Page 76 of Incomplete
“What on earth?”
“It’s really all above my head, but Cameron set something up because of the threats Lakelyn was getting. We knew she planned to go into hiding after her contractual obligations with the show were over, but we felt it necessary to still monitor the situation. Speaking from personal experience, one can never be too careful.”
“I don’t understand. What threats?”
“Shortly after Lakelyn went to Los Angeles for the reality dating show, she started receiving texts and emails threatening in nature. She brushed them off and ignored them at first, but then it seemed like whoever was messing with her was getting too close for comfort. It’s why she picked your small town, and now having seen this video . . . Boden, we need to find her!”
“I need to see it.”
“Unfortunately, mainstream media seems to have gotten ahold of a still image, and it’s going viral.”
“Was there a ransom made?” I asked, hunched over my desk as I opened a new webpage in my browser.
“No, because this isn’t about money. You need to know the guy who took her isn’t just some random person. I believe it’s her sister’s husband.”
“Husband?” What the hell?
“I don’t know much about him, only the limited information Lakelyn shared, which was next to nothing, but if this man is indeed her sister’s husband, he’s either had some kind of psychotic break, or there’s something more ominous going on here.”
“Why on earth would her sister’s husband abduct her?”
“Annabelle wasn’t just Lakelyn’s sister; she was her identical twin.”
The screen filled with an image that sucked all the air from my lungs.
My cell phone fell from my hand as the outside world faded, and I locked my eyes on the image that single-handedly gutted me to the core.
While the photo’s background was dark, there was no question the woman tied to a bed with rope and duct tape covering her mouth was Lakelyn. My heart ached as I took her in. Her eyes were closed, and mascara stained her soft, delicate cheeks. The only saving grace I could muster was that she remained clothed, but the wedding photo on her chest had me clenching my jaw.
It gave me the ultimate glimpse into how unstable the person who took her was.
* * *
After getting off the phone with Jenna, I looked into the circumstances surrounding Annabelle’s car accident. Being an officer of the law meant I was no stranger to the horrors of the job; however, most of the time, I could lock my emotions away in a vault, but this definitely wasn’t one of those times.
Seeing the autopsy images of Annabelle was a direct punch to the stomach.
It was the brutal reality that not all could be saved.
It was the knowledge that if I didn’t find Lakelyn, I could soon find myself staring at a similar photo, but of her.
I rubbed my temples and outwardly groaned as I continued scouring through the file on Annabelle’s accident. According to the police and coroner’s report, the accident was ruled accidental despite abnormal levels of Tetrahydrozoline found in her system, which I found odd. A quick preliminary search supported my suspicion that if the drug was ingested, it was far more toxic and could result in difficulty breathing or, worse, a cardiac episode resulting in death.
How did this go unnoticed? Unquestioned?
While it wasn’t uncommon for people to go into cardiac arrest behind the wheel, I didn’t understand why the accident didn’t turn into more of an investigation.
The postmortem also raised another red flag, in my opinion. While the radiology report noted there wasn’t a history of broken bones, it showed that she suffered a significant break to her wrist at least a month before the accident. The timeframe was based on the settling of the bones in the fracture site, which were misaligned. Most people wouldn’t be able to function with that kind of break, meaning there had to be a reason she didn’t have it set correctly.
After gaining access to Annabelle’s driver’s license information, I shifted gears and pulled the property information for the address listed. However, I immediately hit a dead end as the ownership was listed as a numbered company. I fired off a text to Jenna, hoping her husband’s resources could dig quicker than I could on my end using methods that likely weren’t precisely above board as I continued sifting through the incident logs from a series of 9-1-1 calls placed to the address by neighbors for constant shouting and banging. However, Annabelle denied being in danger in all instances, and the husband was scarce.
I was incensed knowing our hands were often legally tied in that situation. Unless someone spoke up, we had to walk away fully aware that it could be too late the next time a similar call came in. It was one of the most challenging parts of the job, a harsh reality when dealing with domestic violence cases.
There was a special place in hell for abusers in my book. Cowards often chipped away at their partner’s shield, stripping them of their confidence and ability to think for themselves, free from repercussions. Case in point, Annabelle’s work history was stellar, with zero blemishes on her record until six months before her death when she abruptly quit her job and became reclusive, according to a post I found online under her obituary.
She would fit the profile if this were a domestic violence case. Historically, abusers had a pattern of making a person not only emotionally dependent on them by isolating them from friends and family but also financially dependent, effectively cutting their ability to leave off at the knees.
Given what Lakelyn had told me about her relationship falling off with Annabelle and Jenna’s echoed concern, I’d say their suspicions of something being amiss with the husband were spot-on. With no record of a marriage license, the guy was a ghost. A needle in a haystack. And having spent the past hour combing through incident logs, I was no closer to the clue I desperately needed to help find my girl.
