Abducted (Lizzy Gardner Series #1)

by T. R. Ragan

  He pointed his key at his Denali and pushed the lock button. His car whistled back at him.

  Jared felt a chill in the air as he peered into the back window of Lizzy’s Toyota. It was hard to believe Old Yeller was still drivable. Lizzy had driven the car back in high school. The cracked vinyl seats in the back were a familiar sight. He and Lizzy had spent a lot of time making out on those seats. The good ol’ days.

  “Lizzy, Lizzy,” he said under his breath. He loved everything about that girl. The way she walked, the way she talked, the way she made him feel every time he looked into those expressive green eyes of hers. He’d loved her from the moment they first met. Kindheartedness pulsed through her veins—exactly why she spent most weekends teaching young girls to defend themselves. Although he’d been busy with college and then training at the Academy over the years, a day hadn’t gone by that he didn’t think of Lizzy Gardner. He’d spent many sleepless nights filled with guilt for letting her walk home alone that night. If he had any regrets, that was it. He’d known better. But Lizzy had been stubborn. She still was. She’d also been full of life back then, brim full of promise before the lunatic snatched her off the street and tried to suck all that dazzling radiance right out of her. But Lizzy had lived to tell her story. She was a fighter. And if she allowed him back into her life, Jared wouldn’t let her down again.

  At the sound of uneven footfalls, he looked up to see Lizzy limping toward him. Her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, but she smiled the moment she noticed him.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said.

  She answered with a stiff Mae West pose that showed off a well-worn jacket stained with coffee.

  “Rough morning, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  “What the hell happened to your face?”

  “The woman in the Jeep was back this morning. I snuck up on her. Just as I opened the back door though, she took off and nearly ran me over in the process.”

  He hissed through his teeth. “Have you been to a doctor? That knot on your forehead doesn’t look good.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He exhaled.

  “I’d love to chat, but I need to get going,” she said as she moved past him.

  “I was hoping to take you for a bite to eat.”

  “I can’t. Something’s come up...a surveillance.”

  “Insurance fraud?”

  “An infidelity case.” She unlocked her car, and then looked over her shoulder at him. “If you want to hear the sordid details you’re more than welcome to ride along with me.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Lizzy slid behind the wheel of her ancient Toyota and started the engine. The car coughed and sputtered. Jared climbed into the passenger side and glanced at the backseat. “Being in Old Yeller brings me back to another time.”

  Her cheeks flushed as she dug through her backpack. She handed him directions to where they were going and didn’t waste any time before she set off down the road. “Have you heard any news from Jimmy about Carl Dane yet?”

  “I talked to Jimmy earlier. Dane is the original owner of the house. He lived there with his family from 1980 to 1991. The house was a rental from 1991 until the end of 2002. The Walkers bought the house in January of 2003.”

  “Mr. Dane must have records of who rented the house during that time.”

  “His daughter tossed the files after he passed away a few years ago. The team is searching for a list of renters through the utility companies in the area.”

  “How about forensics? Has anything shown up in the bedrooms?”

  “So far, the house is clean.”

  “There should be traces of blood, holes in the wall that have been patched up where the manacles were...something, right?”

  “We need to hang tight. If this is the house, something will turn up. The backyard will be excavated first thing in the morning.”

  She kept her gaze on the road as they approached the entrance to the freeway. “What about a list of doctors from the victim’s files? Any luck?”

  Jared pulled a wallet-sized notebook from his shirt pocket. “I spent most of the morning going through the files. These are the names of physicians I found that were used by some of Spiderman’s victims and family members. I didn’t come across any duplicate names, but the list is all yours.” He placed the notebook on the console between them.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jared said. “So who are we shadowing this afternoon?”

  “Valerie Hunt.”

  “Her husband hired you?”

  “He referred to Valerie as his wife, but I’m not sure I believe him. He said his name was Victor.”

  “Did you meet him face to face?”

  She glanced Jared’s way. “You think Victor could have something to do with Spiderman?”

  “You can’t tell me the thought didn’t cross your mind.”

  “It did,” she admitted, “but when Victor called me the second time I figured I’d be a fool to turn down the kind of money he was offering.”

  “What about his voice...did he sound anything like Spiderman?”

  “Victor has a deep husky voice. Spiderman uses a voice synthesizer. It’s difficult to compare.”

  “What about Valerie Hunt, any idea who she is?”

  “I did a quick search. She graduated from McGeorge in 1995. She’s been a lawyer at Dutton and Graves for eight years. No children. I couldn’t find anything that said she was married or had a child.”

  A quiet moment settled between them. “If Victor is Spiderman,” Lizzy continued, “why would he hire me to follow Valerie?”

  “He could be trying to lure you into a trap.”

  “Well, I won’t follow Valerie or anyone else into an empty warehouse or a dark alley. And if this woman does have anything to do with him, then Spiderman is making our job a little easier.”

  An uneasy feeling washed over him. Jared hadn’t liked dragging Lizzy into this mess to begin with. But if he hadn’t, Jimmy would have. The note left by Sophie’s abductor had sealed her fate. “How does Victor plan on paying you?”

  “He’s sending a courier to deliver the money today. I told Jessica to keep a close eye on the delivery person...name and description, vehicle make and model, license plate number, etcetera.”

  Lizzy pulled off the next exit and stopped at the red light. “You don’t think Jessica is in danger, do you?”

  Jared was already punching numbers into his cell. “I’ll send someone to watch your office until we know more about Victor.”

  Karen Crowley white-knuckled the steering wheel, her gaze jumping from the road ahead to the rearview mirror. Sirens sounded in the distance. Panic swirled within. She wanted nothing more than to swerve into the right lane and take the next exit off the freeway, but there was a car in her way and the last thing she wanted to do was hurt someone. She hadn’t meant to hurt Lizzy Gardner when she’d taken off from the coffee shop. That was an accident. She only meant to keep an eye on the woman, to make sure her brother wasn’t hanging around and causing trouble.

  Nothing was going as planned though. Her week-long trip had already turned into two weeks. Her husband and children needed her, but she couldn’t return home now. Not yet.

  She’d come to the States to find her brother and make amends. She hadn’t seen him in over twenty years. Not since she left to study abroad in Florence, Italy. Within a month of living in Italy, she met Nicolas. They fell in love and for the next two decades nothing else mattered. She and Nicolas bought a house in the country. Their first-born was a daughter, Amber. There second-born, a son. They named him Adam. Adam turned out to be a replica of her little brother, Sam.

  She bit down on her lip as the police car zoomed past, lights flashing.

  Six months ago, Adam turned thirteen, and every time she looked at him she saw her brother: same high forehead, same defined jaw, and same expressive blue eyes. But then, too often in her mind’s eye, her son
’s face would distort, and she’d see the same horrified look she’d seen on her brother’s face when she found him in the basement.

  Her chest tightened.

  She swerved to the side of the road, gravel spraying as she screeched to a stop. Her head dropped to the steering wheel. She gulped in breaths of air. “Oh, my God,” she sobbed. “What have I done?”

  Nancy Moreno’s high heels clicked against the ground as she rushed through the double doors leading into the news studio.

  Caroline Fyffe, in charge of hair and makeup at KBTV, rushed toward her. “Where have you been? Mr. Cunningham has been trolling the halls, pulling out his hair looking for you.”

  “He’s bald,” Nancy reminded Caroline as she followed her into the room to the right and took a seat on a stool in front of the wall-to-wall mirror. Without missing a beat, Caroline brushed and teased Nancy’s hair, her hands a whirlwind of movement.

  Somebody shouted Nancy’s name in the distance.

  “She’s in here,” Caroline answered back.

  Seconds later, Mr. Cunningham’s beefy frame filled the doorway, his hands fisted at his sides.

  There wasn’t much he could say. She was here, wasn’t she? Everybody knew Cunningham would never fire her. Nancy Moreno was the best thing the station had going for it. Since 1995 she’d anchored all three of News 10’s highly rated and award-winning evening news programs. Now they had her doing the morning show to get the ratings up. She had received numerous professional honors over the years, including two Emmys.

  The ring of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She pushed Talk and put the phone to her ear.

  “Did you get the information I asked for?”

  It was him. Nancy pressed the phone closer to her ear. “Not yet, but I’m working on it. These things take time.” She glanced at Cunningham. “I can’t talk now,” she told the caller. “I’m due to be on the air in—”

  “The green light came on two minutes ago,” Cunningham barked. “The hair’s good enough. She’s gotta go. Now!”

  “Get me what I asked for before the end of the week,” the caller said, “or I’m giving my story to Gina Lockwell at Channel 3.”

  “Is that a threat? Because if it is—”

  A low rumble of laughter cut her off. A click at the other end told her that their conversation was over.

  Nancy shuddered. And yet the thought of Gina Lockwell getting the story overrode any concern she had that her caller might be a psychopathic killer.

  “You’re perspiring,” Caroline said, ignoring Cunningham’s wild gestures as he tried to get them moving.

  Undaunted, Nancy slid off the stool and walked out the door. Caroline stayed at her side, powdering her face as they followed Cunningham down the hallway. Nancy’s thoughts should have been on the morning news, but they weren’t. The caller had yet to give her his name. The first time she talked to him was two days ago. He said he was the real deal—the killer known as Spiderman. He said Frank Lyle, the man arrested for the murder of Jennifer Campbell, was a copycat. She hadn’t believed him at first, but neither had she hung up the phone.

  What if he was telling the truth? Serial killers were notorious for wanting credit for their work. They were also known for making daring calls and sending packages to the media despite the risk of giving away their identity.

  The caller promised to give her hard evidence proving he was the real deal after she provided him with the case studies on Lizzy Gardner. The killer wanted Nancy to steal files from Lizzy’s psychiatrist. Somehow the caller knew that she, too, was being treated by Linda Gates, Lizzy Gardner’s psychiatrist. The fact that he knew so much about her made her uncomfortable.

  Stealing files was unethical. Nancy should have called the FBI after receiving the first phone call. But something had stopped her. She had interviewed her share of criminals over the years. When criminals lied they became nervous. Sure, some hardened criminals had been interviewed so often they’d honed their deception skills. But this man, she decided by the end of their first conversation, was telling the truth. And so she’d convinced herself she was actually helping the FBI by keeping her conversations with the killer private. For now, she would keep things simple: earn the killer’s trust, and learn whatever she could about the man. Chances were he was highly intelligent and would not be telling her where he lived anytime soon. But if she could piece together clues about him, pieces of his background, then maybe, just maybe, she would be able to give the authorities the information they needed to nab him. She could see the headlines now: “Nancy Moreno Leads FBI to Spiderman’s Lair.” She already knew where she wanted to put her third Emmy.

  A smile came to her lips. Spiderman was no dummy. He had called her because she was the best in the business. By the time she entered the newsroom, the blood vessels in Cunningham’s neck and face were enlarged, ready to erupt. The chaos in the studio reminded her of a tornado as she slid into her chair.

  “THREE, TWO, ONE.”

  From across the newsroom, Cunningham pointed a finger at her. She zeroed in on the teleprompter and smiled. “Good morning Sacramento. I’m Nancy Moreno with KBTV Morning News.”

  Chapter 15

  Wednesday, February 17, 2010 12:35 PM

  For the dozenth time, Jessica looked over the list of names. Spiderman’s first three victims—Jordan, Laney, and Mandy— had a couple of things in common: their bodies were all left near a body of water and they all had spider bites on various parts of their bodies. One of the girls was a sophomore in high school when she disappeared. The other two were juniors. All three attended different high schools in Sacramento or Placer County. Four different high schools if she counted Rachel Foster, his fourth victim, and the only girl found during Lizzy’s captivity.

  Rachel Foster’s body was found near Folsom Lake. At age fifteen, she was the youngest of his victims. A recent yet obscure article Jessica discovered mentioned that Rachel had been found with syringes stuck in her eyes.

  Jessica winced and reminded herself to breathe. Just because these girls had been tortured didn’t mean any of those horrible things had happened to Mary. She bit down on her bottom lip and took in a calming breath. Now wasn’t a good time to lose it. Not if she wanted to help Lizzy find Spiderman. Her sister could still be alive. Although Mary was her older sister, she was tiny and everyone thought she was the youngest of three children even though she was the oldest. Mary was also smart. God, how Jessica missed their long talks.

  Miracles happened every day, Jessica told herself. Whoever had taken Mary all those years ago could have given her a new identity and then moved to another state. Maybe her sister no longer knew who she was or where she came from.

  Lizzy had escaped. The same thing could have happened to Mary. Her sister was still alive. She could feel it, sense it.

  Jessica redirected her attention to her notes. Rachel’s boyfriend, at the time of her abduction, was Ryan Arnold. A quick search on Ryan Arnold and a half-dozen phone calls later, she’d found him. He was now a twenty-nine year old lawyer who liked to talk. With hardly any prompting, he’d spilled his guts, telling her that Rachel’s kidnapping had changed his life. He’d stopped doing drugs and started reading and studying. Not only had Ryan Arnold read up on the Spiderman case, he’d gone out of his way to make some important contacts over the years in order to find out more. He’d seen the FBI files, including a letter Spiderman had sent to a local news station at the time. Mr. Arnold told Jessica that Spiderman considered himself to be one of the good guys, and he felt it was his job to eradicate the world of bad girls. Ryan Arnold believed Rachel was taken because she did drugs—lots of drugs. By the time Rachel was abducted, she had been in and out of rehab twice.

  But it wasn’t the drugs or the syringes that stood out. It was the eyes. Her finger brushed down over the names and scribbled notes. She couldn’t help but notice that every one of Spiderman’s victims had had something done to their eyes.

  Wednesday, February 17, 2010 3:02 PM />
  Cathy sat in the car and drummed her fingers against the steering wheel as she waited for her daughter. She looked from the statue of a bear, the school’s mascot, to the group of teenagers huddled outside the gym.

  Where was Brittany?

  She dug around in her purse and retrieved her cell phone. No missed calls.

  “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles played on the radio. She shut it off. The song made her feel sad, brought her back to the days when her husband used to call her every chance he had just to say “hi” and tell her how much he loved her.

  She placed the phone in the console between the front seats and inwardly scolded herself for even thinking of crying. She’d truly believed that everything would be okay after she met Richard...that life wasn’t so bad after all. But then Brittany came along earlier than planned, Cathy gained fifty pounds, she lost her job at the bank, and two years ago Richard stopped calling home during his lunch hour.

  Laughter caught her attention.

  Her blood pressure rose as she watched a teenage boy reach out and grab one of the girls across from him. He pulled her close to his body so he could plant a sloppy kiss on her mouth. The girl wrinkled her nose, but her friends were amused, so the young girl let it go.

  Cathy shook her head. Brittany would be attending high school next year. That worried her. Mostly because her own high school years had been such a nightmare. She was a senior when Lizzy was kidnapped. Lizzy had always been the cherished daughter; the beautiful, petite one; the smart one. And in the end, Lizzy had been the one who tore their family apart.

  Cathy always felt like second fiddle to her sister. Before the kidnapping, she didn’t think things could get worse. But they did.