by Jenn Vakey
“I’ve got you,” a voice said, catching her just before she hit the floor. “I’ve got you.”
Ben picked her back up and pulled her in, holding her so close that she could hardly draw a breath. “We’ll find her,” he said. “We’re going to find her.”
“He was so happy,” she whispered. “He was too happy.”
“That could mean anything,” he said, trying to reassure her. His heart raced even faster, though, and she knew he was thinking the worst.
She shook uncontrollably in his arms for ten minutes before Detective Patrick Wilcome, head of the homicide unit, walked up.
“I want everyone back to the station,” he said firmly. “I’m taking Sibrian back to her house with Jerkins. I’ve spoken with Wied in major crimes and let him know we'll be working with them. I need to know if I can count on you to handle things in the officer.”
Rilynne nodded without hesitation. Suddenly, she found her fear had been replaced with something else: anger. There was so much of it coursing through her that she felt as if Ben’s arms weren’t still around her, she might explode.
“Good,” he continued. “A road block has already been set up. We also have a trace on Sibrian’s phones, so we’ll be ready in the event of a ransom call. I’m going to stay with Sibrian. I want updates every fifteen minutes.”
Without waiting for her to respond, he and Jerkins pulled Lori off the floor and helped her out the door. Just behind them was Joe, his crying son in his arms.
Rilynne stood with her head rested against Ben’s chest for several more minutes before backing away.
“I’ll give you a ride,” Ben said. He brushed his thumb gently across her cheeks, wiping away the last of her tears.
“I need to check on Katy first,” she said. He gave her a puzzled look, but followed her without question.
They found Katy seated in the banquet hall, Matthews and Amber at her side. When she saw them approaching, she offered a weak smile before looking back at her husband. Rilynne didn’t know who looked worse for wear between the two of them.
“She’s all right,” Amber told them. “The excitement caused a few contractions, but they seemed to have stopped. All she needs is some rest and she'll be fine.”
“Good,” Rilynne said before turning toward her partner. “Wilcome wants everyone back at the station. We’re going to be working alongside major crimes.”
He stared at her with a solemn intensity before shaking his head and turning toward his wife. Before he could say anything, though, Katy stopped him.
“They need you at the station,” she said. “That little girl needs everyone looking for her right now. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.” He looked like he wanted to argue, but fell silent at the stubborn look she gave him.
“I’ll stay with her,” Amber offered. “That way you won’t have to worry. Besides, I don’t think I could take just sitting back and waiting for news right now.”
Rilynne hugged her mom before she walked back out of the room. Before crossing through the door, she turned back to the empty hall. Just an hour before, it had been filled with love and happiness. Now the only thing she could feel as she looked around at the vacant tables was immense, heart wrenching sadness.
* * *
The station was busier than she had ever seen it when they walked in. Rilynne had a feeling that every officer, no matter what division, had come in to help.
“I'm going to change,” she said, looking down at her dress. “I have some clothes in my locker.”
Ben nodded and pushed through the crowd as he led her to the locker room.
All she had in her locker was a pair of loose jogging pants and a sweatshirt. She hesitated for a moment but knew they would be better than the dress. After slowly pulling them on and tossing her dress over her shoulder, she walked back out to find Ben waiting just outside the door.
They passed through the loud, chaotic lobby and climbed into the awaiting elevator. It seemed to crawl on its way up to the third floor, though Rilynne had a feeling it was no slower than usual. The brief moment of quiet they had on the way up was shattered when the doors opened and they stepped toward the homicide office.
In addition to the four homicide detectives that were already in the office, Rilynne counted close to twenty others. Most of the major crimes unit was present, along with several others she hadn’t expected, including Jimmy Wooldridge.
“Chief,” she said when he walked up to greet her. “What are you doing here?” She knew as the words left her lips that it was not only rude, but a ridiculous question. If he shared the same opinion, though, his expression betrayed no hint of it.
Wooldridge was the chief of homicide in Bodker, where both Rilynne and Lori worked prior to moving to Addison Valley. He was almost like a father to her, as well as Lori, and she knew without waiting for his response that he would do anything he could to help find Kim.
“I’ve been talking with Wied, and we’re trying to get a list pulled together of anyone who would have motive to take Kim,” he said. He knew her well enough to know her question didn’t warrant an answer.
“Is there any possibility that it was just a crime of opportunity?” Ben asked. He leaned against her desk and shifted his eyes between the two of them.
“No,” Rilynne said. She had considered the idea in the car on the way to the station. “No one would have risked taking a child from a room full of cops unless they were desperate. It would have been much easier to just snatch a child off the streets.”
“I agree,” Wooldridge said. “Chances are the kidnapper is either targeting Sibrian or wanted Kim.”
“I’m going to call Elise,” Ben interjected. “I asked her to stay at the hall until my guys could get out there. I told her to wait, but you know as well as I do that she'll already have the scene processed by the time they arrive. Hopefully she turned something up.”
He quickly kissed her on the forehead before walking out into the hall. After a few seconds, she heard the sound of the elevator as it took him up to the lab on the fourth floor.
“Is there any news on the roadblock?” Rilynne asked.
Wooldridge didn't seem to have an answer. He turned around and searched the crowded room before motioning over Alex Wied, head of the major crimes unit. Though their paths had crossed on occasion, Rilynne had never actually had a conversation with him. Wied was around the same age as Wilcome, though his thick gray hair made him appear at least ten years older. The three inch knife scar running down the left side of his face only helped the fact.
“Detective,” he said with a gentle nod when he approached her. She offered him a weak smile before he turned to Wooldridge.
“Where are we with the roadblock?” inquired Wooldridge.
“We had a car in the area when Detective Matthews' call came in, so we were able to get it set up immediately,” he replied. “We've been searching all cars going out but haven't found anything yet. I've also sent units out to canvas the area surrounding the abduction site to see if anyone witnessed her being taken or saw a suspicious car.”
“What about the registered sex offenders?” she asked.
Wied nodded. “I already have officers looking into them, concentrating on both those closest to the scene and the ones with similar preferences first. I also have people out looking into anyone who has ever been accused or convicted of attempting to kidnap a child.”
Rilynne nodded and pulled out her phone. “Wilcome wants an update every fifteen minutes,” she said. “I'll call him now, but can you make sure someone can take over when I'm out of the office?”
“I'll do it myself,” Wied stated. “Do you have an update on whether or not he's been able to get a list from Detective Sibrian of anyone who has been in and out of her daughter's life?”
“I'll check on it now,” she said.
After filling Wilcome in and checking on Lori, Rilynne sat the phone down on her desk and leaned back in her chair, looking quietly around the
room. She didn't recognize a third of the people bustling about, which surprised her given the fact that the police department wasn't very large.
“What's the word?” Wied called out from the conference room.
Rilynne just shook her head. He gave her a disappointed nod and turned back to Matthews who was tacking things to the white board. After letting her eyes take another pass around the room, she ran her hands over her face and closed her eyes.
No matter how hard she tried to see something useful, the only flashes she was able to get were from when Kim was taken. It was like a scene running on a loop, showing over and over in her mind. After several long minutes, she couldn't take it anymore.
“You should go home,” Wooldridge said when she opened her eyes. “There's nothing else you can do here tonight. Go get some sleep so you can start fresh tomorrow.”
Though he was no longer her chief, she still had trouble not doing what he told her to. She wanted to stay but she just nodded and reached for her purse and dress. “Call me if anything happens,” she instructed. He agreed and she walked out the door.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked when she found Ben half asleep on the bench in the hall.
He looked down at his watch before standing to meet her. “They’ve got everything handled in the lab and I didn't want to distract you. Heading home?”
She grabbed his hand and led him toward the elevator. “Wooldridge insisted,” she said. “There isn't anything for me to do here, though. The roadblock is in place and the canvas hasn't turn up anything so far. Our sketch artist happens to be out of town for the next couple days, so we can't have Harper work on that yet. I don't know how much good it would do even if he could do it tonight, though. From what I saw, his attention was entirely on Kim. Were you able to pull any prints off of her shoe?”
When Ben pushed the elevator button, the doors instantly rattled open. He put his hand gently on her back and ushered her in before stepping in himself. “The one adult sized one we pulled was Lori's,” he said. “There were quite a few that were partially smeared, but they all came back to Harper. He really did put up one hell of a fight, didn't he?”
Rilynne nodded, thinking back to the strength that had been behind his grip on Kim's leg. The man had to knock him down just to get away. “How do you have Harper's prints?” she asked after a few moments.
“Lori had both his and Kim's logged into the system,” he explained. “We were talking about setting up a program to have all of the children in town printed in case a situation like this one ever came up. It's still being debated, but Lori decided she liked the idea and brought both kids in.”
Rilynne avoided meeting anyone's eye as they walked through the crowded lobby for fear that someone would ask her for an update on the case. She didn't want to admit aloud that they still had nothing. She was relieved moments later when they stepped out onto the street without anyone approaching them.
“She's always been cautious when it came to the kids. That's why it's so hard to believe that this happened. This is a small town; these kinds of things aren't supposed to happen in places like this,” she said.
Even talking about it made her feel like she was going to break down again. She took in a deep breath and let it back out slowly in an attempt to steady herself. Surprisingly, it worked.
Ben pulled her car door open and smirked down at her as she sat down. “This coming from the woman who's been grabbed three times,” he chortled. He shut the door before she could respond.
“That's completely different,” she said as soon as he pulled his own door open. “Besides, one of them wasn't in Addison Valley.”
“You're right,” he said. “That one was in an even smaller town. I'm beginning to think you're a magnet for people wanting to take you.”
Rilynne shrugged and laugh. “What can I say? People just want me.”
When she realized what she was doing, her expression abruptly hardened.
“It's okay to laugh,” Ben said gently. She looked up and found an empathetic look on his face. “I know how much you're hurting right now and how helpless you feel. You can't focus solely on that, though. Not only will it drive you crazy, it'll make it all the more difficult for you to do what you need to do in order to find her.”
She knew he was right, but she still felt only guilt.
“It's actually four,” she said, trying to distract herself. She looked over to find a puzzled look on his face, so she continued. “I was grabbed when I was a teenage, too. It wasn't like this, though. I was playing detective and snooping around in a situation I probably shouldn't have been anywhere near. Needless to say, my surveillance skills weren't as honed as they are now, and I ended up getting spotted.”
“What happened?” Ben asked curiously.
She spent the rest of the drive going over the details of the case and the time she spent with her captors. By the time she finished, they were walking through her front door.
Rilynne draped her dress over the back of a dining room chair and walked into the kitchen. She knew she needed to eat something. Kim had been taken before dinner was served, though even the thought of eating at that moment turned her stomach. She pulled the refrigerator open only to close it again after a few moments.
“Come on,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her out the backdoor. Without needing to ask, she knew exactly where he was taking her. It was the same place he took her every time something was wrong.
There was a chill reaching through her clothes as they made their way through the woods. The moon was high and bright, giving them just enough light to navigate without trouble.
Like usual, the clearing was empty. Rilynne had never seen anyone else in it in all the times Ben had taken her. Ben himself said that he had only ever seen one other person in all the years he had been going out there.
He led her to the giant boulder in the middle and helped her up before climbing up next to her. The cold air tickled her nose as the night breeze passed over them. She'd forgotten how calming a deep, cold breath could be. Since moving to Addison Valley, they had been few and far between. Even in the middle of winter, the temperature rarely reached below freezing. The nights were of course colder, but having promised Ben she wouldn’t go on anymore middle of the night runs, she didn't often get to enjoy them.
“You really did look incredibly beautiful tonight,” Ben said, breaking the silence several minutes later.
Rilynne felt her cheeks growing warm as she dropped her head down on his shoulder. “You didn't look too bad yourself. You really should consider pulling out those nice shirts of yours for more than just court.”
“But then you would grow accustomed to them and I wouldn't get to see that little smirk you get every time I wear one.” She looked up to find a grin on his face as he looked down at the city lights below.
She knew he was as shaken by the night's events as she was, though he wasn't showing it. She didn't have to ask to know why. He was being strong for her and doing everything he could to keep her from giving into the dread building within her.
Rilynne slid off of Ben and lowered herself down on the boulder. The night sky was clear, not a cloud visible. All that littered the darkness were the countless number of stars looking down on them. She let her eyes sweep over them before drifting closed.
Rain was pouring down over her as she sat in the middle of a large yard. It didn’t bring its usual relaxing feeling. Instead, there was only sorrow; an immense, overwhelming sorrow like she had never felt before. Her arms were heavy where they lay on her lap. When she looked down, she found a small red bundle cradled in them.
She didn’t know what she was looking at, but she couldn’t keep her eyes on it. It was too painful. Instead, she looked to the ground around her. Like the mound in her arms, the grass was also painted red. Though she couldn’t think of what would have left it such an unusual shade, its appearance only left her more distraught.
As she watched the rain slowly wa
sh the grass clean, she found the courage to turn back to her lap. Her face was wet but it wasn’t from the rain.
Her body shook violently as she raised her arm out from under the lump. Tangled in her fingers as they emerged was something long and stringy.
It took a moment for her to realize what it was. When she really looked at it, though, she knew there was only one thing it could be.
Chapter Three
Rilynne rolled off of the boulder and ran to the tree line before dropping down on her knees and emptying her stomach. Tears rolled down her face with each body wrenching heave. She didn't even know Ben had come up behind her until she sat back and he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her to her feet.
He held her close as she wept, not asking what had happened. She tried to push the horrific image out of her mind, but she couldn't. It was the only thing she could see when her eyes closed.
It wasn't until her tears finally slowed ten minutes later that Ben moved her back to the boulder. He helped her back up, but didn't join her. Instead, he stood in front of her and placed his warm hands down over her legs. Still he didn't ask what she had seen. They sat there in silence, Ben gently running his hands up and down her thighs, for another five minutes before she was ready to talk.
“There was so much blood.” She spoke so low that he might have missed it had they been any further apart. “I saw him holding her. She was covered in blood.”
Ben let out a deep breath and tightened the hold he had on her. “Are you sure it was Kim?”
Rilynne started to nod but paused. She thought back over every detail before looking down at him. “I didn't see her face. Her hair, what little of it that hadn't been stained by the blood, was the same, though. Same color, same wavy curls.”
“That doesn't mean it was her,” he said firmly. “Even if it was, there might still be time to stop it.”
“It was raining, hard,” she said. “He was sitting with her on his lap as the rain poured down over them.”