Vanished (17 page)

He changed direction, walking over to her instead of the station doors. He’d come to give her and Greg the news about his case, but that could wait. At the moment, Evelyn claimed his full attention. Wherever she was going, he knew he wasn’t going to like it.

Rather than answering, he climbed into her passenger seat. “Going with you. Where are we headed?”

She stared at him blankly for a minute, then joined him in the car. “Actually, this is good,” she surprised him by saying, apparently past her earlier embarrassment. “I need to see what Darnell’s up to. I was planning to take Jack, but he’s running down another lead, and I couldn’t find T.J.” She was talking at double speed as she put the car in gear and whipped out of the parking lot before he’d even buckled his seat belt.

“That asshole from the dunes?” The same guy who’d caused her to get a censure in her otherwise sparkling personnel file when she’d trespassed on his property?

What she’d done was wrong, but he understood. He didn’t have a case like hers—he’d joined the FBI because it interested him, not because he had a driving need to solve some tragedy from his past. But plenty of agents had a painful incident in their histories that had pushed them to join the Bureau.

Still, he’d never met anyone so completely dedicated to the job as Evelyn. As much as he wanted to see her lay her demons to rest, he didn’t want to watch her destroy her career in the process.

“Yes, Darnell Conway, from the dunes,” Evelyn answered. “He left the search party in a hurry and I want to know why.”

“You know where he’s going?”

“No. I’ll try his house.” She hit the gas and sped around the car in front of her, getting honked at in the process, then raced onto the bridge that led out of Rose Bay.

“What could he have found out while he was with the search parties that would make him rush off?” It didn’t seem like much of a lead to Kyle.

“I have no idea. Maybe nothing related. But maybe—I’m speculating—maybe he’s got a sensor system set up wherever he’s hidden the girls and it set off an alarm on his phone.” He had sensors in his yard, so it was a possibility. “Or he heard that the search parties were going somewhere he didn’t want them to look.”

“What if he received a phone call?” Kyle asked. “Could he have a partner?”

Evelyn frowned as she increased her speed. “No.”

She wove around traffic in the main part of Treighton, slowing down as she neared a residential area. Then she looked at him as if she’d suddenly realized something. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be leaving for your surveillance soon?”

“That’s why I swung by the station. The official word came down today. We have what we need, and a tactical solution was ruled out, so we’re getting out of here in the morning.”

“Oh.” He recognized disappointment on her face, but she hid it fast.

It wasn’t as though they’d been able to talk except in passing, between his nighttime surveillance and her around-the-clock investigation. “You need my help with anything? The flight doesn’t take off until 0700.” He figured it was unnecessary to add that anything she needed, he’d do.

But the surprised way she shook her head told him that her disappointment was personal, not professional.

He tried not to grin too broadly. “You want to talk about earlier?” Earlier, when she’d kissed the hell out of him.

“Uh, well...” She slid her hand over the ever-present bun neatly wound on top of her head. “We’re almost at Darnell’s house.”

He knew exactly what the problem was. The Bureau didn’t care if its agents dated. But they couldn’t be assigned to the same squad or work the same cases. And BAU and HRT worked a lot of the same cases.

Evelyn wasn’t the kind of woman who would be interested in casual. And even if she was, the Bureau wouldn’t care—to the bureaucracy, dating was dating and it meant reassignment.

There were no women on HRT, so he couldn’t begin to guess how their situation would work. But he assumed it just meant that if his team got called out, they’d use a different profiler. And if she was already on a case that needed a tactical team, one of the other units would go out—that could get trickier because of their rotations, but the Bureau could worry about that. It didn’t seem like a big deal to him; knowing Evelyn, it probably seemed insurmountable to her.

He’d spent the past year trying to get her attention. And he had a feeling it was going to be twice as hard to get anything more.

Now was without a doubt the worst time to push her on it, but he was sick of waiting. “You planning to take some vacation when you solve this case?”

He could tell she was about to answer no, but he cut her off. “Because I have the days off, if you want to go away somewhere.” He threw it out there casually, in a tone she’d have trouble reading. For someone who understood the intricacies of every type of evil mind on the planet, she’d never been quick on the uptake with a joke.

She turned toward him again, such confusion and shock on her face that he had to laugh.

“Too soon for a weekend away? How about dinner, then? That’s not much of a commitment, right?”

“Mac...”

“No? Lunch?”

She let out a surprised laugh.

“Lunch, it is,” he said as she slowed the car and pulled onto a residential street, her face going serious.

“That Darnell’s house?” he asked, gesturing to the house down the road with all its security lights on, although the sun was just starting its descent.

“Yeah.”

“You think he’s there?”

Before Evelyn could answer, Darnell’s garage door lifted.

Evelyn sank lower in her seat, but they were in a running car parked on a residential street.

Instead of trying to duck under the dash, Kyle took off his hat and set it on her head, tilting the brim over her eyes. He popped open the glove compartment and removed a map, unfolding it and handing it to her to hold in front of her face.

Darnell was more likely to remember Evelyn’s face than his, so Kyle just turned into the car, leaning close to her as though he was trying to look at the map, too. Darnell pulled out of the garage and onto the street, but now he’d only see the back of Kyle’s head as he drove by.

Kyle heard the car slow down as it passed, but he kept his head carefully bent over the map. As soon as the car drove by theirs, the engine gunned.

“Shit,” Evelyn said, shoving the map at him and shifting into Drive.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder as Darnell took a left out of the neighborhood.

Evelyn did a three-point turn and followed.

“Don’t get too close,” Kyle warned.

She sent him an irritable look. “I’ve done this before.”

They had the same basic training, which included moving surveillance. But he’d had a lot more practice. They weren’t in an ideal situation, with only one car and no GPS tracker. But the reality was, Darnell probably at least suspected he was being watched as soon as he’d seen the car on his street.

Kyle kept his mouth shut as Darnell darted around slower cars, getting honked at repeatedly, and making it impossible to follow stealthily. Evelyn did a decent job, trying to stay a few cars back. But with the shit Darnell was pulling, he was either a lunatic driver one ticket short of losing his license, or he suspected he had a tail and was trying to shake it.

“Damn it,” Evelyn muttered as Darnell shot through a yellow light. She whipped around a few cars, checked traffic and sailed through the red.

“Might as well stay on his tail,” Kyle said. “He knows you’re there.”

“He’s going back to Rose Bay. He’s on his way to the bridge. I just have to keep close enough that I won’t lose him once we get over.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You think he might be going back to the search parties?”

“No.” Her hands gripped the wheel too tightly as she eased back, letting Darnell get out ahead of her again. “I don’t know where he’s going, but it’s not the search parties.”

She thought Darnell was going to his victims.

Kyle folded up the map and tossed it in the glove compartment. “Should we have Tomas put more cars on him?”

Evelyn shook her head as she continued to follow Darnell to the bridge separating Treighton from Rose Bay. “He knows we’re here and he’s attempting to get somewhere despite that. It means something’s happening. I’m going to try and make him think he’s lost me when we get into Rose Bay.”

After they went over the bridge, Darnell stayed on the outskirts of town, where the roads weren’t as populated, and Evelyn fell back. Darnell’s driving became less erratic, so it looked as if Evelyn had succeeded and he thought he’d lost them.

“What the hell is he doing?” she grumbled as Darnell turned onto a long, winding dirt road with overgrown fields on either side.

She dropped way back, until Darnell was completely out of sight. “This is a dead end.” She slowed even more as they drove for several miles, swiveling her head to peer down the few driveways they passed. Then she stopped and put the car in Park.

“What are you doing?” he asked as she got out.

“It dead-ends up ahead. Either he’s parked there, just screwing with me, or he turned into one of those drives and I missed him.”

Kyle stepped out of the car, crowding her to the side of the road as they walked forward. “He must’ve thought he lost your tail.”

But Kyle wasn’t taking chances. The last time he’d seen Darnell, the guy had been intentionally trying to intimidate Evelyn. And she’d been shot at the other day, possibly by him. If he was trying to lead Evelyn into a trap, Kyle didn’t want her in the open.

There was a patch of dense trees as they neared the bend, blocking their view of whatever was ahead, and Kyle crowded her even farther to the side, pulling his weapon. Moving his finger inside the trigger guard would take under a second; clearing the Glock from his holster would have taken longer.

She didn’t say a word, but from his peripheral vision, he saw her raise her own weapon.

Kyle scanned the cluster of trees, but saw no one. They rounded the bend, and found Darnell’s parked car underneath a grove of oaks, no obvious sign of him inside. Beyond that was an empty field, filled with waist-high grass. An ideal location to lie down, hidden, and line up a long-distance shot.

Any of the snipers on his team would have loved this spot as a potential hide.

“Stay behind me,” Kyle said as he carefully approached the car, checking inside. “Empty.”

“Where the hell did he go?” Evelyn whispered as Kyle pushed her against the car.

“I don’t know.” He scanned the grass, looking for anything out of place, keeping Evelyn behind him.

Then a flash of movement off in the distance caught his eye. Darnell. He’d been crouched in the field, below the level of the grass, and he suddenly took off, away from them.

Evelyn holstered her weapon and raced after him, and Kyle cursed and followed.

Darnell was fast, and he kept looking frantically around, occasionally shifting direction. The field stretched out for miles, broken up by random clumps of trees.

“Where does this go?” Kyle called to Evelyn as he picked up speed, outpacing her.

“Just fields. Old farmland,” Evelyn wheezed.

She’d broken ribs a month ago and he could tell that was slowing her down, but he didn’t wait for her. Everything about this situation was bizarre, but if his suspicion that Darnell was trying to lead her into some kind of trap was correct, Kyle wanted to be between them.

Near the edge of the field, by a large live oak, Darnell came to a near stop. Kyle was too far behind to tell what he was doing, but he positioned his hand near his holster just in case.

Darnell glanced back at him, a panicked expression on his face, and took off again, darting sharply right, toward another patch of trees.

Kyle sped up, closing the distance. Another minute and he’d catch the guy, tackle him to the ground and get some answers out of him.

“Mac! Mac!”

He skidded to a stop at Evelyn’s scream. He didn’t see her.

Ahead of him, Darnell reached the trees and kept going.

Kyle spun and ran back toward where Evelyn must have fallen. “Evelyn! Where are you?”

Her head popped up above the grass in the middle of the field. She must’ve been running toward the spot where Darnell had paused. “Mac! Help me! I think I found something!”

When he got back to her, he realized the field wasn’t as empty as it had appeared.

Evelyn was hunched on the ground, crouched on planks of rotting wood, obviously pieces of some structure that had fallen down years ago. She was tugging at something, and as he got closer he saw that not everything there was old.

Dread hit him hard and fast. Her hand clutched something amid what looked like planks of flooring. As he stepped closer, he saw her tugging at a shiny new metal latch.

The latch was attached to an old piece of wood, but a second glance showed him that it was hinged into the ground. She was trying to break the lock on the latch.

“Move,” Kyle said. Instead of trying to open the lock, he kicked just behind the latch the way he would if he was breaking through a door. The wood splintered. Another kick snapped it free and Kyle grabbed the wood, yanking it up.

Below, the ground opened into a dark hole. Someone’s man-made hiding place.

Kyle stared at Evelyn in the fading light. Her eyes were wide, broadcasting all her emotions. Disbelief, fear, hope.

Had they just found the Nursery Rhyme Killer’s lair? If so, what the
hell
were they going to discover inside?

Sixteen

P
aralyzed with the fear of finding out what was underneath her, Evelyn stayed rooted to the ground as Kyle shone a tiny flashlight into the dark cavern below them. It illuminated a ladder leading several feet to a dirt floor. The hole opened up at the bottom, extending under their feet, but she couldn’t see what was down there.

Kyle held out the flashlight. “Hold this for me. I’ll go in first.”

“No,” she said, finally recovering her voice. “Stay here. Keep an eye out for Darnell. You’re more likely to spot him if he comes back.”

Kyle looked unhappy, but she knew he couldn’t argue. The sun was fading fast now, and if Darnell was any good, he might be able to sneak up on her. Kyle had a lot more experience watching perimeters. And Darnell probably wasn’t gunning for Kyle specifically.

Besides, this was something she had to do herself. What if Cassie was down there?

What if she’d been stuck there for eighteen long years?

If she had, could she still be alive? Would she know who Evelyn was? Would she even know who
she
was anymore?

Trying not to dwell on all the what-ifs, Evelyn strained to hear, but the pit was silent. If any girls were in there, they could have screamed themselves hoarse, but in the middle of an empty field on a dead-end road, miles from the nearest house, no one would ever hear. Especially with several feet of dirt above them to soundproof their prison.

Even if search parties had come through here, they could easily have missed this small spot. She’d run over it only because she’d detoured toward the tree where Darnell had paused, as though he was looking for something. And from the way the planks had been shifted alongside the door, revealing the latch, she suspected someone had moved them. Had it been Darnell—before they’d come around the corner?

If the searchers had happened to hit just this spot in the field, they might have mistaken it for exactly what it probably was. An old building that had fallen down decades ago. Grass was already growing through cracks in most of the boards.

It was pure luck that she’d seen the brand-new lock. Pure luck she’d realized the wood planks weren’t lying on flat ground. Pure luck she’d run out here in the first place.

Gripping the rusty metal ladder with hands that trembled, Evelyn lowered herself carefully into the ground. When she got to the bottom, she had to crouch to enter the small cavern.

Someone might have originally built it as a root cellar. The ladder was old. But the lock proved it had become something else since then.

Evelyn took a quivering breath and reached for her flashlight with one hand and her SIG Sauer with the other. She expected to find children inside—she prayed still alive—but the FBI had taught her never to enter an unknown situation unprepared.

With slow, careful steps, Evelyn eased inside, bent low so her head didn’t bump the dirt ceiling. The scent of dirt and mold crawled into her nostrils.

And another scent. It took her a minute, then she recognized the acidic scent of urine, mixed with a smell she’d become too familiar with in her violent crimes days. It was the smell of sweat, when the person secreting it was terrified.

Someone was in here. Or at least, someone had been here.

Whose fear was she smelling? Brittany’s? Lauren’s? Or had it been trapped in an airless room for eighteen years?

She’d never been claustrophobic, but she suddenly felt closed in, trapped. Panic fluttered in her chest and she shoved it aside.

The cavern was completely dark. The beam of her flashlight illuminated sections at a time. A childish drawing hung on a dirt wall, the edges curled and yellowing. A plain white plate with a half-eaten sandwich on the floor, ants crawling all over it.

The beam of the flashlight shook as Evelyn shone it over the edge of a tiny bed, covered in a dirty, faded pink bedspread. And curled up at the farthest corner, a tiny figure, not moving.

“Evelyn,” Kyle called. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she tried to shout back, but it came out too quiet. “I’m okay,” she called again.

The child on the bed didn’t move at her voice and Evelyn stepped closer, tears pricking her eyes as she touched the girl’s shoulder. All the while, her mind was taunting,
Only one. There’s only one.

Who was it? Brittany or Lauren? And was she still alive?

As she gripped the child’s shoulder to turn her, the girl flipped toward her. Terrified brown eyes brimming with tears latched on to hers. Evelyn recognized her instantly from the police photos.

She sucked in a breath and her own eyes clouded with tears, but she blinked them away fast. “It’s okay, Lauren. You’re okay. I’m with the FBI.”

Quickly, she shone the flashlight around the rest of the room, looking for Brittany, but there was no one else in the cramped cavern.

“Mac!” she yelled, her voice sounding distant and weak. “Call for an ambulance!”

Putting her weapon away, Evelyn tried to smile reassuringly at Lauren, but her lips shook. “I’m with the FBI,” she said again.

Trembling, Lauren pushed to her knees, then launched herself at Evelyn, wrapping thin arms around her so tightly Evelyn had trouble breathing.

“It’s okay,” Evelyn repeated, over and over, as she lifted the girl up and walked back to the ladder. “We’re coming up,” she told Kyle, keeping one hand on Lauren and using the other to pull herself up and out of the cellar.

“Ambulance is on the way,” Kyle said, his profile tense as he continued to survey the area, watching for threats. “We need to meet them back on the road. Police are coming, too.”

As if on cue, Evelyn heard sirens approaching.

“You got her?” Kyle asked.

Evelyn nodded, and he let her take the lead as they headed back through the field toward the road, Lauren’s silent tears running down Evelyn’s neck. Every step she took away from the cellar made Evelyn long to run back, to search the whole area. What if Brittany was still somewhere out there? What if they all were?

Could there be other holes dug into that seemingly deserted field? Other children buried deep in the ground?

Could any of them still be alive?

* * *

The ambulance tore down the street, whisking Lauren away from the pit where she’d been held captive for twenty-six hours. Evelyn stared after it until well past the time she could no longer see the taillights, until she couldn’t even hear the siren.

Lauren’s parents were on their way to the hospital to meet her. Evelyn had seen enough of these cases to know how they’d react. Initially, nothing but pure relief and joy that their daughter was coming home to them alive.

Then they’d start to wonder exactly what had happened to Lauren during those twenty-six hours. When the ambulance had taken her away, Lauren had still been wide-eyed, unresponsive except for clinging to Evelyn and crying silently. She hadn’t said a word about who had taken her or what she’d endured.

Evelyn had worked her way into the minds of too many child abductors and their victims in her year at BAU. The possibilities were endless, every one more horrifying than the last. Her limbs felt heavy with the knowledge that no matter how many of those predators she helped put behind bars, there’d always be more.

“Evelyn.”

The soft voice at her ear slowly registered and Evelyn realized Kyle had been repeating her name. She turned, blinking him into focus, and discovering he had an arm wrapped around her waist, almost holding her up.

She straightened, trying to get her feet to work normally. Behind Kyle, police cars dotted the edge of the empty field, all their headlights on and pointing toward the cellar. Cops were everywhere, walking in specified patterns through the field, collecting evidence from the cellar, setting up a perimeter.

They’d only been on scene a few minutes, but they’d gone to work fast. Rose Bay was a small town. The news that Lauren had been found would get out soon and residents would start showing up. Among them were bound to be Brittany’s parents.

By the time they got there, would the police be able to hand them their daughter the way she’d handed Lauren to the paramedics? Or would they still be searching? Or worse, calling for a coroner?

Tremors shook her so hard there was no way Kyle wouldn’t have felt them. She tensed, trying to will them away, and locked her gaze on his. “Come with me?”

Her voice was weak, barely more than a whisper. What the hell was she going to find back in that field?

“Let the cops handle it, Evelyn. You don’t need to be here.”

She shook her head, pulled free of his supporting arm. Time to turn on the analytical side of her brain and shut down the emotional, the way she always tried to do with this kind of case. When she spoke again, her voice was steady, stronger. “I’ll see things they won’t.”

The Rose Bay officers and CARD agents would be in charge of collecting any physical evidence that might indisputably confirm the abductor. But until Greg arrived, she was the only one with the training to look for clues that had nothing to do with DNA or trace evidence. Clues that might be the key to putting the Nursery Rhyme Killer behind bars for good.

And even after Greg showed up, she was the only one who had the added advantage of knowing the town, having a history here.

She had to go back into that cellar and analyze the personality of the man who’d turned it into his own personal hiding place. She had to stand in the same cramped room where Lauren had been imprisoned. The same room where she’d been locked in the dark, not knowing if anyone would ever return for her. Evelyn had to look around that room and try to get into the head of the person who’d enjoyed putting Lauren through this torture.

Nausea welled up her throat. Had Cassie been in that same dark hole? Had she died there?

“I’ll come with you,” Kyle said, walking beside her, somehow lending her strength as they went back to the cellar.

Night had settled fully all around them, and the beams of light cutting through the field from the police cars, various stationary lights and cops’ flashlights lent an eerie glow to the scene.

“You were good with that little girl,” Kyle said softly, probably trying to keep her mind off what they might find.

“Thanks.” Her mind flashed back to Lauren, the way the child had clung to her, not saying a word.

“...can’t believe she was on the Bullock property this whole time,” someone said.

Evelyn whipped around to face the cops behind her. “What did you say?”

“This is the old Bullock property,” Stan Kovak, an RBPD veteran, answered.

“This is
Jack’s
property?”

“Well, it belonged to the old chief. But now that he’s gone, Jack owns it, yeah.”

The Nursery Rhyme Killer had hidden his victims on the old police chief’s property? Could he possibly have done that eighteen years ago, without Jack’s father noticing? Or was this a brand-new spot, just for these victims?

“Did Jack’s father use the property?” Evelyn asked.

Stan nodded. “Yeah. You said there was part of an old cabin or something that fell down where you found Lauren, right? I’ll bet the old chief built it. That was a real joke back then.”

“What was?” Kyle asked.

“Jack’s dad was a great chief, but he couldn’t build for shit. He sure thought he could, though. He lived in town, but you know how long the Bullocks have been here.” He looked at Evelyn, who nodded. “So, he had all this land out here, this old farmland, and he always talked about how he was going to build a house out here in the middle of nowhere and retire in peace.”

The rookie beside him smiled, as though he’d heard the story before, and his partner continued. “But every house he tried to build just fell down. There are probably a whole bunch of fallen-down structures on this property.”

“Does Jack ever come here?” Evelyn asked.

The rookie shrugged, looking pale and nervous as he stared in the direction of the cellar. “I doubt it. Why would anyone come here?”

Evelyn considered the little she knew about Jack Bullock. Back when Cassie had gone missing, Jack had been a rookie, married with a new baby. As far as she knew, he was still married, his son now grown. “Does his son live around here?” The officers glanced at each other, then back at her.

“What?” Evelyn pressed.

“His son died as an infant, Evelyn,” Stan said quietly. “He and his wife could never have any more kids. They tried for years—Miranda really wanted a daughter—but it never happened for them.”

Next to her, Evelyn could sense Kyle getting ready to ask more, but Evelyn cut him off. “Where’s Jack?”

“Right here,” Jack’s voice boomed.

Evelyn jerked around and there was Jack, running to catch up to them.

His skin was tinged with green. “You found Lauren under my dad’s property?”

“Yes,” Evelyn said. “Did you know about the cellar?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s possible my dad dug it out, but I have no idea. Equally likely someone else did it later. Everyone knew he was building out here.”

“Was he building around the time Cassie went missing? Could someone have used this property back then without his noticing?”

Jack scowled and cracked his neck. “Probably. He only came out here on random weekends. And you remember how small towns are. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing. If this spot was an early place my dad started to build...” Jack shrugged.

“What?” Kyle prompted.

“If this one fell down, he wouldn’t have tried to rebuild it. He’d move somewhere else, start all over.” Jack’s steps slowed as they neared the cellar, where officers were already working. “He didn’t like to see evidence of his failures. He’d just call it a trial, pick a new spot and try again.”

Evelyn slowed beside him as she watched a pair of FBI CARD agents who also worked as evidence response technicians descend into the cellar with their equipment.

The scene would be processed before anyone else—including her—could go back in.

Standing near the cellar, wearing his shirt inside out, his uncombed hair sticking up and every minute of his fifty-odd years showing, Tomas glanced over at her. “We’ve got an APB out on Darnell. Without his car, he shouldn’t get far. But most everyone is here. Once we process the scene, Evelyn, you can go in and see if it tells you anything. Your partner’s on his way, too.”