Vanished (9 page)

Wells scanned the sheet. “Looks like the only time you’ve left the house was a grocery store run Thursday midmorning. And a stop at your friend McKenzie’s after the store. You were only there fifteen minutes?”

“Yeah, her parents were taking her somewhere. I went out because mom needed creamer for her coffee. I went to the little neighborhood store, not the bigger grocery store. Got one of those Hostess pie things, too. Chocolate. Ate it in the car on the way back. Mom doesn’t like to see me eating processed junk.”

Ava thought of all the fresh-baked items on Robin’s counter and agreed with his mom. Homemade junk was much better.

“Anyone else in the store besides the clerk?”

Jake shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe. I want to say there was someone else by the cooler doors in the back of the store when I grabbed the creamer. I didn’t talk to anyone but the clerk.”

Wells made another note that probably asked about cameras at the store.

“Think about the conversations you’ve had with your friends since you’ve been back. Anyone ask about your sister? Talk about her school?”

“I’ve thought about this,” Jake offered. “I didn’t talk about Henley with anyone before she went missing. I let some people know I’d made it to town. Two of my friends aren’t getting in until tonight, so I don’t have anything to do until then. Yesterday I slept in until almost noon. I didn’t even know Henley was missing.” He blinked rapidly.

“Did you talk to Henley when you got home from the airport Wednesday?”

He nodded. “Yeah, she hugged me when I got home.” The teen gave a sheepish smile. “She’s cool for a little kid. Not a pest like some of my friends’ younger siblings. We watched
The Princess Bride
Wednesday night. Mom watched, too. I think Lucas was working late. Henley talks a lot, and she talked through the movie. She always wants to discuss what she’s seeing, you know? Keeps up an ongoing commentary about everything in front of her. I tune her out quite a bit. I mean, she doesn’t
stop.
” He looked at the three adults with wide eyes, asking for forgiveness for not listening to his little sister.

“Small kids can have a lot to say,” Ava said.

“Thursday, I didn’t see her until dinnertime. She had school, and I was in my room all afternoon. She sat by me at dinner and talked. As usual. She was excited for the last day of school, and there was going to be a used-gift exchange. She’d picked out a stuffed animal to give and was worried that the other kids would think it was a baby gift. Mom had told her it was fine and to add some candy to the present if she was concerned. No kid gets upset about getting candy.”

For someone who usually tuned out his sister, Ava noted, he’d listened to her concerns that night.

“I played games after dinner. I don’t remember seeing her anymore that evening,” the teen said quietly.

“Games online?” Wells asked.

“No. I signed out. Some games are better played alone.”

“What do you mean signed out?” Ava asked.

“Microsoft’s Xbox community. When I don’t want to be interrupted, I hide myself so no one pops in to talk or message me.”

“Your room overlooks the street. You see anything unusual since you’ve been home? I know you can’t recognize every car on your street.”

“It’s a quiet neighborhood,” Jake answered. “Cars drive by. I don’t look. The house sits pretty far back from the street.”

“How about UPS or FedEx? See or hear any of those trucks? It’s the week before Christmas; I’d imagine people are getting deliveries.”

Ava knew Wells was trying to prompt Jake’s memory. The roar of a delivery truck was a recognizable sound.

“Yeah, I remember hearing a truck. I don’t know if it was Thursday or Friday morning. The house next door got a delivery, and their dog went nuts. It could have been the house next to them getting a package, I guess. I was awake but still in bed. That dog next door always barks at strange vehicles in the driveway.” Jake looked surprised that he’d recalled the incident.

“Hear that dog any other times?” Wells prodded.

Jake stared in his direction, his eyes blinking rapidly as he thought. “Yesterday afternoon,” he said after a long pause. “Once all the media started showing up. They must have moved the dog in the house because I didn’t hear it last night. With all those strangers and vehicles out there, it should have been barking its head off.”

Wells nodded. “Nice job. Let’s talk a bit more about your neighborhood. Who typically leaves their cars parked on the street?”

“Two houses down,” he replied promptly. “A red Taurus is always in front of their house. It’s more of a magenta, actually. And there’s always a big Chevy pickup on the street farther down on the opposite side. It’s black.

“Most people don’t park on the street. Mom told me the neighborhood discourages it. When I was learning to drive, she always made me park in the driveway. That’s how I noticed who parks on the street. It’s a bit narrow. You always have to veer around the same vehicles.”

Wells looked through his notes and stopped at an aerial photo of the Fairbanks home and surrounding houses. “Your house does sit back pretty far. I’d imagine you can’t see very far up the street.” He set the photo in front of Jake.

Jake nodded and tapped his street on the photo. “From my window, I can only see the street directly in front of the house. I can’t see to the neighbors’ houses on either side of us because there are too many trees. I can hear the neighbor’s dog, though, and I can see part of the house directly across the street, but it sits back a ways, too.” He dragged a finger along the picture, indicating his lines of sight.

“Notice any walkers or joggers since you’ve been back?”

The teen shook his head.

Wells silently studied his notes. Ava glanced at Callahan. The man was watching his son carefully but seemed distracted. He kept glancing at the clock on the wall and shifting in his seat. He’d brought a pencil and notepad but hadn’t written a word. He just kept spinning the sharp pencil between his fingers. He caught her watching him and set the pencil down but didn’t make eye contact.

Something’s up.

She looked to Wells, but he was engrossed in his notes. If Callahan’s pencil spinning had bothered him, he didn’t show it. She suspected Wells was taking careful mental notes of every movement Callahan made. He was a born observer.

“I saw one of the news station reporters say Lucas’s business is being investigated,” Jake said slowly. “They also said Lucas wouldn’t talk to them.”

All the attention in the room went to Jake. His lips were pale, and his gaze bounced between the three of them, seeking reassurance.

“Don’t listen to what the media says,” started Ava. She leaned forward and touched the boy’s hand. “They’re looking for ratings, and Lucas is smart to not talk to them. We advised him not to.” She didn’t know that fact for certain but figured it was a safe bet. “Yes, they’re looking at his business. They need to know if there are any issues with clients that could drive someone to harm Henley. It’s common sense to look.”

“I’ll be doing all the talking to the media for the family,” Callahan added. “That was my agreement with Lucas and your mother.”

“They said he has a lawyer. Why did he get a lawyer if he didn’t do anything? They make it sound like he’s hiding something.” Jake’s voice wavered.

“It does make it sound bad, which is why the media makes a big deal of it. The business has a lawyer to protect its rights. Hiring a lawyer is not a sign of guilt,” Callahan reassured the teen. “It’s the right thing to do. Innocent people need lawyers, too.”

Jake didn’t look convinced, and Ava suspected that was a hard line for Callahan to sell. Lawyers slowed down police investigations, and there was no doubt Callahan had vented his frustrations in the past within Jake’s hearing.

“Online, too. People are saying horrible things about Lucas in the comments under the stories on the news websites. They all think he did something to Henley.”

Ava’s heart cracked. “Don’t read that stuff, Jake. They are uninformed people wanting to share in the public speculation. Making a stupid comment makes them sound smart in their heads. Anyone with half a brain knows they’re full of shit.”

He blinked at her choice of words. Ava didn’t care. Online speculation would be the family’s worst enemy. Nothing good ever came from it—just a lot of hurt feelings and anger.

“You need to keep your chin up. Some idiots will try their hardest to make the family look bad in this case, and they will do it where everyone can see it, read about it, and add fuel to the fire. You know the truth. Not them. Ignore it. There’s a chance it could get out of hand. I pray it won’t, but you need to realize that if it happens, it’s up to you to stay out of it. Don’t give them reason to focus on you. Your first reaction will be to defend your family. You have to stay strong and ignore what people say.”

“Stay offline,” Callahan ordered. “Keep the TV off, too.”

“They took my laptop last night,” Jake said.

“Don’t use the browser on your phone, either,” his father stated.

“Will I get my computer back before I go back to school?” Jake looked at Wells.

The agent nodded. “I’ll make certain we get it back as soon as possible.” He scratched a note.

“Will we know what happened before I leave for Duke? Before Christmas?” Jake whispered. He looked down at his clenched hands on the table, his knuckles white.

Ava bit the inside of her lip. Jake hadn’t asked if Henley would be back.

Had her brother given up already?

10

26 HOURS MISSING

Jake rubbed his eyes and stared out the window. After his interview, he’d excused himself to use the restroom and then wandered to the far end of the church. The building felt more like a school. Lots of small rooms and hallways. He peeked in the windows of the doors, passing an obvious nursery and toddler playroom. He kept going. God was somewhere in this building. Or at least there was a good place to talk to him.

His family didn’t go to church. Some of his friends did. He’d gone with a few of them on Wednesday evenings, when a big group of kids would get together and go bowling or hit the batting cages. No one had pushed God down his throat during these times. He’d waited for it, expecting them to all pull out bibles and pray at some point in the evening. Instead, he’d seen simple, clean fun. He figured they saved the preaching for Sunday morning.

He turned a corner and spotted three sets of huge double doors across the end of the hallway, indicating the sanctuary.

That had to be it.

The hall was silent; the noise of the FBI had dissipated as he walked through the big building. He stopped and peeked through a window in one of the doors. Rows and rows of chairs filled the room. A traditional-looking pulpit stood alone on a low stage, two huge screens hung in the front corners of the room, and . . . was that a drum set on the stage? He pulled open a door, and it snapped loudly as it swung out. He stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind him.

The room was silent.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

Wasn’t he supposed to feel God in church? Shouldn’t he feel at peace and comforted? Maybe it only worked on members. The lights were dim in the sanctuary; only the stage was lit. He moved forward, scanning the stage. Drum set, microphones, piano, electronic keyboards. Weren’t churches supposed to have giant organs?

He sat down in a seat in the front row and waited again.

He didn’t know what he was waiting for but figured he’d know it when it happened.

“Is she safe?” he whispered.

His voice was swallowed up in the silence of the gigantic room.

He leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, listening hard.

“Did he kill her?”

Silence.

He blew out a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting his hearing explore the room. A very quiet buzz came from the lights above the stage. He breathed deep and relaxed. At least here it was quiet. No parent or cop watching him with eagle eyes to make certain he wasn’t about to have a nervous breakdown. No escapist video games to turn off the horrible images in his brain. It was just him.

Please bring her home. She’s just a little kid.

Henley was a sparkly child. Her laugh infectious, her smile wide, and her eyes engaging. From the very beginning, he’d been fascinated with making her smile. Nothing made him happier than his power to transform his baby sister’s face. Although she lived with her mom a lot of the time, when she came to stay at his house, it was like she’d never left. They always picked up right where they’d left off. He was her source of information about the world, and she always had questions. Questions about weather, dirt, school, boys, and music.

Last summer they’d done a family trip to Disneyland. He could still see her spinning in the teacups with his mom while he and Lucas watched. As he looked back, he realized the trip had centered around Henley and his little sisters, Kindy and Kylie. But he hadn’t cared. Half his fun had been watching them squeal and scream and dance when they spotted a princess or Pooh. He and Lucas had snuck away to do the scarier rides, but what stuck in his mind was watching Henley enjoy her kiddie rides. When they’d discovered A Small World was closed, Henley had burst into tears, and Jake had been overwhelmed with the need to fix the situation. He’d surprised her with a souvenir from the Small World gift shop, bought with his own money. Her tears stopped and her eyes had worshiped him. He’d felt like a real superhero.

At what age had his sister’s happiness become more important than his own?

Jake opened his eyes.

God hadn’t appeared or spoken in his head. He still missed his sister and had no answers. At least he didn’t want to punch the wall anymore. He’d considered it in the bathroom a few minutes before, when anger and rage had been swirling beneath his urge to bawl like a baby. He hadn’t given in to either need.

He was helpless, useless. How could he find his sister?

He’d lost his superhero cape.

Ava slowly washed her hands. The church bathroom was immaculate and smelled like citrus air freshener. She soaked in the peace and quiet, stalling to avoid the hustle and noise of the command center. It felt good to let down her guard for two minutes without an agent or family member watching her. She counted slowly to ten, taking deep breaths and letting her mind wander, avoiding any thoughts of a kidnapper or the sad family. She shook the water off her hands and stared in the mirror, trying to ignore the signs of her twin in her features.

She knew they were there. The same eyes, the same lips, the same facial shape. That’s where the similarities ended. Or at least that’s where they’d ended last time she’d seen Jayne. Was Jayne in a cycle where she wanted the two of them to look alike again? The obsession seemed to crop up every few years. Ava, however, kept her look consistent. Her hair was always its natural dark brown, shoulder length, and her makeup was usually minimal. Jayne, on the other hand, changed with the seasons, often going through a platinum-blonde phase as she tried to imitate her namesake.

Their mother had named them after classic movie stars, Ava Gardner and Jayne Mansfield. Her sister rotated through stages, wanting to live up to her namesake’s glamour, while Ava had always been happy to be herself. She rarely explained the source of her name, preferring not to draw comparisons between herself and the movie star. It was easier now than it had been as a child. The movie stars had faded into obscurity in most people’s minds, and Ava was rarely in a position where her sister was with her to announce the story of their names to strangers. Too often as youngsters, her mother had introduced them and then immediately set into a lengthy explanation of their names. Ava would squirm in embarrassment as a stranger suddenly scrutinized the twins. Jayne had loved the extra attention and never stopped sharing the stories of their names, seeking fresh attention.

In middle school, Jayne had wanted to embrace the movie-star lifestyle, wearing only dresses to school and sneaking into their mother’s makeup. She’d been twelve when she’d decided she needed to be blonde for the first time. Their mother had cried at the sight of Jayne’s horrible orange dye job. Later attempts at becoming blonde were more successful, but Jayne never seem satisfied with who she was. She was always searching for her true self and involving people in her immediate circle in her quest.

Ava had been dragged into Jayne’s drama for years. If Jayne was unsatisfied, then she seemed to think that Ava should be, too. If Jayne hated their algebra teacher, then Ava should, too. If Jayne thought a boy was hot, then Ava had to be in love with him, too.

Ava had fought it. On principle she’d take the opposite stance. It didn’t matter if Chris Stemple was the hottest boy in the seventh grade. If Jayne was interested in him, then Ava found him lacking. If Jayne wanted to know who Ava liked, she kept it to herself. She’d learned that any interest she had in a boy or a dress or a bike resulted in that object being consumed by Jayne. She had to hide her likes, her emotional reactions, everything.

Jayne couldn’t enjoy her own life; she always wanted Ava’s.

Her sister’s morning email flashed through Ava’s mind. There was no way she was letting Jayne get a toehold in her current existence. She’d been in the Portland office for several years and liked it. Part of her reason for requesting a transfer to Portland had been to be closer to her sister, to help keep an eye on her. But she’d quickly learned she had to keep a wall between them. She loved her sister. She worried horribly for her sister, but she couldn’t let Jayne’s poison seep into her own world. Jayne was a human tornado, uprooting emotions, tossing them carelessly, and then leaving behind a disaster as she moved on to the next victim.

Ava used too many paper towels to dry her hands, delaying reentering the real world. It was time for Special Agent McLane to be strong for a teenage boy who was missing his sister. She threw the towels in the trash bin, risking one last glance in the mirror. No Jayne.

I’m not like her.

She found Detective Callahan in a discussion with Agent Sanford and two other agents at one of the workstations in the big room. She swore the timeline on the wall had lengthened by three feet during Jake’s interview, and another wall had vanished behind more charts and photos. The bureau in motion. She didn’t see Jake as she moved to join Callahan, who stepped aside to let her in their group.

“They’ve got a partial image from the neighborhood of a black or dark-gray Toyota Sienna minivan at seven fifty. Within the time frame that Henley vanished. No one on that street owns one of that color or model,” Callahan announced.

Excitement rushed through Ava’s chest as she focused on a blurred picture on the computer monitor. “Excellent.” The image showed the rear third of a minivan. She squinted. The license plate was partially cut off.

“Can they get the rest of the plate?”

“We’re working on it,” said the agent seated in front of the monitor.

She stared harder at the image, willing the blur to focus, hoping to see a child’s face through the dark privacy glass on the rear windows. “Where was the image taken?”

“Two houses past the bus stop. As you can see, the family’s camera was set to cover the driveway. Their son’s car was broken into one night, so they keep the camera trained on the driveway, and we got lucky that it covers part of the street. We didn’t see any other vehicles.”

“Did you catch the bus going by?”

“Yes, the bus goes by eight minutes after this minivan.”

Ava fought to keep her excitement down. “That has to be it,” she whispered.

The agent in the chair raised and dropped one shoulder. “It’s a good lead,” he said. “Best we’ve got going at the moment.”

“Where’s Jake?” she asked Callahan. “Has he seen this?”

“Bathroom.”

She nodded. Was he seeking the same quiet she’d needed?

She always needed alone time to refuel after intense situations. Jake’s interview hadn’t been too intense, but her concern for the boy’s feelings and Callahan’s apparent distraction had yanked her emotions in too many directions. The three agents moved into another discussion, and she stepped back, touching Callahan’s sleeve.

“What happened before the interview, detective? You were totally distracted in there.”

Surprise flashed in his eyes. “That obvious?”

She shrugged. “Probably not to anyone else. I notice things.”

He broke eye contact, looking toward the screen with the minivan. “Crap at work. It’s nothing.”

The tension in his jaw shouted that it was more than nothing. She waited. She wouldn’t push. He looked at her again, and she kept her gaze neutral. “Does this affect the family?” she finally asked.

“No, definitely not.”

“We’ve got a press conference scheduled in two hours,” Sanford interrupted. “I assume the parents don’t want to make a statement?”

“No,” Callahan replied. “I’ll talk to them and find out what they want said.”

“It might be good to see the moms on camera. It could personalize his captive,” Sanford added.

Ava knew the mentality Sanford was referring to. Sometimes kidnappers compartmentalized their victims as “things.” It was easier to destroy or hurt a thing instead of the daughter of a crying mother on television.

Callahan nodded. “I considered that, but my main goal had been to maintain the family’s privacy and to keep them out of the media circus while they struggle.”

“Think some more about it,” Sanford said. “They don’t all have to come. I think at least one person might be helpful.”

“I’ll run it by them. What if I read a statement from them? Would that work?”

“It’s better than nothing. It might be beneficial for the public to see the family.”

Callahan’s shoulders straightened as he looked hard at Sanford. If he’d had his cowboy hat on, Ava could imagine him tugging down the brim to intensify his stare. “You want the public to see the family, or you hope the kidnapper will? Their pictures are already all over the news. Do you really need them?”

Sanford blinked. “It’s up to them. I’m trying to utilize every tool we have to keep that girl safe. If a kidnapper gets a twinge of guilt because he sees her mom crying on camera, I’m going to use it.”

“He’s got no guilt,” Callahan snapped. “He grabbed a little girl off the street. We aren’t dealing with a normal human being. This is a screwed-up sicko.”

“Dad?”

The trio turned to see Jake. His eyes were wide, and his lashes trembled.

“You know who took Henley?” he blurted.

Ava squeezed Jake’s upper arm and turned his attention to her. “No, Jake. We’re discussing what kind of twisted human would do this.”