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The girl was Kristen Stable. What we didn’t know was how she died, but by the time we left his office this morning, we had that information too. She had been brutalized in ways no woman ever should, then strangled with what was most likely a belt. Her death was not painless or quick. She suffered as she fought for her life, but her strength in her final moments gives me hope that we will be able to find the man who did that to her.
She went down taking pieces of her attacker with her—under her nails, between her legs, and on her clothing. The man who killed her was not a professional. He left evidence behind, mostly likely assuming that if someone ever came across her body, time and the natural cycle of decomposition would have cleaned up the scene for him.
He had no clue that the piece of land he left Kristen on was owned by a family with three young boys who used every inch of it as their playground. When one of them found Kristen’s body yesterday afternoon, he ran home and told his older brother, who rode out on his four-wheeler to check if the kid was telling the truth. And after confirming that his brother wasn’t lying, he called 911.
Thankfully, the sheriff who worked in Chicago before moving to Tennessee had the smarts to check missing person reports not just for his county but the surrounding ones. When he saw Kristen’s case still open and her photo, he called Miles.
“I know you’re going to want to take some time to call friends and family this morning, but I’d like you to think about who Kristen was spending time with and if there is anyone you can think of who had a special interest in her,” Miles says, dragging me from my thoughts, and I focus on Barbara’s tear-stained face.
“You think it was someone she knew?” She shakes her head, then wraps her arms around her middle. “Everyone loved her. No one she knows would have hurt her like that.”
Fuck, I wish that were true, but nine times out of ten, that isn’t the case.
“We know it’s difficult,” I put in quietly, “thinking someone she trusted could betray her. But is there anyone … anyone you didn’t already tell us about? A teacher, the parent of a friend, anyone she told you made her feel weird?”
“No,” she denies without thinking about the question, because it’s something no one wants to dwell on. It’s one thing to imagine a monster hiding under your bed at night. It’s another to know monsters are real and that they don’t hide in the dark but live and breathe like the rest of us and are normally someone you might consider a friend.
“All right,” Miles says gently, knowing like I do that we won’t get anything else from her today, not when she’s so raw. “Do you want us to wait with you until a friend can get here?”
“No,” she whispers, then her eyes lock on Miles before she moves her gaze to mine. “You’ll find him.” She swallows, looking between us. “Promise me you’ll find the person who hurt her.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to get justice for Kristen,” Miles tells her, and my hands ball into fists. He and I learned years ago that you never make a promise you can’t keep, not to a family and not to yourself. That shit will eat away at you and make it impossible to live or move on.
Not that moving on is possible anyway. Each unsolved case I have sitting on my desk travels with me every single day, takes up space in my head, and drives me to madness, like a puzzle with one single piece missing.
After promising her we’ll be in touch, we leave her in her small kitchen as she makes her first phone call and head outside.
Swinging up into the passenger seat of Miles’s truck, I scrub my hands down my face, exhausted, not just physically but mentally.
“You good?” Miles asks, and I glance over at him.
“Peachy. You?”
“You’re full of shit. What’s going on with the Naomie situation?” he asks, knowing about the affair, since he was with me when I got the call a few days ago.
“I met Bowie’s wife last night.”
“Shit, I didn’t even think about her being there.”
“She had no clue I knew about the affair.”
“Pardon?” He slows to a stop at a red light and turns to look at me. “She’s the one who told you.”
“Apparently, her friend was the one who called me, and she had no idea.”
“Oh fuck.”
“She ran off like she saw a ghost when she saw Naomie and me last night. She had no idea I’d be there. I don’t think she knew that Bowie works with me.”
