PROLOGUE
She was a problem child, always had been. That’s what was going through Keith Bayliss's mind, as he tapped on his sister Cindi's bedroom door.
Nineteen years old. Ran away from her parents at sixteen because she was bored of small town life, and where did she end up? In another small town in New Mexico, on her brother's doorstep. And since then, being five years older, he'd had to take the reins and care for her, pay the bills, and make futile attempts to get her to do her share of the chores.
That was Cindi. Never one to have any sense of responsibility, and Keith had seen his whole life long how she used her looks to get away with it.
"Those long eyelashes, those big blue eyes - you always manage to stay out of trouble," he grumbled to himself. He'd also inherited the blonde hair and blue eyes and tall, slim build that both their parents had, but it was Cindi who'd gotten the appealing facial features along with it.
Now, at nine a.m., she still hadn't surfaced from the bedroom even though she knew he’d returned from his shift at the hospital just ten minutes ago, and that a load of laundry had to be put in before he closed his window blinds and got some sleep.
He tapped on the door and then, after waiting a few moments, gave an impatient sigh and opened it.
"Cindi, I need your bedding and any dirty clothes," he began. And stopped, surprised, staring around the room.
It was emptier than he remembered it being for years. The bed was unmade, but there were fewer clothes strewn over the chair and the floor. Her purse, which always hung over the back of the desk chair, wasn't there.
The desk, too, was clear of its usual detritus of pages and pens and notes. All that was there was one folded piece of paper.
But where was she?
This was all so strange. His stomach clenched briefly at the thought that she'd gotten herself into trouble somehow. That was always his first thought with Cindi.
That piece of paper. Could it be important? Moving closer, breathing in the faint smell of the cheap floral perfume she wore, he looked down at it, and breathed a surprised gasp as he saw his name, written in Cindi's expressive but untidy scrawl.
He hesitantly unfolded it, and began to read.
“Dear Keith,
I've decided that I'm going to LA to try and break into the movie world. I know I can do it. I love acting, but I can't wait any longer or I'll be too old for them to consider. I know I haven't been the easiest person to put up w
ith, and I'm sorry for that. I just can't do this boring life anymore. I don't want to be here, or in any small town for that matter. I want to go somewhere exciting, somewhere I can start a new life. I know you'll be angry with me, but I'm hoping you'll understand.
I've taken some cash from the jar in the kitchen to buy the train ticket, and I'll pay it back once I'm settled. I just need to do this. Please don't worry about me, I'll be okay. I'm going to make something of myself, I'm sure of it.
Speak soon!"
Wide eyed, Keith read and re-read the note. He couldn't believe it. She was gone? Just like that? Without discussing this, without giving him any warning? He felt utterly shocked. And he felt worried for her, because she was so damned irresponsible.
He knew already, without even looking, that the jar in the kitchen would be empty. There had probably been about two hundred dollars in there, in small bills and change, but it was nowhere near enough for her to set herself up and survive in LA. Not even enough for a couple of days. This was the same woman who'd been unable to decide on which course to sign up for at the local college where he'd offered to send her, and so had decided on none at all, instead lasting just two days at her job at the local diner before quitting in disgust.
He suspected that he would be getting a panicked call within the next few days. "I'm broke! Please, send money, I can't eat, I don't have accommodation tonight, help me!"
He sighed. If having Cindi live with him was stressful, having her rattling around LA racking up expenses at every turn as she pursued her wacky and unrealistic dream was far more of a nightmare. He was going to have to call the folks, tell them what she'd done, and figure out a coping strategy for when it all fell apart.
He turned away from her room and headed to his own, to get his cellphone. But as he did, he glanced outside to the back porch, noticing something there that had caught his eye.
He drew in a sharp breath.
It was her, Cindi, lounging with her back to him in the rocking chair she'd always despi
sed. Now, on a cool fall morning, she was there? Outside?
Was she rethinking? Hope flared in his heart. If she'd decided to pause and reconsider out there in the sheltered porch, there was time to stop her. He hurried around to the side entrance and rushed out.
"Cindi?" he called. "I got your note. We need to talk."
The wind snatched his voice away and she obviously hadn't heard him. He called again, louder. "Cindi?"
He walked up to her, but he did so tentatively now, with caution, because alarm bells were ringing in his mind every which way. She was lying so still, her limbs seemingly sprawled in the reclining chair. Something was very wrong here.
She wasn't moving. This was bad; it was worse than he'd thought - was it a drug overdose? Had she been into that and he hadn't known? What on Earth was awaiting him here?
He touched her shoulder and cried out in surprise as her head tipped over, her body limp and lifeless.
On seeing the vivid strangulation marks around her neck, and the pallor of her face, Keith cried out again, a harsh, agonized sound, as he realized she had been murdered.
CHAPTER ONE
Walking Charlie, the neighbor's Jack Russell, had become the high point of FBI agent Caitlin Dare's day. Today, Caitlin was especially glad of the walk, because she had a lot of thinking to do.
She needed to piece together the puzzle of how, where, and why her sister Ella had disappeared, based on the evidence she was slowly accumulating. And Charlie was proving to be a great partner to bounce ideas off. He was the perfect co-investigator, in fact.
The ground of the park opposite her apartment block in suburban Kansas City was frosty in the early morning, and the grass crunched under her shoes as she and Charlie headed out. Caitlin had a pale blue woolen hat pulled down over her auburn hair. The hat exactly matched the color of her eyes.
"She was last seen boarding a train," Caitlin told the dog, who had a white coat, one brown ear, and two brown patches on his back. He glanced up at her intelligently before resuming his zigzagging pathway, moving from scent to scent. "But now, I'm wondering if she took the train at all, or if she had second thoughts and got off before it left. You see, I found her diary among my old things. I don't even know why it was there. It should have been taken by the police, as evidence. Was it missing at the time? Did they not see it?"
Immediately, her thoughts veered back to Uncle Josh, the ex-train conductor that she'd always suspected of being involved in the crime. Uncle Josh had been the family member nobody liked, the typical creepy uncle, but her father wouldn't hear a word against him.
Caitlin frowned as she thought about Uncle Josh and how he had been protected, those incidents that people had hinted at, whispered words like 'assault,' but never said out loud. He had a past. He had secrets that he and her father had kept hidden. That, she was sure of.
It was partly why Caitlin had little to do with her family in recent years, although she did know that Uncle Josh had done his level best to discredit her with her family. He’d positioned himself as the martyr, and had told everyone that she was vindictively trying to destroy him. It was unbelievable that he’d done that; but he had clearly been maneuvering and getting his point of view across, making sure that he was heard and believed in the years that Caitlin had been forging ahead with her FBI career, unaware of this happening behind the scenes.
Now she was the black sheep. But then, perhaps she’d always been, and she was okay with that. What was important was piecing together her sister’s movements on the last day that anyone had seen her. Wherever that led, she was going to follow, even though Uncle Josh was now trying to block her at every turn. He had taken out a restraining order against her after she’d arrived on his doorstep to ask questions.
Pushing away the resentment and suspicion that her uncle’s name conjured up, Caitlin gazed around her as she and Charlie headed down one of the prettiest sections of the park, lined with oak trees. She stared up at them appreciatively, enjoying the rustle of the leaves in the blustery fall wind. As serious as the situation with Uncle Josh was, she couldn’t let it detract from the magnificence of this view.
Yesterday she’d walked out here with her phone and tried to take some photos of the trees’ beauty against the setting sun. They hadn’t turned out too badly. She’d captured a few angles that she was pleased with. Living here, with nature close by in the form of this lovely park, she thought she might take up photography as a hobby. Painting was out of the question. She was a hopeless artist! And when people heard her sing, they usually begged her to stop.
Smiling as she passed under a low branch, feeling the damp leaves brush over her hat, she felt glad that, thanks to technology, there was one way she could be artistic and depict the scenery she saw around her. ...
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