| |
Rachel and someone with red hair were running down a path. Shandra called out to stop, but they only ran farther. She could feel their fear and when they grabbed hands and jumped off a cliff, her heart lodged in her throat, but she managed a scream.
“No!”
“Shandra, wake up. It was just my phone. They’ve located Rachel’s car.” Ryan’s voice broke through her dream.
She shook her head and pushed awake. “It’s Rachel and Lenny.”
Ryan already had his coat on. “You better stay here.”
“No. I need to go. They might do something stupid. In my dream they jumped off a cliff.” Shandra shot to her feet and grabbed at her coat, her quick motions made her unsteady on her feet.
“Hey, slow down. Her car is at her apartment. She’s probably in bed asleep.” He helped her put her coat on. “It’s after midnight.”
She shoved her arms in, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.
They drove Ryan’s SUV across town and sat a block down from Rachel’s apartment and waited.
“Can’t you tap into her phone or check her records?” Shandra asked.
“I have requested a subpoena to get her phone records, but that won’t come through until later today if they can get a judge to sign off on it on Sunday. Or Monday. If your dream is correct, she and Lenny are going to make a run for it.”
As if he were conjured up from their thoughts, the car that had followed Shandra when she visited the Langes, slowly rolled down the street. It barely stopped and someone opened the door, tossed in a bag, and jumped in. The car sped off as the door slammed shut.
“There’s our answer.” Ryan started his vehicle and fell in behind at a leisurely pace, keeping them in sight.
“Are you going to pull them over?” she asked.
“They haven’t done anything wrong that we know positively. We have no proof either one of them killed Huntley or Tait.” Ryan picked up the car radio. “I have suspects in sight. Do not apprehend. I want to see where they are going. Over.”
“Can I call Mrs. Lawrence and ask for Lenny’s phone number?” Shandra wanted to connect with the two. Help them see it was better to turn themselves in than run.
“If you call and wake her up and she realizes her son is gone, she may tell him we’re looking for him. Right now, he doesn’t have a clue we’re following. Best to keep it that way.”
Shandra wasn’t sure she agreed, but he had more experience with this than she did.
The car continued out of town, heading north on Highway 95.
“Do you think they are going to Coeur d’Alene?” she asked.
“Could be. That’s were Rachel’s mom lives. Once they get out of the county, I’ll have to call in the State Police.” Ryan pushed the transmit button. “Dispatch this is Detective Greer. I’m following suspects north on highway ninety-five. Request state police back-up. Over.”
“Will give them notice. Dispatch over.”
When Ryan finished talking, the car ahead of them put on their blinker and turned right.
“They’re headed to Shoshone Park,” Shandra said, having read the signs along the highway.
Ryan reached for the radio and pressed the button. “Dispatch, this is Detective Greer. Send State backup to Shoshone Park. Suspects just headed that direction. Over.”
“Affirmative, Dispatch over.”
“I hope they aren’t going to do anything stupid.” Shandra said, holding onto the arm rest with one hand and the dash with her other as she leaned forward to keep the tail lights in sight.
“Don’t think the worst. They could just be finding a secluded place to discuss what to do next.”
Shandra stared out the front window. “Or one of them is getting rid of the other to clean things up.”
Ryan shifted his attention from the road to the woman in his passenger seat. “Why do you think that?”
“Neither one has given any indication of being the killer, yet one of them has to be. And if that person has killed twice, what’s to keep them from killing again to hopefully stay out of jail?”
He didn’t like her line of thinking, but it was quite possible, Lenny brought Rachel out here to kill her. It made sense since it was his car and he’d picked her up. No one would know where she went. And everyone would believe she was the killer if she came up missing.
The car stopped in the deserted parking lot by a picnic area.
Ryan turned off his lights, rolled the Tahoe to a stop and shut off the engine.
“Now what do we do?”
“Let’s see what they do and where they go.” His phone buzzed. It was Sargent Peel of the State Police.
“Sgt. Peel. Are you backing me up?” Ryan asked, keeping his gaze on the two young people piling wood in a fire pit.
“I am. Just turned down the road to Shoshone Park.”
“Turn off any siren or lights. I’m watching the suspects. At the moment, they’re making a fire. You can pull up behind me and we’ll advance on foot.” Ryan closed the connection and watched as the two pulled packs out of the car.
“Do you think those are clothes with blood on them?” Shandra asked. Her hand moved to the door handle.
“Stay. Sgt. Peel will be here in a minute. I’m going to keep them from tossing those on the fire.” Ryan exited the vehicle not even shutting the door to avoid the two hearing anything.
The gravel road crunched under his shoes. Ryan made his way to the side of the road, keeping his eyes on the two suspects. At their car, he crouched down and listened.
“Once we burn these clothes, they can’t get us for anything,” Rachel said.
“We should have told them it was an accident. A prank,” Lenny said.
“Do you think they’d believe us? That cop is trying hard to pin both the murders on me. I’m not going to jail for two accidents. And you’re the one who hit Huntley.” Rachel opened her pack and pulled out a sweatshirt. She walked over to the fire and held it over the flames. “Come on. Throw your sweatshirt in here.”
Ryan stood up. “Police! Put your hands in the air!”
Lenny dropped the bag and raised his hands.
Rachel dropped the sweatshirt in the fire and took off at a run with the pack.
“I have him,” Peel said, running up behind Ryan.
Ryan took off after the young woman. “Rachel, stop!”
She continued running right toward the river.
“Rachel, stop!” Shandra shouted.
He didn’t know how she’d reached the river before he did, but she stood between the woman and the water.
Rachel stopped, her raspy breathing was easy to hear over the muted sounds of the river.
“You don’t want to make this worse,” Shandra said, walking towards the young woman.
“I don’t want to go to prison,” Rachel said, and flung her bag at Shandra.
Shandra deflected the bag. “If you didn’t kill anyone, you won’t. You did all of this as revenge for your mom. Don’t make her childless. Stand up for what you did.”
“It was all a prank. A way to humiliate him like he did all the girls.” Rachel’s voice had the whine of a small child.
“A prank. Then it was an accident.” Shandra moved closer to the young woman as Ryan also advanced from behind. “Who hit him?”
“Lenny. I was keeping him distracted and Lenny hit him with the prop. It was just supposed to put glitter all over him and make him muddy if he fell on the ground. He wasn’t supposed to hit his head. He wasn’t supposed to die.”
Ryan grabbed Rachel’s arm and pulled it behind her back. He had her cuffed by the time Shandra had her arms around the young woman.
“What about Nancy Tait?” Shandra asked.
“Another accident. She came to me all angry, saying she knew about my forum, she knew I’d instigated Mr. Huntley’s death. She said she was going to tell the police. I told her she wasn’t any better. That I knew about her pranks and crusade to torment him as well. She called me a name. Words like that shouldn’t come out of a teacher’s mouth. I got angry and shoved her. She hit her head on a table and I didn’t know what to do. I propped her up around the corner where hopefully no one could see her. When I helped Boyd with Mr. Timm’s roster, I grabbed the key to the stairs and pulled her in.”
Ryan led her back to his vehicle. Shandra carried the bag.
“How did she get on the roof?” Shandra asked.
“I called Lenny and told him what had happened. I told him if he didn’t do something with her body, I’d tell the cops he’d killed Mr. Huntley and it was all his idea. He was Shade. He was the one who came up with the prop idea and offered to get it. He said, he’d take care of Ms. Tait. He’d drop her off the roof to make it look like suicide.”
Ryan shook his head. If the two hadn’t covered it up, they could have received a lesser sentence for accidental homicide, but covering it up... He wasn’t sure what they would get.