The Red Light Girls (Unsolved Mysteries Book 2) by Kim Knight (most romantic novels TXT) 📗

“Mr. Lee can you—”

“No. I wanna go back to my cell.”

Mr. Lee rose from his chair, but he was fully restricted by his chains. The guards rushed in by his sides.

Ruiz rose to his feet and watched each guard take hold of one of Mr. Lee’s elbows. For an older man, one even in shackles, he was stronger than he looked.

“We’re done here,” Mr. Lee called over his shoulder.

With laughter spewing from his lips, he allowed the guards to escort him out of the interview cell.

“Unbelievable,” Ruiz mumbled under his breath.

He flipped his notepad closed, then walked over to the heavy, steel door. As soon as he swung it open, he was greeted by the same female guard who had escorted him prior.

“Thanks. We’re done here.” Ruiz said impatiently.

The guard nodded, and turned on her heel in the other direction. Trailing behind her, watching her ponytail dance, he retraced his prior steps through the maximum-security prison to the entrance.

Once there, the guard checked Ruiz out, and with an uneasy feeling about Mr. Lee, he stepped out into the sun.

Instinctively, he tugged at his tie to remove it, then loosened the top button of his shirt. Taking long strides, he made his way to the car, slid inside, started the engine, and then allowed the cool air conditioning to glide over him.

For a moment, Ruiz stared at the grim looking prison, then he reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket, and pulled out his phone.

He scrolled through a call list, selected a number, then pressed the call button.

“Yo, sup’ Ruiz,” the gruff voice of Detective Cian Welsh answered.

“He confessed,” Ruiz blurted out without some much as a greeting to his fellow Detective, and new mentor, since he had joined the Miami police department.

“What?”

“He confessed,” Ruiz confirmed. “That’s what he wanted to talk to me about.”

“What else you got?”

“He never said much, but it seems he surprised her after work. They went for a walk, then boom—he ended her, according to him. Not even anything on where he left her, or what he did.”

“Just a confession?” Welsh’s heavy sigh reached his ear.

Ruiz could sense the frustration in the more experienced detective’s voice.

“That’s it, yeah,” he said. “You in or out of the office?”

“In.” Ruiz heard Welsh moving around, no doubt, in his office.

The familiar squelch of the filing cabinet opening whined in his ear.

“All right, I’ll see you when you get back, you and Detective Davina Jones. I’ve pulled the file,” Welsh told him. “Twenty years, he’s been silent. This mutha-fucker wants to come out of the woodwork, now?”

“Aye, you did release a news announcement out for people to phone in any information to the tip line, remember,” Ruiz reminded him.

Welsh chuckled on the other end of the line. “Funny Ruiz,” Welsh snapped. “I just didn’t expect it’d be so easy to put this one to bed.”

“I’ll see you when I get back to base. I’ll swing by and grab the file.” Ruiz lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window.

“Cool, see ya.” Welsh ended the call.

2

Unanswered Questions

Zoe Canceller

The face of her sister, Mariya, smiled, exposing perfectly straightened teeth—post braces. Holding the newspaper article, Zoe Canceller studied it a bit longer, then placed it down on the table. She’d held on to for the past two days.

It was the same photograph she had picked out and handed to the police twenty years ago. The one used to identify her missing sister. And now, it graced the front page of The Miami New Times.

Zoe took in the soft features of her sister’s face. She wasn’t her blood sister, but nonetheless, she had loved her just as a big sister should—blood relative or not.

Mariya was just two years younger than her. Sadly, her mother, Juanita, had been dealt a harsh hand in life and struggled with addition. And as a result, she couldn’t raise Mariya on her own.

Zoe’s mother and father had been neighbours with Juanita back in the 60s. And they took pity on Juanita and helped her as best they could.

One summer’s day in 1965, back when Zoe was five-years-old and Mariya was just three, Juanita dumped Mariya on Zoe’s door step. She had promised she’d be back as soon as she could, then took off. But she never returned.

Instead, she called long distance from Mexico and told Zoe’s parents she wouldn’t be back. From that day on, Zoe and Mariya had become sisters. Her parents had taken Mariya in and made no fuss over her being African-American at a time when race relations in the south were high.

In her parents’ eyes, Zoe’s blonde hair and blue eyes were no different then Mariya’s dark hair and mocha skin—they were both their daughters, and loved equally.

Zoe shifted her weight to one foot, and recalled how her mother used to walk around town, holding both their hands, her head held high.

The thought brought a smile to Zoe’s face.

God rest your soul, she thought to herself.

As she traced Mariya’s face with her fingertip, a tear fell onto the newspaper, turning the image into more of an inkblot of black, white, and grayscale colors.

Her mind moved back over the decades and stopped on the fond memories of her childhood school days. Once the kids got used to it, they all thought it was ‘cool’ that the two different girls considered themselves sisters, regardless of the racial difference.

She breathed in and out, deeply, as if to calm the feelings of confusion, frustration, and desperation.

Not knowing’s the hardest part. She stared off into the distance. What happened to you that day, twenty years ago, little sister?

According to Mariya’s husband, Jarrad, she never made it home on that Valentine’s Day.

“Honey, are you ready?” Malcom, Zoe’s husband, called out.

“Yes, I’m coming. Give me a second,” she replied over a shoulder, then gulped down the last of her coffee.

Behind her, she heard Malcom’s footsteps making their way down the hallway. She felt him move closer to her, and then his soft breath floated across her