Vanished (23 page)

“Has she looked at suspect pictures?”

“Damn it, Evelyn, the girl’s still terrified. Completely terrified. Honestly, I don’t think she’s in any shape to look at pictures and I don’t think her parents would have allowed us to try.”

He sighed again, and Evelyn’s gaze was drawn to the stress lines on his forehead she didn’t remember being there when she’d arrived four days ago.

“I don’t know what this guy did to Lauren, but like I told you, she won’t say a word. She’s still here, and not because she’s got any obvious medical needs. She’s just afraid to go home. We’ve got cops posted outside her door at all times and until we find this guy, we’ll put them at her house, too. The hospital will probably only keep her for another twenty-four hours.”

He braced his elbows on his knees, set his chin in his hands. “I thought the APB would get Darnell in and this would be over.” He shifted to face her. “Are you
positive
it’s not him?”

“Ninety-nine percent.”

“Damn it.” He dropped his face into his hands, then sat back up. “Okay. So now Frank’s our strongest possibility? You think Mandy had the chance to escape because we had him at the station?”

Evelyn shrugged. “Maybe.”

Tomas’s whole body tensed. “You’re the one who knows how these bastards operate. What’s he going to do next? Now that we have Mandy? Because unless you or Greg or Carly come up with something soon, I’ll have to cut both Frank and Wiggins loose. We don’t have anything but your gut—and their histories—on either one of them. The second I release them, is another girl going to go missing?”

The words hung in the air until the nurse came back into the room, trailed by a doctor who looked weary and jaded.

Both Evelyn and Tomas jumped to their feet. “Well?” Tomas asked.

“No obvious sexual trauma,” the doctor said steadily. “She has some superficial injuries—consistent with falling down, probably when she was running away—but that’s it.” The doctor lowered Mandy’s patient chart to her side. “She is traumatized, though. She hasn’t spoken at all since she came in. Not even to her parents.”

“Can we talk to her?” Tomas asked.

The doctor nodded. “She’s a strong kid. But go easy.”

“Come on, Evelyn.” Tomas headed down the hall, then glanced back.

The doctor pointed at a nearby door and Tomas knocked.

“Come in,” a teary voice answered.

Tomas pushed the door open, and once Evelyn stepped inside, she closed it behind her.

The room was too small for her, Tomas and Mandy’s parents to all stand around. It felt overcrowded and stuffy, and Mandy looked petrified, tiny in the adult-size hospital bed. She wore a hospital gown and held a blue teddy bear that had obviously come from the hospital gift shop because its shirt read Feel Better Soon.

Following Evelyn’s gaze, Mandy’s father, a tall, broad man with bags under his eyes and stoicism in his face, turned his head away from his daughter. “She didn’t want to hand over the one she had with her,” he whispered, “so we got that from the gift shop.”

Evelyn glanced from him to Mandy’s mom, a tiny blonde with red-rimmed eyes who was clinging to Mandy as if she’d never let go. “She had a teddy bear with her?”

Mandy’s dad nodded. “The doctors have it, along with her clothes.” He looked at Tomas, frowning. “They said you’d want it all for evidence.”

Tomas clapped Mandy’s dad on the shoulder. “Yes, for fibers or anything we might find. Jim, we’d like to show Mandy a few pictures. Is that all right?”

Jim turned to his wife, whose lips trembled as she nodded. “Okay. But we stay in the room.”

“Of course.”

Evelyn knelt next to Mandy’s bed. The child was pale against the stark white of the hospital, her skin blending too easily with the sheets. She looked frail, her eyes huge and lighting nervously on anything that moved. She’d been missing for seven and a half hours, but she looked like she’d been gone for months.

A weight settled in Evelyn’s chest. Of all the girls, Mandy had been luckiest, probably suffered the least trauma.

Trying to put her emotions aside, Evelyn gave Mandy what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Hi, Mandy. My name is Evelyn. I’m with the FBI. Do you know what that is?”

The girl didn’t nod, didn’t react at all, just stared at Evelyn with her too-wide, too-wary eyes.

“She does,” her mom said from behind them.

“I’m here to find the person who did this, Mandy. He can’t hurt you now. We’re going to put police officers right outside your door and they won’t leave until we’ve got him, okay?”

Mandy clutched her bear tighter and clamped her lips together.

Evelyn resisted the urge to glance back at Tomas. Talking to victims wasn’t her strong suit, but her words should have reassured Mandy. Instead, she seemed more nervous.

“I want to show you some pictures,” she went on. “If one of these people is the man we should arrest for taking you, Mandy, you can just nod, okay?”

Mandy didn’t respond, so Evelyn took the first picture from her stack. Darnell Conway.

Mandy’s eyes flickered to her mom, back to Evelyn, then down to the picture, but otherwise, she had no reaction.

“Does he look familiar?” Evelyn pressed.

When Mandy did nothing but stare, Evelyn swallowed her frustration and flipped to the next picture. Frank Abbott.

Again, Mandy’s eyes dipped down to the picture, then back up to Evelyn, but nothing else changed.

“Okay, how about him?” Evelyn asked, turning to the shot of Walter Wiggins.

Mandy glanced down and unease shifted across her face. It was so subtle Evelyn probably would have missed it if she hadn’t been watching so carefully.

“Is this the man who took you?” Evelyn asked.

She asked twice more, but Mandy didn’t answer, and her expression didn’t change.

Finally Evelyn stood and nodded at Tomas.

“Thanks for letting us talk to her,” Tomas told her parents. “We’ll have officers stationed outside the door within the hour. Please call us if Mandy starts talking.”

“Did she identify someone?” Mandy’s mom asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Evelyn said truthfully. Mandy had recognized Walter, but he lived here in town and he’d taken pictures of her. Did that flicker of fear mean he’d abducted her? Or did it just mean she’d seen him watching and known she should stay away?

Unless she started talking, there was no way to be sure.

Evelyn turned to go, but Mandy’s dad grabbed her arm, his hold strong.

“Who was in that picture?”

“Sir, we don’t know—”

“Who was it?” he boomed.

“Jim,” his wife said, pulling his hand off Evelyn. “We need to focus on Mandy. Let the police worry about who did it.”

As Jim scowled, his wife added, “But if you don’t arrest someone by the end of the day, we’re getting our lawyer involved. She was supposed to be safe. You were supposed to have someone in custody!”

“We’re working—”

“She was supposed to be safe,” Mandy’s mom repeated.

“I’m so sorry,” Tomas said.

“Just go. Just go arrest whoever did this,” Jim said tiredly, then he and his wife turned back to their daughter.

Evelyn nodded and opened the door. Once it was closed behind her, she said, “Let’s go pick up the items the hospital collected from Mandy. I want to see this teddy bear.”

“A toy,” Tomas mused as they walked down the hall, back toward the nurse who’d helped them before. “There were no toys in the cellar with Lauren.”

“No, just that child’s drawing.”

“You think one of the girls from eighteen years ago drew it?” Tomas asked. It was obviously old, so it wasn’t made by Lauren or Brittany.

“Probably. Which means the abductor provided them with crayons and paper. It’s possible he left toys during the day and took them away in the evening. Or, since he’d wiped the place down, probably intending for us to find it, maybe that’s why everything else was removed.”

“So why leave that picture?”

Evelyn shook her head. “Maybe he wanted us to know he took care of them?”

Tomas stopped abruptly. “Evelyn, he
killed
Brittany. And, as far as we can tell, the three girls eighteen years ago.”

Evelyn’s heart lurched at the one thing she was trying desperately not to think about. The forensic anthropologist had arrived, and the dental records were being checked, but it could still be a while before they knew whose bodies they were. “I’m not talking about reality. I’m talking about his perception. If we’re back to his motive being the idea that he was ‘saving’ these girls, then he believes he’s caring for them. And like I said from the beginning, even if it is really about molestation, with someone like Walter, he’d want an excuse. He could be telling himself he’s helping them. He might actually believe it.”

“Damn,” Tomas muttered, just as the nurse met them with a bag of Mandy’s belongings. Tomas took the bag and they continued outside.

The sun was bright, a slight breeze blowing across the parking lot, preventing the day from being too hot. Evelyn looked up at the cloudless blue sky, so perfect—and so deceptive when a child predator was at large.

“Do we buy Darnell’s assertion that someone texted him and told him to meet in that field?” Tomas asked as they got into his car and he blasted the air-conditioning.

“Carly is trying to get someone from the phone company to confirm.”

Tomas snapped on a pair of latex gloves and opened the bag the nurse had given him. He showed her the teddy bear, wrinkling his nose. “Old.”

Evelyn stared at it. She knew it wasn’t Cassie’s, but she tried to mentally review the case files from eighteen years ago. “Does this look like something that belonged to one of the original victims?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So, he probably bought it for them.”

“You think he’s held on to it for eighteen years?”

“Smells like it,” Evelyn said. “We should run it. See if we get any DNA hits for the original victims.”

Tomas nodded, shoving it back in the bag and sifting through the rest of the items. “A pair of underwear, tennis shoes, a dress. Wait, there’s something in the dress pocket.” His face went ashen and he took out a small pin. “What the hell?”

“What is it?”

Tomas’s hand trembled as he held it out toward her. “This pin belonged to Jack’s father.”

“Well, it was his land where we found Lauren and—”

“No, Evelyn. The office gave this to him the day he retired. It says RBPD Chief on it. When he died, it went to Jack. He always wears this. Every day. On his lapel.”

A bad feeling settled in Evelyn’s stomach. “Where is Jack?”

Tomas shook his head. “He went out to run a lead hours ago. I haven’t seen him since early this morning.”

“Since before Mandy went missing?”

Tomas swore. “Yeah.”

“Let’s get back to the station.”

Tomas pulled out of the hospital parking lot. “There’s no way it’s Jack Bullock. No way.”

Evelyn wanted to agree. But too many things piled up in her mind. The way he’d wanted her gone from the second she’d arrived. The weird impression Kyle had gotten from him, enough to run a background check. The fact that the cellar had been on his property.

As Evelyn leaned against the headrest, a memory rose up—Jack questioning her eighteen years ago. The way he’d gotten right in her face, his eyes hard and angry. The way he’d demanded she give him details she didn’t have until she’d broken down and cried.

The whole time, had he been holding Cassie down in that cellar?

Twenty-Two

S
he crouched inside the cellar, tears tracking down her face. Beside her were pieces of the tea set she’d loved for so long, shattered on the ground.

The girl was gone. She’d known, of course, since she’d been the one to wrench the latch open. She’d known the girl would run. She’d wanted her to run, because that way she’d live.

The girl hadn’t been the right one. Nothing was right.

Nothing had been right for eighteen years. For so long, he’d brought her sisters and then taken them away.

And for so long, she’d been so lonely.

Every time, when she could tell he was really mad, when she knew another girl was going away, she’d tried so hard to get him to change his mind. But no matter how much she begged him not to take them away, he always had. Leaving her all by herself.

It wasn’t going to be like that anymore.

She hadn’t wanted the little girl to die. Mandy was her real name. Mandy had cried, too, at first. Then Mandy had just gone silent.

And she’d known Mandy wasn’t going to work, either.

That was why she’d made it so Mandy could escape. It was better this way. At least Mandy would live.

But it meant she was alone again. Always alone.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the familiar cellar. Just breathed it in, one last time. As the years passed, she’d begun to feel more at home under the ground than anywhere else.

She opened her eyes, dried her tears and picked up the shattered pieces of the tea set. He’d never liked it when she made a mess. And she couldn’t leave anything behind.

Because she knew what was coming. It would be time to move on soon.

* * *

“We put out an APB on Jack,” T. J. Sutton, Jack’s partner, announced grimly as he entered the CARD command post.

“Good,” Evelyn said, before Tomas could respond.

“There’s no way—” T.J. started.

“The APB just lists him as missing,” Tomas said calmly. “Let’s not blow things out of proportion.”

“Blow things out of proportion?” T.J. snapped back. “You think he’s the Nursery Rhyme Killer!”

“All we know right now is that Mandy had his pin in her pocket,” Evelyn said. “We have to consider all the options.”

“You’ve hated Jack since you were a kid!” T.J. shouted.

“No, I—”

“I want you out there, T.J.,” Tomas interrupted. “You know Jack best. Go talk to his wife. He’s one of us, so until we learn differently, we assume he’s doing exactly what he said.”

“Maybe he ran into trouble,” T.J. persisted, but doubt crept into his words.

“Just get out there,” Tomas repeated. “And keep me updated.”

When T.J. closed the door behind him, Tomas heaved out a sigh. “Could it really be
Jack
?”

“He did have access to the investigation the whole time, which would put him a step ahead of everyone else,” Kyle said. “And as a cop, he’s not going to seem out of place in any neighborhood. Plus, he wouldn’t even need to snatch them. Kids would probably go with a police officer voluntarily.”

Tomas looked queasy and Evelyn knew why. If Jack Bullock had been abducting young girls while working as a Rose Bay police officer, that was a public relations nightmare that could destroy the station and cost Tomas his job.

“It is suspicious that the cellar was on empty land he owned,” Greg said.

“Everyone around here knows that land is vacant,” Tomas argued. “Jack and Miranda live right in town. Jack’s never been interested in building out there. He only kept the land because he’s sentimental when it comes to his father.”

“I was thinking more about eighteen years ago,” Greg said. “Jack had a handy excuse for being on that property. And would search parties have bothered to look on the police chief’s land? Especially if everyone in town knew he spent time out there, trying to build a house?”

“Okay.” Tomas straightened, turning to Evelyn. “So, are you suggesting that Jack has some tragedy in his past involving a young girl that none of us know about? Or that he’s a pedophile?”

Evelyn cringed at the ugly question. But being a cop didn’t absolve Jack of all sins. She’d solidified her spot in BAU, back when she worked violent crimes in Houston, by picking a rapist out of the police force.

“Given the autopsy results, the more likely option is that the killer is trying to make up for a loss in his own life,” Evelyn finally said.

“Well, Jack doesn’t have anything like that,” Tomas said stubbornly.

“That we know of,” Greg inserted.

“I looked into his background when I first met him,” Kyle said.

“Why?” Tomas burst out.

“I got a weird feeling from him,” Kyle replied unapologetically. “It was just a cursory check, but nothing like that came up. He did lose a son, though, when the boy was an infant. He and his wife never had any other kids.”

“They couldn’t.” Tomas paused for a moment. “Could this have something to do with losing their son?” he asked, sounding reluctant.

“Probably not,” Greg answered. “The abductor’s specifically grabbing twelve-year-old girls, which strongly suggests that’s who he lost.”

Tomas shook his head. “Well, then, it can’t be Jack. He never had a daughter.”

“That we know of,” Evelyn interjected, echoing Greg’s earlier comment. “There’s always a possibility he had an affair. Or it could just be a girl he was close to. What about Noreen’s sister?”

“What about her?” Tomas asked.

“Jack and Noreen seem to be pretty close. Was he close to her sister before she died?”

“I doubt it. I don’t think Jack was close to Earl or his wife. And he’s close to Noreen now, but that happened when his father hired her. Besides, you said Jack didn’t even know Noreen’s sister was dead until you told him?”

Evelyn frowned. “That’s true. Or at least, he claimed not to know.”

“I honestly think you’re looking in the wrong direction here, Evelyn,” Tomas said. “Jack and I don’t always see eye to eye, but he’s a decent person. I can’t imagine him doing this. There has to be some other explanation.”

“He was intensely involved in the original investigation,” Evelyn said.

“So was everyone who worked here then,” Tomas countered.

“He seemed to have a lot of resentment toward Evelyn,” Kyle said. “Considering he hadn’t seen her in more than a decade and his only real interaction with her back then was to interrogate her about her friend’s disappearance.”

Greg nodded slowly. “Jack’s behavior around Evelyn is odd. And that’s something we’d expect from this perp, since he originally targeted her and failed to carry out that abduction.”

“Well, why is that?” Tomas asked. “Why didn’t he carry it out?”

“He could’ve been called into work for some reason,” Kyle suggested.

“Cassie’s parents didn’t realize she was missing until the next morning,” Evelyn said.

“Yeah, but Jack’s a cop. Even if he was off duty, his father was the chief. If something happened that night, he could’ve gotten called back to work.”

“Can we check that?” Greg asked.

“Ah, shit,” Tomas said.

“What?”

“We don’t need to check. It’s mentioned in one of the old reports. When the notice came in about Cassie’s abduction, they had to pull a bunch of cops off another scene they’d been working half the night. Bad car accident by the bridge.”

“Was Jack there?” Kyle asked urgently.

“I don’t know.” Tomas shrugged. “But there’s a damn good chance he was. This has always been a small force. Even the off-duty cops got called in for that one. I know, because the report says officers were pulled in from the accident and from regular duty.”

“Okay, then we have an explanation for what could’ve stopped him from grabbing Evelyn back then. Plus probable opportunity and means with the other abductions,” Greg said. “But do we have motive? And what about the eighteen-year gap?”

Evelyn spoke up. “Could a case he worked have been his trigger?”

“What do you mean? What kind of case?” Tomas asked.

“After Jack and I talked to Walter Wiggins at his house...”

“What?” Tomas demanded when she trailed off.

“I just realized. Those pictures I saw at Wiggins’s house? Jack used the bathroom first.”

Tomas closed his eyes briefly. “You’re suggesting he planted them?”

“I don’t know, Tomas. But the reason I looked is that the tank was off-kilter and everything else in that room was so precise.” She sighed. “We all know how much Jack wanted to nail Walter for something. Maybe it was an attempt at a frame-up.”

“That’s a risky frame-up, Evelyn.” Greg’s tone was skeptical. “He’d have to assume you’d look at those pictures illegally.”

Evelyn felt her face grow hot, but she nodded. “Maybe that wasn’t the original intent. Maybe he planned to leave them there, set Walter up some other way that would give us probable cause for a warrant and then we’d find them later, legally.”

“Damn it,” Tomas muttered.

The room was silent for a moment, then Greg asked, “What were you going to say about Jack and a case?”

“What? Oh, right. Possible motive. When Jack and I were driving back from Wiggins’s house, Jack talked about cases with kids being the worst. He talked about being called in on domestic abuse or neglect cases and feeling helpless when he couldn’t do anything.”

“Come on,” Tomas said. “We all feel that way. Every good cop feels like that.”

“Maybe Jack decided to do something about it,” Greg suggested. “Did he investigate a case that involved the death of a twelve-year-old girl due to parental neglect?”

“I have no idea,” Tomas replied. “You’d have to check the files. Or T.J. might know.”

“So, it’s possible,” Greg said. “But then we’re back to the eighteen-year gap.”

“Maybe the stress of grabbing someone in his own hometown, with his father leading the investigation, was too much,” Evelyn suggested. “Maybe he’s one of the few who can just control his impulses that well. We’ve seen that before.”

“It does happen,” Greg agreed.

Evelyn knew he was recalling a case in which a serial killer had been dormant for decades before suddenly deciding to taunt the press with his trophies. He’d stopped killing for twenty years, then for some reason the need to brag had overcome him. In the end, he’d brought himself down. If he hadn’t, that case would likely never have been solved.

Were they looking at a similar situation here? Jack had controlled his urges for eighteen years and then something in his life—maybe the acceptance that he was never going to reach his goal of taking his father’s place as police chief—had prompted him to start again?

Evelyn looked around the room at Greg, Tomas and Kyle. “I think we need to consider Jack Bullock our new prime suspect.”

* * *

“Miranda hasn’t seen Jack since he left for work this morning,” T.J. said as he entered the CARD command post.

Evelyn looked up at him, her eyes bleary. She’d spent another hour watching Greg and Carly talk to Frank and Walter one last time, then both had been allowed to go home.

“You check any other typical haunts?” Tomas asked.

“Yeah. Nothing. None of the other officers have heard from him since he took off this morning, either.”

“Shit.” Tomas sighed.

“Maybe he’s in trouble,” T.J. insisted.

“Yeah, Rose Bay is such a hotbed of crime,” Tomas blurted sarcastically. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. Look, T.J., do you know if Jack ever pulled a domestic with a twelve-year-old female victim?”

T.J. scowled. “Not with me, he didn’t.”

“It would’ve been a long time ago,” Greg said. “Did he ever mention anything like that?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Greg said. “Then we’ll start with the cases from eighteen years ago and work backward.”

“This is bullshit,” T.J. insisted, but his voice lacked conviction.

“What about doing another run at the field where Lauren was found?” Kyle asked.

“We’ve got officers there now,” Tomas replied.

“What about a helicopter?”

“Grounded.” T.J. sighed. “Our pilot got food poisoning this morning.”

“I can take it.”

“Really?” Tomas squinted at Kyle. “The FBI teaches you that?”

“Not exactly. I had my pilot’s license before I joined the FBI. I come from kind of a small town. Not a lot to do besides football and barbecues. But we had a little private airstrip one town over. I learned to fly before I learned to drive.”

Evelyn stared at him, surprised. When she’d met him a year ago, she’d seen a cocky, can’t-take-anything-seriously adrenaline junkie who wore a ton of the FBI’s best ass-kicking gear. Slowly, they’d gotten to be friends. And even more slowly, something else was developing, something stronger. But the more she learned, the more she felt like she’d barely scratched the surface with him.

Kyle stared back at her a little too long, then winked, and looked back at Tomas. “I can take it up. T.J., you want to ride with me?”

T.J. raised his eyebrows at Tomas. “We covered for that?”

“Let me worry about the approval,” Tomas said. “You just get up there and check it out again. I want to know where the hell Jack is. And if he’s somewhere in those fields—unless he’s already underground—it’ll be a hell of a lot faster to find him from the air.”

“Fine,” T.J. said. “But when we do find Jack and there’s a logical explanation, I want you to remember that I knew it all along.”

“Let’s go,” Kyle said, heading for the door.

T.J. trailed behind him.

“How should we divide this up?” Tomas asked.

Evelyn studied the eighteen-year-old files spread out in front of them. It could take them all night to get through the huge stack, plus the boxes waiting under the table. And although uncovering a case that matched would go a long way toward establishing motive, right now they needed to locate Jack.

It wasn’t her role anymore. As a profiler, she knew she belonged in this stuffy room, looking through the files to find one that might have turned a cop into a child abductor.

But the longer she was stuck in here, the harder it felt to breathe. It felt as if the past was creeping back up on her, and she still couldn’t make any sense of it, still couldn’t fix it.

“Can you two handle this? Carly should be back soon to help, right?” Not waiting for an answer, Evelyn started backing toward the door, desperate to get outside, where she could breathe. “I want to take a ride.”