Dead Little Darlings

by Herron, Rita

  Mr. Darling and Daryl Eaton remained at the top of the suspect list—with a question mark beside their names. Had they met or known each other?

  She added Jeremy’s name but didn’t like him as a suspect.

  Preston Richway was a possibility. A phone call from him to Candace or Deborah might have lured them from their home on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps they’d planned to discuss Deborah’s pregnancy and things had gone sideways.

  That theory also raised other questions. Either Preston would have had to arrange for Deborah to stay somewhere until the baby was delivered—or he’d held her hostage.

  Although Preston had only been what? Seventeen or eighteen at the time. Holding Deborah hostage without anyone realizing it would have been near impossible.

  Her phone buzzed on the table, and she snatched it up.

  “It’s Piper. Aretha Franton lives in Jacksonville, Florida. She works at a Planned Parenthood clinic.”

  Interesting. Jacksonville was only an hour away. She started repacking her notes so she could get on the road. “Is she married? Children?”

  “No to both.”

  Hmm, perhaps she hadn’t fulfilled the pregnancy pact. Or she worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic because she’d had an abortion?

  “I’m texting you her phone number and address.”

  “Thanks. Preston Richway works at a rehab center in Delray Beach, Florida. Did you get his phone number and home address?”

  “I’m sending it now. Do you want to fill me in?” Piper asked.

  Marilyn tossed her computer bag over her shoulder. “I will after I finish my interviews. I want to see if my theory pans out first.”

  Piper murmured that she understood, then ended the call, and Marilyn hurried outside to her car. The light from the lighthouse at the Village flickered, shining across the ocean, still leading boats back to shore.

  An image of Deborah Darling dragging that canoe onto the land and carrying that infant haunted her. The poor girl had been terrified. Even at fourteen, maternal instincts had driven her to protect her child.

  Yet someone had robbed her of her baby and her future.

  Her cell phone buzzed with a text. Marilyn’s blood ran cold as she read it.

  You should have left the past alone. Now you have to die like the others.

  Ryker studied Howard Darling, determined to make the man confess everything. He was sick and tired of the man dancing around the truth. “Mr. Darling, you said your daughters didn’t have friends, but others claimed they were close with Mellie Thacker and Aretha Franton. Did you know those girls?”

  Darling went still, his face contorting in anger. “No. I told you my daughters didn’t have friends over to the house.”

  “Because of your wife’s drinking?” Agent Manson cut in.

  He gave a pained nod. “They said they were embarrassed by our family,” Darling said. “It all came out that last night.”

  “When they told you about the pregnancy pact,” Ryker said.

  Another nod of confirmation.

  “Both Deborah and Candace were pregnant?” Ryker asked.

  Darling tugged at the loose skin around his neck. “That’s what they said.”

  “And you have no idea who fathered the babies?” Agent Manson said.

  He jerked his gaze to hers. “They refused to say. Said it was none of our business.”

  “Maybe you were so angry that you hired someone to get rid of them and their unborn children?” Ryker suggested.

  Darling vaulted up from his seat, his face reddening. “God dammit. How many times do I have to tell you that I did not kill my daughters? And I sure as hell didn’t hire someone to do it!”

  Ryker and Caroline exchanged looks, then she gave him a pointed look. “Sit down, Mr. Darling.”

  He shot her a venomous look, then dropped into the chair, his jaw clenched in rage.

  Ryker cleared his throat. “Help us piece together what happened after Candace and Deborah left your house.”

  Darling muttered a sarcastic sound. “I told you I don’t know where they went. My wife was furious and yelled at them to get out, and they did. I figured they went to their grandmothers or to the park for the night. That they’d let the dust settle then come back.”

  “But they didn’t?” Agent Manson said.

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t hear from them after that? Not even a phone call?” Ryker asked.

  Darling shook his head. “If they had called, I would have gone after them.”

  Ryker intentionally used a sympathetic voice. “Maybe you did go after them. Or if you didn’t, you sent someone else.”

  Darling fisted his hands on the table. “What are you talking about?”

  Ryker leaned forward and pinned the man with an accusatory look. “I’m talking about a man called the Punisher.”

  Marilyn phoned Piper about the text, and Piper agreed to trace it. She’d tell Ryker about it later.

  Memories of that car running her off the road haunted her, and she checked over her shoulder and the streets as she left the island. Just as she left town, she sensed someone was following her.

  A dark sedan eased up on her tail. She tried to see the driver’s face, but the windows were tinted. Nerves tied a knot in her belly, and she slowed and made a turn, hoping she was wrong. The car turned as well.

  Was it the same vehicle that had struck her in the library parking lot?

  Body wound tight with tension, she sped up and maneuvered around a slower car. The sedan didn’t immediately follow, but two miles down the road, it passed the other vehicle and crept up behind her again.

  This time she slowed, and veered into a gas station parking lot. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and waited. The sedan crawled by as if watching her. She stretched to see the license plate of the vehicle, but then it sped up and drove on.

  She breathed out in relief, then went into the convenience store, bought a bottle of water and waited a few more minutes before she returned to her car. But she kept an eye out for the sedan as she pulled from the parking lot and drove to Aretha Franton’s.

  Who was driving that damn car? Was she being paranoid or had it been following her?

  She checked the streets for the sedan as she parked at the Franton woman’s house. A gust of wind whipped the palm trees back and forth, and brought the hint of impending rain as she walked to the door and knocked.

  The southeast coast was under a tropical storm warning due to the hurricane in the gulf moving their way.

  Marilyn shivered and knocked again. She wanted to see Aretha and Preston before the storm hit the next day. Her flight for Delray Beach left in three hours.

  Footsteps echoed from the inside of the townhome, then the door opened. A short curly-haired brunette in her early forties answered with a surprised look. She must have been expecting someone else. “What are you doing here?” she asked without waiting for an introduction.

  “You’re Aretha Franton?”

  The woman eyed her warily. “Yes.”

  “Can I please come in and talk with you?”

  Aretha shifted from one foot to the other, then gestured for her to enter. As she followed Aretha to the living room, Marilyn noted contemporary furnishings, but there were very little personal photographs or decorative décor.

  The woman sank down onto a cream-colored leather couch, and Marilyn settled on the loveseat. “I know who you are and the stories you cover,” Aretha said. “Why are you here to see me?”

  Marilyn decided to cut to the chase. This woman was direct. She might as well be, too. So she explained about the bodies of Deborah and Candace Darling being recovered. “At this point, I know you, Mellie Thacker and the sisters created a pregnancy pact. We also know that the night they disappeared, they told their parents about the pact and that
a big fight ensued. Apparently Mrs. Darling was inebriated and ordered the girls to leave.”

  Aretha cut her gaze away from Marilyn, but the guilt streaking her face confirmed Marilyn was on the right track. “Did you see or talk to Deborah or Candace after they left their parents’ house on New Year’s Eve?”

  The woman released a weary sigh. “No, my mother learned about that pact the week before and made me cut all ties with the others.”

  “So you were in on the pact?”

  Aretha nodded. “I’ll tell you the truth, but you cannot print this or repeat my story without permission.”

  Marilyn was desperate for answers. Even if she never recorded a single word, she wanted to know who killed Deborah and kidnapped her baby.

  She raised two fingers in a symbol of an oath. “You have my word.”

  Aretha studied her for a moment, then twisted her fingers together. “I was in on the pact. We were all young and stupid. I suspected the sisters were being abused by their father because I’d seen bruises, but Deborah and Candace denied it. When they suggested the plan to get pregnant, they started badmouthing their mother, saying she was a mean drunk. They didn’t know how their father put up with her.”

  So Mr. Darling had been telling the truth.

  “They were mad at him for not defending them,” Aretha continued. “Candace insisted that if we had babies, we’d have someone to love us.”

  Such sad, twisted logic.

  “Did you get pregnant?” Marilyn asked softly.

  Aretha gave a wry laugh. “I was the only who didn’t. My mother forced me into a counseling program at a Planned Parenthood center. That counselor saved me.”

  “That’s the reason you work with Planned Parenthood now?”

  She nodded. “I realized how foolish we all were, that it was selfish to have babies when we were kids ourselves and had no way to take care of them. I decided to help steer girls into making better decisions than we did.”

  “That’s admirable,” Marilyn said.

  Pain wrenched Aretha’s face. “Not really. Ironically though, I’ve never been able to conceive. I figured it was God’s way of punishing me for what we did.”

  Marilyn gave her a sympathetic look. “For trying to get pregnant?”

  Aretha’s lower lip quivered, and she dropped her gaze to her lap where she knotted her hands together. “No, for the way we did it.”

  This was her opening to ask about Jeremy and Preston.

  “Go on.”

  “You won’t air this on TV?” she asked again. “Because it’s not just me that was involved. It would hurt others. People who don’t deserve to have all this dredged up again.”

  “I gave you my word and I always keep it.”

  Aretha released an agonized sigh. “As I mentioned, the four of us were determined to get pregnant,” she said. “But none of us were dating or had boyfriends. And we didn’t want to just have some geek’s baby.” She wiped at a tear. “I know how awful that sounds, and it was awful. I can’t believe I ever thought like that.”

  “You were a teenager,” Marilyn said softly.

  “I know, but it doesn’t excuse it, “Aretha blurted. “But the four of us had low self-esteem and fed off of each other. It’s a dangerous combination.”

  True. “So you went to Preston Richway’s party?” Marilyn asked.

  Aretha’s eyes widened. “You know about the party?”

  “Not details,” she admitted. “But I spoke with Jeremy Linchfield. He said he was there but he left. Then he had an accident.”

  Another tear slipped down the woman’s cheek. “He and Preston wouldn’t give us the time of day at school. We wanted them to get drunk,” she said in a choked voice. “We thought if they did, they’d sleep with us.”

  “So you put something in Jeremy’s water bottle.”

  “It was so stupid,” she lamented. “We didn’t think about him driving. And then he had that horrible accident.” A sob broke free and the tears started flowing. “We never meant for that to happen. Poor Jeremy. We ruined his life.”

  And still could go to prison for what they’d done.

  But Aretha was talking, and Marilyn wasn’t going to stop her. She sensed the woman had wanted to come clean for some time. “What about Preston?”

  A strained silence stretched through the room. Somewhere a clock ticked off the hour. Outside the wind howled, and a tree branch slapped the windowpane.

  Marilyn clutched the arm of the loveseat in a white-knuckled grip to fend off a panic attack at the volatile weather conditions. “Tell me the rest.”

  Aretha swiped at her damp cheeks. “Preston was so drunk that he passed out,” she said. “The four of us, we shook him enough to rouse him, then we climbed on him and we . . . took turns.”

  They had raped Preston Richway. Meaning he was the father of Deborah’s baby.

  Rape and unwanted pregnancies gave him motive for murder.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Ryker battled sympathy for Howard Darling. The man had suffered. But if he’d protected his daughters from their mother and forced her to seek help, his children might still be alive.

  “Mr. Darling,” he repeated, “did you know of a man they called the Punisher?”

  Darling gave a low groan. “I heard rumors about him, but I didn’t know who he was.”

  “You didn’t contact him to punish your daughters for the pregnancies?”

  Darling flattened his hands on the table. “No. A real man doesn’t need to hire someone to discipline his own family.”

  “What about your wife? You said she was angry with the girls. Could she have contacted him and asked him to punish her daughters?”

  Darling’s eyes filled with questions that seemed to be tormenting him. “I . . . don’t know. Sometimes she went to bars . . . I guess she could have met him somewhere. But . . . my wife loved our daughters. She just couldn’t control her temper.”

  Ryker let that statement linger for a few seconds. “I’m going to ask you again. Do you have any idea who fathered Deborah’s or Candace’s babies?”

  Darling shook his head. “We asked. My wife was sure our girls were seduced. She demanded to know the boys’ names, but Candace and Deborah refused to tell us. That was the last straw and pushed Phyllis over the edge. She slapped Candace, and Deborah, then told them to get out. Everyone was screaming, and I . . . I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock seeing poor little Polly lying there in a pool of blood, not moving.” He dropped his head into his hands again and started to sob once more.

  Ryker glanced at Agent Manson, but her expression held a mixture of contempt and some other emotion he couldn’t quite define.

  Maybe she was feeling ill again.

  She barely gave him a minute, then continued, “In all the chaos that night, are you sure that the girls didn’t mention a boy’s name? Someone they knew from school? Or a boy one of them had a crush on?”

  Mr. Darling groaned. “They didn’t tell us anything. I didn’t even know they were interested in boys.”

  The man had buried his head in the sand. They were teenage girls. Of course they were interested in boys.

  “We heard that Deborah kept a diary,” Ryker said. “Are you sure you don’t know where it is? She may have written the name of the baby’s father in it.”

  “I swear I don’t know. If I’d found it and the boy’s name was in it, I would have talked to him myself.”

  Agent Manson’s heels clicked as she stood. “If you think of a name or anything else that can help us, let us know.” Then she left the room.

  Ryker left Darling alone to be escorted to a cell. He still wasn’t sure what to charge the man with. He needed more details and forensics to confirm his story.

  Agent Manson was pacing the hall. “You okay?” he asked.

  She whirled
toward him, and he realized she was hanging onto her temper. For some reason, this case was getting to her.

  “You seem awfully upset,” Ryker said. “As if this case is personal to you.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “I . . . just can’t stand the thought of these girls’ killer going free. And now one of them may have had a baby that no one was even aware of.”

  Ryker remembered her comment about the other case where she hadn’t found a missing child. There was probably more to the story, but he didn’t want to press at the moment. “The father of the baby may know where the child is. It’s possible he wanted Deborah to have an abortion.”

  “And he killed her because she refused,” Caroline said. “Still, what happened to the child?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Ryker said firmly.

  He needed to call Marilyn. So far, she’d dug up vital information.

  Maybe she had something new to add.

  The threatening tropical storm made the landing at the airport in West Palm Beach rough. Marilyn was grateful to have her feet on land again. Battling a storm was always difficult for her, but being in the air with the plane bouncing around intensified her fears.

  Her phone buzzed with a message as she departed the plane, and she paused to check the message. Ryker, asking her to call him. “I’m sorry for the way we left things Marilyn. Would like to have dinner tonight and talk.”

  Perspiration beaded on her neck, and she stepped into the ladies’ room, then phoned him. When he didn’t pick up, she left a message. “Just landed in West Palm Beach. Am going to interview Preston Richway. Will keep you posted.”

  Her phone rang a second later. “Marilyn, what the hell are you doing flying to Florida by yourself? Have you forgotten that someone tried to kill you?”

  Marilyn smiled at his protective tone. “No, but I told you I’m not running scared, Ryker. We must be getting close to the truth.” She paused. “And I’d love to have dinner when I get back.”

  A tense heartbeat passed. “When will that be?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll fly back after I talk to Preston.”