by Leslie Wolfe
Until she came, and Mother took her, pointing her finger at the love of his life and choosing her as her due sacrifice, above all others, just as he’d chosen the same woman above all others to have and to hold.
He recalled how he couldn’t believe what was happening, his willpower subdued by Mother effortlessly. She was so beautiful, so happy… the pride of his life. Then she was gone. In taking her, Mother ensured that she would never be forgotten, that her life would have meaning, a worthy meaning most people only dream of.
She’d become immortal, laid forever to rest at Mother’s bosom, in atonement for human’s sins against nature.
Now, only a few hours before the new sacrifice, he felt energized, eager to experience Mother’s gratitude. Once the offering would be accepted, her wounds would heal, and the sun would shine again. She would smile on her child once more, the only one who really understood her, like she’d done so many times in the past. And that smile made everything worthwhile.
His mind wandered to the many who’d been sacrificed over the eons, each time a painful and fear-filled sacrifice, but none as agonizing as this one. So much was riding on what was going to happen at high noon tomorrow. This time, the ritual had to be executed to perfection.
He was ready.
40
Dinner
Kay couldn’t believe she’d grown to have a favorite table at the Hilltop Bar and Grill. In the year since she’d returned to Mount Chester, she’d built many fond memories in that place, most of them work-related, or so she liked to think when she avoided acknowledging that they’d all been centered around her partner.
Elliot. The reason why she smiled while she entered the old bar and made for her favorite table, glad to see it was empty. No other deputies were there that night; everyone was pulling nonstop duty keeping the treacherous roads safe and helping people flee their homes, threatened by landslides during what had to be one of the worst storms of the decade.
She also felt a sense of anticipation, of excitement, eager to confirm her theory that the unsub’s crimes had some correlation with the weather. It would be the first real insight into who this man was, the first discernible feature on his profile. And it almost always started like that, with a single, uniquely defining feature that penciled in who the unsub was, why he killed or kidnapped, what fueled his impulses.
Kay set her laptop on the tacky table, pushing aside the menu holder, the napkin dispenser, and the saltshaker. She fired it up, tapping her heel against the floor impatiently, while her eyes wandered over the smoke-stained walls, covered in old photos hanging in cheap frames or just pasted up without frames, close to one another. It was as if she was reviewing an illustrated history of Mount Chester. Weddings, birthdays, smiling happy faces, but also a picture of the mayor, several of the sheriffs, current and past. Hunters and their dogs, skiers and their trophies, even a dogsled racing team. Almost like a family album, because, ultimately, that’s what the town of Mount Chester was: a family.
And someone was taking its children.
Typing quickly, she ran an internet search for historical weather data, and immediately found that Weather Underground had kept impeccable records of their weather stations’ readings. She accessed the service, and chose the Redding weather station. There wasn’t one for Mount Chester, but Redding was close enough; only two hundred miles.
Flipping quickly between the report and the weather data screens, she started checking the abduction dates, one by one, going down the forty-three names on the list. And one by one, the data confirmed her theory—with each name her blood chilling a little more, raising goosebumps on her skin.
“What can I get you, hon?”
She managed to smile at the server who knew her by name but still used that endearing term with all her female customers.
“Just some pretzels and club soda. I’m waiting for—”
“That gorgeous cowboy of yours?” She laughed with girlish familiarity and winked at her, patting her on the shoulder. “I, for one, don’t know what you’re waiting for.”
Kay smiled, a little uneasy, her eyes riveted to the computer screen. The server took the hint and left. Moments later, a bowl of salt-encrusted pretzels and a chilled glass of club soda were set on the table. “There you go, hon. Enjoy.”
“Thanks.” Munching absentmindedly, she worked her way through the entire list, checking weather, comparing inches of rainfall with what the region had seen in the past week, and, specifically, on the day Julie had been taken.
Every single time a first daughter had been kidnapped, it had rained hard, heavy downpours bringing down several inches over twenty-four-hour intervals. Even if that meant the unsub had to wait three years for his next opportunity, back in 1984.
Her excitement withered when the online weather data archive returned, No data recorded, for all years prior to 1973. There weren’t many abductions older than that; just a few. After finding a phone number for the head office, she called and explained what she was looking for.
“That’s because those archives haven’t been digitized yet, Detective,” the meteorologist on duty explained in a pleasant baritone. “Or maybe the Redding weather station wasn’t built until 1973; we can find out if you wish. But if you give me the dates you’re looking for, I can pull the data from the paper archives and call you back.”
“That’s perfect, thank you.” Scrolling through the last few names, she read the dates one by one, while a nagging question bugged her. What if the weather records weren’t the only ones that hadn’t been digitized prior to certain dates? What if the kidnappings of firstborn daughters were going back further than fifty-seven years?
She read the date by the last name on the list and froze. “I’ll have to call you back.” She hung up, staring at the name on the screen. How could she have missed that?
The oldest name on the open cases report was Anna Montgomery, twenty-three years old.
The unsub had taken Montgomery girls before.
“Hello,” she heard Elliot’s voice and her frozen blood started rushing through her veins again.
She looked up, smiling without even realizing it. Then she frowned a little, painfully self-conscious. He’d managed to go by his place and take a shower, get fresh clothes, and now smelled of shower gel and aftershave and dryer sheets, while she stank of acrid, rained-over clothing that had repeatedly dried from body heat. Even his hat was new, a dark brown one she’d never seen before. The whitewashed jeans and blue plaid shirt went with it perfectly, bringing out the blue in his eyes.
The server popped by the table before he’d had a chance to sit down, notepad in hands and a wide, inviting smile on her lips. He took his hat off and set it on a chair, then pulled the one across from Kay for himself.
“We’ll need a moment,” Elliot said, and she vanished. “I see you’re buried in work. Found anything interesting?”
She took half a second before replying, clinging to the image of her smiling partner before diving into the abyss of serial killer minds. “Yeah,” she replied, aware her voice was tinged with undertones of regret. She wished she could take the time and enjoy their dinner, forgetting all about the unsub as she’d already forgotten about her smelly clothes and her ruined hair. But Julie was still out there somewhere in that wet darkness, and every second mattered. “Every time he’s taken a girl, it rained. Seriously rained—like now, like the world is ending with Noah’s ark and the Great Flood.”
“What?” he reacted. “I didn’t see this one coming.”
“There’s more. His first vic—well, the first one we have on file anyway—was also a Montgomery, Anna Montgomery.” She threw a pretzel in her mouth and chewed it quickly, the salty crunch deeply satisfying, addictive. “Turns out she was Avery’s wife. He was the one who reported her missing, fifty-seven years ago.”
“What do you mean, the first one we have on file anyway?”
“What if there were more, dating back before records were digitized?”
&nbs
p; “I got it.” With a deep frown cutting across his brow, he picked up the laminated menu they both knew by heart. “Avery’s wife? What are the odds of that?”
“Zilch. We need to put that family under a microscope.” She beckoned the server and she trotted over, beaming.
“I’ll have a Hilltop burger, with everything on it except onions, and double fries.” She needed the artery-popping goodness to fuel her body. The next few hours were critical.
“Same for me,” Elliot said, abandoning the menu in its usual place, the wrought-iron holder Kay had pushed to the side to make room for her laptop.
“How did it go with Brent?” Kay asked, as soon as the server disappeared from earshot.
“Oh, we have a budding fine citizen in that young man,” he replied.
She laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse. I wondered what you’d make of him.” Fire coursed through her blood hearing that he’d been thinking of her. “But he’s not our perp. He’s got a ten-gallon mouth and no solid values whatsoever. One day he’ll cross our paths again, you’ll see.”
“Did he give you anything useful? Or just an inkling of his charming personality?”
Elliot shook his head. “Nothing we didn’t already know.” He took a pretzel from the bowl, but his hand stopped midair. “Maybe this. Julie was deeply upset about something, feeling guilty and all that, and definitely not thrilled about leaving town. They were going to San Francisco, moving there by Brent’s account. Nothing the little creep said pointed to Julie and her mom running away from something.”
“Strange,” Kay said, lost in thought.
The server set their food in front of them, filling the air with mouthwatering smells of sizzling bacon, molten Swiss cheese, and salty fries.
“Enjoy,” she said, then walked away quickly, swaying her hips.
“You think?” he asked humorously. “I can’t think of anything that’s not strange about this case.”
“No, I meant, at the time of Julie’s date with Brent, Cheryl had already shot your John Doe. Yet she didn’t say anything about that; instead, she seemed to have blamed herself. For what, we don’t know.” She took one fry and chewed it hungrily. She would’ve taken more, but they were still too hot. “Imagine this, a teenage girl who witnesses—at least indirectly—her mother shooting a man in their house. Yet, two days later, she goes out on a date, albeit crying, but still. What the heck are we missing?”
He took a big bite out of his burger, his half-closed eyes lighting up with satisfaction when his perfectly white teeth bit into it. “From what Brent said, she was crying because she didn’t want to move away from here.”
That made absolutely no sense. Her mother shot someone, yet her biggest concern was moving?
The charm of the shared dinner faded, as if the darkness of the case engulfed them. Always heavy rains. A superstition, decades old or maybe more, proven right by statistical case history. And a victim whose family seemed to be involved in more than one way. A family who didn’t bother to ask about Julie, as if she were a foregone conclusion. And the first girl taken fifty-seven years ago, Anna Montgomery, a first daughter herself, was also a member of the family.
She took a bite from her burger, her appetite now gone, only to find it had lost its taste. The fries seemed dull too; she washed down the few she’d put in her mouth with a hearty gulp of sparkling water and pushed her plate aside.
“This family holds all the answers, Elliot,” she said, glancing at him for the first time since he’d arrived, afraid to see the fire in his eyes, afraid of what it did to her. “That’s where we have to look.” She checked the time; it was almost half past ten, a few long hours until she could question the Montgomerys again. Another night for Heather and Erin to sleep in improvised conditions. Another long night for Julie in captivity, if she was still alive.
Elliot called for the check with a hand gesture, just as both their phones chimed. She took out hers and found a message from Dr. Whitmore, which read:
John Doe has 12.5 cMs in common with the missing girl, Julie, but none with the mother. That means he’s a paternal great-uncle. Based on that, I pulled DMV records. John Doe’s name is Dan Montgomery.
The message ended with the fingers crossed emoji.
“Ah, Montgomery again,” Kay said, intrigued. “What do you know? Marleen’s husband.” She wondered how that piece of the puzzle fit into the bigger picture, what new angles it presented.
“What the heck is a cMs?” Elliot asked with a shy smile, scratching the roots of his hair.
She smiled widely. He seemed embarrassed like a schoolboy caught without his homework done, when he shouldn’t’ve been. The term belonged to the medical examiner’s specialty glossary. “Centimorgans. It’s a unit to measure genetic linkage. It’s defined as the distance between chromosome markers—”
He held his hand in the air to stop her, then waved it above his head with a quiet whistling sound, as if to convey the information was way over his head. “Okay, I think I’m good, thank you.” His grin widened, while the corners of his eyes softened, touched by it. The spark she’d noticed earlier in their endless blue had reappeared as he looked at her. Her gaze veered sideways as her face flushed.
Still avoiding his eyes, she stood. “Now that John Doe has a name, we need to find out more about this family and how they’re involved.”
41
Court Order
The first light of dawn woke Kay up to find Heather sleeping cuddled with her back against her body. During the three hours she’d slept, the little girl must’ve crawled toward her, finding warmth and comfort near her even if that meant sleeping on the hard edges of the joined cots. For some reason, feeling the child shifting in her restless sleep against her body stirred up feelings inside her, yearnings she never knew she had.
As gently as she could, she rose, pulling slowly away to not wake her, then covering her body with the soft, Lion King blanket on loan from the Farrell household. Heather woke anyway. She opened her eyes and looked at Kay through a haze of sleep. “Hello,” she whispered, the first word she’d spoken out of hypnosis since her mother was killed. Kay’s heart swelled. She set her comfortably on her pillow, and caressed her hair. “Sleep some more, all right? I’ll get us something to eat, and I’ll be back soon,” she whispered, but the girl was already asleep.
She checked on Erin, who slept tightly with her thumb in her mouth, then tiptoed out of the room, only to run into Sheriff Logan in the dark hallway.
She gasped. “Oh, good morning,” she muttered, wishing she’d had time to brush her hair and rinse her mouth.
“Maybe for you, Detective,” he replied somberly. He smelled of aftershave, but didn’t look as if he’d caught more than a couple of hours of rest. Judging by the wrinkles on his shirt, those hours might’ve been in his service car, and the shave electrical, using a buzz shaver powered by the lighter plug in the same vehicle.
She didn’t need to ask why; it was the fifth day since Julie had been taken, the sixth since the storm had started, the third since the first landslide that had caused losses of lives. All she heard on the radio when she drove was about weather-related death tolls and Julie’s disappearance, sprinkled with the occasional tongue-in-cheek comment from announcers who wondered what the police were doing and why there were no answers yet.
“What’s up?” she asked instead, warily.
“The aunt is here again, this time with a court order. I’m letting her take the girls.” He took one more step toward the nap-room door, but she cut firmly in his path.
“I don’t care about that court order, Sheriff,” she said, but immediately sweetened her tone, seeing her boss’s eyebrows ruffle. “All evidence leads to the family being involved, and no judge, knowing what I know now, would’ve signed that order.”
He propped his hands on his hips with a groan of frustration. “And why don’t I know what you know now?” His tone was menacing, impatient. He must’ve perceived her delay in inf
orming him as intentional, maybe even malicious.
“Because I only learned of these facts late last night, when you’d already gone.”
“And?”
“At the risk of sounding defensive, you told me to never drop bombs on you by email. I was planning to speak to you today, in person.”
He folded his arms at his chest, still frowning. “I’m listening.”
She drew a long breath of air, steadying herself. This was no place for emotions and raw nerves. “First off, John Doe is Marleen’s husband,” she said gesturing with her head toward the entrance, where she could see the familiar silhouette in the distance, pacing relentlessly. “I didn’t have time to deliver next of kin. By the time we learned his ID, it was almost midnight.” His frown eased up a little. “But that’s not all.”
“What else? I’m not seeing that bomb yet, Detective.”
“Think about it. He was having an affair with Cheryl, who ends up shooting him. I’m telling you, this family is somehow involved.”
“I’m not seeing any evidence of that, only circumstance.” He stopped talking for a beat, pressing his lips together. “We can’t ignore the court order, Kay. She’s taking them with her; nothing we can do.”
“They’re involved in the kidnapping, boss. We can’t let them take these girls.”
“You said this was a serial killer case, right?”
She nodded.
“You mean to tell me the Montgomerys are involved in forty-three kidnapping cases?”
She stifled a sigh. “I don’t know about forty-three right now, but I know they’re involved in this one.”
“But didn’t you say—”
“Yes, I said it’s a serial, and I have further evidence that points this way, but—”
“What evidence?” His hands found his hips again, and he took another step, closer to her, as if ready to force his way through.
“All kidnappings happened during bouts of weather like this.”