Find Me If You Dare (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 2)
Page 18
I looked around the room, held one finger to my lips to indicate silence, then pushed the “speaker” button on my phone.
“What do you mean, Lisbeth?” I had to draw her out. I wanted the other people in the room to hear what she had just said to me. “I don’t understand.” She took the bait.
“I know you think I’ve done some terrible things, Caitlyn, but it wasn’t me. I promise you.” Her words were still soft with a slight edge of desperation. “I know it looks bad, but I’m not capable of doing things like that. Please believe me.”
I looked around my mother’s kitchen at the three people watching me, staring at my phone. They had just heard the same thing I did. There was a mixture of expressions on their faces. Director Phillips had his usual poker face on, cautious, wary. Madeline was intensely going back and forth between the phone conversation and her laptop, holding her breath we would have enough time. Logan’s face must have mirrored my own, shock, disbelief.
Something inside me snapped.
“Elizabeth, I know you committed those crimes. You killed those people.” My voice was more forceful now. “There’s DNA, fingerprints, and I know your symbol. There’s no question it was you.”
“My symbol?” Her voice was low, barely audible. She sounded genuinely confused.
“Yes, the symbol you leave behind at every crime scene, carved in bodies, written in blood. You can’t deny that you leave that symbol for us to find.” My voice held a brittle edge to it. I knew I should be more composed with her, more careful. I couldn’t afford to scare her off. I had to keep her on the phone as long as possible. But I couldn’t help the frustration in my voice. How could she possibly pretend at this stage that she didn’t commit these murders?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Caitlyn.” She sounded truly baffled by my words. I looked over at Madeline to gauge her reaction. She seemed to be concentrating more on being a detective at the moment than on being a psychologist. She signaled to me that I was doing well and to try to keep her talking.
“Be honest with me, Lisbeth.” I made an effort to soften my tone and words. “You killed the man who molested you as a child. You killed my ex-husband Lewis, because you never liked him. You’ve wanted me to know it was you. You’ve wanted me to follow you.”
“Really, Caitlyn, it wasn’t me. I could never do those things. How could you think that I would be capable of killing someone? You’ve known me most of my life. This is me, Lisbeth, the girl that sat in that hallway in the Junior High with you. Do you remember the pictures we used to draw? Do you remember the dreams we used to have? You know me. This is your best friend.”
For her to choose that memory, that one memory of the first day we met. I gripped the cell phone so tightly my hand hurt. I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. The pain was real, physical. I tried to pull myself together. I couldn’t let her weaken my resolve.
“How do you expect me to believe that, Lisbeth?” I insisted. “What proof can you give me?”
Silence. Just dead silence. I immediately wished I could take back the words. Had I pushed her too far? It was risky to bring up the murders so soon. I shouldn’t have confronted her with it so quickly. I should never have insisted on proof.
Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“Lisbeth?” I had to keep her talking. “Are you still there?”
Still, the silence. I waited, quiet, listening. It didn’t sound as though the call was disconnected yet. I had to keep trying.
“Lisbeth? Talk to me.”
“Lisbeth?” A sing-song voice echoed back at me, mimicking me. A chill went down my spine and I froze. There was soft laughter in the background, ice cold and sinister.
I drew a quick breath and paused. Who was I talking to now? What had I done? Had I pushed too hard and opened up Pandora’s Box? I couldn’t identify who it was from one single word. And it was harder to tell over the phone with no facial expressions, no eye contact.
“Who is this?” I asked in an urgent whisper.
More silence, then another slight laugh in the background.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Came the smug reply.
It sounded like Sophie, but I couldn’t be certain. It had been a while since I had really spoken one on one with her or any of the other family members.
“Let me talk to Lisbeth. I wasn’t finished talking to her.” I was hoping I could find out more with Lisbeth than the others. “Let me talk to her again.”
“We shouldn’t have let her talk to you in the first place.” It didn’t sound like Sophie. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something different in the voice. “We’ve talked too long as it is.”
Suddenly, the line went dead and I tensed. I had to know more. I wasn’t done with her yet. I had to know why Elizabeth was saying she was innocent. I didn’t get anything out of her. I didn’t find out where she was going, who she might be targeting next. I didn’t get anything that would help us with the investigation. I felt as though I was going into a panic.
Maybe I should try calling her back. Maybe she would answer again and I could-
“We have a hit.” Madeline’s excited voice immediately grabbed my attention. Logan and Director Phillips both moved to the kitchen table to see the laptop. Madeline was grinning. “We got a ping off a cell tower right outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. She’s left the area and seems to be heading east.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in. It took a bit longer for it to wash over me that perhaps my parents and family might be safe now. I could only hope.
Chapter Sixty
I looked over Madeline’s shoulder at the map she had pulled up on her laptop.
“I think you were right.” Madeline still had excitement in her voice.
“About what?” I wasn’t ready to celebrate yet. I had blown it. I could have found out much more during that phone call. It wasn’t like me to let my emotions get the best of me. Maybe this was all starting to take its toll.
“Look.” Madeline used the cursor on her computer to mark a path. “I think she’s heading east on I-70 into Denver. From there, all she has to do is travel south on I-25 and she’s on her way to New Mexico. I think you were right on target. She’s going after her biological father next.”
I found the nearest kitchen chair and sank down into it in exhaustion. It was too soon to hope that we might be right. We had been one step behind her the entire time. Was it possible we might catch a break and actually be able to prevent a crime this time?
Madeline must have sensed my fatigue and frustration. She made a few clicks on her laptop then turned the screen around to face me. I don’t know what I expected to find, but it wasn’t the photo-copied document before me.
“Birth certificate?” I asked as I started looking over the document. I was beginning to see there were very few things this woman didn’t have access to. I looked at the child’s name: Elizabeth Marshall. Barbara, her mother, was right where it should be. I checked for the father.
“Robert Marshall.” Madeline answered as I found the name. “No middle name or initial. It certainly would have made it easier if they’d put social security numbers next to the parent’s names. All we have to go by is his birthplace, Dubuque County, Dubuque, Iowa. Director Phillips, are we making any process at your end?”
The director cleared his voice and spoke for the first time.
“There are more Robert Marshalls in the state of New Mexico than I would have thought.” He took another seat at my mother’s kitchen table. I suddenly realized how odd it was to have FBI agents and police detectives gathered not in a secure environment like a police department but around the table where I had shared so many meals with my family. “Because we have so little to go on, we’ve had federal agents as well as local authorities already on the ground there throughout the state making contact with any possible targets we can reach. We’ve alerted the local and state agencies of the possible threat and we’ve been cond
ucting welfare checks. Obviously, from the cell tower hit we just got, she’s not in New Mexico yet, but if she’s heading there and her father is her next victim, maybe we’ll get there before she does this time.”
I sat for a moment in stunned disbelief. All the time, manpower and resources dedicated to this based on a hunch from me? It was incredibly humbling for me to see how much Director Phillips had come to trust my judgment.
Then I swallowed hard. What if I was wrong? I had thought she was going after my parents, but I might have been wrong. The threat was certainly clear enough. But it looked as though it could have just been a bluff to throw us off her real target. I was starting to doubt my own judgment, how could I ask the FBI to trust it?
“Have you had any luck with finding him?” Logan’s question interrupted my thoughts.
“No.” Phillips didn’t hide a bit of his own frustration. “At least we haven’t found anyone willing to admit to being her biological father. The research Caitlyn has provided us with stated he left shortly after her birth and had little to no contact over the years. If he moved on and started a new life and family, he might not want to admit that he had another life before the one he has now.”
The director was interrupted by a soft buzzing. He pulled out his cell phone and answered it.
“Yes.” His face turned into a mask of concentration. “Yes. Okay. Go ahead.” He signaled to Madeline to use her laptop. She moved it back around until it was in front of the director. “Two-thousand nine Dodge Caravan, dark gray, Utah license plate SRW-063. Yes, that explains it.” He was taking notes on the laptop as he spoke. “Contact the Highway Patrol for both Colorado and New Mexico as well as any local jurisdictions in Grand Junction and Denver. Get the description out there. We might get lucky this time.”
“What do we have?” Madeline asked anxiously after he disconnected his call.
“We just had a minivan reported stolen from the Farmington Crossing shopping center. It was probably stolen earlier today about the time Martin Ross’ Range Rover was abandoned. The owner of the minivan works at one of the retail stores there and didn’t notice her car was gone until she got off work.” He let out a heavy breath. “The alert is going out. Maybe we’ll find her this time.”
As he spoke, I looked down at my own cell phone, still in my hands. So close, we were so close to finding her. I had to give it another shot. I went back to the menu, found Martin’s phone number and dialed it again and hit speaker. The others in the room immediately knew what I was doing.
“Do you think…?” I’m sure that Madeline was about to question the wisdom of what I was doing when we all heard the call go immediately to voicemail. Martin’s recorded message could be heard.
Should I leave a message? Would it just be a waste of time? What did I have to lose at this point?
“Lisbeth?” I deliberately kept my voice soft and calm. “If you get this message, please call me back. I want to believe you. If you’re innocent, like you said you were, we can help you. I’ll never be able to try to prove that if you don’t contact me. I tried to help you before. I was the only one that believed in you. Let me help you now.”
I disconnected the call, my head dropped forward and my shoulders sagging in fatigue and dejection. Would my words do any good?
I felt a small but firm hand squeeze my own tightly. I looked up to see Madeline’s beaming face.
“That was absolutely brilliant!” Her words of praise were quiet but filled me with renewed hope. “I couldn’t have scripted it for you any better. You are her lifeline, Caitlyn, you always have been. The best chance we have is if she believes you are her advocate, that you’ll be willing to help her. That was genius!”
I struggled to put on a brave smile.
“I hope you’re right. I hope she will believe me. I just hope that Dr. Ross’ cell phone isn’t already at the bottom of a dumpster somewhere.”
We all looked at each other and realized that was a very real possibility at this point.
Chapter Sixty-One
I spent that night at my parent’s house, partly because I was too tired to go home but mostly because I still wanted to be reassured they were safe.
The next few days moved by at a sluggish pace. Three days later the dark green minivan was found at the Denver International Airport. It put the whole investigation into a panic. Had she boarded a flight? If so, she could be anywhere. She could have even left the country for all we knew. Hours and hours of security and surveillance tapes were combed through at the airport by federal agents as well as airport and Homeland Security. Flight manifests were checked and double checked. TSA agents were screened and interviewed thoroughly.
I didn’t think she had any kind of identification on her and airport security had never been tighter these days, but we were also dealing with someone that had proved to be extremely resourceful. We had to exhaust every possibility, leave no stone unturned.
My other concern was that the Denver International Airport, as well as most other major airports in the country, led directly to major freeways and highways. That was all she really needed. With Maxine’s experience with truck driving, she could get anywhere she needed to go, virtually unseen.
Madeline and Director Phillips still hadn’t given up on the possibility that Elizabeth was headed for New Mexico. The director had already flown down there in the event that they could pick up her trail.
I had tried Dr. Ross’ cell phone a few more times. It still just went straight to voice mail and she never called back. We never could get another signal on it. It had probably been tossed aside just as I had feared.
Logan was dividing his time between helping out with this investigation and keeping up with his own regular workload. I didn’t see much of him unless I came by the police department. I found that I went by the department less and less. It made me feel helpless and frustrated, looking at those dry erase boards and walls, filled with an increasing amount of information that was still getting us nowhere. I was tired of pacing back and forth between the maps and crime scene photos, trying to force my mind to predict Elizabeth’s next action and prevent the next crime.
Madeline, ever the psychologist, had sensed my mood and frustration and had asked me to meet her for lunch at a bakery not far from the college campus. I hadn’t seen much of her since that night at my parent’s house. She had confided in me that she had also been brought in to profile a possible serial killer in Long Island, New York, and had been video conferencing in with the agents on sight there. I suspected there were probably several other cases she was probably working on too that I didn’t know about. A good forensic psychologist and profiler were in demand in the FBI these days.
We had just ordered and hadn’t even gotten our drinks when she came straight to the point.
“Are you sleeping?” Her voice told me that she already knew the answer.
What to tell her? I rarely slept. Sometimes I stayed at my parents, sometimes I went home to my too-quiet apartment. When I could sleep, I was haunted by terrifying nightmares of being chased through the halls of the mental hospital by Vesper, reaching for me, almost catching me. If it wasn’t that it was visions of walking through some of this crime scenes I had seen over the past few months. The blood, the death, the pain was almost a physical presence there at the scenes. It wouldn’t leave me.
When I was awake, things would recycle over and over through my mind in an endless, exhausting chain. I would go over and over every letter and clue that Elizabeth had left behind for me. I would analyze and dissect every conversation I had had with her from the time she had been on the run.
Was there anything I had missed? A word? A phrase? A subtle reference? Something that could be vital to capturing her that I might have missed?
Madeline was patiently waiting for my response. I knew she was reading my every expression and gesture.
“When I can.” I knew my answer was minimal and evasive. I couldn’t find the energy to give her more than that.
I was quiet for a moment and let her words sink in. She was right. I was letting Elizabeth control me, to control my life, and she wasn’t even here. If I didn’t do something, I could end up becoming just another one of her causalities.
“I need to do something, Madeline.” Our eyes met across the table. “I feel helpless. I just keep going around in circles. What am I missing? The answers are there. I know it. There has to be a way to find her.”
Madeline was quiet for a moment as the waitress brought us our drinks and salads. She was deep in thought as she took a bite or two.
“When you were on the phone with her the other night, she said she was innocent, that she didn’t commit those crimes. Why do you think she would say that? We have more than enough evidence to prove she was there at every crime scene. Why would she try to convince you otherwise?”
I took a sip of my iced tea, staring at the lemon wedge floating around the chips of ice.
“I’ve thought about that a lot since that night at my parent’s house.” There were so many complex layers to Elizabeth, so many different reasons why she might do or say something. “It might not have been Elizabeth I was talking to that night. Sophie likes to act like Elizabeth. It’s a game she plays. She’s very sly and clever. It could have been a show she was putting on for me to try to gain my sympathy. On the other hand…”
Madeline was listening carefully. She raised a finely tapered eyebrow in question. I took a deep breath and tried to explain my other theory.