to get a little work done and hopefully free up some time once she got home and put Tyler to bed.
With quick precision, she keyed in the password to access encrypted work files she’d been organizing for the police department—sometimes on the clock, sometimes in her own spare time. Katie had spent months scanning in unsolved case files and loading the data into the cross-referencing computer program she’d designed. Okay, so maybe her work as an information specialist with KCPD’s cold case squad wasn’t as exciting as the acting career she’d dreamed of before a teenage pregnancy and harrowing kidnapping plot to sell her unborn son in a black-market baby ring had altered her life plan. But it was a good, steady paycheck that allowed her to support herself and Tyler single-handedly.
Besides, the technical aspects of her work had never stopped Katie from thinking, imagining, creating. She loved the challenge of fitting together the pieces of a puzzle on an old unsolved case—not to mention the satisfaction of knowing she was doing something meaningful with her life. She hadn’t had the best start in the world—her abusive father had murdered her mother and been sent to prison. Helping the police catch bad guys went a long way toward redeeming herself for some of the foolish mistakes she’d made as an impulsive, grieving young woman trying to atone for her father’s terror. Working with computers and data was a job her beloved aunt Maddie and uncle Dwight, Kansas City’s district attorney, understood and respected. She would always be grateful to the two of them for rescuing her and Tyler and giving her a real home. Although she knew they would support her even if she had chosen to become an actress, this career choice was one way she could honor and thank them for taking her in and loving her like a daughter. Plus, even though he didn’t quite grasp the research and technical details of her job, Tyler thought her work was pretty cool. Hanging out with all those cops and helping them solve crimes put her on a tiny corner of the shelf beside his comic book and cartoon action heroes. Making her son proud was a gift she wouldn’t trade for any spotlight.
Katie sorted through the first file that came up, highlighting words such as the victim’s name, witnesses who’d been interviewed, suspect lists and evidence documentation and dropping them into the program that would match up any similarities between this unsolved murder and other crimes in the KCPD database. The tragic death of a homeless man back in the ’70s had few clues and fewer suspects, sadly, making it a quick case to read through and document. Others often took hours, or even days, to sort and categorize. But she figured LeRoy Byrd had been important to someone, and therefore, it was important to her to get his information out of a musty storage box and transferred into the database.
“There you go, LeRoy.” She patted his name on the screen. “It’s not much. Just know we’re still thinking about you and working on your case.”
She closed out his information and pulled up the next file, marked Gemma Gordon. Katie’s breath shuddered in her chest as she looked into the eyes of a teenage girl who’d been missing for ten years. “Not you, too.”
The temperature in the auditorium seemed to drop a good twenty degrees as memories of her own kidnapping nightmare surfaced. This girl was seventeen, the same age Katie had been when she’d gone off to find her missing friend, Whitney. Katie had found her friend, all right, but had become a prisoner herself, kept alive until she could give birth to Tyler and her kidnappers tried to sell him in a black-market adoption scheme. Thanks to her aunt and uncle, Tyler was saved and Katie had escaped with her life. But Whitney hadn’t been so lucky.
She touched her fingers to the young girl’s image on the screen and skimmed through her file. The similarities between the old Katie and this girl were frightening. Pregnant. Listed as a runaway. Katie had fought to save her child. Had Gemma Gordon? Had she even had a chance to fight? Katie had found a family with her aunt Maddie and uncle Dwight and survived. Was anyone missing this poor girl? According to the file, neither Gemma Gordon nor her baby had ever been found.
“You must have been terrified,” Katie whispered, feeling the grit of tears clogging her throat. She read on through the persons of interest interviewed in the initial investigation. “What...?” She swiped away the moisture that had spilled onto her cheek and read the list again. There was one similarity too many to her own nightmare—a name she’d hoped never to see again. “No. No, no.”
Katie’s fingers hovered above the keyboard. One click. A few seconds of unscrambling passwords and a lie about her clearance level and she could find out everything she wanted to about the name on the screen. She could find out what cell he was in at the state penitentiary, who his visitors were, if his name had turned up in conjunction with any other kidnappings or missing-person cases. With a few keystrokes she could know if the man with that name was enjoying a healthy existence or rotting away in prison the way she’d so often wished over the years.
When a hot tear plopped onto the back of her knuckles, Katie startled. She willed herself out of the past and dabbed at her damp cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater. Beyond the fact that hacking into computer systems she didn’t officially have access to without a warrant could get her fired, she knew better than to give in to the fears and anger and grief. Katie straightened in her seat and quickly highlighted the list of names, entering them all into the database. “You’re a survivor, Katie Lee Rinaldi. Those people can’t hurt you anymore. You beat them.”
But Gemma Gordon hadn’t.
After swiping away another tear, Katie sent the list into the database before logging out. She turned off the portable Wi-Fi security device on the seat beside her and shut down her laptop. She squeezed the edge of her computer as if she was squeezing that missing girl’s hand. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you, too, Gemma. I promise.”
When she looked up, she realized she was the only parent left in the auditorium seats. The stage was empty, too. “Oh, man.”
How long had she been sitting there, caught up in the past? Too long. Her few minutes of work had stretched on longer than she’d thought, and the present was calling. She stuffed her equipment back into her flowered bag and stood, grabbing her wool coat off the back of her seat and pulling it on. “Tyler?”
Katie looped her bag over her shoulder and scooted toward the end of the row of faded green folding seats. As pretentious and egotistical as Doug Price could be, he also ran a tight ship. Since they were borrowing this facility from the college, there were certain rules he insisted they all follow. Props returned to backstage tables. Costumes on hangers in the dressing rooms. Rehearsal started when he said it would and ended with the same punctuality. Campus security checked the locks at ten thirty, so every night they were done by ten.
Katie pulled her cell phone from her bag and checked the time when she reached the sloping aisle—ten fifteen. She groaned. The cast was probably backstage, changing into their street clothes if they hadn’t already left, and Doug was most likely up in the tech booth, giving the sound and light guys their notes.
Exchanging her phone for the mittens in her pocket, Katie hurried down the aisle toward the stage. “Tyler? Sorry I got distracted. You ready to go, bud?”
And that was when the lights went out.
“Ow.” Disoriented by the sudden darkness, Katie bumped into the corner of a seat. Leaning into the most solid thing she could find, she grabbed the back of the chair and held on while she got her bearings. “Hey! I’m still in the house.”
Her voice sounded small and muffled in the cavernous space as she waited several seconds for a response. But the only answer was the scuffle of hurried footsteps moving over the carpet at the very back of the auditorium.
