Rivaled in Murder

by Helen Gray

  “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Delia insisted between broken sobs.

  “Maybe not the first time,” Toni allowed. “But you sure did the second—and however many others there have been.”

  Suddenly Delia caved in, her shoulders slumping as all life drained from her. She sank back into the chair and laid her head on her folded arms, sobbing so hard Toni feared she would collapse.

  As Toni pulled her phone from her purse, she signaled with head and eye motions for her mother to stand guard over the beaten woman. Then she dialed Buck.

  “Yeah, what are you up to now?” he barked.

  “Mom and I are at Sunbeam Manor, and there’s a nurse’s aide here who is ready to talk to you.”

  “Delia?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  *

  Tuesday morning Toni was working at her desk during her free period when she was once again interrupted by the phone. She went to grab it, hoping it was Buck.

  It was.

  “We arrested Connie Ebert about an hour ago,” he said without preliminaries. “She’s a tough cookie, but she stopped denying everything once she realized how much we know. We have Delia’s confession, and enough evidence to convict both of them.”

  Toni breathed easier, having hardly slept all night for fear that Nurse Ebert would somehow elude them. “I’m glad the culprits are caught, but it doesn’t bring back the innocent people they killed,” she said, her heart aching.

  “Yeah, I hear you. Okay, I …”

  “Wait. I want to ask one more question,” she practically yelled, afraid he would disconnect before she could get it asked.

  Silence.

  “Does Todd Wilkins have an alibi?”

  “We checked his whereabouts during the time frame when those kids had to have been shot. Like he claimed, he was at the emergency room in Poplar Bluff with his sister. He had picked her up from her job after she called and said she was sick and had fallen getting into her car to go home. She cracked her elbow. They didn't get home until the next morning. He’s not our killer.”

  The phone went immediately silent this time.

  Chapter 18

  "Stay out of that." Gabe twisted around in the passenger seat to glare at Garrett.

  "I'm not doing anything," his little brother snapped back at him.

  "You were getting in the pizza. I smell it."

  "I just looked in the box."

  Toni's grip tightened on the wheel. "Stop squabbling, boys."

  She was tired. And worried. She didn't need this. After the long day at school, she had yielded to the boys' request and picked up pizzas on the way home.

  "When's Dad coming home?"

  "He should be here later tonight." She pulled into their driveway and pressed the remote. When the garage door lifted, she found she was wrong. Kyle's truck was already parked inside.

  "Yay, Dad's already here," Gabe cheered to the accompaniment of Garrett's hand clapping behind them. "Fooled you, didn't he, Mom?" he chortled.

  Uh, oh. She should have gotten another pizza.

  The boys raced inside with the pizza while Toni gathered her bags and followed them.

  "Hey, Mom. Dad got pizza, too."

  Gabe's announcement made Toni pause in the kitchen doorway and exchange looks of amusement with her handsome husband.

  "Great minds, huh?" He took the box from her and planted a kiss on her mouth.

  They were at the table eating when the land line rang. Kyle’s expression was intuitive. "It'll be for you."

  Toni reached behind her and grabbed it from the counter. "Hello."

  "Mrs. Donovan?" A trembling female voice she didn't recognize came over the line, faint and hard to understand.

  "Yes. May I help you?"

  "The girls are gone."

  "What do you mean? Who are you?"

  "I'm Melody's mother. I've just talked to Zoe's mom. They're gone," she repeated on a strangled sob.

  Alarm bells went off in Toni’s head. "Have you called the police?"

  "Yes, I just did. But I thought you might want to know—and maybe you could help."

  How could she help? "Can you give me their cell phone numbers?"

  "Just a minute."

  Toni waited, her mind racing. What could have happened now?

  "Here they are." As Mrs. Haynes quoted the numbers, Toni grabbed a pen and jotted them on the notepad by the phone.

  "The girls were in my sixth hour class, and I saw them in the hall after school dismissed for the day. How do you know they're missing?"

  The woman choked on a sob. "Last night Melody asked if she could spend the night with Zoe tonight. I didn’t really want her to, but I finally gave in and said she could. She took a packed gym bag to school with her this morning, so I didn't think anything about it when she didn't come home after school. But then Zoe's mom called and asked if Zoe was here. When I said no, that Melody was supposed to spend the night with her, she got real upset. Zoe had asked if she could spend the night here, and Mrs. Cahill, like me, finally gave in and said she could."

  "Did she say if Zoe took extra things with her this morning?"

  "Yes. She said Zoe had a gym bag with her that looked full."

  Toni sought to soothe the woman. "I'm sure they're all right. They'll ..."

  "A police car just pulled up in front of my house," the woman interrupted. The line went dead.

  "Zoe and Melody have disappeared," Toni explained to Kyle as she dialed Zoe's cell number. There was no answer. She called Melody's number. The same result.

  Fighting panic, Toni put the phone down. A kaleidoscope of visions ran through her mind. Memories spun and intermingled, and she tried desperately to make sense of them. Had the girls been kidnapped? Had they gone to find Angie?

  Angie. Angela. Angela? Angel of death.

  Death. Decker.

  Her brain did a double take. How could she have missed it?

  Toni turned to face Kyle. "I need to go see Buck."

  "Go on. We'll save you some pizza."

  She grabbed her coat and purse and raced to the garage, thinking frantically as she climbed into the van. There was a strong possibility that Buck was the officer at Melody's house, given his extreme interest in this case. She drove there instead of the police station.

  Thankful that everybody knew where almost everybody else lived in a small town, Toni arrived at the Hayne's residence in five minutes flat. Buck was just getting into his cruiser as she pulled up behind him and honked.

  He glanced back and recognized her. Before he could get away, Toni hopped out of the van and ran to his car. She opened the passenger door and slid into the seat.

  "I have to go," he growled.

  "I know, but Mrs. Haynes called me. She thinks maybe I can help find the girls."

  He halted in the act of turning the key. "Well, can you?"

  "I'm not sure, but when I hung up from talking to her, an idea flashed through my mind."

  "Talk fast," he ordered.

  She did. "As you know, the girls and I visited their friend, Farris, at the hospital. Only partly conscious, he tried to talk to them. He even called them angels of mercy and joy, his nicknames for them. At least that's what it sounded like.”

  Buck's brow creased. “Do you think the same person who killed those first two kids—probably all three of them—ran him off the road?”

  “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. Farris had been rambling about angels, and when we asked him if he knew who hurt him, he made a slight head motion that indicated he did. He said something that sounded like ‘the angel of death.’ At least that’s what his mother thought he said. She was very upset and interpreted his words to mean he thought he was dying.”

  Buck’s head nodded, his eyes drilling her. “That’s what she told me. The boy was sedated and sleeping when I was there.”

  “When we left the hospital,” Toni continued, “we went to the police station.�
��

  “I know that,” he interrupted, his voice brusque with impatience.

  Toni wagged a finger at him. “But you don’t see my point. While we were there, Mr. and Mrs. Decker arrived and reported their daughter, Angie, missing. I think I see a connection.”

  His attention sharpened. “All right, go on.”

  She drew a deep breath. “I remember seeing an odd look on Zoe’s face when Farris made that statement about the angel of death. At the time I didn't think of Angie as Angela, nor did I recall that her last name is Decker. I think Zoe realized that Farris was actually trying to say Angela Decker’s name. Angie’s not running from the killer. She is the killer. And the girls have gone after her.”

  “You’re making some sense, but we have no proof of any of this,” Buck objected, not totally convinced.

  “But you can get some.”

  He began speaking, as if convincing himself. “Detective Allen had Angie’s parents check her belongings. The mother reported that a sleeping bag and food supplies are missing. The girl must have camped out, maybe at their cabin, these past three nights. Allen is on his way to their house now. I'll call and tell him to check Angela’s car for damage and compare its paint to that on the Gunther boy’s bumper.”

  While he made his call, Toni tried again to ring Zoe and Melody. Neither one answered. At this point she suspected they were just refusing to do so, but she couldn't be sure. Until certain they were safe, she had to assume they were unable to respond or call.

  “What were you doing?” Buck demanded when he disconnected.

  “Trying to call the girls. Hoping they have their cell phones with them.”

  “Give me those numbers. If you make contact, we can trace the location of the phone you reach.”

  Toni displayed the numbers saved in her phone and held it where he could read them. While he copied them into his phone, another thought occurred to her. “I think you should check Linda Fisher and Angie Decker’s phone records.”

  A flash of irritation crossed his face at having her tell him how to do his job. But his expression cleared as he processed the suggestion. “I’ll do it when I get back to the office.”

  “I’d like to see Melody’s room.”

  Buck scowled. "Now?"

  Toni nodded decisively. "Yes. I want to see her computer if it's there."

  "The police technicians have already checked it."

  "I know, but my gut says we need to check it again."

  He considered for a moment, and then sighed in resignation and reached for his door handle.

  Mrs. Haynes met them at the door, where she had obviously been watching while they talked in the cruiser. "Have you learned something?"

  Buck shook his head. "No, but Toni here would like to see Melody's computer."

  The woman eyed Toni in puzzlement. "Sure, if you think it might help."

  She led them across the living room and down a hall to her daughter's room. Inside, it struck Toni as a typical teenager's domain, a bit messy, but not too bad. The computer sat on the foot of the bed. Toni sat next to it and turned it on, silently urging it to hurry through the boot process.

  Not sure what she was looking for, and feeling like a voyeur, Toni clicked on the desktop email icon. When it opened, a list of messages appeared. The pale color of the lettering indicated all of them had been opened. She looked at the dates and times on them. They had arrived daily, but she knew no way to tell when they had been opened.

  Toni thought back. The computers had been taken by the police on Thursday the eleventh, and returned the twenty-third. She checked the dates again. About twenty messages had dates later than the thirteenth. That meant those had been downloaded after the girls got their computers back and checked their email.

  A tingle of excitement running through her, Toni began to scan the sources of the messages. Obviously from friends, most of them had cutesy user names.

  IceMan. CheerCap. Gump. MallJo. BigGuy. GoFish.

  Her eyes stopped. GoFish? Could that possibly be Linda Fisher? The time shown on that message indicated it had been sent just a few hours before Linda’s death. Whatever the reason—line speed, stuck in an intermediary server, or any number of snags—it looked to Toni as if it had hung up in cyber space until sometime after the police technician had examined the computers and not been downloaded until the last time the girls had checked their email.

  Her hand trembling, Toni clicked on it—and froze as she read.

  Zoe and Melody:

  I’m sending this message to both of you.

  I’m sorry. Angie made me help her hurt you and make that fake Facebook page. She hates everybody right now, especially you. She’s scary.

  She was real mad when she found out Brant was seeing Shelby. She thought he only loved her. When we got off work at the restaurant that night, she asked me to go with her to spy on Brant. She wanted to see if he took Shelby to their special place.

  She drove to the edge of the park and parked on the side of the road. We walked in there and saw Brant’s car. Then we sneaked up close so we could see who was in it. When Angie saw Shelby with him, she went crazy. She pulled out the target shooting gun that was still in her bag and shot Shelby. When Brant screamed at her, she shot him, too.

  We ran back to the car, and she said if I ever told anyone, she would say it was me who did it. Then she made me help her attack you because you knew about the gun.

  She never said, but I’m sure she ran Farris off the road. I’m so scared of her. I don’t know what to do.

  I’m sorry.

  Linda

  P.S. I think Angie’s pregnant.

  Chapter 19

  Toni looked up at Buck and pointed at the computer screen. "Linda Fisher sent this to both girls before her death. It must have hovered around in cyberspace and finally showed up in their inboxes yesterday."

  He leaned down to read it. "I'll take this," he said when he finished, indicating the computer. "I'll ramp up the search for them and deliver this back to the station."

  As soon as Toni shut it down, he headed to the door with it. She followed him, but went to her own vehicle, thinking fast as she started the motor. She pulled out her phone and dialed John. When he answered, she gave him a fast recount of what was happening.

  "I'm going to look for them," she said as she checked for traffic in the street.

  "Swing by my place and I'll go with you."

  Toni welcomed the offer and headed in the direction of his house. Kyle would not want her to go alone, but she needed him at home with the boys. Having John along would give her more security—and make Kyle feel better knowing she was not alone.

  Her colleague was waiting for her in his driveway when she pulled up at his house. She handed him her phone as he clambered into the van. “Will you text Kyle while I drive and tell him you’re with me and what we’re doing?”

  He took it. “Sure.”

  "Why does God let kids be kidnapped and killed?" she asked, pulling onto the highway.

  "God doesn't control these things," he said as he buckled his seat belt. "He gave us free will. People who are ruled by evil do them. We can't keep them safe in our own strength. God is the one who will provide our needs."

  With grim purpose, Toni headed to the home of Olivia Franklin, a friend the girls had teamed up with on their science project. It was unlikely, but she needed to find out if Zoe and Melody had been in touch with any of their friends.

  As promised, John texted Kyle while she drove. “He says be careful,” he said when he got a response a minute after sending the message.

  When they walked up onto the porch of the Franklin home minutes later, John raised his hand to ring the doorbell, but the door swung open. Mrs. Franklin wore an apron and was wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Alarm flashed across her face. "Mrs. Donovan?"

  "May we speak to your daughter, Olivia?"

  "I'm here." The red headed girl who came from the next room was as tall as her mother.

  "H
ave you seen or heard from Zoe and Melody?" Toni asked immediately.

  Olivia's face drained of color. "What do you mean? Are they missing?"

  Toni took a deep breath. "Their parents and the police are looking for them."

  The girl shook her head. "I have no idea where they are."

  "Will you let the police know if you hear from them?"

  "Of course."

  They turned and hurried back to the van.

  "Where to now?" Toni muttered, taking her phone that John handed her as they buckled their seat belts. She knew that people on the run tended to go to familiar territory. A picture of the school came to mind. She dropped the phone into her purse and put the van in motion.

  "They can't answer, or are refusing to. I wish I knew which," she muttered in frustration.

  “Where to next?” John repeated.

  As they sped along the highway, Toni informed him of her intent as it took shape in her mind. "I'm going to their old school. Maybe they're with friends from there.” She increased the van’s speed.

  When they arrived at the Brownville School, Toni groaned under her breath. The parking lot was almost full of parked vehicles. The sign at the edge of the lot indicated that a basketball game was in progress. She turned in anyhow.

  As she cruised around the lot, Toni started to call the girls again. But before she could dial, her phone rang. Startled, she almost dropped it and braked to a stop. Thankfully no other vehicles were on the move. She peered at the caller ID. "It's Melody," she said in strangled excitement before answering. "Hello."

  Toni listened intently to Melody's crackling, barely distinguishable words for several moments, and then smacked the steering wheel. "She’s gone."

  "Who’s gone?"

  "Melody. She said Zoe told her not to answer my calls. But she called while Zoe and the boy they're with, who is Farris's younger brother, were getting sodas. She said they plan to locate the killer for the police so Shelby's mom will be sure to get the reward money. They came here to the school to see if Angie was at the game, but they didn't find her. She said they've gone to look for her at her folks’ cabin. She ended the call before I could ask her where the cabin is located."