The show-goers chatted for hours at the front of the square two-story venue--a renovated Victorian building near the heart of the small historic Arkansas river town. Distance distorted the subject of their discussions, but Cain assumed they exchanged pleasantries, false-smiled compliments, and debated over which Chopin rendition the renowned child pianist performed more adeptly.
Throughout the evening, pairs of two or more crossed the street and entered the overflow parking lot that Cain crouched behind. He dropped his body flush against the dewy grass and peered over the train track, involuntary filling his scratchy sinuses with the metallic smell of the bullhead rail. Forty-plus feet away, the well-dressed strangers ducked into their expensive cars and sped down the street. Cain remained absolute in his stillness and silence, becoming a subtle blob in the nightly shadows.
The plastic camera mounted on the back of the Opera House watched him like God’s eye. It saw nothing for, days prior, Cain had sabotaged it without issue. All it took was a little weed, and the dim-witted teenager at the reception desk opened the security door. He asked questions but got no response. Cain followed behind, disguised of course, and did what he had to do. None would be the wiser as the hardware had already been doomed by age. The same afternoon, he went into the nearby pharmacy from where the overflow lot was rented and lollygagged falsely amidst the aisles until he caught a glimpse of the various security monitors in the closet behind the pharmacist's desk. Their vision only covered three-thirds of the parking lot, further fortifying Cain’s position.
Midnight neared... along with the girl. Keisha Rines wore an elegant purple dress over her short and skinny body. Slinky curls tumbled down her exposed shoulders and outlined her heart-shaped face. Little silver bells in her hair twinkled in the street light. Twiddling her thumbs, the child pianist walked with her immaculately dressed parents, Avery and Trisha Rines. Their dark skin caused the three of them to stand out from the rest of the Caucasian patrons that swiftly departed. On their way to the BMW, they trekked across the lot. Cain felt for the knife in his jacket just in case.
About fifty feet away, a plump woman in lively colors interrupted the Rines. “Isn’t she just darling!”
“Oh, she is,” Trisha replied with motherly pride.
Keisha sighed and looked at her suffocating but gorgeous heels. As the conversation trudged onward, Keisha tugged on her father’s sleeve. She whispered in his ear and begged him with puppy dog eyes after he pulled away. Annoyed, the towering man surrendered the car keys and returned to the discussion. Pleased with the victory, the eleven-year-old practically skipped to the BMW.
Cain released his iron grip from the knife and felt his heart thump in his chest as he watched the girl drift farther from her parents. His doorway was small and ever closing. Now or never. Silently, he rose from his hiding place and stepped across over the track.
The light from the backseat spilled over Keisha as she knelt and removed her tight heels. She curled her sore toes on the coarse concrete and looked up to the man standing atop the mound.
Cool sweat dampened Cain’s clothes, but his resolve stayed steel. Confident. Countless hours of planning came down to this one final moment. He rolled back his finger in a come-hither motion, banking on the rapport he had established at the playground.
Keisha watched him cautiously. She squinted her eyes, only able to make out his silhouette. Then, upon realization, a sweet smile softened her face. Taking one last look at her parents, she approached the mound, tiptoeing on her bare feet. Cain hiked down the grass and dirt, careful not to leave boot prints, and met her at the edge of the parking lot. With her innocent almond eyes, the girl stared at him like he was a prince rescuing her from a tall tower. She opened her mouth to speak. To thank him, Cain assumed, but he would never be certain as he shoved the cloth against her glossed lips. Terror, confusion, betrayal all washed over her face within that moment. She twisted--the silver bells in her hair jingling--and dashed for her parents.
She got a step.
Cain’s forearm slung around her neck and yanked her small body against his. He stepped backwards up the mound, dragging the girl with him. Keisha’s sprayed curls nuzzled against Cain’s stuffy nose as he watched the adults still locked in dialogue.
The chloroformed cloth muted Keisha’s scream. She reached out to her parents in a final act of desperation, but the plump woman preoccupied the couple. Within seconds, her extended arm fell limp, followed by the rest of her frail body. Cain wrapped his arms under her knees and upper back, carrying her to the tracks. By the time Avery and Trisha finished their discussion, their daughter had vanished into the black of night.
Cain had long since stored Keisha in his “dark place” when the private investigator arrived back in town and took the case for a hefty sum. He spotted her through the window of his favorite coffee shop, walking down the sidewalk. Cain involuntarily lowered his book. The Florida sun had tanned the woman’s tall and slender body, and she moved with unyielding purpose. By the intrepid look on her face, her mind must’ve been working overtime. That brought a smile to Cain’s face. When she disappeared from his sight, Cain’s eyes returned to the book but his thoughts stayed on the woman. He sipped his latte.
On the fourth night, he delivered his first “gift” to the Rines’s doorstep. One slap against the metaphorical beehive, stirring the media and police into a frenzy.
Seated at his old table, Cain scooped up a spoon full of Frost Flakes and watched indifferently. The little girl whimpered nearby, but he chose to ignore it. An APB appeared on the screen. It boasted a stranger’s face. Lowering the spoon into the cereal, he frowned and pushed the half-finished bowl away from him. With gentle movements, Cain opened each of the four flaps of the dish cloth, revealing the object within. His fingers curled around the cold handle. His eyes crawled up the wavy steel texture of the blade. Time to continue the countdown.
Cain blended into the tiny crowd of the late morning onlookers. In a dream-like state, Avery and Trisha Rines climbed into the BMW as the police condemned the property as a crime scene: the place of his second gift. The P.I. arrived in her big black Chevy truck, missing them by moments. She spoke to the wide-set elderly African-American woman being forced from her home and made her a promise she wouldn’t be able to keep.
Cain followed the P.I. back to her office and, from the rooftop of the adjacent building, spied on her and her father sifting through file boxes and evidence. Anna Dedrick, he jotted down her name. He wanted to knock on her door, to know her better, before the countdown completed. Foolishness. He shook the thought out of his head and put away his binoculars. As he climbed down the ladder, Anna burst out of the office and ran toward her truck. Intrigued, Cain followed behind. The investigator made two stops. The first was to an apartment and the second to a cabin, neither of which had connections to Cain. He sighed in disappointment. When the afternoon sun began fading, she returned to the police station with the man from the APB.
Cain opened the book across his lap and waited. Soon enough, Anna exited the station and spotted the car. Cain didn’t move. He felt his muscles tense and his breathing quicken. Finally, something. Another vehicle screeched its tires and escaped down the road. The investigator took the bait and burned rubber. Cain tossed the book into the backseat, twisted the ignition, checked his mirrors, and trailed behind. The chase was on.
Miles into the rural outskirts of Van Buren, the investigator hit the road spikes Cain had concealed in dry dirt a day ago and lost the second vehicle. Anna’s tire popped and her truck swerved down a slope, crashing headlong into a tree. The trap wouldn’t kill her… or so Cain hoped as he stepped out of his car. Either way, he made the dusty road the next place for his gift. As the countdown ticked away, the game was changing. Evolving. A smile curled on Cain’s face.
His next target came to mind.
2
Arrivals
At the break of day, an unmarked black SRT8 Dodge Charger sped through Van Buren's historical d
istrict. Seamlessly connected red brick buildings, boutiques, and salons flanked both sides of the wide street. Modern vehicles and billboards juxtaposed their expertly restored late 19th century Victorian architecture.
Flawless live renditions of Chopin, Liszt, and Mozart flooded Agent Justin Rennard’s cabby, tempting him to close his eyes and lose himself in the harmony. It seemed inconceivable that the hands of an eleven-year-old from a small nameless town composed these ballots. Keisha Rines, another victim of the “Lang Lang Effect,” driven to the ivory keys and destined to be a master.
The historical district faded into a country road until Rennard arrived at the Van Buren Police Department. He parked, looking up at the waving American flag backed by the brilliant crimson sunrise. Zipping up his FBI jacket, he stepped out into the morning cool. The breeze tickled his ears as he watched chirping birds and long flat clouds glide overhead. He walked up the front steps, taking some time to pick up and toss out a coffee cup littering the front lawn. Then he entered.
Anna Dedrick stood in the breakroom, resting her bottom against the counter next to the steaming coffee pot. A sleep-deprived, glossy sheen coated her eyes. She sipped the burnt liquid from the Styrofoam cup, staring at the creases on the tile floor. A borrowed grey Van Buren PD sweater replaced her glossy purple button up. Yesterday’s shootout clung to her thoughts like the paint flakes and debris that stuck in her long brown hair and sprinkled down the front of her black slacks.
“We’re getting started,” Sheriff Garrett Greenbell said as he entered.
Hands cupped around her drink, Anna tracked his movements to the coffee pot. The sheriff with white combed-over hair and spade-shaped beard filled his gunky, unwashed mug with more steaming black liquid and brought it up to his lips, wincing at the heat. “Mathis insists on keeping you.” He blew into the cup, making the drink smell like cigarettes.
“And you don’t?” Anna replied.
Sheriff Greenbell frowned, keeping the drink level with his spade-shaped beard, and then tried another sip.
Anna returned her gaze to the floor, keeping her lips pursed.
“You’re the lucky one,” Greenbell started. “You can go home. I’d kill someone to sleep right now.”
Anna didn’t believe him. Her father’s friend wasn’t the same man that Anna knew as a child. He wanted fame, Anna could sense it by the way he talked to the press with a twinkle in his eye. If glory meant a few sleepless nights, Greenbell would gladly make the sacrifice. Not Anna. She’d had enough of the spotlight in Miami after the Dade County Human Trafficking case and the Beckham murders. All that mattered now was the job. To hell with the press.
Anna locked eyes with Greenbell. “I’m not stopping until Keisha Rines is safe, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll find her and the other one.”
The sheriff mocked a smile briefly before letting his expressive face fall to its normally fierce but deceptively friendly demeanor. “I’ll see you in there.”
Rapping his knuckles on the countertop, he took his coffee and left the breakroom. Anna took her own and followed, wired and ready to act.
Overworked police officers and patrol cops bustled about the bullpen, making calls and doubling their shifts for the officers assigned to the Rines case. They paid Anna no mind as she entered the windowed briefing room tucked at the corner of the hall.
Forensic analysts, detectives, and consultants filled plastic chairs that formed an arch around the massive whiteboard plastered with crime photos. The room was a fraction of the size of the one in Miami. Everyone within functioned on two or three hours of sleep during the last forty-eight hours, and their yawns and thousand-yard stares highlighted their deprivation.
Anna slipped into an unoccupied seat in the back row as Sergeant Mathis continued speaking. He shot her a brief glance. His bulldog-like face made him appear to be in a constant state of anger. His bald head grabbed the light and his uniform hugged his muscular body like a second skin.
“At 4 am Monday night, less than thirty-six hours after the disappearance, Mrs. Rines discovered the first finger on her doorstep.”
He pointed to the first photo under Keisha Rines’s glamour shot. It showed a fuzzy velvet ring box, popped open on the flagstone doorstep and containing the African-American pianist’s detached pinky.
“Again,” he gestured to the picture below. A second pinky in a velvet ring box placed on a prickly, worn-out welcome mat. “Another was delivered to Mai Santos, Keisha Rines’s grandmother, during the time Avery and Trisha Rines were staying there.”
“Finally,” Mathis gestured to the final picture taped to the whiteboard. “The third and final of Keisha’s fingers was discovered on Tanner Street twenty miles outside of town.”
Anna watched a green officer scribble notes on a notepad beside her.
“Ms. Dedrick, elaborate for us,” Mathis commanded.
Anna rose from her seat. All eyes followed her to the front, bringing her back to the middle school spelling bee. Greenbell sat in the front row beside an unfamiliar handsome man with a zipped-up FBI jacket who acknowledged her with a nod and small smile.
“This is private investigator Anna Dedrick,” Mathis informed the room. More specifically, the FBI agent. “Hired by Avery and Trisha Rines, she has been consulting with us on this case.”
Leaving the coffee cup on a small stand nearby, Anna focused on the whiteboard. A glamour shot of Keisha Rines, eleven years old, world-renowned piano prodigy, hung above a series of crime scene photos like the top head of a totem pole. A wide smile parted the starlet’s lips and caused her shadowed eyes to squint with glee. Rehearsed emotion, without a doubt, but Anna knew that the little girl’s unheard, terrified cries were as real as the distraught parents and overworked investigators that pursued her endlessly. Three photos trailed beneath the glamour shot. Each displayed the same type of velvet ring box containing a severed finger. The end of the list showcased a ring finger. With the way the perpetrator delivered it, it might as well have been the middle.
“I was pursuing an early ‘90s Corvette,” Anna started, remembering the aged vehicle speeding down the dirt road ahead of her. “We started here, at the police station, and went all the way up here.” She traced the local map north, ending just outside of the Ozark Mountains. “While chasing who we would soon discover to be Edger Strife--” She moved her finger to the mugshot of a sixty-year-old man with cold eyes, gaunt leathery features, and a gray ponytail. “--my tire blew out and I crashed into a ditch. Strife, or someone else, doubled back and left the box for me to find.”
“Why?” The handsome FBI agent asked. With a middle weight build, the stranger had a clean-shaven jack-knife jawline, dimpled chin, light brown eyes, and lightly gelled hair. “That’s a huge risk that could’ve gotten him, or her, caught or killed.”
By the way the other officers and Mathis looked at Anna, they had the same question.
“To taunt me. Intimidate me,” Anna explained. “I was making progress and it scared him. He returned the favor.”
“Good theory,” the agent replied earnestly. “But not true.”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest. “What is the truth, Agent…”
“Justin Rennard. FBI CARD team. Glad to be here.” He acknowledged the room with a quick wave.
“Agent Rennard will be consulting on the Rines case until Keisha Rines and the second victim are rescued and their abductor is in custody,” Mathis interjected. “I expect full cooperation from all of you.”
“May I?” Rennard asked as he stood from his seat. Anna gestured for him to take the floor. Rennard turned to the crowd. “The third box wasn’t a threat. It was an invitation. A proposal of sorts.”
Anna felt the hair on her neck stand up.
Agent Rennard continued. “Every finger was packaged in identical ring boxes in the same fixed position--as if the finger were to hold a ring. The two pinkies were delivered to the Rines after video footage from Hikers Middle School was discovered.”
“The perp would’ve known that the delivery of those boxes would spark a further investigation. This late into the abduction, he could’ve been four or five states over. If he wanted money, he would’ve left a ransom note with the first or second finger. After all, harming a child in such a way takes a certain... will. One not possessed by most of us.” Rennard looked over the photos with a certain admiration. “No, this is his game. Like Zodiak, this guy is building a puzzle he wants us to solve.”
“So we can catch him?” Sheriff Greenbell asked.
Rennard’s face scrunched up. “This guy doesn’t have any interest in being caught. He wants something else. What, I don’t know.”
“He delivered the finger to me. Why?” Anna asked.
Rennard locked his soft eyes with Anna. “The ring finger in the box is symbolic. He’s proposing to you, Ms. Dedrick. He wants you to be part of his game.”
The notion made Anna queasy. She didn’t know what that meant. She was unsure if she wanted to know. The room went quiet. Agent Rennard returned to his seat.
Mathis stepped in front of the whiteboard, prompting Anna to whimsically step aside.
“Return your attention to the matter at hand,” Mathis said and pointed to the second column on the whiteboard. It read “Victim Two” in black dry erase with a question mark and a single photo. The finger lay in a red velvet ring box. Caucasian and judging by length, width, and the chipped pink nail polish, it belonged to a female.
A few officers shifted in their seats.
With the cut slightly off-center, it could be ascertained that the blade separated the appendage with a single swift motion. Pruned lightly, the flesh’s rosy hue had devolved into one pale and sickly. Like the others they’d discovered, the point of severance had been washed and wiped clean of blood before being placed in the gift box.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 45