[Special Agent Tess Winnett 01.0] Dawn Girl

by Leslie Wolfe

  He didn’t reply, but lowered his angry gaze, directing it at the carpet.

  “How about we start now?” Tess asked. “We need to find the killer’s earlier victims. The first would be great. But we don’t know where to look, and it’s a needle in a nationwide haystack. Want to give it a try?” She offered him her laptop, and he smiled while taking it, his deep frown dissipating like clouds after a storm. She smiled, involuntarily.

  “You saw me work earlier; you know the screens. I’ll log in, and then I’ll let you run these searches.”

  “Cool,” he said, rubbing his hands and pulling a chair in front of the laptop. “What are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know, Todd, why don’t you tell me?” she encouraged him.

  “Rape victims could be in the hundreds of thousands, nationwide and going back several years,” he said thoughtfully. “We have no real way of filtering them.”

  “Let’s try something else,” Tess offered. “What if he started by beating up a girlfriend or two before he went pro? Where would we find that?”

  “Hospital records, maybe even the media, or social media. He’s rich, right? People gossip. They love any kind of dirt about fat cats, and they milk it for all it’s got.”

  Tess made an encouraging gesture with her hand. Fradella started typing, under Michowsky’s astounded look. It was going to be a long night.

  22

  Preconception

  Tess struggled to free herself but couldn’t. Panic rose to her throat, choking her, and a whimper came out instead of a scream. Her legs were bound and she couldn’t move them, she couldn’t run. Her head was pressed hard on its right side into the ground, and from that angle she couldn’t see his face. She fought, trying to turn her head and catch a glimpse of him, but failed. She felt the weight of the man’s arm, pressing her head down, while his right hand held her left wrist in a powerful grip. She somehow freed her right arm from underneath her body and flailed at him, hoping she’d scratch his face and get some DNA under her fingernails. But the man caught her free wrist and pinned it against the floor with steeled force. She couldn’t move anymore, crushed under his weight. In front of her eyes, the silhouette of the tattooed snake on the man’s left biceps moved with his skin, taut against his muscles as he tightened his grip. The snake seemed alive, ready to pounce. She tried to scream and made a last, desperate attempt to free herself.

  The sound of her own voice woke her, even though the scream in her nightmare came out stifled, a raspy, strangled interjection. She tried to get out of bed, but her legs were entangled in the flat sheet. She disentangled herself, almost panicky, then rose quickly and grabbed the offending sheet, rolled into a ball, and tossed it onto the bathroom floor.

  “Damn it,” she muttered between splashes of cold water she threw on her face. “Damn it to fucking hell.”

  She went back to the bedroom, where she reached behind her nightstand and grabbed her holstered gun, Velcroed against the back panel. Her house had many such Velcro patches, where she could put her weapon close enough for her to grab, but out of sight. Discreet, so her very rare visitors wouldn’t notice she didn’t even dare to use the restroom unarmed.

  Hypervigilance, the lifelong sentence survivors have to bear. Always alert, never relaxed. Always expecting the worst scenario, always preparing, always fearful. Insulting people with suspicions and apparent callousness, ignoring friendships, hurting and pushing everyone away. Trapped in a whirlwind of countless bad memories, swirling inside her head, forcing her to relive them forever. Never forgetting. At the whim of anxiety and panic attacks, triggered by almost anything. Someone’s voice inflexions, or a certain word. A smell, a feeling, a sound, a goddamned tangled flat sheet. While her weary brain couldn’t abandon its alertness, her life passed her by.

  It had gone on for long enough.

  She needed to get her life back, before it was too late.

  Not all hypervigilance was bad though. Her acute senses made her a perceptive, talented investigator, able to feel if the person in front of her lied or had something to hide. Her own personal experience helped her build rapport with victims, gaining her easy access to critical information. She knew what questions to ask, and, more important, how to ask them. Her biggest weakness was also her biggest strength, giving her the edge that had helped her achieve a perfect record as an FBI agent. How ironic.

  She still needed to get a grip. She needed to build up the courage to trust someone enough to let that someone help her. She’d let Cat… so it could be done, but for her, it was close to impossible. Nevertheless, it had to be done. Soon.

  She started her coffeemaker, holstered gun in her hand, then went to the shower. She pasted the holster against a Velcro patch hidden behind the laundry hamper and let the hot water rinse away the night terror, while she repeated to herself that she was safe now, and everything was going to be all right. Of course, the fact that she’d never found the man who attacked her didn’t help. He was still out there, but she kept looking. Maybe one day… or maybe never.

  A few hours later, crammed in an aisle seat within earshot of the rear lavatory, Tess buckled up for her flight to Chicago. She ignored the flight attendant’s instructions and opened her laptop. After all, safety belts had worked the same way for more than 50 years.

  She read her email first, where Fradella had delivered access credentials for all the victims’ social media and email accounts. Finally. She started with May Lin’s accounts, getting ready for the conversation with her parents.

  May’s Facebook account showed moderate activity, somewhat less than what was normal for a young girl her age. Her interests varied. Movies, clothes, prices for all sorts of items, from wearable electronics, to shoes, to jewelry. A few young men, some Asian but a few Caucasians too, appeared in some of the photos, casual friends by the looks of it, rather than lovers. Tess went backwards on her timeline until she came across postings with images from a pool party. May had written, “That’s it, I’m done. Yay!” A slew of friends had congratulated her, but Tess didn’t know for what. When she finally saw what it was, she had to read the posting twice. She’d graduated from college, cum laude, with a business management major. At only 17 years and 10 months!

  How the hell did they miss that? They’d all missed it, Chicago PD and Palm Beach too. Argh… the power of preconception, doing damage any chance it got. No one thought to check for a college degree in a teenager’s case. School was such a generic term.

  She typed a quick message to Bill McKenzie and copied Michowsky and Fradella on it. She wrote, “Bill, May Lin was a college grad, at just shy of 18. This confirms victimology, as young, wealthy, college-grad overachievers. It’s no longer coincidental. I think that’s how he made his mistake, the unsub. Just like we didn’t think to look for a degree because we knew May’s age, it’s possible he didn’t think to check her age, because he probably knew about the degree. Adds a different perspective. Thanks… for everything.”

  Tess flashed her badge at the flight attendant who insisted she stow her laptop, and the young woman vanished without another word. The job had its perks.

  The factoid about May Lin’s degree opened another list of unanswered questions. The girls had attended different schools in different cities and had different majors. Where would the unsub find them, and how? There wasn’t a single trace of him anywhere near May Lin’s cyber sphere. Maybe if she figured out what the schools had in common, she’d find his hunting grounds. Or maybe it didn’t matter, and she was chasing wild geese. Maybe he hunted at clubs, where college grads go to celebrate. Where young women are more willing to talk to charming, charismatic strangers than anywhere else.

  23

  Typical Teenager

  It was still early morning when Tess landed at O’Hare, bringing her the ultimate enjoyment of driving through Chicago’s infamous, rush-hour traffic. After waiting in a long line to get a rental car, and dealing with countless highway tolls that further suffocated the already crawlin
g traffic, she finally pulled up in front of the Lin residence.

  The Lins lived in a somber, expensive-looking home near Burnham Park. Three stories high, the townhome had the elegance of Boston’s brownstones and the generous size of Midwestern dwellings. She stopped before climbing the few steps that led to the front door, admiring the building and wondering why Mr. Lin, a successful real estate developer, who had the choice of living wherever and however he pleased, would have chosen to live in a condominium. What was it about sharing walls and facilities with others that fascinated people? Some people, not everyone. Definitely not Tess.

  She rang the bell, and Mr. Lin opened the door himself. He invited her to the family room and offered her tea. She accepted gracefully and waited for a few minutes, savoring the peaceful, almost somber silence of the room. Tall windows didn’t let too much light inside the room, covered by sheers and deep burgundy sash draperies with gold tassels, having nothing but the gloomy, Chicago sky to draw light from. A thick, rich, oriental rug covered most of the floor, absorbing any hint of footstep noise. The room was wood-paneled, artistically decorated with matching furniture in dark hardwood and leather seating. An ageless setting, devoid of electronics, meant for people to interact free of modern life distractions. Here and there, Chinese décor elements brought personality to the setting. Latticed dividers marking the reading room, silk paintings on the walls, and fine alabaster sculptures adorning the fireplace mantle.

  Mrs. Lin served tea with impeccable ceremony, making Tess worry she didn’t know how to behave. She decided to watch what the others did and follow suit. As soon as Mrs. Lin finished setting up the tea and filled everyone’s cups, Tess extended her hand.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” she said, after introducing herself. “I know it must be hard for you.”

  After offering her a weak hand with ice-cold fingers, Mrs. Lin sat on the couch across from Tess, right next to her husband. Their son entered the room last and took an armchair.

  “This is our son, Han,” Mrs. Lin introduced him. “He’s 20. He’s all we have left. Our daughter would have been nineteen and two months today,” she continued, her words tainted by tears.

  “What can we do for you, Agent Winnett?” Mr. Lin asked, frowning. “It’s been six months since anyone talked to us about May. Last thing they told us was that they didn’t have enough to catch the monster who took our little girl. I’m afraid they never will.”

  She looked at the man with empathetic eyes. His back was hunched and his shoulders tense. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, and when he spoke his daughter’s name his voice trailed off, sunken in the unspeakable pain of losing one’s child. He wasn’t very tall, and neither was his wife. His son was taller than the both of them and looked somehow Americanized, as if his physical features had somehow been altered by the immersion in the American culture.

  “Talk to me about May, please. What was her life like? How did she spend the last few weeks before she died?”

  The parents looked at each other, while the brother stared at the floor.

  “She was a good girl,” Mrs. Lin spoke, so quietly Tess had to make an effort to hear what she said. “Studied a lot. She was eager to be done with school so she could start living her life. She’d just finished her college degree, and she wasn’t even eighteen yet. Did you know that?”

  Tess nodded.

  “How does someone do that?”

  “She was precocious and very smart,” Mr. Lin said. “She worked hard. She started doing two years in one since she was in seventh grade. I offered to move her to another school, one for gifted children, but she wanted to stay where she was, with her friends, and finish school as soon as she could. She wanted to come work with me, in the family business,” he added, his voice trailing off, choked. “She made her father proud.”

  “That must have been hard, doing two years in one,” Tess said. “How did her friends react to May leaving them behind like that?”

  The parents looked at each other again, and Han briefly lifted his gaze from the carpet, only to lower his eyes back again a second later.

  “Everyone loved my little May,” her mother replied. “Her friends didn’t mind her being ahead, and she always made new friends too.”

  “They used her homework, notebooks, and test preps,” Han added. “It was like having a preview into the next school year. I used it too, in my last two years of high school. It was cool.”

  His father shot him a disappointed look, then turned his attention to Tess.

  “Why?” Tess asked. “What was cool about it?”

  “It saved everyone a lot of time on homework.”

  There wasn’t a single hint of Chinese accent in the boy’s English, not even the distinguishable melody, the inflections the Chinese put in their English phrases. He sounded as Chicago as they came.

  “Interesting,” Tess replied, almost smiling. “How did you pay her back?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Han replied. “May didn’t expect anything in return. She just worked her way through school as fast as she could, and the rest of us were in luck.”

  “How about her social life? What did she do for fun?”

  “There wasn’t much time for that,” her mother replied quickly, “with a double school workload.”

  “She was hungry for life, my little girl,” Mr. Lin added. “But study always came first.”

  Tess looked at Han inquisitively. No way does a teenager give up all the fun in her life, no matter how desperate she was to be rid of school. Han continued to gaze at the floor and remained quiet.

  “We took her to our social events when she wanted to come,” Mrs. Lin said. “We wanted to give her the skills to succeed in society.”

  “What kind of events?”

  “The annual real estate investors’ conference is one I can think of. It lasts three days, and every evening it has cocktail parties and fancy dinners for major investors and their families,” Mrs. Lin replied. “It’s a very elegant event. May was thrilled to go. She was starting to have an interest in getting evening gowns, makeup, jewelry.” She paused for a little while, clasping her hands nervously in her lap. “She was a typical American teenager, our little girl. No Chinese cultural values took to her, no matter how hard I tried.”

  “Who was the reception for?”

  “Only top developers and investors,” Mrs. Lin replied. “People who’d invested at least ten million dollars in the development of Chicago. White glove, exclusive. We attend every year.” She stood, her tiny figure seemingly fragile. “Let me show you,” she added, as she pulled a photo album from one of the bookcases. “Here it is, the last photo we took with her, as a family.”

  Tess looked at the photo, studying every detail. It was a group image, probably other investors with their families were in it, about 20 people or so. All tuxes and evening attire, sparkling diamonds and classy looks, wide smiles exposing perfect teeth. The Lin family took a small space among the others, huddled together to the side, the parents behind their children. Han and May, taller than their parents, had crouched at their feet, the four of them forming a charming ensemble.

  “May I?” Tess gestured with her phone.

  Mrs. Lin held the image up for Tess, as she took a couple of pictures.

  “Thank you,” Tess said quietly. “How about her social life outside of family events? Did she go out? With friends, on dates?”

  “No, she was too young,” Mr. Lin replied quickly. Han resumed looking at the floor and seemed somewhat embarrassed, fidgeting in place. This time, the mother stared at the carpet as well.

  “Han, if we don’t know the truth, we’ll never catch her killer,” Tess said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Han shot Tess a quick, guilty glance, then cleared his throat before speaking.

  “Um, she did go out sometimes, when Father was out of town on business.”

  Mr. Lin sprung to his feet, pacing angrily. “Han!”

  Without words, Tess urged him to let the
boy finish. Mr. Lin lowered his eyes, but continued to stand and pace.

  “Where?” Tess asked. “Where did she go? Did she have a boyfriend?”

  “No, no boyfriend. She went to the mall with the girls and to clubs sometimes.”

  “By herself?”

  “No, with her friends.”

  “How did she get in?” Tess asked.

  Han clammed up and shrugged.

  “Han, this is important,” Tess pleaded. “There will be no consequence to you or your family, no matter what you tell me, all right? I promise.”

  Mr. Lin stared at his son, his intent gaze an angry, incredulous, disappointed look that promised a world of trouble for young Han Lin. He wasn’t helping.

  “Han? Please,” Tess insisted one more time.

  “Fake ID,” he eventually whispered, his eyes riveted to the floor again.

  Mrs. Lin started crying softly.

  “May I please see her room?” Tess asked.

  “The police have been through there already,” Mr. Lin replied dryly.

  “I’m not the police, Mr. Lin. We have different methods.”

  Mrs. Lin stood and took to the stairs, her tear-filled look a silent invitation. Tess followed her and soon entered May’s bedroom. It looked as if the girl was out somewhere, soon to return. The bedroom was kept probably just the way she’d left it, almost 18 months ago.

  “Show me,” Tess asked, looking Han straight in the eye.

  He hesitated, then kneeled on the floor near the immense window. He rolled back the rug and exposed more of the shiny hardwood floor, then ran his long, thin fingers along the edges of the wood strips, until one clacked quietly. He grabbed it and pulled it out with ease, exposing a small bundle underneath. He extracted it and handed it to Tess.

  “Thanks,” she said, opening the embroidered handkerchief holding the items together. There it was, May’s fake ID, so well executed Tess couldn’t tell it was fake. An expensive job, using her real picture and a fake name, and making her about 22 years old when she’d disappeared. With it, a wad of cash and a couple of condoms.