Vanished (20 page)

Her struggle must have been evident, because Kyle said, “Get some sleep and figure it out in the morning. Lauren is safe. The clock’s stopped ticking.”

She looked up into the sky-before-a-storm blue of Kyle’s eyes and felt her own eyes fill with water. The clock had stopped ticking for Brittany, too—and probably for Cassie.

Even though that clock had likely stopped years and years ago, to Evelyn it felt as if it had just come to a violent end a few minutes ago in that field.

If she slept now, what demons would visit her dreams?

Getting to her feet, Evelyn shook her head. She struggled with the comforter, trying to keep it wrapped around herself as she started pacing Kyle’s room. She needed to think. About anything but Cassie and that big, seemingly empty field.

“There was no kind of sensor system in the cellar. It didn’t seem that the search parties were heading there, but I should call Noreen and ask.”

“Evelyn.” Kyle tugged her down beside him on the ottoman. “It’s four in the morning.”

“She’ll be up. Everyone in town’s probably heard by now,” Evelyn said, then felt herself pale. Had Cassie’s parents heard? Were they already driving out to that field? “I should go back.”

Somehow, Kyle knew exactly what direction her thoughts had taken because he said softly, “The cops are just going to say there’s no information yet. You won’t be able to tell Cassie’s parents any more than that. There’s nothing for you to do there.”

Was she doing anything by being here, in Rose Bay, at all?

When she’d gotten the call from Cassie’s mom, she’d been filled with such dread, but it had finally been her chance, too. She’d been so certain she could make a difference here. And yet there was nothing around her but pain. And she didn’t even have a suspect in custody to show for it.

She didn’t even have the answer to the question she needed most to answer. Cassie had been wearing pajamas all those years ago, no metal button or zipper. So the first set of bones they’d uncovered probably wasn’t her. What had the cops found in the other graves? More bones of young girls? Or had the other two been older?

Cassie could have died the very night she’d been taken out of Evelyn’s life. Or she could’ve been alive until just a few days ago, when the new abductions began.

She could have faced every night locked in that pitch-black dungeon, only to see light when her abductor came in to assault her in some heinous way. Or she might have been locked down there, forgotten or abandoned, left alone until she starved to death, while her best friend went about her life a few miles away.

The tears rushed forward unexpectedly, blinding her. Sobs racked her so violently they hurt her chest and made it hard to draw air.

She fell forward against Kyle’s chest and his arms went around her, pulling her closer. He held on until the tears eventually slowed and then finally, finally, Evelyn closed her eyes and just stopped thinking entirely.

* * *

Mandy Toland wheeled her scooter down the drive. She’d finally convinced her babysitter to let her play in the front yard. When she glanced back, Amber was staring at her through the window, looking equal parts bored and sick.

When she’d gotten up this morning, her mom had said she was going back to work. She’d stayed home since Brittany had gone missing, afraid to let Mandy out of her sight.

Mandy had heard her mom answer the phone this morning. They’d found Brittany and Lauren. The person who’d taken them was still out there, but everyone knew who it was now, and her mom said they’d catch him soon. She said everything would go back to normal.

Still, her mom had spent twenty minutes telling Amber not to let Mandy out of her sight, while poor Amber sneezed and coughed. There wasn’t anything to do outside, but Mandy didn’t want to be anywhere near all that snot.

Reaching the end of the drive, Mandy set her scooter on the grass and bent down to pick some of her mom’s pink flowers. She could try weaving them into a crown, like Amber had shown her last week, when everything had been normal. Back before Brittany had gone missing and her mom had stopped going to work, afraid to leave her.

Her mom had cried after she’d gotten the phone call, but she wouldn’t tell Mandy why. All she’d say was they knew who the bad guy was and they were chasing him now. She said Chief Lamar would get him.

Mandy was sure her mom was right. Chief Lamar had come to their school last year and talked about safety. He’d told them all about chasing down bad guys and even shown them his handcuffs. She wondered if he’d come back and talk to them again now that she was going to start middle school.

Clutching an armful of her mom’s prettiest flowers, Mandy stood and promptly jumped backward, dropping them all. Someone was standing behind her.

Mandy whipped around, ready to scream for Amber, but relaxed as soon as she saw who it was. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, Mandy. You need to come with me, honey. Your mom was in an accident.”

Tears rushed down her face. “Is she okay?”

“She’s okay. I’ll take you to her now.”

“Good.” Mandy wiped her face and took the offered hand, not at all worried. Chief Lamar had told her back on safety day never to let a stranger take her anywhere. But she was sure it was okay if the person was with the police.

Nineteen

A
persistent ringing blared in Evelyn’s ears, distracting her from the vision of Cassie running through her backyard in a yellow flowered dress. Evelyn tried to ignore the sound, but it buzzed over Cassie’s voice, suggesting they go play hide-and-seek.

Evelyn fought to pull her hands from the cocoon of warm blankets and clasped them over her ears. In her memory, she was running her hands over a huge lilac bush, trying to decide if it was a good hiding spot. Purple pollen had fluttered over her clothes as she’d peered into the bush, seeing...seeing...

“Evelyn.”

Evelyn blinked her burning eyes, moving her hands away from her ears. She was lying on a bed, wrapped in a comforter and tucked close against Kyle. She blinked some more and realized she was still in his room, though she had no recollection of moving from the ottoman, of falling asleep. She had no idea how long she’d been out.

“What?” she asked, her voice scratchy, her throat sore from crying.

He held out her phone. “You just missed a call.”

It took her a minute to disentangle herself from the covers, to pull away from Kyle’s warmth. The room was boiling hot, but there was a feeling of safety in being pressed up against Kyle. As soon as she moved away from him, all the fear and anger and grief that had temporarily left her during sleep came flooding back.

She took the phone, looking at the clock. Ten-thirty. She’d slept about six hours. It felt like way more and way less at the same time.

With shaky hands, she accessed her voice mail. She’d missed a call from Tomas.

“Evelyn,” he said, and she immediately knew from his tone that something horrible had happened.

She pushed herself to a sitting position, wrapped her arms around her knees and waited for him to tell her. Was it about Cassie? Could they have learned more about the skeletons this quickly?

“Evelyn,” he finally said again, “another girl went missing this morning. Please get to the station.”

Her voice mail system asked her three times if she wanted to keep or delete the message, then hung up on her when she did neither. Evelyn set the phone down and looked at Kyle, suddenly realizing his fingers were threaded through her free hand.

“What happened?”

“He got someone else.”

The words were hard to form on her tongue and she stared up at him in disbelief. Darnell should’ve been on the run, getting as far away from Rose Bay as possible. Hell, even on the off chance it wasn’t Darnell, the culprit should still have been running scared.

But instead, he’d gone back into town and grabbed another victim. And she’d been here, sound asleep, dreaming of Cassie in better days.

Evelyn frowned, trying to remember what exactly she’d been dreaming. She’d been playing hide-and-seek with Cassie. It had been the day Cassie went missing. And she’d sensed something was wrong.

Evelyn sank back against the headboard. She’d gone over that day so many times. First for the cops, when Jack Bullock had made her recount it again and again. Then for herself, trying to piece together anything she might have missed.

And now she knew she’d missed the most important part. She’d
known
. She’d sensed something wasn’t right, sensed that someone was watching. It had taken her dream—a dream based on a memory—to tell her that. If she’d warned Cassie, would it have made a difference?

A sob inched up her throat, but Evelyn held it in and clutched Kyle’s hand when he reached for her. She couldn’t get buried in past mistakes. Not now.

Shoving back the covers Kyle had piled over her last night, Evelyn staggered to her feet. She was shaky, and it occurred to her that it wasn’t all from emotion. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

As she found her shoes by the ottoman and put them on, she tried to think back through yesterday, tried to recall when she might have had anything to eat. A quick glance in the mirror told her she’d better run to her room and change before going to the station. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty from being in the cellar, her bun half-pulled out from sleep.

She stumbled for the door, but before she reached it, Kyle was in front of her. She looked up into his worried eyes and it suddenly occurred to her. “Didn’t you have to fly home this morning? Did you miss your flight?”

“No, Evelyn,” he said patiently, as if he’d already explained once. “The rest of my team left a few hours ago. I got permission to stay behind with you. I took some of that personal time I told you about. My boss is taking care of the paperwork.”

Time off wasn’t always easy to come by, and time off with no notice was unheard of except in a true emergency. It occurred to her that Kyle had probably just put a great big dent in his personnel file. And he’d done it for her.

Thank you
seemed inadequate, but she didn’t have the energy for anything else.

“Go shower and change. I’ll meet you at your room in twenty minutes or so with some food and then we’ll go to the station. Okay?”

She nodded and made her way out the door on feet that didn’t seem to work right. When she followed him down to her rental car almost half an hour later, biting into a sandwich he’d bought in the coffee shop downstairs, she felt marginally functional.

Kyle hopped into the driver’s seat, looking wide-awake despite having been on surveillance the whole night before and then chasing Darnell and standing around a field of graves all day and into the next night. Evelyn sipped the strong tea Kyle had gotten her, pressing a hand to her stomach as it rebelled against everything she forced down. But the food was clearing her head, and as Kyle started the car, she called her partner.

“It’s Evelyn,” she said when Greg picked up. “Give me the details.”

The noise in the background almost drowned Greg out as he told her, “I hope you’re close to the station. You know the players better than I do. And we’ve got to take a second look at everyone.”

“I’m on my way now, with Kyle. Who was the victim?”

“Girl’s name is Mandy Toland. Twelve years old, just like the others. Grabbed right from her front yard. Very, very small time frame—about an hour and a half ago. First daytime abduction. The babysitter says she was watching Mandy pick flowers through the window when she had to go get a tissue. She blew her nose, came back to the window and Mandy was gone. She ran out there and found a nursery rhyme.”

Evelyn clutched her tea too tightly and the cap popped off. Ignoring it, she said, “That’s his riskiest abduction yet, if he grabbed her in the time it took the babysitter to get a tissue. What, a minute? Less?”

“Especially since all the cops in town now have a picture of Darnell on their dash.”

“Why does the victim’s name sound familiar?” Evelyn asked.

Greg sighed. “That’s part of why you need to get back here, Evelyn. Mandy is one of the girls you identified from the pictures in Walter Wiggins’s bathroom.”

“Oh, shit, that’s right.”

“There’s more.” Greg’s voice was weary when he added, “The coroner completed Brittany’s autopsy. There was no evidence of sexual assault.”

“What?” But Darnell Conway was a sexually motivated offender. Wasn’t he?

“Yeah. Hurry up and get here, okay? We need you.”

“I’m almost there,” she told Greg as Kyle glanced at her and punched the gas.

“What’s Lauren saying?” Evelyn asked. “Did she identify Darnell?”

“Lauren hasn’t said a word since you got her out of that cellar. The girl is badly traumatized.”

Greg hung up before she could ask anything else and Evelyn stared out the windshield, the food on her lap forgotten.

How had Darnell—or anyone else—grabbed another victim
now
? And if there was no sexual assault, why had Darnell grabbed her? Could it have been Walter? He’d had Mandy’s picture. But his motive would have been the same. What about Frank Abbott? The field was close to his house. But how would Darnell know where the cellar was if it wasn’t his?

What the hell was she missing?

And after failing Brittany so completely, did she have any hope of bringing Mandy home alive?

* * *

“Where is she? Where’s my daughter?”

Mandy Toland’s mom had gone into the CARD command post an hour ago to give them information, but Tomas could still hear her voice ringing in his ears. It sounded too much like the voices of Lauren’s parents, of Brittany’s parents.

Last night, he’d been the one to tell Mark and Heather Douglas that their daughter was never coming home. Jack had stood next to him, lending support as Heather Douglas pounded her fists against Tomas, crying and screaming.

He’d let her do it, until finally she’d run out of energy had and one of his veteran officers had driven them to the coroner’s office. Tomas knew he deserved worse. He’d failed them. He’d failed all of them.

And the hell of it was, it looked as if Evelyn had been right from the beginning. The mistakes rolled through his mind now—the way he’d resisted her suggestion that Darnell was a suspect because he didn’t match the profile. The way he’d taken surveillance off Darnell at exactly the wrong time. And the guy was still out there, had somehow managed to grab yet another girl.

How the hell was he doing it?

Tomas scrubbed a hand over eyes that burned from too many hours without rest. Around him, the station was loud. Officers and FBI agents rushed around, playing catch-up with a predator who’d been too far ahead of them for eighteen years.

Tomas glanced at the open conference room, where the new profiler—Greg something—was advising a handful of CARD agents on strategies for interrogating their most likely suspects. The CARD agents would be the lead on that. It was his job to get the suspects to the station.

The Amber Alert had gone out, and he had most of his officers out in cars already, searching for Darnell. While they did that, he had to focus on the other prospects.

It wasn’t too likely that Darnell Conway had just come across that cellar and it really belonged to someone else, but it was possible. Or maybe Evelyn was wrong and Darnell had a partner. And it was damn suspicious that Walter Wiggins had Mandy’s picture in his house.

Not that he could use it as a reason to bring Walter in for questioning, since Evelyn had found it illegally.

Tomas heaved out a sigh and called into the bull pen, “Where’s Jack?”

There were only a few officers at the station, and most of them were on their way out. One rookie looked up at him and shrugged. “He said he was going to go run a lead early this morning, before we heard about Mandy.”

“What lead?” Tomas demanded. “Does this have anything to do with Wiggins?”

The rookie shrugged. “He just said it was a long shot and he’d be back in a bit.”

Damn Jack. He’d expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and take over as chief. When it hadn’t happened, he’d been bitter as hell. On a good day, Jack was a pain in his ass. On a bad day, he was downright belligerent, acting as if he were in charge, chasing leads without telling anyone.

Today, of all days, he didn’t need that.

“Where’s Evelyn?” he asked Greg.

“I’m here,” she said.

Tomas turned around and there she was, flanked by that other FBI agent—the one who looked as though he had a past as a special-operations soldier and now worked as Evelyn’s personal bodyguard.

Tomas nodded at Kyle—no reason to piss that guy off—and told Evelyn, “I’ve got two of my officers picking Walter up now. Greg is advising the CARD agents on interrogation strategies, but I want you there.”

“Get Frank Abbott in here, too.”

“What?”

“Noreen’s sister died nineteen years ago.”

Tomas frowned, trying to absorb that news. Noreen still talked about her sister occasionally, and it always sounded as if she were alive. So had Earl, back before he passed. Why would they have kept something like that a secret?

“Frank isn’t my top suspect, but we need to check him out. His house is closest to that field.”

“No,” Tomas argued. “There’s an empty house between Frank’s and the old Bullock property where you found the cellar.”

“I mean, it’s closer than any of the other suspects.”

Tomas unlocked his jaw. “I didn’t know Frank
was
a suspect.”

“The CARD agents were looking into it. It’s a remote possibility, but...”

She didn’t even look sorry for not telling him about that. Tomas just prayed they’d find Mandy soon—alive—and that all the feds would leave Rose Bay for good.

“T.J.!” Tomas called. “Go pick up Frank Abbott, would you?”

“On what pretext?” T.J. asked, just as Noreen rounded the corner, her face ashen.

“I’ll go get him,” Noreen whispered.

“No.” Tomas shook his head. “You can go with T.J. if you can get him to come in voluntarily, but you’re not going by yourself.”

“He didn’t do this, Tomas.”

She looked so horrified, so small and vulnerable. It reminded him of the day he’d been hired as chief, when she’d introduced herself and then asked if he was going to fire her. He’d understood in that second exactly why Jack’s dad had hired a girl with no experience.

But it hadn’t taken long to understand why he’d kept her on, why he’d given her more and more responsibility. She worked hard. And she was dedicated to the police officers she supported and the town of Rose Bay. She was smart, and as far as he could tell, she didn’t have much of a life outside the station.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Noreen?” he asked quietly.

She stared down at her shoes. “My dad didn’t want anyone to know. After he died...” She looked up at him and cringed. “I didn’t know how to say it had all been a lie.”

“I realize he’s your uncle, Noreen, but I need you to try and be impartial here. Is there any chance he could have done this? To make up for Margaret?”

Noreen shook her head, but she waited a beat too long, and Tomas knew she wasn’t sure.

“I need you to go with T.J. Get your uncle to come here voluntarily and answer some questions, okay? Get him to give us permission to search his house again, too.”

Noreen nodded shakily, and then followed T.J. out the door.

“Is that a good idea?” Evelyn asked. “Sending her, I mean?”