On the Hunt

by SUE FINEMAN

  Mia looked at the girl’s parents. “I promise you we’ll have her home within the hour.”

  Dave gave Mia a nod of approval and drove them out to the trail they’d been on before, with Tonya’s family.

  Walking up the trail, Dave said, “Tonya’s mother said she comes out here nearly every morning. Tonya likes to hike here.”

  “I saw her a few times, but we didn’t have a chance to talk. They locked us in separate bedrooms in this big house. It was like a luxury prison.”

  “How many girls?” asked Mia.

  “Well, see, it was hard to tell, because they made us all dress alike, but I think I saw maybe seven others. It was hard to tell one girl from another without seeing their eyes, except Nadine had red hair sticking out of her scarf, and one girl was really tall. The only ones I knew were Nadine and Tonya. Nadine has a mouth on her, so the guards slapped her around to shut her up. You could hear her holler several rooms away. Then one day I watched her run across the desert and into the mountains. I don’t know how she got out. If I could have found a way out, I would have gone with her.”

  Mia stopped walking at a little viewpoint. She sat on the bench with Meredith. “When was that?”

  “I don’t know. I lost track of time.”

  Dave propped a foot on Mia’s end of the bench. “Speaking of time, what did you do with your time?”

  “Watched videos and practiced how to dress and behave properly. We were supposed to be subservient to men, not speak unless spoken to, and if we behaved ourselves, they said we wouldn’t have to stay more than a few months. They didn’t say what they’d do to us at the end of that time, and I didn’t want to ask. I had a funny feeling that we might be better off staying right where we were.”

  “Dress properly?” prompted Mia.

  “Baggy robes and scarves over our heads unless the man we were assigned to take care of told us to take them off.”

  Mia motioned to Dave to leave them alone, and he walked down the trail a little way. Mia asked, “Did you have to take yours off, Meredith?”

  “Not the robe. They took me and another girl into a big room with a guy dressed like a girl. An American girl, not like we had to dress. He wore makeup, stockings and high heels, a fancy dress, and a really ugly wig. All that trouble with his appearance, and the cheap wig ruined it.”

  Mia smiled. “Ugly?”

  Meredith waved both hands and wrinkled her nose. “It looked like a dead rat.”

  With a little laugh, Mia said, “What can you tell me about the guy?”

  Meredith described the man as having blatantly gay mannerisms, and he didn’t speak to them at all. He felt up both girls and seemed disappointed to find breasts. “I think they expected us to entertain him, if you know what I mean, only he didn’t want girls. I was so disgusted, I slapped his hand away, then a guard yanked me out of the room and locked me in a different part of the house.”

  “Did you see the gay man again?”

  “I didn’t see anyone for three days, and then they put me in a room with three other girls for what I can only describe as beauty school, their style. If we didn’t do what they said, they slapped us and isolated us without food.” She looked down. “I spent a lot of time crying.”

  “I would have, too, Meredith. It sounds like they were grooming you to be concubines. Were the guards men or women?”

  “Men, but they never touched me like... you know, and the teachers were two old women who didn’t speak English very well.”

  “You said the house was in the desert. Do you have any idea where?”

  “No. I looked for landmarks, but I didn’t see anything that would help me find the place again, except there were mountains all around us and I didn’t see any other buildings.”

  “Mountains like Clover Hills?”

  “No, there weren’t any trees. It was more like Eastern Washington, dry and hot.”

  “Tell me about the house.”

  “It was big and square, two stories, and it had these little round rooms on the corners. Our rooms were upstairs. The house was sand colored, probably so it would blend into the desert. There was a big square courtyard in the middle, with fountains and pools and plants. The courtyard was made of colored tiles in some kind of pattern I couldn’t figure out. Unless I was being punished, they let me go out to the courtyard for a few minutes every day, but never outside the house.”

  “Were you alone in the courtyard?”

  “Sometimes, and sometimes with another girl, but they didn’t let us talk to each other.”

  Dave wandered back up the trail as Mia asked, “How long until they realized Nadine ran away?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t raise an alarm or lock us all in or something. We were always locked in. Did she make it? I asked those FBI agents about her, but nobody would tell me anything.”

  Dave squatted in front of Meredith and put his hand over hers. “Meredith, the Portland police found Nadine’s body a few days ago.”

  “Oh, God.” Meredith burst into tears. Dave handed her a handkerchief and rubbed her shoulder.

  Meredith wiped her eyes. “What about Tonya? Is she still in that house?”

  “We don’t know,” said Dave. “Meredith, I want you to remember one thing. Nothing that happened was your fault. You were a victim and so was Nadine. The town will grieve for her, but they’ll also celebrate that you survived. We’ll find whoever killed Nadine, and we won’t stop searching until we find Tonya. We didn’t give up on you, and we’re not giving up on her.”

  Mia saw the sympathy in Dave’s eyes and the gentleness in the way he treated this victim. He wasn’t just a good cop, he was a decent, compassionate man.

  Questions filled her mind about Nadine, some Meredith might be able to answer, but this wasn’t the time or the place for that discussion. They needed to get this girl home to her family.

  After they took Meredith home, Mia sat in the car with Dave. He said, “She told the agents in Seattle that Al and Arnie took her. Assad is the key to this.”

  “Did Al and Arnie kill Nadine?”

  “I don’t know, Mia. If she got away from that house, maybe she found help.”

  “Or maybe they caught her and decided to eliminate her before she tried it again.” Mia fiddled with her seatbelt. “You know, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t make sense?”

  “If they killed her, why would they bring her back to the Pacific Northwest? Why not bury her out in the desert, where no one would ever find her?”

  Dave started the engine. “Maybe they wanted her to be found.”

  “Or maybe they weren’t the ones who killed her,” Mia said mostly to herself.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing. We can’t rule anything out at this point. Are you ready for the second visit?”

  “To Nadine’s family?”

  “Yep.”

  “I suppose. Do you visit the families of all the victims?”

  “If I can, yes. They need to know someone cares and we’re doing our best to find answers.”

  She stared out the windshield until he parked in front of Nadine Lynderman’s home. “I underestimated you, Special Agent Montgomery. Under all that testosterone beats a tender heart.”

  “Does that mean—”

  “It doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with you again, Dave. You’ll have to settle for friendship, and the way I’m feeling right now, even that’s a stretch.”

  He sat quietly for several seconds before speaking. “I ruined everything between us, didn’t I?”

  Without answering, she opened the car door and stepped out into what she knew would be a tough visit.

  As they walked up the winding sidewalk through the lush landscaping, Mia stared at the elegant house. The sidewalk led to a little bridge over a fish pond and continued to a greenhouse entry. This house looked far more opulent than any of the other buildings in town. Why would anyone want to build an expensive home in a dumpy little logging town? Why would
n’t they build it in a more upscale mountain community?

  An older man with short gray hair and a dark gray cashmere turtleneck opened the door. Dave spoke to him, while Mia looked around at the plants in the greenhouse. They looked like things a horticulturist might grow, especially the orchids, which grew behind a glass partition on the side of the greenhouse.

  Dave introduced Mia to Edwin Edwards, Nadine’s stepfather, and they walked down a wide tiled hallway to a spacious step-down living room which faced the back of the property. A dark green velvet sectional curved around a beautiful oriental rug. Throw cushions on the sofa mirrored the intricate pattern of the rug. High windows across the back brought in views of a meandering creek in the backyard and the valley below, and lush plants filled the corners of the room, framing the windows and the view.

  A woman wearing tailored black slacks and a black silk blouse cinched with a thin gold belt stood to greet them. She took Mia’s hand and then Dave’s. Her hand felt clammy and limp, and Mia had an urge to wipe her hand on her jeans, but she didn’t want to be rude. The woman had a cigarette in a black holder, and her long, red fingernails flashed as she smoked. She showed no emotion at all, which Mia found surprising. This woman had just lost her daughter, her only child, but aside from her shaky hands and black clothes, you’d never know she mourned for Nadine.

  Dave expressed his condolences and the dead girl’s mother walked to the bar and poured herself a stiff drink. After she took a deep drink, she offered a drink to their guests. Mia shook her head. It wasn’t even noon. What time did these people start drinking? Or did they ever stop?

  Edwin Edwards didn’t drink. Instead, he chastised his wife, which made the woman take another long drink.

  The couple asked no questions about their daughter’s death. Kowalski had spoken with them before, and he said they hadn’t asked any questions then, either.

  Mia asked if Nadine had a boyfriend, and the girl’s stepfather called her a slut. “I’m not surprised she ran off with some man.”

  “We just came to offer our condolences and to say we’ll do everything we can to find Nadine’s killer,” said Dave.

  “Thank you, Mr. Montgomery.” Edwards steered them toward the door. “Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

  “We’re not sure of anything, except the body has been positively identified as your stepdaughter.”

  The man actually looked a little relieved, and Nadine’s mother’s reaction seemed strange. No tears. Nothing except another drink. To say these people were not what she expected would be a gross understatement. “I’m so sorry it ended this way,” said Mia.

  “So are we,” said Edwards, “but we aren’t surprised.”

  Nadine’s mother said nothing. Mia’s skin crawled. They acted like the neighbor’s dog had been hit by a car, but they didn’t care because they hated the neighbors and their stupid dog. A human being, a member of their family, had been brutally murdered, and they acted like she deserved it.

  Mia escaped to the car with Dave, glad to be out of that house.

  Dave leaned on the steering wheel and twisted to face her. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That Nadine wouldn’t have wanted to go home?”

  “Yeah.” He turned back and winced.

  “Dave, you need a massage and a pain pill.”

  “After one more visit. When we get back, I want to look through Nadine’s file again. We may have missed something. Her family seems glad she’s gone. Why? Do they have life insurance on her? Did she have a history of running away? Boyfriends? Why did her stepfather call her a slut?”

  “You think she not only found help, she called a boyfriend to come and get her?”

  “Or her stepfather. I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

  She threw up her hands. “Oh, great. I know something, but I can’t remember what, and you’ve seen the victim’s stepfather. Any idea where?”

  “No, but it’ll come to me.”

  “How do we find the house in the desert?”

  “Helicopters are out searching around Vegas today. I just hope the other girls are still there when we find it. Three other missing girls fit the profile, and there may be more. If we’re lucky, they haven’t taken any of the other girls out of the country.”

  “If they have, we may never find them.”

  They’d found one girl dead and another alive, and they were still on the hunt for the third one. Tonya could be in the big square house in the desert or she could be on the other side of the world. Or she could be dead.

  Mia took a deep breath and blew it out. “I hope to God they find that house in time.”

  “So do I.” Dave moved slightly and winced again. He hurt, and Mia wanted to take him back to the hotel and take care of him. They were a great pair. Her head still hurt and he had a whiplash injury and bruises all over his body.

  The guys on the other team played rough.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The visit to Mrs. Ayers went well, considering. She was upset about Nadine Lynderman’s death, of course, but still hopeful Tonya would come home alive and well, like Meredith Cooper.

  Mrs. Ayers took Mia’s hand. “Mia, I’m so glad you’re working on this.”

  The corner of Dave’s mouth curled up slightly. “So am I.” His soft words sent tingles down Mia’s body. She wanted to believe him, but she’d pushed herself into this case, and her presence complicated things for him. According to Greg, Dave had been in trouble before for not following accepted FBI procedures. Mia didn’t want to get him in more trouble, but she couldn’t back away now. Someone burned her house and then tried to kill her, and she knew it had something to do with the three girls. Whether Dave wanted her involved or not, she was in this up to her eyeballs.

  Mia saw the pain in Dave’s eyes. He could no longer turn his neck, so every time he spoke to her, he turned the upper half of his body. He needed another massage, a pain pill, and a nap, and it couldn’t wait much longer.

  Mrs. Ayers handed Dave a heating pad. “This works for me when my shoulder stiffens up.”

  To Mia’s surprise, Dave gave her a big hug. Mrs. Ayers reminded Mia of Mom. Dad used to say Mom was born with the mothering gene. Mia had always wanted to be a mother, too, but as the years passed and she didn’t find a man she could connect with the way her parents connected with each other, she’d almost lost hope of ever finding the right man. For awhile, she thought she’d found Mr. Right in Ted, but one word from his mother ended it. She’d never marry a man whose family thought of her as inferior. If she knew Dave’s family would accept her, she’d hold onto him with both hands, but it wouldn’t happen. Dave’s socially prominent family wouldn’t want her either.

  As Mia and Dave walked out to the car, she said, “Quite a difference, isn’t it? Tonya has a reason to come home, and Nadine had an alcoholic mother and a stepfather who despised her.”

  Maybe Nadine looked at this experience as a way out of Clover Hills. She was an eighteen-year-old high school dropout when she disappeared. Tonya was only seventeen. Meredith, the oldest at twenty, looked much younger. “Do you think Nadine found herself a sugar daddy? She couldn’t have had any money when she ran away from that house.”

  Dave opened the car door for Mia. “I don’t know what to think about Nadine.”

  Mia didn’t either, except something didn’t feel right. If Meredith saw Nadine running away, someone else had probably seen her, too. Did they have enough guards at that house to send someone after her, or did they just let her go? Had someone released her on purpose?

  Two more agents had arrived in Clover Hills, and while Mia went over her arrest records, Dave put the agents to work reviewing the file on Nadine Lynderman.

  “I want new interviews done,” said Dave. “Dig a little deeper.”

  “What are we looking for?” asked Kowalski.

  “A killer.”

  Everyone in the room stared at Dave. “She escaped from the house in the desert. If they didn’t catch
her and if she got to a phone, I assume she called someone for money. Her stepfather called her a slut, so start with boyfriends. At one time, Nadine worked at a club in Tacoma, dancing topless, but they never took Meredith there. Something doesn’t jive.”

  “That’s for sure,” said Stipes.

  Dave turned to Kowalski. “Any word on the search for the house in the desert?”

  “Not yet.”

  Mia took Dave’s arm. “That’s enough. You need a pain pill and you need to rest.”

  “No, I need to work.”

  Kowalski pointed to the stairs. “Go. If we need you, we’ll holler.”

  Mia walked Dave upstairs, unlocked her room door, and propped it open, so the waitress could bring their lunch tray. She put the heating pad on Dave’s shoulder and neck for a few minutes. He sat in a chair and she stood behind him, massaging his neck and shoulders, stretching the kinks out of his muscles and easing his pain. She knew without asking that he felt better, but he needed to eat and take a pain pill.

  After lunch, Mia insisted Dave lie down with the heating pad for a few minutes.

  “Okay, but don’t let me fall asleep.” He lay on top of the covers on her bed, stuffed her pillow under his head, and closed his eyes. Seconds later, his breathing deepened and she knew he’d be out for awhile. She turned the heating pad off, pulled the other side of the spread over him, and closed the drapes so he could sleep. He needed the rest.

  Mia stood beside the bed for several minutes looking at the dark eyelashes feathering his cheeks. He had a strong face and little lines from the corners of his eyes, probably from smiling so much. In spite of his work, Dave was a good-natured guy who had a way of finding the humor in most situations. A strong surge of protectiveness washed over her. Police work had always been a huge part of her family’s life, but when this hunt ended, she was finished with law enforcement. She’d give anything if Dave gave it up, too. She’d already lost her father. Greg came close to death more than once, and Bo nearly died in Iraq. Dave had a dangerous job, and even if their relationship never again went beyond friendship, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.