Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  Thinking about the injustice of it made him wonder why he’d stayed with the RCMP when the system he served had failed him so completely, first with Noelle’s death, then with the hand slap they’d measured out to punish the woman who’d killed her.

  As Tain looked around the motel room at the liquor bottles scattered across the floor, the picture dangling above the bed by a thread of wire, the phone book lying open near the doorway, some of the pages bent beneath it like it had been hurled across the room and left where it landed, the blood on the sheets left in a heap on the bed, he realized the justice he would have measured out against Craig was being served.

  If his wish had the power to inflict this upon Craig, he would have retracted it the moment he saw the look on Ashlyn’s face. She moved for the first time since Tain had opened the door and crossed to the nightstand beside the bed, where a torn photo lay. He walked over and stopped beside her and looked down.

  A photo of Ashlyn, in black and white. She was in a dark skirt with a matching jacket, one that always caused more men than usual to give her a second glance, talking to Liam Kincaid, the detective constable from the New Westminster Police Department who’d assisted with the Reimer case.

  He knew it must have been taken only a few weeks earlier, when they’d been called to answer questions relating to the pending charges against Officer Parker.

  Parker. The kind of cop who liked the uniform because of the power it brought the person, not because of how it enabled the person to serve the public. Tain doubted he’d met a more egotistical sonofabitch in all his years on the job, and Parker’s recklessness had jeopardized Tain and Ashlyn’s investigation of the murder of Jeffrey Reimer from day one.

  Parker had ultimately been responsible for at least one more murder.

  Some would argue Parker was partly to blame for four deaths. Tain included.

  He remembered the day they’d been summoned to answer questions. Parker remained a suspect in Ashlyn’s assault, and Tain had worried about how Ashlyn would handle the proceedings, but Officer Parker hadn’t even appeared to hear the testimony given.

  At the time he’d been relieved, but now he found himself wondering why.

  Craig hadn’t been there, so what was he doing with a photo of Ashlyn and Liam Kincaid? Had he been stalking Ashlyn, having her followed?

  Tain walked around the bed to the dresser and pulled the drawers open one by one, then checked the bathroom, returned to the main room and looked under the bed.

  Nothing but carpet and one single slip of paper. He picked it up.

  Forty-seven Old Main.

  He looked around the room again, and this time, instead of focusing on the mess his eyes took in what wasn’t there.

  No clothes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Craig stared down at the photo in his hand. They’d rushed to get it done.

  “They’re going to keep working,” Dr. Winters had told him when he’d stopped by the coroner’s office twenty minutes earlier.

  He’d told her not to worry, that he understood it took time to generate an image from remains. What he held in his hand was the baseline, like a picture that was slightly out of focus. The more time the team had to scrutinize the measurements and factor in the state of the body and damage to the corpse, the closer the image would be to the actual girl it portrayed.

  Craig pried his gaze away from the ghost that stared up at him and slipped the photo back into the folder.

  The body they’d found was the right height and ethnicity, but one thing that didn’t fit was the image they’d come up with after scanning her face and trying to generate a reasonable likeness.

  Kacey Young had been a slender girl. The victim had been heavy, and her jawbone had been poorly set after a blow, which caused it to twist to the left side permanently.

  Jane Doe’s eyes were dull, not at all like the vibrant eyes that had sparkled in all the photos he’d seen of Kacey Young, but he had to remind himself that Jane Doe’s eyes weren’t real eyes.

  They were just part of a generated image. Placeholders. What dreams, what experiences, what happiness and hope all combined to make Kacey Young the energetic, lively girl she’d appeared to be was something no doctor or artist looking at a corpse could detect. Dr. Winters had said it herself; she preferred to deal in facts. She had to.

  He glanced at his watch. Summer’s hotel was on the other side of the city, but he’d been careful to pick an inconspicuous diner that had a narrow entrance beside a gas station on the outskirts of town. This was the type of place that picked up a fair bit of passerby revenue from highway traffic, and made its bread and butter off local residents who liked a certain kind of atmosphere. For those who wanted privacy, there were more booths in the back, where the décor changed to dark paneled walls. Near the entrance there were smaller booths to the one side, a long counter area with stools to his left, which spoke to the type of trade the diner specialized in. Customers who usually came in alone, on their way to work, looking for a friendly face to chat with and quick, cheap food that was made to order.

  It wasn’t where the tourists or upper middle class thought to stop for coffee.

  Craig opened the door and went inside, careful to keep his face tilted so that the swelling wouldn’t be so obvious. It was a diner filled with shadows, which was exactly what he wanted.

  He picked a booth in the back and took the far side so that he could watch the door, then pulled out his cell phone and sent her a text confirming he was there.

  A few minutes later, the string of bells on the door clanged as it opened. Summer paused as she scanned the room, then let the door fall shut behind her when she saw Craig. She’d started to sit down across from him before she got a good look at his face.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” His jaw still hurt like hell.

  “What can I get for yas?”

  “A Coke,” Craig said. “Egg-salad sandwich and fries.” He wasn’t taking chances trying to chew a burger, and once he left he didn’t want to stop anywhere else before leaving town.

  “Toasted?”

  “No. Thanks.” He looked at Summer.

  She ordered tea.

  Craig waited until the waitress was out of earshot. “Like I said on the phone—”

  “I know. It’s a pretty basic image.”

  He slid the folder across the table and watched the battle on Summer’s face. She blinked and reached for it, but then paused as she looked up at Craig, her eyes wide with the fear. Summer would tell herself Craig’s caution was part of the job, to make sure he didn’t say anything that would cloud her judgment. Summer would tell herself whatever she needed to, so long as she could hold on to the hope that there might be a break in the case. Once she looked inside, she might have the answers she’d sought for so long, but part of her was starting to realize that the answers might hold truths she wasn’t ready to face.

  To have a sister disappear was hard enough. Craig knew that. Hope hovered like an angel of light, while despair lurked like a creature of darkness. Every phone call, every knock at the door threatened to confirm your deepest fears, to bring answers that could serve as wounds that would scar the soul forever. The initial pain of suffering a loss could be compounded by the awareness that your sister had suffered, that her final days were spent in agony, that she’d died at the hands of a madman before you had a chance to tell her you loved her one last time.

  The things left unsaid between loved ones often cut the deepest.

  Ashlyn’s face flashed through his mind.

  “You’ll have to try to imagine how she might have changed in the months since you last saw her.”

  Summer lifted a trembling hand to tuck her dark hair behind her ear. A mechanical motion, one Craig remembered from before. She came off strong and confident, ready to fight anyone who dared to stand in her way, but beneath the tough exterior there was a tender heart. This was the woman who’d talked to the press before the
task force had been created, the person who’d first accused them of racism.

  The person who’d made the task force happen.

  She was also the woman who’d created a makeshift memorial for the girls listed as The Missing.

  The waitress came and set down their drinks and left again.

  “There are no answers in that folder,” Craig said as he placed his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. “Only possibilities.”

  Craig drew his hand back and fought the urge to press his fingers against the glass of Coke. He looked past her, down the aisle. The chain of bells jingled again as a man in a lumber jacket entered, making a great fuss as he greeted the waitress, and sauntered over to the counter. He was talking past the waitress too, and laughing. Craig guessed he must know the cook, who was occasionally visible through the opening in the wall where orders were set when ready.

  From the corner of his eye he could see Summer’s shoulders lift and fall, and then she opened the folder.

  The man in the lumber jacket took off his cap and unbuttoned his coat while he sat down at the counter and talked to the waitress. There was the faint ding of a bell, and he stood, buttoned up his coat and put his cap back on. The waitress grabbed a bag and started packing wrapped items in it before she poured a coffee, passed it to him along with the bag of food and rang up the order on the till. He fished out his wallet and handed the waitress some money, argued with her over his refusal to take his change, and then turned and stood beside a booth, gabbing with a couple men who’d come in shortly after Craig had.

  As he waited for some sign to tell him Summer was ready to talk, he wondered how he expected to know she’d processed the image and was able to discuss it. He’d been doing this long enough to know that you could never predict the way a person would respond. The man in the lumber jacket waved and went to the door, the bells clanging as it slammed shut behind him. From the pass-through he realized how much time had passed.

  The waitress came with his food and he nodded his thanks, her service providing a natural opening for him to shift his focus back to the table he sat at and the person across from him. He didn’t push it, instead taking the time to eat slowly, which was necessary because of the pain when he moved his jaw.

  Summer hadn’t moved or said anything. Craig glanced at her as he pushed his plate aside. The image the lab had generated was in her hand, her dark eyes staring at the face, probably trying to find some point of likeness between the picture before her and the face she remembered from more than three years earlier.

  She set the picture down and whispered, “I don’t know.”

  Craig nodded. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this—”

  “You need a blood sample.”

  “We don’t have dental records. It’s the best way.” The echo of déjà vu was in his words. He’d said them to Summer before, told her they might have to ask for a sample, just in case. Something they’d need to do if they found Kacey’s body.

  He’d never imagined the request would come eighteen months later, more than three years after her sister had gone missing.

  “I understand. I already went to the coroner’s office, earlier.”

  Craig watched her as she shut the folder and pulled her coat on. “I’m sorry.”

  Summer stood and offered him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s been more than three years, Constable Nolan. I’ll just have to wait a little longer.”

  She hoped.

  “I have to go out of town for a few days, to follow up on a lead,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that you can call my cell if you need me. Don’t try to reach me at the station.” He passed her a business card with his phone number on it. “Do you want—”

  “The only thing I want you to do is find out if this is my sister.”

  She turned and walked away, her coat wrapped tightly around her small frame, the way it had been the night he’d first seen her standing outside the station.

  Another one of her tells. Something she did when her whole world was falling apart and she needed to find a way to hold it together.

  He looked at his knuckles and straightened his fingers, pushing past the pain as the dried blood glue cracked and bled again.

  He knew how she felt.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Tain held up his ID. “I need you to put a call through to Summer Young’s room,” he said.

  The hotel wasn’t ostentatious, but it was a neat and tidy establishment with a large foyer, a marble floor and a vaulted ceiling. Words had a way of reverberating around the room.

  Sam, the hotel clerk, smiled politely, discretely keyed some information into a computer, then picked up the handset of the guest phone and dialed a number. Tain had watched closely, the man’s practiced fingers moving too fast for Tain to make out the extension number.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Sam’s smile hadn’t wavered since they’d approached the counter. “There’s no answer.”

  Tain turned and started walking to the door.

  “We can leave a message,” Ashlyn said.

  “We need to find her.” He turned around. “What was Craig doing, bringing Summer here?”

  “It wasn’t him.”

  A voice from his past, behind him. He didn’t hear her footsteps but felt her move around him, closer to where Ashlyn stood.

  “Craig never asked me to come here.” Her voice was as calm as her face. There were no lines hinting at anxiety or tension, confusion or concern. She looked unaffected, as though Tain had just asked her if she liked the hotel instead of asserting she’d been asked to come to the city to ID her sister’s body.

  “But you have spoken to him?” Tain asked.

  Summer nodded.

  “When?”

  The first lines crept into Summer’s brow as she looked at Ashlyn, gave a tiny shake of her head and turned away.

  Tain reached out for her before she could leave. “Please, Summer. It’s important.”

  She didn’t pull away from him, but she didn’t turn around either. “Let me go, Elim.”

  He walked around in front of her. “This isn’t personal, Summer.” The look on her face as she met his gaze was like a knife in the heart, but he couldn’t undo what had been done. For a few moments they stood, looking at each other, and then she turned away.

  “I just met with him.”

  “Where?” He reached for her face and turned it so that she couldn’t avoid his gaze. “Summer, is the girl—”

  She pulled back from his hold as she shook her head. “We don’t know.”

  He let go of her and she wrapped her arms around her body and blinked as she looked from Ashlyn to him. “I’ve given blood so that they can check the DNA.”

  “Is that where you saw Craig? At the coroner’s office?” Tain thought back to when they’d driven by the office earlier, when he’d seen Summer. That had been hours ago.

  “No. It doesn’t matter. He was leaving town.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No. He only said that if I needed him, to call on his cell, because he’d be out of town following a lead.”

  Ashlyn stepped forward then, reached between Tain and Summer and put her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Can you tell me how he is?”

  Summer’s dark eyes were wide as she looked at Ashlyn. “What do you mean?”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He was bruised. There were cuts on his hands. They weren’t…He wasn’t like that when I saw him earlier. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  She walked around Tain, and he let her go. The look in her eyes had been raw, and in her words he’d found more answers than he could have hoped for.

  Craig was still working on the case. He hadn’t told Summer he’d been suspended, but it sounded as though he’d been in a fight.

  The clippings found around Millie’s body hadn’t just contained information about cases Tain and Ashlyn had worked. They’d covered Craig’s major cases, until he�
�d left the Lower Mainland on temporary reassignment.

  He marched outside and down the street to the car and kicked the door. It hurt like hell, but it reminded him he could still feel.

  Tain leaned against the car drawing deep breaths. After a moment he looked up. Ashlyn was lowering her cell phone and closing it.

  “Sims,” she said. “I asked him to follow up on the apartments we missed in the second canvas.”

  It was a good idea and made him think Ashlyn was handling this better than he was. She’d had the presence of mind to follow up on tangible leads, to leave no stone unturned, no matter what the circumstantial evidence suggested.

  “Where now?” Ashlyn asked.

  Tain turned and leaned back against the car for a moment before he straightened up again. “The coroner’s office.”

  PART FOUR

  THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Twenty-one months ago

  Jenny paced back and forth in the dark at the far end of the diner. They were concealed by shadows that would keep her from being easily identified at that distance, but she was unwilling to risk moving into the light and taking the chance that there might be someone inside who’d recognize her.

  “We’ve gone a long way,” he said.

  “They’re truckers. You think this is far to them?” She stared at him. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe she should have found some other way, just ran as far as she could…

  Bobby would find her.

  He’d always told her he would. Promised he’d never let her go.

  “Look, do you want to do this or not?” he asked. “I’m not going to push you…”

  She paced back and forth a few more times, then spit out an order. “Bacon cheeseburger and fries. No pickles or onions. And a strawberry shake. I’ll wait in the car.”

  Jenny stomped back over to the vehicle and yanked the door open. After she slammed it shut, she slid down in the seat, fingers tapping the door frame as she peered out over the dashboard, scouring the parking lot.