by Eva Hudson
“The police have not arrested anyone. They are searching the house. Like they’re going to find him hiding in a closet somewhere. They did find some vicious dogs tied up in the yard.” She mumbled something in Russian Ingrid couldn’t make out.
Then she fell silent.
Ingrid didn’t want to ask any more questions. She didn’t want to know anything else about the case. They’d been through this too many times already in the last three or four years. Svetlana would call her about the latest case of recovered abductees. The rescued women would then be identified, and once it was clear Megan Avery wasn’t one of them, the phone calls from Svetlana would cease. Until the next time.
Ingrid braced herself for what was inevitably coming next.
“I’m at Kathleen’s house now,” Svetlana said. “All night we have watched the news together.” She took another long pull on her cigarette.
Here we go.
“I told her she should not get her hopes up. Like she has every other time this has happened.”
Ingrid gripped the metal rail at the edge of the roof.
“Kathleen wants to speak to you.”
Ingrid closed her eyes and said nothing. Her mother never gave up. Even though Ingrid had made it perfectly clear she couldn’t speak to Megan’s mom.
“Ingrid? You still there? Ingrid?”
“I’m here.” The tremor in her voice took her by surprise.
“Tell me this time you will talk to her. Like a grown up. Like…” She paused. “Like a goddamn human being.”
Ingrid wanted to hurl the phone over the side of the building.
“Well?”
“You know I can’t. Nothing’s changed. I just can’t do it.”
Svetlana said something in Russian again. This time she didn’t mumble. But Ingrid had heard all the Russian curse words her mother could throw at her. They were accompanied by, ‘coward’, ‘no child of mine’ and ‘your papa would be ashamed’. Bringing Ingrid’s dead father into the conversation? That was a low blow. Something Svetlana reserved for special occasions. It had the desired effect: Ingrid’s eyes started to sting. “There’s nothing I can say to Kathleen that will make things better.”
“How can you say that? When have you even tried?”
“No matter what I say I can’t justify why I’m alive and Megan is dead.”
“We don’t know she is dead. Not for sure. Besides, Kathleen has never asked you to justify anything.”
“But that’s what’s in my head. I can’t face her. Don’t you get that?”
“For once, why not stop thinking about what is in your head and think about what is in hers?”
Ingrid squeezed her eyes shut, forcing out the tears. How could Svetlana be so cruel? Hardly a day went by that Ingrid didn’t think of Megan and the loss Kathleen had to endure. But she made no comment. She didn’t have the energy to fight.
“Megan’s vigil is coming soon. Why not come home for once and light a candle for her?”
Ingrid wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand. “I can’t.” The words came out in a sob.
“Stop feeling so sorry for yourself, like always. I should have known already what your answer would be.”
If you knew then why put us both through this?
“If you won’t speak to Kathleen, at least promise you will do one thing for her.”
“What?” This was new. Normally Svetlana would hang up about now.
“Ask your FBI friends for any information they have about this house and these women. It’s no good just watching news on TV. They tell the TV people only what they want them to know.”
“You’ve never asked me for my professional help before.”
“I’ve got more reason to this time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The house where they found these women is only thirty miles away.”
2
After Ingrid had promised her mother she would ask one of her contacts in the Bureau for more information, Svetlana hung up without bothering to say goodbye. Ingrid marched back into the apartment, threw her cell phone on the couch and headed for the bathroom. She hoped the sensation of hot water pummeling her skin and flattening her short hair against her scalp might banish the distressing conversation with Svetlana from her mind.
But instead it gave her time to think. And all she could think about was Megan Avery.
Megan at fourteen, the way she’d looked when Ingrid last saw her: flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes, a little breathless maybe, as she and Ingrid hurried from the carnival to return home before their curfew at ten. Ingrid walked as fast as she could, Megan struggled to keep up. Like Ingrid, she had carried quite a few extra pounds right through her puppy fat years and into her teens. Megan’s mom liked to cook and enjoyed spoiling them. Ingrid never complained. She took after her father when it came to her appetite. Svetlana had always eaten like a bird. Another memory popped into her mind: Svetlana poking a talon-like finger into the soft flesh of her upper thigh, a disgusted look on her face, her voice shrill and harsh as she told her just how lazy she was.
Ingrid scrubbed shampoo into her scalp with both hands, her eyes squeezed tight shut, and started humming some dumb pop song she’d heard on the radio the day before. Anything to shut out the other sounds that had started play in her head: the high-pitched and slightly out of tune carnival steam organ melody, the distant screams of the people on the roller coaster. She hummed a little louder. Then the shampoo reminded her of the sickly sweet smell of the cotton candy they had eaten. It was an aroma she’d tried to avoid ever since. It brought on the rush of memories faster than anything else.
She quickly rinsed out the suds and turned off the shower. She stepped out of the bathtub and stood dripping on the floor. Disoriented for a moment, she’d forgotten where she’d left her bath towel. In that instant she was back in the bathroom of her childhood home.
The house that was only thirty miles from where those women were found. So close to where Megan had been taken. Was it possible she could still be alive? For years Ingrid had held on to that hope. It was the reason she’d been so determined to join the FBI. After Megan disappeared, everything Ingrid had done had been carefully planned to get her another step closer to her goal. She worked hard in high school and college, got herself fit, made endless sacrifices in her personal life, until finally she was accepted into the Academy at Quantico. She had dreamed of heading up her own team and one day tracking down the man who’d snatched away her best friend. A tiny part of her also harbored the fantasy that somehow Megan was still alive and Ingrid would be the one to liberate her from her prison.
But over the years she’d slowly begun to realize what a forlorn hope it was, that in all likelihood Megan had been abused and murdered within hours of being abducted. And in time Ingrid had learned how to live with that realization.
After her conversation with Svetlana, a glimmer of that same hope had come back to torment her. She was compelled to find out anything she could about this latest case for her own peace of mind: not just because her mother had asked her to.
Just forty minutes after stepping out of the shower, Ingrid was making her way from the basement parking lot of the ugly six-story concrete building situated on the western side of Grosvenor Square in Mayfair to the FBI’s Criminal Division office on the third floor. She had extra purpose to her step as she hurried along the rosewood-paneled corridor. When she reached the twenty by thirty foot, low-ceilinged room, she was surprised to discover it was empty. Jennifer Rocharde, the administrative clerk and currently the only other member of the Criminal Division team, wasn’t sitting at her desk.
With Jennifer out of the way, Ingrid considered calling Mike Stiller, her most reliable contact within the Bureau. But it was still only four-thirty a.m. on the East Coast. Mike was keen, but even he wouldn’t be working that early in the morning. She didn’t want to leave him a voicemail message—her request for information would need careful handling.
For the next three ho
urs she struggled to complete a report for her most recent case. The Metropolitan Police investigation into the armed mugging of an American tourist had been relatively straightforward, but writing up her assessment of their work had proved more difficult than she’d expected. She found it almost impossible to concentrate on anything other than what might be happening with another investigation that was being played out over four thousand miles away. A cursory check of the major news sites online hadn’t revealed much more than Svetlana had told her. Without hard facts, all the reporters and so-called experts could do was speculate. It was worse than no news at all.
At a quarter before twelve she reached for her cell phone and out of the corner of her eye noticed that Jennifer had risen to her feet.
“Hey,” the clerk said, scooting around her desk on the other side of the office and hurrying toward Ingrid’s, “I’m going for coffee. Can I get you anything?”
“That’d be great.” Ingrid was relieved Jennifer was going out, which meant she didn’t have to. There was no way she wanted an audience for her potentially awkward phone conversation with Mike Stiller.
“Let me guess,” the clerk said, studying Ingrid’s face carefully, “double espresso.”
“It’s that obvious I need caffeine, huh?”
Mildly embarrassed, the young clerk pushed her long, sandy-blond hair behind her ears and nodded. “If I’m not out of line mentioning it, you’ve seemed awfully quiet this morning. Is everything OK?”
“Nothing a few early nights wouldn’t fix,” Ingrid lied. She forced a cheerful smile and watched Jennifer turn on her sensible heels and leave the office. She waited another couple of minutes before picking up the phone. Jennifer wouldn’t be gone long. Ingrid hoped she’d have enough time to persuade Mike Stiller to agree to help her. Given what had happened three months ago, he might take a lot of persuading.
3
Since Ingrid had first started working at the embassy, back in December, she’d relied on intel from Mike Stiller more times than she cared to admit. As the weeks turned into months, she had discovered that when it came to the collation of information, working around the system—circumventing the strictest of Bureau protocols—was sometimes the only way to get things done. That wasn’t something she would even have considered doing before her move overseas. But so far, her new pragmatic approach seemed to be working out just fine: Mike felt indispensable and Ingrid got to see higher classified intel that her level two security clearance would normally have given her access to.
She scrolled through her contacts list for his number and hesitated when she found it. After what had happened a couple of months ago, Mike might decide he never wanted to help her again.
Ingrid’s break-up with her fiancé might make the conversation very uncomfortable. Mike was probably closer to Marshall than he was to her. Marshall may have asked him to choose sides. This was the first time she’d needed a favor from her old D.C. field office colleague since she’d ended her engagement, so there was no way of knowing if he’d agree to help her or not.
There was only one way to find out. She hit the call button and hoped for the best. Mike answered right away, no doubt eager to feel both busy and indispensable even before seven a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
“Agent Stiller—how are you this fine and pleasant August morning?” Ingrid was struggling to inject an upbeat tone into her voice.
“It’s seventy-five in the shade and humidity’s set to reach eighty-five percent by two p.m. The office air conditioning has stopped working, my iced tea has no sugar in it and I’ve got an appointment with the dental hygienist at lunchtime. So I’m just peachy.” He let out a weary sigh to emphasize the tragic nature of his situation. “Thank you for having the courtesy to inquire about my well-being, but I’m sure that’s not why you’re calling.”
“You know me so well.”
“Listen, I don’t have a lot of time.”
“I’ll be real quick.”
“I don’t just mean now. I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment. If you need a favor, you might have to ask some other pliable schmuck.”
Mike had to have been talking to Marshall.
“You know I wouldn’t be asking if the circumstances didn’t call for your skills and expertise.” She continued to keep her tone as light as she could.
“I have a new boss. The regime here isn’t as… relaxed as it used to be.”
It seemed to Ingrid a pretty lame excuse. Why didn’t he just come right out and admit his loyalties lay with his old friend, Marshall Claybourne?
“Hey, I’m not asking you for classified information, just a little heads up on a current case. It’s really important.”
Mike didn’t say anything. Normally his curiosity would have gotten the better of him.
“Just a couple phone calls to your contacts in the Minneapolis field office,” she said.
“All our calls are monitored now.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“The new boss is pretty tough. Takes no prisoners, you know what I mean?”
“Come on, Mike, it can’t be—”
“It’s Marshall, OK?”
“What?”
“The new boss—it’s Marshall. Started last month. He’s busy trying to prove himself right now. I’m sure he’ll mellow with time.”
“But I thought he was your friend.”
“I guess only when I was useful to him.”
Ingrid wondered if maybe he was getting at her, but quickly dismissed the notion. Marshall’s demands would be in a whole different league to hers. Obviously the breaking off of their engagement had done nothing to diminish his determination to haul himself up the greasy pole. She didn’t know if she felt relieved or disappointed that the end of their relationship had affected him so little.
“Listen, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you guys,” Mike said after a long pause.
“It was in the cards. You and me can still be friends, right?”
“Sure we can. But getting you intel? It’s just not possible. Right now I gotta keep my nose clean. Marshall already got two agents transferred. And I like working here.”
Ingrid wasn’t sure what to say. Mike was still her best hope of getting all the information she needed, as fast as she needed it.
“Hey, are you OK?” he asked her.
“Fine.” She could already hear Svetlana’s mocking tone when she told her that the one time she’d asked for Ingrid’s help, she’d failed to deliver. “If you can’t help me, then I guess I do have to find somebody else who… I mean I need to…
“You sure you’re OK? You don’t sound fine. What’s going on?”
“I should let you get back to work. I don’t want you getting crap from Marshall on my account.” Her voice wavered and she let out an involuntary sob.
“I’m so sorry—I didn’t realize you were so cut up about Marshall.”
“God, I’m not! No way!”
“It’s OK—I understand. You guys were together for a long time.”
“It’s not Marshall, I swear.”
“Then what the hell…?”
Ingrid took a moment to compose herself. “I guess you must know about the case in Blue Earth County? The rescued abductees?”
“It’s impossible to avoid it.” She could hear him breathing noisily at the other end of the line. “Wait a minute, don’t you come from around there?”
This was the part she’d been dreading. In the two years she’d worked with Mike out of the D.C. office, she’d managed to avoid the subject of Megan Avery entirely, even when she’d surprised him by putting in a transfer request to the Violent Crimes Against Children Unit. “The house where they found the girls is thirty miles from my home town.” She could feel her throat tightening. “Megan, my best friend, was abducted eighteen years ago. I need to know if she’s one of the women they found.” She stalled and took a breath.
“Jesus Christ. I had no idea. Tell me what you need.”
Ingrid swal
lowed, grateful Mike hadn’t asked her for any more details about Megan’s disappearance. “All the information the local feds gather in as close to real time as you can get it. Including any audio or video interviews the witnesses, victims, or suspects participate in. I don’t want to get information from FBI reports, I want the facts straight from the source.”
“That’s gonna be tough.”
“I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t mean so much to me.”
“Sure. I understand.”
“Can you do it?”
Mike didn’t answer right away. Ingrid wondered if maybe Marshall had just stepped into the office.
“Mike?”
“I’ll make some calls. I can’t promise anything—it might take a little while to set up. You want me to send files to your private email account?”
“Please. This is strictly between you and me.” Ingrid swallowed again. Just mentioning Megan’s name to Mike had been tougher than she’d imagined. “As soon as you get positive IDs for any of the three women, you will let me know?”
“You didn’t even need to ask.”
“Thanks, Mike.” She hung up and leaned back in her seat. She’d been squeezing her cell phone so tightly it had left deep indentations in her right hand. She concentrated hard on forcing the muscles in her neck and shoulders to relax.
Mike Stiller had never let her down before. She prayed this time would be no exception. She planted a hand across her forehead and leaned her elbow on the desk. All she could do now was wait.
“Jeez—I guess you really need this, huh?” Jennifer said as she appeared at the door. “Sorry I was so long. The line at the cafeteria took forever. I think the espresso machine isn’t working properly.” She carefully placed the small cardboard cup on Ingrid’s desk.
Before Ingrid had a chance to drink any coffee her landline started to ring. She stared at the phone for a moment, trying to get her head together.
“Want me to get that?” Jennifer asked.
“It’s OK.” The words came out louder and harder than she’d meant. “Hey—thanks for the coffee.”