The constable glanced at it and opened the gate. “Detective Riley asked me to radio her when you arrived.”
He nodded. Riley was the lead Ident detective. She ran a tight ship, and he respected her for that. No compromising of evidence on her watch. No one was allowed to enter a crime scene without her permission, except for the M.E. There’d been too many crime scenes that were compromised by police officers accidentally stepping on prints that were invisible to the naked eye or by leaving their own trace evidence. But with Riley, things changed. It made his job—and the prosecutors’—so much easier.
Riley saw him and waved. Ethan knew not to be fooled by her small stature. She was tough, a triathlete in her spare time. She had more stamina—mental and physical—than the entire graduating class of the academy. She headed toward him, carefully following a path that he knew would be the same every time. Same way in, same way out. It kept contamination of evidence to a minimum.
She stopped in front of him. Alarm bells rang in Ethan’s head. In the five years he’d known her, he’d never seen Audrey Riley show any emotional reaction to a case until it was over. But today he saw distress blurring her usual focused gaze.
“Here’s the rundown, and it isn’t good,” Riley said, her hazel eyes locking his. “The victim looks to be approximately fifteen to eighteen years of age, been dead for several hours. She was discovered by a security guard.” She crossed her arms. “Doubt he’ll have a job after today. He admitted to falling asleep. Seems like he took a catnap every night.”
“How long did he sleep for?”
“He claims he was asleep for twenty minutes around 0200, but he’s an old guy. I bet it was longer.”
“And what time was the victim discovered?”
“0540. The security guard called the police right away. He was scared shitless.” A muscle flexed in her jaw. “He has shit for brains, too. He ran through the tire track the killer left. We can’t get an imprint.”
“That the only one?” From the flash of frustration in Riley’s eyes, Ethan knew what her answer would be.
“Yeah. So far, it’s the only trace evidence we’ve uncovered.”
He stared at her. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. The victim was naked, Ethan. No clothes, no ID, no fibers that we can find.”
That meant the autopsy would be more crucial than ever. “Which M.E. is coming?”
“Guthro.”
He relaxed. “Good. He’ll find something. There’ll probably be some trace under the nails—”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Riley asked brusquely. “She was dismembered.”
His heart dropped. “Deb was told she was mutilated.”
“No. All her limbs were cut off.”
“Shit,” he said softly. “Have you recovered them yet?”
“Not yet.” The way she said it, Ethan had no doubt the Ident guys would be digging holes in every inch of dirt until they did.
“So this wasn’t the kill site?”
Riley shook her head. “Uh-uh. This site is pristine. You could have the Queen for fucking tea here. He killed the victim somewhere else and dumped her here.”
“Damn.” He stared past her shoulder at the crime scene tape. An anonymous dismembered girl, a clean dump site and rain about to fall on whatever trace evidence there was.
Halifax had never seen anything like it.
Chapter 9
Tuesday, May 1, 9:00 a.m.
Marian MacAdam unlocked the door to her condo and rolled her overnight bag inside. Despite her attempts to make it feel like home, the condo had a still quality that she hated. No matter that she’d lived in it for almost three years, she couldn’t get used to the confines of a high-rise. A house—or at least her house—had always seemed to breathe when she was gone.
Marian hurried through the living room and threw open the patio doors. The air was so damp it left a layer of moisture on her skin.
Part of her wished she hadn’t come back just yet. Her plan had been to spend the week in St. Margaret’s Bay, getting her cottage opened for the summer. Before her disastrous meeting with Kate Lange, she’d had visions of organizing the spare bedroom so Lisa could invite some friends to “hang out” there for the school holidays. She’d even looked into sailing lessons at the local yacht club.
But her meeting with Kate Lange had punctured those hopes. She’d spent the past three days halfheartedly making lists of jobs for the cleaning service, restocking the pantry and washing all the sheets.
Yesterday, she sat on the deck, the wind cool despite the sudden hit of spring heat. The fog had retreated to the outer islands. It would stay there for a few hours. She gazed at the water. Thinking about happier times. Thinking about her life with Roy. Missing him more than ever. Wishing she could talk to him about her meeting with Kate Lange. She’d wanted the lawyer to deal with her troubles, not heap more on her plate. She couldn’t make her understand that calling Child Protection Services was the worst thing Marian could do to Lisa.
Wasn’t it?
She had been so sure of that on Friday. Then over the weekend the doubts crept in. Just like the fog.
When her friend Margaret called last night to invite her for lunch at the art gallery today, she accepted with alacrity. Her doubts would not let her rest. Better to have some company. She wasn’t sure if she would confide her troubles to Margaret; she’d see how lunch went.
The cottage seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she locked it up earlier this morning and ventured tentatively onto St. Margaret’s Bay Road. The drive had been slow, the road windy and nerve-racking in its opacity, although the dense fog that hugged the curves didn’t seem to slow down some drivers. Normally she liked to tune in to the CBC radio morning show. But today she had needed to concentrate extra hard. She would never admit it to anyone, but driving was a bit difficult nowadays. She missed things that would suddenly rush at her and cause her heart to jump.
* * *
The call from the headmistress had been the third in the past two weeks. Hope put the phone down and stared at her hands. Her fingers clenched slowly into fists, then stretched out onto her desk. She breathed deeply. She had to be in court in five minutes. She needed to calm down. But it was difficult. The headmistress’s insinuations had been offensive.
“Have you heard the morning news?” Ms. MacInnes had asked her.
Hope had. A homicide in the south end of the city. Police were refusing to provide any details until the victim’s family had been notified, but witnesses claimed the victim had been a prostitute.
At first, Hope did not grasp why Ms. MacInnes had brought this up. But then it hit her. And she was outraged. She couldn’t believe the nerve of the headmistress—Headmistress—who was she kidding? A glorified public school principal, more like it.
Hope’s voice became glacial. “What, exactly, is the relevance of that question in terms of my daughter’s absenteeism?”
Ms. MacInnes paused. Hope felt a spark of satisfaction. It died with the headmistress’s next words. “It is very relevant if Lisa is using drugs again.”
“She’s not,” Hope snapped. “There has been no proof whatsoever that she is using them.”
“Besides the fact of her truancy,” Ms. MacInnes said softly. Then she asked, “What does she do when she skips school?”
Hope inhaled sharply. “Her grandmother keeps an eye on her.”
“I see.” The headmistress did not bother to disguise her disbelief. “Lisa cannot continue to miss school, Your Honor. We have academic standards that must be met.”
“I assure you that I am handling matters,” Hope said, her voice stiff. “Lisa will be at school tomorrow.”
“Good. Perhaps we could arrange a time to meet about this…?”
“I will have my assistant call you.” Hope disconnected the line.
She did not want to make the next call but she had to.
* * *
The phone rang. It jarred the stillness. Marian jumped. She had been lost in though
t. Kate Lange had left a message on her answering machine just minutes before she had arrived home from the cottage. She’d left one the day before, as well. She wanted Marian to call her, but Marian hadn’t—not yet. She decided she would talk to Margaret before she dove into those muddy waters.
The phone rang again. Insistent.
Was it Kate Lange? Marian’s fingers hovered over the receiver. She really didn’t feel ready to talk to her.
The phone rang a third time. She hesitated. Maybe it was Margaret. She really should answer it. She snatched up the receiver.
“Marian.”
Her heart sank at the sound of the crisp voice on the other end. “Yes.” Why was Hope calling? Had her ex-daughter-in-law heard that Marian had consulted a lawyer about Lisa?
“I don’t have much time—” you never do when it comes to family “—court is about to begin, but I wanted to check that Lisa was with you.”
Dread crawled down Marian’s spine. “I haven’t seen her since last week.”
“Lisa told me yesterday that she was having dinner with you. I assumed she stayed over.”
How convenient. “No. I was at the cottage.”
“Did Lisa know that?”
“Yes.” Why did you lie again, Lisa? Marian silently wept for the child who had once had nothing to hide. “So she didn’t come home last night?”
“No.”
Marian’s heart began skipping beats. She forced herself to calm down. “Where do you think she is?”
“I don’t know. The school called five minutes ago to report her absence.” Hope’s voice was remarkable in its steeliness. Or maybe it wasn’t remarkable. “But as we both know, she’s gone off on her own before. She’s probably at her friend’s.”
There was a murmur on Hope’s end, someone had come into her office. Hope’s voice became staccato. “Look, I have to go. I want you to call her friends. I’ll recess court at 10:45 and call you.”
“Yes, all right—” The dial tone buzzed in Marian’s ear. Hope had hung up on her.
She put down the receiver and hurried over to her desk. Her address book was there. She hoped she had the phone numbers for all of Lisa’s friends. Her stomach clenched with anxiety. Where had Lisa gone last night? And why hadn’t Hope done anything about it until now?
This was exactly the behavior that had driven her to see Kate Lange in the first place.
She flipped open the book and began dialing.
* * *
Kate closed her office door and slid behind her desk. It was 10:25 a.m., although you couldn’t tell by looking out the window. The rain had started. Everything was gray.
She picked up the phone. Her heart pounded as she dialed Marian MacAdam’s number again. She had a feeling her client had deliberately not returned her phone call. But Kate couldn’t wait anymore. Urgency thrummed through her. After hearing about the homicide on the radio this morning she knew she needed to act—before Lisa followed the same path as that dead prostitute.
“Hello?” Marian MacAdam’s voice was breathless.
“This is Kate Lange from Lyons McGrath Barrett.” Kate stared at the Child Protection phone number she’d jotted on her notepad. Would she have to give an ultimatum or would Marian MacAdam call Child Protection herself?
“Yes? Are you calling about Lisa?”
Her client’s response wasn’t what Kate expected. She thought Marian MacAdam would be haughty, reluctant. But there was no mistaking the desperation Kate heard. “Yes. I’m calling about the meeting we had on Friday—”
“I haven’t been able to find Lisa. She’s gone.”
Kate tried to swallow her unease. “Since when?”
“Her mother hasn’t seen her since she went to school yesterday morning. She told Hope she was having supper with me, but that was a lie. She knew I was at my cottage.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s fine.” Kate forced herself to sound reassuring. “She’s probably at a friend’s.” Hadn’t Kate done the same thing when she was sixteen? Snuck out to a party, taking her younger sister and her mother’s car. But it had all gone horribly wrong after that. She pushed that from her mind. Lisa was probably cozied up with a friend watching YouTube videos.
“I’ve called all her friends. No one’s seen her.”
The news report said it was a young prostitute who had been murdered. What if it wasn’t? “Did anyone see her last night?”
Marian’s voice was bleak. “None of her school friends have spoken to her for a few days, apparently.”
Kate wiped her palms on her skirt. “Have you called the police?”
“No.”
“You need to call them.”
“I want to wait until Hope calls me back. She said she’d recess court at 10:45.”
“Marian.” Kate didn’t know how to ask this, so she blurted: “Have you heard the news today?”
“No.” Her client’s voice became scared. “Why?”
“There’s been a homicide. The reports suggest it was a prostitute, but—”
“It can’t be Lisa!”
“But you don’t know where she is.”
“She’s not a prostitute!”
“I know that.” Kate tried to be gentle, yet she needed her client to understand the urgency of the situation. “But the news report could be wrong. You need to contact the police.”
“I’m going to wait until Hope calls. Lisa may have tried calling her this morning.”
Clutching at straws. It was clear her client could not consider the alternative. That the unthinkable might have happened. Kate glanced at the clock. It was 10:33. Judge Carson should be calling soon. “All right. When Judge Carson calls, tell her that if she hasn’t heard from Lisa, she needs to call the police. Or your lawyer will do it for her.”
Kate hung up the phone. She knew, without a doubt, she had made the right call.
What she didn’t know was if she had made it too late.
* * *
Kate found out twenty minutes later. Marian called her back. Her client could barely speak. Lisa hadn’t called. But Hope was dismissive of Marian’s suggestion that the homicide victim could be Lisa. She wanted Marian to track down some of Lisa’s old friends.
“It’s a waste of time,” Marian said, despair weighing her voice. “Lisa hasn’t spoken to them for years.”
“Why won’t she call the police?” Kate asked. It seemed incomprehensible that a criminal court judge could not put two and two together when her daughter was missing and a dead girl had been found.
“Because then she’d have to admit to the police that she had no idea where her daughter was,” Marian said bitterly. “She doesn’t want to involve them until she has to. She said she wanted to look for her first before calling them.”
“It’s too late to be worried about what the police will think. If Lisa is not—” Kate paused at the sound of Marian’s sudden sob. “I’m sorry. But Lisa’s safety is paramount. Someone just killed a girl. If Lisa is still unaccounted for, we need to make sure she’s safe.” Kate picked up her pen. “I need a description of her to give to the police.”
Marion gave her the details in a numb voice, swallowing hard at the end. “You’ll call me as soon as you know something?”
“Of course.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispered.
Kate knew exactly how her client felt. She’d said the same thing fifteen years ago.
She hung up the phone and dialed Ethan’s number before her courage failed her.
“Detective Drake.” His voice was terse.
“Ethan. It’s Kate.”
“Jesus.” He didn’t hide his shock. Nor his anger. “This is a bad time to call, Kate. I’m on a homicide investigation.”
“I’m not calling about what happened on Friday night,” Kate said quickly. “I’m calling about the prostitute who was found murdered this morning. Is that the case you’re on?”
“I’m investigating the homicide, but who said it was a pro
stitute?”
“That’s what the media is saying.”
“It’s unclear.”
Kate’s heart lurched. If it wasn’t a prostitute, then could it be Lisa? She took a deep breath. “Look, my client’s granddaughter went missing yesterday.”
Ethan’s voice sharpened. “What’s her name?”
“Lisa MacAdam.”
“What does she look like?”
Kate read off the description: “Fifteen years old, five-foot-four, one hundred and ten pounds, dark brown hair with a blond stripe down the middle—”
“How do we reach next of kin?” Ethan asked abruptly.
“Oh, my God.” Kate swallowed. She pressed the phone against her cheek. “Is it her?” Please say no. If there is a God, please let Ethan say no.
“Sounds about right.” There was an unnerving mix of adrenaline and somberness in his voice. “Who are her parents?”
“Robert MacAdam and—Ethan, this is going to be a minefield—her mother is Judge Hope Carson.”
There was a stunned silence. “Holy shit.” He added softly, “We thought she was a street kid.”
“No. Just a forgotten kid.”
“Look, I gotta go. We need to get her parents down here.”
“Right.”
There was an awkward silence. “Thanks for the tip. I’m sorry it was your client’s granddaughter.”
“Me, too.” She hung up the phone. She pressed her palms into her eyes. How could she call Marian MacAdam? What would she say?
In the end, Marian MacAdam said very little. Just, in a tremulous voice, “Is it Lisa?”
Kate said softly, “The police need Judge Carson to ID the body.”
Marian choked a sob. “I see.” She swallowed. “I need to call Rob. He’s in Singapore. I think… Oh, damn!” Her voice choked as another sob overwhelmed her.
The phone buzzed in Kate’s ear.
Kate grabbed her purse and stumbled down the hallway to the elevators, ignoring the startled looks of the support staff. She got off on the wrong level of the parkade and had to climb up a set of stairs to find her car. Once in it, she rested her head on the steering wheel.
Why hadn’t she called Child Protection sooner? Hadn’t she learned from her own past? Why had she waited?
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