Blood Loss (12 page)

‘And I’m guessing that while I was on my walk to your office earlier the news report mentioned that,’ said Ren.

Bob paused. ‘Did our guy change his mind?’

‘He sure did,’ said Ren.

‘If he crosses his fingers for a black BMW, we’re in trouble,’ said Bob.

‘Ren?’ said Gary. ‘A word, please.’ He took her to one side. ‘Go get some rest,’ he said, his voice low.

‘What?’ said Ren. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

Gary looked at his watch. ‘By my calculations, you’ve had three hours’ sleep in the last forty-eight hours.’

‘Not quite,’ said Ren. ‘But … who else has had any sleep? Are you singling me out, here? That’s not—’

‘Ren, if I choose to single you out, you run with it,’ said Gary.

Do not react.

‘As it happens,’ said Gary, ‘Colin and Robbie went back to their hotels after the search. Robbie will be back to spend tonight at the hotel with the Whaleys in case a ransom demand comes in. Colin will be with the Royces. And look – Cliff is packing up too.’

‘But—’ said Ren.

‘You won’t be any use to the investigation unless you rest,’ said Gary.

‘I’m wide awake,’ said Ren.

‘Well, try not to be.’ He moved past her. ‘Goodbye, Ren.’

Ren put a call in to Karen Nyland, the owner of The Firelight Inn, a cozy Victorian Inn close to Main Street.

‘Hi Ren,’ said Karen, ‘it’s good to hear from you.’

‘You too,’ said Ren.

‘I’m guessing you’re here for all the wrong reasons,’ said Karen.

‘Sadly, yes,’ said Ren. ‘And I was wondering if there is room at the Inn. I’d need it right away. I’m on enforced rest.’

‘Someone beat you to the suite by minutes,’ said Karen. ‘But I have a room on the second floor. It’s yours for as long as you need it.’

‘That’s great, thank you,’ said Ren.

‘Those poor girls,’ said Karen.

‘Did you know Shelby Royce?’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Karen, ‘but we know her parents to talk to in a small-talk kind of way. And we send people to The Miner and Cal Royce sends people here. We exchange bottles of wine at Christmas, that sort of thing.’

‘Can I ask, off-the-record, about Tom Olson at The Merlin?’

‘Sure,’ said Karen. ‘Well, Tony and I wouldn’t share the same opinion of him, that’s the first thing. Tony thinks Tom is the does-a-lot-for-the-community good guy,’ said Karen. ‘He organizes community events, that kind of thing. I think Tom’s the Breck native who’s spent his life getting by on his looks, and is ultimately out for his own gain …
ish
. If that can be an “ish”. I don’t think he’s a bad guy – I just think that he wouldn’t be beyond screwing someone over if he had to. Not in any terrible way, but …’ She paused. ‘Oh … I don’t think that he would have anything to do with taking those two girls. Not at all. I can’t imagine that.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘So … what did he do before he opened the hotel?’

‘He owned an inn, not unlike ours,’ said Karen. ‘He was doing great.’

‘Until …’ said Ren.

‘He overstretched himself with the hotel venture. It looked like he was going to run out of money by the end. He’s broke, by all accounts,’ said Karen. ‘That’s why he opened before he was ready. The Dew tour brings in a lot of visitors. Accommodation can be hard to find. Tom wanted to have a few weeks’ practice before the real crowds showed up. Take this with a grain of salt – and I don’t even know if it has any significance – but I heard that Tom’s anywhere up to three million dollars in debt. But we’re a small town, there are always rumors out there, and no-one really has a clue what goes on in people’s houses or bank balances.’

‘That’s true,’ said Ren. ‘Is there anything else you can think of that might help?’

‘No,’ said Karen. ‘Nothing that hasn’t been in the news.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Well, let me know if anything comes up. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you in about ten minutes. I’m just packing up here.’

As Ren was about to close her laptop, an email popped up from Glenn Buddy in Denver. Subject: Kennington Witness Statement. It had two attachments – audio from the interview with the Kennington rape victim and a color scan of the drawing the rapist had left behind. Ren clicked on the drawing.

It was a simplistic black-and-white line drawing, but the artist was not without talent. A line down the center of the page bisected a primitive rendering of a monkey suspended by chains that were attached to his wrists. On the left-hand side of the page, the chain hooked on to a bed post with a bird perched on it. On the right, the chain – threaded with a life preserver – disappeared inside a megaphone.

Freaky.

There were bloody fingerprints at the edges of the pages, smears of blood, tiny droplets.

Blood that had been very real, but was now represented by red ink on a page.

Ren took her headphones from her desk drawer and put them in to listen to the audio file.

‘This is Detective Glenn Buddy, with Denver PD. What follows is the witness statement of Ally Lynch, aged fourteen, from Skyland, Denver.’

Ally Lynch’s voice was trembling. ‘
I was at a Hallowe’en party in Kennington Asylum with my friends. But I lost them. I met this guy I liked from school … I was talking to him … it was maybe midnight. Then … I saw this kid come in. He was around the same age as me, maybe a little older. It was like … he kind of appeared out of nowhere. He wasn’t in the party all night. But … then, I’d been drinking …

‘I was talking to a guy-friend of mine, and this guy who walks in is totally staring at me. It was so creepy. My guy-friend was about to leave the party, but I told him to wait, that I needed to go to the ladies room. But as soon as I walked past the creepy guy, he started to follow me. There were people around, I thought I was safe, but suddenly there seemed to be no-one. I started to run, and I ended up in this room that was like some kind of office, and he backed me all the way to the wall, and I was trying to climb up on a table, but I only got as far as sitting on it, when he just dived for me, and started kissing me. I was so shocked, I froze. I … I … do karate. I always thought if something like this ever happened to me, I’d be one of those people who fights back, but I didn’t. I was so terrified, and he was so strong. Like, angry strong. But he was kind of smiling at me too. He was biting on my lips, but then he would kiss them really gently. It was so messed up … ’
She breathed in.
‘Do you need all these details?’

Ren could hear Glenn say ‘yes’, managing to put so much kindness into one short word.

‘I don’t know what happened with my hair,’
said Ally,
‘but he just pulled a bunch of it out …’

She started to hyperventilate.

The tape clicked off, then back on again, with the same introduction from Glenn.

‘He was … crazy,’
said Ally, her voice composed again. She paused. ‘
I was terrified.
But … I don’t think I screamed.’
Ren could hear her voice crack. ‘
I … don’t think I made a sound. It was like my throat closed up. Like in your nightmares you scream and nothing comes out. I thought that was just for nightmares. I didn’t think it would happen in real life. I didn’t think any of this would happen in real life
.
He smelled bad, like he hadn’t showered and his clothes weren’t fresh. His breath was disgusting. It didn’t smell of alcohol. But maybe that was because I’d been drinking too. I don’t know. His face was pale, kind of puffy. His eyes were … it was so strange … his eyes were almost, like, sleepy. I thought, like, with something like this, his eyes would look wild. But they weren’t. They were sleepy.

‘I wish I had been even more drunk than I was, then I’d have forgotten all this, I could have blocked it all out.’

She paused.
‘He didn’t speak. He seemed so angry, and so happy, but I don’t know which it was. Because he didn’t speak. He didn’t say one word. At the very end, he muttered something, but I was so out of it. I think he thanked me. I think he actually thanked me.’

Ren left the Sheriff’s Office and dialed Ben Rader’s number when she got into the Jeep.

‘Talk to me about my girl,’ she said.

‘Well, Misty’s a wonderful girl,’ said Ben. ‘And what about “how are you, Ben”?’

‘Aw, you’re a big boy,’ said Ren.

‘That’s what you said last night.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I really like your friend, Janine, I wanted to say.’

‘Thank you, I like her too.’

‘She’s kind of got that dry wit going on …’

‘Is that code for she insulted you?’ said Ren.

‘No, not at all, she was really sweet,’ said Ben.

‘She is.’

‘Your house is unbelievable,’ said Ben.

‘Do you really think that is my house? Isn’t your pay check not too dissimilar to mine?’ said Ren.

‘I thought you might be, like, a secret heiress,’ said Ben.

‘Yes. And it turns out that Paris Hilton is actually an agent.’

‘The place must be a hundred years old …’ said Ben.

‘Even more than that – it’s a Gold Rush house,’ said Ren. ‘And the lucky lady who owns it is sadly not me. It’s Annie Lowell, a dear family friend: an adorable, warm-hearted, white-haired angel who foolishly asked me to house-sit.’

‘Yes,’ said Ben. ‘I saw the kitchen …’

‘I was running late …’
Three mornings in a row.
‘We used to stay with Annie in the summer when we were kids.’

‘I saw the family photo,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t being nosy – I had to follow Misty into the living room. You were so cute.’

‘Where did it all go wrong?’ said Ren.

‘Very right,’ said Ben.

‘You’re not supposed to reply to those statements,’ said Ren.

‘And where is this Annie?’

‘Traveling around Europe,’ said Ren. ‘Seriously. At eighty years old.’

‘I want to do that when I’m eighty,’ said Ben.

‘You’ll probably still be getting ID’d,’ said Ren.

‘And you’ll be like, “no, I am not his mother”.’

Hello?
‘You are nuts.’

‘It’s very boring here without you.’

Ren smiled. ‘Aw.’

‘I miss you,’ said Ben.

‘Don’t be a loser. OK – gotta go – I’m supposed to be in bed.’

‘Yes – mine.’

Ren drove down Main Street, ignoring the turn for The Firelight Inn and going to The Crown café. She ordered a coffee with two espresso shots and took out the copies she had made of the victim/family questionnaires. She started reading through Mark Whaley’s.

‘Hello, there.’

The voice of Paul Louderback.
Ren looked up. ‘Well, hello there, yourself.’

He was standing with a coffee in his hand. ‘I walked right by you.’

‘So, did you send yourself off to rest?’ said Ren.

‘Yes. I didn’t take it well, though. In fact, I’m quite resentful of myself.’

‘My resentment, I can at least direct at Gary,’ said Ren.

‘Yup,’ said Paul. ‘Rest is for … other people.’

‘Not pussies, then?’ said Ren.

He smiled. ‘Can I join you?’

‘Of course you can,’ said Ren.
Whose bed am I supposed to be in?

‘Can I get you a coffee?’

‘The least you could do for beating me to the suite at The Firelight?’ said Ren. ‘I’m presuming it was you.’

‘Guilty.’

‘Damn you.’

‘Did you get a room there at least?’ said Paul.

‘Yes,’ said Ren.

‘Well, that’s something …’

Something … what?
‘I’m still working on this,’ she said, pointing to her coffee. ‘Take a seat. Where are the other CARD shufflers?’

‘Shuffling in a less cozy setting. Two of them will be with the Merritts at their hotel in case anyone calls.’ He paused. ‘I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad you’re here.’

Stop. Stop. Stop.
‘Me too.’

Four hours, six espressos, and twenty-five pages of notes later, Ren laid down her pen. Opposite her, Paul had his head buried in a file folder. She looked around and realized that The Crown had really filled up since they had arrived. She watched parents watching their children. By the counter, a stack of newspapers showed the faces of two girls whose parents cared for them no less, but who, through an unknown series of events, for reasons Ren was trying to uncover, had vanished.

Families came to Breckenridge for fresh air, for powdery snow, for warm drinks and hot fires. They came for their breath to be taken by the stark outline of four Rocky Mountain Peaks against the night sky, not by the stark truth of the fragility of happiness, or security, or life.

‘Out of curiosity,’ said Ren, ‘why didn’t you let me know you were in Denver?’

Paul looked up at her. ‘Abject fear.’

‘Thought as much …’ said Ren.

‘OK, honestly?’ said Paul. ‘You’re terrible company. And very hard on the eye.’

‘True,’ said Ren.

After a long silence, Paul spoke. ‘The fear part is true …’ he said. ‘I was afraid that you’d drawn a line under us the last time.’

Yes – a lasting line, like a line drawn on a steamed-up mirror.
She had a flash of Ben Rader in her shower.

‘Whatever “us” means,’ said Paul.

Us means you and your wife and me and … deep breath … Ben Rader … maybe … I don’t know. Or you and me. And never to be.

Ren left Paul Louderback and walked down the steps of The Crown. Under the twinkle of fairy lights, she could see posters of Shelby and Laurie taped onto lamp-posts and in store windows. She got into the Jeep and called Matt on the short drive to The Firelight Inn.

‘I think I would have to be electrocuted or strangled by a string of fairy lights to ever fall out of love with them,’ said Ren.

‘Good to know,’ said Matt. ‘Should I add this information to your existing instructions for your funeral?’

‘Ooh – yes,’ said Ren. ‘Good idea.’

‘Maybe the priest could wear them.’

‘Speaking of dying,’ said Ren. ‘Or nearly dying … I’m in Breck and guess who shows up?’

‘Too tired. Tell me.’

‘Paul. Paul Louderback.’

Matt paused. ‘The PT instructor guy? The married guy?’

‘Yup,’ said Ren.

‘Oh, no,’ said Matt. ‘Where did he come from?’