Buried

by Ellison Cooper

  “You’re right. So, maybe Hannah Valdez is her replacement,” Sayer said, face grim. “I mean, look at her. She’s definitely our UNSUB’s type. Let’s go talk to Hannah Valdez’s wife on our way to UVA. See if we can find a lead to follow there.”

  Sayer took one last look at Hannah, then over at the photo of Jillian and Grace Watts. Were the two women together somewhere? And was little Grace even still alive?

  ROAD TO CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA

  As Max and Sayer drove away from the ranger station toward Charlottesville, the rain shifted from heavy to downpour.

  “So, we’re going to talk to Hannah Valdez’s wife?”

  “Correct,” Sayer said, staring out at the clouds. “Zoe Valdez. They’ve been married for”—Sayer flipped open the file—“five years. Both graduate students. Squeaky-clean records. Had Samantha two and half years ago. Maybe she can shed some light.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Max replied.

  Sayer decided to change the subject and get to know more about Max. “So, you work up in D.C. Do you spend much time here in Rockfish?”

  “Really only to visit my mom. She travels home to Korea a lot, but when she’s here I come down about once a month. Any less than that and she starts to talk about moving up to D.C. to be closer to me.” Max dramatically shook his head.

  “So you knew Kyle back in high school?” Sayer was thinking of asking Kyle to officially join the investigation, but she didn’t like working with so many new people. She needed to know who she could depend on.

  “Yeah. Kyle was a few years behind me. All I really remember about him was how quiet he was. Oh, and he can draw.”

  “Draw?”

  “Yeah, at lunch every day, kids would suggest to him two animals, and he would draw them while he ate. By the end of lunch period, he would have this amazing sketch. Called them mash-ups.”

  “Mash-ups?”

  “Yeah, like if you told him a pig and a bear, he would draw them kind of stitched together. The drawings were cool, so kids would hang them in their lockers and stuff. Made him kind of popular despite being quiet. After high school he went to UVA but then moved back and joined the Rockfish Police Department after he graduated. Worked his way up to chief pretty quickly. He’s known around town as kind of intense but a genuinely nice guy. Other than wanting to punch my lights out.…”

  “What about Piper? Seems like you know her fairly well?” While Kyle seemed to wear his emotions on his sleeve, Sayer couldn’t get a read on the park ranger.

  Max let out a short laugh. “She’s got a reputation as a kind of harmless crackpot. You know, off-the-grid-cabin-in-the-woods type. I think she prefers the company of plants to people.”

  “Hmm.” Sayer leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  “Sometimes it feels weird to come home, you know?” Max continued. “All those childish relationships are still there, lurking beneath our adult façades. You spend time with anyone from your high school?”

  Sayer thought back to her awkward days as a complete outcast in her very wealthy private school. Though her grandparents were rich, her parents had been solidly working class. After her parents died, the culture shock going from happy, blue-collar urban neighborhood to wealthy suburban enclave had been rough. She opened her eyes and let out a sharp laugh. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Not prom queen, I take it?”

  “I was a science-obsessed black girl with dead parents. And I ended up getting a Ph.D. in neuroscience. That should tell you how popular I was.”

  “Sure, but you’re a neuroscientist who rides a motorcycle and chases serial killers for the FBI.”

  Sayer waved her hand. “All that immense level of coolness came later in life.”

  Max laughed. “I see.… I actually have a question about your research, if you don’t mind talking about it.”

  He glanced cautiously at her. Sayer recognized the look that inevitably happened with every new partner. While everyone was familiar with profilers, not many people could figure out why the FBI needed a neuroscientist.

  “Sure.”

  “You study serial-killer brains, right?” he asked as he steered his truck along the narrow highway.

  “Well, right now I’m studying psychopaths’ brains. Not all killers are psychopaths, and not all psychopaths are killers. Psychopathy is really just a group of behavioral traits. They’re glib, narcissistic thrill-seekers with a tendency toward pathological lying and a total lack of empathy for others. Before this project, yeah, I was scanning serial killers’ brains.”

  “And people like that have different brains somehow?”

  “They do.” Sayer shifted toward Max so she could face him while they chatted. “If you give me the right kind of brain scan, I can tell you if the person is likely to be a psychopath.”

  “But not a killer, right?”

  “Right, like I said, not all psychopaths are killers. Criminal behavior isn’t necessary for a diagnosis of psychopathy.”

  “So, what’s wrong with their brains?”

  “It’s complicated, but they basically have a faulty paralimbic system. There’s a whole interconnected circuit in their brains that doesn’t work properly, involving the insula, amygdala, anterior and posterior cingulate, orbitofrontal cortex—”

  Max interrupted her. “Their orbito what?”

  Sayer smiled. “Sorry, it’s basically the brain system that processes emotion and controls decision making, that kind of thing.”

  “So, they don’t make decisions like normal people?”

  “More importantly, they don’t process emotion the same way. I’ll give you an example. Imagine you’re standing at a railroad station and the tracks split in two. On one side, five people are tied to the track. On the other side, only one person is tied down. You see a train hurtling toward the people. You don’t have time to untie them, but you can choose which track the train goes down. Right now the train is going to run over five people, but if you pull the lever you could direct the train to run over one person instead. Would you pull the lever?”

  Max thought for a moment. “Well, of course I’d pull it. If I have no other choice, I’d rather save five people than just one.”

  Sayer got more animated as she spoke. “Exactly, that’s what most people say, including psychopaths. But now imagine a slightly different scenario. Instead of two train tracks, imagine you’re on a bridge over a single track. There are five people tied to the track up ahead and one person standing on the bridge with you. If you push that person off the bridge onto the tracks below, that person will die, but the body will also stop the train, saving the lives of the five other people. Would you push that person off?”

  Max’s mouth pulled back with disgust. “Yikes. I’m not sure.… I don’t think I could.”

  “Exactly. To you, those two scenarios feel very different.”

  “Yeah, pushing a guy, well, that feels like I’m actively murdering him.”

  Sayer nodded, getting into the discussion. “But the calculation is the same, right? Kill one person to save five.”

  “I guess so. But something about pushing the guy just feels really different.”

  “Which shows me that you probably aren’t a psychopath. Psychopaths generally see no difference between the two situations.”

  “So they would push the guy off the bridge?” Max asked.

  “Yeah, to them the calculation is all utilitarian, one life versus five.”

  “That’s kind of … monstrous.”

  “Is it, though?” Sayer asked.

  “What do you mean?” Max glanced over at Sayer, slightly concerned. “I mean, aren’t psychopaths … defective?”

  Sayer looked out the window. This was one of the key questions she was grappling with, interviewing noncriminal psychopaths. “I think it’s … complicated. There are undeniable benefits to having psychopaths around.”

  “Seriously?” Max couldn’t hide his surprise.

  “Well, if you ne
eded brain surgery, what kind of person do you want doing the surgery?”

  Max thought for a long moment. “I guess someone confident, well trained, calm and cool under pressure. I’m willing to bet I just described a psychopath.”

  “Exactly right. You want someone unfazed by emotion and very unlikely to panic no matter what might go wrong. You want someone able to make emotionless, utilitarian calculations under intense pressure. You want someone whose heart rate goes down the more stress they’re under. In other words, you want a psychopath.”

  Max nodded. “Huh. Interesting.”

  “I obviously agree.” Sayer smiled, letting her own enthusiasm for her research break through the stress gnawing at her gut. “There’re a lot of reasons why the ability to achieve a sort of detached focus is beneficial. Or the ability to be truly fearless. Brain surgeons, bomb-squad techs, soldiers and cops, even lawyers or politicians.”

  “You make it sound like there’re a lot of psychopaths out there.”

  “Some people think there might be thirty thousand psychopaths for every one in jail. They’re often delusional narcissists that believe they’re gods. They rarely maintain stable families and are often abusive to those around them. But they are also often at the top of their field.”

  “I’ve definitely worked with people like that.” Max chuckled mirthlessly. “So, can you tell the difference between a good and a bad psycho when you look at their brains?”

  “Not as far as we know, though we don’t have many brain scans of what are called pro-social psychopaths, people who are clearly psychopaths but harness their skill set in a noncriminal way. That’s actually what I’m researching now, trying to figure out if there are any neurological differences between a so-called good psychopath versus a bad one. Maybe if we can figure out some of the differences, we can find ways to help bad psychopaths become more … good, I guess.”

  “Very cool.”

  They pulled into the suburban driveway of Hannah Valdez’s house, interrupting Max’s next question.

  Sayer crashed from excitement about her research into the harsh reality that they were about to go meet with the family of a missing woman.

  The Valdez house retained that avocado-green, characterless style that was so in fashion in the seventies. Despite the outdated architecture and pouring rain, the neighborhood looked idyllic, with manicured, bright green lawns.

  Sayer couldn’t help but think of The Brady Bunch. “What did we do, warp back in time?” she asked as they both walked up to the house.

  The illusion of perfection was shattered when Zoe Valdez opened the door. She stared at them with feverish eyes rimmed with crust. She wore pajama pants and a grimy T-shirt. Sayer realized that this woman had probably not changed clothes or showered since the day her wife disappeared.

  “Ms. Valdez, I’m Senior Special Agent Altair with the FBI, this is Special Agent Cho. May we come in to ask you a few questions about your wife?”

  She nodded, wild-eyed. “No one will tell me what’s going on. Have you found Hannah?”

  Sayer shook her head slightly. “No, sorry, we’re just here to ask you a few questions, see if we can retrace what happened when she disappeared.”

  With a look of relief, Zoe Valdez croaked, “Well, thank goodness someone is finally taking this seriously.…” She trailed off, blinking with confusion.

  “Ms. Valdez?” Sayer said loudly, snapping her out of her exhausted stupor.

  She shook her head. “Of course. I’m just…” Her voice trailed off again, but she straightened her clothes. She suddenly seemed to realize that she was wearing dirty pajamas. “I’m sorry about … this. I’ve been too afraid that if I do anything … I thought I might miss a call. What if she called while I was in the shower? Plus I’ve got Sam.…” She paused in her rambling dialogue. “Wait, why is the FBI involved?”

  “Ms. Valdez, if we could come in…” Max moved toward the door.

  “Oh, sorry.” She stepped aside and seemed oblivious to the water dripping from their jackets onto the floor. “Sam is taking a nap. We can talk in the kitchen.”

  Inside, the entire house was decorated with bright colors and unusual art. Sayer stopped to study one particularly brilliant piece with flowers, stylized deer, and starbursts.

  Noticing her interest, Zoe Valdez smiled weakly. “Hannah loves to travel and she’s bought something from everywhere she goes. That one’s Huichol yarn art from the Sierra Madre in Mexico. That drum next to it was made somewhere in West Africa—Senegal, I think.”

  Sayer nodded. “My father was from Senegal.” She ran her finger along the edge of the drum. “This one is called a tama. A talking drum.”

  “That’s right!” Talking about Hannah’s things brightened Zoe’s whole face. In that moment Sayer dismissed her as a possible suspect in her wife’s disappearance.

  The moment gone, the woman’s face fell again and the wrinkles of tension returned.

  They settled in the kitchen, and Sayer dove right into questions. “Ms. Valdez, I know you’ve already told the police, but could you go over the details of the day Hannah disappeared?”

  She licked her pasty lips. “I was supposed to take care of Sam that morning, but I got called in to work. Since the gym has day care, Hannah decided to go there instead of running errands. Hannah’d let her training slide while she was pregnant.”

  “Training?” Sayer asked.

  “Yeah, she does aikido. But she wouldn’t have gone to the gym if I’d taken Sam.”

  “You couldn’t have known, Ms. Valdez.” Sayer interrupted the thought, trying to keep her on track. “So she and Sam went to the gym.”

  “Hannah did her regular workout and they left around two o’clock. They must have made it to her car in the parking garage. She strapped Sam into her car seat, and that’s it. She disappeared.”

  “And when did you realize she was missing?”

  Zoe Valdez looked stricken. “She’d texted me before she left the gym, asked me to make dinner. When I got home around four, I put some frozen enchiladas in the oven and waited. She never came home.” Her eyes wandered over to the oven.

  Sayer suspected that if she opened the oven door she would find the enchiladas still on the rack.

  “I tried her cell phone, figuring she was just running errands or something.” Her voice began to take on a flat quality, as if she had to turn off her emotions just to be able to finish the story. “A few hours later I called her mom. Around eight I called the hospitals. It wasn’t until almost nine that I called the police. They’d just found Sam and were trying to track Hannah down.” She looked directly into Sayer’s eyes. “Hannah’s the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

  Sayer looked down at the table, trying not to take on any of Zoe’s sorrow, but then she forced herself to look at her. Let her pain wash over her.

  “Are you going to tell me why the FBI is here?” she said, barely above a whisper.

  “All I can tell you is that we’ve got another ongoing investigation that could be connected to your wife’s disappearance. But until we know for sure, I can’t divulge any details of that case.”

  She hung her head but nodded. “I understand.”

  The sound of a small voice calling, “Mommy?” drifted from the hall.

  Zoe looked toward the crying, stricken. “What am I going to do without Hannah?” She blinked back tears.

  Sayer put a hand on hers. “You’ll do whatever you have to, to take care of your daughter. Thank you so much for your time, Ms. Valdez. We’re doing everything we can to find your wife.”

  “Thank you.” She stood on unsteady legs. “Please let yourself out. I’ve got to get Sam.” She hurried off down the hall. Sayer and Max looked at each other.

  “That poor woman,” Max whispered.

  Sayer nodded, gut burning with determination to find Hannah Valdez and bring her home.

  UNKNOWN LOCATION

  Hannah Valdez sat on the edge of the cot, biting her cuticle until it bled. The
tang of blood rolled on her tongue and she savored the coppery sharpness. The flavor felt somehow real, unlike the nightmare unfolding around her.

  How could this be happening?

  She’d tried to keep herself alert with word problems. She’d tried exercise. But nothing staved off the thrumming horror that was living in her chest like a parasitic animal burrowing deep into her bones.

  She contemplated the room.

  An unopened water bottle sat on the floor next to an empty bucket and a box of granola bars. Her stomach curled in on itself with hunger and her lips cracked at the corners from thirst, but she was afraid to eat or drink anything. She knew she would have to drink water soon or risk serious dehydration.

  Avoiding the thought, she examined the room with clinical detachment. The walls were partially carved from solid rock, but parts were drywalled. The metal door was riveted to the rock wall, but there was also a vent that suggested an air circulation system of some kind. The roaring sound in the background created a steady white noise.

  Was she in a cave system? An old mine? Why was she even here? Hannah couldn’t seem to think straight.

  But she also couldn’t just sit here.

  She got up to check the vent for the tenth time. The screws were coated with rubbery paint. With a new focus, Hannah was suddenly overcome by a frantic need to get out. Hands shaking, she used her fingernails to scrape away thick peels of paint from the edge of the vent. The paint curled painfully into the quick of her nails, but she ignored it and soon lost herself in the new work.

  Clink.

  The sound of a key in the lock almost made her scream. She couldn’t bear to imagine who or what was coming for her.

  She had to force herself to stop her wild scraping. Heart pounding, she scattered the small pile of paint shavings just as the door swung open.

  The skeletal woman stood there in a loose cotton wrap barely one step up from a hospital gown.

  “Testing time,” she said in her dull monotone.

  Hannah confrontationally faced the woman. “Why are you doing this?”