Dark Intent (Rachel Ryder Book 9), page 1
DARK INTENT
CAROLYN RIDDER ASPENSON
Copyright © 2024 Carolyn Ridder Aspenson.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Severn River Publishing
www.SevernRiverBooks.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-64875-592-7 (Paperback)
CONTENTS
Also By Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Also by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
Acknowledgments
About Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
ALSO BY CAROLYN RIDDER ASPENSON
The Rachel Ryder Thriller Series
Damaging Secrets
Hunted Girl
Overkill
Countdown
Body Count
Fatal Silence
Deadly Means
Final Fix
Dark Intent
Foul Play
To find out more about Carolyn Ridder Aspenson and her books, visit severnriverbooks.com
To Jack
Forever and always
PROLOGUE
The moon hung heavy in the starlit sky, its silver glow throwing long, stark shadows across the fallow farmland. It was the perfect spot—just far enough not to be seen, but close enough for future discovery.
A solitary figure worked in silence, the rhythmic sound of dirt hitting a shallow grave the only disturbance in the quiet night. The summer air, thick and hot, nearly smothered the gravedigger with a stifling embrace as they labored over the makeshift grave. Sweat beaded and dripped off their brow, darkening the earth at their feet where the light of the full moon could not reach.
The grave hadn’t been hurried but had been meant to appear so—edges rough and uneven, as if the very act of digging it was done with a desperate urgency. The figure’s hands, gloved to prevent blisters and possible identification, moved with a steady, methodical pace, shoveling soil over what had become the final and lonely resting place of someone who deserved far worse. Someone who deserved public viewing upon death.
There were no words, no muttered curses, no whispered prayers, only the grave and the act itself, each speaking volumes in silence.
Despite the heat, the figure had covered themselves from head to toe, with only the eyes visible and reflecting the moonlight like two pale orbs. The figure stopped often to check their surroundings and catch their breath, but the job had to be completed quickly in case a group of stoned teenagers from town wandered onto the land to party, as they often did. That was the reason for the grave choice. One day, those stoned teens would discover the body. Just not that day.
The shovel plunged into the mound of dirt with a soft thud, lifted and then emptied with a cascade of soil that fell onto the body with a finality that was almost ceremonial.
The body, barely discernible under the accumulating earth, lay motionless, as enigmatic in death as the figure was in their task. Frozen forever with a look of knowing. Knowing they had gotten what they’d deserved.
It was retribution, an action necessary to right the wrongs done unto others.
The killer's eyes gleamed with satisfaction and anticipation as they admired their work. Each shovelful of earth was a step closer to the fulfillment of a plan forty years in the making. In the silence of the night, the killer’s thoughts wandered to the victims, to the reasons they had been chosen, and to the message the grave would send.
1
If you asked a realtor, they’d sell you Hamby, Georgia, as the kind of place Norman Rockwell might’ve dreamed up if he’d taken a detour down South—quaint, equestrian, brimming with boutiques that didn’t know the meaning of chain store and restaurants where the chefs actually knew your name. They’d wax poetic about the farmer’s market, a Saturday morning ritual where the tomatoes taste like tomatoes and the crafts have more hands behind them than a preschool finger-painting class. It was the kind of town where the schools were good, the churches plentiful, and small-town feel wasn’t just a phrase—it was the law.
But peel back the postcard, and the Hamby Police Department, my employer, would tell you a different story. Sure, on the surface, it was all apple pies and handshakes, but they knew the shadows between the sunshine, the secrets tucked away in more than a dozen churches, and the whispers behind the friendly good mornings. In Hamby, even the skeletons in the closet had their own closets, and the HPD held the key to more than a few of those doors.
Two weeks of peace and quiet in Hamby, Georgia, was like a unicorn sighting—rare and suspicious. And it wasn’t destined to last. In my book, calm always spelled trouble lurking just around the corner. And, trust me, when trouble decided to show up, it wasn’t just a knock at the door; it was a full-blown SWAT raid. Just when I start thinking maybe, just maybe, I could take a breather, the universe laughed and dumped a hurricane of chaos right on my head.
There I was, in the heart of the Hamby Police Department's bustling hive, known as the ‘pit’. The pit was where the action, or lack thereof, happened. Officers tapped on their laptops, mumbled conversations mingled in the air, and the scent of stale coffee from the pot a shift commander had refused to trash when the chief bought the Keurigs, reminded me of the pit in my last precinct in Chicago.
My partner, Rob Bishop, and I sat at a small table in the center of the room, engaged in the most intense game of tennis ball catch known to law enforcement. The desks around us, overrun with paperwork and coffee stains, stood as silent witnesses.
“You ever think detectives should just be on call, like doctors?” I mused, lobbing the ball a bit too ambitiously in Bishop's direction.
He caught it with the grace of a cat. “We are on call, Rachel. All the time.”
“Yeah, but without the whole sitting around waiting part.” The ball flew back to him. “Imagine that, freedom until the bat-signal shines.”
“Keep dreaming,” he tossed the ball back, a smirk playing on his lips. “Being the chief’s daughter's godmother isn’t your golden ticket to the detective's lounge life.”
I sent the ball rocketing toward his head, testing those cat-like reflexes. “Guess I'll pass on cozying up to the mayor's wife then.”
Bishop caught it effortlessly. “Too bad. Could've been your in.”
He knew how much I disliked the mayor but due to an ages-old DUI concerning the mayor’s child, he disliked him even more. “Dang, Bishop. You move quick for an old-timer.” I grinned.
He responded with a one-finger salute, his version of a warm hug. Bishop had come a long way since his dance with death at the hands of hired out lowlifes. Post-recovery, he had hit the gym harder than a New Year's resolution, trading his beer belly for something resembling abs. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but the guy could probably outrun me. His tactical skills were sharper, too, like he was preparing for round two. I hoped there wasn’t a round two, but odds were high there would be.
If it weren't for the shiny dome and his fondness for zingers, I'd hardly recognize him. The old Bishop might have vanished, but the new version? He was a force to be reckoned with—balding, shaved head, snark, and all.
As the ball arced back to me, the light glinting off it like a spotlight on our little game of catch, I lobbed a question at him. “You squared away with a gift for Michels and Ash’s wedding yet?”
Bishop caught the ball with the same ease he sidestepped department politics. “Gift?” He scoffed, tossing the ball back. “That's Cathy’s arena. I steer clear of the girly stuff.”
I laughed as I snagged the ball out of the air. “Yeah, well, Kyle dove headfirst into that arena. Didn't come out looking too girly, either.”
Cathy and Bishop, they were a pair. You could bet the house on them making it official sooner rather than later, probably right after Michels tied the knot. Keep the celebrations rolling, I figured, and in our line of work, celebrations were important to balance the tragedies.
“What'd he get them?” Bishop was curious now, his throw a little off mark, challenging my reflexes.
“Something off their registry. Kyle said it was a no-brainer. Found their wedding site, clicked the registry link, and bam, gift bought, courtesy of Amazon.” I toyed with the ball, feinting a throw.
Bishop caught on, unfazed when I finally pitched it. “Wedding site?”
I laughed. “Yeah, welcome to the twenty-first century, grandpa. It’s all online now.”
The idea seemed to pain him as much as investigating a cold case. “Sounds like a headache.”
“Preaching to the choir,” I said, sending the ball back with a little extra zip. “That’s why I let Kyle handle it.”
I’d never expected to fall in love again after Tommy’s murder, but I had, and I was happy. I hadn’t given much thought to marrying again, but Kyle had mentioned it a time or two. The idea freaked me out, but it was starting to grow on me. Who knew, maybe Bishop and I could have a double wedding. I smiled at the thought.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. No way would I start that conversation. I’d never live it down.
As Bishop lobbed the ball back, his gaze momentarily shifted to the entrance, a habit born from years of expecting the unexpected. I mirrored his action, feeling the weight of the badge hanging from its chain around my neck, and its constant reminder of the thin line we walked between order and chaos. It was then that the dispatcher’s voice cut through the hum of activity, snapping us to attention.
“We’ve got a 10-54 located at 3356 Providence Road. You’ll need to enter at the far end of the property near Birmingham Highway. The main entrance is blocked off. Officers already on scene.”
“Copy that,” Bishop said. He checked his watch as he stood. “Two hours. We have two hours left on shift and now we have a dead body?”
“I think killers do that intentionally.”
He laughed. “Damn straight they do.”
The moon did its best impression of a spotlight in a noir film, draping a kind of glow over the farmland that made everything look like a scene from a bad horror flick. The air was thick, not just with the smell of crops dying off as summer faded, but with something else—something that made my insides do a slow roll.
We'd been coasting, thinking we had it all under control. But as it turned out, karma had a wicked sense of humor and was the bitch everyone claimed. The only soundtrack to the eerie tableau opening in front of us was the crickets, bravely chirping away as if to say, ‘nothing to see here, folks’.
The officers hanging back gave me the first clue. The call wasn’t just bad; it was nightmare-level bad.
Trudging over the uneven ground, I braced myself for the worst and flicked on my flashlight. What I saw next would be etched in my mental scrapbook of things I wish I could unsee somewhere below watching my husband die from a gunshot to the head. Every detective had those cases that clung to them like a second skin. I had a collection.
And they’d forever haunted me.
The grave was nothing fancy, just a hole in the ground. Some murderers weren’t picky about their victim’s final resting place. They had other things to worry about. I studied it carefully. The killer had been hurried, not meticulous, and definitely not interested in taking pride in their work. Without making light of a murder, I’d expected something more from the burial site. Though the partial hand sticking out of the dirt stole the show. Missing a couple of fingers, bloodied, and looking like it was reaching for a lifeline that never came. It was a horror movie cliché come to life, but there was nothing cliché about the chill that ran down my spine.
Whatever pile we’d just stepped into was going to get worse before it got better, and the night would drag on like a bad romance novel.
Death had a way of being blunt, and that was about as blunt as it got. The hand, with its slim fingers and a ring that gleamed dully in the flashlight beam, was a silent scream in the darkness. A call for help that never came. I took a second to steady myself while examining the ring. “That’s the ring from the photo,” I said to Bishop, more to break the silence than anything.
He cleared his throat, a sound always heavy with unspoken words. “I know,” he replied, his voice soft and carrying a weight that was all too familiar.
The scene at the Pendley farm was a noir painting come to life, and it was our job to give it the best ending we could.
Three Hamby PD uniforms huddled over the newly unearthed secret. Slick sleeves, as we called patrol officers, thrived during morbid crime scenes. They saw them as a chance to level up within the department, to look good for the next open position. Everyone wanted to be a detective until they became one. Occasionally seeing the horrors was one thing but seeing them on the regular was an entirely different ballgame.
The farmland had once been bigger, but progress, with its insatiable appetite, had gobbled up most of the acreage. In place of rolling fields sat a legion of mini-mansions, each a carbon copy of the other, stark white, black shutters, screaming modernity with a rustic wink.
Word on the street was the developer, a guy with more dollar signs in his eyes than sense, wanted the remaining Pendley land. But the Pendleys wouldn’t sell. Apparently, they weren’t keen on seeing their legacy turned into more cookie-cutter houses, replicas of suburban utopia.
Meanwhile, for the PD, the Stepford-esque community had its own quirks, thus no one in the department was thrilled about adding more homes. Break-ins happened like the daily mail arrived, and not from any criminal mastermind, but thanks to the local lushes who, after one too many, couldn’t tell their own castle from the neighbor’s. But the body in the ground wasn’t that simple. Nothing about murder ever was.
“Tell us what we’ve got,” Bishop said to one of the officers. We knew what we had. A dead body, one we believed to be a missing woman, but we needed the rest of the story, both from them and the victim herself.
He walked toward us flipping through his small spiral notebook. “We received a call from a Natalie Pendley, the most recent property owner. Her dad transferred the deed to her name about six months ago.” He turned toward a woman sitting on the back of an ambulance with a blanket wrapped around her. A German Shepherd dog sat on the ground beside her. “She currently resides in the Pendley home on the opposite side of the property. Said her dog hadn’t come when she called, so she checked the dog’s GPS tracker, and—”
Bishop interrupted. “The dog has a GPS tracker?”
“Yes, sir. On his collar. They’re very common now.”
Bishop nudged my arm and whispered, “Maybe you should get one for Louie.”
“Shh,” I said, though I had to force myself not to smile as I said it. Louie was my pet Beta fish. He wouldn’t swim far, and an electric collar might end his life the second it hit the water. “Go on,” I said to the officer.
“Yes, ma’am. Like I said, she checked his GPS tracker, got his location, and then drove her four-wheeler here to retrieve him. She found him about 100 feet away from the grave with something in his mouth.”
I swallowed back my lunch. “The missing part of the hand.”
“Great,” Bishop mumbled. His shoulders slumped as he surveyed the crime scene; his gaze lingered on the flurry of activity around him. A heavy sigh escaped his lips, barely audible with all the chaos. He ran a hand over his balding head. “We’ll be here all night.”
“She then went searching and found the grave.” He paused, then added, “Chief said we need to dig up the body, but I don’t think we’ll need to dig too deep.” He glanced back at the dirt pile. “She’s not too far down.”
Nikki, our crime scene tech, and a genius in her own right, had been crouched down to photograph the hand with her back facing us. She stood, pivoted on her heels and offered us a half smile. “Great, you’re here. She pointed to the bloodied evidence bag lying behind her. “That’s what the dog took. Definitely a finger and thumb, and from the amount of blood, it was removed before she died. We can start digging her out whenever you’re ready.”
“Wait,” Bishop said. “Are you saying the dog ripped off her hand?”
“No, the killer,” she said.
Bishop grimaced. “Then the dog just ripped off the finger and thumb. Great.”
Nikki laughed. “The finger and thumb were cut off as well. The dog was just the messenger."
I nudged Bishop with my shoulder. “Feel better?”
“Yes.”
After confirming the grim find with Nikki, Bishop and I took turns kneeling beside the shallow grave, our knees pressing into the hard, unforgiving earth.
