to return to his fingers. “Do you want me to drive?”

  “No, no, I’m fine now. I really am sorry. Things are just—catching up to me. I feel like I’m trying to outrun them. I need to get back home and make sure my family is okay. I need to see Marshall.”

  “I get it. But I don’t think anyone’s going to benefit by you getting in an accident. We’re almost there.”

  Soon, the rain began to slow to not much more than a drizzle. Once again, Mother Nature took her cue, bringing a calm over Katie. They were nearly there, only about ten minutes outside of town.

  “I need to get this car back to Jarrod,” she said, not realizing she’d said it out loud.

  “Jarrod? Isn’t that your friend, Samantha’s husband?”

  “You mean widower? Yes. You know, I always thought of him as kind of quiet, maybe even a little boring. But she loved him. And I know he loved her very much. He’s a good man. I hope he’ll forgive me one day.”

  “Katie, I don’t think he blames you for anything. You don’t help someone you think was responsible for taking away the love of your life. I think you’re the only one who blames you.”

  The Victoria was finally in sight. There were several black SUVs in the parking lot, definitely FBI. Who knew how many were at the station? The whole town was in upheaval.

  One thing was certain. It wouldn’t matter what she had on the chief. They were going to put her in protective custody, by force, if they had to. The media attention was too great now. They couldn’t have their only witness running off on her own tangents.

  Katie pulled the small car into a spot between the great big government vehicles; the only gold Honda in a sea of black.

  The two stepped out and walked toward the hotel lobby. Inside, Katie saw several agents milling about; on their cell phones or tablets. She took a deep breath as Marc opened the door.

  Almost at once, they turned to look at the only two people not wearing FBI jackets. She spotted Marshall making his way through the crowd. Agent Scarborough wasn’t far behind and he looked pissed.

  “What the hell were you thinking, Katie?” Scarborough asked.

  “Just wait a second. I think we all need to go someplace a little quieter.” Marshall tried to herd everyone toward the office of the hotel manager, who’d long since lost his spot when the FBI rolled into town.

  “You know Chief Wilson’s pretty pissed off that you took his Tahoe,” Scarborough went on to say. “Do you know how much danger you put yourself in?”

  “Before you go on, we need to talk about something.” Katie glanced at Aguilar, who gave a quick nod for encouragement. She looked back at Marshall, who seemed less than pleased by the exchange. “Agent Scarborough, I—we have reason to believe that the chief may know who the killer is.”

  Scarborou
gh widened his stance, swinging his arms behind his back, on the defensive. “Would you care to elaborate on this theory?”

  Aguilar jumped in. “Katie asked that I help her find out a few things about Chief Robert Wilson. She believed he had been behaving somewhat defensively of late and a comment he had made gave her cause for concern. And it seems there may have been some coordination between Wilson and Caltrans relating to the discovery of Samantha Hansen’s body.”

  Marshall cut Aguilar off. This latest revelation seemed to catch him off guard as he shot a look toward Katie. “These two have been digging around Wilson’s past and discovered that he has a brother who spent several years in a mental hospital. They believe this brother, Joseph Hendrickson, is Kate’s abductor and the suspected serial killer.”

  “But, it’s more than that.” Katie felt like she was drowning in the sea of testosterone. “Look, I know this sounds crazy, but I truly believe there’s something to it and we need to know more about this brother. Wilson was adopted around the age of five. His younger sister died, it’s believed, by the hands of Wilson’s brother, who kept the family name of Hendrickson. We need to know what happened to Hendrickson and where he was around the time I was taken. Doesn’t it seem a little suspect that Wilson would request a transfer to Rio Dell to head up the investigation of my case? How so little evidence was found and that there was never any link between Ashley Davies and the other cases, when there so clearly is now?” She took a deep breath, realizing she was getting herself worked up. “Nick, please, if we could just see what the brother looked like, that would put this whole thing to rest. Can you give me that much?”

  The agent’s stance softened at her request. Maybe she had piqued his interest just enough that he’d look into it for her. “Give me some time with my team and I’ll see what I can find. In the meantime, keep quiet about this. Avery, I’d like you to stay with Katie; make sure she doesn’t make another run for it. She takes off again and we’re all out of a job.” Scarborough pushed his way to the door of the cramped office and disappeared.