Obsession With Murder Read online

  Elise turned back to Rilynne. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What does she mean by ‘anything’?”

  Rilynne didn’t talk. She didn’t know what to say. All of these people seemed to know and love her, but they were strangers to her. The worry they each brought in with them only made her panic grow stronger. Part of her wanted to ask them to leave, feeling overwhelmed by everything going on, but she didn’t. She just sat back and watched as they stared down at her like some little lost child found on the streets. She couldn’t really blame them. That was how she felt herself.

  “Have you heard from Ben?” Matthews asked, ignoring her question.

  Elise shook her head. “Rilynne called this morning and said they were going out,” she said, not taking her eyes off of Rilynne. “You asked if you could borrow my washer boards for the party. You said you were going to go by my place and pick them up today while the two of you were running errands. He wasn’t with her?”

  Matthews shook his head. “He isn’t home and I haven’t been able to get a hold of him. I just sent Summers a message asking him to check and see if he’s at the station.”

  “Is he a detective, too?” Rilynne asked.

  They all turned back toward her. The sympathy on their faces was making her only more uncomfortable. Despite the overwhelming desire to know more about what was going on, she was on the verge of not wanting to ask any more questions. With each one she posed, she only felt more lost and hopeless. The looks they were giving her didn’t help.

  “He works with me in the lab,” Elise answered. “He’s a forensic tech. He processes the evidence that’s collected from your crime scenes.”

  Rilynne was grateful when the doctor walked back in just as she finished her statement. While it was nice to know that people cared about her, it was too much for her to process. When he asked them to wait out in the hall, she was relieved.

  “Thank you,” she muttered as soon as the door closed.

  He positioned a tray carefully under her wrist and offered her a soft smile. “You’ve been through a lot today. It’s understandable that all of this is a little overwhelming. Being inundated with people you know has been known to cure amnesia. I don’t want it to become too much for you, though, so I’ll have a limit on the number of non-family members who can be in here at a time. More than anything, you need your rest right now.”

  Rilynne was appreciative, but the thought of rest wasn’t actually pleasing. It should have been, especially since she was both physically and emotionally drained, but the worry they seemed to all be showing by the fact that they had yet to get a hold of her husband was causing a knot to grow within her. She didn’t honestly think she would be able to rest until she knew what exactly was going on.

  “Your wrist is broken,” the doctor said, taking her right hand carefully into his. “It’s a clean break, so it should heal nicely. I’m going to put a cast on it, then I’ll have a nurse come in and give you instructions on how to properly care for it. Your friend told me to go with black. Is that alright, or would you prefer another color?”

  She nodded, not really caring what color he used. Honestly, she didn’t even know what colors she liked or didn’t; her friends could probably answer the question better than she could.

  “I looked over all of your scans and your ribs aren’t broken. You have a tiny fracture in one, but there isn’t anything that can be done about it,” he said. He seemed to hesitate for a moment as he started to place the cast. Before Rilynne could put much thought into why, he went on. “I did notice several healed injuries. There are a couple fractured ribs that have healed, a break in your left wrist, and you have multiple scars, including over a dozen on your feet. Do you have any idea where they could have come from?”

  “I can’t even remember my name,” she chuckled. Despite her joking tone, his words were concerning. Although she had tried to push the notion aside, they only seemed to add to the idea that her husband might have been behind her injuries. “That girl, Elise, mentioned that I’ve had some falls while out on runs. Maybe I took a bad tumble in the past. I’m sure being a detective comes with some chance of getting hurt, too.”

  They sat in silence while he finished putting the cast on her arm. It was clear that she didn’t convince him any more than she had herself. Even if he wanted to push her further about it, there wasn’t much of a point. She wouldn’t be able to give him more than speculations at this point. When he finally left minutes later, the door opened right back up and Elise walked in.

  “He’s asked that we only come in one at a time,” she stated. She sat down on the stool Lori had been occupying. “I imagine having everyone in here was a little too much for you to take right now. It was probably a good move asking him to limit your exposure for a while.”

  Rilynne felt her face start to burn as she looked up and met her gaze, but Elise just grinned. “I’m your sister,” she said, explaining how she knew before Rilynne could even consider asking. “I know you well enough to know that it would be too much for you to handle right now. You would never do anything to hurt Matthews or Lori, amnesia or not, so the easiest thing for you to do would be to have the doctor say it. Even they wouldn't argue with him.”

  Rilynne wanted to laugh. Had her body not been aching as bad as it was, she might have. It seemed like the more time that passed, the more pain she was in. She kept hoping it would peak, but it hadn’t yet.

  “Have they figured out what happened to me?” she asked, holding her ribs as she pushed herself up more in the bed. When she made it half way up, she regretted making the effort at all. Pain was now radiating through her body, but she’d already reached the point of no return. With a quick grunt, she pushed through the pain and managed to get herself as comfortable as she could before she made herself go on. “Was there anything in my house?”

  Elise shook her head, giving her the first bit of relief she’d had in what felt like forever. “There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there,” she explained. “Whatever happened to you seems to have happened elsewhere. Matthews and Lori went out to join in on the search for your husband. I think he actually called in a department wide lookout for him. Ben wouldn’t be happy with anything else. If he ended up spending the day out shopping or something while you were here, he’d never forgive himself. I don’t think he’d forgive Matthews for not doing everything he could to track him down. He’s definitely not one to anger.”

  Rilynne looked down nervously, not wanting to seek answers for the questions floating through her mind. As she fidgeted with the sheets, she finally built up the courage to get out what she could.

  “The doctor said I have several old injuries that have already healed,” she said timidly. “A few broken bones and a number of scars.”

  “No,” Elise said quickly. She reached out and took Rilynne firmly by the hand. Surprisingly, her hold was more comforting than anything had been so far. “Ben would die before doing anything to hurt you. The only people who should be worried about his anger are the ones that cross you in some way. From what I’ve been told, he even punched a cop once just for disrespecting you. Those injuries are mostly job related. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you tend to attract trouble. It’s just because you’re good at what you do. I should probably also mention the fact that you’re a bit clumsy. That’s why I assumed you’d just taken a spill when Lori called to tell me you were here. The one thing I can tell you without hesitation, though, is that Ben isn’t responsible for any of these injuries. Not only do I know him well enough to know that he’s not the type, but there isn’t an ounce of you that would tolerate it.”

  “Am I really that good at what I do?” Rilynne asked, glad for the complement. As much as she would have liked for it to be true, it was hard to believe. If she was really so talented at it, surely some of the instinct would have soaked into her enough that even the amnesia couldn’t take it away. Rilynne didn’t feel any more of a detective than she did a brain surgeon.

&
nbsp; Elise smiled pridefully. Remembering what she looked like in the mirror, Rilynne could definitely see that they were related. Even her bruised and blood covered face couldn’t hide that. If she was going to have anyone there with her, she was glad it was family. “You are so good at what you do that the two cities you’ve worked in actually fought over you. It didn’t take you long at all to become a detective after joining the force, and you’ve solved cases that have left others stumped for years. You and Matthews are a bit of a star pair. You and Ben are even the godparents of his twin girls.”

  “Twins? Wow, that must be a lot of work. I don’t, I mean...” Rilynne frowned as she tried to put words to her panicked thought.

  “No, you and Ben don’t have any kids,” Elise answered, chuckling at the fear Rilynne was sure had taken over her face.

  Rilynne was both relieved by the response, and impressed at Elise’s ability to be able to decipher what she wanted to say even when she couldn’t herself.

  “Good,” Rilynne stated. “I would feel horrible if I had children and couldn’t remember them. It’s bad enough knowing I have a husband out there somewhere that I have no memory of. Part of me is actually terrified he’s going to walk through the door and I’ll have to see the look on his face when he realizes I don’t know him. I don’t imagine that’s something kids would even be capable of understanding. I’m having a hard time with it myself.”

  Elise offered her a kind smile as she pulled out her phone. “These are Matthews’ girls,” she said, holding it out for Rilynne to see. “They’re going to be one in November. That’s Teagan and Jordan. You’re also the godmother of this little girl.” She pulled the phone back and searched for another picture before turning it back to Rilynne. “This is Lori’s daughter. I don’t imagine it will be long before she brings Kim in to see you. She’s a smart little cookie, and she’ll be asking to visit the moment she hears something happened. Knowing Lori, she’ll make sure Kim understands what’s going on before bringing her in, though. Now, she’s still four, so that won’t eliminate all of her curious little questions.”

  “They’re bound to be more entertaining than most questions coming from adults,” Rilynne said, trying to sound light. She was surprised at how successful she managed to be. “So what’s going to happen next? I don’t know how helpful I’m going to be in an interview, but I’m guessing I can’t just sit here and wait for it all to come back to me.”

  “Someone from the station is going to be coming in to process you for evidence,” Elise answered. “I would do it myself, but Detective Wilcome thinks it’s a bad idea. If you were attacked, he doesn’t want anyone to be able to claim that I tainted the evidence. I think he’s sending Daniel Summers. He’s a good friend of both yours and Ben’s.”

  Rilynne shifted uncomfortably in her bed. While she understood that it was important to find out what had happened to her, she didn’t know how she felt about someone she didn’t know, or at least couldn’t remember, examining her in detail looking for clues.

  “What exactly will he be doing?” she asked.

  Elise sat down on the edge of the bed. “First, he’ll be checking your hair and under your nails. We’re also going to need to take pictures of all of your injuries. I might be able to do that one, though. The hospital is going to have to perform a sexual assault exam on you. I don’t think there’s anything that shows that something like that could have happened, but we’re going to want to cover all bases. That should be all that’s needed. You’re clothes have already been collected and are being processed now. Actually, they should be close to having some results back on them already. Of course, we’ll let you know as soon as we have anything worth telling you.”

  “Sounds fun,” she said, dryly.

  Elise didn’t have a chance to respond before the door let out a soft creak.

  Matthews didn’t meet her eye when he pushed the door open and stuck his head in. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Evans?” he asked Elise. She nodded and stood, kissing Rilynne quickly on the head before walking out after him.

  Rilynne could just make out their faces through the small window on the door. Elise was shorter than Matthews, and she could only see her eyes, but they said enough. Whatever he was saying caused her to close them and slowly shake her head. After a moment she nodded and pushed the door back open.

  “What?” Rilynne asked, not waiting for her to reach the chair. “Something’s wrong; I can tell. What happened?”

  Whatever panic had left her came flooding back as Elise sat down and reached for her hand.

  “Summers, he’s the tech who will be coming here to process you, ran a rushed test on the blood on your clothes. We don’t have any definitive answers yet, but the one thing he was able to tell us is there were three separate contributors. We know one of them belongs to you, but the other two...” she hesitated, looking down before she continued. “There was one male and one female sample.”

  Chapter Four

  “Ben,” Rilynne said on a quick breath. “His blood was on me? What does that mean? And who would the female blood have come from?” So many scenarios rushed through her mind, each more unpleasant than the one before, but she tried to push them away.

  “We don’t know yet,” she answered, slowly moving her head from side to side. “We don’t even know for sure that the blood is his and doesn’t belong to another man. If someone attacked you, there’s no doubt that you would have put up enough of a fight for some of his blood to end up on you. Ben has the most common blood type, so we haven’t been able to determine anything other than you were in direct contact with a man who was also bleeding. And we can only speculate about the female blood right now. She could have been the attacker, or she could be another victim. As of right now, the whole department is out looking for Ben, and his picture has even been released to the news. We live in a small town. Someone’s going to find him. In the mean time, we’re working on trying to trace his phone. They’re also trying to track your movements during the day. If we know where you were, we might be able to determine what exactly happened to you and where.”

  “What about trying to find this woman?” Rilynne asked.

  “Summers said with the type of blood spatter on your clothes that she likely sustained an injury that would have required medical attention,” Elise explained. “We’ve got word out to the hospital, clinics, and doctors’ offices throughout the city to be on the lookout for her. Matthews even called all of the vet clinics in case she was trying to avoid being spotted. We’ll know as soon as she shows up somewhere.”

  Rilynne couldn’t speak. She didn’t even know where to begin. It was like a nightmare where she could only receive bad news. She was afraid of what she might be told next.

  “I’m going to check on Summers and see when he’ll be able to make it down here. The nurse will be in shortly to do the exam on you. It’s not a fun process, but it won’t take long. As soon as we get all of this taken care of, you can get cleaned up. That should make you feel a little better,” Elise said. “I’ll see what I can do about getting you into some real clothes, too.”

  Rilynne pulled the blankets up around her as Elise walked back out of the room. Her head seemed to be running a hundred miles an hour, thoughts of both what had happened and what soon would be rushing through it. It was almost too much for her to take. Her chest was starting to grow tight when an alarm suddenly went off beside her bed. She turned quickly to find her oxygen numbers low. It wasn’t until seeing them that she realized her breathing was rapid and shallow. After calming herself and taking several deep, slow breaths, the numbers raised and the alarms stopped.

  “Calm down,” she muttered to herself. “Calm down.”

  Although she could speak the words, they weren’t doing anything to settle the panic bubbling within her. She wanted more than anything to get out of bed and run. If her body wasn’t hurting too bad to even move, she might have. She knew deep down that it wouldn’t have helped anything, though. No matter wh
ere she went, both her memories and Ben would still be missing.

  “Is everything okay, detective?” a young nurse asked as she walked in to check the monitors. Rilynne just nodded. After offering a kind smile, she sat a tray down on the table and reach out to close the curtains.

  “I’m going to need to perform an exam on you,” she said, pulling the stool to the edge of the bed. “It might be a little uncomfortable, but I’m going to talk you through everything as I do it so there won’t be any surprises. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

  Rilynne took in a deep breath and shook her head before closing her eyes tightly.

  She didn’t open them again until the nurse told her she was finished. It wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined, but Rilynne was glad it was over. All she could think as she watched the nurse walk back out of the room was that surely the rest of it wouldn’t be as bad.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said softly to herself, dropping her head back against the pillow. It sent a twinge of pain through her scalp, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t really care about anything. Her head was so clouded that there was little room for anything else. All she could think about was getting her memories back, but that only made it worse. The more she stressed about it, the thicker the fog in her head grew. With it, the pressure on her chest.

  Rilynne turned and looked up at the monitors. The numbers were starting to change again. Before she could attempt to calm herself and lower them, she heard the door open. She thought the nurse was coming to check on her again, but instead there was a man standing in the doorway, a large case vibrating slightly in his hand.

  “Detective Evans,” the young man said, nervousness engulfing his face. “I know you don’t remember me, but we’ve worked a lot together and I’m very close with your husband. I need to check for any physical evidence that might be on you, but I promise to be as quick as I can. Is that alright, or would you like someone else to come in?”