Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) (16 page)

Jenna was convinced that something remained hidden inside, and she was determined to find out what it was. Jenna ran up the dusty flight of steps that looked as if they hadn't been swept in ages, and made a beeline for the supply closet. Earl and Amos, who were now back at the station, sat lazily at their desks. As DiNolfo raced across the linoleum floor, Amos tracked her steps like a hawk. He threw a crumpled-up piece of paper at Earl, who was nearly asleep, causing him to fall backwards in his chair with a thud.

“What are you looking for?” asked Amos.

DiNolfo smirked at the officer, “I'm cracking open some unresolved cases, boys!”

Amos eyed DiNolfo nervously, a few select words on his tongue that would be a one-way ticket to the unemployment office. Finally, DiNolfo emerged from the supply cabinet with a box of paper clips and departed down the basement steps again. The door to the file room closed and locked with a bang.

Amos, looking at Earl with wide eyes, furrowed brow, and a miserable scowl, whispered furiously, “We have a real problem, here! Did you remove them like I told you to?!”

“No, I didn't get a chance to, with all that happened at Trafford's this morning.”

“We're screwed. She is gonna find out, and were going to the slammer!” Amos moaned.

“Get a hold of yourself! You really think she is going to look through all of those files?” asked Earl.

“You heard her, 'cracking open some unresolved cases.’ It was the only filing cabinet that was locked!”

Meanwhile in the file room, Jenna was on her knees inserting an uncoiled paper clip into the lock of the filing cabinet, gracefully coercing the lock to open. With a click, the lock opened, and the top drawer followed after. Jenna began sifting through the neat files, extracting each and putting them in a file box to be transported to her desk for review. Picking up the file box, she grabbed her keys off of the filing cabinet, and locked the file room up tight.

Jenna dropped the file box on her desk next to her frozen laptop and began pulling files out and browsing through each. Jenna had success solving cold cases in Pittsburgh during her downtime. She often found that the problem was a lack of evidence or laziness on behalf of the original investigator. There was always someone who seemed most likely to be the perpetrator, but there was not enough evidence to damn him.

Jenna pulled up the first file out of the box. It was labeled Eliza Dunning, Case # 2046281. The file was remarkably thick. The second file she pulled out, labeled Raymond Kiefer, Case # 1984512, was another incredibly thick file for being a cold case. This was a red flag for Jenna. The third she pulled out, belonging to a Tiffany
O’Mara, a lighter case file, but still remarkably thick for a case file.

With the careless precedent of the file room, the missing keys, the disrespectful officers, and the incident at Trafford's Auto Body, Jenna knew she would have to look into these files thoroughly. She picked up the fourth file, labeled in a messy scrawl, Catherine Morrow, Case # 2054186, the file took up almost half the box. She glanced inside the file and there were fingerprint records, a death certificate, pages upon pages of testimony, a print-out of a life insurance policy, photographs of the dead and the crime scene. Surely there had to be enough information here to implicate someone!

She set the files to the side as she opened a spreadsheet application on her computer. Maybe if she could perform her own investigation, using the data provided in the file, she could crack these cases, along with the question as to why they were locked away in the first place, instead of being sent to archives in Harrisburg.

A squawk came over her CB radio on her desk, and a woman with a
petulant voice spoke in a wave of static, “Available officers to 7 Cavegat Forest Lane, Fox Hollow. Missing person's report for Tristan Morrow, underage, potential runaway.”

Morrow.

Where had she heard that name before? Then it hit her, she scrambled through the file box on her desk. She pulled the file labeled Catherine Morrow, before grabbing her coat and running for her patrol car.

* * *

"I’m sorry to hear about your daughter, Jack. I'm afraid I will have to ask you and your family
members some questions in order to determine our next steps.”

"Shouldn't you guys be out there looking for her? We're wasting time!" exclaimed Jack, appearing nervous and impatient.

"Mr. Morrow, please calm down. I assure you, we are doing every
thing in our power to find her. While we are asking questions here, we have officers on alert, and they are keeping an eye out for your daughter. Now, can we sit down and address the situation at hand?"

Jack led the officers out to the dining room table as Frank hovered close by in the foyer.

"I must say, in cases of disappearances, we generally allow a twenty-four-hour time frame for the person to come home before launching an official investigation. How old is your daughter?"

“She is only fifteen."

"Any chance she would run away?"

"No chance. Where would she go? We live in the middle of nowhere!"

"When did you last speak with your daughter?"

"Last night, around 9:00... Why?"

"What was your conversation like? Was there an argument?"

"Well, yes... but I don't think she would run away because of it!"

"I have to cover all possible scenarios. Where is your wife? I will need to question her next."

"My wife?"

"Yes, your wife. There is a Mrs. Morrow, correct?" DiNolfo added with a bite, eyeing the gold band on his ring finger.

"There was...," Jack began hesitantly.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but can we not play coy?"

"My wife is dead. She died shortly after giving birth to Tristan."

Jenna's face went white, shocked and embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I did not realize."

"No big deal."

"So what was your argument about?"

"Actually, it was about my wife."

"Oh?"

"She was angry with me because I didn't tell her that her mother was dead. I tried to lessen the blow by telling her that she left."

"Why would you do that?"

"My wife didn't die an ordinary death, Sergeant."

"I thought she died in childbirth."

"No, not exactly. That is just an easy answer."

"Now would be a good time to start telling the truth."

"My wife drowned in the lake out there. The coroner wasn’t sure whether it was suicide or foul play. The case was investigated for a long time, but it was never determined whether she died at her own hands or another’s. I have my theories, though.”

Jenna glanced down at the file that was lying across her lap.

"Was her name Catherine?"

"That is her."

"I stumbled across her in the unresolved case files today."

Jack stared across the table at Jenna, unsure of what to say.

"I am on the case. We will do everything we can to find your daughter and hopefully get to the bottom of your wife's case as well. So, you told your daughter a white lie to protect her from knowing the truth?"

"Not just my daughter. My sons too. The only one that knows the truth now is Adam, my oldest son, and Tristan found out she is dead last night, but she doesn’t understand the circumstances surrounding her death. I intended to tell the rest tonight, once things calmed down."

“Was your daughter upset?”

“Very. But I don’t think that is why she is gone.”

"Where do you think your daughter is?"

"I have no idea, but I know who has her. My sons
found an outsider in the barn, and he was wearing a Trafford's Auto Body shirt. It was her English teacher."

"
What is his name and about what time was this?"

"
Bernard Kendricks… Around 7:30 this morning."

"What happened next?"

"My sons chased after him, and they think they recognize who it was."

"I will check in with them next. How many sons do you have?"

"Four – Adam, Liam, Tommy and Blake."

"I counted five boys in the family portrait on the wall."

"Good eye. My sister and brother-in-law live here, too, with their boy Shane, and my parents live seasonally in a guest house near the lake. Our kids were raised more so like siblings than cousins." Jenna scribbled into a notepad as Jack spoke.

“Fifteen... did she have a boyfriend?”

“Not a boyfriend exactly. There is a boy, he’s sixteen, who hangs around her and my sons a lot. He has an intense interest of her… but I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt her. He’s a nice kid. He comes from a good family.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cole Piedmonte.”

Joe’s kid.

“We’ll be checking all leads. This Kendricks guy… why do you think he might have taken her?”

“Kendricks was obsessed with my wife. He was actually one of the suspects in her case. Well, my daughter looks just like her….”

"If you don't mind, I would like to have a look around before I start questioning the other family members."

Jack nodded as if he had a choice. He knew that the police would scan every inch of the property. His only small blessing was that there was a new sergeant in town, and Amos and Earl were nowhere to be found. Maybe this time, the job would get done right. He just hoped they would leave the third floor alone.

Jenna
departed from the dining room, and began to make a tour of the house while Rutledge continued asking questions and getting important details from Frank and Adam. Jenna scanned the house carefully; they needed to get a handle on what it is that they are dealing with. Was this a simple runaway, mad at her father for withholding a hard truth? Or was there something more sinister at work? Jenna had a feeling that many answers may lay within Catherine's case file.
At the very least, we can learn a bit more about the family than Jack was telling
. And there was definitely something that he wasn’t telling her. It all seemed a bit too cookie-cutter.

Somehow, Jenna believed that in order to crack Tristan's case, she would have to crack Catherine's too.
I hope I'm wrong.
Jenna climbed the stairs, passing the generations of photographs that hung on the wall. When she finally reached the landing she paused, taking in the floor plan and determining where to check first.

* * *

Fog drifted off the mountain and lingered over the valley as the last drops of rain fell from the dark sky. The sun made several futile attempts to shine down upon Fox Hollow but was met with great resistance. Escaping from the negative energy inside, Blake Morrow sat on the porch steps of the Morrow Manor as a dark mood overcame him.  Distraught with fear and worry over his sister’s disappearance, Blake placed his hands over his knees as his eyes burned with tears. He could not hold back anymore. While everyone else argued, pointed fingers, and answered questions, Blake found himself overwhelmed with heartache.

The sun set over the mountain top as fog danced over the tree line. From the mouth of Cavegat Forest, the sound of rustling leaves and branches cracking could be heard. Blake looked up to the forest opening and what he saw made him do a double-take. Standing in the shadows of the forest was a figure staring back at him. The figure’s face was hidden by shadow caused by the dark of the forest and the heavy canopy of trees overhead.

Shocked to action, Blake rose from the porch steps and moved swiftly down the gravel path into Cavegat Forest, his cross trainers skidding down the steep hill. As Blake moved, the figure retreated into the darkness. Where manicured lawn turned to unbridled wildlife, Blake paused to take a breath before entering the forest. Blake didn’t take entering Cavegat Forest lightly. He feared what lay beyond in the deep woods, especially in the dark. Having gotten lost in the forest once, he was not especially keen on entering it again, and Tristan wasn’t there to save him this time. But he would enter for her.

Though some sunlight remained, it was cloaked by storm clouds. In the forest, Blake could only see a few feet in front of him. Heart pounding, Blake stepped into the forest as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. He could not see the figure anywhere.  But where his eyes failed him, his ears would guide him. In the distance, he could hear wings flapping, and directly to his right, the rustling of leaves continued.

Blake looked up the path where the figure was last seen. As he began to follow the dirt path, he was stopped, dead in his tracks. A black raven stood in his path. The bird peered up at him, curious and unafraid. In an instant, the raven spread its wings and took flight, circling around Blake’s body thrice before landing on a nearby fallen tree. From its mouth hung an old key adorned with a red satin ribbon. Blake recognized the key immediately. An ancient skeleton key made of bronze with the likeness of a Victorian-era woman’s face on the grip. He had seen this key before. It hung for many years on the wall of his father’s study, and he was warned often never to touch it.
How on earth did the bird get it?
Blake wondered.