AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That is a good question, and Ridgeway took the answer to his grave.” Sylvie ran a hand overtop the material in front of her. “He didn’t keep a diary, he wrote nothing down in his home, and there was no evidence as to his reasoning for killing those elderly patients. As I mentioned, Melissa Ridgeway died from ovarian cancer. Jackson Ridgeway’s reasoning could be what you are suggesting, but I’d say that we won’t ever truly know for sure.”
Bit had waited a while for his Skittles to melt into his hot chocolate. He’d taken maybe two sips before nodding to himself, apparently giving his approval for such a concoction. He downed maybe a quarter of the cup before setting it back down on the table and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Bit, you said that you discovered something that could vindicate Ridgeway from being the unsub for the previous abductions. We already know that he didn’t stalk and abduct Jenny Capshaw. That leaves three possibilities,” Brook said before ticking off those potential options one by one. “Ridgeway may have had a partner, we might have a copycat, or Ridgeway was never the unsub to begin with.”
“Ridgeway couldn’t have abducted two of the five women three years ago.” Bit pressed something on the screen of his tablet, so Brook turned her chair to get a better look at the monitor. Alongside Ridgeway’s photograph was a schedule of some sort. “Ridgeway was at a healthcare conference for two days in North Carolina when Heather Krinsky was abducted from a local boutique. Also, Ridgeway was still with his first employer during the other four abductions. I’m in the process of obtaining his schedule to see if he had the opportunity to stalk and abduct the first four victims.”
Brook waited patiently while Theo and Sylvie stared at Bit expectantly.
“Legally.” Bit took another drink of his concoction. “Of course.”
The group fell silent as they all utilized their own thought processes to try and make the right connections. Theo spoke first.
“It could be that Ridgeway’s sudden presence at the second nursing facility put a wrench into the real unsub’s routine,” Theo surmised right as his phone chimed that he had an incoming message. He made no move to see who was attempting to reach him, leaving Brook to assume that it was Detective Hadley Roerig. The two of them had yet to let the others know that they were seeing each other in a personal capacity, not that Brook had a problem with their relationship. She just hoped that Theo had entered the affair with limited expectations. “Ridgeway might have nothing to do with our unsub, other than drawing attention to the facility.”
This time, it was the alarm on Bit’s tablet that blasted from the device.
“Sorry,” Bit mumbled as he quickly silenced the device. “I’m looking for my own unique sound. I don’t want the usual alarms. Maybe I should go with a song, likeWhoomp! (There It Is). Or what about—“
“Bit?” Brook sat up a little straighter and cleared her throat. “We’re on a time crunch.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bit said as he tapped the screen on his tablet. “If you think of a perfect song, let me know.”
Brook couldn’t bring herself to glance at the other two, who had started to sing the song in unison. She was now going to have that song stuck in her head for the rest of the day.
“Big T, I know you don’t hear this often, but your theory might be wrong.” Bit pushed his hot chocolate with melted Skittles away as he quickly managed to share the information on the large monitor. “Look who went to high school with Beau Willow.”
Brook’s body released a rush of adrenaline as she once again turned her chair. Once her gaze settled on what appeared to be a page out of a high school yearbook, she accepted that she was finally back in her element.This…thisright here…was exactly what she’d needed after her father’s funeral. Pieces of the puzzle were finally connecting, and the larger picture was finally beginning to come into view.
Beau Willow had been tagged in a photograph of a yearbook with none other than Jackson Ridgeway.
Chapter Fifteen
Theo Neville
February 2023
Tuesday — 5:43pm
“Theamountofdedicationto continue the ruse of there being a serial killer after three years would be…”
“Almost nonexistent,” Theo said as he kept the engine running in the Jeep. They had parked in front of Beau Willow’s apartment building, where he’d moved to in the months following his wife’s disappearance. The family of Grace Willow had opted to have a funeral one year to the day of her bloody handprint being discovered at the bakery, though Beau had been against such a ceremony. “I still don’t believe that my theory is wrong.”
Theo could sense the weight of Brook’s stare.
It had taken her over twenty-four hours, but she was finally settling back into her usual routine. He’d seen the spark in her blue eyes when Bit had found a connection between Ridgeway and the first victim.
Brook thrived on this type of case.
Theo believed that such investigations kept her from losing a part of herself…maybe the last part of herself that allowed her to experience some sort of emotion. He didn’t think for a second that she was anything like her brother, but her relentless quest to find him couldn’t be labeled as anything other than obsession.
To say that the entire team had been shocked to learn that Brook had held her father’s funeral by herself had been an understatement. One of them should have insisted they accompany her to Illinois. She shouldn’t have had to deal with such a personal loss on her own, even if she believed that was the way things had to be.
Theo had thought for certain that Graham would have been by her side. The rest of the team didn’t know that the two of them were seeing each other outside of the business. Theo was only privy to that information because he and Brook lived in the same building.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re wrong, either.” Brook began to pull her leather gloves onto her hands. “I think it’s more plausible that the unsub hadn’t counted on the nursing facility having so much attention on the inner workings of the place. I instructed Bit to run intensive background checks on all the employees. Jim Risner falls into the unsub’s age bracket. So does an aid by the name of Noah Clark.”
“Could it be that simple?”
