Kidnapped, page 5
part #10 of Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Series
Anna stroked her chin with her thumb and finger, contemplating the new information.
“You’ve done a fine job, Anna.” Greenbell took her out of the moment. “We’ve got it from here, though.”
Anna studied him. “I feel like we need all hands on deck for this one.”
“Eh,” Greenbell replied. “You know what they say about too many cooks.”
Anna glared at the man who used to be her father’s friend. “What’s your angle, Garrett?”
“My angle?” he chuckled. “I want everything to run smoothly, and as your family friend, I want you to know that we have it from here. I’m sure Mr. Rines will reward you for the evidence you’ve acquired.”
“They already paid me,” Anna replied, not pleased with Greenbell’s pushiness. “If it’s fame you want, Garrett, I’m sure this will be all over the news now. Honestly, it’s better you than me, but I’m not leaving the case. I’ve promised someone I’d find Keisha, and I will.”
Garrett smiled angrily. “Suit yourself.”
Anna smiled back in kind. What the hell did I do to him?
Trisha Rines had been crying all day, and her face showed it. Her legs were tired, and her clothes were glued to her sweaty skin. She turned on the faucet and splashed herself with cold water.
“There’s always tomorrow,” she weakly reminded her reflection.
She left the bathroom and found Avery in the study. He sat with his leg sprawled out over the recliner’s arm. A book rested on his lap, but he stared lifelessly at the main hall and the practice room beyond.
“You were right.” He turned a crazed gaze to her. “Someone took our daughter.”
Stopping in the doorway of the study, Trisha’s face sank. “I didn’t want to be right. Besides, there’s still no solid proof.”
Avery took his leg down and turned to face her. Dark circles curved under his restless eyes. “A man followed our daughter to school. Stalked her, talked to her, and stole her away, not thirty feet from us. What more proof is there? He’s probably halfway across the country by now and using our daughter as some—”
Trisha shook her head. “Don’t say that. Don’t you say it.”
Avery’s voice filled with fire. “It’s the truth, and you know it.”
Trisha looked at her toes and sniffled. The little control she had over the world was crumbling before her. There must be an escape; some way to step away from the horror and be something outside herself. She sheepishly looked up to her husband and softly approached him. The back of her fingers gently stroked down his cheek, just the way he always liked.
“Join me in the shower,” she whispered, desperate and seductive.
Avery grabbed her hand and pushed it away with little hesitation. “Our daughter is out there with some freak and you want to do that? No, Trisha. This is not the time.”
Trisha stumbled back. She felt a tear slide down her cheek but quickly wiped it away. Look at me! She wanted to scream, but instead, she headed to the stairs. She stopped on the first step. “You going to stay out here again?”
Avery picked up his book, pretending to read it. “Someone has to stay on guard if she comes home. Rest up now. You’ll need your energy for tomorrow’s search.”
He didn’t need to remind her. If it was anything like today, she was already dreading it. Endless walking and talking with no results. She climbed into the shower and let the water wash away the stress. It didn’t help. She slipped into a nightgown and curled up on the bed, facing the crack of the door, praying Avery would come in and give her some comfort.
Her clock read four when she got up. Avery wasn’t beside her. She checked outside, noticing the starry sky. She frowned.
With bare feet stepping softly, she walked down the cold wooden stairs and into the hall. In the nearby study, Avery slept in the recliner with an open book resting on his chest. Trisha headed for the kitchen and removed a bottle of wine from her refrigerator. She poured half a glass… a whole glass and sat her rump on the island. As big as the kitchen was, the walls constricted her. As clean as the air was, she had trouble breathing.
Fed up, she headed to the front door. It swung open slowly. The early morning breeze kissed her skin. She closed her eyes, sipped her glass, and imagined her daughter’s smile. Trisha wouldn’t take Keisha for granted again, if she did take her for granted. She didn’t know.
Avery mumbled in his sleep, and Trisha almost jumped. She turned back to the dark hallway and looked at her wine glass, tempted to chug it down. She looked to the starry sky, took a much-needed breath of air, and got ready to tip the glass into the yard when she noticed it.
A small, red velvet box.
Her eyes got wide, and she looked both ways, unable to see anything but her front yard and driveway. Slowly, she grabbed the box and lifted it to her eyes. It was for a ring, but why was it here? She placed her glass down and popped open the box. Her face scrunched up in confusion, and then she screamed.
Falling out of his seat, Avery bolted down the hallway, baseball bat in hand. “Trish!”
He slowed next to his wife at the doorway. With pure horror written across her face and a shaky finger, she pointed at the box.
Avery froze. The bat went limp in his hand.
Resting on the flagstone was an open ring box. Inside was a little black pinky finger.
5
Held In Question
The phone call woke Anna and sent terror down her spine. Flashing blue and red lights echoed through the woods before the Rines’s house came into view. Squad cars swarmed the premises. A forensic photographer snapped photos of the front door and flagstone path while police officers walked the lawn. Standing off to the side, Avery rested a large coat on Trisha’s shoulders. The distraught woman wore a crimson nightgown and chewed on her thumbnail. Her caffeinated eyes switched between the uniformed strangers bombarding her home. She flinched at every flashing light. Avery stood beside her, listening to Sheriff Greenbell’s condolences but not hearing a word.
Anna parked across the street, studied the scene, and took a breath. An unexpected chilly breeze prompted her to grab her jacket from the backseat. It was a quarter after five, and the stars and moon lit the black sky. She jogged across the street with her eyes on the Rines and her mind in a thousand different places.
A beefy officer obscured her path. “Ma’am, you need to step back.”
Anna fished out her wallet and flashed the P.I. license. “I’m working for Mrs. Rines,” she said, wasting no time.
“Wait here.” The officer marched to Trisha.
Anna tapped her foot anxiously. The annoying limited access made her miss being the lead detective in Miami. As a consultant, she had some benefits, i.e., interviewing witnesses and suspects, reviewing evidence, etc. Not always visiting the scene of a crime.
Hearing the officer’s words, Trisha looked up slowly. Confusion left her mouth agape as she studied Anna. It didn’t take a psychologist to see she was hit hard. She doesn’t remember calling me.
Trisha nodded, and the brawny officer allowed Anna to enter. Slipping through the crowd, she landed in front of Trisha and Avery.
Greenbell gave her a curt nod. “Anna.”
“They found…” Trisha’s voice trailed.
“You told me,” Anna finished, feeling queasy but staying strong for her sake.
“She’ll never play again,” Avery mumbled as if a curtain had just been torn out from under his world.
“Was there anything else in the ring box?” Anna asked directly.
Trisha shook her head. “Only the…”
Greenbell stepped up and, with a sympathetic tone, said, “You’ve been through a lot. Take some time to gather your thoughts, and we’ll talk more in a few hours. I know of a few homely hotels not far from here if you’d—”
“We’ll stay with my mother,” Trisha interrupted.
Avery mumbled a few indistinguishable words, none of which were kind.
The sheriff sent them off with a pat on the back. Anna crossed her arms as she watched the Rines climb into their BMW.
“I wasn’t done talking to them,” Anna growled at Greenbell.
His ocean blue eyes followed the car out the driveway. “The poor lady could barely finish a sentence.”
“There’s a little girl missing, Garrett, and it was no accident her pinky finger was left at their front door. Every hour we waste could mean another severed appendage.”
Greenbell glared at her. “You want to help out? Work at my pace or back off.”
Anna clenched her teeth. She’d never seen her father’s friend treat her so poorly. Feelings aside, she needed to act. “Was there a ransom letter or any list of demands included in the box?”
“Nothing. All we know is that the Rines turned in around 9 p.m., and the finger was found at 4 a.m. By the looks of it, the perp expected they would discover it in the morning.”
“How fresh was it?”
“We’re looking into that now, but our initial overview marks it within the last few hours.”
Keisha wasn’t far, Anna knew, and neither was her abductor. The information narrowed the geological profile, but that still left dozens of miles to canvas. From the Ozark Mountains to the north to the muddy Arkansas River westward, Anna’s confidence dwindled. She needed a plan and quickly.
Anna turned to the road leading to the Rines. It twisted and turned in a rural sprawl. A commercial hub was a few miles back and could provide some much-needed insight. Anna wiped the sweat from her palms on her slacks. “Find the nearest road cam, traffic or otherwise, and see what cars passed by within the last few hours. You know this town. Make calls, and let’s get some volunteers plastering Keisha’s face on lampposts and social media. With all the attention, the guy will either have to show his cards or fold. If he takes the bait, we even might get a ransom letter.
“I’ll ask Avery for an extensive list of the Opera House patrons and start crossing off names. Any local sex offenders within two hundred miles will be added to list along with those affiliated with any nearby extremist groups: Neo-Nazis, New Age cults, whoever would desire to hurt an eleven-year-old black girl. This is Charles Manson level-twisted. We flip enough stones and we might find ourselves a snake.”
Greenbell looked at her for a moment, slightly dumbfounded and with wounded pride. “I’ll get started,” he said and folded into the chaos of the crime scene.
The chilly breeze returned. Anna rubbed her hands together. She was in it now.
Sheriff Greenbell and the Van Buren Police Department followed Anna’s direction and got the town searching. Parties of twelve or more would branch out, searching fields and woods all through the morning. Churches of varying ethnicities and ideological stances congregated together for the first time and hosted prayer vigils and neighborhood watches. The Internet and local news networks blasted Keisha’s sympathetic little smile. Greenbell even managed to coax Trisha and Avery to appear on television, pleading with every mother and father to help their cause and for the abductor to make himself known. Their emotions were raw and real and acted as a dual-edged sword.
Anna witnessed the panic from her dingy office. Gaggles of people pulled their children from school and locked them away inside. Workplaces let out early, and restaurants offered discounted food to volunteers. It seemed like the whole world stopped for the recently maimed pianist. Anna had never seen anything like it. Not even in Miami, where missing children were a dime a dozen.
She made another call. Most of the patrons from the Saturday night show had the same response: went to bed after enjoying a glass of wine. Some Anna had spoken to the day prior to the finger’s appearance, but she did a secondary check-up anyway. Nibbling on her pen, she reviewed her list comprised of three columns: Alibi, No Alibi, and Failed to Pick-Up. The names with No Alibis quickly changed columns after Anna did further research of their homes in the proximity to the abduction site. If they were more than two hours from the train tracks behind the Opera house, it probably wasn’t them.
Periodically throughout the day, Greenbell would email her names and photos of local shady figures fitting the description of a Caucasian male with facial hair. There were thousands. She also got a copy of the school’s security footage and replayed it on loop, trying to match a face with a face and getting dismal results. One after another, she made phone calls and house visits. They hated cops, and when she explained she was a private investigator, they suddenly hated them, too.
Anna had gotten to those with the last name starting with D before she returned to her office and brewed more coffee. It was her fourth batch today, and everything she ate now tasted bitter and dry. A jiggle. She withdrew her cell phone and answered.
“We need you down at the station,” the sheriff said with urgency.
Anna shut her eyes, waiting for the bad news. “What’s up?”
“Just hurry up, Anna. As a family friend, I’d rather do this in person.”
That did not sound good. “I’ll be there in five.”
Grabbing her sunshades, she climbed into her Silverado and sped out down the road. Just out of sight, an old Corvette lingered.
Sheriff Greenbell and Officer Ashburn—a rustic man with a misshaped head spiked with little gray hairs—waited for her in the back parking lot. A cigarette hung from Greenbell’s thin lips and hovered over his white beard. The friendly sheriff persona was shattered by tired eyes and stress fatigue.
Anna clicked “Lock” on her key chain, heard her truck beep, and approached the men. “Any word from the perp?”
Greenbell blew smoke. “No.”
“I think we’re all a bit busy. Spill it.”
“We’ve comprised a list of possible suspects, as you know. Seedy characters, pedos, the usual roughhousers.”
“Any hits?” Anna checked her watch. It was nearly sunset, and it felt like nothing was getting done. They should’ve started on this days ago, Anna complained to herself, but back then, there was still a chance that Keisha had run away at her own volition, and there were no solid leads. Apart from the school footage and severed finger, there still weren’t any solid leads. Frustration squeezed her.
Sheriff Greenbell stomped out his cigarette. “Yes. Evan Dedrick.”
Anna took a step back. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“We spoke to your father,” Ashburn injected. “He told us that Evan came into town a few days back. A few days back before the abduction.”
“This is my brother we are talking about.”
Greenbell smiled sympathetically in the way he always did. “I went to visit Richard. He let me see Evan’s room. The boy’s entire luggage was gone along with his car. According to your father, he hasn’t been seen in two days. Plenty of time to—”
Anna felt the world spin. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. “My father isn’t the most reliable source. Besides, this is Evan we’re talking about. You watched him grow up right here in Van Buren.”
“You’ve been staying with him, right?” Greenbell asked, knowing the answer. “When was the last time you saw Evan?”
Anna shook her head. “We’re missing something.”
“You’re right,” Ashburn said with a smug smile. “Your brother.”
The comment angered Anna to no end. What made her more furious was that they were making sense. I’ll call Evan. He’ll listen to me and come home, she thought. When her fingers slid into her pocket and touched the phone, she realized that she’d never gotten his number. Hell, she’d only talked to him for five minutes in the last fourteen years.
The Sheriff knocked on the back door, and an officer opened it. “We should discuss this inside.”
Anna glared at him.
“Just for a minute,” Greenbell bartered. “Think about Keisha.”
They led Anna into a small interrogation room with an aluminum table, chairs, and voice recorder. She plopped down on the chair, taking note of the camera in the corner and the two-way mirror adjacent to her. It smelled like cheap air freshener, and the AC didn’t work. Greenbell closed the door. It locked. Quietly, he placed himself in the opposite seat.
“When did Evan run away?” Greenbell asked.
Anna crossed her arms. “Fourteen years ago. We were making funeral arrangements. When he saw the different coffins, he bolted out the door. We thought he was venting, but when he didn’t come back, we knew he was gone. The note on his bed sealed the deal.”
“How old was he?”
“Sixteen. I was twenty,” Anna adjusted her posture. She looked at the cameras again. “Is that really necessary?”
“Yes,” Greenbell said sternly. “Was he ever abused before that time?
“No,” Anna shook her head, honestly. “Not that I knew of.”
“How about you?”
Anna eyed him, trying to get a read. “That doesn’t have to do with anything.”
“What were you doing before you returned to Van Buren?”
Anna frowned, taken back by the question. “I was a lead detective in the Miami PD. You know this, sheriff.”
“And you turned in your resignation?”
“Two weeks prior. The 23rd of July. I was out by the 7th,” Anna said. “What does this have to do with Evan?”
“Only collecting information, Ms. Dedrick.”
“Ms. Dedrick?” Anna said with a scoff. “It’s Anna. You always call me Anna.”
“What day did you leave Miami?”
“August 10th.”
“And you arrived on the 14th?”
“Yes,” Anna said, getting progressively more uncomfortable. She reminded herself it was for Keisha Rines. If answering Greenbell’s useless questions help, it’s a small price to pay.
Greenbell jotted down some notes. “What were you doing between the 11th and 13th?”
“Driving.”
“Anyone to back that up?”
“I called my father on the 10th.”
“So, no one to account for you on the 11th through the morning of the 14th?”
“I have gas receipts,” Anna said, getting annoyed. “Can we talk about Evan?”
