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

it was in this parking lot. A lot of witnesses saw me grab her arm, and yell, and her slap me. That was the last time I saw her. I was supposed to drive her to this motor court she was staying at with her stepmom.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No, I didn’t. We’d been in a fight; I lost my temper. To this day, I can’t even remember what set me off. But she was infuriating. I thought she was maybe trying to make me jealous, and I was 19, so I took every bit of bait.”

“So, they find her body, they question you?”

“Yeah, and I lied. I said we were fine, and it was fine. And then a couple of people who saw us fight come forward, and I get trapped in my lie.”

“Why did you lie?”

“Because I let a sweet girl walk out into the night, alone. I never saw her again, but I was guilty as heck of letting her leave. And that was the last time I saw her. It was my fault she walked off in a huff. My fault that she was out there.”

“I see.”

“Once the cops realized I’d lied, things got very dicey for me a stretch there.”

“Then what happened?”

“As Harvey advised, I shut up. He also produced a dozen witnesses that saw me here after the fight. Washing dishes and bussing tables. Something about if I’d done it, it wouldn’t have been right after the fight. That was enough to cool things a little.”

“And then you shut up.”

“Yes, and I stayed quiet. The theory around here was that Margo went off, hitchhiked, and took the wrong ride. I guess it’s pretty on the mark.”

“Why talk now?”

“I heard your request about Margo and the other girls. That hit me hard. She deserves to be remembered.”

“And they got the guy, Ewald.”

“Yeah, that helps too.”

“Did you look at his picture? Had you ever seen him around here?”

“He looks like a million other drivers who come in and out of here. I had no recollection of him. I wish I did. I wish I could say, ‘Oh, that guy. He did it.’”

“Well, for what it’s worth, the FBI is pretty confident.”

“And you found that connection to that other victim, good work.”

“Thank you, and thank you for talking to me.”

“She was a firecracker, that Margo. I have no doubt she’d have made good on going to California. I kind of like to think that in some alternate universe, she did just that.”

Chapter 28

By the time Kendra got back to Port Lawrence, it was way after hours at WPLE. She’d dozed off on the plane and was wired. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted to be here, to process all she’d just gotten on Krissy and Margo.

She thought of her mother, Shoop, and even Kyle, who she knew got frustrated by her tendency to forget everything else, even food when she started to obsess about a cold case.

She’d been at the diner and didn’t eat. She’d been on the plane but fell asleep. Kendra couldn’t remember the last meal she’d eaten.

Then she remembered: She had a box of free food from that Vista Foods guy in the back of her Jeep! It wouldn’t be the healthiest of meals, but at least she could tell whoever asked, or nagged, that she had eaten something. She grabbed the box and walked into the office.

“Ha, there, see? Such growth,” she said to no one in particular.

The station was never empty, but at ten to midnight, it was nearly empty.

Kendra uploaded the interview files into the shared hard drive they used for all their audio. She tore into a bag of chips as it processed.

Of the eight women the FBI believed to be Ewald’s victims, Kendra had worked hard to find as much about them as she could. She had a better idea now of who five of them were. They’d been able to share with the listeners a few details about their lives. It was something, but not everything.

The identities of three women that the FBI was sure had died at the hands of Ned Wayne Ewald were still essentially unknown. They were nobodies next to his increasingly more infamous name.

He was The 75 Ripper, and they were Jane Doe One, Jane Doe Two, and Susan Hodges.

And Susan Hodges might as well be a Jane Doe. No one had come forward to claim her as beloved. Kendra couldn’t let it go. In the end, she felt like her job was still unfinished.

Kendra opened the FBI files and spread them out on the conference table. It was quiet. No phones ringing, no Art bursting in to demand they get moving on promotion, no requests into the receptionist that Kendra talk to Inside Edition or whatever.

Kendra thought back to the beginning when she was standing outside at the High Timbers site. She knew more now about what she’d observed. She had to be sure that she hadn’t missed a thing. Kendra tried to re-examine every angle.

She looked at the files, careful not to get Caliente Chips dust all over them.

A scene flashed in her memory. She remembered the debris that had scattered when they’d found Cynthia Hawkins’ body at the High Timbers construction site. Kendra got out her phone to look at the images she’d captured.

Then she walked over to the computer and pulled up the Charlie Fairly interview. She fast-forwarded.

“Then some of the garbage blew into my face. I mean, I was totally spooked by an empty bag of Doritos or whatever. It grazed my cheek. The idea that it was touching that dead body, and then me, well, dead skin, then my skin, ick. I’m not going to lie. That was extra freak out.”

Her heart raced. She rifled through the files of each crime scene.

She scanned the photos taken when Linda was found. There it was. A Caliente Chips wrapper. That made three scenes with the same food wrapper.

She shuffled through to Sincere’s file. It was hard to see,