Again, Foreman interjected. “Last usage ended at the car lot. Nothing on her financials after that or since. Does Miss Bergman carry a lot of cash?”
Mike thought about the time she’d handed him five hundred bucks to buy fake IDs and Social Security numbers in MacArthur Park. “For certain stories. Still, she’s definitely a missing person.”
Renton spoke from her dark corner. “Since she’s obviously left Bloomington, the FBI will handle Bergman’s disappearance from here on out.”
Foreman stepped forward and turned off the monitor. “We’ve mobilized the Indianapolis office and are coordinating with IPD, in case you need to relay that information back to anyone.”
“Great.” Mike put on his team player face. “What’s our next move?”
Foreman planted his feet and crossed his arms. “Your next move is to leave this to the professionals.”
Mike stood up and gave the agent the old thousand-yard stare from inches away. Greenwood’s hands came up, open palms, cautious.
Mike smiled at the room full of ego. “And that’s who you guys are? The professionals?”
Foreman nodded. “Damned right. You can tell because we all still have our badges.”
Mike chuckled. “Let me share something I’ve learned from personal experience. Failure follows you whether you’ve got a shield or a shovel. The important thing is to deal with your shit before it blows up in your face. Tell Kieran Michelson I say hi, you hard-working professionals.”
He brushed past Foreman and left the station. He got two blocks on foot before an unmarked sedan pulled up beside him. The female driver rolled down the passenger window and leaned over. “Get in.”
Mike caught her cigarette smoke from the sidewalk. “Why do I have the feeling I’m gonna get a ticket for a broken taillight?”
The driver threw the car in park, got out. Mike watched the squat woman with the ponytail toss her cigarette only to reach for a fresh one.
“Greenwood can’t get away,” she said, “but he’s sorry for how they’re treating you. Long story short, no one in that room’s gonna look real hard for Bergman. She tore up this town like a tornado.”
“Sounds like her.” Mike caught a strong whiff of the detective’s latest exhale. “Got another one of those?”
She handed him her lit cigarette. “Reporters, am I right?”
He took a drag. “Especially her, with all that quest for the truth BS.”
“Know who likes reporters? Other reporters, especially stories about missing reporters. You know any?”
She took the cigarette out of his hand, popped it back in her mouth, and walked back to her car.
Mike leaned into the open passenger window. “I didn’t get your name.”
“You sure as shit didn’t,” she said, and drove away.
CHAPTER
68
FROM THE PUPPY-DOG look on his face, Caitlin knew Branford wanted a compliment.
“Good enough,” she said, reaching for her water bottle.
He ate a forkful from his own plate, made a yummy noise. “So tender, how could it be better?”
He’d come into the playroom, cuffed her, bagged her, and led her back to the bedroom where dinner for two waited. Straps bound only her thighs and abdomen this time, leaving both arms free.
She controlled a plastic fork, her plastic plate of food, and a water bottle. Enough to throw a good fit, but not a defense.
She shrugged. “I like to eat outside.”
“Maybe we’ll get to that point.”
The mere possibility sent her mind jumping through the fields of hope. Another manipulation. She pushed a stalk of broccoli around her plate.
“I’ve got twenty years on Chapman, same with Lauffer, maybe even twenty pounds. Why am I the lucky girl? People like you are supposed to have a pattern.”
He shifted forward, excited. “Do you know Shakespeare?”
“The guy who works at the smoke shop in the mall?”
He quoted, “ ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.’ ”
Caitlin stabbed another piece of chicken. “Et tu, Bruté?”
“You know Julius Caesar?”
She popped the meat in her mouth. “Brutus loses in the next act.”
He shook his head. “I simply meant, the moment was perfect and I grabbed you.”
“Like with Angela?”
He gave a concerned grandma smile. “You’re not eating your broccoli.”
“If I’m going to die soon, I might as well go full of this chicken.”
The smile disappeared. “Eat a piece of the broccoli.”
Caitlin took a chance. “If you tell me how you got Angela.”
His fingers curled into fists. “I’ll tell you how I collected Angela and Paige if you eat all of your broccoli. How’s that for a bargain?”
She reached for a stalk, started chewing. “Angela first.”
Grandma’s pleasant smile returned. “Okay. Chad had known her for some time. I’d already found my house and had a list.”
“A list?”
“Of possible pieces to collect and protect. My Angel and I kept running into each other. Like me, she was reinventing herself. I kept myself involved tangentially.”
“The coupons,” Caitlin said.
“That’s right, though I really did need the business to take off in order to build all of this.”
“Such methodical madness. So Lakshmi asked you for Molly?”
“Amazing, right? I know you don’t see it yet, but this is all about the timing, the congruence, the perfect moment—”
“The tide and affairs, sure. You were saying how Lakshmi asked you for the Molly?”
“Correct. At this point I knew all about Angela and Lakshmi’s sexual relationship, the boys Angela had been with too, especially Kieran Michelson.”
“How?”
“Because I’d watched for months,” he answered, matter-of-fact. “The girls always ordered pizza on their nights together, so I drove by Lakshmi’s apartment that Friday and waited for the call.”
“But you had no way of knowing when they’d be done or if Angela would leave. How would you have gotten her alone?”
“You see? That’s what I mean by the moment.” He drank his last sip of water and crinkled the bottle.
Caitlin pushed. “But the moment didn’t happen. So then what?”
He tossed the bottle over her head into the drop box. “The frat boys showed up, and I followed them to the bar. Drunks make it easy. I assumed Angela would end up at either her place or Kieran’s. When they started their walk, I dropped by the Monster.”
“Already creating an alibi.”
“Mostly investment management. I pop in and out whenever, make sure no one’s slacking. I even delivered two pizzas in the Villas. We always do a fair amount of business there, especially on the weekend.”
His switch between the minutia of running a business and the hunting of a college girl had no change in tone, all logical steps down the psycho path.
“I’d almost given up, but then I saw my Angel stumble out of Kieran’s apartment all by herself.”
He laughed. “All I had to do was flash my lights and wave. She walked over, asked if I’d take her home, and passed out. I put her in the back seat and threw a blanket over her.”
Caitlin shuddered. “That easy.”
“The perfect moment, Caitlin. A moment like no other. My moment.”
“And Paige?”
He pushed Caitlin’s plate closer. “One more vegetable, please.”
Another forkful kept him going.
“As you can imagine, I didn’t dare look for another piece for some time. There’s nothing like having a prize everyone wants, being so close to the edge.”
“Of getting caught?”
He ignored the question. “I met Paige three months ago.”
“Another one of your student
s?”
“Passing ships,” he said. “Chad Branford’s bike rides intersected Paige Lauffer’s running routes.”
Caitlin’s stomach turned. The road to a woman’s death started with a disciplined workout regimen. “And you what? Asked her out?”
“Not I, Caitlin, Chad Branford. And he didn’t ask her out; he noticed her T-shirt from a five-K charity run to help a local nursing home and asked how to make a donation. She directed him to her Facebook profile.”
Caitlin wanted to tear into the seam between Chad Branford and whoever he claimed to be, but she’d unleashed the story he had no one else to tell and couldn’t interrupt the flow.
“I learned more from her online auctions than her social media accounts. Such detail, such attention paid. I saw a kindred spirit, and one so different than Angela—soft-spoken, introverted, isolated. I knew I could take her. Then you came to town.”
Caitlin flinched, reached for the last piece of broccoli.
“I knew your story, Caitlin. I tend to notice news articles about men who manipulate women.”
She started to say something, stopped.
He noticed. “Yes, I am self-aware, have been since my teens. Different, distant, disturbed. They called me all the good D words. I fought them at first but then broke the words down. Different? Yes, gladly so. Distant? I have no respect for people who don’t see society for what it is, a construct we use to enforce an arbitrary moral code. Disturbed? Well, who isn’t? Where was I?”
“I came to town.”
“You sure did. I had to attend the ceremony. Right away, I was smitten. You were so strong, but also damaged and lonely, even in a room full of people there to celebrate your greatness. I left a note so you wouldn’t feel alone.”
The notes. Caitlin had forgotten completely. Once she’d realized neither Mary nor Greenwood had left the two handwritten notes, she’d assumed it’d been Scott Canton, but never got a chance to broach the subject. Mary knew they existed. Maybe that would help someone find her, assuming anyone wanted to.
“Dangerous, sure, but I had to help you. I even had my copy of your book signed the next day, but I didn’t let you distract me. I still wanted Paige and I got her. But a week later, you showed up with Lakshmi, looking for my Angel. I’d been careful, and so much time had gone by, but there you were, picking up long-forgotten threads. I kept tabs on your progress, in case you got close. I saw you take chances, walking campus by yourself, drinking to excess, smoking your brilliant mind to mush, fucking the detective in the park—each action an unanswered cry for help that no one but me seemed to hear. Then, Paige complicated things by forcing my hand, ruining everything I’d built.”
He spread his hands. “Well, the sky may have poured rain, but I found a moment of sunshine. You’d exposed the Bro-duce boys and Paige was dead. Since the police would never find my Angel in the Bro-duce farmland, I muddied the waters with my Barbie. That chain of events led us here. Tell me I haven’t taken the tide at the flood.”
Caitlin forced herself to meet his eyes. “So why me? Why keep me safe?”
“Oh Caitlin. Only you can understand what I’ve become.” He picked up the dishes and walked them to the metal drop box behind her. “And let’s face it, between your panic attacks, drug use, and reckless sex life, how much longer can you survive on your own?”
She knew not to interrupt him, but after all his genius-intelligence bravado, Branford was just a clueless dickhead who couldn’t handle an independent woman.
He came up behind her and leaned his head against her shoulder. “No matter how this ends, I’m glad it was you.”
His grip loosened. The air moved, the door closed, the locks turned.
Caitlin pushed against her straps. “So what? I’m just gonna sit in this chair?”
A loud metal clang behind her answered. He’d taken the dishes from the wall drop box. The soft whir of the overhead fan followed.
In seconds, Caitlin found herself Thanksgiving-meal tired. By one minute, she couldn’t fight the weight of her eyelids.
CHAPTER
69
“WHY DID YOU drug me again? I feel like I’m missing ten points off my IQ.”
“Walk, Caitlin.”
Ten steps so far, bagged and cuffed, dressed in pink pajamas once again. She felt him tug, continued walking backward.
“And it’s gotta be morning, right? As in twelve or so hours after our last talk?”
No answer. At fourteen steps, she heard the jingle of keys.
“Seriously.” Her s words slurred like a drunk’s. “I get that you’re a genius—”
“Stop.”
She took step seventeen, passed him.
“—but a legitimate doctor gave Michael Jackson propofol, and we all know how that turned out.”
“Caitlin.”
She ignored the alarm in his voice, counted steps nineteen, twenty. “What, where?”
“Now,” he yelled. She heard him shift in the stone, felt his hand grab her pajamas. She took a chance, fell backward.
Her shoulders hit the loose stone first, her head a second after. She did quick math from her twentieth step, added her height. Thirty steps from her cell door and she still hadn’t hit a wall.
He dropped onto her chest, knees first, took her breath.
“Don’t fucking move.”
She gasped through her bag. “What happened?”
“When I say stop, you stop.”
She panted. “I can’t breathe.”
“You can die in this place, Caitlin. Today, right now.”
His weight shifted, doubled the pressure. She spread her feet as wide as she could, touched walls on both sides, maybe four feet across.
“Can’t breathe,” she repeated.
The bag came off her head. She blinked twice, but still doubted what she saw towering over her. His body blocked the overhead light, but she could tell he’d changed his hair. Still short, but feminine, familiar.
“If you try something like that again,” he said, “I will kill you.”
“The drugs made me dizzy.”
Jesus, he’s wearing a wig.
“I’ll bury you right here. No one will know the story of Caitlin Bergman.”
The realization set in.
A wig that looks like my hair.
“I’m so high.” She panted harder. “I just fell. Please, help me up.”
He held her face, squeezing her cheeks against her teeth. “When I say stop, you stop. Understand?”
She let out a garbled yes, and he let go. She rocked onto her side, dropped her head back, and gasped. The bag returned, and he pulled her to her feet.
“Accidents happen,” he said, his voice back to an untrustable calm.
He marched her to the playroom, shoved her inside, undid the cuffs, locked the door, and left her alone.
She raised her hands to remove the bag, winced at the pain in her arm. One more bruise would be a small price to pay for what she’d learned from her brief glimpse down the hall. Ten feet further, the hallway ended at an exposed rock wall, but five feet away, on the right, there was another door.
“Caitlin?” The crackle of the speaker turned her around. He didn’t appear in the window this time. “I’m leaving. There’s food, water, and drinks on the table, and towels near the shower. If you behave, I’ll have a special treat for you tonight.” Another quick burst of static ended his announcement.
Caitlin looked around. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and a plastic cup of orange juice waited on the right-hand table next to a stack of granola bars and bottled soda. She ate the world’s worst continental breakfast, then cried her way through a shower. She needed to recover soon.
She might die in Branford’s underground lair, but she’d die fighting.
She wrapped herself in a towel, limped to the bookshelf, and started looking for a weapon. Could you cut someone with the edge of a DVD? She found a copy of Tommy Boy, opened the case.
Empty.
She reached for
Fargo.
Also empty.
He kept the discs somewhere else, left the cases for ease of selection. She moved on to the books.
She needed something heavy. She thumbed through a stack of plays and magazines, found nothing. The paperback romance novels and cheap mysteries came next. Caitlin loved both but couldn’t dig out of hell with a summer beach read.
“Hello, stupid,” she said, touching the spine of Branford’s copy of Fallen Angels, now placed alongside the rest. She sighed, then moved on for something much bigger—The Riverside Shakespeare.
Caitlin’s freshman-year roommate had owned a copy of the massive hard-covered book that contained every work attributed to William Shakespeare. They’d used the heavy tome for arm workouts.
She lugged the book over to a beanbag chair, opened the cover. No good. Someone had removed almost half the pages. A chill tickled her body.
Caitlin saw words in yellow marker, nearly invisible against the tan binding of the inner cover.
My name is Angela Chapman. I think it’s April but can’t be sure. If you find this, Embower killed me. Tell my parents I love them and that I’m sorry.
Caitlin flipped through the flimsy outcropping of preface pages before the substantial missing chunk but didn’t find any more handwriting. Instead of page 1, the remainder opened to page 707, a list of footnotes and attributions for Henry VI, Part 3. The next page opened to Richard III. Branford must have found her messages, destroyed the altered pages, and left the cover as a warning. Whatever she’d meant to leave behind he’d taken, gone forever.
Where did Chapman get the marker?
Caitlin searched the shelf but found no sign of a writing utensil. No doubt Chapman did what Caitlin would have if given a pen, and went straight for Branford’s eyes.
“Good for you, Angela.”
Chapman’s words repeated the name Branford had given himself: If you find this, Embower has killed me.
Caitlin dropped into a squat at the bookshelf; she’d seen a pocket-sized Webster. She found the dictionary, flipped to the E’s, saw nothing for embower. The pocket-sized edition wouldn’t list every permutation or rare origin. Embower hinted at an older world, but bower rang familiar. She flipped to the B’s.
Come and Get Me Page 27