by Sara Shepard
Maddox shut his eyes. “Brett sent me a letter. Just now.” His voice trembled. “Madison found it in the mailbox. We were just about to call you.”
“Hey, guys,” Madison added reluctantly.
“Brett sent you a letter?” Seneca sounded appalled. “Read it!”
Maddox thought of what the letter said and shut his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was read it aloud to Seneca. “Um…”
Madison ripped the letter from his hand. “I’ll read it,” she said, as if sensing why he was so hesitant. Maddox gave her a small, grateful nod. Madison unfolded the pages again and, with a grim look, began.
SENECA HAD MOVED to the tiny bathroom inside the ice cream stand, where she could speak in private. She stood in the cramped space, which had drawings of anthropomorphic ice cream cones on the walls, and listened to Madison read the letter. As the words washed over her, she felt a bright, almost surreal mix of anger, shock, disgust, and devastation. Then, to her astonishment, she felt the urge to burst out laughing. It had happened only one time before—at her mother’s funeral, at the very moment they were closing the casket. It was like the wires in her head were crossed.
But on the heels of the desire to laugh came the desire to throw something. Shatter the mirror over the minuscule bathroom sink. Kick the door so hard she broke the bones in her foot. She wilted against the wall, her emotions suddenly doing a 180 again. Now it felt like a big hole was spreading inside her, turning everything to ash. Could this be real? Could this be how Brett and her mother met? Oh God, she knew that Starbucks Brett mentioned, tucked into the front of the Target outside Annapolis. For all she knew, she’d seen Brett behind the counter, serving her mom a latte.
But kissed? Brett and her mom had kissed?
Seneca leaned over the sink, feeling sick. The idea was now seared into her brain.
When Aerin’s voice came through the phone, Seneca jumped. “Why would Brett write all of that?” Aerin asked in a small, thin voice.
“Because he’s insane?” Madison cried.
“I know, but why would he confess?”
“He didn’t confess anything,” Maddox argued. “It’s all so vague. There’s nothing we can tell the cops.”
“What are you talking about?” Aerin exclaimed. “He’s obviously talking about my sister. He stalked her on Metro-North! And he worked at Starbucks—that’s a huge lead! Cops can get employment history and pictures of him on Target’s surveillance video.”
Target. How many times had Seneca gone in there with her mom? Do you mind if we run in? Collette always said. I need to pick up a few things. I’ll buy you a book. Seneca remembered a particular time mere months before her mom disappeared when she’d perused the fiction aisle at the back of the store, happy a new thriller was in stock. She’d been so engrossed in the first chapter that she didn’t notice until fifteen minutes later that her mom hadn’t come to check on her. And her mother was…at the Starbucks counter? Having a freaking latte with Brett? Her stomach heaved.
“Seneca?” Maddox’s voice cut through her murky memories. “You still there?”
Seneca made a small sound from the back of her throat.
“What should we do?” Maddox asked. Seneca could hear the apology in his voice. She and Maddox had been close—they’d even kissed. And, okay, she might have had a few fantasies about him in the months since they’d parted, but things had chilled between them. Still, he understood her. He got that the last thing she wanted to do right now was strategize. All her hunches confirmed. All her worries, her terrors, true. But knowing Brett was truly the murderer felt neither satisfying nor vindicating. It was, instead, like she was getting sucked into quicksand. Like someone had punched her hard in the jaw, sending her brain clanging against her skull.
But then something dawned on her. Maybe Brett wanted her to feel this way. Numb. Scattered. Ruined. Too hurt to think. Perhaps this was part of his plan.
She straightened up, determined not to fall prey to his mind games. “Brett knows what he’s doing. He’s given us a clue to where he is, and it has something to do with this missing girl. He wants us to find him. He wants to play a game.”
There was a long pause. “So do we?” Maddox’s voice wobbled.
The bells to the front door of the ice cream shop jingled, and Seneca heard voices. She placed her head in her hands and considered all she’d just heard. Chelsea—blond and pretty—fit Brett’s type. He had been hiding out, and now he had this girl. The injustice of it, the brutality of it, made her curl her hands into fists. But beneath her shock and anger, excitement crackled. Here Brett was, finally. In her crosshairs. And with the new information about her mom, Seneca was even more determined to take him down.
“Yes,” she decided. “I think we do.”
Aerin gulped in a breath. “So we go and find a kidnapped girl? Can we do that on our own?”
“Of course,” Seneca said, surprised by the force of her voice. “We’ve done it before. We found out what Helena was up to. We exposed Skip and Marissa. Even if they weren’t the actual killers, it was a lot farther than the cops got. Think about the things Brett wrote about your sister in that letter, Aerin. That he’d followed her. Stalked her. You know he broke into the Dakota. You know it. Don’t you want to avenge your sister’s death? Don’t you want to wring his freaking neck?”
There was silence. Seneca realized she’d been speaking very loudly, and she was now on her feet, her muscles tensed. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Her skin was blotchy. Her mouth was taut. Her fingers clutched the edge of the sink.
Then Aerin softly exhaled. “Yeah. I really, really do.”
“Madison?” Seneca asked. “Maddox? What about you?”
“I totally get wanting to find Brett, you guys,” Maddox said gently. “But go to New Jersey? How do we even know if Brett’s still there?”
“Because he says he is. In his letter.”
There were whispers; Madison and Maddox seemed to be discussing it. “We’re in, one hundred percent,” Maddox said when he got back on the line. “But if we don’t find her within a week, we have to go to the police.”
Seneca paused. Brett was crazy enough to make good on his threat to kill Chelsea—or perhaps someone else—if they went to the cops. But maybe Maddox was right. If they couldn’t figure this out in a matter of days, they would have to go to the police. She was about to agree when there was banging at the bathroom door. “Uh, Seneca?” It was Brian.
Seneca opened the door a crack and gave him an apologetic smile. She pointed at the phone and mouthed, My dad. Brian nodded, and she closed the door softly.
She ducked her head and fiddled with the gold P-initial necklace she wore every day of her life, the one that used to belong to her mom. This was happening. Really happening. But was she ready to face her mom’s killer?
She thought of her mother. The tangy smell of the moisturizer she rubbed on her face every morning. How she obsessively applied ChapStick at stoplights and after meals. Over the summer, she’d gotten back into looking through old photo albums; there was one of her mother standing in front of a tree with a square burned into its trunk. She wore a strappy sundress and held a squirming, sticky-faced three-year-old Seneca on her hip. She was smiling into the camera, and she looked so…innocent. The kind of person who was so effortlessly happy, she buoyed the happiness of everyone around her.
Had Brett killed Collette immediately, or had he taken his time? Had he touched her? Seneca knew it wasn’t healthy to obsess over those details, but it was almost like she wanted to prove to herself that she wasn’t afraid to look at things head-on. She wanted to prove she had the guts. She wanted to prove she was brave enough to find Brett. To face him. Take him down.
On the phone, they talked about how they would get to New Jersey and what they would do next. It was only after everyone hung up that Seneca stared at herself in the mirror once more. The redness had disappeared from her cheeks, and her eyes looked glassy and vacant. She didn’t
look angry anymore, she realized.
She looked terrified.
MADDOX WOKE UP Monday morning to the wafting scent of J.Lo Glow in his nostrils. Madison stood over his bed, in a red-and-pink dress and five-inch heels. “Why aren’t you up?” she hissed.
He jumped to his feet with a start. By the pale whitish light from the window, he could tell it was still early, but he was surprised he’d fallen asleep. All day yesterday, he’d stressed over packing and mapping the correct route and poring over the news. And then for hours last night, his head had swirled with anticipation. A girl was missing. Only they knew who did it. And Brett was out there, arms outstretched, waiting for them to come and play.
It scared the crap out of him. It would sound wussy if he admitted how petrified he’d been the night Marissa Ingram had trapped them all in the bathroom at the Easter Bunny party, a shard of glass to Aerin’s throat…but he had been. And Brett was a murderer. What if this was a trap? It felt like walking into a shark tank in nothing but swim trunks and a snorkel mask. But he thought again about Brett’s letter. The long, heartbreaking silence on Seneca’s end of the line after Madison had finished reading. The determined quiver in her voice when she’d convinced Aerin that they needed to get Brett. He would do anything for Seneca. And also? Seeing her face-to-face, he would finally be able to check in with her…and tell her how he felt.
Maddox climbed out of bed and pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The house was quiet and still; his mother and stepfather were sound asleep in the bedroom at the end of the hall. Madison followed him toward the bathroom, and he gave her a weary glare and half shut the door. “Have you figured out how you’re going to explain being away to Mom and Dad?” he asked her.
“How do you plan to explain it?”
“I decided to do a couple of days at the track camp in Jersey. It’s starting today.” Because he’d dominated at the national high school track meet that spring, he’d received several invitations from track camps all over the country, inviting him to attend for free. Leaflets for programs in Florida, Maine, Indiana, and Kansas littered his bureau.
“Well, don’t worry about me.” Madison tapped a giant hard-shell rolling suitcase. It was the one she’d used for their three-week trip to visit her cousins in Korea last year. “Let’s go.”
Maddox gawked at the bag. “Do you plan on being away all summer?”
Madison retreated to her bedroom and appeared with yet another suitcase, this one only slightly smaller and printed in cheerful pink plaid. “I might want to be a detective, but I don’t want to look like one.” She grabbed the handles of both bags and headed toward the garage. “Let’s go!”
A FEW HOURS later, after listening to Beyoncé’s Lemonade on repeat, they crossed a small bridge that led into the little seaside town of Avignon. A choppy blue-gray bay gave way to a swanky boutique hotel called the Reeds at Shelter Haven, and then they were spat out onto a main drag lined with surf shops, a saltwater taffy store, and a place called Ralph’s 5 & 10 that had boogie boards and inflatable beach loungers displayed on the sidewalk. It was midmorning, and the street bustled with vacationers. A pancake house had a line out the door. Maddox spied a sign taped to a telephone pole. Missing. It showed a photo of the girl Maddox had stared at last night until his eyes blurred. Chelsea Dawson. Five feet five, blue eyes, blond hair.
Chelsea was a dead ringer for Helena. In the photo, she was cradling a Labrador puppy. She wore a Pandora bracelet containing charms of a horse and a camera. Unlike the racy photos she posted on Snapchat and Instagram, in this one Chelsea seemed like a girl who sang Disney ballads until she was twelve and wrote poetry about boy bands and unicorns. Maddox gripped the steering wheel hard, feeling charged. They were going to save this girl and get Brett in the process. They had to.
“So this is what I read about Chelsea,” Madison said, following his gaze to the poster. “She’s from outside Philly. Her family has a house here and comes every summer. She’ll be a senior at Villanova, and until this year, she volunteered at a facility where they do equine therapy for kids with special needs.” She made a face. “I don’t get horsey girls. What’s the big draw of shoveling huge piles of poop all day?”
Maddox felt impatient. “What do you know about the night she went missing?”
“I’m just giving you a full picture. As I was saying, she was really into horses…but then she started her Instagram account. This girl posts All. The. Time. Mostly selfies. The pictures were pretty innocent at first, but they became sexier and sexier over time. She went from having a few hundred followers to tens of thousands. Her account isn’t private, and a lot of the comments are pretty pervy.” Madison wrinkled her nose. “But I guess she likes the attention.”
Maddox bit his thumbnail as they waited for a group of kids to cross the street. “What if Brett believes he’s doing the world a favor by killing these women? Like he goes after women who he finds morally shameful. Helena because she was with an older man. Seneca’s mom because…” He trailed off, hating to think of it. “She kissed him and was married. Who knows? Maybe he took Chelsea because he thinks she’s a narcissist.”
“Maybe,” Madison said, her gaze on her phone again. “The last thing Chelsea posted was from the night she went missing. She’s half-naked, and she practically broke Instagram with it.”
“I saw it.” It was hard not to stare at Chelsea and her come-hither eyes, pouty lips, and nipples that were visible through her gauzy blue dress.
“The thing is, she looks really happy. I bet she had no clue someone was going to kidnap her in the parking lot later that night.”
Maddox shivered despite the warm burst of sun. He thought of the last pictures they’d seen of Helena before she died, quick snaps they’d found on an app called Under Wraps. In the last photo, she looked hopeful, happy, and in love.
She hadn’t known anything bad was about to happen to her, either.
The group had arranged to meet at a coffee shop called Island Time, which had a fifties-style sign in the parking lot and a turquoise-painted roof. Seneca had texted Madison about an hour ago to report that she’d already arrived, and as Maddox navigated the Jeep into a space, his chest burned with nerves.
Madison pushed through the double doors, and a bell jingled. A figure sitting at a table at the back of the café looked up. Don’t stare, Maddox thought, but he couldn’t help himself. It felt like a hummingbird had been unleashed in his stomach. Seneca wore the same jean jacket she’d had on when she’d stepped off the train in Dexby the first time they’d met. Her cheeks were adorably pink, her shoulder-length hair was full around her face, and her eyes were bright and stunning. It was jarring being in Seneca’s presence after spending so many hours thinking about her. He’d forgotten that she was just as human as everyone else, with ragged fingernails, a Band-Aid on her finger, and an untied sneaker.
Seneca hugged Madison first, and then she turned to Maddox. As she stepped forward, he worried she was going to spread out her arms for a hug…and then he worried she wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure which gesture would make him feel worse, so he crossed his arms over his chest. “Hey” was all he could muster.
“Hey,” Seneca said back, sounding just as tentative—maybe even defensive. Maybe his hey had come out too pitying. Seneca hated being pitied.
Maddox gritted his teeth. Cut through the bullshit. Seneca was hurting. Brett’s letter was brutal. He needed to tell her he was here for her.
But then the door opened again, and Aerin Kelly breezed in, clad in a flowing maxi dress, round sunglasses, and a bag with two interlocking Cs on the front. She looked tanner, blonder, and even more glamorous than when Maddox had seen her last. “Sorry I’m late,” she breathed. “I had to take a train and two buses and a cab to get to this place.”
“Maddox and Madison just got here, too,” Seneca said, and everyone sat down. She eyed Maddox carefully. “Did you have any luck researching Metro-North?”
Maddox rolled his shoulders. Yesterd
ay, he’d looked into how to identify passengers on Metro-North—maybe there was a way to track Brett’s train tickets from when he stalked Helena. But it had been a dead end. “When you buy tickets, you don’t give your name. And while some of the trains have surveillance cameras, the Dexby line doesn’t. Grand Central Station has tons of security cameras that might have picked up an image of Brett, but we’d need police permission to access them. And even if we did do that, I doubt they saved images from five years ago.”
“I looked into his posts from Case Not Closed,” Madison said, sounding just as frustrated. “They’re impossible to trace.”
“Shit,” Seneca muttered, biting her lip.
“I’m guessing the Target search didn’t go well, either?” Maddox asked uneasily.
Seneca stared into her coffee cup. “I called and asked if anyone remembered someone named Brett working there five years before, both by his name and description. Nobody did, no surprise. They also told me they recycle their security footage every thirty days—so there’s no chance of Brett on camera. They have a Facebook page, and it goes back five years, but I didn’t see pictures of Brett anywhere.”
Aerin tapped her nails against the table. “Do you think Brett lied about working at Starbucks?”
Seneca’s features brightened for a split second, as if she would love nothing more than for this to be true. But then she shook her head. “I think he’s telling the truth—in some capacity. Anyway, then I contacted Darcy on CNC—she goes as TheForceWithin? She helped get some Starbucks records in that case in Missouri where a rapist was targeting women at their local coffee shops. She had a contact in Starbucks corporate. Anyway, I asked if she could look into that particular franchise’s employee history. She said she’d try, but it might take a while.” Seneca tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure what good it will do. Brett probably used an alias, with a fake social security number.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Maddox pointed out. “What if your mom was his first victim? Maybe he’d used his real name, and all his names after that were aliases.”