Page 24 of Silent Ridge

Rylee and her red-haired detective friend had somehow gotten to Gabrielle’s house ahead of her.Ronnie. That’s the redhead’s name. Before they left, a big guy, he looks like a cop, came and is left guarding Gabrielle. She could kill him with one of her knives, and then do Gabrielle, but that isn’t in her plan.

Her plan is to make Rylee suffer. She’s begun that already. Tick, tick, tick.

And now there are other places to go, people to kill. Still, she would have enjoyed seeing the look she cut off of Gabrielle’s face.

She told Monique that she killed Gabrielle but it was a lie. She only said it to see the horror it caused, payback for the help Monique had given Rylee. Michael Rader threatened Monique several years ago. He told her he would kill her remaining daughter if she didn’t tell him if Rylee was still alive. Monique confirmed to him that the bitch was still breathing; not only that, he also recovered all the photos Rylee had taken from Marie’s house. According to Michael, there were enough photos to fill a wall. A shrine to his victims. A wall of memorabilia that could potentially put Alex in prison or get Michael a death sentence. She warned Alex about that. But Marie had more control over him. Marie was his motivator. But Marie was dead.

She watches the detective sitting on the porch with Gabrielle. She knows he’ll be fucking her before the night is over. That’s how policemen are. It isn’t a bad thing. Just reality. Watching them together, doing something as simple as sitting on the steps, drinking, not even talking, brings back a flood of memories of her time with Alex. The little time he could give to her. She appreciated every second. She hadn’t always been so happy. So safe.

She conjures up an image of his face. His dark eyes were so intense. That was what had attracted her to him. The kindness behind his tough exterior was what made her fall in love with him. He saved her from the streets. Took care of her. Gave her a safe place to live, food, money, whatever she needed or wanted.

She didn’t want much back in those days and she needed very little. After all, she’d subsisted on next to nothing in her native El Salvador. Her mother and father and brother were killed by the FMLN guerrilla faction for not joining them during the twelve-year war with the junta government. Her brother and father were killed in a hideous fashion of skinning them alive in public as a lesson to anyone that opposed them. Her mother was repeatedly raped before she was beheaded. She herself was raped and discarded by the guerrilla fighters. Left alone at the age of thirteen as an example. No work. No one dared take her in. All were afraid. She was going through garbage or taking the occasional half-eaten MREs the soldiers had stolen from the US-trained troops of the junta government and offered to her for her favors. She had done plenty of favors, but still she almost starved.

Twenty-Two

Ronnie hit pay dirt with one of the phone numbers in the address book from Monique’s house. Mr. Bridges was a widower; his wife had been killed in a carjacking. A witness said it was two young women who came up to Mrs. Bridges’ car while she was stopped at a light a block from the hospital where she worked in the ER. The same one where she would be pronounced dead ten minutes later. The witness was in the car behind her and said one girl ran into the street waving her arms like she needed help. Mr. Bridges’ wife, being a nurse, started to open her door and was yanked out by the second girl, stabbed, kicked and the car was taken. The witness was so shocked, she didn’t notice the license plate and was unable to give an accurate description to police when they arrived.

Mr. Bridges joined the advocacy group when he saw it on the Internet and made friends with Monique. Monique had dozens of names in that book and I have no doubt all the stories will be full of needless violence and death.

“His number comes up once on the burner Mrs. Delmont had,” Ronnie says. “A week ago he said she called him to give him the number in case someone had an emergency. He was like her second-in-command, and if one of them couldn’t reach her, they would call him.”

“He’s a pretty frequent caller on her personal cell phone too,” I say. “Once or twice a week, and the calls lasted thirty minutes or more. I’m glad she found someone for comfort.”

“Yeah. It must be horrible to have your daughter murdered. Mr. Bridges told me that’s why she started the victim’s group.” Ronnie’s quiet and I think I see tears form in her eyes.

“Makes you appreciate our sad little lives, doesn’t it? She was helping with morale and maybe financial support, pushing police departments to do deeper investigations, hounding city officials. But we’re tracking the assholes down. We bring peace to them.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Did she tell Mr. Bridges she was in Port Townsend looking for an old friend that she thought needed her help?” I ask.

She nods her head. “He said it’s not unlike her to do something like that. Sometimes a couple of people in the group will travel to wherever they’re needed. Monique always footed the entire bill. I asked him if she rented a car to do this. He thought that was unusual.”

“Does she always get a burner phone for these things?”

“I forgot to ask. I’ll call him back.”

“Not necessary. If it was unusual for her to rent a car and not tell him more than what she did, I think we can safely say it wasn’t normal for a woman her age to buy a burner phone, or even know to do it.”

“He made it sound like she was afraid for her friend. He blames himself for not insisting he come to help her. I think he was a little more than her second-in-command.”

I do too, but I’m really glad that she finally came out of her shell enough to trust another man. I haven’t fully done that yet. I once thought I could with Caleb, but when he found out what I’d done to my bio-father and watched me take down another killer, he was sickened. He will always associate his minor part in that with me. I destroy monsters, but I’m a monster to Caleb.

Dan Anderson is the closest thing I have to a boyfriend, and we’ve only been out a couple of times in the last month. I don’t know why, but my gut is telling me to call him to see if he’s okay. If he’s also been getting crank calls.

“Mindy is going to go through the rental car. Are you still calling people from the advocacy group?”

“Yeah. I’ve only got a few left. Then I’m going to call Gabrielle and see how things are there. Do you want me to check in with Clay and see if she told him anything she didn’t tell us?”

I don’t know why, but I tell her I’ll call Clay. Maybe I don’t want her doing all of my work. Maybe I don’t want her getting involved with him and hurting Marley’s feelings. Marley is more important to us. To me. Ronnie goes back to her desk, and Sheriff Gray motions for me to come in his office.

“Shut the door,” he says. I take a chair in the corner. He leans back in his chair and it doesn’t screech. The WD-40 I left on his desk has done the trick. He looks at me for a long time. I keep his gaze and sit still. I’m good at waiting. I’m good because I’m ready for him to try and talk me off the case. Not going to happen. Not even if he gives it to another detective.

He reads my expression, sits forward and lets out a deep sigh.

“You’re not going to give this one up, are you?”

I shake my head. Words are piling up and almost spewing out of my mouth. I know to keep it shut. He gets the idea.

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