Splintered (30 page)

Fury ignited inside Wallace at the thought of what Daniel Fry must have done to Katie Norris. He felt sick to his stomach at the images racing through his mind. Bending forward with his hands braced on his legs, he took deep breaths until the wave of nausea subsided.

Then he noticed two symmetrical lines of blood on the floor, peeking out from underneath the mattress. A corner of the pad had been kicked up—must have happened when SWAT stormed the room. With gloved hands, Wallace lifted the mattress pad off the ground. The message he saw scrawled in red across the hardwood floor chilled him to his very core.

A slamming car door brought Maddy back from the blackness. Shooting pain coursed through the left side of her face. The last thing she remembered was Hank parking the van, him climbing into the back, and then pain exploding in her face. She was handcuffed to the a pole again.

The driver’s door opened, and Hank sank down on the squeaky seat. “Okay, I’ve got food, sleeping bags, and all the other supplies I need. What else?” Though Hank had asked a question, allowing for the possibility of a response, Maddy couldn’t because of the duct tape covering her mouth. Anyway, it sounded to her like he was talking to himself. “I think that’s everything. Now I just gotta swing by Barkley’s house.”

He started the van and drove for a while. Maddy couldn’t tell where they were. The only thing she could see was sky. It was a beautiful blue color, she noticed. The wispy clouds looked like an artist’s brush strokes. She had never truly appreciated its beauty until she found herself locked away.

“Shit!”

Maddy cringed. It sounded like Hank had hit the steering wheel with his fist.

“Come on, come on. I gotta ditch this van, and fast.”

She tried to tamp down the sudden burst of hope at the thought the police had finally figured out he had her, but she knew how damaging hope could be. It was like a lightness in the soul that made you rise higher.

Unfortunately, the higher you’re lifted, the farther you fall.

The van started bouncing more. Her tailbone ached from all the potholes they hit. It sounded like they were driving on a gravel road. Before this, Maddy had never really noticed how every action created a different sound. She’d learned this sitting in an empty room for hours, straining to hear the happenings in other parts of the house just so she didn’t feel so alone.

The van stopped and Hank hopped out. Minutes went by—she couldn’t tell how many. It was impossible to track the passage of time. She didn’t know for sure, but it felt like she’d been held captive for at least a week, maybe more. When the van’s back doors opened, she was startled and let out a muffled scream. Craning her head, she could see woods behind Hank’s silhouette.

“I’m going to do some rearranging,” he told Maddy. “You will follow every command to the letter. Do you understand me?” Hank pulled out a knife from a sheath attached to his belt. “This knife will slice through your skin like butter. If you think last night was painful, you have no idea how long I can keep you alive while inflicting excruciating pain on every nerve ending in your body. So—to the letter. Nod if you understand.”

Maddy’s round eyes remained transfixed on the long, shiny metal blade. Hearing the threat, her body seemed to nod on its own. She felt her heart jump in her chest. Racing like it wanted to make a break for it. She felt dizzy. Hank was telling her to do something, but the blood rushing in her ears was so loud it made it hard to hear. She forced herself to focus on his mouth to try and understand the words he was saying. She didn’t want him to have to ask twice. That was another painful lesson she didn’t want to repeat.

“—then you will get in the boat and lie down,” he said.

Boat?

Hank jumped in the van and cut through the tape binding her legs. After he returned the knife to his sheath, he took the handcuffs off her wrists. “Now get out and wait for me.”

Maddy stepped forward, jagged rocks digging into the soles of her feet. She tried to slyly take in her surroundings. They were parked in front of a garage. A jon boat was angled up against the back of the bumper. For a time, her dad had had a green fishing boat just like it. It had a plastic seat at the front and one in the back, with a space in the middle. Maddy remembered their fishing trips, how the hard plastic had stuck to her sweaty legs as they baked in the sun waiting for a fish to bite. After their fourth trip, she’d refused to go out again.

Dad was always trying to get me to do sucky stuff with him. Fishing, going to baseball games, fixing the car. It was like he wanted a boy but got stuck with a girl.
Why was I in such a hurry to go live with him?
He was always busy working or making us do what he wanted to do.

“Lie down in the boat!” Hank bellowed. Maddy cowered. “Hurry!”

He held the bow steady, told her not to make it fall since he was already going to have a hard enough time hauling it up into the van with her extra weight in it. She climbed in awkwardly, working to find a comfortable position in its cramped belly.

Wouldn’t it have been easier if he’d just handcuffed me somewhere, put the boat in the back of the van, then had me climb in? Serves the asshole right. I hope he pulls something lifting the damn thing.

Hank re-taped her legs together, then handcuffed her to one of the seat legs. With lots of grunting and cursing, he finally got the boat in the back of the van. She saw that it was too large to fit properly, a fourth of it stuck out of the back door. Hank took orange bungee cords and closed the doors around the boat as far as they would go.

Since the back doors didn’t completely close, Maddy wondered if she could wait until he was driving, then sit up and try and get the attention of a car following behind them. She ran different scenarios through her mind until Hank suddenly appeared above her and another shot of pain exploded in the back of her head.

Emma knew she had to get up, had to figure out her next move in the search for Maddy, but she couldn’t seem to budge from the couch. She’d been out all night checking the local sex clubs, making sure no one matching Maddy’s description had come in—either looking for work or finding it. A girl like Maddy, short on cash and with no place to stay, was susceptible to the influence of the worst scum in the city. After coming up empty, Emma had cruised the known prostitution areas. Thankfully, she hadn’t found Maddy.

Then again, I didn’t find Maddy.

So just before dawn she’d gone back to the Eastins’ house to crash. Lily had heard her walk through the front door and came running from the back of the house. She looked crushed when she saw it wasn’t Maddy.

Emma had held her while she cried. When all the tears were spent, Lily grilled Emma on what she’d uncovered, making her promise not to hold anything back. Emma had explained all the different routes she’d taken looking for Maddy, none of them leading anywhere.

Lily had grabbed onto the eyewitness account of her neighbor and wouldn’t let it go. “I don’t understand?” she said. “If there was a witness who
saw
Maddy get abducted, why won’t the police open an investigation?”

“Detective Wallace said Addie is an unreliable witness. Because of her Alzheimer’s, he doesn’t believe her recollection of the event. Wallace thinks she’s confused it with the false abduction claim Maddy made.”

“What do you mean? The officer
said
if more evidence came to light, they would look into Maddy’s disappearance.”

“Lily, they’re not going to. The neighbor with the security camera didn’t get a van on camera.”

Emma’s phone rang, bringing her back to the present. She reached over and grabbed it off the end table. She recognized Rocky’s phone number. Her nerve endings hummed with anticipation.

“Tell me you got something for me.”

“Where are you?” Wallace asked.

“At Lily Eastin’s house, why?”

“Do you know where Hyaleah Road is? Over here in Temple Terrace?”

“Vaguely—why?”

Wallace gave Emma the address and a brief description of the location. “I need you to get over here, now.”

“Why?”

“Just get here. And . . . Emma . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t mention this call to Mrs. Eastin.”

Wallace was standing in the driveway, waiting for Emma when she pulled up.

“Did you find her, Rocky? Tell me she’s okay.”

“Hold on, Emma.” He grabbed her by the shoulders, stopping her from rushing by him.

She shrugged him off but stepped back, forcing herself to count to ten. Then to another ten. Once she was able to reapply her professional mask, she said, “Why did you call me?”

“There’s something I need you to look at. I thought you’d be better equipped to handle it than Maddy’s mother. You good?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Dammit, Rocky. Just show me.”

Wallace led Emma inside the rundown, one-story house. “Watch your step. We haven’t finished processing the scene yet.”

A tech was hunched over the couch, cutting a long rectangular piece from the seat cushion.

“I’ve asked CSU to hold off on processing the bedroom until I showed you something. The techs have taken pictures, but that’s it. I wanted to see if you could make a positive ID on something I found.”

Emma nodded, afraid her voice would give away the feelings churning inside her. She had to keep control—or at least keep projecting the illusion that she was under control—if she wanted to continue being kept in the loop. The worst thing that could happen would be for Rocky to bench her and stop the flow of information.

He pointed the way toward an open door. As she walked through, she gasped, unable to hold back the emotions crashing over her like a wave threatening to drown her. She took in the surroundings of the almost-empty bedroom and nearly collapsed. To regain her balance, she grabbed the door frame.

On the floor, written in lines of blood was
MADY EAS

“We haven’t typed the blood yet, but I’d bet my pension Maddy was being held prisoner in this room.” Wallace’s voice sounded like it was travelling down a long tunnel.

Emma forced her legs to carry her into the room.

Just another crime scene. Objectively study the room before you.

Wallace crouched over the writing. “This message was scrawled on the floor, then was hidden by the mattress pad. I’m guessing she either didn’t have enough blood to finish her whole name or she was interrupted before she could complete it.”

He stood up and walked over to the corner of the room. “Watch out, there are some small shards of broken glass scattered around.” Wallace pointed at the floor. “This is what I want you to see.”

Like the bloody message wasn’t enough?

She instantly recognized the aqua shirt lying on the floor. The front had been ripped apart, separating its cat image in two. Emma just kept nodding until she found her voice. “It’s one of the shirts I bought Maddy on Monday night.”

When Maddy had come out of the dressing room, modeling the shirt for her, she’d asked, “Do you think the cat picture makes me look like a little kid?”

That’s what Emma had liked about it. That Maddy was embracing her younger, sillier side. Emma had assured her it didn’t, though, knowing fifteen-year-olds strived to look older than they really were.

“Okay, good,” Wallace said. “Well, not good,” he corrected. “But you know what I mean. Now we can start tracking her down.”

“What can I do?” Emma asked.

“Nothing. You have a personal relationship with this girl. I only gave you a call as a professional courtesy, so that you’d know we opened an official investigation into her disappearance. The best thing you can do now is go back to Mrs. Eastin’s house and update her. That will give me more time to track down leads.”

“What leads?”

“You know I can’t go into that.” Wallace grabbed Emma by the elbow and led her out into the living room. “Giving you any information would come back to bite me in the ass in a big way.”

“Come on, Rocky. You know I’m not gonna go off half-cocked. Use me as a sounding board. Run your theories by me. Maybe I’ll think of something that didn’t occur to you.”

Wallace cocked his head to the side.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Of course I trust your investigative skills, but two heads are better than one.”

“I have enough heads in on this one. Right now a detective is interrogating the man we found in this house. Others are tearing his life apart, looking for something that might help find Maddy.”

“And?”

“Go back to Mrs. Eastin’s house and help her get through the waiting. It’s the hardest part.”

“Open up, Lily!”

Lily cracked one eye open when she heard pounding. She could make out a voice, but it sounded far away, like she was stuck at the bottom of a deep well. A pit was exactly where she felt like she’d been stuck for the past two days. At first unable to claw her way out, now simply unwilling. She’d only gotten out of Maddy’s bed once today and that was because she couldn’t ignore the urge to pee.

More yelling. This time Lily could hear her name. She pulled the pillow out from under her and put it over her head, trying to block out the banging noises.

A rattling at Maddy’s bedroom window finally drew her attention. She peered out from under the pillow but didn’t see anything—the blinds were closed.

If I ignore it, the noise will go away.

More pounding at the window. This time it sounded like the glass might break. She pulled herself up and lumbered across the room. She opened the blinds, then quickly turned away from the bright light.

“Lily? Lily, let me in.”

It sounded like Tom. She lowered the arm that had been shading her eyes from the sun and saw that it was him standing outside Maddy’s bedroom window.

“I’ve been knocking on every window. Didn’t you hear me?”

Lily shook her head.

“Well, are you going to let me in?”

Before she could answer, he disappeared. With great effort, she made her way to the front door, where an impatient knock greeted her. She unlocked the dead bolt, then turned to go sit down on the couch. She was so exhausted she couldn’t even stand up. If felt like lead weights were fastened to each foot.