Pretty Little Wife(88)
She saw it now. Had no idea how she missed it before. “Seventeen.”
“Right, but Karen’s parents said they’d never seen the bracelet before. I’ve asked two friends, and they say the same thing. She never wore it, and no one remembers her having it.”
“Right.” Ginny picked up the clearer photos of the older bracelet. The one with the “A” charm on it. “What if the long scratch on the back of this charm isn’t actually a scratch?”
“I want to be excited, but you’ve lost me.”
She put the photos of the bracelets side by side and the truth jumped out. “What if that scratch is a number one? As in, number one and number seventeen.”
“You mean victims?”
“Yes.” The more she studied the two, the more convinced she became. The first would have been scratched into the back of the metal decades ago, when the Payne brothers were young, and probably with a knife. The engraving in the more recent one was done by a steadier hand. Possibly an older hand, one more comfortable with killing.
That meant there should be bracelets out there for Yara and Julie, too.
“Seventeen victims?” Pete shook his head.
“Possibly.”
“Holy shit. Are we really going to stop working on this case and just turn it over?” He looked appalled by the idea.
So was she, but she hid the excitement that came with unraveling a case better, thanks to years of practice. “There’s a chain of command and—”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Let me finish.” She gestured for Pete to come farther inside her office, then shut the door behind him. “There’s a chain of command, and we’re going to ignore it.”
A smile slowly crossed his lips. “I’m listening.”
“Good, because we’re not done with Lila Ridgefield or her dead husband.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
THE NEXT MORNING, LILA MADE THE DRIVE SHE’D TRIED TO avoid. She borrowed Tobias’s rental car while he was in the shower and left a note about running errands. With Ginny and her crew officially off the case, that meant she didn’t have to worry about being followed. She was on her own. No matter how painful this trip might be, she was doing it. She had to.
That bracelet. It sent her mind spinning.
The drive took almost three hours, just like everyone said. She’d planned out the trip, looking for side roads and workarounds. When she got to the point where she would have turned right onto the final dirt road before hitting the driveway to the cabin, she kept driving.
She could see the yellow caution tape flapping in the breeze. Of course today was the day the cooler, wetter weather had moved into this part of New York. A steady drizzle slowed her down. The woods would be muddy, but she was prepared with boots. Her backpack had supplies, some she hoped she wouldn’t need.
As she whizzed by the entrance, she saw two local police officers standing by their cruiser, drinking coffee. Their presence wasn’t a surprise. The tiny town and the cabin had gotten a lot of attention on the news. While the interviewees didn’t give an exact address, she knew where the cabin was. The map and aerial view on Ginny’s board confirmed the location and the thick wooded area around it.
She drove for another quarter mile and took a right. She could only drive in a few feet, enough to hide her car from the road. That’s all she needed.
With the car locked and her raincoat hood up, she grabbed her backpack and headed toward the cabin. She knew the bulk of the forensics at the cabin had been done. There was talk of digging up the land and looking for more bodies, but that required special equipment, and the latest podcast said that would arrive tomorrow. That gave her a window of one day. One shitty, rainy day.
Her boots slid in the mud as she walked. Sticks cracked beneath her feet, and fallen leaves and broken branches made the walking slick. She didn’t follow a trail because there wasn’t one. She walked until she hit the fence. Six feet and made of wood. Hard to climb but, she hoped, easy to break through. But not yet. She followed the fence deeper into the woods, blocking branches with her arm as she forged a path.
The mist clouded her vision and dampened her cheeks. The jacket she wore repelled the rain, but her hair slipped out and now-wet curls slipped over her forehead. The longer she walked, the more moss she saw. Over the ground and downed trees.
The tree crowns provided an umbrella of protection, keeping the light from seeping in. It wasn’t even eleven in the morning, and the entire area was blanketed in a sort of dingy gray. It looked and felt more like late afternoon. The scent of pine and dirt filled her senses.
She kept her focus on the fence, trying to catch a glimpse of the cabin from this side. After she trudged and slipped for what felt like forever, she spied the roofline. A few more feet and she reached what would be the equivalent of the back of the cabin. Breaking through the fence here seemed smarter. Police could be roaming, and she didn’t want to run into them.
The rain switched to a steady drizzle. No more mist. It came down now, the tiny pings echoing as the drops hit the ground.
She scanned the fence, looking for weakness. The damn thing had faded with the years, but the wood hadn’t rotted. That meant breaking through the hard way. Of course.
She picked two boards and slammed the heavy heel of her hiking boot against what she thought looked like the most vulnerable spot. The wood bowed under the onslaught of kicks, cracking and moaning but not breaking. The repeated motion rubbed a spot clear on the ground. With the grass completely gone, she slipped in the mud, unable to get the traction she needed for more shots.