Wanted with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Five) (19 page)

She searched his face, trying to decipher just what he was trying to say. As her heart began to race, he smiled and continued.

“You are by far the craziest, most stubborn woman I’ve ever known,” he said. She laughed. “At the same time, you have one of the largest hearts I’ve ever seen. I knew from the first time we met that I loved you and I always would. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life being kidnapped and shot at, I want do it with you.” Tears rolled down her cheeks again. This time they were filled with joy. She watched him as he slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small black box.

Rilynne’s chest tightened as her eyes shifted quickly between Ben and the box. She wanted him to open it, but at the same time she was terrified.

“Rilynne Evan,” he said with only a hint of nervousness in his voice. “Will you marry me?”

Her heart was racing so fast in her chest she thought it would explode with joy. Another tear rolled down her cheek as he snapped the box open, revealing one of the most beautiful rings she had ever seen. Set on a white gold band, the pear shaped stones sitting on either side of the large round diamond made it look like a rose.

“Yes,” she stated when she realized she had yet to actually speak. “Yes,” she said again.

After sliding the ring on her finger, Ben pulled her in and kissed her for so long, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see the sun rising again. “I love you,” she said when they finally pulled away. The world was spinning around her. “I want to be honest with you and tell you everything.” She looked deep into his chocolate eyes as a wave of courage built within her. Before she could go on, though, his satisfied grin stopped her.

“I already know,” he said confidently. “It was actually one of the things I was talking to your parents about today.” The knots twisting within her started to make it difficult for her to draw a breath. She was afraid to speak, afraid that he was talking about something completely different than what she hoped.

“You know?” she asked. “How?”

He seemed to be able to see the doubt in her eyes, because he smiled and pulled her hand up, kissing it gently. “Colorado,” he said shortly. “I heard you and Christopher talking from outside the window.”

“And you believed it?”

“Well, it took me a minute,” he replied honestly. “But when I thought about it, it made complete sense. It was the monkeys that really convinced me.”

“What?” she asked with a chuckle.

“You were talking about monkeys in your sleep during the Villarreal case, then we found the missing journal pages behind a baseboard covered in monkeys.” She recalled the events all too well. He had even joked about her being a psychic afterwards. “After that, a lot of things made sense. Like how you knew Nicole was going to grab you, and how you were able to find that body so quickly. Not to mention how you knew about my scuffle with Ross. I knew he wouldn’t have willingly told anyone about that. Please tell me, though, that you didn’t know we were going to be grabbed yesterday.”

“No,” she chortled. “That one took me by complete surprise. As did everything else that happened since then.” He grinned at her, seemingly pleased at the thought that she hadn’t seen his proposal coming. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” she asked. “It would have definitely made things much less stressful. I really didn’t enjoy lying to you about things.”

“I know,” Ben stated. “But I wanted you to tell me when you were ready.”

Rilynne leaned in and kissed him harder than she ever had before. Even stronger than the excitement she felt at the idea that she didn’t have to keep it from him any longer, was the overwhelming relief that he had taken it so well. She wrapped her arms tightly around him as he picked her up and pulled her onto his lap. She didn’t remember ever being so happy.

When their lips parted, she rested her head against his chest, listening to the sound of his heart. It pounded only harder as he ran his hand down her side before stopping on her leg. After a moment, though, he jerked his head up.

“What the hell?” he asked, holding his hand out for her to see. “Are you bleeding?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, remembering her re-injured leg. “I pulled a couple stitches out when I was running. I’ll take care of them when we get back to the house.”

“Or we can just go in and let a doctor do it,” he stated, almost mesmerized by her stubbornness.

She just shook her head, not bothering to lift it off his chest, and pulled her shorts back over it. “I’ve had enough hospitals for today. I’d much rather just do it myself,” she stated. “Or if it pleases you more, my mom can do it. She’s a nurse, after all.”

Ben just shook his head and groaned before resting it back against hers.

“Matthews knows, doesn’t he?” she asked a few minutes later. She could feel him head nodding gently. “So do you really tell him everything? He certainly seems to think you do.”

In lieu of answering, he pulled his hand up and began dragging his knuckles along his chin. Rilynne sat up and turned to him, finding an apprehensive look on his face. His eyes swept over her face. He seemed to be trying to work something out. After a few long seconds, he nodded again.

“He’s one of my oldest friends,” he stated. “After Justin died, he was one of the few people I had that I could be completely honest with, no matter what the topic.” He appeared to be trying to talk his way around something. Ben was hiding something; she could see it in his eyes. Although Rilynne was filled with curiosity, she decided not to push him on it. He had given her the time she needed, so she would do the same.

“I’m glad the two of you are so close,” she said, dropping her head back down on his chest. “After all, the two of you are the most important men in my life.” She could hear the beat of his heart start to increase as she closed her eyes and let out a content sigh. His fingers dropped from his jaw and gently raked through her hair.

While the events of the day still weighed down on her, nothing in the world could have made her happier in that moment.

“Hey, Rye,” he whispered a few minutes later. “Happy Birthday.”

S
he stepped out of the car and walked through the entrance of the cemetery. Around her were dozens of people, all wearing black. Every member of the homicide unit was present, along with a dozen other members of the department. Chief Wooldridge had also flown down.

Rilynne walked with the crowd toward a cluster of chairs set up in front of a black casket. When she glanced over the front row and found her mom sitting in the middle. Her face was red and swollen. She had been crying.

She was just about to join her when she saw someone coming up behind her. She turned around and smiled. It was Elise.

The day after the shooting, Rilynne drove out to the motel Elise had been staying in. Her stomach was in knots as she walked to the door and knocked. When it pulled open, all she could do was smile.

Though Elise was a few inches taller, Rilynne was surprised at just how much they looked alike. Her father had mentioned that Elise’s mother had resembled Amber, but she still hadn’t expected their likeness to be so striking.

They both stood in the doorway in silence for minutes before Rilynne reached out and embraced her. After that, neither of them seemed to want to stop talking. It was close to midnight before Rilynne finally pulled herself away to go home.

“Come on,” Rilynne said as she held out her hand.

Elise looked nervous as she glanced around her to Amber, but nodded and took it. Together, they walked down the row toward her.

“Mom,” Rilynne said. Amber wiped her eye and looked up. Her eyes shifted quickly from Rilynne to Elise, then back again. “Mom, this is Elise.”

Amber let out a quick gasp before she stood up. She studied Elise’s face carefully as another tear rolled down her cheek. Although she wasn’t saying it, Rilynne had a feeling she was noticing the resemblances between them. She had left that part out when she told her mother about their meeting.

As another tear escaped from her eye, Amber reached out and pulled Elise in for a hug. She held her tight, tighter than Rilynne could have expected. When she pulled away moments later, she ran her fingers gently down Elise’s cheek. “Hello, Elise,” she said sweetly. “I’m so glad we could finally meet.”

Amber directed Elise to the chair to her right, as Rilynne took the other side. She was just wiping a tear from her own face when Ben joined her. “Wow,” he whispered, draping his arm over her shoulders. “That went better than I thought it would.”

“Yeah,” Rilynne said with a smile. Her eyes were fixed on her mother’s hands, which were wrapped tightly around Elise’s.

To her surprise, several people stood up to speak, including Matthews and Wilcome. Though her mother had prepared something, she found herself unable to speak when the time came. Rilynne was about to stand up to do it for her, but Ben beat her to it.

Her heart ached with both sadness and joy as he spoke her mother’s words. By the time he finished, she was unable to keep the tears from her face.

After the service, everyone went back to Rilynne’s house.

Rilynne rode in a limousine with Amber, Ben, and Elise. She dropped her head down on Ben’s shoulder as she watched Amber and Elise carry on their conversation. Despite the sadness of the day, she couldn’t help but feel happy. Although she had lost one member of her family that week, two others had joined it.

“So have you decided what you’re going to do?” Ben asked Elise a few moments later.

She nodded and took a sip from the drink in her hand. “I’m going to stay in Addison Valley for a little while,” she said. “I graduated last month, so I don’t have holding me down. I had considered traveling for a little while, but I would really like to get to know my sister.”

Rilynne grinned and turned to Ben. “I’ve invited her to stay with me until she decides what she wants to do.”

“Good,” he said. “Now you’ll have someone there to call the search party out the next time you wind up taking a spill in the woods on one of your runs.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her mother and sister. Amber nodded in agreement, though Elise seemed to be slightly confused.

“It’s a long story,” Rilynne told her.

“No,” Ben said, shaking his head dramatically. “Not really. Your sister is clumsy, plain and simple. Every week or two she’ll come back from one of her runs with a new scrape or bruise. I’ve personally witnessed her stepping off the side of an embankment once and tumble all the way down.”

Rilynne just shrugged as laughter filled the limousine.

“Well, if you decide you want to stay, I have a spot opening up in the lab,” Ben said. “Rilynne told me you specialized in forensic entomology, which is something I’ve been looking for.”

Elise smiled warmly and nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. Though she offered a simple response, there was an excitement she couldn’t keep from her eyes. It didn’t leave until the limo rolled to a stop in front of the house.

While it wasn’t the party that had originally been planned for that week, Rilynne was glad to be surrounded by everyone she cared about. She made her rounds for two hours, talking to everyone who came, before tacking down Ben by a sandwich tray.

“Can I ask you something?” she whispered quietly.

“Of course,” Ben said, turning to face her.

She looked quickly around the room before taking his arm and pulling him out the backdoor. The hot sun struck her face, causing her whole body to instantly warm. She glanced over at the small group of people standing by the back fence as she led Ben to the porch swing.

When they sat down, Ben slid his arm around her and held her close. She dropped her head down on his shoulder and kicked off just slightly, causing the swing take movement.

“If I had turned myself in and been charged with Teich’s murder, would you have really broken me out?” She kept her voice low so no one around would hear her.

When Ben didn’t immediately respond, she turned to look at him. The bewildered look sitting on his face caused her to laugh.

“Of course I would have,” he said confidently. “Do you really think I would have let you spend your life in prison for something you didn’t do? I would have rather lived on the run than allow that to happen.”

“Executed,” she blurted out. He raised his eyebrow. “Not life in prison. I would have been executed.”

“And you saw all this?” he asked. Rilynne nodded and dropped her head back on his shoulder. “Did I at least look awesome when I broke you out?”

She chuckled and nodded again. “Matthews would have ended up divorced, I would have been sentenced to execution, and you would have been working with, I can only assume, my father and sister when you stopped my transport and grabbed me.”

“Well, as much as I’m sure I would have enjoyed playing the hero, I’m glad things didn’t come to that,” he said. He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair. “I didn’t think you saw things before they happened,” he added a few moments later.

“I don’t usually,” she said. “And when I do, it’s usually only a few hours. Maybe a day. I’ve never seen anything that far before. My dad said that would change as I get older, though.”

“Well, maybe it was just the universe screaming at you, telling you not to do anything stupid,” he offered. “Or maybe it was just a dream about what you thought would happen.”

Rilynne shrugged. “Who knows
...? I saw so many bad endings on this case. I was beginning to think there wasn’t any way of getting out of it without being arrested or killed.”

“I know,” Ben said. “I really wouldn’t have minded finding a nice deserted island and starting over, though. We could have had a monkey butler.”

Her head shot up. “A monkey butler?” she asked amusedly.

“Yeah,” he said with an enthusiastic note. “We could have even gotten him one of those little tuxedos. Then he could double as a nanny when we had kids.”

“Kids?” she asked. “Kids on a deserted island?” She was surprised when he didn’t look away.

“What better place to grow up?” he laughed.

Rilynne rolled her eyes and dropped her head back down. “I would much rather be in a nice, clean hospital than out on a deserted island. One with lots of pain killers.”

She could feel Ben grin where his head was resting against hers.

“Speaking of pain killers,” she said. “Matthews is going to need one Thursday when he finds out he’s having twins.”

Ben’s head shot up so fast she nearly fell over laughing.

“You’re joking!”

Rilynne shook her head, laughing too hard to talk.

“Everyone’s clearing out,” Lori said, walking out to join them before she could elaborate. “It really was a lovely service.”

“Thank you,” Rilynne said, quickly regaining her composure. “You’re more than welcome to stay. We haven’t had a moment alone since all of this started. I’m sure you have a few questions.”

An impish grin stretched across her face as she pulled a deck chair toward them. “Well, if you’re really in the mood for sharing,” she said as she dropped down on it. “How was your little camping trip?”

Ben laughed and pushed
himself off of the swing. “I’ll leave you two to talk,” he said, kissing her on the top of the head. “I’ll go find your mother before she starts to try to clean everything up by herself.”

Rilynne waited for him to walk through the door before turning back to Lori. “What do you want to know?”