Twin Offerings

by Ruth Parker

  The first few pages had been highlighted extensively. He picked them up and read through the threads. The guy (or girl, he supposed, but the user name was ‘bangers’ and that somehow seemed like a man to him) had sold three of the Sunset Rose tea sets. They sold for two hundred fifty bucks. In each sale, the details were hashed out in private messages, so there were no records here of real names or addresses.

  “There’s a guy I know in Virginia,” Fletcher finally said. “He can get me the names of the buyers and sellers.”

  “I’ll go tell Stella about Laurel,” Bowen said. “While you call your friend about getting the real names.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He was already paging through his phone, trying to find his friend’s number. “The girls have already been missing for five days. That was how long he kept the Clark twins.”

  “I’ll rally the troops,” she said.

  “Good,” he said. “Make sure they’re all armed to the teeth.”

  Barbara had so many thoughts going through her head, she didn’t notice at first when she walked into Sheriff Stella’s office and there was Underwood and a small contingent of uniformed officers.

  “Sorry,” she said. “This is important.”

  “So is this,” Underwood said. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days—and it was very possible that he hadn’t. His neck tie was uneven, the thin end hanging down way past the thicker end. She could smell the thick patina of oil and sweat that coated his skin with a sticky sheen.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Do you have a line on the unsub?” No one asked which unsub she meant; in the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, there was only one unknown subject that anyone cared about.

  “I traced the nail polish to one manufacturer. You ever heard of Sleek and Sassy? It’s a cheap discount brand, so I figured you might have…” he said, obviously taking a jab at her unkempt appearance.

  “I have better things to do than paint my nails,” she said, hating how defensive she sounded. She did know Sleek and Sassy; they produced bargain, bottom-of-the-line nail polish and cosmetics. But it was an old brand. She recognized the name from when she was in high school and didn’t have the money to spend on real make-up.

  “The lab finally analyzed the paint. It had an older type of orange pigment, cadmium sulfo—” he consulted a paper. “Sulfo-something. Most nail polishes use synthetic pigments which are more expensive but don’t chip as easy. Anyway, I contacted several manufacturers and Sleek and Sassy is the only one that still uses cadmium. The company is really small. In the Northwest, they only have distribution by Walgreens. And only a few Walgreens stores stock that particular shade of orange. One of the guys on our sex offender list works at a Walgreens that stocks the orange nail polish and guess where?”

  He actually paused, waiting for her to guess. She hadn’t been as involved in this case and didn’t know all the specifics, but she knew that the unsub was using photography as a lure to abduct the girls. But she also knew that there hadn’t been any evidence that the girls were sexually abused. Why was he getting suspects from the sex offender list?

  “I’m assuming that he works at the photo counter?” she offered.

  “Good,” he said. “You’re not just napping at your cubicle all day long.”

  “Hold on,” she said. “I have some new information.”

  “I take it back,” Underwood said. “Didn’t you hear a word I just said? Sex offender, knows about photography, works in the only store where this nail polish is sold.” He ticked off the evidence on his fingers.

  She didn’t know where to begin. The girls hadn’t been sexually assaulted. Any idiot could press the buttons on a commercial photo printer. And just because the killer had lured the girls by pretending to be a photographer didn’t mean he was actually a photographer. Again, any idiot could buy a big, heavy camera and a couple tripods. And there were probably hundreds of Walgreens that sold that color of nail polish.

  “Laurel Gates might have been abducted,” she blurted out, hoping Stella wouldn’t let Underwood go off on this ill-fated idea while Laurel was out there, possibly abducted by their killer.

  “Oh please,” Underwood said dismissively.

  “Hey,” Stella said, finally taking part in the conversation. He was a shrewd man and Barbara respected him; she hoped he wouldn’t let the pressure to make an arrest cloud his usually excellent judgment. “Shut up Frank,” he said. Underwood immediately stopped his stream of dismissive profanities.

  “The FBI guy says he can’t get a hold of Laurel. He was at her house this morning—”

  “I knew he was banging her,” Underwood sneered.

  “Frank,” Stella said. “You will be banging your head against a desk when I pull you off field work and task you with alphabetizing the call logs from the last four decades if you do not shut the hell up.”

  Barbara quickly told Stella what was going on, how Laurel wasn’t at home, wasn’t answering her calls, but her car was still in the driveway.

  Stella snapped into action. He told the three uniformed officers to go to Laurel’s house and start a neighborhood canvass. He called one of the state technology guys and told him to get a trace on Laurel’s cell phone.

  “Fletcher!” he yelled. Barbara was surprised at how loud the old man’s voice was. Fletcher’s workspace was halfway across the department, but just a few moments later, Fletcher came into the office. Barbara noticed his breathing was just a little too fast; he’d sprinted across the office when he heard Stella calling.

  “Did you find her?” Fletcher asked.

  “No, but we will. I’m getting a trace on her cell phone and we got a couple guys in the neighborhood now, looking for witnesses.”

  “Good,” Fletcher said.

  “Underwood,” Stella said. “Bring in your guy for questioning only. Ask him if he remembers selling any of those nail polishes. Don’t treat him like a suspect.”

  “But he is,” Underwood protested.

  “Of course he is,” Stella said. “Until we get this asshole, everyone is a suspect.”

  It was late in the afternoon, and the girls’ new mother needed to rest. He had gotten her in the woods just as he’d planned. Who would have thought that an old blue bed sheet and one of his teapots would have lured her so easily.

  He’d had to get the reporter out of the way first, and she was even easier to sneak up on. She’d been taking pictures as Laurel knelt beside the bed sheet, ready to snap some emotionally gripping photographs as the poor woman revealed the bones of her long-lost sister. What an opportunist. Taking her down had been easy. He’d left the reporter in the woods, although he took her phone, assuming she’d have some voice notes and other evidence stored on it. He’d hit her on the head very hard—not sparing her the least bit from the full force of his strength, like he’d spared Laurel. Whether or not the reporter woke up and found her way back into the city didn’t matter to him.

  By nightfall, he would be released from the cruelty and injustice of this world. He would finally have his perfect little family: perfect twins and their new perfect mother. The four of them would gather together and drink their tea.

  And stay perfect forever.

  He’d gotten Laurel and brought her back to his house. He put her downstairs with her new daughters so she could rest. When she woke up, he would have to talk to her, let her know what was going to happen. She’d also have to change her hair.

  He busied himself with preparations. There was so much to do, but he zipped around his house, not tiring, not begrudging his chores. He cleaned the house top-to-bottom, dusting corners and wiping down counters and scrubbing sinks. This house had to be worthy of his new family. When he got to his bedroom, he took special care to make things clean and orderly. He changed the sheets, vacuumed the carpet, and cleaned the dust and dead flies out of the window sills. Laurel would come to his bed and they would consummate their new relationship as mother and father to the two beautiful girls downstairs.


  Oh yes, tonight would be special. After all, it was going to be his wedding night.

  Twenty-Two

  There was a pounding, sickening pain that wracked her whole body, coalescing in her head, behind her eyes. Laurel wasn’t sure which direction was up, down, left, or right. She groped at her sides but only got handfuls of scratchy carpeting. She tried to open an eye, but there was a bare light bulb overhead, boring bright light straight through her skull into the nexus of her pain.

  Whispering. Someone was whispering. She strained to hear, but her head was still swimming. She just wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew that there was something important she had to do. She felt hungover, like waking up after too much booze and too little sleep—still drunk, head and neck tender and sensitive to movement, intense fatigue but inability to go back to sleep. Hungover, except she was on the floor and someone was in her room whispering.

  “She’s awake,” someone said.

  “I told you he didn’t kill her.” A second voice.

  Where was she? She rolled over onto her side and slowly forced herself up. Propped up on her elbows, she was able to open her eyes. The pain was even more intense when she sat up.

  She was not in her room. She was not alone.

  The ghosts looked at her, their hair tangled and sticking out in all sorts of crazy directions. It was like looking into the past. The two girls in their navy blue dresses looked exactly like the girl in the Polaroid picture. They looked exactly like Laurel and Leigh.

  “Melissa? Madison?” she said, her voice little more than a croaked whisper. The girls looked at each other, confused.

  “Do you know us?”

  “I know him,” Laurel said. “Can you get me some water?” Her tongue felt like a lump of cotton and her throat itched from all the dust on the carpet. One of the girls got up and went into the small bathroom and came back with a plastic cup filled with water. She gave it to Laurel, but still uncertain of who their new visitor was, she returned to her sister. The two girls held each other, squatting on the floor. Laurel took the cup and drank voraciously, water running down the side of her face. It was lukewarm and rich with particulate pipe scale, but it was good.

  Laurel got up unsteadily and walked the room. She remembered now, how she’d been in the woods, so eager to find out what had happened to Leigh. So stupid. She’d walked right into his trap. Again.

  Maybe this was all for the best. Maybe this was what she deserved. She’d cheated her fate fifteen years ago and now it was time to pay the pied piper. Her heart ached for Fletcher. He’d be worried about her. He’d blame himself for not being there to protect her. He didn’t understand that Laurel had done this to herself—had sealed her fate by betraying Leigh all those years ago.

  It was time to pay her dues.

  They were all in a basement with no windows or doors except the one at the top of the stairs. There was a small vent on one of the walls that connected to the heating system and kept the room warm. On the coffee table was a tray of food, but no forks or knives.

  “Are you going to get us out of here?” one of the girls asked.

  Looking at them was like looking into the past. Was she going to get them out of there? Could she?

  Or would she betray the girls as she had betrayed her own sister? Say I’m not thirsty, you drink it, when she knew it was laced with drugs. Laurel had seen the man pour the white powder into their drinks, seen him stir it up and then test-taste, making sure that they wouldn’t be able to taste the powder. She had seen him do it. She had known that the drinks had been drugged. She had known that if they drank it, they would surely pass out and wake up in a basement somewhere, at the mercy of the strange man who had lied about being a photographer. Laurel had known this.

  I’m not thirsty, Leigh, you drink it.

  Laurel had known what would happen. She also knew it was her only chance to escape. If her sister had a double-dose of the drugs, she would pass out immediately, causing a distraction. Laurel knew this. She had always been smart. She also knew it was possible for a double-dose to be lethal.

  I’m not thirsty, Leigh, you drink it.

  Leigh had collapsed just a few minutes after drinking the second cup of drugged milk. The man had been confused, just as Laurel had expected. He had knocked over a tripod in his haste to get to Leigh. That was when Laurel tiptoed out of the room and into the small, dirty bathroom. There was a window, large enough for a kid to fit through, but it was high up on the wall. She climbed up on the sink. Her weight caused the bolts to loosen, the caulking to break. She thought that the sink was going to rip free from the wall, the porcelain crashing loudly to the tile floor. He would hear and come to get her. She had been so scared. She reached up quickly and grabbed hold of the sill, easing her weight off of the sink. She pushed wildly at the screen and it popped out of place. She grabbed the sill with both hands. Her arms were straight up. In PE class earlier in the school year, they had to take the tests for the presidential physical fitness award. Part of the test was pull-ups. Laurel did not get the award because she had only been able to do one pull-up. It took all her strength and her arms had been sore the next day. This was harder than a pull-up. She had to get her whole body up and over, not just her chin. She summoned all the strength she didn’t know that she had, flailing her legs against the wall to get leverage. She made it up and managed to swing one of her legs through, and from there, she wiggled the rest of the way. She had landed in the back lot behind the building.

  The rest of the story she’d told Fletcher and Underwood was true. She started running. She had no idea where she was, but she just started to run, knowing that she only had a few minutes’ head-start on the man. He would load Leigh into the car and then come looking for her. She stayed on the main streets, turning right or left at random. Then she recognized a street corner where there was a McDonald’s right next door to a Burger King. She had known where she was then and was able to make her way back to school. She had been delirious with exhaustion, consumed by guilt, shaky with fear and spent adrenaline. She’d puked on the front lawn of the school before she went into the main office.

  That was when the real roller-coaster ride started.

  Everything was bright and loud. Tell us what happened, when did you leave home, who was he, how did he get Leigh into the car, tell us again, sit here and wait, hold on, tell him what you just told me, come down to the police station, tell us what happened, can you describe the man, where is your sister, what happened, where were you, tell her what you just told me.

  In the end, she had simply clammed up. Sitting in the chair, a crowd of fearful, panicked adults hovering above her, where have you been where’s Leigh what happened where’s Leigh what happened where have you been what happened where’s Leigh?

  “He took her,” she finally managed to say. She had been so overwhelmed. How could she admit that they’d been so stupid? Not naive, not gullible—but deeply, inexcusably stupid. They wanted to be fashion models. That was stupid too.

  And where was that building he took them to? She didn’t even know where it was. They wouldn’t just let her say, ‘I don’t know where it is.’ He wouldn’t even be there anyway. He’d leave. Maybe he’d be scared and leave Leigh and just take off, leave the state. That was what she’d do. He had wanted to abduct them or maybe take dirty pictures or worse… but it had gone wrong. He had to be afraid that she would go to the police and he’d be caught. The smart thing for him to do would be to drop Leigh off somewhere, get in his car and just go up to Washington or Canada. He could be there in a few hours.

  That was probably what he would do. Leigh would wake up and stumble home, just like Laurel had done.

  That was how the lie started. Small. Out of shame. Out of hope that everything would be okay.

  That was how lies grew. The shame. Anything would be better than facing that shame.

  Laurel knew that was not true. There was always a way for things to get worse.

  It was hard to sn
ap out of her memories, looking at the two girls that looked so much like herself and Leigh. It was like she was back in time, looking at the two little Gates girls right before their lives changed forever.

  The two little Webb girls—maybe their lives wouldn’t have to change forever. Maybe this time, Laurel could do the right thing and get them all out.

  Fuck maybe.

  “Yeah,” Laurel said. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Twenty-Three

  The Sheriff’s Department was so busy, no one noticed Fletcher sneaking out. He technically wasn’t sneaking, but it felt like it since his dad had come down and started getting involved, asking questions. They were close to finding the killer. Fletcher could feel the frantic energy of pieces starting to fall into place. Barbara Bowen had taken charge of the search for Laurel; she’d organized a canvass and got a team to go to Laurel’s house with a warrant and bust down her door. Underwood and his team were busy harassing the guy who worked at Walgreens. Fletcher thought that was a waste of time.

  Fletcher knew that the killer had taken Laurel; he knew it deep down in his marrow. He also knew that the best lead they had so far was the tea set. Which was why when his buddy in Virginia had called him back with the information about the user names in the antique forums, Fletcher sneaked out quietly, alone. If he was going to run down the killer today, he didn’t want anyone tagging along. He didn’t want any witnesses. Because the person who took Laurel was not getting handcuffs and Miranda warnings.

  The person who took Laurel was getting a bullet.

  He started going north, headed for North Plains. There was no direct route to the small farming town, so he wove through side streets and roads, cursing every red light and railroad crossing that stopped him. His friend had looked up the user name and website information that Fletcher had given him that morning. His friend was fast and his friend was brilliant, but even Fletcher didn’t expect anything this fast. He’d called mere hours later, with a name: Johnnie Mullins.