Chapter 44 Louise
LOUISE
Our next stop was at the location where I’d found Kara’s body. We parked next to the same pine tree I’d parked under days earlier, hours before I found her body.
Ryder opened my door and helped me out of the truck. My stomach knotted the moment my boots hit the snow-covered ground. The silence and the stillness of the woods reminded me of that night.
“Can you remember exactly where you found her?”
“I wish I could forget, trust me.”
Understanding, he nodded. “Zip up. It’s cold.”
I zipped my coat and narrowed my sights. “All right. This way.”
We took off through the woods, the sunlight shimmering off the snow and ice.
The temperature stubbornly hovered at around forty degrees, but between the sun reflecting off the snow, my heavy coat, and our brisk pace, I was toasty warm.
I had a feeling it had something to do with the man next to me too.
“You were good in there,” I said.
“Where?”
“McCord’s office.”
“McCord’s an ass. Been at that desk too long, and the entire town agrees. He’s complacent, sloppy, and bored with his job.”
“I can see that.”
The woods closed in around us, the snow-laden branches arching low beneath their weight, narrowing the path.
“How do you know Ellen?” I asked.
Ryder frowned and looked at me. “She looked like she’d seen a ghost when I walked in, didn’t she?”
So he’d noticed.
He sighed, as if resigned to the fact that he’d likely get that reaction for the rest of his life. I disagreed with that.
I asked, “You know the saying ‘time heals all wounds’?”
He nodded.
“Time also helps fade memories. Not erase completely, but lessen the blow, so to speak.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Everyone has a strong reaction to you now because it’s their first time seeing you.
What I’m saying is, if you get out more and force yourself back into society, everyone’s initial shock will fade.
They’ll remember the Ryder that I’m assuming ran the town growing up.
Don’t give them a reason to remember your time in jail.
Be happy, polite, kind. They’ll forget. You just have to get out there. Out of your house.”
Ryder snorted. “Easier said than done, especially when I run into people like Ellen. We went to high school together and ran in the same crew. She was a cheerleader. She even decorated my football locker a few times.”
“I still can’t believe you played football.”
He quickly stepped in front of me, held back a branch, and motioned me past. “Well, brace yourself. I was also voted class comedian in high school.”
“Is that a joke?” I ducked under the branch. “Did I just witness your first joke since prison?”
“Nope. Serious.”
“No. I don’t believe it for two seconds.”
“And Most Athletic. I got both.”
“Not Best-Looking?”
“They didn’t have that category. Politics.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Dead.”
“Class clown and most athletic.” I shook my head. “Hard to believe. Tell me more. What were you like in high school?”
“I got in trouble a lot.”
I feigned surprise.
He laughed. “I guess I was your normal run-of-the-mill, rowdy, ADHD kid. I lived for football. Loved everything about it. The early morning workouts, the strategy, the smell of the grass. The camaraderie.”
“Do you keep in touch with any of those guys?”
“No.” His gaze dropped to the snow. “When you go away, people tend to forget about you.”
“No one visited you while you were in?”
“Aside from my brother and getting a few marriage proposals, no.”
“Marriage proposals?”
“Oh yeah. I got a lot of letters from women all over the country who’d seen the story when it went national. A few came to visit. Unsettling, really.”
“Women do love a bad boy.”
“Do you?”
“I tend to go for underachievers.”
“There it is—all that forethought.”
I laughed. “Exactly. All crashed and burned, of course.”
“When was your last boyfriend?”
I scratched my chin. “When was the last solar eclipse?”
Ryder looked at me, tilting his head. “You undervalue yourself, Louise.”
I flicked my hand in the air, dismissing what he said, because in reality, I knew it was true. “How did this turn around on me so quickly? Back to you. Seriously, no one visited you while you were away?”
“Seriously, no one visited me. I get it, though. No hard feelings. I know what I did was… vicious. I get why people would look at me differently afterward. I understand why they would want to distance themselves from me.”
“Do you regret it?”
His face hardened, and then he looked at me with a forced crooked smile. “There you go, asking the hard questions.”
“Sorry.”
He exhaled. “Honest answer?”
“Yes.”
“Can you handle it?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t regret it. I don’t regret killing Leon Ortiz.”
“I don’t blame you, Ryder.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I really don’t. I want you to know that.”
“Thanks.” A moment passed. “I don’t regret it, but I wish I would have thought it through, maybe. Not been so impulsive.”
“First, you’re in good company there.” I winked. “And second, how so?”
“Maybe if I would have had more self-control, a clearer head, maybe if I would have let a few days pass, things might’ve been different. Maybe I wouldn’t have killed him. In which case…”
Ryder breathed out. “God, I can’t imagine having the last twelve years of my life back.
I think about that a lot. What if I hadn’t gone to prison?
Where would I be right now? What would I be doing?
Would I be married with kids? Coaching football?
Who knows? Or, on the other hand, maybe I still would have killed Ortiz, but I would’ve planned a solid exit strategy.
I could’ve been in Tahiti, sipping tequila and starting a new life as Louis Makatozi. ”
“Louis Makatozi?”
He winked. “Yep. That’s my go-name if I ever need to skip town. You now know my deepest, darkest secret.”
“I don’t know if I should feel flattered or insulted that the name resembles mine.”
“Louise is a classic name. Timeless.”
“Okay, tell me about this name.”
“Well, my favorite author of all time is Louis L’Amour. Heard of him?”
“He writes old westerns, right? Cowboys, revenge, justice, that kind of stuff.”
“Exactly. No one writes about the good ol’ days anymore.”
“What about the Maka… what?”
“Tozi. Makatozi. Joseph Makatozi was the hero in my favorite book of Louis L’Amour’s, Last of the Breed. It’s about an Air Force pilot who gets shot down by the Soviets and captured. Anyway, I put both names together—bada bing, bada boom—and got my go-name.”
“Louis Makatozi,” I repeated. “I could see him lounging on the beach—or eating his weight in Polish sausages, for some reason.”
Ryder tipped his head back and laughed. A loud, boisterous laugh.
“Sounds not too bad right about now, doesn’t it?
I guess my point to all that is I spent ten years in that prison cell realizing how important it is to think through your decisions, especially the big ones, with a clear head.
You’re mad? Sit it out for a while. Walk away.
You’re scared? Change tactics. Think before you act. Think before you act.”
“That’s why you’re so hard on me for getting my car stuck.”
“Yes. Every decision you made that night was dangerous. If you would have turned around when you heard the weather warning, or better yet, stayed home and stayed out of this, you wouldn’t have had all the trouble you did.
You understand that I legitimately could have killed you when you broke into my house?
You were nothing but an intruder to me.”
“But you didn’t pull the trigger.”
“No. Because I took a breath. Assessed before I acted.”
“Noted.”
We walked a moment in silence.
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “All my life, I’ve been spontaneous. I’ve never set goals, just took life day by day. Kinda lost, I guess. Always searching for something but not knowing what that thing is.”
“Kind of like now.”
I didn’t respond.
“Have you ever considered the fact that maybe you’re taking Kara’s case so personally because you’re craving something meaningful in your own life?” He asked. “You’ve dedicated your life to this case because you have nothing else in your life to be passionate about? To fill that space?”
“I’m taking it personally because I want to get Kara justice. I’m the only one who will press the cops.”
Ryder gave me an assessing look. “I get that, but you’re going above and beyond, inserting yourself into the investigation, interviewing people, searching her last-known locations.
Maybe you’re making it your personal mission because you’re craving to make a difference.
Somehow. And you’ve sunk your teeth into this. ”
“So, what you’re telling me is that you enjoy self-help books as much as romantic thrillers.”
“Calling it like I see it.”
“Well, call it somewhere else. You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Okay,” he said, “just answer me this. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Aside from the garbage man?”
“Liked the truck, huh?”
“So much. I’d wait by the window on trash day. Truth? A detective.”
“Bingo.” He jabbed a finger in my direction. “You’re a born problem-solver. You’re a do-gooder. You just haven’t found the right avenue to apply that passion.”
“You know I never went to college.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I guess not.”
“You own your own business. Only ten point six percent of the US population own their own business. That’s nothing to sneeze at, Louise. It’s the American dream. How’d you get into photography?”
“Well, simple story, really. After high school, I needed a job, so I applied for the first one I came across, which was a receptionist at the local newspaper. One day, the only journalist on staff called in sick, and my boss asked if I could take a few pictures of the county fair for the weekend story.”