Chapter 30
OTHER THAN BARB AND THE Larsens, nobody is actively trying to solve Ingrid Larsen’s murder.
Based on the brief conversation Barb had with Cold Creek PD following the Larsens’ surprise visit, it seems their local police department has back-burnered Ingrid’s case.
And as far as Seaside PD goes, it’s not even on the stove.
Just like with Kylie Kahl, there are never any answers. Only more questions.
Settled into her usual spot on the sofa, Barb offers the last lick of her zero-sugar fake fudgesicle to Dexter. The cat takes one sniff and jerks his head away, offended. She doesn’t blame him, but then again, he has treats he actually likes.
She tosses the popsicle stick aside and reaches for her laptop.
The file Axel Larsen emailed her the morning after their surprise visit is as thorough as any police file Barb’s ever read, containing every note Ingrid’s parents have made about their daughter’s disappearance.
Everywhere they’ve looked, everyone they talked to (including old friends, former coworkers, and ex-boyfriends), theories, musings, a scan of the trail map showing where she went missing, the private investigator’s findings, even a list of registered sex offenders who live within a hundred-mile radius—it’s all neatly organized in a PDF that’s over a hundred pages long.
Every single person in it has been eliminated as a suspect for one reason or another.
Barb examines the map again. The trail begins about a ten-minute walk from the Larsens’ house and winds through their neighborhood’s forested area until it reaches the creek.
From there, it branches out in several directions, about twelve miles of path total.
Axel Larsen has colored in all the areas he personally searched in red pencil.
Where the police searched, he used blue.
Based on the amount of purple showing on the PDF, nearly every area has been combed at least twice.
Barb zooms in, homing in on the spot where Ingrid’s dog was found wandering. There appears to be a wooden bridge nearby that crosses a wider, deeper part of the creek, which is the area her father said she’d likely never go at night.
Ingrid Larsen’s phone company provided a list numbers called and received going back six months.
But like everyone her age nowadays, Ingrid rarely used her cell to make actual phone calls.
And while there’s a handful of SMS texts the day before she disappeared between her and a friend who was traveling through Europe, the rest of the texts were via iMessage, which generally uses data and not cellular.
That means the phone company has no record of them other than the messages saved on the actual device.
After scanning through the pages of screenshotted texts, Barb comes to the same conclusion the Larsens did.
There’s nothing to indicate that Ingrid was planning to meet someone or leave town, which means the simplest theory is that someone took her.
Ingrid wasn’t famous, exactly, but she was on a reality show, which would put her on strangers’ radars significantly more than the average person.
And Cold Creek Park is a huge area to search.
According to the Larsens, they had fifty people out looking.
What are the chances that the partner of the man who found Ingrid’s dog would then be the person who found her phone, in an area a half mile away?
They might just be the luckiest couple in the world.
Except Barb doesn’t believe in luck.
Scrolling through more of the Larsens’ notes, some typed and some handwritten, Barb finally finds the page she’s looking for.
Patty Larsen had jotted down the couple’s names.
Nathan Shelley found the dog. And his partner/girlfriend/wife—their exact relationship status was never clarified, much to Mr. Larsen’s chagrin—is Rebecca Welton.
Nathan Shelley. Rebecca Welton. Something about their names feels eerily familiar, but Barb can’t put her finger on why at the moment.
Patty Larsen noted that the couple had a home on Sunnydale Crescent, and though no house number is mentioned, there is a phone number.
Barb calls it, and it rings three times before someone answers.
“Marilou’s Market, this is Dale, how may I help you?”
“Oh, sorry,” Barb says, caught off guard. “I think I might have the wrong number.” She recites it slowly, reading the number directly from the notes.
“Yep, that’s us,” the man on the other line says. Behind him, Barb can hear a smattering of voices engaged in different conversations. “Did you want to place an order for pick up?”
“Are you in Cold Creek?” Barb asks.
“Yes, ma’am. Did you want to make an order?”
“I actually live a little too far for that.” Barb doesn’t bother to mention that she’s about three hours too far in a whole different state. “Can you tell me how long you’ve had this phone number?”
“Since we opened for business in 1980,” the man says. “Sorry, ma’am, we’re pretty busy here, so unless you—”
“So sorry to bother you,” Barb says, and disconnects.
What the hell? The nice, helpful young couple actually fake-numbered the Larsens?
A quick search in Google Maps confirms that Sunnydale Crescent is indeed about six streets over from the Larsens’ home.
Barb pulls up Zillow to search recent homes sales, but nothing comes up.
Feeling that tingle again, she then types “Nathan Shelley and Rebecca Welton” into Google’s search engine.
A second later, ten pages of links for the hit TV show Ted Lasso appear on her screen.
Holy shit, that’s why their names were so familiar. Rebecca Welton and Nathan Shelley are two of the main characters on that show, which Barb binge-watched a few years back. Not once but twice. She could smack herself.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she says out loud, and beside her, Dexter lifts his head. “First a fake number and now fake names?”
She picks up the phone to text Alice Chu, wondering if the IT whiz might be able to find out more information about house sales in Cold Creek.
Probably, but then she remembers that Alice doesn’t want to work with her anymore.
She then recalls the deal she made with the chief of police after the press conference—Jonathan Burrows promised her access to information in exchange for not publishing anything just yet.
The cat puts his head back down.
And that ring on Ingrid’s finger, ugh. It had bothered Barb when she first noticed it, but now that she knows it’s bothering Patty Larsen, too, it doesn’t seem so trivial. She still can’t shake the feeling that she’s seen it somewhere before.
But where?
Clicking on one of the autopsy photos from Alice, she zooms in on Ingrid’s hand as far as she can and snaps a blurry screenshot.
A few seconds later, Google Images tells her it matches nothing.
Shit. Maybe Barb saw the ring at a jewelry store?
No, because like Ingrid, she’s not a jewelry person, either.
Maybe passing through the Seaside farmers’ market?
There’s one every Wednesday evening just off Main Street, and they sell everything from organic produce to handmade jewelry.
But Patty Larsen is certain the ring didn’t belong to Ingrid, and that someone must have given it to her.
But who?
When they spoke, Mrs. Larsen made a point to note that the peridot was not her daughter’s birthstone. The pale green gem is the birthstone for August. Ingrid was born in April.
But you know who does have a birthday in August? Kylie Kahl.
“Dexter,” Barb says, and the cat opens one eye. “I might be onto something.”
She reaches for the TV remote and navigates to the Quan app.
In the “Recently Watched” category, she clicks on Trophy Wives and scrolls all the way back to the first season.
She can’t remember exactly which episode it would be, but there was a scene where Kylie was talking about her estrangement from her ultraconservative family back in Wisconsin.
Beginning at episode one, Barb starts fast-forwarding at the slowest speed.
If she’s remembering it correctly, Kylie had shown the other wives a picture of herself as a teenager, where she and her sister are wearing matching floral dresses outside their church after Sunday service.
She told them about her strict religious upbringing and her desire to get away from it, and the disappointment her parents felts when they learned their eldest daughter was on TikTok wearing next to nothing.
She then talked about the ring her little sister had given her for her birthday shortly before she left home for good.
“Found it,” she says to Dexter, hitting the stop button. “Episode three. Kylie’s bridal shower.”
She hits play. It’s midway through the episode, and Kylie is in tears as she tells the other wives how much she misses her sister, Kaycie.
“She saved up her babysitting money to buy me this,” on-screen Kylie is saying, holding up her hand.
She’s wearing a short white dress covered in bows from the bridal shower gifts she’d just opened.
“It’s handmade by an artist from our hometown, and she had it engraved with my initials.
It’s the least expensive piece of jewelry I own, but it means more to me than anything else.
I miss Kaycie so much. We used to be really close. ”
“Is she coming to the wedding?” on-screen Cole Lennox asks, her perfectly made-up face filled with compassion.
“I don’t think so,” Kylie says, wiping away a tear. “Her husband and our parents wouldn’t approve.”
“There it is,” Barb says, pausing the TV on a close-up of Kylie’s ring. “Dexter, look.”
The screen is frozen, and she leans forward for a closer look. The ring on Kylie’s hand is a thin silver band with a light green gemstone. Barb compares it to the photo on her laptop, where she’s still zoomed in on Ingrid’s hand. Then she leans back on the sofa, stunned.
Same ring.