Wanted with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Five) (9 page)

“Oh yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “Reed and I go way back. You remember that I worked in the hospital in high school?” Rilynne nodded. “Well, Reed was one of the surgeons I liked to watch. He was fantastic. After a few weeks, he kind of took me under his wing. He would tell me every time he had a really interesting surgery, and never let anyone tell me I couldn’t sit in the observation room and watch. He also helped me get a job as a caddy at the golf course across town.”

“Wow,” she replied. She hadn’t really thought of the mayor outside of his current position. “How did he go from skilled surgeon to mayor? That’s not exactly a step up as far as pay goes.”

“About six years ago he was in a really bad accident and almost lost his hand. While they were able to save it, he lost a good deal of function. I was actually there when they told him. I had been called out to the scene because the other driver took off,” he explained. “Well, he decided that he wasn’t going to be satisfied being a surgeon if he couldn’t work at the level he was used to, so he decided to find something else he could do. Lucky for us, it just happened to have been an election year. I actually worked on his campaign. It was a landslide. He was very popular, even back then. He always went above and beyond to do everything he could for his patients, and people appreciated it.”

“Is he up for reelection this year, also?” she asked. She hated to admit it, but she had never been one for following local politics. She knew she really should, as it often affected her directly, but she always had so many other things going on. This last year had been no different.

“Yes, but he’s running unopposed. He’s really done a lot for Addison Valley since he took office.”

“So that’s how you manage to pull invites to big events, isn’t it?” she asked, eyeing him curiously. “You know all the right people in town.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I pick my friends well.”

Rilynne knew he was sidestepping her question, but she decided to let it go. Despite trying on several occasions, she still had not managed to find out how he had received an invite to the large party the Lewis’ had thrown a couple months before. At this point, she couldn’t decide if Ben truly didn’t want to tell her, or if he was enjoying making her squirm.

“So is there anyone in Addison Valley you don’t know?” she asked.

He turned toward her with an impish grin. “I don’t know anyone who would want to frame you for murder.”

“Well, you’re a big help. I was hoping you would know exactly who was after me so all I would need to do is use my handy detective skills to find some evidence.”

“I think you’ve got that a little backwards,” he chuckled. “You use your skills to detect who the person is, and I worry about collecting the evidence.”

“Oh that’s right,” she said on a long breath. They both laughed. “So how exactly are we supposed to find a suspect out here in the woods?” she asked. “We don’t even have access to the internet, or any of the case information.”

“We’ll just have to make do,” he said. “We don’t need the internet or case files to find out who’s doing this. The whole case is surrounded around you. You’re our clue.”

“But I don’t want to be a clue,” she stated.

Ben shot her an amused glance before lying back on the ground. “You know your life better than anyone else does,” he said. “So let’s figure this out. Think outside the box. Who would want to see you behind bars? It doesn’t even have to be a big reason. The smallest things can make people snap.”

“So we need to make a list of everyone I’ve angered. That’s not going to be easy. My job leaves me with quite a few resentful people,” she stated.

“They’re looking into all of your cases at the station,” said Ben. “We need to look at anyone else.”

She let out a deep sigh and dropped back next to him. “All right,” she said. “Where should I start?”

Ben reached back and pulled his pack toward them. After digging through the front pocket, he pulled out a small notebook and a pen. “We can start with when you moved here,” he said. “Then we can go back further if we need to.”

“Well, let’s see…” she thought back to her first few months in town. “I started working immediately after moving here. I didn’t really do anything other than work at first. It wasn’t until I met you and Nicole that I even started to go out.”

“Well, when you did start going out, did you make any enemies? Or maybe turn someone down who was interested in you?” He glanced over at her, but she kept her eyes on the sky above.

“Nope,” she said, trying hard to keep the grin off of her face. “Nicole had been insistent on getting me to start dating, but you were the only guy in my life at the time.”

He grinned and looked back to the paper. “What about anyone who knew Nicole. You talked to her friends; would any of them have been angry after she was killed?”

“No,” she said confidently. “They were more upset with her than anyone else. There’s Hartley, though. He and his fiancé both held a lot of resentment toward me for not stopping her before he was taken.”

“They moved out of Addison Valley,” Ben said, although he still added the names to the list. “I heard they received an anonymous check for a million dollars and packed up and left.”

Her head shot toward him. “Seriously?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, there was talk about them trying to sue the department, but they didn’t have a case. Right after every lawyer they tried to hire turned them down, someone slid a check under their door.”

“Wow,” she said. “I wonder who sent it.”

“Who knows,” he stated. “Maybe it was Jared Lewis. He certainly has enough money for it.”

Rilynne was still thinking in amazement about it when Ben elbowed her several minutes later.

“Did you hear me?” he asked. She shook her head. “What about the two guys at the bar?” he asked again. “The ones that tried to jump you after that news story about Hartley being alive.”

“You mean the ones you took care of for me?” she asked with a grin before shaking her head. “With how high strung the case had everyone, they didn’t get anything more than some community service hours. I actually went to their court dates and spoke out for them.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised.

“Well, I figured they had enough embarrassment after the night was over. They were both pretty big guys, and you knocked one out in a single punch and dropped the other down to his knees.”

Ben laughed and nodded, seemingly content with her decision. “Well, who else can you think of?”

“Nancy,” she said bluntly. “The maid from the Lewis manor.”

“I thought we had heard the last of her after she approached me last month,” he said. Rilynne’s eyes shot back to him. He hadn’t told her he had an encounter with Nancy after the night she made a scene in Travis Bar. “It was nothing, really,” he said when he saw the look on her face. “I was doing some shopping and she came up to me. It took me a minute at first to even remember who she was. I have to admit, the entire encounter was a little amusing. She asked about you and said you and the chauffeur Danny were currently an item.

“After that she tried to transition the conversation over to me and the type of work I did. My attention was on the purchase I was in the middle of, so I pretty much just nodded every few seconds. Before long, though, I started to get a little annoyed,” he admitted, looking back to the notebook in his hands.

“What did you say to her?” she asked, staring wide-eyed at him.

“She started talking about you and that guy again, so I told her there wasn’t anything going on between the two of you and there never had been. I went on to tell her that you and I were together, and had been long before you even took the case.” He turned and looked her in the eye with a grin that warmed her from the inside. “You should have seen her,” he added. “I thought she was going to have a fit right there in the store.”

“Better add her to the list,” Rilynne chuckled. Ben nodded in agreement and started writing.

“I can’t believe she actually went up to you,” she said after a few moments. She had known that Nancy was the type to become attached to men, perhaps to the point of obsession, but she really didn’t see her walking up to Ben. At least not after that night in the bar. “And why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged and laughed. “I just forgot. It happened on one of those days where so much is going on, you just forget about anything unimportant by the time you get home.”

Rilynne knew all about those days. She had them more often than she cared to count.

“I have something important to ask you,” she said moments later. The smile on
Ben’s face waned as he rolled onto his side and looked into her eyes. She let out a low sigh and took him by the hand. “Now that we’re on the run, can we get rid of the silly idea of throwing me a birthday party?”

Ben let out a loud groan and dropped back onto his back. “Not a chance,” he said stubbornly.

They spent the better part of the day picking through Rilynne’s life, writing down anyone who could have possibly held a grudge against her. By the time they were finished, they had a surprisingly long list.

“I don’t even think my list would be half this long,” Ben said. He closed the notebook and tossed it back toward the packs. “I can’t believe you cut that same woman off almost
every day on the way to work.”

“Really? You can’t?” Rilynne chuckled. “You’ve been with me on occasion in the morning when I’ve done it. If I waited for her to get in front of me, it would take me an extra twenty minutes just to get to work. I try to time it where I can pull out of my driveway before she’s even near my house, but that doesn’t actually happen often. It’s not like she’s going to hit me when I pull out in front of her. I’ve seen kids walking down the sidewalk move faster than she does.”

Their laugher was quickly interrupted a roll of thunder coming from behind them. Ben looked behind them and grimaced before turning back to Rilynne.

“We need to get everything in the cave,” he said. “Looks like a storm is moving in.”

Rilynne groaned and pushed herself up. “I’m glad you suggested the cave then. It would have been miserable if we were just out in the woods during a storm,” she said. She grabbed the packs and dragged them to the back of the cave. When she went back out, she found Ben climbing up the nearest tree. She chuckled and shook her head. She had forgotten just how good he was at doing it.

“I still say you move like a monkey,” she said when he dropped back down a few minutes later. “What were you doing up there?”

“Looking at the storm clouds,” he said, dusting his charcoal gray shirt off. “We have maybe ten minutes before it hits. It looks like it might last through the night, though.”

Rilynne looked up at him bewilderedly. “So are you a meteorologist now, too?”

He shrugged and threw her a causal grin. “I grew up around tornados,” he said. “I learned how to judge the weather. It’s not a for sure thing,” he admitted. “But I’m not too bad at it.”

Rilynne checked her watch before they walked into the cave. Sure enough, rain started to pelt down on them ten minutes later. When she gave him an impressed look, he just leaned back and smiled as he closed his eyes.

With the wind blowing from behind them, the cave remained surprisingly dry. The sound of the storm around them was incredibly relaxing. Rilynne even found herself drifting off a few times as they lie there talking. If they hadn’t been on the run, she would have actually considered it a pretty romantic outing.

Just before nightfall, the rain finally died down.

“Like I said,” Ben stated, looking out at the sky above. “Not an exact science.”

“It’s a shame,” she said. She stood up and walked across the cave to join him. “I was actually looking forward to it raining through the night. It would have been a nice sound to fall asleep to.”

Ben turned around and wrapped his arms around her. The playful grin on his face made her weak in the knees. “We wouldn’t want you to catch a cold, though. Stormy nights tend to come with a bit of a chill.”

“I don’t think that would have really been a problem,” she replied. “They say the best way to survive when you’re out in the wilderness is to use body heat. I trust that you would have kept me warm.”

She reached up and ran her fingers through the back of his soft hair, pulling him down to her. As their lips met, the roaring of the rain sounded out around them again.

B
en’s warm arms were still wrapped around her when the light struck her face the next morning. She let out a sigh and gently rubbing her cheek against his arm.

He let out a soft snort and buried his face in her hair.

“Are you awake?” she whispered. He didn’t respond. She softly kissed his arm before carefully getting up.

The clouds were completely gone when she stepped outside, leaving only the bright blue sky above. She took in a deep breath as the rays from the sun struck her face. She always loved the way it smelled right after it rained.

“Come back to bed,” Ben’s groggy voice called out. “It’s not morning yet.”

Rilynne walked back in the cave and dropped down on her knees by his side. “It’s definitely morning,” she said.

He shook his, eyes still closed.

She just grinned as she reached out and brushed the hair out of his face. As she did, he grabbed her and pulled her back down next to him. “Definitely
not
morning,” he said, wrapping his arms back around her.

She could feel his heart thumping against her back as slid his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. “We have to get up,” she said softly, only half as determined as she had been moments before. The warmth of his body against hers made her sigh. A deep, satisfied sigh.

He slid his hand down her arm and laced his fingers with hers. “Just five more minutes,” he said, nuzzling her head. “I was just having the best dream. I’m not ready to give it up yet.”

She lie there in his arms, his hot breath on the back of her neck, and couldn’t think of anywhere she would rather be. She felt safe, truly safe, for the first time in days.

After several minutes, he let out a soft moan and kissed the back of her neck.

“So what were you dreaming about?” she asked, pulling his arms in even tighter around her.

She could feel him grin as he let out a little sigh. She waited for him to answer but he didn’t. After several long seconds, she rolled on her back and looked up at him. “Not going to tell me?” she asked.

He seemed to think about it for a moment before shaking his head.

Rilynne rolled her eyes and pushed herself up. Despite having slept in sleeping bags on a cave floor, she had actually slept fairly well. To her surprise, she had one of her rare dreamless night.

Ben reached up and ran his fingers across her back. “We should see if we can get a hold of Matthews,” he said, the tired still lingering in his voice. “He can run the names on your list and see if anything turns up. He might also have some new information about the case, and know what it is that prompted them to issue an arrest warrant.”

“Mhmm,” she mumbled, paying more attention to the feel of his fingers on her back than what he was actually saying. It wasn’t until he pulled his hand back and stood up that she really absorbed what he had said. “We can’t call him,” she stated, watching Ben pull his jeans back on before standing to get dressed herself. “We’ll have to watch him and see if we can corner him when he’s alone. The last thing I want is for him to get caught helping us out.”

“Are you sure there isn’t any chance he would turn us in?” he asked, pulling a shirt over his head. Rilynne chuckled as she reached out to remove the price tag from it.

“If he wanted to see me arrested, he wouldn’t have called to warn us,” she stated. “He took a big risk in doing it. We can trust him, I know we can.”

Ben dragged his fingers through his hair before pulling a package of toothbrushes out of his bag. “I didn’t know if you remembered to grab them, so I bought a two pack,” he said, tossing her a new pink toothbrush.

“No, I didn’t remember,” she said, grateful he had thought about it. “I was so panicked, I’m lucky I made it out with my shoes. I think I left mine on the dresser after I finished using it yesterday morning instead of it actually putting it into my bag. Yours might actually be in there.”

“You didn’t doubt for a second that I was coming with you, did you?” he asked.

Rilynne grinned and finished brushing her teeth.

“We should take everything with us,” Rilynne said, rolling her sleeping bag up a few minutes later. “Just in case something happens and we can’t come back.”

Ben nodded as he stuffed everything he could into his pack. Rilynne had the feeling he was trying to keep her from having to carry much. She turned away so he wouldn’t see her grin as she pulled the pack onto her back.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked. He reached for her hand and led her through the trees. “I’m pretty sure the most dangerous place for you right now is the station.”

“It’s not like we’re going in,” she said. The branches were still wet as the passed through them, leaving her with a bit of a chill. “It’s really the only way I can think of to get information, though.”

Ben sighed but didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled his hand up and massaged his chin with his knuckles.

“If you would be more comfortable, we could just wait outside of his house,” she offered.

He shook his head and looked over his shoulder toward her. “No, you’re right. The station is the best place to find him. Knowing him, he probably won’t stop working until this whole crazy mess is settled. We could be sitting in front of his place for days before he finally showed up.”

Rilynne grinned and nodded. He was probably right.

When they finally neared the borrowed vehicle, Ben made her stay hidden in the woods while he loaded everything in. He didn’t let her step out until the SUV was started and ready to move.

She sank down low in her seat as they drove past the station an hour later. It wouldn’t have taken nearly as long had Ben not insisted on making several, unnecessary turns. She had him drive all the way down the street and park as far from the building as they could while still being able to see the entrance.

While Ben kept a watchful eye on the building and anyone coming out of it, Rilynne watched the people moving past her window. They seemed to have no worries in the world. She envied them. Just days ago, her biggest concern had been how to talk her
way out of having a birthday party. As she sat in the car watching the happy people around them, she would have given anything to be there with everyone she cared about.

“Maybe we should try back later,” Ben said. She turned to the clock. They had been sitting there for close to two hours. “People might start to become suspicious if we sit here much longer.”

She was close to agreeing with him when he reached out and grabbed her wrist. Rilynne looked quickly up at him to find him staring off ahead, a contented look on his face. She followed her gaze and saw Matthews walked out of the building. He stopped when he reached his car-just a few feet away-and looked up and down the street several times. When he finally seemed satisfied, he climbed into the car and pulled on to the street.

Rilynne waited to make sure no one was tailing him before telling Ben to follow. He was driving almost like he was lost. He made over twenty turns, even crossing over his own path twice, before finally coming to a stop just outside a trail entrance on the other side of town. He had just stepped out of the car when they pulled in two spots away.

“I hope you didn’t have trouble keeping up,” he said when Rilynne opened her door.

She grinned, shocked by his lack of surprise to see them. “How did you know we were following you?” she asked curiously.

He looked at her as if saying it was a ridiculous question. “I knew you wouldn’t have really left town,” he said confidently. “I also knew you would be smart enough to get rid of your phones. It would be too much of a risk to call me with a burner because, as I’m sure you would agree, chances are high they will be monitoring the calls coming in on my phone. Your fish are taken care of, by the way,” he said to Ben.

“That still doesn’t explain how you knew we were following you,” she said.

He seemed to find her statement amusing. “Truth be told, I didn’t,” he said. “I’ve made a similar drive every time I left my house or the station since we tried to serve the warrant on your vacant house. After the fifth turn, I figured it was you. I’m afraid I don’t have anything good to tell you, though.”

“What did they find?” Ben asked. “What led up to the warrant being issued?”

“The only prints on the wallet were the victim’s and yours,” he said sullenly. She let out a shocked gasp, but he didn’t give her time to process it before continuing. “A witness also showed up stating she saw you leaving the victim’s apartment around eleven. I have a copy of the entire case files for you.”

Her legs gave out underneath her, and had Ben not been standing just behind her, she would have surely fallen. She couldn’t believe what he was telling her. She thought back to the scene, but was sure she didn’t have any contact with the wallet. She couldn’t even begin to understand how her prints could have gotten on it.

“The witness surely can’t be taken seriously,” Ben said before she could even entertain the thought. He reached out and took the files from Matthews, flipping through them before tossing them through the open car door, onto his seat. “Rilynne’s face was all over the news naming her as a person of interest. Crazies always come out of the woodwork on big cases like this. She saw her face on the news and picked a time right in the middle of the window of death. She just wants her fifteen minutes of fame.”

To Rilynne’s surprise, there wasn’t even the slightest note of hesitation or doubt in his voice.

“I’m looking into it myself,” Matthews stated. “We
will
get this figured out. In the mean time, is there anything I can do for you?”

Rilynne quickly nodded. “We’ve made a list of everyone I could think of who could possibly have anything against me,” she said. She turned to Ben as he pulled the list out of his pocket. “We don’t have a way of looking into anyone.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said quickly, pulling the pages from in between Ben’s fingers. “Is there anything you need?”

“You’ve done more than enough,” she stated firmly. “You need to keep your nose clean. If this should go south, I don’t want you to go down with me. You and Katy are having a baby, and you need to put that above anything else. The district attorney won’t think twice to drag your name through the mud if she even thought you were helping us. I can’t let that happen.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but she reached out and hugged him before he had a chance.

“If anything important comes up, I’ll leave it in the cave the two of you searched during the Pirate Killer case,” he said as he pulled away from her. She considered telling
him they had been using that exact cave to hide out in, but decided against it. “Just promise me you will be careful, both of you,” he added.

Rilynne nodded and stepped back toward Ben as Matthews climbed back into his car.

“You just had to say it, didn’t you?” she asked as she watched Matthews drive away. Ben gave her a quizzical look. “You go and say something about a witness turning up, and look what happened.”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling her door open for her. “That is a little strange. It was all just coincidental timing, though. It was that stupid news story. I would love to get my hands on whoever’s leaking information to the press. I’m sure LaShad could arrange a boxing match.” An impish grin appeared on his face. “After we get this all cleared up, that’s the next thing we’re looking into. Even more than wanting to pummel him for what he has done to you, we need to seal that leak for the good of the department.”

Rilynne chuckled as he slid into the car and turned it on. “Make sure I don’t miss that one,” she said. “I enjoy watching you fight when it’s all in good fun. I would love to see you when you have an agenda behind it.” Instinctively, she looked back up to the scar barely visible under his shaggy hair. Like always, it made her think back to his altercation with Officer Ross. That was before they were dating. She could only imagine what he would do to someone now.

“So where are we going now?” she asked. “I don’t know if we should go back to the cave.”

“I agree,” he stated. He seemed to be mulling over something for several moments, his knuckles dragging along his chin, before he put the car in reverse and swung out of the spot. “I know of a place we can go. It’s a vacant house that we should be safe in for a day or two.”

She looked over at him curiously, but the look on his face left her silent. He was struggling with something and she was afraid to ask what it was. If she found out he was doubting her, even just a little, it might just be too much for her to take.

Rilynne stared out the window as they drove through the crowded streets. She was just about to ask how much longer it would take when he turned the car onto a small private driveway. The sights of the city disappeared and were replaced by large, vibrant green trees. After just a few moments, the tree line broke and they pulled toward a house. Not only was it vacant, the house appeared only half built.

“Isn’t there a chance that workers will come out?” she asked as the car rolled to a stop.

“I’ll pull the car around the back and hide it in the trees,” he said. “If anyone comes, we can just sneak out the back. I doubt we will have that problem, though. From what I understand, the owner has stopped construction for the moment.”