Fade to Black

by Parrish, Leslie

  In this instance, it was almost a blessing that Lisa had not yet been found.

  “Mrs. Freed,” he murmured, taking the situation out of Stacey’s hands, “while we are sure that Lisa was killed, we have not yet located her remains.”

  The woman’s head jerked as if she’d been slapped. So did her husband’s. They both gawked at him. “Well, how do you know she’s dead?”

  “Ma’am, we have irrefutable proof.”

  “Maybe it’s not her; maybe she’s not—”

  Stacey cut her off. “I saw the proof, Winnie. It’s her.”

  “I want to see this proof.”

  “No,” Stacey said. “I identified her myself; there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind, and I’ve known her since she was a baby.”

  The woman stared, saying nothing.

  Leaning close, still holding those tired, trembling hands, Stacey lowered her voice, sounding like a parent comforting a child. “Please do yourself a kindness. Remember your daughter by those photographs in the living room, and mourn the child you raised. I know you have lots of wonderful memories. She was a happy little girl and she loved you very much. Let that be enough. I’m begging you.”

  Stan cleared his throat, obviously reading between the lines how graphic their proof must be. For the first moment since they’d arrived, Dean saw a hint of humanity in the man’s hard-eyed stare. His shoulders slumped, and he cleared his throat and mustered a concerned tone. “Sheriff’s right, Win. You shouldn’t be cuttin’ yourself up like that.”

  Human tenderness? Or guilt?

  Whimpering, Mrs. Freed gave it one more effort. “But what if they’re wrong?”

  Dean met Stan’s eye, shook his head once, expressing every bit of confidence that they weren’t.

  “They’re not wrong. And you’re not looking at that proof, Winifred, so get it outta your head.” Stan slid his hand across his wife’s shoulders, tugging her hard against his side to underscore his command. She flinched, then allowed it.

  That flinch said more than a million words Winnie Freed might have uttered.

  If this scumbag hadn’t beaten his wife at least once a week since he’d married her, Dean would give up his badge. Nearly choking on the disgust of it, he had to turn away and stare out the window, noting the decrepit, rusting swing set rising like an ancient ruin from the scraggly, knee-high grass.

  Poor Lisa. No safe, happy playgrounds for her. Not for a very long time.

  “I promise you, we’ll catch whoever did this,” Stacey added. “And God willing, we’ll find her remains soon so you can bury her.”

  The victim’s mother must have heard the resolved certainty in Stacey’s tone. That word bury seemed to sink in like nothing else had. The finality of it. The harshness of it. Because she stopped moaning, stopped shaking, stopped hoping.

  As he entered Brandon and Lily’s joint office Saturday afternoon, Wyatt felt the frustration thick in the air. It was evident in their frowns, the tension of their bodies, the angry jabs of their fingertips on two computer keyboards.

  His two IT specialists had been working since just after dawn, trying to keep up with the sick inhabitants of Satan’s Playground. Especially one sick inhabitant. But the site kept throwing up barricades, stumbling blocks that its “legitimate” users obviously knew how to get around. Unwelcome visitors, however, didn’t find it as easy. Even visitors as brilliant as Brandon Cole.

  “Have you found anything else?” he asked. He hadn’t checked in since noon, not wanting to pressure the two, who’d put in hours just as long as his own since this Reaper case had started.

  “He’s gone. He put up that sign, let the crowd worship him, then disappeared.” Brandon sprawled back in his chair and shook his head. The young man scowled at the monitor in disgust, watching the sick acts taking place all over it. “He crawled back into his hole and hasn’t come out again, though I can tell by the users list that he’s online, watching. Just not participating.”

  Or maybe not sitting in front of his computer. But always there, hovering, like some damned malevolent presence.

  “Keep trying,” he said.

  Lily, he noted, kept her head down, focused only on the long strings of numbers rolling across her computer screen. Her chair was turned, slightly, as if to absolutely ensure she didn’t get a random glance at anything happening on Brandon’s monitor. Something had hit her hard this morning; he had the feeling it was witnessing the actions of one cartoonishly frightening predator in the Playground, who’d made a great show of taking young children into his gated mansion.

  He knew enough about her to know that she wouldn’t let herself be distracted from the job. He also knew that if she had the chance, she’d do whatever she could to bring down the pedophile.

  Now, though, her thoughts went in only one direction: toward the Reaper. But the frown of concentration and the curl of disappointment on her mouth said she wasn’t having any better luck with the financial tangle than Cole was with the site itself.

  “I’ve been making calls, keeping an eye on all missing persons cases,” Wyatt said. “Nothing new has come in, not yet, anyway.”

  “Meaning he hasn’t grabbed his victim?” Lily asked, appearing, for the moment, hopeful. “He usually gives himself seventy-two hours, right?”

  True. But Wyatt wasn’t sure he agreed with her. They’d already lost a full day. And they knew their unsub was very careful. He’d allow himself plenty of time to commit his crime, record it, then go over every millisecond of that recording to ensure he didn’t leave anything that might hint at his identity.

  He didn’t want to admit it, but Wyatt suspected there was a better than fifty percent chance they were already too late. Just because no young woman had been reported missing in any nearby state didn’t mean one hadn’t already been removed from her life with surgical precision. There could be any number of reasons for a delay in a report—a victim living alone, one who was known to travel. All kinds of possibilities.

  “I mean, he’d have to find someone first, right?” Lily said, her usual optimism not allowing her to give up on the idea. “The conditions would have to be just right; he can’t simply snatch a woman the moment the auction is over.”

  “Unless he’s had one under surveillance and knows exactly who he’s going to grab each time,” Brandon said. No optimism there. He was thinking along the same lines as Wyatt. “He might have a whole list of possibilities that he keeps tabs on, knowing how and when to make his move, given the location and time of day.”

  Wyatt revealed something he’d just discovered when scouring through every word of the case files. “One of the victims told a friend she’d seen a strange-looking guy in a long black coat watching her a few weeks before she was snatched. The friend didn’t think too much of it, until after the victim’s body had been found.”

  “Oh, God,” Lily murmured, a stricken look appearing on her face.

  “He wouldn’t leave anything to chance,” Wyatt explained, gentling his tone. “In every previous case, he’s known exactly where and when to strike to minimize the possibility of witnesses. In one case, he shot out surveillance cameras. He doesn’t leave anything—like waiting to choose his prey—until the last minute. I don’t think the unsub would have scheduled the auction if he didn’t have his eye on his next victim.”

  The two computer experts remained momentarily silent, acknowledging what he was saying. Then both, as if sharing the same mind, spun in their chairs and went back to work, more determined than ever to find something they could use to stop the nightmare.

  Stacey and Dean spent much of the morning in the stifling little house on State Street. They told Lisa’s mother what they could, offering few details, but a lot of comfort and promises of justice.

  And they asked questions.

  These people knew Lisa the best. If there was a personal connection between her and her killer, here was the best place to start trying to find it. They needed to learn everything they could about the men s
he’d dated, those she’d fought with, anything that might have been a motive for murder.

  So far, they’d learned nothing Stacey hadn’t already known about the young woman.

  “I don’t know who her boyfriends were,” Winnie said, probably for the tenth time. “She was a popular girl; she was so pretty. Nobody would want to hurt her.”

  Stacey didn’t quite accept prettiness as the reason for Lisa’s popularity. And she knew plenty of people who had reason to dislike the young woman. But she let it go.

  Across the kitchen, Stan mumbled something, apparently in response to his wife’s statement. It wasn’t the first time he’d had an under-the-breath comment. So far, nearly all his answers had held a note of belligerence, and more than once he’d made a disparaging remark about his stepdaughter. Prick.

  Seeing the way the cowed woman’s eyes constantly shifted toward her husband before she answered anything, Stacey finally had enough. “Winnie, why don’t you and I go into Lisa’s room to talk, while Special Agent Taggert gets a few details from Stan.”

  Her husband immediately began to object. Winnie, though, leaped from her chair. “Yes, yes. Her room. It’s exactly the way she left it.”

  “Win . . .” Stan said, his voice holding a note of warning.

  “Mr. Freed, if you wouldn’t mind,” Dean said, smoothly distracting the man by stepping between him and his wife. “I really would like to talk to you.”

  The older man frowned. “I need to go shower and get ready for work.”

  Work. Hours after being informed of his stepdaughter’s murder. That really ought to go on his husband-of-the-year application.

  “I’m sure they’ll understand if you’re late, given the circumstances,” Dean said, somehow managing to disguise the disgust she suspected he felt. His quick, unguarded glance in her direction confirmed it.

  “I’d appreciate more information about how your stepdaughter got the keys to your car. You said she borrowed it without permission?”

  Mr. Freed was well and truly distracted. “More like stole it,” he spat. “And that’s a company car; I don’t own it, and if she had gone out and wrecked it, I could have been fired. After all I did for her, she didn’t even care that we could end up on the streets.”

  To Stacey’s knowledge, the house belonged to Winnie. She’d certainly lived here before her first husband had died, and had come into some kind of insurance settlement after that drunk driver had killed him. Where that money might have gone was anyone’s guess.

  “All right, then,” Dean said, “let’s go discuss it.”

  “Fine. Do you want to go outside and look at the car?”

  “That’s an excellent idea.”

  Stacey blessed the distraction. Stan had seemed reluctant to get out of earshot from his wife, almost as if he feared what she might say. Now, he seemed focused only on sharing his grievances about his stupid car.

  She suddenly wondered if Stan’s employer provided other vehicles for their tech guys. Like pickup trucks . . . It was worth checking out.

  “Come on,” Winnie said, only a small furrow of her brow revealing what she thought of her husband’s actions. Stacey suspected she’d gotten quite adept at hiding her feelings. And her pain.

  Following Winnie down the back hallway, Stacey steeled herself for whatever they might find in Lisa’s bedroom. She had no doubt Lisa had been doing drugs and hated the idea of finding paraphernalia in front of her heartsick mother. But when Winnie pushed the door open with a creak, and she stepped inside the immaculately clean room, she sucked in a shocked breath.

  Because it wasn’t just in the same condition it had been in on the day Lisa had disappeared. It was the same as it had been when she was a child.

  The twin-size bed was made with a frilly pink cover and a profusion of lacy pillows. Wide-eyed, pink-lipped dolls sat on a white wicker rocking chair in the corner. A bookshelf laden with childhood titles stood beside a small dresser sized for a young child’s hands to open. Framed prints of butterflies and puppies hung on every wall.

  Stacey’s breath caught in her throat; she could neither inhale nor exhale. She could only stare as the awfulness of it washed over her.

  It was as if Lisa had stopped growing—stopped aging—at around the age of twelve.

  The only concessions that an adult woman had lived here were the closet, which contained jeans and sheer blouses, spike-heeled boots, and carelessly tossed lingerie. And the faint, lingering scent of cloying perfume emanating from the bottles on the dresser.

  “Neat as a pin, my Lisa was,” Winnie mumbled. She stood in the middle of the room, unwrapping her arms from around her body only long enough to gently smooth the soft, fluffy bedspread. A half laugh, half sob burst from her throat. “Except for her closet. Never could get her to keep that closet clean. I think she liked it cluttered and dark because she’d go in there and play cave explorer. I’d find her in there all the time when I’d get home from work, even when she was a teenager.”

  Hiding in the closet. God in heaven, was it really possible this woman had had no idea what was happening in her own house, to her own daughter?

  Stacey found it hard to speak, but somehow managed to ask, “Did Lisa say anything to you, before she died, about anyone who might have threatened her? Or frightened her?”

  And would you have heard her if she did?

  “Everybody loved my little Lisa.”

  “She was a sweet child.” Knowing she needed to tread a fine line, she still said, “But we both know Lisa had her troubles when she grew up. Those died with her, but they could still mean something. I need you to be honest now, and think about the way things really were right before she disappeared.”

  The older woman’s mouth tightened into a tiny, dime-size circle. If Stacey pushed her into thinking about the way her daughter had really been, she might not cooperate at all. So she proceeded very carefully. “Had Lisa been feeling all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “No illnesses?” She thought of the teenage pregnancy scare, wondering if Lisa’s mother had ever even known about it. “No signs that anyone had hurt her in any way?”

  “Hurt her?”

  “Yes. She didn’t appear injured—bruised, did she?”

  Winnie’s right hand instinctively moved up, rubbing her left arm below the shoulder before flinching in obvious discomfort. If that housecoat was sleeveless, Stacey would lay money a large bruise would be visible on the woman’s parchment-thin skin.

  Stacey shoved her hands into the pockets of her khaki trousers to keep from fisting them in visible anger.

  “No, no, nothing like that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” Winnie snapped. “She was just fine.” Lowering her voice, she mumbled, “I took her to the doctor all the time when she was growing up. To make sure . . .”

  “To make sure of what?”

  The woman’s head rose defiantly. “To make sure she was absolutely healthy and nothing was wrong with her.”

  So Winnie Freed had suspected.

  “You can talk to the health clinic downtown; I’ll give permission if you need it. Lisa was troubled; I’ll admit that. But she was not being hurt in any way. By anyone.”

  I wouldn’t bet on that.

  “Okay, then. I’ll try to stop by and see if they can tell me anything Lisa might not have felt comfortable talking to you about.”

  Winnie’s pale face lost what little was left of its color, as if she were more frightened of that mild threat than she’d been of anything else. But the good mother still existing somewhere deep inside of her must have wanted to know the truth, too. No matter how painful. “All right. You do that.”

  Stacey knew she wasn’t going to get much more from the woman, but she couldn’t walk out of this house without making an effort. So she asked a few more questions, steering clear of the triggers that might make Winnie shut down—including anything suggesting that her daughter had been abused, perhaps right here in thi
s house.

  Finally, though, knowing she’d gotten as much information as she could, she had to push one more time. “So that night that Lisa disappeared,” she said, casually flipping pages of her notebook instead of looking at Lisa’s mother, “you and Stan were where?”

  “Right here.” Winnie’s coldness could not disguise her sudden nervousness as she twisted her hands together.

  “All night?”

  The woman thought about it, biting so hard into her bottom lip Stacey thought she would break the skin. “Oh, I remember now,” she said, her face flushing with color. “I had a little accident, fell down the porch steps going outside to watch for Lisa. Stan had to run me up to the emergency room in Front Royal.”

  That bastard. Stacey could almost see how it had played out: Stan furious that Lisa had taken his car, punishing Winnie for it, hurting her enough to put her in the hospital. The scenario didn’t surprise her, but it did make her very anxious to talk to the hospital about the time Winnie had been brought in. And whether her husband had remained with her the entire night, or had possibly taken a trip back down here to Hope Valley in search of his hated stepdaughter.

  “Okay, then,” Stacey mumbled, putting the notebook away. She already knew it would do no good, but her job, and her sense of humanity, demanded that she try to help the defeated woman. “What about you?” she murmured, intentionally looking away, as if fascinated by Li sa’s doll collection. “Have you been seeing the doctor?”

  “For what?”

  Stacey brushed the tips of her fingers across one plump, blond curl on the head of what she remembered was Lisa’s favorite. “You haven’t been looking well, Winnie.” Finally turning her head to meet the woman’s stare, she added, “I’ve been worried. So has Dad. Is there anything we can do to help you?”

  Winnie’s mouth opened and closed twice. Her lips quivered, her jaw, too. She blinked rapidly, the thin lashes doing little to get rid of gathering tears. As if the idea that she might have friends, people who cared about her, who might help her, were almost too much to grasp. Finally, though, she cleared her throat and jerked her head up and down once. “Yes. There is.”