The Watcher in the Wall (4 page)

“We need a location, Nenad,” Windermere said. “This girl’s life is in danger.”

Nenad nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “The thing is, this program she’s using is
really
freaking good. Like, it’s the same shit that Snowden guy used when he was whistle-blowing on the NSA. They couldn’t find him, and believe me, they tried.”

“I don’t know much about modern technology,” Stevens said. “But what the heck does a teenager need with that kind of encryption? This sounds like a little more than a lock on her diary.”

Nenad scratched his forearm absently, the Superman tattoo. “Oh,
it’s much bigger than that,” he replied. “This kind of program, I’d say the only way you’ll find this girl is if she decides she wants to be found.”

“So the question remains,” Stevens asked Windermere, “why the heck is Ashley Frey so intent on staying hidden?”

Windermere didn’t answer. Didn’t have an answer. Figured, whoever Ashley Frey was, her clock was ticking.

<
12
>

Windermere watched Nenad
walk back out through CID to the elevators. Felt empty inside, nauseous. Felt like she’d just let Ashley Frey die.

The phone was ringing behind her. Windermere turned, watched Stevens pick it up. Watched him answer, nod, do more listening than talking. When he hung up the phone, he went to where she stood in the doorway.

“Harrisburg PD,” he told her. “Turns out there’s more than a handful of Freys in the phone book. Even a couple of Ashleys, they said, but they’re older, grown-ups, not our person. The PD is hitting every Frey household, looking for underagers named Ashley, asking around.”

He shook his head. “Thing is, none of the schools in Harrisburg have any record of an Ashley Frey in their registers. High schools, middle schools, private schools, none of them.”

Windermere watched the elevator doors close behind Nenad, knew Stevens was waiting for her to come up with something good.

“They try outside the city?” she asked her partner. “Surrounding districts? Heck, maybe she lied on her profile. Maybe she’s not in Harrisburg to begin with.”

Stevens followed her gaze out across the office. “Yeah, I mean, maybe. That girl’s using some pretty heavy-duty concealment technology, Carla. She could be anywhere on the planet, for all we know.”

She looked at him. “And?”

Stevens made a face. “I’m just saying,” he said. “This is starting to look a lot like one of those needle-in-a-haystack gigs we tend to attract. Only this time, there’s no FBI-slash-BCA-sanctioned investigation attached.”

“You’re saying we’re wasting our time. You want to drop this thing?”

“I’m saying . . .” he started. She could feel his eyes on her again. Refused to turn his way. “Sooner or later, the Special Agent in Charge is going to want to know why we commandeered his best tech guy—and Mathers—on a wild-goose chase, when we still have a case left to close on our desks.”

Windermere turned. Studied Stevens until he looked away. “The sex traffickers are dead or in jail, Stevens,” she said. “We’re just tying up loose ends, and you know it. There’s a girl out there who needs our help, and you—”

“It’s been two days, Carla,” he said, and she could tell he was trying to be gentle about it. Kid gloves. “For all we know, she’s dead already.”

“But we
don’t
know, Kirk,” she said. “I’m not going to let this girl off
herself while I stand around and file paperwork. We could still find her if we—”

“How?” Stevens asked. “You heard what Nenad said. If this girl wants to stay hidden, we’re never tracking her down.”

“Bull-
shit
.” She was aware that heads were turning across CID, people staring at them over the top of their cubicles. She ignored them. “I’m freaking finding her, partner. If the SAC wants to tell me otherwise, he can come and tell me himself.”

She walked away. Didn’t look back, didn’t know where she was going. Felt Stevens’s eyes on her from the doorway, the rest of CID.

Windermere walked fast. Tried not to let on she was hurrying away. Kept going until she knew they couldn’t see her anymore.

<
13
>

It started with
the hole in the wall.

Randall Gruber was fifteen years old when his mom took up with Earl and his daughter, moved them out of town into that shitty double-wide, the place nothing more than a few flimsy particleboard walls and some aluminum siding. Sarah would have been sixteen, just a few months older than he was.

He’d noticed the hole within an hour of moving in, after his mom shoved him into the little bedroom and Earl chucked his battered
suitcase in behind him. He’d lain on his bed, drawing pictures in his sketch pad, stifling hot and bored out of his mind already, and he’d looked across the room and noticed the hole.

It was about the size of a dime, belt-high, kind of ragged around the edges. He’d put down his sketch pad and climbed off the bed, crossed the little room and knelt at the hole, peered through, blinking a couple times to focus. And there she was, like his own private movie.

Sarah was brushing her hair on the other side of that hole, primping and preening in a little mirror above her dresser, the sides of the frame all tacked over with pictures of teen idols and movie stars, the New Kids on the Block, Tom Cruise and Luke Perry. Sarah was wearing a pretty dress; she was singing to herself, singing along with the radio. The dress was light blue; her hair was honey blond.

She was getting ready to go out. Gruber watched her brush her hair, watched her dance around her little bedroom. Watched her pause while fixing her makeup to stick another poster on the wall.

He knelt at the hole, hardly daring to breathe. The hot, late-summer air suffocating, his shirt sticking to his skin, his whole body tense as he watched her. He was sure Sarah would notice him. Still, he couldn’t turn away.

He’d been afraid to move out there. He’d been afraid of the meanness he’d seen in Earl’s eyes, when he’d come to call on Gruber’s mother. Gruber suspected that Earl would have left him behind if he could have. That he’d only agreed to move them both so that he could be closer to Gruber’s mom.

But his new stepsister seemed
happy
. She looked radiant through that peephole, far too good for her bedroom, for that crummy trailer. And
watching her, Gruber felt better. Maybe life with Earl wouldn’t be quite as bad as he’d imagined. Maybe he could survive there.

He watched Sarah bop around her little room. Watched her put the finishing touches on her makeup and wondered where she was going. If she had friends in this dump of a trailer park—a “motor court,” they called it, as if a fancy name could hide the sorry state of the place. He wondered if they would share the same friends. They weren’t so far apart in age after all.

The thought buoyed him. He hadn’t had many friends back in the city. The kids who’d known him in school had made fun of his soda-bottle glasses, the way he lisped when he talked. They’d left him alone, on his good days. On the bad days, they hadn’t. But maybe here would be different. Maybe everything would finally be all right.

•   •   •

All too quickly, the illusion shattered. Gruber was watching Sarah buckle her shoes when, behind him, Earl pushed open the door. Barged into the little bedroom; didn’t bother to knock. Just walked in and waited for Gruber to notice.

Gruber scrambled up from the floor. Prayed Earl hadn’t seen the hole. Prayed he wouldn’t think to ask why his new stepson was kneeling at the wall. But Earl didn’t notice. He fixed Gruber with a hard stare, didn’t bother to hide his distaste.

“Live in my house, you’ve got to earn your keep,” he said, and there was a menace to his tone. “There’s a pile of junk and old scrap out back. Get on out there and move it.”

The whole trailer seemed to still, waiting on Gruber’s response. He couldn’t even hear Sarah in the next room, or her music anymore. Earl’s
eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched. “Don’t make me ask you twice,” he said.

Gruber glanced back at that hole in the wall. Knew Earl was waiting, itching for an excuse. And as he followed his new stepfather out through the shitty double-wide to the gravel-patch yard, the stench of cheap bourbon lingering in the warm air, Gruber knew he’d been wrong to put faith in what he’d seen through the wall, foolish to believe it had any bearing whatsoever on his own life in Earl’s trailer.

<
14
>

Windermere stayed up late.
Sat in her living room and drank beer in near darkness, thinking about Ashley Frey, in the dim light from the kitchen and the glow of the streetlights outside. The condo was quiet. Mathers had long ago gone to bed. She’d pretty much pushed him away.

“So crazy about that Frey girl,” he’d said over dinner. “If Nenad can’t track her down, believe me, nobody in the world can find her.”

Windermere hadn’t said anything. She’d picked at the Greek salad he’d made them, tried not to think about the girl, how lonely she must feel, how desperate. Tried not to think about the people who must have driven her to that stupid, shitty end.

Big Bird, Big Bird
.
Go fly away.

Mathers scraped his plate. Studied her across the table. “You okay?”
he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get so caught up in a case.” He laughed. “And it isn’t really even a case.”

She didn’t answer. Speared a piece of lettuce with her fork and examined it, couldn’t find the energy to take the process further. She knew she should talk to Mathers, tell him what she was feeling. Knew a good girlfriend would communicate with her partner, tell him what was on her mind. Couldn’t bring herself to do it.

You sold your friend out for a stab at popularity. You let her walk away, and you laughed with the rest of them, even when you knew she was hurting. What’s Mathers going to say when you tell him? What’s he going to think of his girlfriend?

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Mathers asked her. “Anything you’re thinking about, that’s what I’m here for.”

She cracked open a beer. “Nothing to talk about, Mathers. Don’t go getting all soft and sappy on me. I’m not that kind of girl.”

He gave it a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know.”

A couple minutes passed. Mathers stood, took his plate to the sink, came back to her, leaned down and wrapped her in his arms. Windermere stared out the window at the dark, stayed rigid, drank her beer.

“Carla,” Mathers said. “Whatever you’re fighting yourself over, you can tell me. I can help.”

“I just want to freaking know this girl’s all right,” she said, pushing the chair back, breaking free of his arms. “Can you figure that out for me, or no?”

Mathers sighed. “Carla—”

“Didn’t think so,” she said. Then she stood. “It’s fine, Derek. I just need to be alone.”

•   •   •

Now it was late. She’d killed a couple more beers, chased her tail thinking about Ashley Frey and that goddamn anonymizer, or whatever the hell it was called. Realized with some surprise she was craving a cigarette.

She’d smoked only briefly in her life, a year at law school in Florida, when the stress threatened to overwhelm her, derail her career and send her spiraling back to Mississippi. To Wanda and Rene. She’d hated smoking, how dirty and weak and damn
needy
it made her feel, quit after that first year and hadn’t really looked back. She’d smoked a cigarette, once, when Stevens’s daughter had gone missing during the Carter Tomlin bank robbery case. Half a cigarette; she couldn’t make herself finish it.

Now, though, she wanted one. More than one. A pack. She wanted to smoke and drink and feel self-destructive and miserable. And, screw it, that’s what she was going to do.

Windermere dug out a pair of running shoes, pulled on her coat. Rode the elevator down to street level and stepped out into the night, the streets mostly empty and the air cold and raw. She wrapped her coat tighter and hurried down the block to the corner store, bought a pack of Marlboros and a little plastic lighter. Had to fiddle with the lighter a little bit to get it working—she was out of practice—but she made a flame. Lit the cigarette and inhaled, closed her eyes and held the smoke in her lungs. Wondered what Mathers would say if he saw her. What Stevens would say.

She’d expected that the cigarette would make her feel better. It didn’t. She’d figured she could coast on those latent, long-ago feelings of
worthlessness and self-loathing as she smoked a couple, three cigarettes, go back upstairs and drink and smoke some more—in the condo, yeah, because, screw it, why not?—and forget about Ashley Frey and go to bed foggy.

But Ashley Frey wasn’t going away. Neither was Adrian Miller. At least one kid was dead, and another was still out there. Fuck Stevens and Mathers; there had to be a way to find her.

Windermere finished her cigarette. Flicked it to the curb and started back toward her building. Made the lobby and called the elevator, hit the down button, the parking garage. Figured if she was going to be up all night being self-destructive, she might as well be getting some work done.

<
15
>

Earl never found
the hole in the wall. Gruber made sure of it.

He found a framed painting sitting in a trash pile a few lots down from the double-wide. A sailing ship in a storm. The glass was broken, but the painting was all right. The frame was decent, too.

He brought the painting home. Propped it up against the hole so that Sarah wouldn’t notice the light leaking in from his room to hers. Wouldn’t catch a glimpse of any movement.

He wondered what he would do if Sarah found out he was spying on her. How he would explain it if she found the hole. He needn’t have
worried. Sarah was too focused on boring, teenage girl stuff to even look in Gruber’s direction.

She talked on the phone, at least while Earl wasn’t around. She lay on her bed and wrote in her journal and listened to those boy bands she liked. Practiced her makeup in the mirror. Sometimes she snuck a cigarette from the pack she stashed in the broken vent in the floor, slid open her window and smoked.