Girl, 11

by Amy Suiter Clarke

  Elle studied her friend on the screen. Tina looked serious, but not upset. “How . . . how did you listen so fast?”

  Tina waved her hand. “Please. I live for my emails from you.” She smiled and met Elle’s gaze through the camera. “Does it feel good? Being honest about who you are, I mean.”

  “Not really. I kind of want to throw up.”

  “Why? That monologue was dope. I added some epic close-out music.”

  Elle shook her head but couldn’t stop a nervous laugh from escaping. She quickly sobered. “Ayaan thinks maybe the guy started killing because he listened to the podcast. Like . . . like my episodes trained him how to be like TCK.”

  Tina’s expression hardened. “That is bullshit, and you know it. If someone wanted to learn how to do crimes like TCK, all they’d have to do is look at Reddit or Wikipedia. You are not going to take on the blame for this, Elle. You have done nothing but try to solve this case from day one.”

  “And look how that’s gone. I keep screwing it up. People who get close to me keep dying or disappearing. Are you sure you don’t want to hang up?”

  In response, Tina rolled her eyes. “Okay, but seriously. I called because I wanted to make sure before I hit go. You definitely want me to put this up? You’ve thought about it? Because I can tell just from looking at you that you probably don’t even know the last time you slept, and you are coming off a pretty horrific night.”

  Elle stared at the screen. For some reason, Tina’s words made her want to break down and cry. Instead, she just nodded. “Yes. Put it up.”

  “Okey-dokey.” With the video call still running, Tina clicked a few things around on her screen. Elle watched the windows dance and change in the reflection on her glasses. “And done.”

  Elle let out a long breath. “Okay, then. Good.” Holy shit. She’d really done it. She might have just blown up her whole life, but right now in this moment, she felt ecstatic.

  “Congrats, Nora.” Tina leaned forward, trademark mischievous glint in her eyes. “By the way, I have some news for you. On the down-low. I have a friend who works in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and apparently tomorrow they’re issuing a press release to say they got a DNA result back on the male in the cabin.”

  “What? Did they tell you who it is?”

  “It was Bob Jensen: not-his-real-name-Stanley. The guy who disappeared along with his office lover.”

  Elle sat back in her chair. “Do they . . . do they think he was TCK?”

  Tina shook her head. “Can’t be. He was the VP of sales for his company. Lived overseas for all of 1997 and didn’t come back to Minnesota until late 1998. There’s no way he could be TCK.”

  “That means, if the office rumors about the affair between him and his coworker were true, the woman was probably married to the Countdown Killer. Remember how they said Jensen was sleeping with a married woman?”

  “I remember.”

  “Holy shit.” Any other time, she would have sat down now and slapped together another unscheduled podcast episode. Those ones were the best—got the highest ratings in her other seasons—when she found a piece of evidence that changed everything about a case. But she couldn’t stomach the idea of releasing another episode right now. She had to focus on finding Natalie.

  Tina looked straight into the lens. “So, are you still helping with the investigation?”

  “No, Ayaan basically kicked me out of the station.” Elle summarized the last six days, including all the details they had found about Amanda and how she had been booted off the case by Ayaan. She told Tina about talking to Eduardo and the possibility that the killer worked at Mitchell University.

  At the end, Tina whistled. “Well, what are we waiting for? Have you searched their staff records?”

  “I tried for a little while last night, but their website is a mess.”

  Tina scoffed. Something flickered on the screen and a moment later, her desktop popped up. She shared it with Elle as she went to the Mitchell University website and navigated to their staff section. As Elle had found last night, several hundred profiles were there, and it was impossible to know if it was even up to date. A subpoena for the university’s records would give police better information, but that could take weeks.

  “What do you know about the person you’re looking for?” Tina asked.

  Elle thought back to Eduardo’s testimony. “Just that he’s probably a middle-aged white man.”

  She snorted. “Good thing those are hard to come by in academia.”

  Despite everything that had happened that day, Elle smiled. “Tell me about it. Oh, I know that he had a key to the physics building. Building J. But I don’t know for sure whether he’s a student or a janitor or a professor or something else. The witness told us only staff were allowed access after ten p.m., and it was apparently around one a.m. when the man approached our witness.”

  “So that rules out students, at least,” Tina said.

  Elle nodded. “It should. Unless a student got someone else’s pass.”

  “If we go down that hypothetical, though, then it could literally be anyone. Is it only the staff who work in the building that can access it after hours, or can any staff member access the building?”

  “I don’t know.”

  On the small square of video that was embedded next to the shared screen, Tina’s face was focused. “So, this is the course page for the math and physics degrees.”

  “Yeah, I found that last night, but that’s where I got stuck. Each course has the professor’s name next to it, but I couldn’t find any links to the full faculty, and I didn’t have the energy to comb through dozens of courses.”

  “Hmm, they must have . . .” Tina typed a few more things, clicked a couple times.

  “Oh, what’s that?” Elle sat forward. “Where it says ‘meet our team’?” There was a link lost in a chunk of text on the main physics course page.

  Tina clicked and then sat back with a victorious smile. On the screen was a page filled with pictures, names, and profiles of about thirty men and women.

  Elle read the headline at the top. “Physics and Mathematics Faculty. Well, that took you all of two seconds.”

  “It would have taken you two seconds too if you’d slept in the last week.”

  “Hush,” Elle said, already scanning the list of names. At least two-thirds of the people fit the description Eduardo gave them. Tina scrolled again and a new face popped onto the screen.

  “Didn’t you say the girl who saw the man talking to Amanda said he was bald? There are, like, ten bald guys here.”

  “Wait . . .” Elle whispered.

  Tina stopped scrolling. “See something?”

  Elle pointed at the screen. “I know that guy. Third from the bottom, in the white collared shirt. Dr. Stevens. That’s the guy I went to see last week. The one Luisa Toca’s mother said her daughter was dating.”

  “Luisa Toca. Leo’s ex?”

  “Yeah,” Elle said, staring at the photo. The man was clean-shaven and not wearing a baseball cap like he had been the day they met, but she recognized him anyway. “He told me he and Luisa’s mom were neighbors and he just flirted with her daughter one time. I figured her mom just misunderstood. His story checked out.”

  “Hmm, weird. But you know, Minneapolis is one of those big small towns. And there are a few guys here that match the description.”

  “True.” Nevertheless, Elle pulled out her phone and got the sketch Danika helped put together up on her screen, holding it up next to the man’s picture on the computer. She shook her head as her stomach sank. “Looks nothing like the sketch. The guy three above him does, though, at least a little. Dominic Jackman.”

  “Cool. Why don’t you head over to Stevens’s house again and see if he has an alibi. I’ll check out Jackman and the other baldies.”

  37

  Natalie

  January 19, 2020

  Natalie was alone now.

  She shivered in the dar
k as she watched the slot on the door. It had been hours since it last opened. Upstairs was silent. She heard no footsteps. This might be her only chance.

  Until yesterday, she and Amanda had agreed they would wait to be rescued. Natalie had read a lot of true crime books she sneaked out of Elle’s studio, so she knew their chances of escaping on their own were low. She warned Amanda over and over not to make the man angry. Elle would never stop looking for her. She would find a way, use her podcast to find the man that had taken them. Help was on the way; they just had to wait.

  But that was yesterday.

  Time had blended together, but she was pretty sure a full night had passed since the man killed Amanda. The two of them had been locked in the basement for what felt like days, with no windows letting in light or dark that would indicate the passage of time. Amanda was sick, vomiting and crying into the gross toilet that was the only piece of furniture in the room besides the bed. They had no food, and the single bottle of water he’d left them was almost drained from Amanda trying to get her fluids back up.

  After ignoring them for hours, the man had finally opened the door. He brought a bowl for each of them, which held just a few spoonfuls of some boiled, brown mash. Amanda took a couple bites, and then she lost it. She threw the hot dish at him and screamed her head off and thrashed around on the bed while the man tried to calm her and Natalie cowered, weak with fear and hunger. Then, when Natalie was sure the neighbors would hear the girl even though they never had before, he leapt across the bed, straddled her body, and tried to cover her mouth with his hands. She bit him, and he yelled, then grabbed the pillow both girls shared and shoved it down on her whole face. She kicked and writhed and screamed with a kind of intensity Natalie had never heard before. Finally, after several long minutes, she was still.

  The man left her in the basement and ran up the stairs. Natalie could hear him pacing back and forth, footsteps creaking the boards above her head. When he came back, he did not look at her. Natalie stayed where she had sat since Amanda threw the bowl, face buried in her knees, until he was gone. Amanda was no longer on the bed when she finally opened her eyes again.

  Natalie was alone now.

  She sat up in bed and listened closely again, waiting for the telltale clomps of his feet. Nothing. He was so angry when he stormed away yesterday, and he hadn’t been back with food or water. She was pretty sure he wasn’t even in the house. If he didn’t come back, if Elle didn’t show up soon, she would die here.

  Now was her chance. There were no windows and the door to the basement was firmly locked, but there was a vent up high near the ceiling.

  Natalie shoved the bed across the room, metal screeching against the concrete floor. She picked up the large bucket Amanda had used to throw up in when she was too weak to get out of bed and tipped it into the toilet. There was no sink to rinse it out, so she turned it upside down on top of the mattress. She wouldn’t be sleeping here again anyway.

  The bucket wobbled when she stood on top of it, but if she held her palms flat against the wall, she could balance. One of the bedposts was broken, its sharp, splintered point jabbing at the ceiling just to her right. If she fell on that, she’d be dead. Once she was stable, Natalie reached up and pulled at the grate over the air vent. At first, it didn’t budge. She banged her fist against it, sharp pain shooting into her skin. It had to come loose.

  Then, with one final smack, the metal sprang free and fell, bouncing off the mattress before clattering to the floor.

  Natalie held her breath, eyes trained on the ceiling. No footsteps sounded above her.

  Again, she reached up, this time to grip the inside of the vent. It felt dusty and slippery under her sweaty hands, but she managed to get a good grip. But how could she hoist herself up? She didn’t have any leverage, any footholds in the smooth surface of the wall.

  The wall.

  Heart crashing in her chest, Natalie jumped down and picked up the bucket, doing her best to keep her hands dry as she swung it toward the wall. It thunked uselessly three times before finally taking a chunk out of the plaster. She hit it twice more before a decent divot was formed, enough for a couple of toes to squeeze in. Setting the bucket down on the bed again, she climbed back up. This time, when she got a grip inside the vent, she swung her left leg up and put the tip of her foot in the divot. Then she tensed her muscles and tried to pull her body weight up the wall.

  She slipped, holding in a scream even though she had already been making a racket. She’d been practicing holding in her screams for days. Her feet landed back on the bucket. The scent of urine filled the room, and at first she thought it was coming from the bucket before she realized she’d just wet herself. Tears blurred her already dim vision. She felt like a baby, or an animal, or both. She should be stronger than this. She had an advantage Amanda didn’t have. She’d read the books. She’d learned about monsters. She should be braver than she was.

  After saying a quick prayer, Natalie took a deep breath, reached up again, and this time didn’t stop to think. She scrambled like a kid climbing a fence to get away from a bully, and it worked. The muscles in her left calf and her shoulders twinged as she shot herself up into the vent, but she was there. She landed on her belly and panted for a moment. Only a moment.

  This vent wasn’t for heating. The ones in the floors did that. She hoped that meant it was for ventilation and would take her outside, to the cold winter air and freedom.

  Crawling through the vent proved much easier than getting into it was. Using her elbows and knees, she wriggled her body along the bottom, stopping every now and then to listen for any sounds besides her own harsh breath. The vent came to an abrupt stop, and panic surged through her, but she realized it had changed to a right angle leading upward. She stood up and waved her hands around in the dark until she felt the edge of another bend around chest height. She pulled herself up and into the next tunnel.

  A few moments later, she felt icy fingers of air dance across her sweaty face. She was getting closer. The first smell of snow made her crawl faster, whimpers escaping her mouth beyond her control as the air got colder and colder.

  And then she was there, banging against the grate on the outside of the house, whatever house this was, and she had forgotten about the noise, about keeping quiet, because the air was here, and it was fresh and clean and better than the death and sewage and vomit that had been stuck in her lungs for days. She launched through the broken grate and tumbled into the snow, lying still for a moment as the brightness of the outside world burned her retinas. Snowflakes drifted around her pajama-clad body.

  Then, a crunching sound, unmistakable. A sound that should remind her of sledding and snowball fights and drizzling maple syrup over freshly scooped snow in a bowl, but instead sent knives of fear slicing down her skin. Before she could even scramble to her feet, he had her by the back of her neck, his hand a hot clamp on her skin.

  “Very clever,” he whispered. He swung her into his arms like a baby, like she’d fainted and he was helping her. Her eyes darted around in the gray morning light, but she only saw suburban houses with closed doors and curtained windows, just like every other house in her neighborhood and probably every neighborhood in Minnesota. Nothing stuck out. She had no idea where she was, and no one knew she needed help.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but his voice cut her off, low and threatening. “If you even so much as squeak, I will pull every tooth out of your mouth and save your tongue for last.”

  Her teeth clicked together as tears flooded her eyes. He opened the front door with his hands still underneath her body and began to walk through the house. The smell of bleach and broccoli made her stomach churn.

  She was still frozen, unable to move or protest, when he threw her back on the filthy mattress. In the dim light, he looked down at her as if she was a misbehaving dog.

  “‘You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God.’” His voice boomed in the cram
ped basement room. “You will not run from your purpose. You will not defy me. No one will defy me again.”

  Then he left, locking the door behind him. A few moments later, she heard a loud crash outside, followed by the sound of the drill.

  He was sealing the only exit shut.

  38

  Elle

  January 19, 2020

  When she finally set off for the drive to Falcon Heights, Elle was feeling foggy, thick-headed after taking a nap for a few hours at Tina’s insistence. Her body was crying out for more sleep, but she could only answer with the large travel cup of coffee in her hand.

  As she took another drink, Elle’s phone buzzed in the console. Missed calls and texts were coming through every few minutes. At a stoplight, she glanced at it; notifications from journalists and bloggers she’d interviewed in the past filled her screen. There were emails from her podcast network, from Detective Sykes, from about a thousand listeners. Her old name, her real name, was trending on Twitter. A text from Angelica, Martín’s sister, was the only one she opened.

  PROUD OF YOU. REPORTERS AT MY HOUSE BUT I’M NOT SAYING ANYTHING UNTIL WE TALK.

  “Shit,” Elle murmured. She typed back a quick thanks and promise to tell her sister-in-law more soon. Putting that episode up had been so clearly the right decision this morning, but she hadn’t even paused to consider that it wasn’t just her life that would be affected when she told the world who she was. There were no texts from Martín, but he was probably being inundated too.

  She powered the phone down and put it back in the console. At some point, she’d have to face the questions—but there would be time for that later.

  When she arrived at Dr. Stevens’s house, the curtains were drawn and there were no cars in the driveway. Elle walked up and tried to peer through the windows in the garage door, but it was too dark to see whether there was a car inside.