Kilo
R eina got to work on Monday morning to find that Lilly Carona was no longer enrolled at the preschool. The center’s director, Kimberly Cargill, entered the classroom and asked Reina and the classroom teacher if anything had happened with Lilly on Friday. Neither woman could think of anything. And Lilly’s mom had actually been on time to pick her up the entire last week.
“Well, Lilly’s mom gave no notice. She just left a voicemail over the weekend saying that Lilly would not be returning to our school. And she paid for the entire week in advance last Friday, as usual. The unused days aren’t refundable, not that she even asked about a refund in the message, which I find very odd.”
“Has the check cleared yet?” Kay asked. “Maybe she knows she’ll be bouncing a check.”
“Maybe,” Kimberly agreed.
Reina found this beyond odd. Ashley Carona was a single mom, as far as Reina knew. Wasting that amount of money was not something she would do. “Were you going to call her and ask if something happened you need to be aware of?”
“Why would I open that can of worms?” Kimberly asked.
“It’s better to let it lie,” Kay agreed. “I, for one, am glad we won’t have to stay late waiting for Lilly to be picked up any longer.”
While both Kay and Kimberly agreed there was no reason to question the sudden withdrawal from the school, Reina was suspicious of Ashley Carona’s motives and concerned for Lilly. But maybe she was just transferring her own traumatic childhood onto Lilly.
Later that morning, Reina slipped into Kimberly’s empty office. She knew the filing cabinets where the student files were kept were not locked. She wanted to get a look at Lilly’s. Maybe she’d drive by her house, just to take a look to see all was okay. Maybe she’d call Lilly’s mom and ask if everything was alright. She wasn’t sure yet.
She located and pulled Lilly Carona’s file. She heard Kimberly’s voice in the hallway. She was approaching. Reina quickly tucked the file into the back of her pants under her sweater.
“Reina, what are you doing in here?” Kimberly asked, startled to see Reina standing in her office.
Reina clutched her forehead. “I just needed a quiet moment. I just took some Tylenol and am trying to dull a headache.”
“I hope you’re not coming down with the flu, too,” Kimberly said.
Reina knew it was making its way through the school, both students and teachers were coming down with it daily. “I hope so, too,” Reina said. “Can I take a few more minutes in here where it’s quiet and give the Tylenol time to work?”
Kimberly patted her shoulder. She pointed to the couch. “Of course. Take a seat and relax for five or ten minutes. I’d rather go cover for you for a few minutes than risk your headache getting so bad you have to go home and then have to cover for you for the rest of the day.” Kimberly gave her a supportive small smile and then she left the room, closing the door behind herself.
Reina took the opportunity to take pictures with her phone of the forms in Lilly Carona’s file. Then she refiled the folder, knowing that within the next few days, Kimberly was sure to pull it to transfer it to the no longer enrolled drawer and if it was missing, Kimberly would surely suspect her of taking it.
Ten minutes later, she returned to the classroom. She assured Kimberly the headache was dull, and that she was fine to carry on. Throughout the rest of the day, she considered what to do with the information in the pictures on her phone. She had Lilly’s address and her mother’s phone number as well as the mother’s employment information. There were also two emergency contacts listed. She could drive by the home address. But what if Ashley Carona was outside and saw her? Would she have to have an excuse for being there?
Glancing at the wall of drying paintings the children made last Friday, Lilly’s sledding scene picture hung with the others. She could take it and deliver it to their home. Yes, that’s what she’d do. Now she just had to sneak the picture out. Later, near the end of the day, Kay was in the bathroom, and she was alone with the kids. She took down the picture and rolled it, stuffing it into the arm of her coat to hide it. Now that she had a plan, she felt more relaxed.
It was dark outside when Reina left work, carrying her winter coat. At her car, she removed Lilly’s picture and placed it on the passenger seat before donning her coat. She pulled the picture up from Lilly’s file that had her home address and then plugged it into her maps app.
Reina was nervous as she drove to Lilly’s address. She wasn’t completely familiar with all of Cedar Rapids, but she knew this part of town was a nice area. The homes were newer than the one she lived in, a little bigger, and on larger lots.
She wished she was pulling up on it in daylight because not all the homes had clear street numbers on them. When the maps program told her she’d arrived at her destination, she pulled over to the side of the road and looked at the nearest homes. The address was twelve-forty-two, which would put it on the right-hand side of the street. The problem was that house was circled with a high, chain-link fence. She got out of her car and walked up to the fence, which was secured with a lock. Within the fence, the skeletal structure of a charred, half collapsed home greeted her. It looked like it had recently burned. Even though the air was still, she could smell the remnants of the flames.
Tears welled up in her eyes and a lump formed in her throat. Is this why Lilly had been removed from school? Was she okay? Or had she been injured or killed in the fire?
“Hey, what are you doing over there?” a male voice called to her from the man who’d just stepped out onto the porch of the house across the street.
“Nothing,” she called back. She took a few steps away from the fence and turned to face the man who still stood on the porch. “What happened to this house?”
“What do you mean, what happened? It burned down last week,” he answered, descending the stairs.
She walked across the street. “How terrible. I’m not sure if this is the house I was looking for or not. Did Ashley and Lilly Carona live there? Was that house twelve-forty-two?”
“No, twelve-forty-two is that house,” he said, pointing to the small ranch home to the left of the burned house.
“Oh, odd. My maps app told me this was twelve-forty-two. I sure hope no one was hurt in the fire.”
“Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case,” the man said without elaborating.
“Sorry to hear that,” she said, taking a step away from him.
“But the woman and child in twelve-forty-two aren’t there any longer. They moved out on Saturday. A moving van was there,” he volunteered.
“They did?” she asked, surprised. Why would Ashley Carona pay for the next week’s tuition on Friday if she was moving out on Saturday, unless the move was local?
“Yeah,” he confirmed. Then he turned and returned to the porch.
“Do you know them? Do you know where they moved?” she asked.
“No, can’t say I do.”
“Thank you for the help.” Reina watched him disappear behind his closed front door. Then she approached the dark house he had identified as where Ashley and Lilly Carona lived.
It was a small brick ranch with an attached two-car garage. The curtains were drawn in the front and there didn’t appear to be any lights on inside. She tried the front door. It was locked. Not sure what she was looking for, or even why she was doing it, she circled around the garage, heading towards the back yard. Behind the garage was a service door in to it. She found the door unlocked.
Stepping into the garage, she activated the flashlight on her phone and swept the inside with the beam of light. The garage was empty. Whatever may have been on the shelves that lined two walls was now gone. Reina had a moment of indecision when she found the door that led into the house unlocked. Should she go in?
Deciding she’d come this far; she took a deep breath and pushed the door open. “Hello,” she called. Only silence greeted her.
Reina made her way through the laundry and utility room, past the washer and dryer, furnace, and hot water heater. The shelves above the washer and dryer were empty. She walked through every room, opened cabinet doors and drawers in the kitchen and two bathrooms. She opened closet doors in each of the three bedrooms. All were empty. The carpets showed the impressions of where the furniture had been. She clearly made out where beds, tables, and dressers had been arranged in the rooms.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been looking for. But Reina found nothing. Retracing her steps, she ended up back in the laundry room. The flashlight on her phone, still leading the way, illuminated the glass dryer door. Inside were clothes and the unmistakable brown fur that could only be a stuffed animal. She opened the door to find the outfit Lilly had worn to school on Friday and her special brown bear that she’d named Lovie, and brought as her special item to school. It was her comfort bear that she snuggled with at naptime and presumably night time as well.
Reina sifted through the remainder of the clothing in the dryer. Several of Lilly’s outfits were in there as well as clothes that obviously belonged to her mom, even though Reina rarely saw Ashley out of scrubs. How did Ashley forget a load of clothes when she moved? A load including Lilly’s Lovie? And certainly, it would have been missed. Why hadn’t they come back to retrieve it? Maybe Ashley hadn’t had time to yet and would? Reina wrestled with what she should do. Should she take the bear and try to find them? Or leave it in the dryer in case Ashley came back. Maybe she really hadn’t fully moved out yet, even though it looked like it.
After several moments of indecision, Reina placed the items back into the dryer. It could have been that Ashley had been working shifts at the hospital since she moved and would come back. Once back in her car, Reina brought up Ashley’s phone number. She’d call her. She wouldn’t admit to being at Ashley’s house, but she would ask about dropping off the picture and pretend she didn’t know they’d moved. Glancing at the painting on the seat, Reina noticed Lilly had what she believed to be Lovie clutched in the sledder’s arms. She’d bring that up with Ashley too, in hopes Ashley would volunteer information, such as Lovie being lost or left behind.
Once she had it all thought out, she dialed the number. The call went right to voicemail. Not even one ring. Reina wasn’t sure, but she thought that meant a phone was off. She didn’t leave a message. She did have Ashley’s work phone number. She could try that.
A knock on her window startled her out of her thoughts and made her jump in her seat. A policeman in uniform stood beside her car. She rolled her window down at his prompting.
“Is everything okay, ma’am?” he asked.
“Yes, why?” she replied, fighting to catch her breath from the surprise by his window knock that got her heart pumping hard in her chest.
“You’re parked in front of the crime scene. Did you know the deceased?”
Her gaze darted back to the burned-out building surrounded by fencing. She didn’t see any crime scene tape. “Crime scene? No, I didn’t know it was. I was here to visit someone I knew in the house next door, but evidently, she moved.” She pointed to the dark house she’d recently exited the same way she’d gone in. She wondered if that neighbor across the street had called the police on her. “I was just calling her to see where she moved to.” She held her phone up to the officer.
“May I see your license, proof of insurance, and the vehicle’s registration, please?” he asked.
“Sure, but why?” she asked, reaching for her purse on the passenger seat beside Lilly’s painting. She didn’t see how he tightened his grip on his gun as she did. She pulled the requested documents from her purse and then the glove box. Her adrenaline spiked. She knew the Marshals had provided her with all valid documentation that was supposed to hold up to any scrutiny, but a part of her was fearful something would be off that would make the officer suspicious.
“Please remain in your vehicle while I run these,” he said.
In her rearview mirror, she watched him return to his own car, which she only now realized was parked behind hers.
A few minutes later, he returned to the spot beside her car. He handed her license and the documents to her through the window. “I’ll let you be on your way,” he said. “Have a good evening.” He nodded and then returned to his squad car.
Without delay, she turned the engine over and then signaled before she pulled back onto the quiet residential street. She shook all the way home from the encounter. Thankfully, neither of her nosy neighbors greeted her as she arrived home. Both Lorraine Newhouse and Bruce had left her alone since she’d told Lorraine her cousin Jimmy was a DEA Agent. The past few days had been wonderful.
She made herself a can of soup for dinner and considered what she should do next, if anything. Was it just a coincidence that Ashley and Lilly’s next-door neighbor was killed in a fire that was being investigated as a crime right before they moved? Did Ashley own the house, or were they just renting it? Maybe it hadn’t been Ashley’s choice to move. They could have been evicted.
After she drove herself crazy with considering it for over an hour, Reina picked her phone up and dialed the one person who could probably look into Ashley and Lilly Carona and their disappearance.
“Hi Rae. Is everything okay?” Jimmy Wilson asked when he answered her unexpected call. They did talk on the phone sporadically, but the timing of the call was always discussed via text prior to the call. He’d never received a call out of the blue from her before.
“Yes, is this a bad time?” she asked.
“It’s fine. I have a few minutes,” he assured her. He was in his office at HQ getting ready to deploy on the next DEA Partner Mission with Delta Team plus Jackson. He and Alpha Team had returned to HQ earlier that morning, having flown out of Baltimore on the agency Lear after solving the CIA referral case involving Bianchi. “It’s nice to hear from you.”
“It’s nice to hear your voice,” she said, regretting that she’d said it as soon as the words slipped out. “Jimmy, I need a favor. I’m sure it’s nothing and I’m just overreacting, but I think someone’s in trouble. There’s definitely something odd going on.”
“What do you mean, Rae? Tell me what happened.”
She recounted the events of the day. “Had Lilly’s Lovie not been in the dryer I don’t think I’d be this worried. I don’t know if you know anyone with kids, but their nap and nighttime Lovie isn’t something any mom would just leave behind when you move,” she said. “And the whole fire and crime scene stuff, that just really freaked me out, not to mention the cop running my ID.”
“Well first, I’m sure you’re okay with the cop having taken your ID and documents. Any identity set up by the Marshals passes muster. So, don’t worry about that. And I have to agree with you regarding the fire and their move. It’s one hell of a coincidence, unless their house was damaged and they had to move, but then, it would be temporary, and they probably wouldn’t have cleared everything out.”
“Jimmy, she’s a single mom. There is no way in hell she would have paid for an entire week’s childcare and then not used it or even ask for it back.”
“Okay, let me turn this over to our Digital Team, and they can look into this woman and her child.” After he said it, he knew he should not have told her the team name or any function at the agency.
“Thank you. I’d appreciate it. I just want to make sure they’re okay.”
“Send me what you have, and we’ll look into them. It might take a few days, but I promise I’ll get back in touch with you when I know something,” he guaranteed.
She sent him the pictures of the forms she had taken on her phone. “Okay, just sent it.”
“Got it, thanks. So, besides this, all is good?” he asked.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said.
“What’s up? Talk to me,” he urged her.
“It’s nothing, really. This thing with Lilly and her mom, you know, I doubt anyone missed me when I flew out of Norfolk with you last year. I could have been dead, and no one would have known or cared.”
“Rae, don’t say that. You matter. You were instrumental in helping to bring down that drug ring. We wouldn’t have cracked it without you.”
“If I’d been with Smitty when they picked him up, I’m not sure the DEA would have noticed if I’d been killed with him,” she said.
“We’ve never talked about your relationship with him. I’m sorry I never asked how you were doing with the loss.”
A lump formed in Reina’s throat. “Yeah, he was a good guy, an undercover DEA Agent, that takes guts. I was his in, to help make him look legit to the cartel. We pretended to be a couple for his cover.”
Wilson waited for her to say more. She didn’t. He’d always assumed there was something personal between them.
“Jimmy, I’ve really liked this shot at a normal life. I like my job, the kids are great, and my coworkers are nice, have made me feel a part of the team. I never had a job outside of a bar before and have never really been on my own. And now just starting college. It’s nice, but it’s kind of scary too.”
“In what way?”
Reina wiped the tears that were now spilling onto her cheek. “I’m waiting for someone to call me out because I don’t belong here and even if they don’t, I’m sure something is going to happen to fuck it up.”
“Oh, Rae, don’t think that way. You do belong there. And why are you so sure something’s going to fuck it up? Is it just that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop?”
“Yes, something like that,” she admitted.
“I think how you’re feeling is perfectly normal.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I’m proud of you, Rae.”
She smiled into the phone. “Thank you, Jimmy, And I’m sorry I even brought it up.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you confided in me. I like that we talk.”
She still felt embarrassed that she’d told him. It had not been her intention, but as usual, whenever they talked, she ended up telling him her private, guarded thoughts and many of her innermost secrets. “I do too. Thank you for always listening.”
“Of course,” he said as a text message from Lambchop, Delta Teams’ lead, displayed asking if everyone was ready to head out. “I hate to do this, but I do have to go. The team is kind of waiting for me.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening. Goodbye, Jimmy.”
“Bye Reina,” he said, purposefully using her new name.