Found With Murder (3 page)

R
ilynne pulled a pillow over her face, refusing to admit the day had begun.  She closed her eyes tight and begged her mind to go back to sleep.  After fifteen minutes, she resigned to the fact that it was a hopeless thought and sat up.  Like they had every morning for the past week, her eyes instantly moved to the garment bag hanging on the back of her bedroom door.

Her heart ached when she thought about what it held.

She sat in bed staring at it until the silence was interrupted by a knock at the door before it slowly creaked open.

“I made breakfast,” Amber said.  Her eyes moved over Rilynne's sullen expression and she walked into the room.  “You can't stay in bed all day.”

“I know,” mumbled Rilynne.  She forced back the tears she felt building inside.  “I was kind of hoping last night was just a bad dream.”  A low sigh escaped her as she ran her fingers through her hair.  “Today was supposed to be a happy day.  The only thing I feel right now is dread.  I'm afraid to even look at my phone because I might have a message waiting for me.”

Amber climbed up on the bed next to Rilynne.  “If anything had happened, good or bad, you would have heard about it.  At the risk of sounding cliché, sometimes no news is good news.”

Rilynne let out a shaky breath as a tear pushed its way out.  “You know the odds, Mom.  No matter how much reassurance I give Lori, the chances of finding her unharmed… You know what I saw, what I felt.”

Amber reached up and gently wiped the tear from Rilynne’s cheek.  “There can be many reasons for him to have felt that way,” she said.  “But dwelling on that isn't going to help you find her and bring her home.  You need to be strong for Lori and for Kim.  They need you right now and you can't help them if you fall apart.”

“Okay,” Rilynne nodded.  She wiped her eyes and tried to push the horrible images in her head aside.  Her mom was right.  She would be no help to anyone if she couldn't clear her mind and focus.  “You know, I'm supposed to be getting married in six hours.”

“Use the anger you feel from having your day stolen,” Amber said,  “Replace the sorrow with anger and use it to be strong.  Now, pull yourself together and get out of bed before your breakfast gets cold.”

Rilynne stared at her mother in disbelief as she slid off the bed and left the room.  No matter the situation, no matter how bad things got, Amber always seemed to know exactly what to say to get her motivated.

After taking one last look at the garment bag, Rilynne walked out after her.

The whole house smelled good when she stepped out the door.  Though she’d had no desire to eat anything when she woke up, now her stomach was screaming at her.

“So are you going into the office?” Amber asked as she placed a plate down on the dining room table in front of Rilynne.

She took a bite from a piece of bacon and shook her head.  “Not right now.  Wooldridge is in working with the major crimes unit.  I'm going to go over to Lori's and see if we can pull together a list of anyone who might have been in contact with Kim,” she said.

“Shouldn't that have been done last night?”

Rilynne nodded. “Wilcome tried, but Lori was too upset to do anything.  Apparently after they got her home, she just sat down and stared out the window.  I'm hoping her shock has eased enough for her to be able to help now.”

“I can only imagine what she's going through,” Amber said.  “I remember when you were three, I found the front door of our house wide open and you were nowhere to be found.  I panicked, thinking someone must have come in and grabbed you.”

Rilynne looked up curiously.  “Where was I?”

“Sound asleep in the bottom of the hall closet.  I guess the door hadn't been latched all the way and blew open with the wind.  And you-” Amber shook her head, “-said you didn't want to be blown away so you went in the closet.  During the few minutes it took me to realize the door was open and the time I spent frantically searching for you, you apparently just fell asleep.”

Rilynne grinned.  She wondered why she had never heard the story before, but decided not to ask.  “How did you find me?”

“I opened the door to grab my shoes so I could go out knocking on doors while I waited for the police.”

Although Rilynne didn't remember the event, it didn't surprise her at all.  She didn't know why, but she always felt safe in the bottom of the closet.  That was until she found a shrine to Ben's late brother hidden in the back of one.  Now every time she stepped into her closet, she felt a little creeped out.

“Well, I told Katy I would go back over this morning and stay with her while her husband is at work,” Amber said.  “Call me if anything turns up.”

“I will,” Rilynne said.

She finished her breakfast and walked back to her room, intentionally avoiding looking at her dress.  After changing, she walked out the front door and down the street to Lori's house.

When she walked in, she found Lori sitting just where Wilcome had left her the night before.  Unsurprisingly, she was still wearing her dress from the rehearsal dinner.

“Has she moved at all?” Rilynne asked Joe.  He looked over at his fiancé and shook his head.  There was a hurt in his eyes that made Rilynne ill.  She tried to look away from it but she couldn't. 

Joe leaned against the kitchen counter and rubbed his face.  “I tried to get her to eat something, but she didn't seem to be able to hear me at all,” he said.  He had dark circles under his tired eyes.  He hadn't slept at all.  “She was watching the news all night.  I finally had to turn the television off.”

“Good,” Rilynne said.  She knew from personal experience that they would report anything, no matter if there were facts to back it up.  The last thing Lori needed was to hear speculations.

She looked around the house.  There was a feeling of sadness about it that was almost sickening.  Wilcome was sound asleep where he sat on the couch.  Jerkins, half asleep himself, was setting up equipment on the dining room table.  Lori was staring blankly out the window in the living room, dried makeup runs covering her face.  She didn't appear to have even noticed Rilynne's arrival.

“Where's Harper?” she asked.

“I had my mom come pick him up,” Joe said.  He poured her a cup of coffee and sat it down on the island in front of her.  “She lives just an hour outside of town, so we can bring him
back if you need anything.  I just thought it best to get him away from all of this.  He blames himself for Kim being taken.”

“He shouldn't,” she said, thinking back to the flash she had seen.  “We had Kim's shoe printed.  While we didn't find any belonging to the abductor, we did find Harper's.  He grabbed on to her and tried to pull her away from the man.  He was incredibly brave.  If he hadn't been there, the man may have been able to get her out of town before we were able to set up the roadblock.”

He seemed both thankful and relieved by her statement.  “Do you really think he's still here?” he asked after a few moments.  “Do you think Kim's still in town?”

Rilynne nodded.  “Yes, I do.”

After finishing her coffee, Rilynne walked into the living room.  “Lori,” she said softly.  She sat down beside her and placed her hand on Lori's knee.  Lori jumped and turned toward her.  Her eyes had a look of confusion in them.  “Why don't we go get you changed, then you can help me out with something.”

Lori blinked quickly.  She looked almost as if someone had just shaken her awake in the middle of the night and she was trying to register her surroundings.  Rilynne sat quietly and waited.  After several long seconds, Lori nodded and pushed herself up.

Neither of them spoke until they walked into her bedroom at the top of the stairs.  Rilynne hadn't been in it since Joe moved in a few months before.  Unlike the almost excessive level of cleanliness it had before, it was obvious a man now shared the space.  After pushing the small pile of discarded clothes off the chair in the corner, Rilynne lowered Lori into it and opened the closet.

“Have you found anything?” Lori's voice cracked as she spoke.  Her normally sweet tone was rough, no doubt from crying.  “You can tell me. 
Even if it's not… good.”

Rilynne pulled a sweater and jeans out of the closet and handed them to Lori.  “The roadblock went up within minutes of Matthews making the call,” she said.  Lori stood again and Rilynne unzipped the back of her dress.  As soon as Lori slipped out of it, she dropped back heavily into the chair.  “He didn't have time to get her out of town. 
Everyone here and in Bodker are working on finding her.  I don't think Wooldridge even left the station last night.  We could really use your help with something, though.”

Lori pulled the sweater over her head and nodded.  Though she was speaking to her, she still hadn't met Rilynne's eye.

“We need a list of everyone who's been in contact with Kim,” she said.  “Even her doctors, or maybe someone who's come in to the house.”

Lori's body was stiff as she nodded again.  Rilynne reached down and helped her to her feet after she pulled her pants on and they walked back down to the living room.

“Why don't you go get some sleep,” she said to Joe when he met them at the bottom of the stairs.  He opened his mouth to argue but she stopped him.  “I'll be here with her.  We'll come get you if anything happens.”

He let out a resigned sigh and walked up toward the bedroom.  When he disappeared at the top of stairs, Rilynne pulled out a notebook and sat down next to her.  “Okay, let's start with your time here in Addison Valley.  Who's been in contact with Kim?”

“There's her pediatrician's office and her preschool,” she said numbly.  “Joe also takes her to a group play date on Thursdays, and she has karate on Tuesdays.”

Rilynne scribbled them down before looking back up to Lori.  “Has anyone been in the house?  Maybe a repair man or exterminator?”

She thought about it for a moment before nodding.  “There was a cable guy named Bob right after we moved in, and I had an installer come out a couple weeks ago to set up the new television I got Joe for his birthday.  Kim wasn't home at the time, but he was upstairs working in Joe's 'man cave' which is right across from her room.  Oh, and Joe has a poker night every Friday.  It's always the same five guys that come.  Kim likes to pretend to be a waitress and take them drinks.”

Tears started rolling down her cheeks.

Not wanting to lose her attention, Rilynne quickly continued.  “What about before you moved here?  I know her public exposure was more limited up there.”

“Yeah, um...  She went to the daycare in the station and really didn't spend time with anyone outside of the people we worked with and their families.  She had the same pediatrician from the time I brought her home until we moved.  I'm sure there were repair men over the years, but I can't remember anyone right now.”

Rilynne sat back and thought.  They had several work related events that Kim attended, but she never noticed anyone paying special attention to her.  Lori had always been very protective, not really letting strangers around her after she was born.

I'm so stupid
, she silently berated herself.

“What about her biological family?”  She couldn't believe the thought hadn't occurred to her before.

The spark in Lori's eyes said she felt the same.

“I couldn't find anyone in her mother's family.  Kimberly's father passed when she was a child and her mother was killed in a car accident about six month before Kim was born.  Her birth father was young and seemed relieved to sign over his rights.  His name is Dustin Fore.  The last I knew, he was still in Bodker.  We haven't heard anything from him since he signed the papers,” she stated.  “I honestly don't see him having anything to do with this, though.  He was a very smart kid with a bright future ahead of him.  More than him just not being ready to be a parent, he said he knew he wouldn't be able to provide her with everything she deserved.  I just really can't picture him coming and taking her out of the blue like this.”

Rilynne sat her notebook down and placed her hand on Lori's.  When she did, tears started rolling freely down her face.

“Where's my baby?” she asked.  “Rilynne, where's my baby girl?  How could this happen?  How could someone have just taken her?”

Rilynne gave her hand a gentle squeeze and looked her in the eye.  “We're going to find her,” she said.  “The fact that she was taken from a room filled with officers is actually a good thing.”  Lori gave her a puzzled look.  “He wanted her enough to risk taking her with all of us only a few feet away.  What that tells me is he doesn't want to hurt her.”  That wasn't entirely true, but she knew she had to say something to reassure her friend.  She wasn't one for false hope, but she had to give it now.  She couldn't just sit back and watch Lori hurt the way she was without trying to help her.

After finishing the list, she sat with Lori in silence for close to an hour before Joe walked back out.  Though his nap had been short, it appeared to have done the job.  He looked incredibly more alert than he had before.

“I'm going to head back to the station,” Rilynne said as she walked over to meet him.  “I'll start running down the names Lori gave me and also have all of your neighbors looked into.”

“I'm going with you,” Lori said.  She stood up and took a step toward them.