Chapter 32
BARB WAS INVITED MANY TIMES by Detective Cameron Wallace to visit him at the station during the brief time they were seeing each other, and she’d never once stopped in.
She was worried people would think they were a couple.
It all seems so silly now, because what was so bad about that?
Cameron is attentive. Emotionally available. Willing to commit.
And now he’s Megan’s.
Then do the work, she hears Dr. Leto say in her head as she enters the lobby of the police station with a tray of coffees and snacks. Do the work and you’ll break the pattern.
“You brought caffeine,” the detective says with a grin after she checks in at reception. He takes the tray from her and peers into the paper bag nestled between them. “And sustenance. What’s the snack of the day?”
“ ‘Jamaican Me Crazy.’ ” She laughs when he makes a face. “The barista said it’s like a cross between a cheese Danish and a Jamaican patty. They were two for one.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Cameron says, dubious. “I like Jamaican patties, and I like Danishes, but not together.”
Barb clips her visitor’s pass to her shirt and follows Cam through the metal detector.
Heads pop up curiously in the open-concept space as they make their way toward the back of the station where the offices are.
She nods and smiles to the people she recognizes, some in uniform, some not.
After the Wonderland scandal a decade earlier, Seaside PD had been forced to lay off half their staff, but like the rest of the town, it’s now making a comeback.
All the chatter and bustling reminds her of how the Chronicle used to be, but unlike the police department, the newspaper’s glory days are never coming back.
Cameron leads her into his office, a smallish room with a large desk and a window that offers a view of the parking lot. But it’s freshly painted and extremely tidy, not that she’d expect anything less. As she takes a seat across from him, she pokes at the nameplate that says det. c. wallace.
“Fancy digs,” she says. “Well done, you.”
He smiles and takes a sip of his coffee. On the corner of his desk is a framed photo of Cameron and his sister on the day he got promoted, looking handsome in his formal dress blues. Barb never did get to meet her, because she . . . well . . . she Barb’d.
“So what’s up?” he finally asks.
“I don’t know if Chief Burrows talked to you—” she begins.
“He did. What do you need?”
Barb exhales. Thank you, Jon. “I know you’ve been investigating Ingrid Larsen’s murder since her body turned up here, but how familiar are you with her disappearance in Cold Creek?”
“Figured that’s why you were here.” Cameron reaches for the bag of pastries and breaks off a piece, popping it into his mouth. “I have a copy of the file from Cold Creek PD, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Barb says.
“When I spoke to them, they wouldn’t tell me much, and they sure as shit wouldn’t send me the file.
I have Ingrid’s parents’ notes, but I’m trying to fill in some of the holes.
Does the Cold Creek file say anything about a potential witness they might have interviewed?
Nathan Shelley? Partner’s name is Rebecca Welton? ”
Cameron chews slowly, staring at her, as if waiting for the punch line.
“Nathan Shelley and Rebecca Welton?” He finally swallows. “Are you fucking with me?”
“You would think so, but I assure you, not even I have the time for that.”
“Rebecca Welton and Nathan Shelley, as in Ted Lasso?” Cameron asks, sounding incredulous. “Those are the names they gave?”
“It took me ten minutes to figure that out, and you got it in two seconds,” Barb says. “But yes, apparently ‘Nathan’ found Ingrid’s dog wandering on the trail the evening she disappeared. The next day, ‘Rebecca’ found Ingrid’s phone. Locations of both discoveries are about a half a mile apart.”
“Those can’t seriously be their real names.”
“Oh, you think?”
“Hang on.” Looking irritated, Cameron picks off the top folder from the neat pile on his desk and flips it open.
There are only a handful of photocopied sheets inside, a pitiful amount for a missing person case that resulted in a murder.
“Okay, it’s noted here that Cold Creek PD didn’t have the correct contact information for Nathan and Rebecca. ”
“Again, you think?” Barb cranes her neck, dying to get a look at the file. “I called the number he gave them and got a grocery store in Cold Creek.”
“Fake names, fake number, that’s not suspicious at all.”
“This Nathan—or whatever his real name is—might have been the only person in that specific area of the trail around the time Ingrid disappeared. And yet there’s no way to contact him with follow-up questions.
” Barb pauses to sip her coffee. “So I looked up houses on Sunnydale Crescent, which is where he said they live, but I couldn’t find any record of recent sales on that street. At least none that I have access to.”
“I’ll ask Alice to look into it.” Turning to his computer, Cameron starts typing. “She can hack into anything, even though she’ll complain about doing it. There. Just sent her a message.”
For once, assistance from Alice Chu that Barb doesn’t have to pay for.
“Hey, did you know she has a boyfriend now?” Cameron asks, finishing off the pastry. Must have been tasty after all. “Apparently she met him on Reddit.”
“Yeah, she told me. They met in a group for jigsaw puzzle lovers.”
He nearly spits out the last bite. “There’s a subreddit for that?”
“There’s a subreddit for everything,” Barb says with a grin. “And the fact that you don’t know that tells me you actually have a life.” With Megan now, she thinks, but doesn’t say.
Cameron chuckles. “So what’s your theory on what happened to Ingrid? I know you must have one.”
“She was kidnapped, for sure,” Barb says. “But I’m not sure it was planned in advance. Nobody but her parents knew that she was taking the dog for a walk that time of the evening. It’s not her usual routine.”
“That might not have mattered if she was being stalked and the perp was just waiting for the right opportunity.” Cameron drums his fingers on the desk.
“She’s a young, attractive woman alone on a trail at night with her small dog.
Someone sees her and decides to grab her.
The dog runs off. The perp then takes her . . . where?”
Barb pulls out her own laptop and clicks on the trail map that Axel Larsen sent.
She turns the screen to face him. “There’s a public parking lot about a quarter mile east. Plus, the residential area nearby has lots of street parking.
He could have put her in a car, then driven them anywhere.
Did the police there check the CCTV cameras? ”
He snorts. “What cameras? There’s not a single CCTV in all of Cold Creek.
I’ve only been there once, and it’s smaller than Seaside.
” Cameron drums his fingers on his desk.
“But let’s run with this for a second. Nathan grabs her, probably knocks her out, stashes her somewhere, and then runs into Mr. Larsen on the trail and has no choice but to give him a fake name and fake number.
But Mr. Larsen doesn’t suspect anything.
So at that point, the kidnapping was a success.
Why even come back the next day with the girlfriend to join the search party? ”
“To make sure he didn’t leave anything behind on the trail?
Or to insert himself into the investigation somehow?
Some criminals get off on observing the police at the scene of the crime.
” Barb thinks for a moment. “Does the Cold Creek file have a description of Nathan? Ingrid’s father described him as very tall. Like six-six. And fit.”
“Nope, but you’re welcome to look.” Cameron pushes the file toward her.
It takes Barb less than two minutes to read through it all. She closes the folder and sighs.
“We should be looking for this Nathan Shelley,” she says. “There’s no reason for him to lie about his name, address, and phone number unless he did something, or at least has something to hide. Nothing else makes sense.”
“And it might never make sense,” Cameron says.
“He could be a perfectly upstanding citizen who lied about his identity because he didn’t want to be involved.
Or he could have been the one who kidnapped her, and he came back the next day to see what the police know.
I know you want to understand his motives, but if this guy is a murderer, then he likely doesn’t operate with the same logic or moral compass as we do.
Maybe he just wanted to hurt someone, and so he did.
That’s what makes him a psychopath. It’s not that he doesn’t know right from wrong, it’s that he did it anyway. What this case lacks is evidence.”
Barb nods. He’s right, of course.
“It’s why Chief Burrows was pissed at you at the press conference,” Cameron says. “You can’t just go around suggesting that Ingrid Larsen and Kylie Kahl are somehow connected without any evidence.”
“I admit, I shouldn’t have asked my question out loud,” Barb says with a sigh. “But I do feel that their cases are related. And I might now have some evidence to back that up.”
“Okay, I’ll play,” Cameron folds his hands together on the desk. “What’s the connection?”
“Ingrid’s ring.”
Barb pulls out her phone and taps on the zoomed in photo she cropped of Ingrid’s hand. She then hands Cameron the phone and braces herself.
“Where did you get this picture?” He stares at her phone, frowning. Unfortunately, the color of the young woman’s skin and the state of her fingertips make it clear that she’s dead. “Is this from the autopsy?”
“Yes,” she says. “I, um, have a source.”
“A source? Actually, you know what, I don’t want to know.” Cameron shakes his head. “So Ingrid is wearing a ring. So what?”
“I don’t know how much you know about birthstones—”
“Absolutely nothing, and I’m fine with that.”
“You see how the little stone is green?” Barb says. “It’s a peridot. Ingrid’s mother said it doesn’t make sense she’d be wearing it, because it’s not her birthstone, and she doesn’t even like jewelry. Now swipe to the next photo.”
Looking confused, he swipes.
“That’s a screenshot from the first season of Trophy Wives,” Barb says. “Look at the ring on Kylie Kahl’s hand.”
Cameron sits up. He swipes back to the photo of Ingrid, then swipes again to the photo of Kylie. “Shit. That looks like the same ring.” He looks up at her. “But that doesn’t mean it is.”
“Which is why I’d like to see the ring,” Barb says. “In the episode, Kylie said it has her initials engraved in it. If the ring Ingrid is wearing is Kylie’s, then we’ll know the two cases are connected.”
“It’s in evidence. I’ll check today.” Cameron hands her phone back. “So, you want to know the real reason Burrows yelled at you after the press conference?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it yelling. He maybe spoke firmly—”
“Everyone saw it,” Cameron says. “But I’m about to tell you two things, and they have to stay between us. Burrows does not want any leaks, not this week, not any week, and absolutely no public speculation, especially coming from you. Clear?”
“Crystal.” Reflexively she leans forward.
“So they left this out of the autopsy report on purpose, but the ME said that Ingrid’s foot was hacked off,” Cameron says. “He’s guessing it was done with an axe, something sharp that had some weight to it, because of the way the bones in her ankle broke at the time her foot was severed.”
“Jesus,” Barb says. “Okay, what’s the second thing?”
“The morning of the press conference, a new missing person report had just been filed. Apparently a woman was on her way down to Seaside to meet a couple of friends at Wonderland for opening weekend. But she never made it.”
Barb can’t help but feel she’s about to be knocked sideways.
“She’s in her mid-twenties.” Cameron leans back in his chair. “Her name is Sydney Carlisle, and she was on a reality show called—”
“Showgirls,” Barb says. “Oh my god.”
Set in Las Vegas, Showgirls follows the lives of six dancers as they navigate life and love while working on a show in one of the newer hotel casinos.
Sydney appeared on the first two seasons, and Barb can picture her quite clearly.
Mid-twenties, slim and busty, with long black hair. Extremely attractive.
Just like Kylie Kahl.
Just like Ingrid Larsen.
“One missing reality star could be a one-off,” Cameron says, as if reading Barb’s mind. “Two could be a coincidence. But three?”
Barb knows what three means, and a tingle shoots up her spine.
“Now, we don’t have enough to go on yet,” Cameron says. “But yeah, given everything we just talked about, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.”
“Three reality stars connected to Seaside . . .” Barb’s voice is faint.
“I know.” The detective’s voice is heavy as he meets her gaze. “Seaside might have a serial killer.”
Again.