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

In the way of interviews, she didn’t really have much to base an entire season of the podcast, but that was the next step.

Kendra called Shoop.

“How’d it go?”

“It’s a thing. We’re doing this. The Nobody Girls deserve our best effort.”

“Okay, okay, did you get anything else from Newkirk?”

“I did. We’re looking for victims who had a scarf or some type of clothing tied around their throats. That’s really what prompted Newkirk to call the High Timbers victim a Nobody Girl.”

“That infuriates me.”

“Same, that’s exactly my reaction. They aren’t nobody.”

“No, they’re people. We can tell their stories.”

“Yep, we might not be able to solve these things. In fact, I don’t think we will be able to. But we can make sure they aren’t forgotten.”

“Except they have been forgotten. It’s been decades and not a peep.”

“There are people out there who knew them, miss them, there just have to be.”

“Okay, I’m going to rehash the files and see if we have the fabric around the neck detail—and what was the time frame?”

“1978 to around 1982 or ’83. Though you could probably push the year in both directions. Newkirk didn’t have it down precisely.”

“Okay, on it.”

Kendra’s phone buzzed. “I have another call.”

“Bye.”

Kendra clicked over; her Dad’s housekeeper was on the phone. “What’s up, Pam?”

“I think you need to get here quick. There’s something wrong with your dad.”

“Wrong?”

“Yeah, he won’t let me help him, and he’s confused.”

“Crap, I’m about ten minutes away. I’ll come right over. Do you need to call 911?”

“I don’t think so. He’s just, well—” Kendra could hear her dad yelling in the background of the call.

“What’s his issue?”

“Right now? He says I threw away some bowling team shirt he wants. He’s trying to climb into the attic for a bowling shirt emergency.”

Big Don only had one foot. The other had to be amputated due to complications from diabetes.

“How can he climb into the attic with one foot?” Kendra said to Pam.

“You better stop tattling on me. I’m a grown man!” Big Don’s voice boomed.

Kendra was concerned that Pam would up and quit, right now, if her dad kept treating her like this. What on earth is happening there?

“I’m on my way.”

“If you call 911, you’re fired! And if you threw away that bowling shirt, you’re fired. That team came in second in the league. It’s historical!”

“God, he’s lost his marbles.”

Pam was a saint, Kendra decided. She continued to hear Big Don yell about bowling and then about some circular saw he wanted to find. It was a bunch of nonsense as far as Kendra could determine.

She skirted a few traffic laws and pulled into the driveway of the family home in less than the ten minutes she’d predicted. Big Don lived in the “Old Neighborhood,” and Big Don refused to hear about moving out of it.

Kendra ran inside and found Pam in the kitchen. Big Don, leaning heavily on his cane, was yelling at the top of his lungs.

“I think she’s stealing,” he said when he saw Kendra. “You’re stealing,” he added, turning to Pam.

“Dad, Pam isn’t stealing. She’s been with us for decades.”

“Stealing your smelly socks? Yeah, that’s right, there’s a huge black market for those,” Pam retorted. She raised her eyebrows at Kendra and handed off Don.

“When was the last time you checked your blood sugar?”

Big Don was diabetic.

“I asked him that, but then, well, he accused me of stealing and of setting his bowling shirt on fire,” Pam explained.

“Poke! Your solution to thievery is to poke me!”

“Dad, you’re not yourself. If we could check your blood sugar, then we’ll know what’s going on.”

“What’s going on? I’m sure what’s going on.”

Big Don shrank a bit, and Kendra’s heart turned over in her chest. She could see clearly, in that second, a future without him.

“Not today, Dad, you’re not checking out today.”

Kendra dialed 911.

“I don’t want to go to the ambulance. I’m the boss of you, of you, of both of you, and I’m not going to go in the ambulance.”

Her dad was altered. He was unreasonable. This wasn’t the affable mover and shaker of Port Lawrence; this was a man in distress. He just didn’t know it.

If she could check his blood sugar, maybe.

“I think he’s been forgetting to take his medication,” Pam muttered.

“Quit whispering, or you’re both fired.”

“Got it, we’re both fired. But you’re going to fall. Why don’t you fire us while sitting down? We won’t be any less fired if you’re comfortable.”

Big Don put a hand on the kitchen table. He put all his weight on it, and the entire table gave way. Apples from a fruit bowl went flying.

“Dad!” Kendra rushed forward.

Big Don had a gash above his fluffy white eyebrow. He’d hit his head on the table’s edge on the way down.

Kendra heard a siren. Thank goodness. Big Don needed more help than she and Pam could provide.

“Go waive them down,” Kendra told Pam. She kneeled down next to her dad. “Dad, you’re bleeding.” He put a hand up to his forehead, which was now leaking an epic amount of blood.

“Eh, it’s nothing, heads bleed. Did I ever tell you about the time I caught shrapnel when that machine exploded in the paint shop?”

This was a story Kendra had heard, quite possibly a thousand times. And paint shop didn’t mean a store where they sold paint, but rather the plant that painted the vehicles. The incident was what motivated Big Don to get into union leadership.

But Kendra decided the best plan was to humor her dad, not argue with him.

“What happened?” Kendra said.

The EMTs entered the kitchen, and Big Don passed out.

“Dad!”

Kendra sat in the hospital waiting room.

“I called Mom. She’s overseas, so won’t be able to get back right now,” Gillian Dillon said.

“Overseas? What now?” Kendra said.

“Something about a trade visit, trying to get Port Lawrence and Bilbao to be economic partners. You know Mom, always a deal to make.”

Kendra did know. She also knew if she looked her mother up in the Columbus Dispatch,