Girls In White Dresses: A Detective London McKenna Novel

by Alex Gates

  But who knew what the Goodmans demanded in return for their charity. The price the girls had to pay was steep.

  What if they’d refused? What if they had tried to escape?

  My stomach twisted. Something inside me whispered that terrible truth.

  Jonah, Nina, and Cora weren’t the only people who had been killed to protect the Goodman’s beliefs.

  Kerst stood, guiding me from the office and to a locked door along a side hall. The stairs below coated in dust, and the overhead light flickered, but the bankers’ boxes stacked neat and orderly on a sturdy, wire shelving unit. Dozens of them, each organized by audit year.

  “I’ve been here for eighteen years,” Kerst said. “My predecessor was originally a CPA. He kept the records in a very specific manner, and I tried to replicate it as best I could. These are organized…meticulously. I’ll ask that you keep them that way.”

  “Of course.” I stared at the boxes, already calculating the years I needed in my head. “Thank you, Pastor.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re looking for, or what you think you’ll find…”

  “Me either. But I’m hoping I’m wrong.”

  “The Goodmans have never caused this community harm. They do good works and love each other. Jacob might be harder than most, but he’s taken over the head of his family and led them into prosperity through charity. His brother, Simon, manages the farm. Matthew is an accomplished lawyer. Mark, a very good doctor. All of their sons have brought honor to the family and this country. Some are veterans. Some farmers. All highly educated.”

  “And their wives…?”

  Kerst breathed deep. “They might not work outside the home, but they help with the charity, the family, and the children.”

  “And how many children are there, Pastor?”

  “We did quite a few baptisms until they began to worship with John.”

  And the most important question. “How old are the mothers, Pastor?”

  “It is not our place to judge what might have happened to those girls before they came to the farm.”

  “No, but it’s important to ask questions about what happens to them once they’re there.” I hauled a box off the shelf and lowered it onto a table with a grunt. “How many of them married men on the farm?”

  Kerst shoved his hands into his pockets. “Some.”

  “Just some?”

  “Any marriage is a good marriage, Detective. They’re young, but nothing improper happened. The girls were always of age.”

  “Once you saw them.”

  “Detective, I assure you, the Harvest Dominion Farm is a good place. A loving place. And I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Because they’ve taken in many girls over the years.” He smiled at me, completely oblivious to my horror. “And not one of those girls have ever left the farm.”

  17

  Always look behind you, London.

  You never know who’s watching.

  -Him

  My camera’s shutter cracked like a shotgun blast in the silent forest.

  I flinched with each photo. Listened.

  The snow didn’t care. It lay heavy over the forest, cocooning me into a private winter sanctuary bundled within the bare trees and scraggily bushes.

  Nice and quiet. Good.

  I hadn’t regretted a single shot yet. Each clear photo offered me a window into the terrifying world that was the Goodman farm.

  The digital image appeared on the camera’s screen. The girl in the frame had no idea I had taken her picture, courtesy of a Canon four-hundred-millimeter lens. Apart from being heavy and entirely too expensive to screw around with, the camera snapped clear shots from the hill overlooking Harvest Dominion farm.

  Technically, I didn’t violate Sergeant Adamski’s orders if I wasn’t technically on the Goodman’s land.

  But I couldn’t collect the evidence I needed while freezing my ass off doing surveillance. The real truth was inside the house. I’d love to get in, but it wasn’t happening. Not yet. This investigation was too important to blow on a stupid, reckless mistake.

  Not when the girls needed me.

  I searched through the camera again. A dozen children padded around the farm, working their chores between snowball fights in the fields. Older girls and women followed, calling to the little ones so they could wipe their noses or bundle their coats a little tighter.

  But this wasn’t a wholesome little family. The girls tending to the kids were pregnant.

  A spindly tree branch obscured my shot. I aimed the camera, held my breath, and tried to steady the image.

  The girl in the frame couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Already, her belly had swollen. Hard to hide it on her. She’d kept her skinny, rail-thin shape, only now the material on her dress stretched, bulging like she’d swallowed a volleyball.

  The poor thing should have been out playing on a JV team somewhere. Instead she patrolled the kids, called to a dog, and tossed him a tennis ball. The collie lurched through the snow, kicking up plumes of white fluff. The children loved it, chasing after the collie and racing to fetch the ball themselves. The dog pranced back and forth, bowed low, and bolted away.

  I took another shot as the pregnant girl shouted, yelling at the dog as it abandoned the tennis ball to chase the wily, escaping rooster. The bird squawked. The collie barked. The kids laughed.

  And the pregnant girl struggled to distract the dog from the insulted and increasingly featherless rooster.

  Abigail?

  I checked the copies of the baptism records I’d found in the church.

  No. Couldn’t be her.

  The baptism program had named Abigail as a mother to Benjamin. It hadn’t listed a father, but it did highlight a date. March 4th, 2015. But the only boy toddler outside scurried after a different girl. Someone older—around sixteen. She nursed another child, juggling the bundle at her breast.

  So that sixteen-year-old had two children. She seemed old enough to be the record’s Abigail.

  Which meant the girl in my frame…

  I snapped another picture before flipping through the baptism programs. My gut told me she was an unknown, kidnapped after the Goodmans had left the church. The child she carried would be her first, and she looked six months along. Maybe more.

  I marked the Jane Doe in my notebook. That made three so far. Two of which were pregnant.

  What sort of sick, twisted men did this to young girls? And how was I going to save them?

  Legally, I had no grounds to suspect anything, but only because my smoking gun wasn’t admissible in court.

  I stared at the records, my gut churning, absolutely sick with the vile truth.

  Anna Prescott was taken on July 5th, 2002. Her son’s funeral was held on March 13th, 2003. Less than ten months after her kidnapping.

  I’d pasted a newspaper clipping next to the few records I had on Anna. The headline, Local Farm Provides Charity To Those In Need, only told part of the story. After a series of terrible storms left three Tionesta families homeless, the Goodmans stepped in, providing blankets, supplies, and food. More interesting than their benevolence was the picture of a young Anna Prescott, handing a mourning family blankets and mugs of hot cocoa.

  The article originally ran on July 31st, 2002.

  Anna had lived with Jacob Goodman since her kidnapping. She’d been held in captivity.

  Raped.

  The child fifteen-year-old Anna miscarried belonged to a then thirty-seven-year-old Jacob Goodman.

  But I couldn’t charge the bastard with anything.

  The rape occurred over fifteen years ago, and the statute of limitations for witness reporting had expired. I needed Anna to collaborate the story now. Only she could reveal to the court that she’d been sexually abused. Without her? We had nothing.

  I peered through the camera. Anna must have stayed inside, out of the cold. I didn’t see her.

  Or the men.

  But I had enough picture
s of them.

  Jacob, the family leader. Simon, his muscle. Matthew, the attorney. And Mark, the family’s doctor.

  They had been plentiful in sowing their seeds. Little boys stomped through the snow from the houses to the chapel. And Jacob’s sons and nephews claimed the little cottages inside the compound for their own families.

  But I saw no daughters. No women older than fifteen…unless they were pregnant. They must have been the wives.

  So where were the young female children?

  My mock family tree looked a little sparse. Jacob’s sons were easy—John, Luke, and Jonah. But I knew he had daughters. At least four of them, if I could believe the gossip in town. His daughters would be older now—in their twenties. But none of them lived on the farm.

  If I had to guess, the Goodman daughters met the same fate as Anna Prescott.

  No doubt the family had similarly-inclined associates. The girls were probably married off, forced into relationships with strangers so they too could be bred like livestock.

  Men like this wouldn’t stop until their quivers were full and their seed had corrupted the earth they tended.

  I’d save them.

  I just needed time. Evidence. A valid reason to kick my boot through the door and rescue all those girls from the cold hell trapping them.

  I blinked. In that moment, the forest disappeared. The hills and trees, snow and puffed breaths of white fog vanished.

  And I was back in my own captivity, bleeding, broken, and bound within the stones and chains once more. The copper scent of blood had gagged me. But the roasting meat?

  That had smelled good.

  How terrible for the girl he’d butchered and cooked.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I flinched. The farm returned, but my arms ached.

  How long had I been holding the camera?

  How many more times could he trap me in that nightmare?

  My cell didn’t have great service in the middle of the woods, but the text came through. Adamski made short work of my day off.

  Break in Frost Custody Kidnapping. When can you come in?

  I swallowed a profanity. The cold lodged it in my throat, or maybe the dread choked it out of me.

  Damn it.

  No matter what pictures I took, or how quickly I could convince my squad of a problem…those girls would spend another night in their rapists’ beds.

  I texted back. I can be there in 2 hours. Maybe 3.

  He didn’t like that answer. Where are you?

  Out of the city. Forest County. Got a lead.

  The delay wasn’t because Adamski didn’t have the right words to say. His thumbs were too arthritic to type his frustrations.

  I gave you two days. It’s done. Get back before Lt. Clark gets involved.

  Damn it. This was my day off. My only chance to keep working on the case.

  I was onto something. I could prove it.

  But only if my commanding officers let me do my job. If they got involved, if they decided I was overreacting…

  There were only so many times a woman could meet with the station’s assigned psychologist then go home to her own in the evening. The last thing I needed was anyone to recommend yanking my badge because the case got to me. But that’s why I had to be here. I knew what sort of terror these girls felt.

  Since no one had come to help me, I owed it to these innocent girls to do whatever it took to help them.

  I texted back. OMW. I’ll be there ASAP.

  I shoved the camera into the bag, but my fingers tangled in the zip as a twig snapped in the shadows behind me. The scrape of branches against slick material echoed the break.

  I froze, listening for the telltale drop of boots against frozen ground, crunching snow and ice against the rocks.

  I heard three sets of boots.

  No.

  My heart lurched.

  Five.

  All pacing. All watching.

  All too close.

  I dropped the camera bag and spun, pulling the gun from my belt as the five men emerged between the trees. The dark camo cloaked them like the spiny, dead branches and limbs choking the farm from freedom.

  Each man carried a hunting rifle, cocked and ready to fire. My gun didn’t stand a chance against all five barrels, even if two of the hunters looked young. Early twenties. Jonah’s age. They must have been his brothers or cousins, the newest generation of Goodman depravity.

  This wasn’t a fight I’d win.

  Or a fight anyone would ever know I’d lost.

  The Goodmans had more than enough land to dump a body, and I wouldn’t be the first buried in the depths of the forest.

  Simon stepped forward, ripping off his ski mask and exposing a lecherous, confident sneer.

  “Oh, this isn’t good, Detective,” he chided. “You’re trespassing on our property.”

  I shook my head. “I checked the county’s property map online.”

  “You checked wrong. We purchased this land last year. Haven’t consolidated the lots yet. The map you saw was wrong.” He gestured with his rifle. “Drop your gun.”

  Sweat chilled me. At least they couldn’t see it under my heavy layers.

  I didn’t have a choice. Without a clear shot and path to escape, I had to do as I was told.

  It’d be the last time I surrendered to them.

  I emptied the clip and dropped the weapon.

  Simon nodded, and one of the younger men scooped it up, pocketing my only defense against the monsters.

  “Spying on us?” Simon gave me a cruel smile.

  “Conducting an investigation,” I said.

  “You have no proof that we’ve done anything wrong.”

  “Yet.” I let the word hang. “I’ll find it.”

  “And what exactly are you looking for?”

  “Evidence of Jacob Goodman’s crimes. And he’s got a lot to answer for.”

  Simon stepped too close, letting the gun angle just under my chin. “Tell you what, Detective. Why don’t we go have a talk with my brother? You’re probably dying to meet him.”

  And, once the introductions were over?

  I’d be dead.

  18

  I’ve kept you longer than anyone.

  I might keep you forever.

  -Him

  They didn’t kill me where I stood.

  If they’d planned on murder, they’d have shot me in the forest.

  Simon ordered the other men to gather my belongings. Nothing like chivalry at gunpoint.

  I couldn’t let them capture me, but with a thudding heart and freezing feet, I wouldn’t make it far if I attempted to escape by tumbling down the icy knoll and trying my luck in the half-frozen stream below.

  “You gentlemen don’t need to escort me to my car,” I said. “I can find it myself.”

  “But can we trust you to leave?” Simon asked. “For some reason, you keep finding your way back to our property.”

  “Can you blame me? This location is perfect. So secluded and private.” I flashed a smile that bared more teeth than charm. “I bet you can do anything you want here.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I have plenty of ideas, Mr. Goodman. I know exactly what happens out here on your farm…especially when no one is around to stop you.”

  Simon slowed, his boot crushing the snow, churning the pristine white into mud. “Think carefully about your words, Detective.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t go around accusing men of such crimes.”

  One of the younger men snorted, his sneer less cordial and more primal. “Shouldn’t be accusing men of anything.”

  “That so?” I asked. “Maybe I should be seen and not heard?”

  “Works for our women.” He stepped a little too close. I regretted surrendering my gun. “Keeps them out of trouble.”

  “And what happens when they get in trouble?”

  “We punish them.”

  “Try me.”

  Simon bum
ped me, forcing me to walk once more. “Don’t give us reason, Detective.”

  I’d give them every reason.

  I wasn’t one of their kidnapped slaves, and they wouldn’t dare touch me. Sergeant Adamski knew exactly where I was. They could threaten and intimidate, but they couldn’t keep me hidden from the world inside their fortress of perversion. They had to keep me safe.

  Couldn’t give the police any more reason to investigate what really happened on their farm.

  But that didn’t mean I liked being led inside their compound like the hunters’ freshly gutted kill.

  The Goodman farm didn’t look like a trap—not with the rows of pretty little cottages, paved walkways, and the laughter of children. It wasn’t a water-stained basement with no windows, doors, or hope, but it was just as dangerous.

  I followed them through the little town square. The dizzying pounding of my heart blurred my vision and threatened to ice my blood in panic. Once, I had been weak. Helpless and frail. I thought submission would appease a deranged lunatic. But that frailty was just what the Goodmans wanted. They longed to break their prey and force them to surrender their independence and dignity.

  I’d never relinquish that again. I’d fight. I’d scream. I’d hurt.

  I’d die if I had to.

  The men didn’t have time to clear the farm. The women and children scattered underfoot. Two little boys tossed feed for the chickens. The other group of three focused on building a teetering snowman. Two older women, maybe in their forties, the oldest I’d seen, carried an ivory painted trellis from the basement of their chapel towards their communal hall.

  “Big wedding coming up, right?” I asked.

  Simon said nothing. The men didn’t react.

  “Who is the lucky, little lady?” I gestured to the group of pre-teen girls. They didn’t look like they’d been pregnant. They must’ve been next for the slaughter. “Why don’t you mail me an invite? My +1 might be the entire SWAT team though. But we’ll share the dinner.”

  Simon took a great pleasure in his words. “Detective, you are not invited.”

  “I don’t need a formal invitation. I’ll come as soon as I have probable cause.”