CHAPTER TWO
2088 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Something’s coming . . .
Rylie Wolf, age nine, felt the back of her neck prickling with sensation. It was a feeling she’d never experienced before, one that made her heart shudder in her chest.
She peered out the window. Sure enough, clouds were gathering in the wide Wyoming sky.
A storm. A storm was coming. She tried to massage the goosebumps away, but they only seemed to pop out more.
No, Rylie, worse than that.
She sat in the massive RV belonging to her neighbor, on one of the bunks beside the kitchen, watching Rose cook breakfast. The abundant sunshine framed her face, lighting up the flowered wallpaper and making everything bright and happy.
“You hungry, Ry?” Rose said, smiling up at her as she scraped scrambled eggs onto a plate. “Sleepy girl. You and Maren and Kiki must’ve stayed up way past your bedtime!”
Rylie laughed, rubbing her eyes, and looked around. “Where are they?”
Maren was her older sister; Kiki was Rose’s daughter. They’d been neighbors, and fast friends—almost like family. Rylie and Kiki had done everything together, so that was why Rose had invited her and her mom and Maren on a “girls trip” in their family RV that summer, tooling about the campsites around Yellowstone. It had been so fun, on the road, like a dream—driving most of the day, hooking up the campsite at night, drinking Cokes and margaritas while they sat by the fire and shared stories.
And then, in that one moment, everything had changed.
The always smiling, cherubic woman with the yellow curls looked to the window, and dropped the pan to the ground with a clatter. Hot oil spattered everywhere.
Suddenly, the clouds rolled overhead, casting dark shadows over the kitchen. Thunder boomed.
“Rylie,” Rose warned, wiping her hands on her apron and heading for the door. “Go to the back bedroom now.”
She scampered down from the bunk and froze there. She’d always been told that the back bedroom was off-limits to kids. “But—”
“Do it! Now!” Rose shouted in a voice Rylie had never heard her use before.
More thunder boomed, and the earth shook with bright light, as if lightning had struck nearby. It spurred Rylie into action. Her skinny limbs working, she scrambled to the back of the RV and buried herself under the covers.
That was when she heard the rain, pattering against the metal roof of the RV.
Then, the crackle of thunder. Or was it gunshots?
Voices, then. Male. “I thought there were three?” one had said.
“Naw. Just those two.”
And then the door had slammed, and after that, nothing.
Nothing for hours and hours. Or at least, it seemed like that. Rylie had been bathed in sweat by the time she’d pulled herself out from her hiding spot. She’d crept to the dirt-crusted window over the RV’s kitchenette sink and stared out at the bodies, lying motionless in a circle. Kiki, Rose, and her mother. They’d all been shot, once, in the head.
But no Maren. Maren was gone.
She was still gone, now, over twenty years later. Without a trace.
“They were dead. They were all dead. Covered in blood. And she was gone.”
Rylie Wolf blinked from the awful memory, and looked up at her new partner in the FBI Rapid City field office. Michael Brisbane, movie-star handsome and oddly happy-go-lucky for this line of work, stared at her with his eyes wide. He licked a bit of mustard from his sandwich off his cheek, and even managed to look good, doing that. “You’re serious?”
She glared at him. She was used to keeping to herself, especially things regarding her past. A lone wolf, that’s what she called herself. His reaction was a big reason why she never spoke of it. This had probably been the biggest thing she’d ever admitted, to anyone, and it had been as hard as ripping her own heart out.
But over the past month, living close to where it had all gone down, it had been weighing on her, more and more. She’d come to trust her partner, so she decided that if anyone could finally help her set the biggest mystery in her past to rest, it was him.
“This isn’t actually something you joke about,” she snapped.
He pushed the Hardee’s hamburger that was his lunch away from him and put his elbows on the desk. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. Which case file is it?”
She went to the pile of files on her desk and flipped through them. Then she pulled one out, handing it to him.
He opened it, and his eyebrow lifted. He wiped his mouth with a napkin as he read. “I just . . . wow. I actually heard of that case, before I even saw the file.”
“You did?”
Of course, he did. It had been national news. She didn’t mind that, because a lot of people knew about it. But now, it was tied to her, and that made her stomach turn.
“Everyone knows this case,” he confirmed. “I was only a kid at the time it happened, but I remember. There was a big manhunt on after it, for the killer, and the missing girl.”
She nodded lamely. “That’s right.”
This was new territory for her. She didn’t do this. She never got close to anyone. Even her partners. Especially them, because she hated looking weak.
He looked up. “Your sister?”
“Yep.”
“Older or younger?”
For a second, she wished she could put the cat back in the bag. But she needed to push through. “Older. If she was alive today, she’d be thirty-six years old.”
His mouth formed the shape of an O. He paged through the file some more. “Funny, I don’t see . . . and I definitely don’t remember . . . any mention of her having a sister.”
“Yeah. Because I was young. But I was there. I hid when it happened so I couldn’t tell the police much, but I was the only witness who survived.”
He blinked. “Yeah? How old were you?”
“Nine. My sister was twelve when she was taken.”
“Jesus. That’s something for a little kid to go through. But I guess that explains why you’re in this line of business,” he said, closing the file. “So what do you want help with?”
“I want to reopen it.”
He shook his head. “You have new evidence?”
“No. But I’ve been burying my head in the sand for too long. I moved out to Seattle to get away from the memories. That last case brought us right back to Story Creek. That’s where it happened, at an RV park around there. What are the chances?” She swallowed. “And after being on this highway, so close to where the murders occurred, I realized—something brought me back here for a reason. I need to find out what it is.”
He shook his head. “But that case has been ice cold for two decades.”
“And? Now that I’m here, if I dig around Story Creek some more, I bet you I can come up with more evidence.”
“You’re willing to do that?” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his pale blue eyes boring into her. “Sometimes it’s better to keep the lid on things, Wolf. You never know what might be ready to jump out and bite you.”
“I’ve kept the lid on this for far too long. Believe me, I’ve thought about the consequences. I’m ready to let it out, if I can, no matter what it does to me,” she said, backing to the door. “I’ll do it with or without your help; but with, it’ll be easier.”
He let out a grunt and pulled his burger toward him. Then he shrugged. “As long as we don’t have any other cases to investigate, I’ll do what I can . . . but I really don’t know if it’s wise, Wolf, mixing business and personal that way. I’m sorry that happened to you, I truly am. But . . .”
She waited for him to continue. But he didn’t, and the more time that passed, the sillier she felt. What had she expected? For him to jump up and hug her? For him to coddle her and tell her it’ll be all right?
Well, yeah. Actually, she had. She wasn’t a hugger, but she’d expected more than this, certainly. Here’s a guy who gave all the sympathy in the world to people whose family members were simply missing. Practically her whole family had been murdered, while she, a small child, cowered, mere feet away. And yet this was the response she got?
It was disappointing, to say the least.
She sucked in a breath and let it out, then said, awkwardly, “Well, then, think about it, and if anything that relates crosses your desk, could you let me know?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
She took the folder and held it up to him, silently saying, I’m taking this with me. He nodded, so she said, “See you later, Robin.”
They’d been sparring earlier about which one of them was Batman in their relationship, and which one was the sidekick. “Okay, Robin,” he responded. Even as he narrowed his eyes at her in a playful way, his expression leaked doubt.
He was probably right. After all, even though looking at the file made her queasy and she could only take its contents in small doses, she’d taken enough small doses to know it by heart. What else could she learn from its contents that she didn’t already know?
She turned to leave before she got caught.
Not that it would matter. Special Agent in Charge Kit Brandon, her supervisor, had been pleased with the outcome of the last case, so, unlike her previous leadership in Seattle, she was definitely on their good side. But she wanted it to stay that way. And Kit had told her to take some time off.
The second she stepped out into the hallway, though, she ran straight into the diminutive woman with the short red bob. The woman was almost grandmotherly in appearance, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she spit nails. Level-headed but brusque, she didn’t take crap from anyone, and she especially didn’t like to be played. Rylie had only been working under her for a few weeks, and already, she knew that.
“Wolf. What are you doing here?”
Rylie started to speak, but the woman peered in the office she shared with Brisbane and shook her head.
“You couldn’t stay away from your partner’s pretty face for a single day? I thought I told you to take time off.”
“Yes,” she spoke quickly, before Kit could bark anything else. “I just came in to have a quick word with my partner about something. Now, I’m leaving.”
Kit wasn’t one to take anything at face-value. Her eyes trailed to the folder in Rylie’s hands. “Is that all? Bringing some light reading material with you, are we?”
Rylie shrugged. “Yeah, there’s actually not much to do here in town, being new and all. I figure I might as well.”
Luckily, Kit didn’t pry into exactly what the case was. She said, “Enjoy your time off. Be sure to take a little time to take it easy,” and turned away.
Rylie said her goodbyes and headed out into the parking lot of the newly-formed Rapid City, South Dakota, field office. In her car, she set the thick folder down on the passenger seat and sighed. How could she take it easy when her life, since that day, had been so hard? She didn’t know how.
And that’s why, she thought as she pulled out of the parking lot, I’m going to do everything possible to figure out what happened to my big sister.
- Writer
