Lucy - 05 - Stalked

by Allison Brennan

  I knew when one of my students was being abused.

  I knew when one of my students didn’t have dinner or breakfast.

  I knew when one of my students had seen darkness like I had.

  And even amidst all that, I gave them hope. Like Grams saved me, I tried to save them.

  In my three years, I’ve had ninety-eight students. I remember all their names, from Abraham to Zachary, Anne to Zoey. Nine of them are dead. Six dropped out of school before sixth grade. Twelve moved on to other schools, most because they were removed from violent homes and put in the system. And one is in juvenile hall for murder. He was eleven when he killed his neighbor for no reason he ever shared with me.

  But I knew the reason. He’d lost all hope.

  I took the Times home with me, to my small one-bedroom in a pre-war Bay Ridge building. I’d lived in the apartment since moving to New York, and I didn’t plan on moving anytime soon. I was close to the water and even had a view of the bridge from one window. Bay Ridge was quiet and a good place to relax after spending the day teaching in East Brooklyn.

  Somehow, bringing the paper across my threshold saddened me. As if I’d lost something or violated the sanctity of my home. My appetite was gone as well. I opened a can of diet soda and laid the paper on the table.

  I stared at it for several minutes while sipping my drink until, resigned, I sat down and read the story.

  I read the article, penned by a reporter named Robert Banker, twice. I might have memorized it, because some sentences kept repeating in my head.

  Former Newark reporter and true crime author Rosemary Weber was stabbed to death Tuesday night at Citi Field while the Mets played to victory.

  The police had no clues, no leads, and were investigating her murder with the FBI.

  Ms. Weber is the author of three true crime books but is best known for her number one bestseller, Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets, which detailed the tragic rape, kidnapping, and murder of eleven-year-old Rachel McMahon and exposed her parents to charges of emotional abuse and neglect.

  And because no newspaper could refrain from repeating the drama that had been my life for the first nine years, Banker brought up my parents’ lifestyle:

  Aaron and Pilar McMahon had been swingers, putting on elaborate sex parties for friends and neighbors while their two children played upstairs. It was one of their “friends” who killed their daughter, but their lies to police stymied the investigation for days.

  I often wondered what would have happened differently had my parents told the truth that morning.

  I often wondered if I could have saved Rachel if I’d called 911 at three in the morning when I found she wasn’t in her bed. Intellectually, I knew she died early that morning and even if I had called and if my parents hadn’t lied Rachel would have still died before Benjamin John Kreig was found.

  I had to believe that, or I would have killed myself.

  Grams told me, before she died, that Rachel had been killed shortly after her abduction and nothing I could have done would have changed that outcome. She knew I harbored deep guilt and anger over what had happened that night and the subsequent days. I believed Grams, because I had to or go insane.

  But I still, sometimes, wonder.

  Though I no longer answered to “Peter,” I was glad my name wasn’t in the article. I wasn’t even mentioned.

  The article ended with:

  Rosemary Weber was researching her next book, about the Cinderella Strangler who suffocated young women at underground parties during a four-month stretch in New York City last winter. Police had no comment as to whether her murder had anything to do with her research.

  I remembered the dead reporter. Not as a person, but as words. Her newspaper articles were talked about by everyone. Even though Grams had done her best to protect me, Weber’s byline was everywhere. But it was the book that hurt the most. She told the world that I had been the one who exposed my parents as lying to police. I didn’t care that people knew, but she made me out to be brave, when I felt smaller than a speck of dust. She printed a picture of me at Rachel’s funeral—alone. Grams had been standing right next to me, but the angle of the picture had cut her out, giving Weber an iconic image that still haunted me.

  Alone.

  Suddenly I didn’t want the newspaper in my house. As if just its presence would bring back despair and fear. As if the paper could somehow transmit my location to the woman I’d been hiding from for years.

  I left my apartment, walked to the alley, and threw the newspaper into a garbage can.

  I didn’t feel any better.

  Something had changed. Maybe I had. Reality invaded my home, reminding me that I didn’t exist. That Gray Manning was a work of fiction.

  I went back to my apartment and waited for the other shoe to drop.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  New York City

  Kip Todd lived in a small studio loft in SoHo. Suzanne met Joe DeLucca and two uniformed NYPD officers outside the building. “No doorman, manager gave me a key,” Joe said. He ordered the uniforms to split and take front and rear entrances. “Second floor.”

  They took the stairs up. Joe knocked on the door. “NYPD, open up.”

  Nothing. No response, no sound of movement.

  Joe glanced at Suzanne. “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  He put the key in. “It’s nice working with you on a case.” He grinned. “We should do it more often.”

  “Just watch my ass,” she said, then moaned when he laughed. “You know what I meant.

  “FBI and NYPD,” Suzanne said. “Kip Todd, we’re coming in.”

  They cautiously entered the one-room apartment, guns drawn. Joe checked the closet and bathroom while Suzanne looked in the cabinets in the small kitchen space. The bed was a futon. There weren’t many places to hide, and Kip wasn’t in any of them.

  They holstered their weapons and looked around. The studio was L shaped, with two walls of windows. Small, but with new hardwood floors, a modern kitchen, and a bathroom not much bigger than an airport stall.

  Kip Todd didn’t have much stuff—a futon, end table, kitchen table with two chairs, and desk. The place was tidy, even the desk, though it was obvious someone had cleaned up and cleared out quickly. The printer was still there, with a cord that had connected to a missing computer. Phone cable for the Internet. A cell phone charger had been left behind.

  Suzanne e-mailed her boss and asked for a warrant to track Kip Todd through his cell phone GPS. “It’ll take a couple hours, but we’ll get it,” she told Joe.

  Joe pulled on gloves and was going through Kip Todd’s desk drawers. “He didn’t grab everything,” he said.

  He pulled out a scrapbook. Every page was well designed, with care in picture placement. The first few pages were pictures of Kip Todd and his two older sisters, according to the labels.

  “According to the information Noah Armstrong sent,” Suzanne said, “Kip and Camille were eleven months apart.”

  After a half-dozen pages, newspaper articles and police reports replaced the photos. The headlines told the story.

  TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL ABDUCTED FROM PARK

  SEARCH PARTIES STILL LOOKING FOR TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL MISSING SINCE SUNDAY

  POLICE SAY THE RACHEL MCMAHON KIDNAPPING IS UNCONNECTED TO GIRL MISSING SINCE SUNDAY

  The early newspaper articles were carefully clipped and preserved in the book. Passages had been underlined. Other than articles about Rachel McMahon that mentioned Camille Todd’s disappearance, there were no other articles about McMahon or her family.

  A year after Camille’s disappearance, Todd had pasted in another article.

  BODY FOUND IN WASHINGTON PARK RESERVE MAY BE MISSING GIRL

  As the articles told the story of Camille Todd’s body being found and identified, someone had blacked out paragraphs. Suzanne did a quick search on her smartphone for one of the articles and found out that all the paragraphs that had been blacked out related to
comparisons between Camille Todd and Rachel McMahon. In fact, as the journalistic story continued, more and more dealt with rehashing Rachel’s murder and less about Camille’s disappearance.

  According to the police reports, there was never a viable suspect in Camille’s abduction and murder. However, the autopsy indicated that she’d been dead only two weeks before her body was discovered.

  Joe was disgusted. “What guy keeps the autopsy report of his sister? There’s pictures—wait, these are evidence photos.”

  “He could have stolen them.” Suzanne turned the page. The last page in the scrapbook was really two pages, torn from a copy of Rosemary Weber’s book Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets.

  Suzanne’s blood ran cold.

  One week before Rachel was kidnapped from her bedroom while her parents swapped sex partners, another young girl was abducted. Camille Todd, twelve, was playing at a neighborhood park on a cold but sunny Sunday afternoon when she went to the public bathroom. No one saw her alive again.

  Officer Robert Stokes of Newark was the first responder to both 911 calls. “We immediately ruled out any connection between Rachel and Camille. Camille was taken from a public park in broad daylight, and Rachel was taken in the middle of night from her bedroom.” Stokes was proven correct in his analysis after Rachel’s killer was identified as Benjamin John Kreig. Kreig had an airtight alibi for Camille’s disappearance.

  “The first seventy-two hours are the most critical in any stranger abduction,” FBI Media Information Officer Dominic Theissen said. “Camille had been missing for a week when Rachel was abducted. We always hope that these victims are found alive, but after a week the chances are less than one percent. We focused our resources where we felt they would do the most good.”

  Unfortunately, both girls met tragic ends. Rachel’s body was found six days after she was raped and murdered; Camille Todd was found nearly a year later.

  “Theissen and Stokes were involved in both investigations,” Suzanne said. “What are the chances that Tony Presidio was as well?”

  “Look at this,” Joe said. He pulled out a second scrapbook. This book was thicker and a complete mess.

  “Shit,” Suzanne mumbled when she opened it. “It’s everything about Rachel McMahon and her family.”

  “There are pictures of her brother from what? Junior high? High school?”

  “That’s when it starts.” She turned pages and watched as Peter McMahon grew up. There were handwritten notes about where he lived and his routine.

  “Todd has been following him for a long time.”

  “It makes no fucking sense.”

  “I’m not a shrink, but maybe Todd felt a kinship with Peter because they both lost their sisters to violence.”

  “I don’t think it’s kinship. I think this guy is crazy.”

  “We met him. He’s not crazy. Methodical and obsessed, maybe.”

  There were photos taken from afar of a kid they presumed was Peter McMahon from the time he was fourteen until he was about twenty. There were some labels to help identify the places, and it fit with what little Sean Rogan had found on the guy. Then nothing until a series of photos printed from a cell phone camera. The quality was poor and they were all taken from a distance.

  “This is more recent,” Joe said.

  Suzanne assessed the photos. “That’s the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, but I can’t tell what year.”

  “I think it was this year—I know this street; that closed storefront he’s standing in front of shut down end of December.”

  “Here’s another recent photo of McMahon at a cemetery.” Suzanne frowned. “I don’t recognize this place.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “McMahon may have been off the grid for a few years, but it looks like he’s been found.”

  “Was Todd stalking him? What was his endgame?”

  “Hell if I know, I can’t see inside his head. Let’s box this up and take it to the Bureau. Noah and Lucy are on their way and she’s a criminal psychologist. She was instrumental in profiling the Cinderella Strangler, and without her that loony tune would have killed even more people.”

  While Joe bagged the two scrapbooks, Suzanne tried Noah. His phone was off—he was probably still on the plane. She then called Sean Rogan.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Just landed at the Executive Airport.”

  “You’re here in the city?”

  “I know where Peter McMahon is.”

  “Tell me.”

  Sean hesitated. “I can’t.”

  “This is a federal investigation, Rogan. Tell me where he is or you’re obstructing justice.”

  “He’s now my client. Detective Charlie Mead retained RCK and I’m his bodyguard. That was the condition on which I got his location. I’m not telling anyone where he is until I have him in my custody.”

  “Kip Todd has recent pictures of him. He probably knows where he lives. The FBI is perfectly capable of protecting him.”

  Sean hung up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Charlie Mead had talked to Peter McMahon, aka Gray Manning, and arranged for Sean to meet him at a neutral spot in Brooklyn.

  Sean felt exposed, especially in light of the information Suzanne had shared and what Noah had sent to him about Alexis Sanchez. If she and Todd knew where Peter was, why wait to go after him? What was their game? Already Sean was on alert. He’d been trained in personal security, but it wasn’t his primary responsibility at RCK. He didn’t like going on a job with virtually no intel on his client or the people out to get him.

  Peter McMahon had disappeared and reinvented himself because he had to, and Sean didn’t blame him. He deserved to be left alone. But if the Todds knew where to find him, he was in immediate danger, especially now that the Todds were on the run.

  Sean had no idea why. It bothered him because it was illogical. If the Todds felt law enforcement had mishandled their sister’s case, Sean could see the logic in targeting those involved. But Peter had been nine when the events that tore apart the two families had occurred. There was no connection between the crimes; the only big difference, as far as Sean could see, was that Rachel McMahon’s murder got more attention in the media.

  It was nearly eight and Lucy and Noah should be landing at LaGuardia any minute, if they weren’t already on the ground. Lucy would have a theory about it, and hopefully it would help them figure out Kip and Alexis’s next move.

  Psychopaths, even if smart, didn’t always think logically. Maybe logically to them, but not to an average person. That Lucy could understand these people sometimes unnerved Sean, but then again there was nothing average about Lucy.

  Peter had never been safe. If Suzanne was right, Todd had located him several months ago. Now that the Todds were exposed and the FBI and NYPD were on their tails, they would go directly to their endgame.

  Sean spotted Peter walking down 3rd Avenue toward Sean’s rental. Peter was tall, an inch taller than Sean, and too thin. Though Peter was only twenty-four, his hair was dotted with gray.

  Sean didn’t like having a car in New York—he wasn’t familiar with the streets, and traffic could be a problem. But he didn’t want to be without transportation. His sole task was to get Peter to safety, then contact Suzanne and Noah. He hadn’t been lying to Suzanne—he’d sworn to Charlie Mead that he could protect Peter, and he wasn’t going to fail either of them.

  Peter had picked the meeting spot, but it was only four blocks from his residence and Sean didn’t like that. He had to assume that the Todd siblings knew where Peter lived. Sean had wanted to grab him at his apartment, but Peter was too nervous to give him the address. Sean had researched it while flying back to the city. Once he had Peter’s new name, it was easy to learn everything about him: his residence, his employer, where he liked to shop.

  Peter glanced over his shoulder and Sean’s instincts buzzed. He surveyed the area but didn’t see anyone following Peter. Unfortunately, there were a lot of peo
ple on the street. This must be Brooklyn’s version of restaurant row.

  Sean got out of his car and crossed the street to meet up with Peter.

  “Charlie sent me,” he said.

  Peter seemed both relieved and apprehensive.

  Sean took his elbow and steered him toward his car. “Are you being followed?”

  “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “But?”

  “I felt something.”

  Sean didn’t dismiss Peter’s concerns. Lucy had the same sixth sense about being watched, born of violence, and Peter may have developed the same instinct.

  “I have a place; I just need to get you there. Do exactly what I say.” Sean handed him a burner phone. “If we get separated for any reason, get to a safe place and call the last dialed number.”

  Peter pocketed the phone. He glanced at Sean and said, “Thank—” then stopped. He stared over Sean’s shoulder. “Cami?”

  Sean didn’t look; he acted. His job was to protect Peter, not confront the Todds. He pushed Peter into the first storefront. It was a delicatessen and the patrons all stared at Sean when he walked straight through to the back ushering Peter in front of him.

  He glanced once over his shoulder and saw a woman walk into the shop and glance around. He hadn’t met Alexis Sanchez, aka Alexis Todd, when he’d visited Quantico the other day, but he had to assume that it was her—the same woman who’d passed herself off to Peter as Cami Jones for over a year.

  The staff in the back yelled at Sean, “Get out! We’ll call the police!”

  Sean ignored them and continued maneuvering Peter through the kitchen, then the crammed supply room to the back door. He glanced through the security screen before opening it and slipping out with Peter.