by Kylie Brant
“This is fine,” she said stiffly. Whatever excuse she was able to fashion for changing rooms, her boss would recognize her true motive. He had an uncanny gift for spotting disonesty, sort of like a human lie detector. Of course, she wasn’t particularly adept in the art of prevarication. Burke didn’t need to know how uneasy she was in his presence. She knew him well enough to realize he’d exploit even the smallest show of weakness.
Travis had already disappeared around the corner, so she stepped inside the first room and snapped on the light. The space was roomy, with a king-sized bed and excellent replicas of eighteenth-century antique furniture. She deposited her coat on a chaise lounge and turned back to head across the mansion again.
And tried to ignore, as best she could, Burke dogging her steps the entire way.
“Macy Reid,” she said crisply to the one of the men blocking her entrance into the girl’s room. She held up her Raiker Forensics identification badge, which hung from a lanyard around her neck.
The CBI agent, identified as Agent Dirk Pelton by the ID clipped to his lapel, looked past her to Kell. “Is that Burke?”
She slipped by him into the room. “I have no idea who that is.”
“I’m Burke. She’s kidding. Macy, tell them you’re kidding.”
“Let’s see some ID,” she heard one of the agents say, and allowed herself a small smile as she moved to the center of the room. The space seemed decorated for a younger child. That was the first thought to strike her. As if it was held in suspended animation since the girl had been six or seven.
And since Ellie had been seven when Art Cooper had snatched her, perhaps it had. Macy’s gaze traveled over the dolls and stuffed animals peering down from a shelf running the length of one wall. There were Barbies and other toys neatly stacked on a bookcase next to the bed alongside picture books much too young for an eleven-year-old. The bedspread and curtains featured scenes of horses. Girls loved horses, didn’t they? That, the computer, and aquarium were the only things that seemed to be even remotely of interest to a girl Ellie’s age.
Tuning out the sounds of the argument behind her, she pulled on a pair of plastic gloves she’d brought with her and strolled through the room, steeping herself in impressions. Two bedside tables sat on either side of the denuded mattress. Which had held the scissors? Until they got updated reports of all the case details, she only knew answers to the questions she’d had a chance to ask. Or the information she discovered herself.
Macy measured the distance between the bed and desk visually. Too far to get out of bed to go in search of paper if the child couldn’t sleep. She went to the drawer of one table and pulled it out. A tidy stack of construction paper sat inside. Something to calm the girl’s nerves if sleep proved elusive.
Or a reason for her to keep a pair of sharp scissors at her bedside.
“Thanks. You were very helpful.”
Burke’s voice brought a small smile to her face for once. “Oh, were you behind me?” She turned, shot him an innocent look. “I didn’t notice.”
“Right. Whatever else I could say about you, there’s not much that gets by you.” Shoving a hand in his jeans pocket, he withdrew a pair of gloves and drew them on. “So what are you thinking?”
Her gaze went past him to the light switch. Although off, the room was still suffused with a soft glow. “It’s never really dark in here. Even at night.” She pointed from the computer to the aquarium. “Better than a night light, especially if you don’t want anyone to realize you’re still scared of the dark.” That observation arrowed a little too deep, so she hurried past it. “He left himself a narrow window for getting in the house and back out with the girl, but he’d need a place to duck into, wouldn’t he? Just to be sure everything was quiet in this wing and that the parents were in their beds?”
“The room next door is another bedroom, although it’s been empty since the family moved here.” She turned at Pelton’s voice. The man switched on the light and moved just inside the doorway. “We searched it as thoroughly as we did this one.”
Macy went to the closet and opened the door then, flicking on the light. Rows and rows of clothes hung neatly from the endless racks. The space, like the bedroom, was eerily neat. Did the help pick up daily? Where was the jumble of clothes, worn for an hour or so and then discarded?
Shoes and boots were lined up on shelves that lined one end of the space. Another set of shelves held folded jeans, khakis, shirts, and sweaters. The four of them could hide inside it and be undetectable from a cursory observer.
“Plenty of room in here, but he likely hid next door.”
“According to the mother’s statement, the girl would have been in bed long before the unknown subject entered the home,” Kell agreed. “Probably slipped into the next room and got his bearings, made sure all in the wing was quiet before he headed in here.”
“Whoever this guy is, he took precautions.” Pelton’s voice was disgusted. “There’s a ton of prints, of course. State lab will go through them, matching them to the people living or working in the house to see if there’s any that don’t belong here. Same thing with the hairs and fibers they found.”
“Where was the bloodstain found?”
The agent came in to stand beside the stripped bed. “Right about here”—he pointed midway down the bed—“below a jumble of covers. Actually pretty cool, thinking to grab up the scissors and take them along. Probably never noticed the stain. It’s still pretty dark in here, even with the glow from the computer sleep screen and the aquarium light. Or maybe it’s the kid’s blood, in which case it didn’t matter that it was left behind.”
Macy’s stomach did a quick twist, and she ordered her emotions under control. They had two possible places where Ellie’s blood may have been spilled, including Hubbard’s house. Tiny amounts, in the grand scheme of things.
Unless they found her quickly, there was likely to be a great deal more bloodshed.
“It seems so empty. Almost like she was never returned to us at all. Like the last two years never really happened.”
The whispered words had Macy jerking around to see the woman standing in the doorway. Under different circumstances, the slim blonde would have fit in with the sophisticated crowd that used to attend her stepfather’s parties, with her elegant well-cut clothes and air of breeding. But Althea Mulder’s patrician face was drawn, and her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. Her lips quivered as she stared in the direction of the bed.
With a stab of remorse, Macy wondered if the woman had overheard the last part of the exchange between her and the CBI agent. After studying the woman carefully, she revised her opinion. Ellie’s mother wasn’t focused on the scene before her. She’d been sucked in by the past. Back to the first time her daughter disappeared.
Compassion propelled Macy across the room, tugging off her gloves as she moved. “Mrs. Mulder,” she said softly, extending her hand. “I’m Macy Reid. My associate and I are with Raiker Forensics.”
The woman blinked once as Macy took her hand. “Adam Raiker brought our baby home once.” Her hand was cold as ice in Macy’s. “When everyone else had given up hope, he brought our Ellie home.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gently, Macy took the woman’s arm and steered her toward the hallway. CBI wouldn’t want Ellie’s parents in the room, even if it had been cleared by the crime scene unit. Not until Whitman had cleared them. “And we’re going to do our best to make sure that happens again.”
She was unsure whether the woman had heard her. Her gaze had turned inward. “We could never have any more children. We’d thought about adoption, but after Ellie was taken, we couldn’t bear the thought. Adam Raiker was the answer to our prayers.” She seemed to subtly shift then, as if moving back to the present. “She was happy again. Ellie. She was finally starting to smile more. To laugh. How could this . . .” She fought a short battle against tears, before succumbing. “We took every precaution. How could this happen again?”
“Let me take y
ou back to your room, Mrs. Mulder.” Chest tight, Macy walked the woman down the hallway to the master suite. “Rest will help you keep up your strength. And you’ll need that in the next few days. For Ellie.”
Stephen Mulder appeared around the corner then, and his step faltered for a moment when he took in the scene before him. Then he strode swiftly in their direction. “Althea.”
Macy moved away as the man drew closer. He slipped his arm around his wife’s narrow waist, and she seemed to collapse against him, sobs racking her body. “Are we being punished, Stephen? Is this God’s way of balancing the scales because we have so much?”
“Come to bed now.” The man’s voice was soothing. The raw emotion evident in the scene had Macy turning away. “I want you to take one of the sedatives the doctor left.” The low murmur of his tone was lost as they turned the corner.
Macy drew in a breath to still the racing of her heart. The past never seemed so vivid as when she was dealing with the family of a crime victim. But it wasn’t the past that was important here. Not hers. Not the girl’s.
It was the future. Ellie Mulder’s future.
Ellie shivered uncontrollably. It was cold wherever he’d brought her, but they were inside some sort of building. If she bent her knees a tiny bit more, they hit something solid. A wall. And she was lying on a hard, cold floor.
For a long time she’d been sort of floating in and out of awareness. He’d stuck her with a needle before he’d taken her. She hadn’t fought the darkness whenever it pulled her under again. It’d be better if she could stay out of it and be unaware the whole time. Because she already knew what he wanted.
Her stomach cramped then, and she felt like she’d puke inside the hood still covering her head. Maybe she was sick from the drugs, or maybe it was the waiting for what she already knew was going to happen. The thought of it made her want to scream. To scream and cry and beg.
But that had never helped before.
To take her mind off the roiling of her stomach, she strained to hear . . . anything. She knew she wasn’t alone in the place. There had been footsteps earlier. Some banging and then swearing in a voice she didn’t recognize.
At least she hoped she didn’t.
But no matter how hard she tried, Ellie couldn’t hear anything now other than the wind. Was it still blizzarding? Would that make it harder for anyone to find her?
The thought brought her up short. She couldn’t expect someone to come after her. She’d learned that from before. And she wasn’t a kid anymore, expecting tears and prayers to rescue her. She might be just eleven, but it was an older eleven than any of her friends back in DC. She was different in a way they couldn’t understand.
Different enough to know that she only had herself to rely on.
The despair that swept over her at the thought was almost comforting in its familiarity. It was hope that was the enemy. Knowing the worst—expecting it—at least meant she was prepared.
But she wasn’t a baby anymore, to lie there and take it either. She’d hurt him—whoever he was—with the scissors in her room. She could hurt him again.
Trying to move her fingers, she almost cried out at the needlelike pain of feeling returning to them. Her hands were tied. Tight. In back of her. Her feet, too. Gritting her teeth, she kept moving them. Tiny little wiggles that shot pain up her arms and legs. But whatever he’d tied her with held fast. She wouldn’t be slipping out of the binds.
Ellie lay still for a moment, thinking. Her brain was still a little fuzzy from whatever he’d given her, so she had to concentrate hard. With knowledge comes control. That’s what Dr. Givens, her psychologist, always said. Of course, he was talking about knowing herself and admitting to what she was feeling. But it could also mean knowing whoever had done this to her, couldn’t it? Maybe that would help her make a plan to get away.
She stopped moving her fingers and toes then and experimentally rubbed her cheek against the floor. The hood moved, too. She could feel that the tape was still over her mouth, but whatever was covering her head was looser. Maybe she could get it off.
Concentrating fiercely, she worked her head in a rhythmic motion. Drag it along the floor. Lift slightly to return to the original position and try again. Each time brought the hood up an inch or so.
It was hard to know how long she went on like that. Each time she was rewarded with a slight movement of the hood, she redoubled her efforts. Her progress wasn’t much faster than a snail’s. But when she saw the first glint of light beneath the hood’s edge, there was a fierce leap of satisfaction in her chest.
Long minutes later, the hood was worked up to her forehead. Ellie lay there, blinking. The darkness under the hood had been complete. But there was some light in the room, although the window above her was dark.
Slowly, she craned her neck to look over her shoulder. The room actually looked like a little cabin. There was a small wood-burning stove with a fire in it on one wall. Either the fire hadn’t been going long, or it didn’t do a good job heating the place. A folding table and two stools were in one corner. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t angle her head to see any farther behind her.
Made bolder by her success, Ellie rolled to her other side to complete her inspection of the room. A chaise lawn chair was next to the table.
And on it sat a man.
Her heart hammered in her chest like a spooked horse in full gallop. It wasn’t Art Cooper. Her stomach jittered and she felt dizzy. She’d known it couldn’t be. But she’d still been afraid it would be him.
He just sat there, looking at her in the dim light. Not speaking. Just staring, the way people did at the zoo, while they waited for the animals to do something entertaining.
Dragging in a deep breath, she battled back the fear that was creeping its way up her spine. He had one of those faces that looked sort of familiar, but she didn’t know him. He just looked like a guy you’d see on the street. In the mall. Someone you passed and then forgot in the next moment.
“Guess you had to wake up sooner or later.”
He sounded kind of impatient, the way her mother did when the hairdresser was late. And thoughts of her mother had tears stinging her eyes, making her angry with herself. Don’t think about her. Don’t feel anything. Nothing hurts when you don’t let yourself feel. That mental chant had helped her get through two years with Art Cooper. It’d help her get through this, too.
That thought shattered when the man finally moved. One hand reached inside his flannel shirt and he took out a knife. Ellie shrank away, panic doing a fast sprint up her spine. The blade was long and thin. As she stared, he ran it lightly across the pad of his thumb. Blood immediately welled in its path. He wiped the blood across his lips and smiled at her. A bloody, horrible smile.
“Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”
Chapter 4
“You’re wrong if you think Nick had anything to do with that poor girl’s disappearance.”
Sophie Brownley stared at each of them in turn from anxious brown eyes. They were seated in the small living area of her Florence ranch-style home. Toys littered the floor. A pile of dolls and stuffed animals were heaped on the opposite side of the couch she was seated on. Her daughter was napping, she’d informed them in hushed tones when she’d let them in. They’d have to be quiet.
“Why do you say that, Ms. Brownley?” Travis took the lead while Kell sat back, his gaze traveling around the small space. Unlike her ex-husband’s place, everything about the woman’s home shouted family. Assorted pictures cluttered shelves and tabletops. The small kitchen opened onto this room, and there were freshly baked cookies cooling on racks on the counter. The refrigerator was covered with magnetic plastic letters and farm animals and a large sheet of paper covered with indecipherable crayon scribbles. Squinting hard at it, he decided the image most resembled a mutated walrus. In rainbow colors.
“Because he’d never do anything illegal, much less something so terrible.” She threaded her fingers togeth
er nervously. “He might not work for the correctional system anymore, but he’s a law-and-order kind of guy. A crime like this . . .” She shook her head, her glossy blond hair swaying at the movement. “It would never even occur to him.”
“Maybe it occurred to someone else,” Travis suggested tersely. “Someone who had the idea and tapped him to get in and out with the kid.”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head again. “No. I’ll never believe that.”
“How long have the two of you been divorced?” Macy asked.
Kell slanted her an approving look. Her voice was gentle as a mother’s kiss. Well, not his mother. But it had a soothing quality. Damned effective at getting people to open up to her. Until last night, the only time he heard that tone from her was in an interview. She’d used it to calm Althea Mulder, at least as much as she was able. He didn’t recall it ever being directed at him.
But then, they hadn’t spent a lot of time talking the one night they’d spent together.
“Eight—almost nine years. But ours wasn’t a bitter divorce. We just had . . . differences.”
She gave the woman an encouraging smile. “That’s the way it usually goes.”
“When’s the last time you talked to your ex?”
Travis’s insertion shattered the tenuous bond Macy had been building. Kell watched Brownley draw up her shoulders, her hand going to her hugely pregnant belly. The guy was about as subtle as ton of falling bricks.
“We haven’t . . . We don’t keep in touch. It’s been years. Since shortly after our divorce.”
“That’s a long time. So you wouldn’t know whether or not he’s changed.”
The woman’s jaw set in stubborn lines. “No one changes that much.”
“What caused the divorce?” Macy asked smoothly. Her expression was guileless. But then it was most of the time. Except when she talked to him, when it went closed and guarded. Or pink and flaming.