The Nobody Girls (Kendra Dillon Cold Case Thriller Book 3), Rebecca Rane [best book club books of all time txt] 📗

information. Agent Price had been accurate. The autopsy reports showed snack foods in various stages of digestion.

“The stages of digestion indicated that they ate something a few hours before they died,” Shoop said. “But there’s nothing new in that.”

“No, I guess not.” Kendra had tracked down more information, but it wasn’t a smoking gun.

Kendra may not have been convinced that Ewald was the serial killer the FBI suspected he was, but after reading the files again, she was starting to come around. Ewald likely killed these women. He was a predator in the parking lot.

Except then there was Cynthia Hawkins.

Why was she out at night? By the accounts the FBI relayed, she was a wife, a mom. She wasn’t on the margins or a runaway.

And yet, she was dead in the same way as the other victims. Kendra combed through the file. Eventually, she knew all there was to know about the Hawkins case.

And she was ready to talk to the family.

Kendra looked over at Shoop. Thanks to her intrepid associate producer, Kendra was going to be able to get to know Cynthia Hawkins. The woman who’d started her on this path.

Maybe she’d get a new clue, but certainly, she’d get a better picture of who this woman was. Kendra wanted to erase the bag of bones image that had been burned into her cornea when they’d discovered the body at High Timbers. She wanted to replace it with the real person.

Chapter 22

Kendra sat across from Tim Hawkins and his youngest daughter, Mandy. From her reading, Kendra knew Mandy was the youngest of Cynthia Hawkins’s two girls.

Cynthia Hawkins’ husband, who was cleared at the time of the initial investigation, slouched at the shoulders as they sat on the couch in the front room. He still lived in the same house he’d shared with Cynthia.

Mandy patted her dad’s shoulder.

“Thank you for taking the time to do this with me,” Kendra began. “It must be strange, bringing this all back up again.”

“To be honest, I can’t really believe we’re talking about this, that we finally know what happened,” said Mandy.

Tim Hawkins looked away, out toward the bay window at the front of the room.

“Do you remember your mother?” Kendra asked.

Mandy held a picture of Cynthia with a toddler on her lap. They were sitting by a swing set. The photo was marked 1980.

“I wish I could say yes. I wish I could tell you what her hair smelled like or how she laughed, but I was two.”

Kendra nodded in understanding then turned to Tim. “I wonder, Mr. Hawkins, what went through your mind when you got the call that Cynthia had been identified after all this time?”

“She was dead all along,” he said. There was no emotion surrounding the statement.

“My dad has some issues with dementia,” Mandy explained.

He looked at her with daggers in his eyes.

“I understand,” Kendra said quickly.

“I thought maybe she’d run off,” Tim said.

“Dad said she went out for a pack of cigarettes,” Mandy added. “He thought that was the best way to explain it, I guess.”

“Did your mom smoke?” Kendra asked.

“It’s a figure of speech, girl,” Tim scolded Kendra.

“Sure, sure.” Kendra decided to try to get more from Mandy. “What did they tell you about the man they think killed your mom?”

“Oh, well, that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, this predator was out there, The 75 Ripper, and she was in the path. Just bad luck.”

“Ned Wayne Ewald found his other victims at truck stops or diners along the highway, would there be a reason your mother was at a truck stop?”

“I really don’t know. It was so long ago, and I mean, who knows?”

“I understand. How are you doing with all this?”

“My mom was a fairytale to me, a story that didn’t have an ending. And now it does, not a pretty one, but it’s an ending. We don’t have to wonder.”

Tim Hawkins made a sound. It was a sound that seemed a lot like disgust. Kendra didn’t know if the disgust was about the fairytale analogy or something else. The husband had been cleared. She remembered that. But he sure wasn’t the picture of a man overcome with relief at the resolution of this horrible tragedy.

“Whoring and not getting paid for it, hmmph.”

Kendra tried not to look shocked at what had just come out of the old man’s mouth. But she was.

“Dad, stop.” Mandy put a hand on his. He snarled at her.

He was a junkyard dog of a man, Kendra decided. Although he suffered from dementia, so who knew how he perceived any of this?

Something that had to have consumed his entire life forty years ago was a distant memory now. Or was it happening to him now? There was no way to know.

Cynthia Hawkins’ husband had moved on, and he had every right to.

Kendra softened her attitude toward the old man. She had no right to judge his emotional state or reaction.

“You have an older sister. Is she available? I wonder if I could talk to her. She might remember more, you know, to tell your mom’s story?”

“I doubt it.”’

“That one,” Tim Hawkins said.

There was a definite bad vibe between the father and daughter when Kendra mentioned the older sister. Kendra wondered about the source, but then, it was a family. Her own family right now was a simmering pot of conflict and upheaval.

It was just that neither of the two of them could offer much insight into the woman that was his wife and her mother.

“Can you tell me about your mom? Did she have hobbies or a favorite restaurant?” Mandy shook her head and lifted her shoulders. She didn’t know.

And then Tim shifted in his seat, clearly preparing to speak again. Mandy’s jaw was tense with dread at what he might say.

“She liked sewing,” Tim said. “She was good at sewing. She made the girls Halloween costumes. They were clowns, little clowns. She hemmed my dress pants. She made the curtains. Never asked for