by Rose, Willow
Matt sighed. "A colleague told me yesterday that there was a tragedy about three years ago. A woman was shot by her own son. He was sick, mentally ill and had been since his dad left them. She had been pleading for help from the county to handle him because she couldn't afford it for him."
"And so, he shot her. Poverty led to tragedy. Poverty after a divorce," I said, pointing at Matt. "Now…I have a feeling that Maddie Jones fits into this picture as well. As much as I don't want to, I feel like she is about to play her part in this twisted plan."
"How?"
"Her mother," I said. "After her parents divorced, she was forced into prostitution. Not an uncommon result in poorer neighborhoods. Now, Maddie must have felt shameful about her mother's profession."
"So, you're thinking she represents the guilt and shame that children who go through a divorce often suffer?"
I gave him a smile. "Exactly."
He leaned back in his stool. "Wow. So, you're telling me we're looking for a killer who is angry about divorce?"
I grabbed another cookie and dunked it in my coffee. "Yes. It must mean something to him, something profound."
"But…that could be anyone?"
I nodded and bit into the soaked cookie. "I know. He is highly intelligent. He is most likely a very well-functioning person, might have a family and children even. He probably even holds a steady job where he never takes any sick days, and his work is impeccable, and he is very likely part of your local community or has been at some point. Why else would he choose this place?"
"Yak."
"I know. The guy is highly delusional and thinks he's on some sort of mission. He might even think he's doing something good, like he's helping the world to be a better place. Those are some of the most dangerous killers you get. They see the flaws, but they also see the solution, and they're determined to let the world know. They want to fix us all."
"So, he's a…"
"He could also be a woman, just sayin'."
"Okay, so he or she…is a delusional psychopath trying to change the world? Working for the greater good? And his—or her—kills are inspired by how divorce affects children? A killer who targets children of divorce?"
I nodded. "And then the worst part."
Matt's eyes grew wide. "There's a worse part?"
I nodded. "I’m afraid so." I handed Matt a cookie for comfort. He took it with worried eyes.
I tilted my head with an exhale. "This is not his last kill."
Matt sighed resignedly. "I was afraid you might say something like that. There will be more?"
"Most likely, yes. I fear that he's just getting started. He has more planned for us. That's why he has taken Maddie."
Matt looked overwhelmed. I couldn't blame him. This was quite a lot to take in.
"So, what do we do next?"
I swallowed the rest of my cookie and looked at him. "First of all, did you get someone to trace the email?"
"The IT department is on it," Matt said. "I don't know how long it will take, though."
"Okay, good. Next, we need to find Maddie before it’s too late. We start by making a list of possible suspects. On the top of mine is Coach Thomas Price. It was his car that she was seen getting into. That's where we begin. Can you tell me what his mother said last night? About the car?"
He nodded. "She didn't have it anymore. It was stolen from her driveway a week ago. At first, she thought it was just some kids who had taken it for a joyride. It had happened before several times with her old car. It would come back eventually smelling of weed. But when it didn't come back the first couple of days, she figured her son had taken it back. That he needed it for something. She's old and didn't really want to get involved with the police over an old car that she didn't use much anyway, so she never reported it."
"That sounds a little off to me," I said and made a mental note. "Plus, she's saying that her son still used it even though he gave it to her. If someone was trying to hide what they were up to, that would be a good way to do it. Hiding the car at your mother's, am I right?"
"Sure."
"All right. Is she divorced?"
Matt nodded. "As a matter of fact, she is. She was married twice, and neither of the marriages lasted."
"Could be a traumatic experience for a young boy, couldn't it? I say we take a closer look at him and put a search out for the car."
Matt nodded and grabbed his phone. "Got it."
As Matt walked out on the porch to call Cooper and have him do the search, I grabbed my phone and made a call of my own, following my strong hunch from earlier.
Chapter 46
Maddie was watching the box that was pushed up against the end wall. She had been staring at it for forever, listening to the scratching coming from inside of it. But there was one thing that worried her deeply. As the hours passed, the scratching grew lower, and soon it was very hard to hear.
Maddie wanted so badly to yell, to talk to the box, as she wondered if someone was actually inside of it or if it might be an animal of some sort. She thought at one point that she heard someone moan.
The blindfold was still pulled up on one side of her face, so she was able to gaze out a little bit from underneath it, just enough to take a look around. Not that there was much there to see. There was nothing on the floor except the carpet, and the walls were covered in some thick black stuff. The two windows were blocked by hurricane shutters that had been pulled down, and not much sunlight came in through the cracks. But it was enough for her to know when it was daylight outside and when it was nighttime, so she would know when to sleep. She also believed she heard an engine at some point and wondered if they were close to a road. She hadn't heard any other cars, though, so it had to be a small road.
Maddie lifted her head slightly, then turned around when she saw something she hadn't noticed before. On the wall. Someone had written something. By bending her legs and moving like a worm across the carpet, she squirmed closer and was able to look at it up close. By the bottom of the wall, where the black foam stopped, someone had scratched a word into the wood.
Sydney.
Maddie looked at it, then remembered she had known a girl named Sydney once. She had lived in her building. Had there been someone here who was also named that? Who was she? Had she been a prisoner too?
The thought made Maddie shiver as the realization sunk in. She wasn't the only one, was she? There had been others, others trapped in this room just like her. But what had happened to the other girls?
Maddie began to cry, and she couldn't stop it once she had started. Not till she heard fumbling behind the door and the key was put in the lock. Knowing what this meant, Maddie gasped behind the cloth, then fought to squirm her way back to her corner. She had been able to hide from her captor that she was able to look out beneath her blindfold. If she was found at the other end of the room, her captor would find out.
More fumbling as another lock was unlocked, then a hand on the door handle, and it turned.
Hurry up, Maddie!
Maddie squirmed and squirmed, her eye constantly on the door as it opened, and she slid into her corner just in time for her captor to enter. She whimpered and rolled up into a ball, but her captor didn't seem to care about her. Instead, the dark figure moved across the floor toward the box. Maddie was able to watch as the captor peeked inside the box, lifting the lid. A smile spread across her perpetrator's face, and there was a small whisper from their lips.
"You're ready. Just in time."
Chapter 47
"We found the car."
"Already? That was fast," I said as I walked back to the kitchen. Matt had been waiting for me to finish my phone call, sitting patiently by his computer, his fingers tapping nervously on the counter.
"They just called from the station and said a state trooper found it on I95 on the side of the road."
"Ditched," I said. "Someone knows we're onto him and is getting rid of evidence."
"I'll have it checked for fingerprints," Matt said.
<
br /> "Good. But don't expect to find anything, just like I wouldn't expect the IT guys to be able to track the email. This guy is too clever to be tracked. He won't leave any evidence behind."
"Chris is working with YouTube to get them to take the video down," Matt said. "Before anyone else sees it."
"Great. We need to keep it bottled up for as long as possible; if the media gets…"
There was an alarm on my phone, and I looked at the display. I had received a notification on Facebook from Melissa.
Have you seen this? She wrote.
I opened the post and saw the link. Then, my heart sank.
"It's too late. It's out," I said. "It’s all over Facebook."
"What is?"
I turned my phone and showed him the video—the exact same one that had been emailed to him. Matt grew pale again.
"Oh, dear God."
I sighed. "It's already been shared more than three hundred times. I'd say you have about ten minutes before you'll have the entire press corps at your station, asking for answers. Even if you manage to get Facebook to remove it, it's still too late. The damage is done."
Matt found his cell again. "I better call the chief."
While Matt called her, my own phone vibrated in my hand, and I looked at the display. It was a call from California. I took it.
"Eva Rae?"
"Yes?"
"My name is Violet Dunn. You've been searching for me?"
I exhaled and walked to the living room, then sat down with my pad and a pen. "Yes, thank you so much for returning my call. I expect you know what this is regarding?"
"Agent Fisher filled me in, yes."
"So, what do you say?"
"I say we nail this bastard. I’m ready to talk."
I clenched my fist in victory.
"Great. Let's get to work. Why don't you tell me the entire story? From the beginning. Assume I don't know anything."
Chapter 48
THEN
The boy was dressed in a nice suit, and his dad was putting his tie on him, then he water-combed his hair.
"There. You look very handsome."
"Thanks, Dad."
His dad gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Now, you remember what to say, right?"
The boy nodded, looking down at his feet. His dad saw it and grabbed him by the chin, then pulled his face up till their eyes met.
"It's okay, son. You're doing the right thing."
The boy nodded and held his dad's hand in his as they walked out to the car and drove through town. Neither the boy nor his sister spoke during the ride there. They stared out the window, wondering what state their mother would be in when they saw her.
Inside the courtroom, a lot of things were said that the boy didn't understand. He did get words like long-term drug abuse, aggressive behavior, and unfit mother. The rest seemed like a blur to him. But when it was his turn, and the judge asked him, the boy stood to his feet, cleared his throat, and said:
"That's right, sir. I want to live with my dad. I don't want to see my mother anymore."
The words fell like rocks from the sky. The boy's legs were shaking as he sat down again, feeling his sister's hand in his, squeezing it. Seconds later, it was her turn, and she did as she had been told.
"No, sir. I want to live with my daddy. I don't want to see my mom anymore. She hurts me."
Then, she sat back down, and they held hands again. They kept their eyes focused on their thighs and didn’t lift their gaze to look at their mother, who was sitting at the table next to them.
Daddy and New Mommy had been very careful in telling them how to do this and not to cry. They knew it would be tough. They had told them it would, but it was for the best. This way, their dad could take care of them full-time and wouldn't have to send them to her when she was high and incapable of taking care of them.
They had been talking lots and lots about how it would go down in the courtroom, and they felt ready as they left the house, but nothing had prepared them for their mother's reaction.
The crying, the wailing, the screaming. It made the children lift their heads and look at the woman they no longer recognized as their mommy. She was yelling bad words, cursing at their father, screaming at them until someone stopped her and helped her sit back down.
Next to the boy, his sister started to sob, and he squeezed her hand once again to let her know he was there, and he was strong. He wasn't going to crack, even though he sensed how the knot in his stomach was growing so fast it threatened to burst.
Chapter 49
"What are we doing here? You can't keep us here."
The words fell as Matt and I entered the interrogation room at Cocoa Beach Police Station. Thomas Price looked at us, then laughed.
"You two, of course. I should have known."
"What is this about?"
Jenna Williams was sitting next to him, looking more confused than ever.
"We just need to have a chat with you both; that's all," Matt said and held the chair for me so I could sit down. Matt was a gentleman to the bone. It simply was against his nature to let a woman sit down on a chair without holding it for her, just like he would never enter a door without holding it for a woman first. It was so deeply rooted in him that it was impossible for him not to.
Two of Matt's colleagues had brought Thomas Price and Jenna Williams in for us after I had hung up with Violet Dunn and the district attorney's office in Orange County, California. It was late afternoon now, but all the papers had been emailed to us, and now I was looking through them.
"Does Annie know what you two are up to?" Thomas Price asked. He looked at me.
I ignored his remark, then pulled out a picture of a girl and placed it in front of him. "You remember her?"
Thomas Price glanced at the photo with an indifferent attitude. "This is an old story."
"That's not what I asked," I said. "Do you recognize her?"
He shrugged "I don't know. Maybe."
"Well, let me help your memory. Her name is LeighAnn Dunn. She's the daughter of Violet and Peter Dunn. Peter Dunn was a photographer on the World Tour of Surfing at the same time you were a competitor, am I right?"
"Sure. I remember Peter." He looked at his watch. "Listen, could we get to the point here, please? I have a lesson in half an hour."
"You might be late for that," Matt said.
I smiled, then bobbed my head. "Yeah, you might be a little late."
Thomas Price slammed his hand on the table. "What the heck is this? Why are you harassing me at my home and now dragging me down here?"
"How's your back?" I asked.
He shook his head. "It's fine."
"I thought so. What can you tell us about LeighAnn?" I asked and pointed at the girl.
He exhaled and rubbed his forehead. He was getting sweaty now. "As I told you, it was a long time ago. It's not relevant anymore."
"Six years ago," I said and showed him the file. "It says here you were arrested for molesting her in Huntington Beach at a contest there when the girl was eleven."
He sighed again. Jenna let out a light shriek.
"Listen," he said. "The girl was nuts. She lied. The charges were dropped. If you did your research well, you'd know."
"I do know that," I said. "But today, I spoke with several people, and lots of them aren't part of the WSL-tour anymore. And now they're ready to speak up. And they’re telling me something funny. You know what they all told me? The same exact story, actually, which is kind of funny. At least I think so; you might not. But they all told me that the charges were dropped, but only because the WSL wanted them to be. They wanted to deal with it themselves. You had friends in high places, didn't you? They pulled the strings you needed. You were their wonder kid. A scandal like that might ruin the illusion. So, they made a deal. They told the Dunns to drop the charges and then you'd agree to drop off the tour. See, that was actually what made me wonder when I heard your story, and I went online to look into it. You were suc
h a promising surfer. A huge talent and, suddenly, you dropped out and were never heard of again. The official story was that you had injured your back, but as I saw you the other day, doing airs and some pretty radical moves, I started to wonder if that was the entire truth. And that was when I started to ask around. A good friend of mine who works out of the FBI's LA office looked into you and found the old charges."
Thomas Price looked at me, then shrugged. "So what? As I said, it’s an old story; the charges were dropped. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go help a kid achieve her dreams of becoming a professional surfer."
"The thing about child molesters is that they don't just stop," I said. "At least, not in my experience. They can cool down for a few years, being scared of being caught maybe, but the urge is still there. It never goes away. It nags inside them and refuses to let them go until they give in. And then one day, they slip up. They give in, just for a little…just one time."
"And then that time becomes a second time, then a third," Matt said.
I pulled out an evidence bag with Sophie's bloody underwear and put it on the table.
"And then one day it starts over again. Someone discovers what you're up to and the police get involved. You're back to being scared again."
"The blood proves nothing. She's twelve. She could have had her period," Thomas Price said.
"But she didn't," I said. "Jenna thought so too, so she took her to a gynecologist, who alerted her that this wasn't menstrual blood. She also told her that Sophie was training on way too hard of a level to have her period yet, right Jenna? She wasn't developed at all. That's when you got suspicious, right?"
"You thought it was your husband, didn't you?" Matt said, addressed to her. "At first, when the gynecologist told you her concerns. So, you wanted to divorce him. But when you realized it was Thomas, your daughter's esteemed coach, the one whose hands you had put your child's entire future in, you revoked the charges. And then you shut up like a clam."