It had been six months since I left the hospital and convinced the police I could do nothing to help them find my kidnapper. My friends at school finally stopped asking about the ordeal and the press stopped hounding me for a story. I feel safe again to live life as I had before the kidnaping, a quiet life, without hoards of followers pacing my footsteps.
It is time; it’s time to find Thomas Stuart’s wife and meet with her. Although I don’t know what I will say, I do not intend to tell Selma that I am his daughter. After meeting her, assuring myself that Mrs. Stuart was okay and not living in fear of her husband’s past, I will decide what to do next. All I know right now is that I have to do something different, something that matters; what I am considering is a decision that I am certain mom and Aunt Betty won’t approve.
I searched the internet, but discovered that the phonebook has no listing for Selma Stuart or any variation of her name. The local listings of property leases show that the address of the house where Thomas Stuart, Junior held me captive is still in his dad and Selma Stuart’s name; I can find no other address for her. I searched court documents and the record of Thomas’s death for the man driving the car when he died. The police had filed no charges in the case, and had tagged it as an accidental death.
I wanted to do more to find Selma. However, it was about time to pick up Linda at work so I closed the laptop and joined mom and Aunt Betty downstairs. They were preparing for the book read meeting. "Mom, I am picking up Linda and we’re going grab a bite to eat, maybe rent a movie."
"You’re tired, Honey, it’s etched in your face, do you think it’s wise to go out tonight?"
"Mother, I’m fine, stop putting too much emphasis on my every expression." Trisha glanced over at Betty. "I feel odd calling you Aunt Betty now, would you like me to address . . . "
"Trisha, I am still Betty, nothing has changed that, so don’t feel guilty calling me by my given name. Just keep doing what came natural to you before all those terrible events happened. I have always loved you, and your knowing that I gave birth to you doesn’t change that love. I’m not ashamed of allowing Lauren and William to raise you as their own. By law, and by your emotions, they are your true parents."
I gave Betty a hug and smiled. "You know I have always loved you, and that will never change. Have a good reading tonight you two, don’t wait up for me. I may stay over with Linda, but I’ll call and leave a message if it’s late."
People’s expressions and the way they carry themselves can tell a lot about them. While sitting in the courthouse parking waiting for Linda, I was watching people come out the building and walk toward their cars. Some had a stern look; others were angry, perplexed or smiling. All of them were not employees, but each was living in their own world, their own problem forefront in their mind. They weren’t aware of what was happening around them; I doubted they realized I was sitting in a car watching. I wondered if the kidnapper grabbed one of them if any of the others would notice. I knew I had to find a way to tell Linda without creating fear in her for my safety. I looked up as Linda and Assistant DA Chad Collins walked toward my car. Chad was a good DA, and I was glad he had taken an interest in Linda’s future in the office.
"You Ladies have a good night and don’t go getting into any trouble. I’d hate to get a call that they have arrested my assistant." He laughed and patted the top of Trisha’s car hood.
Trisha laughed with him. "I’ll try Chad, but you know Linda, she’s not easy to reason with once she has had a glass or two of wine."
"Ha ha, you two!" Linda said. "I’m starving tonight, what’s for dinner?"
"I’m in the mood for Chinese; is that okay with you?"
"Great! Over dinner you can tell me what has been really bugging you lately. Something is up with you, Trisha."
I had to laugh. "Yes, it is. However, I don’t know if you are going to approve, and what I tell you must be kept between us and only the two of us; mom and Aunt Betty can’t know. No one can, Linda, including your boss."
"That sounds ominous! Now, I am worried, and before dinner!"
Linda was sipping her tea and staring over at me. I knew she was skeptical even as she wanted to understand. "You mean you just want to know where she is and if she’s all right, right? You don’t want to become a regular visitor or anything? Because I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’m not sure if your meeting Selma is a good idea, it hasn’t been that long since you recovered from your ordeal."
"Don’t you think it’s time I move on with my life, a career? I do, and I intend to do that soon, after I graduate and have the business degree in my hands. However, my friend, I took those extra classes for a reason; I see that now. I am going to continue living at home for now; mom couldn’t handle me moving into my own apartment. She watches me constantly, and I want to make sure she is assured no repeat performance by TS will happen before I move."
"You are going to take over the store, right? Your mom and dad wanted that for you, it’s why she hasn’t sold it and why you’ve taken the career in business classes in college."
"Linda, after I find Selma, I am going to find the man who is killing women. Another one went missing as you know, and she hasn’t been found; they will discover her body. He has killed several women, and that makes him a serial killer. Although the police still believes my kidnapper is the same man who is killing women, I know he’s not."
"They do believe that, Trisha, and that is a natural assumption for them to make. They believe he has a partner in crime, and the partner is somehow allowing some women to escape. All the women have similar features like yours, Trisha. The police believe the killer thought you were dead when he dumped your body on your mother’s lawn, and that he dumped you there to make a statement."
"Yes, but they also don’t know that my kidnapper was a spirit. I feel that, somehow, I should do something and maybe help put them on the right track."
"The news services more widely televised your disappearance. I suppose it is because of your family’s long and respected standing in the county, but it also helped bring the other murdered and freed victims’ forefront in the news. That gives the police more pressure from ‘higher ups’ too, it’s nearing an election year, they want closure."
"Trust me, Linda, never, is there real closure, just eventual acceptance. And maybe, once they apprehend the killer, a sense of relief for these families that he will harm no one else."
"My friend, you are not responsible for these murders."
"No, but my not realizing TS was the one who I had dreamed about all these years, that he was dead, is what caused me to be kidnaped by him. It took the police investigation away from the murders, and focused them on me." My arms were bent at the elbows, with palms-up, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by Linda as I allowed them to help add stress on my next words. "Don’t you see? I have to do this, Linda."Linda sighed. She knew nothing would change my mind once it was set on something. All she could do was try to keep her ambition low-keyed, and hopefully, keep her safe. "Okay, tell me how I can help."
I stood beside Linda on the lawn of the Stuart home staring up at the house. Several weeks had passed since I began the search for Selma and I’d found her. The county marriage records showed Selma’s maiden name and I searched for her by that name. After his death, a couple women had seen Thomas’s picture in the newspaper and come forward, naming Thomas as their rapist. A couple of the victims weren’t sure of his identity but they preformed DNA tests and proved him the rapist. But not until more women from a neighboring town also listed him as the man who had raped them.
Although I had yet to meet Selma, I had discovered that doctor bills ate what was left of the insurance monies she had gotten when Thomas died. Selma had broken her leg and injured her back in a fall at the apartment complex where she lived, and she had needed several surgeries. She worked as a cashier at a local convenience store and that was minimum wage pay so to help with finances, she decided to put the house on the market.
"Your mother is going to be upset about your buying this house, Trisha. What about Betty, how do you think she will feel?"
"They know nothing of it, Linda, besides, the street name has changed over the years and, too, I don’t think Mom will remember the old name. Aunt Betty may, but unless she knows its location, she won’t be any wiser for the knowledge that I bought a house on Cleaver Street. Aunt Betty was scared to death of Thomas until he died, so I really don’t think she will have second thoughts about his previous place of residence."
As they had before when I had viewed the house with the agent, visions floated across my mind when I entered the home. A small enclosure beneath the stairwell was where TS had held me, and I ignored the door leading into it. Contractors are to meet me here today, and I intended to see that they put lighting in the small room. No longer would the room be enclosed in darkness. I had told Linda about the room, and being the friend she was, Linda also walked past the door without opening it. Instead, she headed for the kitchen.
"I just love this huge kitchen! Do all the homes in this neighborhood have them? The one in my apartment is so small and barely big enough for one person."
Trisha laughed. "Leave it to you to think about food! Come on, I want your opinion on what to do with the master bedroom. Without a doubt, I want to redo it. The wallpaper has to go; it looks ancient!"
After we had walked through the house with the contractor, explaining what I wanted, I pointed up to an attic door. "I haven’t been up there because the pull on the door is missing. But, if you have some way of reaching it, and opening the door, I would really like to see it. Hopefully, no electrical wiring is hanging haphazard and spiders haven’t found a home."
"Wow!" Linda said when she climbed the stairs to the attic, "this place still has old furniture and musty smelling boxes in it! I wonder why the door pull was broken? Do you think the previous owners removed it on purpose or something?"
"All I know," Carl Plumes said, "is that they sealed the attic door with nails and previous ceiling paintings; it hasn’t been opened in years.” He reached over and pulled on a light cord hanging from the center ceiling and light shown across the room, enveloping the dust and cobwebs. "You have a couple shuttered windows here from the outside. Be careful ladies, I will go out and see if I can open the shutters."
"Linda, maybe I should do a little more digging into the owners’ history of this house. That desk dates earlier than the 1980s when Thomas and Selma bought that living room furniture and child’s bedroom set from the store. I want to go through all these boxes, and the desk too."
"Look at this chair! Trisha, it’s marvelous and in perfect condition."
Just then, we heard a tapping sound and Linda squealed.
I laughed aloud. "Mr. Plumes has gotten the shutters open I see." I walked over to the window and wiped a small circle in the dust covering the pane. Mr. Plumes was motioning for us to unlock the window. "Linda, grab his flashlight and bring it over, will you; I need to figure out how to work this lock." After some tugging and pulling, the window opened.
"Well it’s about time! I didn’t think you ladies would get it unstuck.""Never underestimate determination of a woman," Linda said, and laughed.
"This house is much older than the others around here. Still, it is sturdy and with care, will last for many years to come," Plumes said.
"I hope so! It’s my home," I said. "You are right though; according to the title search they built this house in the late 1890s. They built all the others in the early to mid 1900s. This neighborhood has withstood the test of time, and it’s quiet with a minimal crime rate."
Four months after consulting with the contractors, the home was ready for occupancy. I had to tell mom that I was moving into the house, and that not only was I moving but I was purchasing a couple other homes in the neighborhood and remodeling them also. I could lease or sell those after the remodeling was complete. The attic had taken several weeks to complete because it had been previously unfinished, so they installed new lighting and drywall. I was proud that I managed to stay in the planned price range with the refurbishing of the home.
Linda has been a godsend. She helped with cleaning the attic, and making decisions about kitchen appliances and window coverings. The five bedrooms of the house all were upstairs. Two bedrooms were on the left side of the hallway. A third, and smaller room, was on the right with its own half-bath. The other bathroom was on the right of the hallway and directly across from the master bedroom. A fourth bedroom was also small but had ample space for a full bed. We both like the home’s floor plan, downstairs and off the living room was a small room that I can utilize as an office, a larger den adjoins the dining room. Some previous owner had added a carport and large laundry room to the home and that was a plus, and had saved me having to do it.
Linda has also agreed to live with me. This decision will help mom’s acceptance of my moving into my own home.
I had never been in the house alone, and while I waited for the delivery men to bring the furniture, I steeled myself for dealing with the storage room beneath the stairs. The room was larger than I’d first thought. I flipped the light switch and ducked down, walked a few steps before I stood without hitting my head on a stairwell beam. I walked over to the corner where I had stayed during most of the time when TS held me hostage, and sat down. The small bucket I had used for bathroom needs and the water bottle was gone. Apparently, contractors had disposed of them.
Memories flooded me, and I could hear the two men’s voices in my mind. The last moments of my captivity washed over me as if it was happening again. My biological dad had slammed open the door and crawled over to me. I had fainted but visions of him dragging me to the door were clear and fresh. He had grabbed me. I was sure of this now. In his ghostly world, he had learned much. But, the one thing he’d learned most was that all he did in life was a weight he had to carry throughout his afterlife. He wanted to make up for those wrongs. Saving his daughter was the one thing he could do to help appease his guilt and hopefully, help me to forgive. He had carried me to his car, and driven to my home then gently put me down on the lawn, knowing the occupants inside would soon discover me. I had seen my brother as my father pulled me from the room, his vision was fading but his hand was reaching out toward me, asking for my forgiveness. I gave it to him, felt a surge of mental energy encompass me and then he faded away.
I left the room and turned off the light, my eyes were misting with tears so I went into the laundry room to wash my face before the delivery men arrived. When I heard the doorbell I looked out the window and saw the name Weston Furniture painted on a large van. The driver of the van backed into the drive and pulled a dolly from the back before instructing the second man on what to do. They brought the bedroom furniture out first and I showed the men where the different bedroom sets belonged. One man was bringing in a dresser and headed through the first bedroom door when I stopped him.
"That one goes in the room on your left, facing the foot of the bed.""I just deliver Ma’am, I don’t decorate," he said.
I walked up to him and pointed to where I wanted the dresser put, "it goes there," I said, in a voice that demanded he do his job and do it correctly.
"Whatever,” he breathed, but I heard him. "Larry," I said, when noticing his name on the uniformed shirt. "Are you familiar with the Weston store policy for deliveries?"
"What?"
"Are you familiar with the Weston Furniture Store policy for deliveries?"
"Yeah, but I just deliver. That store’s not paying me enough to be a decorator."
"Larry! Put the dresser exactly where she said to put it, and then go get the mattresses out the truck." Gary turned to me, apologizing for Larry.
"Is he that rude to all the customers when he delivers?"
"Yeah, he’s new, only been working a couple months. I try to tell him that we are supposed to take the furniture into the rooms and ready it for use. He gripes all the time about it. Says he doesn’t worry about women who want it moved from here to there, they can arrange it."
"I see;” I said. “Have they filed complaints against him?"
"I don’t think so Ma’am. I think he just takes the furniture in and then leaves. I guess the customers don’t know that we are supposed to place it where they request."
A couple hours later they had unloaded and readied the furniture for use. Gary pulled out the waybill for me to sign and assured me that they would deliver the dining room table later in the week. When I signed my name, he realized whom I was, that my parents owned Weston Furniture. I was sure that during their drive back to the store, Gary filled Larry’s ear full with just whom he’d insulted.
Mom took the news much better than I had expected. Aunt Betty had become a constant companion and stayed over at the house nearly full time since selling her sandwich shop. I had convinced the two that they should travel some, and see all the places they had talked and read about. I showed Betty how to go online, book hotels, and make car rentals for the travels they would make by airplane. Both of them grew more excited as they planned a trip for later that month.
Aunt Betty had seen the difference in me over the past few months, how I seemed to mature into a self-confident young woman. "I know you are afraid for her, Lauren, but I really do think she has put the past behind her and accepted that she is the child of a rapist."
"Yes, but I’m just worried because of this psychic nature she has that it will get her into something she shouldn’t be involved in."
Betty agreed with moms concerns that I was on a mission and it was one that would help me grow as a woman. Although neither knew what the mission was, they felt confident I would excel with any decision I made. "She will learn from her mistakes, the same as we did when we were young, Lauren," Betty said.
After seeing mom and Betty off on their trip later that month, I drove back to my parent’s home and walked through it. I went to my old bedroom and sat on the bed. Suddenly loneliness came over me: I had never been truly alone. Even when I had stayed in the dorm apartment, I knew mom was here, within easy reach if I needed to come home. I reached for Arms, my stuffed bear, and one I’d had since early childhood and curled up on the bed with him. Arms had listened to many problems, been there through tears and fear as a quiet ear that comforted. I debated whether to leave or take him with me. But decided to leave him, he would be here if the need ever arose and, too, this is where he belonged. As I closed her door, I felt a parent leaving a child behind but more so, as I was leaving behind a chapter of my life.
As I drove to Cleaver Street, I wondered if I would ever share Arms with a child. I had seen Linda’s future, and Chad’s but never had envisioned my own. I wondered now what the future held for me. Would I marry, have children to love and care for, to worry about and fuss over?
"Time for those thoughts can wait, Trisha," I told myself when I pulled into the grocery store parking lot. "Now, it is time to do what you set out to do before buying the house."
I had learned that Selma was having the final surgery on her back so I thought I would just pop into the hospital room with some excuse for visiting. I had informed my bank to see that they paid the surgeries without Selma knowing who paid. The hospital would not bill her for her stay. I'd just needed to do something for her; she was in a way, my step mom. Though I didn't like thinking about it being true.Selma was awake and reading a book. Even with the worry lines around her eyes, she was still a very pretty woman for her age. Obviously, she had taken care of herself over the years since Thomas’s death. "Hello, how are you feeling?"
"I’m doing okay. Do I know you?"
"Probably not, I saw your name on the door when I passed it and thought I’d say hello. I’m the one who bought your old house."
"Well, it’s nice to meet you, and to know a young person has the home. Will you fill it with children? Are you married?"
"I’m not married yet, no prospects if you know what I mean." I smiled at Selma. "One day perhaps. I did do some remodeling but not with the floor plan, just updated the kitchen and decor."
"I hope you will be happy with the house; I was once upon a time."
"I’m sure I will be. If you’d like, after you have recuperated, drop by and see what I did to the place. You’d be welcome. My friend will be staying there with me but she’ll welcome you also."
"Thank you, but I have tried hard over the years to leave the past behind me. That’s why I had to move out that house. I needed to start a new life, without reminders of tragedy as a constant companion."
I stayed a few more minutes and then left, feeling good about Selma’s future and the meeting. As I rode down the elevator, I wondered if I would ever see Selma again.
"I stopped off and bought wine, Trisha. Tonight is our first home cooked meal in our new home! I say we make a toast for the many happy times we will have here."
"Why didn’t I think of that?!"
Linda laughed. "Well, I wanted to celebrate too. Guess who I dined with today?"
"The DA, Assistant DA, Mayor and the Governor."
"I can’t have secrets around you! How did you know?"
"I saw it in my head Monday when you were typing up those notes for Chad to use in refreshing his memory on that cold case. I knew when you frowned that you had seen Carla’s name in the documents, and that is why I suggested you wear something nice today. I knew he’d ask you to join them after you mentioned her name to him. You were right to suggest she may be the link to break the case. Go check the records for the early 90s and you’ll see where they arrested Carla for prostitution. Although, she wasn’t a prostitute, she was there waiting for Jerry to come out the apartment building. He was there meeting the man who bought his stolen goods."
"You wouldn’t just happen to know where she can be found now, would you? With her testimony and this new break in the case with the prostitute from back then, Chad can finally close the case. This could keep Jerry in prison for the rest of his life for killing the Governor’s, then District Attorney’s, son."
"I don’t know how you will explain having this information, but Carla is in Colorado. She is scared to death of Jerry and for that reason, she did as he told her back then, and hid the gun he used in the murder. He beat on her a lot, treated her like trash but she finally escaped when they jailed him for fighting and cutting a man. She hitched a ride to neighboring town and caught a bus to Lincoln. From there she went all the way to Denver, Colorado via the train."
"Do you know where she hid the gun? Man that would really seal the case against Jerry once they make bullet comparison and if Chad could prove it belonged to him. I’ll figure out a way to tell Chad. It’d be great if you’d let me tell him about your visions, he’d keep your secret, Trisha."
"Maybe we will tell him one day, Linda. But not right now, I need time to see what I can do with the abductions and murders of those three women. Hopefully, before he takes another one. He usually waits a few months between killings and it’s been several months since they discovered the last body."
"Too late, Trisha, a woman came up missing day before yesterday. You were so busy helping Charles with the store employees’ situation and I was busy unpacking so I didn’t have a chance to mention it to you."
I drove to the place where Leila Stevens was last seen. Dreams had filled my sleep hours since the conversation with Linda about the kidnapper and they heightened my determination to find the killer of the murdered women. As I pulled into the parking lot, my mind took me to the same spot where Leila had parked. I turned off the ignition and pulled the key out before reaching over and grabbing my purse, mimicking Leila’s actions. When I stepped from the car, I pushed the lock on it and began walking in Leila’s footsteps. As I neared the front of the store, I sensed that on the night Leila disappeared a silver, late model F150 had pulled into the spot where I was now standing. I stopped walking, noticing that in the vision it was getting dark outside. The driver stepped down from the cab of his truck and locked his door. As he looked up, he spotted Leila. She was wearing a Tee and jeans, part of her midriff was showing and he was thinking, ‘you trash, walking like you own the world, saying look at me.’ The man followed Leila inside the store, watching her as she shopped and went through the register. He checked out at the counter next to the one she was at and followed her outside. He watched her walk toward her car and then hurried to his truck.
The man pulled up beside her just as she was about to cross the parking spot next to her car, and opened his door. Within a few seconds, Leila was in the back seat of his truck and he was leaving the store parking.
I turned and went back to my car and followed the vision through the streets and onto a dark deserted road. The F150 pulled into a gravel road and went about a mile before turning off again and stopping. The man jerked Leila from the back seat and carried her inside a small building. He pushed her over against the wall and what happened next was more than I had wanted to see. Leila was kept in the building for the next couple of days before he killed her.
I turned my car around and floored the pedal, driving much faster than I had when following the vision. At that moment I had seen another girl, dead and being carried out to the silver truck, then dumped in the bed of it. I didn’t know what girl it was, it wasn’t Leila, and it wasn’t the one he had killed before Leila. All I knew was that I’d done a reckless thing coming down this dirt road alone. I beat my hand on the steering wheel in anger. "This was stupid, Trisha, just a stupid thing to do! You are alone, easy prey for that maniac. What did you think you could do if you found him?"
I continued chastising myself as I drove to the furniture store. And when I left my car, I noticed a silver F150 parked nearby. It gave me a moment’s hesitation. "Don’t be silly, Trisha, hundreds of those are running up and down the roads," I told myself.
As I went into the store, Larry was coming out. He wasn’t a happy man and gave me a hard look that said, if looks could kill, mine would kill you. Larry knew I was the one responsible for him losing his job. He walked toward the F150 and I felt chill bumps cover me.
"Good morning, Miss Weston."
"Good morning, Grace, is the boss in his office?"
"Yes and with the accountant so I am steering clear of the office." Grace smiled and winked.
I laughed and knocked on Charles’ office door, not entering until I heard him say come in. "Good morning, Charles."
"Good morning, Trisha, this is Ben Daniel, our CPA. I asked him to come in so he could meet with you."
I took the outstretched hand before sitting in the chair Charles had motioned to. "I promised Mother I’d become educated on the store’s daily operations, Ben. She’s been after me to take an active interest so I’ve been doing that; meeting you and going over the books is one way I can show her I do care about this business." For the next couple hours they gave me a complete rundown of the store’s financial status. When I arrived home, I decided that I had to have help if I was to be successful finding a criminal through my abilities. Today’s impulsiveness was weighing on my mind. Although when the visions come, I had to listen to them and follow them where they lead, I was aware that I needed someone I could trust to work with me. Someone to keep me grounded in what was safe for me and what wasn’t safe. I also needed someone who could legally access police records. Linda could only do so much to help without risking her job, and that wasn’t something I was willing to ask of my friend. The one person I thought of was an old friend from school, Blaine Anderson. Blaine had always wanted to be a cop; he had fulfilled that dream. He was a local patrol officer for the police department.
My plan to include Blaine worked out better than I had expected. Linda, after Chad insisted she tell him how she discovered Carla buried the gun, had told him about my psychic gift. Chad paid a visit to my home; Blaine was with me when Chad came and the four of us had a long conversation. Now, Blaine was no longer patrolling the streets keeping citizens safe; he was on special detail for the DA’s office. That special detail was me and the file folder we would build between us on Jerry Carter and Carla Smith. That was why a few days later I was standing in the old courtyard of an abandoned apartment building with its walls riddled with graffiti, rooms full of empty alcohol cans, bottles and drug paraphernalia.
I finally managed to find the spot where I believed Carla buried the gun but we couldn’t dig it up. We needed a warrant, and to get a warrant we had to have probable cause. I had to put the search for the kidnapper on hold for a few days. But, along with the kidnapper, I also had to put another mission on hold. The mission I hadn’t mentioned to Linda, and that was a search for information on the man who had run over my biological father. I’d felt strange about that accident all my life, at least since first having seen it when going with mom to Aunt Betty’s café. I’d wondered if during my captivity, mom was having the dream because of my thought waves or if there was another reason for it, and I wanted answers.
I hated flying, Blaine knew this so he agreed to share driving duties with me and the two of us loaded my car and took off on the trip to Denver. We had to find Carla, meet with her and attempt to convince her that Jerry was no longer a threat to her safety so she’d come back with us and give testimony in the death of Michael Severs.
After about 10 hours on the road, and extra time for gas, food and restroom stops Blaine pulled into the Holiday Inn. We were both tired and wanting to rest so we dragged ourselves up to the front desk and confirmed our reservation before going off to our rooms.
I was wound up and unable to sleep peacefully and only managed a couple hours before morning. I grabbed my laptop and signed in with the internet service. I had Carla’s police record booking photo in my files, and one that had been age enhanced to give a general idea of how she may look today, nearly 15 years later. I wanted to start at the bus depot, the place where she came into the city all those years ago. I called Blaine, informing him it was time to head out on our mission.
After eating a large breakfast and downing a pot of coffee, Blaine was ready to join me. We drove to the local train station. I walked into the station and immediately stopped; Blaine bumped into me and laughed. "Are we going to make this a habit?" I looked over at him. "Take me to the area where Carla would have unloaded, it’s important that I see the path she had to walk."
"We should go inform the locals that we are here first, Trisha. Protocol stuff."
"I know, but I feel an urgency for some reason. And I want to go to the station before meeting with the Detective who Chad asked to assist us while we are here. We’ll go when we leave here, I promise."
He was unhappy but Blaine walked over to the information desk and asked for directions to the terminal that would have been in use in the 90s with the route Carla would’ve taken. After a few strange looks from the woman behind the desk, and he’d shown her his badge, she sent us to the terminal’s security office.
The security officer eyed us suspiciously and hung up the phone he’d cradled near his ear before motioning for us to sit. I felt like a terrorist, waiting for the FBI or CIA to pounce on us, and wondered if Blaine did also. "Sir, we are on a mission to find a woman who came into Denver back in the 90s via Amtrak lines,” he said and showed the officer his identification. "We need to know the path she’d have walked to leave the station."
"Exactly how will your knowing the old boarding and unloading stations help you with finding a missing person?" The security officer’s voice was thick with doubts, accusations.
Blaine looked over at me and sighed.
I nodded, wanting to just get it over with, meet with Detective Roberts and get back home so I could deal with the kidnapper mission.
"Because the lady with me is a psychic and I believe in her, so just show us the blasted location!" Blaine’s frustration with me carried over to the officer.
The security officer’s mouth twisted in a disbelieving smirk and he laughed. "That is not an original excuse, I’ve heard much better."
I walked up to him and touched the phone he’d replaced on its base. "You’re married, but have a roaming eye and it’s creating problems in your marriage. Your wife is having you followed, she is gathering information for a divorce, a divorce you want but are not sure about asking for. Might I point you to a man wearing a green print shirt, jeans and tennis, and standing near the information counter. He has a small camera and has snapped pictures of you with a certain employee here at the station. You also like roast beef sandwiches loaded with condiments and eat them often. In the past, you were shot in the shoulder; it was an accidental hunting accident. But, you’re suspicious about that, you suspect your hunting partner is sleeping with your wife and somehow the shooting was an attempt on your life. It wasn’t and he isn’t, but he is seeing her, and wants to sleep with her. She wants him, too, and she would be happier with him. Your relationship with your son strengthens but not until after the divorce."
I returned to my chair and stared over at the security officer; Blaine’s eyes had never left him. The officer pulled up the blueprint of the station and showed us where we should go. No other words were spoken after that exchange. However, the officer did ease himself over to the man standing at the information counter after we left his office.
As I walked in Carla’s footsteps, I could see her in my mind. She was scared, looking over her shoulder, and knew she would never really be sure Jerry couldn’t find her. She reached up and pushed the bangs of the wig from her face. Her eyes were green, but contacts made them grayer. Carla left the station and headed toward a cab. She gave the name of a motel away from the downtown area and the cab sped off in that direction.
I motioned for Blaine to follow me back to the car, and then we took the same route that Carla had taken 14 years ago. The motel Carla had stayed in was gone and in its place was a shopping center.
"Maybe we should go and see Detective Roberts now, Trisha," Blaine said after we walked around the shopping center without picking up on Carla’s energy. "They will be upset that we came from another state and just helped ourselves to an investigation in their town, and rightfully so, Trisha."
We drove to the local police station and asked for a Detective Roberts. Chad had been in contact, Detective Roberts told us, and he was happy to take us to any location we felt that we needed to visit.
Detective Roberts was unaware that I was a psychic, he only knew I was here as a civilian representative. When I shook his hand, I saw him in a building with smoke billowing around him and a police radio in his hand. Detective Roberts was searching for a small child, and one he wasn’t sure where to find. He heard a noise and mistakenly took it as the child and turned left in the hallway, but the child was on his right, behind a door with four signs on it. I wanted to tell him this, but decided to wait until it was necessary. I didn’t want to put doubts about me in his head before we searched for, and hopefully discovered, Carla Smith’s present residence.
"We ran the name Carla Smith through our database and came up empty with one who looked like your photo. The Denver police have not arrested the woman for any supposed illegal act. We can’t find her in the arrest of known prostitutes either; of course, she could be using an assumed name."
"She is not a prostitute, Detective," I said. "Carla will have a job, and keep a low profile legally because she doesn’t want to risk Jerry finding her.""Did you run Jerry’s name, see if he had been in Denver over the past 15 years?"
"Yes, and it came up empty, if he has been here, he kept a low profile."
"Okay, this is the deal. If anyone can find this woman, Trisha, can,” he pointed toward me. “We need to be free to go places and do things to help with finding Carla. We know she came to Denver by Amtrak train and went to a motel outside the city limits; when we visited that site, we discovered a shopping center at the location we knew to be a Motel."
"You must be talking about the old Dexter Motel. It came under sleazy ownership and although it did have some who just dropped in for an overnight stay, the men and women who stayed there were mostly vagrants, drug dealers, and prostitutes. I think some people, those few who were there for a short stay, moved over to the YMCA and some the YWCA after the fire."
"Carla came into Denver in the early fall around 93, when did the motel burn?"
"How did you know it burned?"
I smiled at Detective Roberts. "Some things I don’t have to be told, I just know." I told him about his search for the little boy. "But it wasn’t the motel burning that I saw, it’s another building."
"I was an officer back then, and haven’t been inside a burning building since that night."
"Keep it in mind, because the time will come when you will be inside one, and searching for a child."
Detective Roberts shrugged. "We can go over to the local YWCA and see if we get lucky; although, it’s a long shot that she was there the night of the fire."
"I’d say it never hurts to check all avenues," Blaine said. "I don’t want to go back and face the DA empty handed."
Detective Roberts agreed and we followed him out the office and down to the parking garage.
The woman at the YWCA was very helpful, she went into the office after addressing a problem with a worker helping with the after school children’s basketball game and pulled up the computer data for 93. "I can just run off a list of names from back then or you can give me a search name."
"The name is Carla Smith, she would have come in after a fire at her other residence, a Motel, back in the fall of that year," Detective Roberts said.
"According to the records, we have several Carla’s listed in 93," the woman said, just watch those printouts and see if it lists the one you’re searching for. I have to go teach a swimming class."
The printout list kept getting thicker and it amazed Trisha at how many women used the YWCA. She took the papers over to her chair, and then flipped through them until she reached October. Carla S. Simmons arrived Oct 10, 1993 and last signed in on Oct 13, 1993. "Hmm, let me walk around, see if I can pick her up," Trisha said, after Detective Roberts had heard an argument between a couple children and had gone to settle them down.
Trisha walked out the office and through the gym into a long narrow hallway. She took a right and slowly walked toward the back wall and a door leading into the swimming pool area. She saw Carla’s image. Carla hair was brunette with sun splashes of red, her natural color. She was sitting pool side and looking through help wanted ads.
"She was here, and job searching, Blaine."
"Detective Roberts, is there a Hampton in Denver?" Blaine asked when the Detective joined us.
"Yes, I can show you where it is, but I thought you were staying at the Holiday Inn?"
"We are but Carla was trying to find a job, and The Hampton was one she had marked with a very dark penciled circle. It’s a long shot, but we’d like to go see if maybe they employed her back then. And too, it’s well after lunch time, I’m hungry," Blaine said.
"You are always hungry," I said. "If it’s a decent motel, we can eat there and talk to Carla too, if she’s employed and on duty of course."
We got lucky. We’d hit pay dirt. But over the next hour got no where talking to Carla. "No, Miss Simmons, this is what we can do!" Detective Roberts had tired of Carla’s complaints and denials. "We can arrest you as accessory to murder, haul your rear downtown and keep you in jail until Nebraska decides to transport you back to that state. Now, you either tell us the truth, what we need to know to keep Jerry in jail or go to jail yourself. Your son can go to child services."Roberts was lying. Somewhat. But his agitation ploy worked.
"No! My son can’t go there; he’d be devastated. Okay, okay, I will tell you the whole story, but you have to promise me that you will never mention my son’s name. Jerry isn’t to know about him."
"Carla, no one will know about Jimmy, I promise you that, “I said. We just need your statement, oral and written, and we need to know you’re willing to testify against him. We know where you hid that gun, so start from the beginning and tell us everything. Afterward, we can go to the local department and get your statement on tape and have a written statement signed by you too."
"How did you know about the gun? No one knew about that but Jerry, and he didn’t know where I hid it. I was able to skip town before he asked for it back."
"Tell us your story, Carla," Detective Roberts said.
"Back in 93, I was working as a cashier at a convenience store. I was happy, living at an apartment building that was all right on the surface, but I had saved some money and planned to move. A neighbor introduced me to Jerry, and my living nightmare began. Not at first, at first he was a nice man, treated me respectfully and took me out to decent restaurants to eat. Then one night, he became angry because I wouldn’t let him stay overnight. He hit me, so I told him to leave and never come back. He did, but the next day he came over and was drunk. He threatened me. I knew he meant what he said; he’d kill me if I ever talked to him that way again, or called the cops on him. He started beating on me often, but I couldn’t find a way to get out, or go anywhere where he couldn’t find me. Throughout the next few months, I learned where his money came from. He earned a living as a pimp for prostitutes and selling stolen goods and cars. Well, one night he insisted I go with him to see about his collections from the prostitutes. The cops arrested me that night as a prostitute because I was standing outside on the sidewalk where the prostitutes hung out. Jerry bailed me out of jail and told me he owned me now and I would do as he said, sleep with whom he ordered me to sleep with. He also took over my finances. I’d never told him about my savings account and my checking only had enough in it to cover rent and groceries. So he only took my checkbook. One night he went out, and when he got home, he had blood all over him. He said he had gotten into a fight and killed a man. The next morning I saw an article in the paper about a sixteen-year-old-boy that had been killed. I asked Jerry if he was the one he had killed. He laughed and said yes, it was the District Attorney’s son. He said if I told, I would die too. He said he killed him to teach the cops a lesson. I was petrified."
Carla drank water and I saw that her hands were shaking. I had lived in fear when my brother had taken me, but my fear was different, and I couldn’t imagine shouldering what she was. My heart went out to her.
"Anyway," Carla said, "Jerry went out to his car and came back with a gun; I don’t know the caliber because I don’t know anything about guns. He pushed it in my face and told me I was to keep the gun hidden and if anyone asked, he didn’t own a gun. He told me that he would get the gun back after everything cooled down. Having that gun in the house seriously scared me, so the next day, I went out to my flower beds and planted a couple new plants. Only I wrapped the gun in plastic and hid it under the flowers I planted. It was a couple of weeks later that they arrested Jerry for fighting and cutting a man with a knife. I took my savings and that week’s paycheck from the convenience store where I worked and disappeared. I left everything behind. I knew then that I might be pregnant but hadn’t told him or anyone else about my suspicions. I wanted to get out, if I was going to have a baby, I didn’t want Jerry anywhere around it or me. I wore a wig, hitched hiked to a little town and from there rode the train. I’d always wanted to visit Denver so this is where I came."
Tears were streaming down Carla’s face when she finished telling her story. Trisha was heartbroken for her. "Simmons is your maiden name?"
"Yes, I was married for about a year, divorced him and struck out on my own. That was before Jerry, but he never knew I had been married before I was with him. He assumed Smith was my maiden name."
"Where is your son now?"
"He should be here in about 15 minutes, he’s working on a class project for school and uses the computers here to gather information and make printouts.""Okay, this is the deal," Detective Roberts said. "You follow us to the station and tell your story again, and then you can come back here and work. You have to guarantee these folks you won’t skip town. I will be keeping an eye on you, and if I get even the slightest hint that you are planning on skipping, you go to jail. Is that understood?"
"I am not skipping out! I just don’t want Jerry Carter to know where I live, and I don’t want him to know about Jimmy."
"With your testimony about him admitting killing Michael Severs, and the gun, we can put Jerry in jail for the rest of his life, and he won’t get out. This is the Governor’s son he killed," Blaine said.
"I know, but back then Severs was the District Attorney and hitting hard on crime. Jerry was really mad about his girls being picked up a couple days a week and about the cops raiding his chop shop. The cops didn’t know he was the owner, they thought the man who ran the business was the owner. That man, Steve, knew better than to tell anybody. Jerry would have killed him. Jerry had plenty of money; he just didn’t flash it around. He was also mad because the cops arrested the men dealing with stolen goods. Jerry had a couple storage rooms full of stolen property. He said that the cops were charging his men right and left. Over charging them with crimes, and it was hurting his business. Several men went to prison for months at a time because the DA went after them in court and refused to offer plea deals. So, Jerry told me that he had decided to teach him a lesson. He watched the kid, learned his routines, and that night he waited for him. When the boy headed home, Jerry ran him off the road, walked up to the car and showered him with bullets."
"Jerry told you all of this?" Blaine asked.
"Yes, he liked to brag, to keep me scared, and it worked; I was scared to death of him, still am."
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