Delusions With Murder: A Rilynne Evans Mystery (26 page)

He opened his eyes and met hers.  “It’s okay,” he replied sincerely.  “It’s actually nice to know that someone loved him as much as she had.”

Rilynne couldn’t help but smile at his response.  Only he could find the good in a situation like this.

Nicole’s journal just got more and more disturbing as Rilynne went on.  It was clear the further she read, that Nicole’s delusions had been growing stronger every day.  In the end, she did truly believe she had been able to transplant Justin’s soul into the men’s bodies, and she was getting him back for one week at a time.

At the same time, she still held on to enough reality to be able to clean and stage the scenes.  She said on several occasions she even hid and watched the abduction scenes, as well as the dumpsites, being discovered.  She wanted to watch the terror the police department was inflicting on their faces.

It was close to nine when she finally finished the journal and sat it down.  “I think I really am going to have nightmares forever,” she told Ben, who was still sitting across the desk from her.

“That bad, huh?” he asked, putting his tablet down.

Rilynne glided her index fingers gently around her temples.  “She even went into detail about what she said to the men, and their responses.  She thought it was a game she and Justin were playing when they denied being him.”

“Wow,” Ben said on a long breath.

“And she talked about how excited they both were to have you in the wedding, and how anxious your brother was to meet me.”

Ben’s ears reddened for the first time in days.  “Really?  Does it say why?”

“No, not really.  You know, groom wanting to meet the maid of honor stuff, I guess,” she rattled off quickly.  In fact, Nicole had gone into great detail about it.  From the first day they had met, Nicole apparently was convinced Ben and Rilynne were together in secret, the way she and Justin had been.  Her belief was only compounded the morning she saw Ben leaving Rilynne’s apartment.  She said Justin had been ecstatic when she told him, and he could not wait to meet his future sister-in-law.  However, Rilynne had no desire to have that conversation with Ben.

“You will never guess why Nicole broke into my apartment,” she said, hastily changing the subject.  “It was to get my dress size.”

“Should I still guess?” Ben chuckled.

“Oh, hush.  That means she trashed the entire apartment just to trash it,” she continued.  “She could have easily slipped in and out and I never would have known.  She just wanted to make a spectacle of it.”

“So what you are saying is she left you a giant mess to clean up as her brides maid gift,” he said jokingly as they stood and walked out the door.  “Well, you have to admit that it’s original.”

“You think you are so funny, don’t you?” she asked, walking with him to the elevator.

He gave her a big smile.  “I happen to know that I am.  It is one of my more charming attributes.”

“If you say so,” she countered, stepping into the elevator.  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep the smile off of her face.

The cool breeze hit their faces as they stepped through the doors, onto the street.  The whole city seemed to have relaxed when the news came out that the Pirate Killer had been stopped, and people were now adventuring out again.

“Tell me you drove today,” Ben said to Rilynne, looking around for a car.

“And I thought you knew me better than that,” she smiled.  He rolled his eyes, and took her arm as she started towards her apartment.  “You didn’t drive?” she asked, remembering how much difficulty he had just getting around a couple days before.

“No, I figured the exercise would be good for me,” he said.  “Besides, my car is still in the garage at the station.”

“Oh yeah,” she said.  “I had forgotten about that.  Were they able to find anything wrong with it?  I know they said your clutch was fine.  And trust me, that did not go over well at the station.  Wilcome ordered your car be taken completely apart if they had to.  He wanted to be able to prove there had actually been something wrong, and you weren’t just saying that to plan your daring escape.”

“Well, I appreciate his support,” he said.  “Although they really did take the entire thing apart and are being a little slow with putting it back together.  And yes, they actually found a piece of a branch jammed deeply into it.  Apparently when Nicole was borrowing my car to transport body parts, she ran over a bush of some kind.”

He was still holding a great deal of resentment towards Nicole for setting him up to take the fall for her.  Rilynne knew there was a very good chance that that feeling never went away.  Honestly, she couldn’t blame him.

“Well,” Ben said timidly.  “Since the case is over, does that mean you will be leaving town?”

“I have actually been thinking a lot about that lately,” she replied.  “I was actually walking into the office to tell Detective Wilcome I was going to be leaving when he told me Derek Hartley had woken up.”

He looked over at her, but she kept her eyes on the happy faces littering the street.  “You were going to leave because it looked like I was the killer?”  It was really more of a statement than a question, but Rilynne gave him an answer anyway.

“Yes,” she said firmly.  “I didn’t actually think you could have done it, but if it turned out that you had, it would have been too much for me to take.” 

“Well, I’m glad that it wasn’t me killing people then.”

“Me too,” she said lightly.

“So, does that mean you have changed your mind?” he asked.  “Or are you still planning on leaving?”

She glanced over at his moonlit face and smiled before looking back towards the street.  “I think I will stick around for a little while.  It’s just starting to get interesting around here.”

“Good.”  She could hear the smile in his voice, which even when she looked over and caught it, he made no attempt to hide.

Epilogue

A
lthough it had been a month since Nicole Benson’s death, the backlash from the case had still not died down.  Nearly all of the cases Nicole had been involved in had been called back into question.  Several of them had even been overturned, allowing the criminals to be returned back to the streets.

The detectives were working overtime just to try to secure the convictions, even if it meant revisiting the crime scenes to look for more evidence, and re-running every piece of evidence they already had.

District Attorney Greene was now a regular face in the detectives’ office; stopping by nearly everyday to discuss the status of the stack of cases she had crossing her desk.  Rilynne had a feeling that her presence would not decrease even once the cases started dying down, since next year would be an election year.

The public’s trust in the department had also taken a blow, which would inevitably take some time to rebuilt.  Sadly, the fact that a member of the department had killed Nicole did actually seem to put many people at ease.

“Evans,” Detective Wilcome called from across the room.  “I know it’s a little late, but you are receiving a commendation for last months events.”

“I don’t really think being kidnapped by a serial killer qualifies me for a commendation,” she replied.  In fact, having violated several regulations just to get herself kidnapped, she was sure of it.

“You literally brought a knife to a gun fight and still walked out on top,” Detective Matthews laughed.  “I would say that qualifies you for a little recognition.”

“And you saved the life of another member of this department,” Wilcome stated.

“All while wearing a cocktail dress,” Steele jokingly added.

She looked around the room to find everyone’s eyes upon her.  “Really, I just did my job.  Nothing more.”

“I don’t think Ben Davis would agree with you there.  He will actually be presenting the award to you at the ceremony tomorrow night,” said Wilcome.

“That’s right,” she heard from the doorway behind her.  She turned to see Ben, an evidence box balancing on his still fiberglass encased arm, walking in behind her.

Between Ben being ordered not to come into the building until he had taken enough time to heal and Rilynne’s caseload, she had only seen Ben a few times over the last few weeks. 

“When did you come back?” she asked as he sat the box down on the corner of the desk beside hers.

“Today, actually.  They wanted me to take another week, but I put my foot down,” he said, imitating a stomp.  “Besides, there is too much work around here for them really to argue with me.  Plus, there was no way I was going to miss the ceremony tomorrow.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair.  “I really don’t deserve a commendation for any of it.  You were there, I disarmed a delusional woman who had her back to me.  There is nothing above and beyond about that.”

He leaned close to her, his lips just inches from the side of her face.  “You allowed yourself to get kidnapped to save me.  And you shot someone who had been your friend to keep me from being shot.  I owe you my life; I would say that deserves a little recognition.”

As much as she wanted to argue with him, somewhere between the feel of his warm breath tickling her cheek and the flashes of Nicole aiming her gun at him, she couldn’t.

She waited until he pulled away to answer.  “Okay,” she said in agreement.

He smiled at her and turned to retrieve his box.  “I’ll see you tomorrow night then,” he said as he walked towards the back of the room, allowing his arm to brush tenderly against hers as he passed.

Rilynne found it very hard to concentrate on the work laid out in front of her.  Between Ben and the commendation, she really just wanted to go for a long run to clear her head.  She was just about to get up when Detective Wilcome walked towards her.

“So, we have decided to reconsider the rule that has given us so much trouble,” he said as he sat on the corner of her desk.  It was amazing how different he looked.  The circles under his eyes were gone, and his face seemed more full of life.    He was starting to look more like the man Rilynne had seen doing the interview when the case started.

“Oh yeah?” she asked, glancing quickly over at Ben and back, hoping Wilcome had not noticed.

“We had a good, long talk about it last night, and decided the best course of action moving forward would be to abolish it.  That is not to say that certain behaviors would not be frowned upon, but provided there was no interference with the work, we would leave it up to the discretion of the members of our department.”  He gave her a quick smile before walking back to his desk.  Rilynne swore she heard him humming as he went.

She flicked her eyes back to Ben.  If only it were that easy, she said to herself.

Deception with Murder

Book #2 in the Rilynne Evans Mystery series

by Jenn Vakey

Chapter One

“
D
on’t get me wrong,” Ben Davis said while setting the large box down.  “It’s a really great house, but what was the big hurry to move out of your apartment?  You still had eight months left on your lease.”

“I don’t suppose saying it just wasn’t big enough would be a sufficient answer?”  Rilynne asked with a hopeful tone. 

“Well, since you spend all of your time at work, I’m going to have to say no.”

Rilynne smiled and sat down on the chair she had just carried in.  “Well,” she said.  “It was worth a try.  The truth is, I just couldn’t take it there anymore.  Between the looks from Hartley and still feeling violated, I just don’t feel comfortable there anymore.  And don’t even get me started about the closet.”

Rilynne Evans moved to Addison Valley four months before in search of a serial killer.  Between being a skilled profiler and her visions, she had been eager to get involved.  After Derek Hartley, the man living in the apartment above hers, was abducted by the perpetrator and escaped, they learned the killer was none other than Nicole Benson, a member of their own department.  Although Derek Hartley managed to escape with his life, he still suffered a leg amputation.  Because Rilynne had developed a close friendship with Nicole, he held a great deal of resentment towards her, which he did not hide when their paths crossed.

“Okay, I can understand still feeling violated after Nicole broke into your apartment, but why would you have issues with your closet?” he asked with a touch of amusement.  “She built the shrine in her closet, not yours.”

Nicole had been in love with Ben’s older brother Justin. After his passing, she built a shrine to him behind a secret panel in the back of her closet.

“Yeah, but since the apartments have the exact same layout, I couldn’t walk into my closet without thinking about it,” she explained stepping back out into the yard.

Ben rolled his eyes and walked past her towards the moving truck.  The cool October breeze hit his shaggy, dirty blonde hair making it dance around his face.  As it flew out of his eyes, she could just make out the half-inch scar above his left eyebrow where Nicole had attacked him.  The twinge of guilt she felt at the sight of it was quickly forgotten as the sweet smell of peaches floated after him towards her.

Rilynne had found a quaint two-bedroom house that backed up to the woods surrounding Addison Valley.  Despite having a giant kitchen and a whirlpool bathtub that could easily sit four people, her favorite thing was that she only had to take three steps past her back gate before stepping through the tree line.  It would make her early morning jogs convenient.