Chapter 6 #2
River drove through town. Fully aware that they might be followed, he checked his mirror and took a circuitous route to his house. They stopped at a discount department store so Lydia could get toiletries and a change of clothes. Because he’d just moved to Ridge, he’d rented a house.
The house was small but on a large lot with a fenced backyard for Frankie. He didn’t have a guest room. The second bedroom was still filled with boxes. “You can sleep in my room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She glanced around at the bare-bones room. “Guess your favorite color is brown, huh?”
They both laughed. She put her newly purchased possessions on the bed.
“I need to let Frankie out so she can run around.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
The backyard connected with a park that had playground equipment. On the other side of it were the backyards of other houses. An older woman working in her garden waved at River. Lydia sat in his one outdoor chair, and he sat on the steps while Frankie ran around.
“So, are you going to go talk to Gregory Larson?”
“Yes, but first I need to call Second Chances.” He just couldn’t let go of the idea that Sloane Caldwell was somehow involved. “We know Sloane was there the whole time, but maybe he had someone else helping him.”
He pulled his phone out while Lydia picked up a ragged rope toy and played tug-of-war with Frankie. It was late in the day. River hoped he could get hold of someone.
“Second Chances. How can I help you?”
He recognized the voice as the woman he had previously talked to. “This is Officer Jameson in Ridge. I spoke to you previously about Sloane Caldwell.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I know that Sloane never left the facility at the time of Elsie’s disappearance, but did anyone else?”
“We have runners all the time. Let me check the log.” He could hear keys clicking and then she got back on the line. “We had a man, D. J. Ketterling, leave and not come back the night before the little girl’s disappearance.”
“Did he and Sloane know each other?”
“They had group therapy together, and I did see them eating together several times. I can’t talk about what was said in therapy, but I think they bonded over feeling betrayed by their ex-spouses.”
Maybe D.J. had felt such an affinity toward Sloane that he decided to do his dirty work for him. “His whereabouts are unknown?”
“At this point, yes,” she said.
“What did he look like?”
“A blend-into-the-crowd kind of guy, short brown hair, no real distinct features, no tattoos. He was a fairly tall man, at least six feet.”
River’s ear perked up. Though it was not solid evidence, the fact that D.J.
was tall, like the attacker, was interesting at the least. “Thank you.” D.
J. Ketterling probably had a record and would be in the system.
River only needed to make a phone call to Eva to see if she could track him down.
Maybe one of the task force members could go to his last-known address. River needed to stay close to Lydia.
Lydia laughed as Frankie tugged on the rope. She had a soft laugh like a babbling creek. It was good to see her relax enough to enjoy herself even if it was only a brief break.
River made the phone call to Eva and then they went inside. “Not sure what I have around here to eat. Maybe I can order us a pizza.”
“Do you live on pizza?” Her voice held a teasing tone.
“Pretty much.”
“Let’s see what you got for food before we take the pizza option.
I’m pretty good at coming up with recipes on the fly.
” She looked in the cupboards, the freezer and the refrigerator.
She gathered tuna and pasta and then pulled a can of peas from the cupboard.
“Now, if you have some cheese in the fridge, we’ll be in business. ”
“All I got is the dried Parmesan. I don’t have a lot of time to shop and things in the fridge tend to go bad before I use them, so I purchase things with a longer shelf life.
” He really hadn’t put much of an effort into settling in.
The police station felt more like home to him.
Work had always been where he felt like he was in his element. A house was just a place to sleep.
“I’ll make it work,” she said. “A sort of modified tuna casserole.”
He moved to grab a saucepan. “I’ll get the noodles started.”
There was something fun though about cooking with Lydia that made him start to like where he was living.
He turned on some music, and they cooked in companionable silence. Once the casserole was thrown together, he pulled a half-eaten bag of potato chips from the pantry. “They are BBQ.”
She snagged the chips. “Let’s live adventurously. We’ll invent a whole new recipe.”
Her enthusiasm made him smile. Playing with Frankie in the yard seemed to have taken away some of the fear and stress she was carrying.
She crumbled the potato chips on top of the assembled casserole. Lydia could even make fixing dinner fun. He could get used to this. He wondered how anyone could mistreat her like Sloane had. She put the casserole in the oven and turned to face him.
A faint smile graced her face. “What’s the serious expression about?”
“I was just thinking that it must have been tough for you and Elsie when everything happened with your husband.”
The smile faded from her face. “It was the death of a dream. My whole life, I wanted to be part of a happy family. I never really knew my parents, and my aunt did things out of a sense of duty. When we were dating, Sloane painted a picture that implied that a solid family was what he wanted, too. But it was all just talk. How about you? No plans for a wife and family?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m kind of married to my job.
” Even more so since what had happened with Noah.
He didn’t tell her that after what had happened to Noah, he didn’t feel like he deserved to have children in his life.
If he couldn’t keep one five-year-old boy safe, maybe he couldn’t keep any child safe.
“I have a sister with two little boys who live in Denver. I see them when I can.”
They ate dinner and then River found a movie for them to watch, but Lydia seemed distracted preferring to pay attention to Frankie. Her mind was probably still on her daughter. Lydia’s phoned buzzed that she had a text. Her face brightened and then fell when she saw who it was.
“It’s Elsie’s grandparents. They want to know if there’s any news.” She shook her head. “I had a moment of thinking it was someone telling me they’d found Elsie. I guess any time my phone rings, that will be my first thought.”
He reached out, rubbed her back, and then drew her into a side hug. There was nothing he could say that would take away her anxiety. Best just to be with her. He turned off the movie since she hadn’t been watching it anyway. His attempt to get her mind off Elsie’s kidnapping had not worked.
* * *
Within twenty minutes, Lydia was asleep on the sofa.
He placed a throw over her. With all that had happened, he was surprised that she hadn’t collapsed sooner.
River took Frankie and walked the perimeter of his house.
He didn’t think they’d been followed, but with all the attempts on her life, he couldn’t take any chances where Lydia was concerned.
When he came back in the house, Lydia was no longer on the sofa.
He had a second of panic until he saw the closed bedroom door indicating that she had gone to bed.
He double-checked to make sure the doors were locked and the windows latched.
He checked his phone. A text from Eva saying she’d gotten hold of Gregory Larson and that he had agreed to meet them on the land that connected with the trail where Elsie had disappeared.
A thin lead at best, but he was running out of ideas.
River sat his gun on the side table and then lay on the sofa, pulling the blanket over himself.
His plan was to get up and walk a patrol several times in the night.
After all that had happened, he needed to remain on high alert.
Maybe he could keep Lydia safe through the night, but Elsie was still out there somewhere… alive, he hoped.