I See You

by Burton, Mary

  He started the car and maneuvered out of the parking lot. A red light caught them a block from the hospital.

  “The assailant breaks into the Foster house, stabs Mr. and Mrs. Foster, and then escapes with both an injured woman and a hysterical teenager.”

  “And no one hears or sees anything?” she asked, incredulously. “Odds are Hadley and Skylar are already dead.”

  “I want to disagree, but I think you are right.”

  “The facts point that way the longer the search continues.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tuesday, August 13, 10:00 a.m.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Three Hours after the 911 Call

  The clock was ticking. And it was not lost on Zoe that the longer this search lasted, the less the chance that they would find either victim alive.

  Vaughan maneuvered up King Street, a bustling central artery in Alexandria. Seconds later, they spotted the twin brick pillars of the cemetery entrance. He pulled through the gates, following the narrow road up a hill, past old tombstones, toward the flash of police lights.

  Vaughan drove around the back side of a stone mausoleum, where two marked cars were nosed in toward the ring of yellow crime scene tape that established a generous perimeter around the late-model black Lexus.

  The devil was in the details, as Uncle Jimmy used to say when he painted one of his masterpieces. Brush strokes, paint sources, even the type of canvas could betray his masterpieces as fakes.

  The vehicle’s glistening, polished exterior and the deep-black wheels suggested a recent cleaning. It was not surprising a man like Foster kept a clean car. He was an accountant in a prestigious firm, and he was paid to monitor the smallest details. He wanted his car to reflect that.

  Zoe pulled on gloves as she approached the car’s back passenger door, which was now open. The rusty scent of blood and leather heated in the morning sun drew her gaze toward the dark stains that puddled and ran over the back seat onto the custom floor mat. The buzz of a phone emanated from inside the car.

  “Sounds like it’s coming from the trunk,” she said.

  “It’s rung several times in the last ten minutes,” a uniformed officer said. “We’re leaving it for forensic.”

  Vaughan tugged on his gloves, carefully opened the front door, and popped the trunk latch. Saving lives trumped preserving evidence, and he could not wait on the off chance Skylar or Hadley was alive and locked in the trunk.

  A chill snaked down Zoe’s spine as she braced for what they could find. Vaughan’s grim expression mirrored her own sentiments. Silent, they walked to the back of the car, and he carefully opened the lid.

  A ripple of tension passed over them both.

  Both stood silent, staring in the trunk for a beat. No bodies—only an emergency roadside kit and an opened suitcase that was filled with Foster’s clothes.

  The one-two punch of relief and disappointment hit Zoe. “Why transfer them to another vehicle and risk discovery? If Foster’s timeline is accurate, the assailant would have been transferring the women at the peak of the morning commute. A highly risky move, unless it wasn’t originally part of the plan.”

  Vaughan looked back at the mausoleum, searching for security cameras. “There have to be cameras here. I’ll have the uniforms check it out.”

  She angled around the trunk, back toward the rear seat. “Again, if Foster is telling the truth, and the blood in the room is his wife’s, this must be hers as well. If Hadley Foster hasn’t bled out, it won’t be long,” she said.

  Vaughan turned to the officer. “Double-check with the area hospitals, and see if a woman matching Hadley Foster’s description has been dropped off.”

  “Sure, Detective.” The officer reached for his phone, dialing as he turned and stepped away.

  The phone stopped ringing and started up again. Zoe searched the trunk, feeling along the interior until her fingers brushed the phone.

  Gripping it by the edge, she faced Vaughan as he opened a plastic evidence bag. She studied the display and the name Roger Dawson. The call went to voicemail along with eight other missed calls.

  Vaughan scribbled down the name and phone number. “Wonder what Roger Dawson wants?”

  She hit callback and then speakerphone; then she said, “Let’s find out.”

  On the second ring, a man said in a rush of exasperation, “Hadley, where have you been?”

  “Mr. Dawson, this is FBI special agent Zoe Spencer, and I’m with Alexandria Police Department detective William Vaughan. Have you been trying to reach Hadley Foster?”

  There was a pause on the other end before Dawson replied, “Yes. Is something wrong?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine, Mr. Dawson,” Zoe said. “Hadley appears to be missing.”

  “What do you mean, missing?” Dawson challenged.

  “Exactly that, sir,” she said. “There was a disturbance at the Foster home this morning, and Mrs. Foster and her daughter, Skylar, are missing.”

  “Where the hell is Mark?” Dawson demanded.

  Zoe’s gaze locked on Vaughan’s raised brow. Like her, he heard concern usually reserved for loved ones.

  Instead of answering the question, she asked, “Who are you to Hadley Foster?”

  A hesitation crackled over the line. “We are good friends. Now please tell me what’s going on. Where’s Mark?”

  Vaughan shook his head. “We’d rather talk to you in person. We’ll come to you.”

  Another pause. Was Dawson in shock, or was he shifting to damage control?

  “Yeah. Sure. I’m at my office on Duke Street.” He recited the address of Weidner and Kyle, an accounting firm located on the building’s first floor. The line went dead just as the forensic van rolled up on the scene.

  “He’s called her seven times in the last couple of hours,” Zoe said.

  “Did he leave messages?” Vaughan asked.

  “Two. But her messages seem to be password protected.”

  Vaughan walked around the car and paused. “There’s a hell of a scrape on this side.”

  She joined him and studied the long white graze. She touched her fingertip to the tail end of it and noticed traces of red paint. The right front tire was also noticeably low.

  She looked back toward the corner of the mausoleum and spotted black scrape marks against an aluminum trash can. “The driver came flying around the corner and hit the post and then stopped here. Foster said his daughter was driving. A seventeen-year-old in a highly stressful hostage situation could easily have done this.”

  “All assumptions are based on the testimony of a man I don’t trust.”

  “That’s a given.”

  Her gaze roamed toward rolling green hills dotted with gray headstones. “Have an officer search the entire area. No telling what he’ll find.”

  “Right.”

  She handed the phone to the forensic tech and then stripped off her bloodstained gloves and discarded them in a crime scene disposal bin by the van. “Let’s see what Mr. Dawson can share with us.”

  Nikki drove to Fredericksburg in less than an hour. In the middle of the day, there was light traffic, and she pressed the speed limit, going well over eighty in some spots. It had not been too hard for her to find Becky Mahoney, Larry Prince’s former secretary and lover. There were others who had known the Prince family back in the day, but there was nothing like an old flame to give the inside scoop. If Nikki was lucky, Becky would have some lingering animosity toward Prince and be very willing to talk.

  The GPS took her to the south side of the city, down several winding roads undergoing construction, and then into a small neighborhood. She had not called ahead and was not surprised when no one answered the front door. She checked her watch, guessing that it might be hours before Becky Mahoney returned home. That gave her enough time to find a fast-food place. She pulled out of the neighborhood, and two miles down the main road, she spotted several drive-through restaurants. She picked the first and o
rdered a burger and a Diet Coke. She pulled into a parking space, and as she ate, she opened her file on the Prince case.

  Back in the day, she had been sleeping with a cop who had helped her obtain copies of the detectives’ case notes. What she had learned was that Larry Prince had been suspected of bribing state officials in exchange for the big contract he had won shortly before Marsha had vanished. However, there had not been enough evidence to bring charges. Some had whispered that Larry had broken a few key promises to local politicians. One detective had theorized that Marsha’s disappearance was payback for Larry’s disloyalty. It was all hearsay in the newsroom, but nothing could be proven, so no one had aired it. Today, she doubted her former colleagues would be so worried about lawsuits. Hell, at this stage, she was not really worried. As long as she attached alleged or sources said, she could wiggle out of just about anything.

  Her stomach knotted, and her appetite vanished. She dropped the half-eaten burger in the bag and took a pull on the drinking straw. She leaned forward and opened the glove box, searching for the packet of cigarettes she always kept there. Technically, she had quit last year, but she had held on to this emergency stash as a kind of safety blanket. Her fingers skimmed over the crumpled packet. She’d thought she had one or two cigarettes left. It was empty.

  “Shit.”

  She turned up the police scanner she had on the Alexandria Police Department and listened for chatter. Officers were being dispatched to a cemetery. She kept waiting to hear the name Foster. When the cops didn’t say it, she knew something was up.

  Glancing at the clock on the dash, she decided it was time to get back to Mahoney’s house and have a chat with her. Afterward, she would haul ass back to the cemetery.

  She pulled in front of the house just as a woman parked in the driveway. The woman was older and plumper than she remembered, but there was no missing Becky Mahoney’s tall frame and bleached-blond hair.

  Out of her car, she shouldered her backpack and hurried across the residential street. “Becky!”

  The woman’s head turned, and the automatic smile dimmed a fraction as Nikki got closer. Her eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?”

  “We met years ago. I’m Nikki McDonald. I was a reporter for Channel Five in the DC market.”

  Becky’s face flushed as she drew back, tightening her grip on her keys and purse strap. “I haven’t been up there in years. And I don’t talk about the time I lived up there.”

  “The news might not have reached you yet, but Marsha Prince’s remains were found.”

  “I never had anything to do with Marsha’s disappearance.” Becky moved toward her front door, her hands trembling slightly as she tried to insert her house key.

  Nikki noticed the bicycle in the front yard and the basketball hoop in the driveway. “I’m not trying to wreck what you have. It looks like you’ve moved on and left Larry in the dust.”

  Becky’s shoulders hunched and her fingers stilled. “I have moved on. I choose not to think about Larry or his family.”

  “Please, talk to me,” Nikki said. “I’m trying to figure out who killed that young girl.”

  “What difference does it make?” Becky said, whirling around. “She’s dead, her parents are dead, and Hadley moved west years ago.”

  “Hadley moved back with her husband and daughter about a year ago. And now she and her kid are missing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The cops are swarming all over her house as we speak. My sources tell me the interior is covered in blood.”

  Becky’s face paled. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “We can’t save Marsha, but maybe Hadley and her daughter can be helped.”

  Her annoyance seemed to slip away. “One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. One sister is dead, and the other is in grave danger.”

  “I made a mistake with Larry,” she said, stepping forward. “I thought I loved him and he me. But it was all a lie. I know what people thought about me, what you insinuated in some of your stories, but I never thought he had anything to do with his daughter’s disappearance.”

  “You told the cops he was planning to leave the family for you.” She had to strike a delicate balance. She wanted Becky to keep talking, but she also didn’t want her sensitive questions to shut her down.

  Her brows knotted. “I was wrong.”

  “I’m wondering if he figured the easiest thing to do was to get rid of his family. Maybe he started by killing Marsha, but for whatever reason, he lost his nerve.”

  Becky’s mouth flattened into a frown as she shook her head. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Larry didn’t like his wife, but he loved his girls.”

  “Someone messaged my website and told me exactly where to find Marsha Prince’s remains.”

  Becky folded her arms over her chest. “That must have been a great scoop for you.”

  “I’m not going to lie. I could use a great story right now. But I keep thinking about Marsha. She had her whole life ahead of her. And now that Hadley and Skylar are missing, I wonder if the same person who killed Marsha is involved.”

  Becky shoved out a breath. She did not invite Nikki inside, but she also didn’t disappear behind the now-opened door.

  “Marsha worked in the office that last summer, right?” Nikki asked.

  “Yeah. She took orders and even went out to price some of the jobs. Larry called her his smart daughter.”

  “How’d Hadley feel about her father not considering her as smart?”

  “She never said anything, but I could see it bothered her. Marsha tried to downplay her father’s compliments for Hadley’s sake.”

  Nikki shifted tactics, knowing if she pressed on the crime, she would lose Becky altogether. “What was Hadley like in high school?”

  “She seemed real sweet, but it all felt a little calculated to me. She worked in the front office in the afternoons when we needed the phones covered. I remember she could charm any customer.”

  “She was dating Mark then, right?”

  “Yeah, Mark. They had been dating since junior year of high school, and we all thought they would get married. Larry wasn’t crazy about the idea, but he liked Mark enough not to complain.”

  “Was she dating anyone else?”

  “Well, no, not really. She loved Mark.”

  She could hear a small hesitation. “But?”

  Becky was silent for a moment. “Hadley flirted with some of the guys. They were all fit, and some were cute. I think she went out with one guy.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “No.”

  “What about Marsha? Was she dating anyone?” Nikki asked.

  “Several of the guys had a thing for her. She was cute and nice.”

  “Any names come to mind?”

  “No.”

  “Did the sisters go out with the same guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t remember his name?”

  “No. I’ve done my best to forget about that entire time in my life.”

  “Did the two sisters get along?”

  “No, not really, especially after their father told Hadley he wasn’t sending her to college right away. She was furious with her father and Marsha.”

  “Would she have killed her sister?” Nikki asked.

  The woman slowly shook her head. “I couldn’t imagine Hadley getting her hands dirty like that.”

  “Would she have had someone else do it?”

  “No. No. Hadley wasn’t a killer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.” Becky opened the door wider. “Look, I’m married now to a good man, and I have a son. I don’t want to get dragged back into all that mess. I don’t want them to know about Larry.”

  “I won’t pull you into this story. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Marsha.”

  She shook her head. “You said something lik
e that to me the first time, and then my name was all over the news.”

  “If I could just ask a few more questions—”

  “No. I’m done. Don’t ever come back.” Becky slid behind the door and slammed it closed.

  Nikki stared at the pineapple ornament attached to the door. It was not lost on her that the adornment symbolized hospitality. It certainly was not the first door slammed in her face, nor likely would it be the last.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tuesday, August 13, 12:30 p.m.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Just over Five Hours after the 911 Call

  Vaughan parked in front of the ten-story office building where Roger Dawson worked. This strip of Duke Street straddled the new business district, filled with modern high-rise offices, and Old Town’s historic section. The former was home to law firms, associations, and corporate headquarters; the latter was packed with brick and clapboard buildings originally built by tobacco traders generations ago.

  Spencer matched his pace as they walked inside the sleek tiled lobby to the security desk. Each showed their credentials, and the guard on duty pointed them toward a bank of gold-plated elevators. The doors opened, and Vaughan pressed six.

  “Is this the firm that Foster works for?” Spencer asked.

  The elevator doors closed, and the car ascended. “No. I’m not sure how Mark figures into all this,” Vaughan said, “but I can’t wait to find out.”

  Each kept their theories to themselves as the elevator stopped and then opened to a large gilded sign that read WEIDNER AND KYLE. A receptionist verified their identification, escorted them toward the corner office, and knocked on the closed door before cracking it and saying, “Mr. Dawson. The police.”

  “Send them in.”

  Vaughan and Spencer entered and found themselves staring at a lean man wearing dark suit pants, a white shirt, and a blue tie. His dark hair was thinning, and thick round glasses magnified owlish dark-brown eyes.

  A dozen diplomas hung on the wall, and a mahogany credenza featured Dawson in various scenarios, including a shot with Hadley and Mark Foster.

  When the door closed, Dawson asked, “Tell me what is going on with Hadley. And where the hell is Mark? I called him after I got off the phone with you, and he’s not picking up.”