Deadly Dreams

by Mary Stone

  “I’d like to go and interview Amy’s family,” she said.

  “Then let’s go,” Linc said, taking her hand and leading her out into the cool autumn air. “Let’s go solve a crime.”

  17

  Linc endeavored to humor Kylie and follow along on her fact-finding mission. He’d known her long enough to know that when she got an idea in her head, arguing or trying to talk her out of it was pointless. When he saw her patience growing thin, he decided to take her where she wanted to go and stay out of her way. Maybe then she’d feel like she was making some headway in the case, and she’d eventually calm down.

  But as they drove back to the hotel late that afternoon, Linc deemed his plan an utter failure.

  Kylie was even more annoyed than she’d been that morning. Linc had to admit, she had a good reason to be. Nobody had answered at the Cooper residence, and security at Piedmont College had nearly run them off campus when they caught the two of them asking questions to see if anyone knew the young graduate student.

  They’d been all over the county trying to scrape together information and gotten absolutely nowhere.

  “Well, that was a big bust,” Kylie mumbled, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. “I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel.”

  “There has to be someone else we can talk to,” Linc said, pulling out of the convenience store outside the college where they’d stopped to get sandwiches. “What does Amy’s social media say?”

  “Facebook and Instagram. Not much. It’s private, so I can’t get in. She seems like a kind of meek, quiet person, fond of books and nights home. Not one to take risks.” Kylie shook her head as she picked the tomatoes off her turkey sub. “No one is willing to help get to the bottom of this. I’m afraid I’ll have to go to Ollie and tell him I’ve run into nothing but dead ends.”

  He glanced at her. That didn’t sound like his tenacious fiancée. Usually, when she grabbed hold of an idea, she kept plugging away at it until she found a way deeper. “Are you sure?”

  She shrugged. “You have any better ideas?”

  “Well…yeah. Maybe she’s not the person you think she is.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What does that mean?”

  “Think about it. Why would a meek, quiet girl who likes to spend nights home be climbing one of the hardest trails in the park? That’s got to mean something.”

  She listened to him, mulling it over as she blew out a breath of air that sent the stray hairs from her ponytail puffing out in front of her. “That does sound odd. I thought about that. None of the rangers had ever reported her hiking there before, and yet the first time she goes out, she’s on her own, and she picks a trail that’s not for newbies. You think someone put her up to it?”

  “Possibly. Maybe she was planning to meet someone there. Someone who wanted her to challenge herself.” Linc held up a finger. “Or…maybe she was trying to prove something to herself.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. It’s the same reason all these people who never run more than a 5K decide they’re going to go out and run a marathon. It’s not because someone’s egging them on. It’s more for themselves. To prove that they have the mental and physical capacity to tackle an obstacle. It’s empowering.”

  Kylie ripped a bit of her sandwich off and stuffed it in her mouth. “Okay,” she said after she’d swallowed. “Maybe she suffered a bad breakup or failed a test or something, and she wanted to empower herself. So, she went on this hike to psych herself up. If I were someone in Amy’s life who wanted to kill her and followed her to that spot…what does that say about me? I’d have to be in pretty good shape to navigate that trail myself.”

  Linc nodded. “Or the killer was already down in the gorge, and Amy had the bad luck to stumble upon him or her. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  Kylie tried to puzzle it together. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because…” He looked at her like it was obvious, but when she gave him a blank stare in return, he figured he’d better explain. “Because yes, it has rained, but not in the last few days. Leaves have been falling pretty steadily. They’re crispy. Coming that way, you can’t exactly—”

  “Sneak up on someone,” she finished, her eyes wide. “Right! And the rangers said she went off on the hike alone, so whoever it was, the person was already down in the gorge. You’re a genius.”

  Linc grinned. “Yep,” he said, a little proud of himself.

  Kylie ripped off another bite, but only stared at the food, clearly thinking. “But how can that be? The rangers specifically said that she was the first one in the park, that she was bright and early.”

  “Well, there are a couple options that I can think of.” When Kylie leaned forward, eager to hear his theories, he smiled. They did make a good team, as insane as that idea was. “She might have been the first one in the park, but that doesn’t mean she had to be the first one down. Especially being slow and not knowing the trail well, she might have spent time checking out the map before she took off. Or maybe she made multiple stops on the way.”

  “So, it could be the second or third person who came into the park?”

  Linc moved his head in a “maybe” gesture. “Yes, but I’d imagine our killer didn’t follow rules and check in at the gate.”

  Kylie nodded vigorously. “That’s what I was thinking too. Are there many ways in?”

  “It’s the wilderness, Lee, and it would be easy to bypass the main entrance to the park. After all, they’re already planning to break the law by killing another human. Being caught on the trail without a permit probably doesn’t scare this person.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Very true.”

  “There’s also a good chance that whoever killed Amy was down there already. And that tells us that the person probably knows the trail well or maybe has been hiding in the area for some time.”

  She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Wow. That’s very Hercule Poirot of you. Way to use those little gray cells.” She finally popped the bite of food into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “So, that means that whoever killed Amy was a stranger to her. Like you said, ‘wrong place, wrong time.’ Her death was random.”

  Linc nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

  “Which makes it all the more probable that all these incidents are connected. But the question is…why?”

  Linc frowned, trying to connect the same dots that Kylie was trying to connect in her mind. “Why what?”

  “Why murder? You heard the officer. Amy wasn’t sexually assaulted. She was just bonked over the head, stripped naked, and thrown in the river. So…why?”

  “For the thrill? Because he could?”

  “Do killers actually do that? Kill a person for the thrill of it?”

  He gave her a solemn look. “Absolutely.”

  She shook her head and grabbed his phone from the cupholder. “I don’t know if I buy it in this case. It doesn’t feel right. Did Will ever text you?”

  “Nope. And that’s not like him.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, flipping through his phone. “You got a text from Dina. She says that Kevin is doing well. Stable and improving. Conscious.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Maybe we should go over there and question him?”

  Linc shook his head. “Give the man a chance to breathe. His injury was pretty severe, and he’d had two days of dehydration. He’s probably on some serious drugs.”

  “All right, all right. Then what?” She thought for a minute and then typed something into the phone. “You said Will lives in Atlanta?”

  Linc nodded.

  She pointed at his phone. “Here it is. Two-seventeen Center Street. We can go check on him.”

  “In Atlanta? That’s two or three hours south, depending on traffic.”

  “Like we have anything better to do,” Kylie said. “All of our other leads are total washouts. Let’s go. I’ve never been to Atlanta, anyway.”

  Although a part of him just wanted to sink into
a bed and crash for a few hours, it was barely four in the afternoon. They had more work to do.

  And although he’d done a good job at hiding it, he really was curious as to where Will had gone off to. Worried too. “All right,” he said.

  Kylie punched the address into his GPS, and they headed toward Atlanta.

  Luckily, most of the traffic was going in the opposite direction, leaving the city, so they made it to his home in a minimum amount of time. The highway dissolved into nice suburban houses, and they found themselves on a pristine street lined with McMansions.

  “Here it is,” Kylie said, pointing out the window. “Number two-seventeen.”

  Linc lifted his sunglasses and checked out Will’s new home. The first thing Linc noticed was that Will had done well for himself. The house was a large, spotless, stucco-walled colonial in a nice development, almost too nice for a bachelor like Will. The development was new. While his home and the houses surrounding it had green, manicured lawns, houses farther down the street were still just frames, and there were dumpsters and backhoes in the yards.

  The second thing Linc noticed was that there was no truck in the driveway.

  That didn’t mean much. Will was the fastidious type, so he probably kept his truck in the garage. Linc unbuckled his seat belt.

  “Stay here,” he said to Storm as she tried to hop out with him, but it was Kylie who nodded, nose buried in his phone, probably following another lead down a rabbit hole with a dead end. She was so obsessed with whatever she was looking at, he could’ve been abducted by UFOs, and she wouldn’t be the wiser.

  Linc walked up the driveway and rang the doorbell.

  The first thing he noticed was that Will’s dog, Star, didn’t bark. Even Storm barked when someone rang the doorbell.

  He waited, hoping to hear footsteps inside. When he didn’t, he rang the doorbell again.

  Nothing.

  Then he looked over at the mailbox. The top was open, and it was overflowing with mail and advertisements. He hadn’t been home today.

  He took a couple steps into the grass and peeked into the nearest window, a picture window in the front of the house. Will hadn’t put up shades yet, and the room was almost completely empty of furniture. Only a large sofa and a few cardboard boxes were scattered about. Made sense if Will had just moved in.

  But no sign that anyone was home.

  He went back to the porch and stood there for a moment, trying to piece it together. Will had been drunk, Jaxon had said. Maybe he’d decided to go to a hotel and sleep it off. He was also a ladies’ man. He could’ve very well picked up a girl and gone back to her place. In fact, he wouldn’t have put it past him.

  He turned to shrug at Kylie, but all he saw was the top of her head, the little pink tie in her ponytail. She was still buried in the phone.

  To make absolute sure, he peeked into the window of the garage. No truck. He then went around to the fence. It was one of those high, white fiberglass fences that allowed absolutely no one to peek through, so that wasn’t a help, but he got the definite feeling that if Star had been on the other side, she’d have been barking her head off by now.

  Conclusion: Will wasn’t home, and neither was his dog.

  Linc jumped back into the truck and frowned at Kylie before throwing the transmission into reverse. “Well, that was a waste of time.”

  Kylie blinked and looked over at him, as if she was surprised to see him. “He said he was going to be at the press conference, right? You heard him say that?”

  Linc nodded. “He must’ve changed his mind. Maybe something came up. It happens.”

  “But you said that’s not like him. Didn’t you say he was the kind of upstanding guy that you’d trust with your life?”

  “I said he didn’t deserve to be on your suspect list,” Linc said as they pulled out of Will’s street. “Not that he was a saint. He drank a lot, partied a lot. I just know he’s not a murderer.”

  Kylie frowned as Linc braked at an intersection. He looked both ways, trying to determine how best to get on the highway and get back to Tallulah Falls so they could resume their investigation.

  Kylie looked up from her phone. “But—”

  “Little help, please?” He pointed left and right.

  Her head bobbed up again. “What?”

  “Which way?”

  “Oh!” Kylie quickly set up the GPS, and as the voice guided him through his next turn, she continued. “What do you think happened to him?”

  He shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “Like I said, the guy’s a little bit of a ladies’ man. My guess is that he went out to that bar with Jaxon, found a girl to hook up with, and he’s with her, in Tallulah Falls. Knowing him, having the time of his life.”

  “Would he not text you to tell you he wasn’t going to make it, if that was the case?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s some really special girl.”

  Kylie’s brow wrinkled. “Jaxon was with him last night. He didn’t mention Will found a girl. Did he?”

  “No, but…Will’s a player. He’d go around the bar and pick up women right and left. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  Truthfully, Linc wasn’t one-hundred-percent on that. But he had to do something before Kylie’s mind spiraled out of control. Sometimes, she got so obsessed and focused on certain details that she failed to see the bigger picture, which wasn’t unusual, considering she’d just started investigating half a year ago.

  “Will’s Facebook profile is public, and he hasn’t updated in two days,” Kylie said.

  Linc never understood the allure of Facebook or any of those social media platforms. He had no interest in knowing what the people in his circle of family and friends had for lunch. So, if someone didn’t post for three days, it meant they were teetering on the brink of death?

  “Okay. Well. What can I say? Maybe he had nothing to brag about.”

  She paged upwards. “In the past, he was updating multiple times every day. I think it’s suspicious.”

  Wow. Linc hadn’t figured Will to be a Facebook slave. “Maybe he, I don’t know, forgot his password,” he muttered, checking the street signs. “I should probably get gas before we go into the mountains.”

  They stopped at a gas station, and meanwhile, Kylie didn’t remove her nose from his phone. In fact, she was now using both of their phones, comparing things on each of the screens. While he did have to admit Amy’s murder was alarming, Kylie was in danger of following her right off the deep end, if she wasn’t careful.

  He couldn’t even be sure she realized that he’d stopped and gotten out of the car, she was that obsessed. He and Storm could’ve very well disappeared into the night, the victims of whatever murderer she was chasing, and she’d never know.

  When he finished filling the tank, he got inside the truck and pulled out onto the road, headed for Tallulah Falls.

  He’d only made it a mile or so when she looked up from the phone and yawned, big and wide. “You should probably fill up before we head into the mountains. Those gas stations up there are a little questionable.”

  He just stared at her.

  It was fixing to be a very long night.

  18

  Inside, the radiator rattled like a death trap. The old Bates motel was not exactly too interested in making sure its guests had the most comfortable night of sleep of their lives.

  That was two nights in a row for Kylie.

  She felt like a zombie. Like she should be able to fall asleep if she simply blinked.

  But every time she closed her eyes, more questions and ideas and thoughts popped into her head.

  The thing was, Linc was just too blasé about these things.

  Kylie couldn’t understand it. A murder had been committed. Injustice had been done. In Kylie’s eyes, that meant all hands on deck. No sleep until the criminal was behind bars. Work-work-work until the answers were found.

  She couldn’t even think about sleeping when this was on her mind.

&n
bsp; Unfortunately, her better half had a different way of looking at these things.

  She looked over at Linc, who was resting peacefully—too peacefully—next to her in the hotel bed.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  Kylie was now more awake than she’d ever been. Her mind was spinning with thoughts of poor Amy Cooper and the other victims of Tallulah Gorge. Whenever she looked something up, it led her to another idea, and another, and another, until she realized she’d written fifteen pages of notes and questions.

  Already, she imagined she had made more headway than the police in solving the poor girl’s murder. No, she didn’t have their resources, but she’d been devoting all her time to this. She felt like a crime-solving machine, ready to kick some criminal ass.

  After she’d finished putting together a ton of questions about Amy Cooper’s background, she began to research the theory that Linc had come up with earlier. That the killer was a homicidal maniac who could’ve been at the bottom of the gorge, waiting for someone, anyone to appear.

  There were also two “back entrances” to the park that someone could have used to enter and come up on that side of the gorge. There was a chance someone could have used one of those, but if they had, the person had to have enough knowledge to know they even existed.

  Even though so many questions surrounded Amy’s death, Kylie felt fairly certain of only one thing: Amy Cooper had not known her attacker. She’d been hit from behind, surprised.

  And even that, she wasn’t so sure of. It was all just a bunch of conjecture. Even if she was closer than the police to answers, she had to admit, she hadn’t made much progress.

  Sighing, she looked at the awful seventies-style art on the paneled wall across from her. It was a cartoonish paint-by-number picture from the gorge. She rubbed her eyes, then looked at Linc, whose head was buried under a pillow.