The Runaway Train Page 5

  Confusion draped over Kathryn. “I’m sorry?”

  “The phone.” Mathew nodded at her purse. “It’s ringing.”

  “Oh.” She felt heat rise in her cheeks. “It’ll go to voicemail. I’m sorry about that.”

  “You keep apologizing.” His lips curled into a smile. “Really, there’s no need.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she caught herself. “Umm, about what detective Ryan said in there. I just want you to know that he’s doing everything he can to help you. He’s been with the station for a long time. You couldn’t have found a better guy to track down your son.”

  “Thanks.” His smile vanished.

  “Do you live around here? I mean, do you need a ride?”

  “No. I called Uber a few minutes ago. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  She pulled the keys from her purse and stepped towards the Maxima. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Tyler’s grandmother,” she softened her tone. “Did she go to church around here?”

  Mathew shook his head. “No. Daphne isn’t much of a religious person. Why?”

  “Just curious.” Kathryn suddenly felt like a child.

  “Oh, you’re the lady that nabbed Larry Rainer, right? That preacher? I’ve seen you on the news.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” She opened the driver’s door and tossed her purse onto the opposite seat. “Listen, I didn’t mean anything by it. Really, I just had to be sure. There’s no telling how far that old guy’s reach extended.”

  “Stop apologizing.” The smile returned. “I completely understand. Ryan told me there’s no apparent connection. The circumstances surrounding Tyler’s disappearance are completely different, anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t know. It isn’t my case, and it’s not my place to butt in.”

  “Do you want to know?”

  The question was simple enough. Still, she paused and took a deep breath. What else was she going to do on her vacation?

  Chapter Five

  Kathryn pumped a couple quarters into the jukebox. When I Love Rock N’ Roll blasted into the little country bar, her eyes lit up as though she had just been reacquainted with an old friend. There were a few people who gave her a curious look, and some even rolled their eyes, but she didn’t give a damn. While Joan Jett was rocking her anthem, Kathryn ordered a craft IPA at the bar and joined Mathew who was already nursing his own beer.

  “You have interesting taste in music.” He smiled at her.

  Kathryn took a long gulp from her bottle. “What’s the matter? You don’t like to rock?”

  “Far back as I go is Guns N’ Roses.” He winked. “But I’m from New York, so even that’s a million years ago.”

  She propped her chin in her hand. “Just how old do you think I am?”

  He laughed, but when he saw her serious expression, he slumped his shoulders. “Is this really important? Thought you wanted to hear about what happened to my son.”

  “Do you know what happened to your son?”

  “No, I just…” He shook his head. “I meant, what’s going on with his case. That other detective, he keeps telling me he’ll let me know when he knows something. There’s no beating around the bush, though. Your guys at the station think he’s dead, don’t they?”

  Kathryn popped a peanut into her mouth, chewing slowly, thoughtfully. “It’s hard to say what they’re thinking. Right now, Ryan is covering every possible angle. He’s a dedicated guy, but you have to understand that when a case goes cold for two years, think about that. Two years. Well, when a case goes cold for that long, he’s still going to be assigned to it, but he’s also required to take on other cases. More active ones, you understand?”

  “What about the box they found in the woods?” Mathew’s eyes became intense. “The news said it had human remains in it. What if that’s Tyler? What if it’s him and they’re setting it on the back burner while taking on other, more active, cases?”

  Kathryn downed the IPA and ordered another. “Listen, that’s not what’s happening. They’re going to do a bone analysis, run the DNA through the system and see if it matches up with your son. If it does, then you have your answer. If it doesn’t, then that’s another case getting all the attention right now. You have to realize until there’s proof, until there’s actual movement, there’s just not much that can be done.”

  The song on the jukebox ended and was replaced by a country western singer who wailed about long lost love. Mathew took a deep breath, ordered a scotch on the rocks, and then stared into the glass with a faraway look in his eyes.

  “He would likely be playing a game right now,” he said solemnly. “The coach said he had a good arm. Of course, I knew that. We’d be outside in the backyard, practicing, and he’d just fire one after another into my glove. It’d make my hand sting, you know?” He gave a soft chuckle. “Not that I’d ever admit that to him.”

  “Did he play on a team here in Ashbridge?” Kathryn suddenly sat up straight.

  “For a couple of summers, yeah. It’s one of the reasons he loved visiting his grandmother when school let out. He played for the Lightning over there at Wrangler’s Park, center field, but the coach started switching him to the mound.” He wrinkled his eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”

  Kathryn Lincoln studied the mirror behind the bar for a moment. All too often, her former partner, Selena, would operate on hunches that turned out to be right. Selena would say something along the lines of ‘things just start falling into place’ when she tried to explain it. At that moment, with the burn of alcohol in her belly and the mournful sound of country music, a spark ignited.

  She quickly tossed a twenty onto the bar, gathered her purse, and took out her phone. “Do you have a number I can reach you at? You know, if I come across anything?”

  “Yeah.” He sprouted off the digits and then shrugged. “You’re leaving? Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Kathryn said, making her way to the door. “Just going to look into something. Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Six

  Kathryn left the elevator, heels clacking loudly on the tiled floor. She made a deliberate attempt not to make an appearance upstairs, and wanted to avoid any questions or comments. This was supposed to be her time off, her mandatory vacation. If Chivler knew she was working a case under the table, he’d have her head on a pike.

  She stepped up to the window of a tiny office where a large man hunched over a burrito. He smiled. “Kat? What brings you down to the cage?”

  The cage is what the station referred to as the evidence and case file room. She liked to picture the troll-like guard never leaving his post, and even posing three riddles to the greener detectives on the force. The image made her return the smile, and she shrugged nonchalantly as though the reason for her visit wasn’t a big deal.

  “Hey, Bob. Just wanted to take another look at Ethan Winfield’s files.”

  “No problem,” Bob said, sliding a clipboard underneath the glass. “Need your John Hancock, and don’t forget to put the date. Had a guy come in here last month, checked out some old file and he didn’t put a date on it. I’m telling ya, it really screws up my system down here.” He pressed a button, unlocking the door to the storage area.

  Kat signed and dated the form. “Got it.” She continued to grin as she made her way to the door. “Thanks Bob.”

  The cases were in alphabetical order, stored in boxes along rows and rows of shelves. It was quiet down here, other than the occasional squeak of a mouse, and she suddenly felt bad for ole Bob keeping guard.

  She strolled down a long aisle until the shelving ended at a concrete wall. In the back stood only a handful of boxes in the W’s, one of which belonged to Winfield, Ethan. She pulled it from the shelf and returned to the elevator, waving cheerily at Bob who continued his focus on the burrito.

  A red balloon drifted down the second floor of Ashbridge Medical. The helium was losing effect, and it meandere
d along in a pathetic slump underneath the fluorescent lights. Nurses moved around the balloon like it wasn’t there. Alone, and losing it’s ability to float, Kathryn watched as though it were an injured bird on a busy sidewalk. It wasn’t that nobody cared, it was that nobody noticed, or had the time to do anything about it.

  Kathryn wanted to reach out and grab the string, but something held her hand back. She felt like it was a silent spectator, watching people blink in and out of existence. She glanced down at the open file in her lap, and when she looked back up the red balloon was gone.

  A phone call came shortly after she’d left the station informing her that Larry Rainer had suffered a heart attack. Her Nissan’s tires peeled out of the lot in her rush to get to the hospital, only to discover that he wasn’t ready to talk just yet. The doctor said that he needed rest, so Kathryn decided to sit on the bench across from the old minister’s room and dig through Ethan’s file. Every once in a while, the police man standing by Rainer’s door would attempt to strike up a conversation, but she insisted she needed to focus. In an effort to not come across as rude, she offered to keep watch while he went to grab some lunch. The gesture worked, and now she sat alone except for the nurses and visitors passing by.

  On page four of a detailed interview with Ethan’s mother, the document mentioned Ethan’s love of baseball. Three paragraphs down, the mother mentioned the boy played for a local team, the Lightning. There wasn’t anything else said about the team, or whether Ethan was involved two years ago when Tyler played, but she knew that Wrangler’s Park was less than a mile away from Harris Station.

  Kathryn’s heart rate picked up as she read, and she couldn’t help but think of her former partner’s words again: ‘things just start falling into place.’

  Chapter Seven

  The doctor said that Larry Rainer was awake, and that Kathryn could see him, but the old minister was still very weak. She promised not to get the prisoner all worked up.

  The inside of the hospital room was lit only by a lamp on the side table. Rainer was sitting up, thumbing through pages in a bible. A pair of reading glasses perched at the end of his nose gave him a scholarly appearance; an old wise man who spent his years studying the mysteries of the universe.

  Kathryn hardly regarded the man as wise, considering he remained in police custody pending human trafficking charges.

  She dragged a chair from across the room, letting the metal feet screech loudly against the floor, and sat at his bedside with Ethan Winfield’s file in her lap. The old man didn’t even look up from his reading. Instead, he raised a finger into the air, indicating that she should wait until he’s finished. She ignored the gesture.

  “I’m here about a boy named Tyler Wade.”

  Finally, Rainer closed the book and turned his eyes to her. “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Are you sure? Anything you tell me might go a long way at trial.” She pulled a photograph of Wade from her jacket pocket and held it out. “He was around Ethan’s age when he went missing. That was two years ago.”

  “Men will judge me, but it doesn’t matter in the end. God has a plan for me, for his followers. We’ll drink from the cup and live forever in glory.”

  “Yeah? Child molestation in that plan of his somewhere?”

  A spark of anger bolted across his wrinkled features. “That’s not funny. I never touched any of the children. Not once. The devil tempted me, but not with the flesh. No, no. He tempted me with money, the root of all evil. After Pastor Rob was arrested, I knew that things were starting to fall apart. So, I wanted to get away. Put it all behind me and start over, you see? In Florida, nobody knew my name. It was a fresh start doing what I love, plus it allowed me to get away from the people who are really in charge of the operation.”

  Kathryn let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yeah, and who is that?”

  “Did you ever find the girl?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Vanessa Finch?”

  “Unfortunately, no, we haven’t been able to locate her.”

  “But you know that I have something to do with it. That’s why you dropped her name, letting me onto your game. I knew I was done for then.” He leaned forward slightly. “You are the devil, you know. Come to test me. Come to test my faith.”

  “Do you know what happened to Vanessa?” Kathryn tucked the photograph back into her pocket. “If you do, it’d bring relief to a lot of people. To her family.”

  Rainer shrugged. “She was sold, just like the rest of them. I didn’t kill her, I didn’t rape her. She was just a name on a page.”

  “What page?”

  “We used to keep records, but when I returned to my office at the church, the place had been ransacked. I knew they were coming for me. It would only be a matter of time. So I left.”

  Kathryn bit the corner of her lip. “You guys actually kept a written record? I’d say you’re an idiot for leaving a paper trail, but we’ve never found anything. We even had a guy following the money, but the deposits were being made from fake names on accounts that closed afterward. All of them were online.”

  “They didn’t leave a digital trail. These people are very good at what they do, and have their hands in the pockets of some important people. You won’t catch them. When you come close, they’ll either throw someone onto the tracks like me, or get rid of you altogether.” A small smile creased his dry lips. “The file was inside a metal briefcase in a hidden compartment at my office. By the time I got there, it was long gone.”

  “What about Tyler Wade? Do you know if that name was on the list? Was it a list?”

  Rainer leaned back and closed his eyes. “Think of it more like a receipt. Now, I’m getting old detective. I have a hard time keeping the names of our church members together. The boy you’re looking for, this Wade, I honestly can’t be sure if he was any part of the operation in this area.” He paused for several beats. “I’m sorry, but I need to get some rest. It feels like all of my energy has been drained away.”

  “One more question.” Kathryn took a deep breath, held it. “Did you know Vanessa and Ethan were pen pals?”

  The old man shook his head, eyes closed.

  Resigned, she stood and made her way to the door. Then, she turned around to find him staring back at her. “Why are you helping me?” She asked.

  “You’re the devil, detective Lincoln. My only penance, my only chance at redemption, is to try and fight evil with evil. Hopefully, I’ve set you on the right path. However,” he coughed loudly. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “No, Rainer. These people you’re talking about? They don’t know me. Neither do you. I’m not the devil.”

  Larry Rainer closed his eyes again. “We shall see,” he whispered as she left the room. “We shall see.”

  Larry Rainer shifted under the sheets so that he could reach the lamp. Darkness snapped into the room when he flicked the switch, accompanied by an uneasy feeling. Detective Lincoln was persistent in her search for Vanessa. He wondered if she would succeed.

  A soft glow from the monitor in the room splashed a silvery blue across the ceiling. He gazed up at it, and remembered the last time he saw Vanessa Finch. The midsummer night was surprisingly cool. He sat upon a log and watched the roaring bonfire spike into the moonlit heavens. Boys and girls popped in and out of the light, their faces bright from the flames.

  Pastor Rob began strumming the guitar. All the children squealed with excitement. They sang along to a joyful gospel tune underneath sparkling stars.

  From the shadows bounced a little girl. She sprang close to the fire, twirling around in circles and stomping her feet to the rhythm. Chestnut brown hair fanned out as she spun. Suddenly, she stopped and held out both arms in an attempt to keep balance. Laughter bubbled out of her as she toppled onto her bottom and craned her neck up at the sliver of moon.

  Then her wide, green eyes fell on him.

  Rainer jumped up, winced at the crackle of his joints, and approached her. Anger and surprise
jolted through him. “Found you at last, Jennie.”

  The girl wrinkled her small brow. “I think you’re mistaken, mister. My name’s Vanessa. Vanessa Finch.”

  A group of children pulled Vanessa to her feet. Within seconds, she vanished, absorbed in the mass of dancing bodies beyond the bonfires reach. He searched for her late into the night, even sending administrators to perform tent checks. Nothing. The girl’s name didn’t even appear in the logs or paperwork sent in from parents.

  She was gone and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Chapter Eight

  Her cell chimed when she was half way to her car. An icy chill in the wind cut through her jacket, making her shiver and her voice tremble when she answered the call.

  “Lincoln.”

  “Hey, Kathryn. This is Ryan at the station. Listen, I just got off the phone with the forensic anthropologist. Apparently, she’s been working overtime trying to find something out about those bones.”

  Kathryn got into her vehicle, turned the key, and switched on the heat. The engine wasn’t quite warm enough yet, so a blast of more icy air pushed against her. “Right. Who’d you say this is again?”

  “Umm…” There was a short pause. “Detective Ryan Parker. We, ah, work together at the station. Remember we had a conversation earlier about Mathew Wade?”

  The heat finally kicked in, filling the car with warmth. Kathryn grinned and pulled out of the parking space. “I’m just messing with you, detective. Thought I’d give lightening the mood a shot. So, what did the forensic anthropologist have to say?”

  “Good one.” He coughed. “She says the bones are from a female, Caucasian. Giving the size and structure, she estimates them belonging to a girl of around four, maybe five.”