“Huh,” she said after a moment.
“What?”
“You were twenty-eight at the time. That’s how old I am now.”
Somehow, she seemed younger. “Yes, it was my first big case.”
“So I am finding out,” she replied. “I just can’t believe you were only twenty-eight back then. You seemed much older.”
He felt older. “You were fourteen,” he said, spreading his hands in a magnanimous gesture. “I suspect to a fourteen-year-old, anyone over the age of twenty seems positively calcified.”
“So that makes you forty-two now,” she said as she worked out the math.
He dipped a chip in the salsa. “Practically a mummy.” The word “mummy” triggered a flash of memory as he recalled why he had bought the damn book in the first place. “May I see that a moment? I promise I’ll give it back.”
She handed him the book, and he flipped around until he found the page he was seeking. “Yes,” he said, “I thought I had recalled the name. Coben’s surname came from his stepfather, who adopted him when Francis was eight. As a young boy, he lived with his biological father, Frank Galluzzi. Frank himself had a half brother named Mark MacKenzie, a self-made millionaire in the real estate industry.”
Ellery’s face went pale. “Wait, you’re saying Jacqueline MacKenzie was somehow related to Francis Coben?”
“If I’ve worked out the family tree correctly, she would have been his aunt.” Reed had explored the Coben family history at the time he wrote the book, fascinated as he was by genealogy. “But listen to this: Mark MacKenzie had a child, a boy, who would have been Francis Coben’s cousin. I don’t recall his name, but I could certainly find out.”
“This cousin, he would have known about me, right? After all, his crazy mother was pumping me for every bit of information.”
“Maybe. We’ll have to locate him and see what we can learn about his recent whereabouts.”
At that moment, Reed’s cell phone buzzed twice in his pocket, alerting him to a new e-mail message. Ellery seemed troubled and distracted as he withdrew the phone to check it. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “If he’s the guy who’s harassing you, we’ll find him and shut him down.”
Reed had expected perhaps to hear from Danielle, but instead, it was Oil Can Boy thanking him for his purchase and directing him to a link where he could enter a code to download the video. “Mr. Can has accepted my legal tender and provided me with a link to the supposed surveillance video,” he told Ellery, who perked up a bit at this news.
“Really? Let me see.”
“It’s still downloading,” he said as she joined him on his side of the booth. This was as close as he had been to her since he’d scooped her off the floor of the closet fourteen years earlier. She smelled like salt and soap and cotton as she leaned into him to get a better look at the phone. “Ah, here we go,” he said as the movie began to play.
The video, as it was, could not be authenticated and could never be used in court. Still, he found he was as eager as Ellery to see the grainy footage. A dark-colored Honda Civic pulled into view and a girl who appeared to be Bea Nesbit got out of the driver’s side door. Bea used her credit card to pay for a tank of gas, then she got back in her car and drove away. No one appeared to bother her. She did not interact with anyone as far as Reed could see. “Seems the Greek chorus of the Internet might be right about this one,” Reed said with dismay. “If this was indeed taken the night she disappeared, it doesn’t show anything about what might have happened to her.”
“Wait a second.” Ellery placed a hand on his arm. “Go back and start it again.”
“Sure.” He replayed the footage and it looked just the same to him: a girl filling her car with gas.
“There,” Ellery said abruptly. “Stop it there.”
Reed tapped the screen to freeze it. “What?” He peered down at Bea for a closer look.
“The woman at the pump behind Bea—that’s Shannon Blessing.”
* * *
Reed and Ellery puzzled over the new discovery all the way back to Woodbury, but neither could make heads or tails of it. That Shannon Blessing should show up on screen with Bea Nesbit the night she disappeared, at a gas station thirty-five miles away from anyplace either of them called home, seemed like it ought to be of significance somehow, but of course, Shannon was no longer around to ask.
It was dusk when they reached town, and Ellie texted Brady to say she could pick up Bump. Brady answered that he and the dog were down on the town square, preparing to watch the evening fireworks with the rest of the locals, so Ellery and Reed swung by to retrieve the animal. Reed waited in the truck, watching from a distance as Ellery accepted Bump’s leash and patted Brady on the arm in thanks. Moments later, the dog bounded back into the vehicle, greeting Reed with an enthusiastic kiss. “Yes, yes,” he said, shoving Bump toward the middle. “I’m ever so delighted to see you too.”
They were heading back to Ellery’s place to tackle the task Reed had been mulling since he’d arrived: a map of any connections they could find among the victims, or between the victims and Ellery herself. Unfortunately, Ellery didn’t drive fast enough to outrun the fireworks. Bump yelped as the first boom hit and climbed solidly into Reed’s lap, quivering and huddling against him.
Ellery shot him a chagrined look. “Sorry. Bump doesn’t like fireworks.”
“Yes.” Reed spat out a mouthful of fur. “I had rather picked up on that detail.”
The trio turned off the quiet road onto Ellery’s even more deserted driveway. The truck ambled over the peaks and troughs, jiggling them along until civilization had completely disappeared from view. Except, Reed noted, for one police cruiser sitting in front of Ellie’s house. “Looks like you have some company,” he observed, and Ellery answered with a deepening frown.
She stopped the truck, and they all got out. Bump let out a warning growl as a figure in the shadows shone a bright flashlight beam directly in their eyes. “Sam,” Ellery said, shielding her face from the glare. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize,” he said, not sounding at all apologetic. “Didn’t expect you’d be out so late.”
“You should go,” she said as she walked toward the house.
“Aw, don’t be like that.”
Reed heard a slight slur in Sam’s words, suggesting the chief had been drinking.
“I brought you those files you wanted,” the chief said, his voice turning hard. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“That’s nice of you, thank you, but I think you should go now. Julia will be looking for you soon, if she isn’t already.”
“Seems you’re popular tonight, Ellie,” he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “Look what was sitting here waiting for you when I got here.”
Reed squinted in the darkness to try to make out what the chief was holding. It looked like a package with a bow. Downtown, the fireworks picked up the pace, exploding in a frenzy for the big finale, and air was redolent with sulfur smoke.
“Let me see that,” Ellie demanded as she grabbed the package from Sam’s hands. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t me,” the chief grumbled. “I told you—it was sitting on your porch when I drove up. Is it your birthday or something?”
All of a sudden, Reed knew. He knew what would be waiting inside the box. He saw it the same way he could always find his mother’s missing eyeglasses. “No, Ellie, wait—”
Too late. She ripped open the package and then dropped it with a small cry. She stumbled backward away from it, stuttering and gasping for air. “No. No.”
“What? Whazzat?” The chief staggered to his feet and shone the flashlight down on the small square box. Reed forced himself closer so he could look too, and yes, there it was, nestled in the tissue paper: a human hand.
5
The first young woman to go missing courtesy of Francis Coben was twenty-two year-old Michelle Holcomb. Ellie had heard her name in the news, and later
, once it was over, she had looked her up on the computer at the school library, just to see the place where it had all started. Michelle had long, wavy dark hair and charcoal eyelashes and perfect caramel-colored skin, although she rarely smiled in photographs because she was self-conscious about her crooked front teeth. She was just pretty enough that when the high school boys whispered to her in backseats that she was so gorgeous she could be a model, she believed them. She never paid attention on her odds-and-ends jobs because they didn’t matter; she was going to be moving to New York soon, where she would get her teeth fixed and become famous, if only she could get the money together to make it happen. Her lack of focus caused her to be fired from one job after another, so she couldn’t manage even to make rent, let alone a new smile, and thus she drifted from one tentative roommate situation to the next—people desperate like her, so her promises of an extra fifty bucks a week were enough to earn her a spot on the dilapidated living room couch. When she disappeared, everyone thought she’d finally done it, finally scraped together enough cash to make her dreams come true. It was five months before her aunt, concerned that she hadn’t been able to reach Michelle through any means or find anyone else who had seen or talked to the girl in weeks, reported Michelle missing to the Chicago Police Department. They dutifully took down the details and that was that, until Michelle Holcomb was discovered murdered in Busse Woods, with both of her hands removed.
“How awful, that poor girl,” Ellie’s mother had said when the evening news played its grim report, but her voice had held no real horror back then, because why should it have? Daniel wasn’t sick yet and the police themselves hadn’t understood that Michelle was only the beginning. Ellie had been eleven years old at the time and cared about the news only when the Cubs score came on.
The hand in the box lay on the ground right where she’d dropped it. Sam was over at his car, radioing back to dispatch. “I don’t care that the fireworks display is just letting out,” he snapped. “The crowd can control itself this year. I need Herrera and Taylor over here at Ellie Hathaway’s place, and I need them now. Get Tipton too. All units, you understand me?”
Reed, who had somehow had the presence of mind to scoop up Bump’s leash amid the chaos, ambled over to stand next to her. She felt rooted to the earth, like the tall trees surrounding them. “I think…” she said, her voice hollow as Sam continued to bark orders at the dispatch controller, “I think he believes me now.”
“Here,” Reed said, thrusting the leash into her hands. “Take this.”
She accepted control of Bump as Reed pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling Terre Haute,” he replied. “I want someone to put eyes on Francis Coben.”
“What? You think he did this?” Her pulse skittered as she glanced again at the package with its cheery polka-dot wrapping paper and pink ribbon. Coben had been tried in federal court and sentenced to death twelve years ago, at which point he’d been housed with other male inmates awaiting the same fate in Terre Haute, Indiana. Maximum security. Ellie bit her lip as Reed stalked off into the shadows with the phone pressed to his ear. It seemed impossible that Coben could have escaped from death row and found her again, but she had defied statistics twice already, first when he took her and then again when she lived. If you’re the sucker who gets hit by lightning once, a one-in-a-million chance starts to feel downright ordinary.
“Ellie!”
She jumped as Sam started charging in her direction, and Bump responded by weaving his way back and forth between her legs, effectively tying her up with his lead. When Sam got up close, she could see his watery eyes and the gun in his hand.
“Come on, we need to secure the scene,” he said. His breath still bore the sweet, fetid scent of alcohol, and he nodded in the direction of her house. “Let’s go.”
“Inside? No one’s been inside,” she said, but she realized she couldn’t really be sure of that. The front doors and windows appeared unmolested, but the interior sat cloaked in dark silence.
“Dammit, Hathaway, someone left you a friggin’ human hand wrapped up like Christmas in July. Let’s be damn sure whoever it was isn’t still with us on the premises.” Her heart went full tilt as Sam turned toward her front porch and began walking. “Markham,” Sam yelled back over his shoulder. “You stay here with the evidence. When the boys roll in, don’t let ’em touch anything. Ellie, get rid of that damn dog and come with me.”
Reed, still on the phone, turned and offered a distracted wave. Ellery hesitated a moment before tying Bump’s leash to the wooden railing and following Sam up to her front door. Sam stood over her, training the flashlight on her hands as she opened both locks. The door creaked as she pushed it open. The air smelled familiar but faintly stale, the odor of an old house that had been shut up tight and baked in the summer sun all day. Sam stepped inside, weapon drawn, flashlight splitting the dark of her previously sacrosanct home. Ellie watched the invasion for half a second and then forced herself to follow.
She hit the wall switch and held her breath as the lights came on. Green sofa, black-and-white pillows. Bookcase crammed to overflowing. She wilted, relieved that nothing seemed out of place. Sam was already across the room, heading for the kitchen. The sound of his boots on her wood floor made her skin tighten. “All clear,” he called back to her.
She checked the hall. “Clear.”
Sam was walking toward the back, nearing her bedroom. Wait, she tried to say, but the word got stuck in her throat.
She heard the jiggle of the closet door. “What the hell? Hathaway!”
Ellie closed her eyes briefly in regret. It was a small life she had made for herself here, but it had belonged to her alone. “Chief?” she asked as she moved to join him in her bedroom.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, pointing at her closet and the nails that held it shut.
“It’s a closet,” she said, matter-of-fact, like it was just any other part of her home. There were two others exactly like it that she hoped he would never see.
“It’s full of nails.”
“There’s nothing in there,” she said. “The house is clear.”
“Ellie. Why’s your closet nailed shut like this?”
She felt the balance of their relationship shifting in his favor again as they stood there in front of the evidence of her insanity. Coben had given her an early, brutal lesson—sex is power—and for years afterward, she’d kept her body sequestered from the male gaze, hidden beneath baggy sweatshirts and loose jeans, lest anyone try to take it from her a second time. Only later had she realized that she could trade on men’s hunger, that she could give up her body and nothing else, and so they always wanted her more than she wanted them. Now here was Sam standing too close, precisely where she never wanted him, waiting for her to do the one thing she would never do: explain herself.
“I, uh…”
She was saved when Reed appeared in the room. “Chief, the cavalry’s arrived outside, and they’re awaiting your orders.” It was then that Ellie noticed the red-and-blue lights dancing against her bedroom windows from the squad cars in the yard.
“It’s the holiday weekend,” Sam muttered, almost to himself. “We’re going to have no choice but to send the damn thing up to Boston.” He tromped out of the room and Ellie nearly went weak with relief.
Reed crossed the floor until he came to stand where Sam had been, and he reached out to touch the row of nailheads poking out along the wooden closet door. He stroked them gently for a minute and then turned to her with solemn eyes. “Coben’s confirmed to be inside his cell at Terre Haute,” he told her.
They stood and looked at each other for a long moment as the words sank in, deep down inside Ellie, to a pit of dread she couldn’t close off even if she had a thousand nails.
It wasn’t Coben who did this. That meant there was another one.
* * *
Ellie felt naked as a peeled grape as she watched her colleag
ues trample the grass around her home. She tried to detach, to think of it as just another crime scene, but her heart lurched every time she heard their footsteps go up and down the wooden steps on her front porch. Jimmy Tipton came roaring up the driveway in his Nissan Coupe. She knew the color was black cherry, but in the dark it simply looked black, shaped like an arched cat and low to the ground, so that Tipton himself might have been Batman arriving at the scene of some outrageous caper, a purposeful conceit that probably explained why Tipton had shelled out close to a year’s salary for the thing in the first place. All boys wanted to grow up to be Batman.
“Holy shit,” he said, drawing out every syllable as he walked across her lawn. “Is it true?”
Ellery turned to look at him but could not see his face clearly thanks to the squad car’s high beams trained at her house. Her quiet cottage shone like a carnival funhouse, and everyone wanted to step right up and see the attraction. She swallowed down the bile at the back of her throat and answered Tipton with a short nod. “There,” she said, indicating the package on the ground with a haphazard wave of her flashlight. She and Reed had been elected to stand guard while Parker led the others on a search of the property to make sure there were no other body parts lying about the place.
Tipton switched on his own flashlight and squatted down for a better look. “Jesus,” he murmured. “That’s the real deal, all right. You can smell it.” He straightened up and came to stand beside Reed. “What are the odds, huh? You show up in our little town here and all of a sudden someone’s chopping off people’s hands.”
“You’re not insinuating he did it,” Ellery said testily. “Because first of all, that’s crazy, and second of all, he was with me all day.”
“Cozy,” Tipton remarked, and then he scowled. “Of course I’m not suggesting he did it, but it sure looks like someone rolled out a very specific welcome mat for him, don’t you think?”
Ellery held back her instinctive retort, which was that the hand had been left on her doorstep, not Reed’s. She rubbed the scar at her wrist with her thumb, a nervous habit she’d never been able to shake. Coben had tattooed himself at the same place on both wrists, an obsession that had apparently been his undoing as the ink roused Reed Markham’s suspicions all those years ago. In hindsight, it seemed blindingly obvious, almost like Coben hung a neon sign on himself that said, It’s me, I’m the one. Only no one could see it until it was too late. Ellie watched the men combing the tall grasses at the outskirts of her yard and wondered what she wasn’t seeing.
The Vanishing Season Page 9