Vanished (28 page)

“Not having the house was a challenge, though. Especially after I decided to give up the Bullock cellar.” She frowned, focusing on Evelyn again too soon. “I couldn’t bring the girls to my apartment, obviously. And then when I led Darnell to the Bullock cellar, I had to dig this one out.”

As she spoke, a sprinkle of wet dirt fell from the ceiling. Noreen frowned. “I’m not as good at this. I need practice. And this one’s not ideal, since it’s on Uncle Frank’s land.”

“He knows, doesn’t he?”

“No. He’s so busy lately, he’s hardly home. And by the time I had to come over here, the police had ruled out his property, since they’d searched it.” She smiled, calculation in her eyes. “Thanks for that.”

“You don’t actually think you’re going to get away with this?”

“Of course I am. Jack will take the fall. And if not, well, you and the other profiler already suspected my uncle...”

“You’re going to frame your own uncle?”

“It’s not my first choice,” Noreen whined.

“And that’s it?” Evelyn demanded. “You work in a police station! You never even considered how wrong this was?”

Noreen shook her head, looking sad. “You still don’t understand. Cassie was better off with us.”

Fury overtook Evelyn so fast she didn’t realize her hands were clenched and she was standing up until she hit her head on the low ceiling. A big chunk of dirt broke off and covered her hair.

Noreen pulled her gun closer to her chest, keeping the aim steady on Evelyn. “I’ve made you mad. But it’s true. If you thought about it, you’d see. But we don’t have time for that.”

Evelyn felt a spurt of panic. She was in a horrible position to rush Noreen. There was zero chance she wouldn’t get killed if she did it now.

Still, if Noreen was about to shoot, there was no other option. She tensed her calf muscles, ready to leap forward and to the side.

“I guess I should thank you,” Noreen said. Her finger was still against the trigger, but it wasn’t moving. “I was originally going to have Jack simply disappear, so everyone would assume he’d gone to ground. But that would keep you looking. I needed you, too. You coming here made my plan so much easier. I thought I was going to have to call you again, try to get you out here by yourself.”

“If you’re planning to make it look like I shot Jack and then got hit myself, you should have kept my gun,” Evelyn said, sounding way more calm than she’d expected.

But Noreen just smiled. “That’s not the plan.” Noreen gestured to the back of the cellar, still eerily silent. “This is Jack’s weapon. It’s going to be a murder-suicide, Evelyn. Jack knew he was about to get caught, so he killed you, and then he killed himself.”

Noreen straightened her arms, lifting the gun into position.

“Jack’s injured!” Evelyn burst out.

Noreen rolled her eyes. “You seem like the type to fight back, Evelyn. You attacked him before he shot you.” She sighed. “It’s too bad my dad got sick when he did.”

Her finger started to move on the trigger as she added, “I think you and I could have been good sisters.”

* * *

Kyle shifted his weight, lifting Frank’s cuffed hands higher in the air behind him.

Frank shrieked. His broken wrist had to be hurting like hell.

Normally, Kyle wouldn’t resort to this kind of tactic, although technically he wasn’t doing anything wrong. But even if Frank didn’t know precisely where Evelyn was, he knew something.

“Where is she?” Kyle growled.

Frank shook his head.

Kyle yanked on Frank’s arms so his left one was lifted higher, making the handcuffs pull downward on his broken wrist.

“Fuck!” Frank shouted. “I don’t know where she is!”

“What
do
you know?” Kyle demanded, dropping Frank’s arms so the man fell back on his heels.

“You going to beat me to death if I don’t tell you?” Frank sneered at Kyle even as a stream of water made a path from his eyes to his chin.

Kyle took an aggressive step forward. He put as much intensity into his gaze and his voice as he could. “You have no idea what I’ll do for this woman.”

Frank jerked backward. He blinked the tears away, and Kyle saw sadness in his eyes. “I swear, I didn’t know anything about it,” he whispered.

“
What
didn’t you know about?” Kyle pressed, impatient. Where the
hell
was Evelyn?

Frank sighed, his head dropping. “I never suspected either of them until recently. I didn’t want to believe it, but...”

“Damn it, Frank! Spit it out.”

“She was visiting so much lately. I fell asleep on the couch tonight, and when I woke up I looked outside and saw a flashlight.” He cringed as he finally met Kyle’s gaze. “She’s my only family.”

Noreen Abbott.

“Damn it,” Kyle muttered again. He’d seen the case notes when he’d helped out earlier today. No one had ever suspected a woman. “Where were they going? Where was Noreen taking Evelyn?”

Frank shook his head. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. I saw Evelyn’s car in the drive and I suddenly knew.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Those crap rental cars. I can hot-wire anything older like that. I put it in the barn. I was just... I didn’t know what else to do but try to protect her.” His eyes opened and the tears started flowing fast. “She’s all I have left. I just couldn’t turn her in.”

Kyle reached for his phone. He needed to get officers back to the Bullock property now. Those other collapsed structures he’d seen from the air were all potential spots Noreen could have taken Evelyn.

They couldn’t wait for morning.

“Don’t move,” Kyle warned Frank, and called Greg. As soon as his friend answered, Kyle told him, “I’m at Frank Abbott’s house and I need backup right now. Noreen Abbott is the killer. And she’s got Evelyn.”

* * *

This was it.

Noreen was smiling her creepy, weirdly childish smile as her finger moved against the trigger.

Evelyn didn’t hesitate. She leaped toward Noreen, shifting to the right as much as possible. Her goal was to throw Noreen off balance, to get alongside her fast, so the gun wouldn’t be pointing at her.

They were so close it was difficult to get any momentum, but she hit Noreen as hard as she could, slamming her into the ladder. Dirt crumbled around them, falling off the wall.

Noreen grunted as her right elbow buckled and the gun angled down and left. It went off, the sound deafening in the small space.

Ears ringing, Evelyn swung a fist up toward Noreen’s rib cage.

But Noreen recovered a lot faster than she’d expected, twisting sideways, and Evelyn’s fist smashed into the metal ladder instead. Pain darted from her knuckles up to her elbow.

And then Noreen was swinging the gun back toward her.

Evelyn twisted, too, grabbing Noreen’s right hand at the elbow and pinching hard, trying to make her nerves fail and her fingers open.

But the gun didn’t drop. Jack must have taught Noreen defensive techniques, because she stepped backward and tried to jab her fingers into Evelyn’s eye. When Evelyn jerked away, Noreen raked her hand across Evelyn’s damaged cheek instead, drawing blood.

Her face stinging, Evelyn pounded her fist into the junction between Noreen’s shoulder and her chest. She hit as hard as she could with her limited momentum. The strike made her sore hand throb with pain, and Noreen still held the gun.

And then somehow Noreen’s free hand was in her hair, yanking on it hard. She wrenched Evelyn’s head sideways, smacking it into the ladder.

She was pretty sure she was screaming as she hit back, although she couldn’t hear it, couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears from the gun going off. She punched up and out, striking Noreen under the chin, the handcuffs attached to her wrist whipping up and slapping Noreen in the throat.

Noreen’s head snapped back, but she still had a tight grip on Evelyn’s hair. She yanked Evelyn toward her, pulling Evelyn off balance until she pitched into Noreen, her feet twisting under her.

She still had Noreen’s right elbow gripped in her left hand, forcing the gun to point out and away from her. But her hold started to slip as she threw her hand out to stop herself from falling.

Noreen took a step backward, bumping the other dirt wall behind her, and Evelyn went with her.

She managed to get her feet under her as a shower of dirt fell on her head, getting into her eyes and mouth. Sputtering, she grappled for a better hold on Noreen’s elbow as Noreen wrenched it straight out, away from her.

For a quiet, dowdy administrative assistant, Noreen was surprisingly strong.

Evelyn whirled around, trying to grab Noreen’s arm again with both hands, to keep the gun pointed away from her. As she turned, Noreen shoved against her chest, hard enough to make her fall backward.

Her head slammed the low ceiling at the edge of the tunnel. She bounced off it, stumbling forward as Noreen’s gun swung around.

Shooting her hand out fast, Evelyn slapped the gun away from her.

It went off again, and this time, the bullet hit the low ceiling right beside Evelyn’s head. Another huge chunk of dirt broke off and fell between them, and then something hit the back of Evelyn’s legs, bringing her to her knees.

As she crashed to the ground, the ceiling caved in. Dirt dropped on top of her, completely flattening her, and knocked all the air from her lungs.

Evelyn flailed her hands, trying to push the dirt off her, trying to catch her breath, but the weight on top of her was too much. The entire cellar had collapsed. And she couldn’t move.

She gasped for air and inhaled dirt. Her body went into spasms, and she coughed, her lungs trying to suck in more air.

Desperately, she pressed her arms into the ground, trying to thrust herself up. But nothing happened.

Pain and panic burst inside her as her lungs kept instinctively gasping for air, choking her. They started to burn and spots formed in front of her closed eyes. She was going to suffocate here.

Noreen’s father had killed Cassie. And Noreen had just killed her.

Twenty-Seven

“I
’ve got Frank Abbott in cuffs,” Kyle was telling Greg as a gunshot split the air. The sound was muffled, but he shot hundreds of rounds each week at practice, wearing ear protection. He’d recognize it anywhere.

“Hurry,” he told Greg, then began to run. “Don’t move,” he yelled back at Frank.

The shot had come from somewhere behind the house, but as Kyle rounded the side wall and passed the barn, all he saw was a wide, empty field, with waist-high grass. A field way too similar to the one at the end of the road where Lauren was found.

He swung his flashlight across the field, searching for any sign of life, but didn’t see a damn thing. “Evelyn!” he yelled, but the only response was an owl hooting back at him.

“Damn it.” The moon was just a sliver, providing almost no light, and fog was still lifting off the ground, reducing visibility even more. The field stretched a long way, but the sound could have come from a distant house. Or from underground—although firing a gun inside a cellar like the one he’d seen at the crime scene would be incredibly stupid.

Kyle stepped farther into the field, shining his flashlight from left to right. But he still saw nothing.

Then a second gunshot went off, and a plume of dust rose from the ground directly ahead of him, maybe two hundred feet away.

Kyle started running. When he was still a hundred feet from the spot, someone seemed to materialize out of the tall grasses and took off across the field.

Kyle couldn’t tell for sure who it was, but he knew it wasn’t Evelyn, so he didn’t change direction. Putting on another burst of speed, he ran full out for the settling cloud of dirt.

When he finally got there, he fell to his knees.

There was a hole in the ground going down maybe six feet, a busted metal ladder dangling from one side into the hole. At the bottom, dirt was piled up, filling most of what must once have been the entrance.

He shone the flashlight into the tiny hole between the tunnel and the main cavern. Another cellar. “Evelyn!”

No one answered, and Kyle couldn’t see anything inside. It was impossible to tell from this angle if the whole cellar had collapsed, or only the entrance.

So he dropped to his stomach, leaning over the hole, and frantically scooped up dirt with his hands and tossed it out of the tunnel. If Evelyn was trapped under the dirt, every second counted.

He worked toward the cavern, widening the tiny hole, assuming that if Evelyn was down there, she’d be in the back. As the space grew wider and Kyle aimed the flashlight inside, he spotted a bound, motionless figure way in the back. But it wasn’t Evelyn.

“Shit!” Kyle scooped the dirt directly below, throwing handfuls of it behind him.

He wanted to jump into the narrow space beside the ladder, but he was too afraid of landing on her if she
was
there, under the dirt piled at the junction between the tunnel and the cavern. So he just kept leaning farther and farther in, scooping out as much dirt as he could.

His heart thudded at an unnatural tempo as he prayed that if she was down there she had a pocket of air. Because if she didn’t, too much time had probably passed.

He worked faster, dangling halfway into the tunnel as he scooped, raising his torso as he threw aside handfuls of dirt. More and more dirt, until he was covered in it and the tunnel was half-empty.

And then, suddenly, something moved in the earth below him.

Instead of gathering up any more dirt, Kyle grabbed the sides of the tunnel and pushed himself backward. Then he flipped around and lowered himself carefully into the tunnel, staying as close to the ladder as possible.

When he reached the bottom, his feet braced at the very edges, he shoveled dirt off to the smaller part of the tunnel until he saw skin. Shoving his hand back into the dirt, he took hold of the exposed arm and pulled.

Evelyn slid forward an inch and then she flailed her arm, and her head popped out of the dirt.

Relief rushed over him as she gasped in huge breaths of air, then coughed, spitting dirt on him.

He heard someone repeating, “Thank God,” over and over and realized it was him as he skimmed his hands down her back, pushing more dirt off her so she could wriggle free. Then he dragged her up and crushed her in his arms as she continued wheezing in air.

“Jack,” she finally croaked.

“The cellar didn’t collapse on him,” Kyle told her. “I’ll lift you out and then I’ll get him.”

“Not...sure...he’s...alive,” Evelyn managed.

Kyle nodded grimly, loosening his grip so he could look at her. She was so covered in dirt and mud that her features were pretty much indistinct except the whites of her eyes and her mouth.

“Nor...” Evelyn tried, choking again.

“I know it’s Noreen,” Kyle said. “Frank Abbott is cuffed out front. Backup is on the way. You ready?”

“Yes,” she managed.

He tucked her SIG in her filthy holster, then hoisted her up and out of the tunnel.

After that, he turned back and focused on the opening into the cellar’s cavern again. The collapse seemed to have been centered over Evelyn, so it took less time than he expected to clear a hole he could climb through.

As he pushed his way into the back of the tunnel, leading by feel since he’d left his flashlight outside, he heard a low moan. “Jack? It’s Kyle McKenzie. I’m getting you out of here, man. Just relax.”

Finally he found Jack. His hands were cuffed in front of him and he was bleeding, but he was alive. Kyle hooked an arm over Jack’s chest, under his armpits, and hauled him backward through the cellar cavern, back to the tunnel.

Jack was a lot heavier than Evelyn, so it was awkward to lift him up until he could gain purchase on the ground outside the tunnel. Evelyn grabbed him from the top and Kyle pushed him out, then pulled himself up and out of the tunnel.

His discarded flashlight shone an eerie circle of light over the top of the cellar, illuminating the pile of dirt he’d thrown out and a brand-new wood door pushed open. Evelyn sat on the ground beside Jack, looking dazed but breathing normally.

Kyle picked up the flashlight and directed it at Jack. He had a nasty gash on his head, but it looked like it had stopped bleeding. Otherwise, he didn’t seem to be in bad shape.

Jack looked up at Kyle. “Noreen Abbott. Did she get away?”

Evelyn turned to him.

Kyle pointed the flashlight to his right, off into the distance. “She ran that way.”

“Back to my land? Or next door, to her dad’s old place?” Jack asked, closing his eyes. “I can’t believe it was her. I can’t believe it was Noreen. She was the one who took my pin. I realized after she lured me down there, right before she cold-cocked me. It all came together, but too late to do anything.”

He opened his eyes again, looking at Evelyn. “I owe you an apology. I never thought Noreen...” He sighed heavily, putting a hand to his head. “And I didn’t trust your judgment on this case, because of your history, and...”

Evelyn nodded, reaching out briefly to squeeze his hand. “What matters is that it ends here. That we get her.”

“Still,” Jack insisted. “I want you to know that I was wrong. Now, and eighteen years ago. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. It was never about you. I just wanted to solve it, to end the case my dad never could. It haunted him until he died.”

“Thanks, Jack. I’m sorry, too.” She got shakily to her feet as the sound of police sirens got louder. The dazed expression faded behind the serious profiler face he knew so well. “It’s all fallen apart for Noreen. First, her plan to take over where her father left off, because she ran into the same problem he did. She just couldn’t replace Peggy. Then her whole murder-suicide setup to get away with it. Now, reality is staring back at her and she can’t accept it. She’s probably decompensating.”

“What does that mean?” Jack asked, just sounding weary. And betrayed.

From the other side of the house, the police sirens got louder and then stopped. Backup had arrived.

Evelyn’s hand slid to her holster, where her SIG now rested again. “It means she’s deteriorating mentally. It means the idea of getting caught is now a real possibility, so she’s destabilizing. It’s the most dangerous time when you’re dealing with this kind of personality—both for her and for us.”

Jack glanced around. “How?”

“We know who she is. Which means she’s out of options. And she’ll make mistakes. But she’s also more likely to take desperate actions.” Evelyn gestured to the cellar. “Like try to kill a cop and a federal agent. Or herself.”

“Well, how does that help us? She took off.”

Evelyn nodded, but she wasn’t even looking at Jack anymore. She seemed to be talking to herself. “Yes, but we know where. She’ll go back to the place she feels safest, happiest.”

“Next door?” Kyle asked. “Where she grew up?”

Evelyn shook her head, looking up at him, a glint in her eyes Kyle didn’t like. “Back to the original cellar.”

Before he could tell her to wait for backup, she clamped her jaw and took off running for the Bullock land.

“Evelyn, wait!” Kyle called after her, but of course, she didn’t.

“Damn it.” Backup hadn’t rounded the house yet. “Wait for the cops,” he told Jack. “Tell them to get Frank into custody, then meet us at the cellar.”

Without waiting for a reply, Kyle raced after Evelyn.

* * *

“Don’t try to stop me,” Evelyn warned as Kyle caught up to her.

She didn’t slow down, as he’d probably hoped. Instead, the light from his flashlight let her move faster through the wide, open field. She should’ve been tired and sore from being flattened by three feet of dirt. Instead, all she could feel was a burning anger that propelled her forward.

She didn’t see Noreen anywhere, but there was only one place she’d go.

“You know where she’s headed,” Kyle said. “We could join the cops in front of Frank’s house and drive over.”

“And tip her off? No way.”

“Evelyn.” Kyle grabbed her arm, pulled her to a stop.

She tried to yank free. “I’m not letting her get away!”

“Of course not. Let’s do this rationally, okay?”

There was concern in his eyes. It didn’t make any difference. She yanked her arm hard enough that Kyle would have to release her or risk hurting her. She knew he’d drop her arm. And he did.

“Don’t you dare try to stop me.”

Not giving him a chance to respond, she took off again, running as fast as she could. She heard him curse behind her as she ran, straining to see.

She passed Earl Abbott’s house, slowing only slightly. That wasn’t where Noreen felt safest. She liked to be underground. Up ahead, Evelyn finally spotted the portable lights from the crime scene.

The whole field had a haze of fog over it, obscuring her view, but she didn’t see Noreen anywhere. Was she wrong? Had Noreen picked her father’s old house instead? Or did she have a backup plan? Did she think she’d still somehow get away with it? That she could skip town and start up again somewhere else?

All of Evelyn’s profiling instincts told her that Noreen would be at the original cellar, where this had all started for her. But her profiling instincts had been wrong too many times in this investigation.

Panic mingled with her anger, and she increased her pace until her feet felt as if they were barely touching the ground. She sensed Kyle beside her, even though her vision seemed to have shrunk to the yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the breeze.

As she finally reached it, Evelyn stopped, and her gaze followed the arc of Kyle’s flashlight as he did a sweep.

She glanced at him, then nodded toward the open cellar entrance and pulled her SIG from its holster.

“I’ll go in,” Kyle whispered.

She shook her head and stepped closer, careful not to get too close as Kyle angled the flashlight down into the tunnel. She saw nothing, but if Noreen was down there, she’d be in the cavern, by the back. Where the girls she and her father abducted had been trapped.

“Cover me,” she whispered to Kyle, but she kept her weapon in hand as she moved slowly closer.

She didn’t know if Noreen had lost her gun when the cellar collapsed or if she’d managed to hold on to it. And she hadn’t forgotten Noreen’s words before—that if it hadn’t been for the car window between Evelyn and Noreen’s bullet, she would have hit her.

“I’m going in,” Evelyn said in a low voice. There was no movement from below, no sound. But she was suddenly overcome with certainty that Noreen was below her.

She didn’t have her flashlight, so she held her hand out for Kyle’s, without looking back, and he silently handed it over. Pointing it into the tunnel, Evelyn stepped slowly closer, ducking her head to see as far into the cavern as she could. Nothing.

Which meant there was no choice but to go in.

She took a breath and turned around, crouching so she could lower herself down the ladder. Before she could climb in, something—someone—flew toward her.

Evelyn whipped her flashlight up, but had hardly focused on the figure leaping at her before Kyle slammed into him from the side.

The two of them landed hard as Evelyn scrambled to her feet. She lifted her weapon alongside the flashlight, but Kyle had Frank flattened beneath him.

“How the hell...”

Then she sensed movement behind her and whirled around, aiming the flashlight and the gun into the cellar, just as a figure darted back into the cavern. Her heart rate jumped. She’d been right. Noreen was down there.

“You have Frank?” Evelyn asked without turning.

“Yeah.” Kyle sounded pissed. “He should already have been in custody. He’s still cuffed.”

“Leave her alone!” Frank barked.

Evelyn spun back, raising her weapon. “You know what she did!”

“Don’t hurt her,” Frank begged. “Earl made her like this. Please. She’s a victim, too.”

Evelyn ground her teeth and lowered her gun, turning back to the cellar and once more pointing the flashlight down. “I’m going in,” she told Kyle.

“Cuff her and bring her back up,” Kyle said, his tone implying that he thought she’d take another action.

“Cover Frank,” she responded, and put her foot on the ladder facing into the cellar instead of toward the wall. It was awkward, but safer.