Wilder didn’t bother with a reply and stormed out with Beck behind him.
“You were kidding about torturing him to death, right?” Beck asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think I hope he’s not lying.” Beckett put his hand on Wilder’s shoulder. “I think I should drive and you should empty your magazine and chamber.”
Wilder huffed and climbed in the passenger seat. Roger Renfrow. He had access to Kariss Elroy and Malcolm Hayes. He knew their mental states. Cosette and he were friends, so he would know personal things about her. Like nut allergies. Her past, if not in detail, at least enough. But why say he missed her? That part didn’t compute. Unless he was crazy, and crazy never computed. He made more sense than Jeffrey enlisting a patient to do his dirty work, but Wilder wasn’t going to rule anything out just yet.
“What did you think about McMillian?” Beckett asked.
“I don’t know.” Wilder was frustrated, and everyone was suspect. He needed clarity. “Let’s go in with the assumption that Renfrow has Cosette and this is a rescue mission. Night will cover us. Keep neighbors from getting nosy.”
“Do you think he’d have her at his house? I mean, he killed a detective and surely he knows we’d eventually figure it out,” Beckett said.
Wilder didn’t have the answer to that, either. Didn’t need to at the moment. “We’ll proceed with caution. That’s all we can do.” He hoped wherever Cosette was, she had a level head and could use her expertise to keep herself safe and alive.
They entered an older neighborhood. The lawns were manicured and the streets quiet. Beckett parked a ways down from the house.
“Let’s do a little recon. If we spook him, he might hurt her or worse,” Beckett said. “And call Shep and Jody. Get an ETA.”
Wilder called and they were ten minutes out. He drew his weapon. He never enjoyed using it, but in times like this—times of war—there was no choice.
They quietly slipped through the shadows into Roger’s yard. Blinds were closed. No movement.
“House has a basement.”
“Good place to hold a hostage,” Wilder whispered. They crept to the other side of the property. Sounds of a TV came from a window. Bedroom, probably. “Let’s bust up in there.”
“And if he’s innocent, he’ll (1) have a heart attack and (2) sue us and have us arrested for home invasion.” Beckett drilled him with a glare. “What happened to proceed with caution?”
“We did. I also said this was a rescue mission. What if it was Aurora?”
Beckett sighed. “Okay. Let’s knock down a door.”
Rustling sounded and a low whistle. It was Shep and Jody. They’d made it. Jogging up, Shep asked, “What’s the plan?”
“Going through the front door,” Beckett said.
Jody opened her mouth, but Shepherd spoke. “If he’s guilty, he’ll run. If he’s innocent, you’ll scare him. And he’ll run. We’ll be at the back. Waiting on Red Rover to send the headshrinker right over.”
Wilder looked at Beckett as they stood on the porch. “If he’s...done anything to her, I can’t promise I won’t kill him.” His voice cracked as his throat clogged with emotion. “Do you understand?”
Beckett nodded. “You’re my best friend. My brother. I won’t let you slip away. I’ve got your six in every way. Now break this door down and get your woman.”
My woman.
Cosette would hate that phrase with a passion. But Wilder wanted her to be his. Not a possession. A partner.
But he’d failed her. She’d trusted him. Trusted his word. He’d told her it would be okay. To go with Detective Chase.
“Ready?”
Beckett secured his gun. “Go.”
Wilder rammed his shoulder into the door with all his might; the wood splintered, cracked and burst open, revealing a tidy home, the smells of lemon and vapor rub. Was Jody in here already? She kept that stuff on her nose constantly to block out overwhelming scents due to her medical condition.
He raced through the living room toward the room with the TV.
Roger Renfrow bustled into the hallway shirtless, baseball bat in hand.
“That won’t save you,” Wilder growled. “Drop it.”
Roger instantly complied. “What’s going on?”
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
Wilder wound his hand around Roger’s neck, smelled the vapor rub, pinned him against the wall. “Don’t play with me.”
“I don’t know what is going on,” the man said breathlessly.
Shepherd and Jody entered the hallway. “The house is clear, Wilder. She’s not here. I don’t even smell her,” Jody said. If anyone could smell Cosette it would be Jody—a human bloodhound.
“Why weren’t you at work today?” Wilder asked.
“I have bronchitis!”
“Nothing’s here to make me think he’s stalking Cosette,” Shepherd said.
Renfrow’s eyes bulged. “Stalking Cosette? Are you kidding me? I’m calling the police right now!”
Wilder laughed. “If you can get past me, feel free. I have questions and you’re going to answer them. Truthfully. Have you been sending Cosette gifts and messages?”
“No. But I had a feeling something strange was going on. Can you please release your grip before you crush my windpipe?”
Wilder released him, his hope sinking.
“At first, I thought you were abusive to her. She seemed to show signs,” Roger stated.
“I would never lay a hand on her!” He had an urge to throttle the guy for even suggesting it.
“Yes, I can tell you’re quite meek,” he deadpanned. “I realized that wasn’t the case and that you were protecting her from something. Someone. If someone has her, please let me help.”
If this man was lying, he deserved an Oscar. And if he wasn’t, who had Cosette?
* * *
Cosette’s head felt like someone had stabbed it with a dagger. She opened her eyes and squinted through the sunlight pouring into the room. Dizzy and disoriented, she worked to put pieces together; it was fuzzy. The air-conditioning kicked on and she shivered and glanced upward. A vent blew cold air down on her. She blinked and tried to jump-start her muddled brain.
Detective Chase believed she’d killed Beau, Jeffrey and her patients. She’d been on her way to the police station when the officer’s car had crashed.
No. He’d been shot and the car ran into a tree. She’d lost consciousness.
Her tongue was thick and seemed to be taking up her entire dry mouth. The room was too bright and blurry.
Someone had drugged her after she’d blacked out. The effects she was feeling had to be from a strong sedative.
Where was she?
Pale pink walls with white trim... A pink Victorian dollhouse sat on a small white table in the corner. Dolls had been arranged at a dining room table. The furniture was white, with antique scrolls, like someone had painted the wood finish, making it trendy for a little girl.
Grabbing her head, Cosette tried to sit up, but collapsed. She was in a four-poster twin bed that matched the snowy white furniture. On pink sheets with pale lavender hearts. A frilly comforter.
Why was she in a little girl’s bedroom? Whose room?
She struggled to shake off the dizzy sensation. Nausea swept into her throat and her mouth watered. How long had she been out? After working herself into a sitting position, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and held still while her head swam. Her bare feet sunk into the plush carpet. Light blared through pink-and-white chevron curtains. She was upstairs. Somewhere.
A window meant escape.
Tottering to it, she glanced outside and shielded her eyes. She was in a subdivision. She couldn’t see houses to the left or right, but there was a backyard with swings and a water p
lay table. Beyond the wooden privacy fence, several houses on small lots dotted the area.
Her vision slowly cleared, but she was still woozy. Turning, she spied her ballerina jewelry box on the dresser. Her heart skipped a beat. Cosette caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. Her lipstick was smeared like the Joker’s in Batman. Her eye makeup had long worn off. And her wavy hair was knotted. She was a horror show all by herself.
She stumbled to the door and tried to open it.
Locked from the outside.
To the left was a small bathroom that matched the bedroom. All done in pink and lavender. She ran cool water and splashed her face. She needed all her faculties to be clear. She’d never get out of here in this fuzzy state. Using the lavender hand towel with a unicorn on it, she washed the lipstick away.
If she could get someone’s attention behind the fence, she might be able to get out of here. Wherever here was.
She unlocked the window and raised it. Humidity smacked her freshly cooled face. Lifting the screen, Cosette stuck her head outside. It was quiet. Kids must be in school, adults at work. Below her lay two little-girl bikes.
“Help!” she croaked. It felt as if she hadn’t used her voice in days. Could she have been knocked out that long?
She studied the room again. Something about it felt oddly familiar.
The jewelry box. It was hers, but it also belonged to... It was there on the tip of her tongue. She’d seen it. Here.
“Think, Cosette!” She racked her brain. A backpack hung from a hook by the door. She unzipped it and dug around inside. Pulling out a folder, she studied and found a name. “Daysia Carson.” Didn’t ring a bell. A library book was shoved in the bottom. She grabbed it and read the label. Her blood turned to ice. She wasn’t even in Atlanta. She was in New Orleans.
Why would she be back here? She hadn’t lived or worked here since her midtwenties. Had she been in this room before? Seemed like she had.
The jewelry box.
A bathroom. She remembered a bathroom.
Nothing more would come, but the fear that raised gooseflesh on her arms said it didn’t matter. She’d find out soon enough.
She went back to the window and had opened her mouth to scream when the lock on the door clicked. Cosette hurriedly closed the window, then raced back to the bed and crawled inside. Her pulse pounded.
The door slowly opened.
Cosette gasped and her blood turned cold.
* * *
Wilder hadn’t slept in the forty-eight hours Cosette had been missing. The gun that killed Detective Chase was a .45 caliber, but no match with ballistics. The police had no leads but were staying on it like white on rice since one of their own had been murdered. That gave him some small comfort, but his team wasn’t any closer to figuring out who had her than they’d been the day they charged the clinic and busted down Roger Renfrow’s front door. This was unacceptable. She couldn’t have vanished from the face of the earth!
He bounced his knee as he sat next to Wheezer and Evan, both frantically typing on laptops in the control room of CCM.
They’d worked around the clock, digging up old clients and classmates, and going through all her past colleagues again, scrutinizing anyone who might have had a vendetta or attachment to Cosette. But nothing was tracking.
Any horrible thing could have happened to her by now. Wilder envisioned Cosette crying out for him and begging for her life, shaking with fear and hopelessness. Balling a fist, he stood and paced the floor. He was failing her every single second.
If she was even alive.
Terror struck with such force he nearly buckled to the floor. He couldn’t think like that. She was alive, using her professional skills to stay that way. She had to be. “Please, tell me you have a lead. Anything?”
Their faces said it all. Nothing.
Jody entered with more coffee. They’d been living off the stuff. No one had gone home; no one had slept. Every last one of them looked like death warmed over. Bloodshot eyes, disheveled hair... Wilder rubbed his chin. A full-on beard. Who had time to shave?
“Y’all. Roger Renfrow is here,” Caley said. Wilder’s baby sister had been here with Shepherd, taking care of him—of them all.
“Bring him in.”
Roger, still recovering from bronchitis, entered the cramped control room. No bow tie. “I was hoping I could be of more assistance.”
Two days ago, after they’d bombarded his home and nearly sent him into cardiac arrest, he’d helped with case files and tagged patients who might have become obsessed with Cosette. But none of those had panned out. As she’d said, no one fit the bill.
“We appreciate that,” Wilder said. “But I don’t know how.”
Roger eyed the whiteboard and looked at all the dots they couldn’t seem to connect. “What we know is someone is obsessed with Cosette and has been strategically planning her abduction. However, this person went off script. How would anyone know the police were coming for her? I think they were watching, saw the police take her away, and it scared them. Foiled the perfect plan, and they went off the rails. Shot the detective and snatched her. They didn’t realize or logically think out that the police would suspect Cosette.”
“That lines up with everything we’ve already established. Someone has been watching her. The idea of flipping the script makes sense. What we need is a name. Something that will lead us down the right path to finding her.”
Roger agreed. “We keep running down clients who might be romantically obsessed, but what if that’s not the motive at all?”
Wilder stopped pacing. The man had his attention. “Go on.”
“The letters, the gifts. Even the lipstick heart on the mirror. All seemed like romantic gestures, but it didn’t necessarily say it was romantic, did it? Things like ‘Soon.’ ‘I miss you.’ ‘Can’t wait to be with you again.’ ‘I’ll always love you.’ Those are endearments and words that anticipate a person seeing a loved one again, but it doesn’t have to be romantically.”
That gave Wilder some semblance of hope. If this person didn’t want Cosette romantically, then maybe he hadn’t touched her...hurt her. His stomach curdled.
Roger stared at the board, studying theories and possible connections the team had scribbled. He rubbed his chin, then tapped it with his index finger. “Cosette had been a social worker while finishing up her doctorate in New Orleans, mainly with children, right?”
“Yes. That’s why we focused on Washington, DC, patients. They were mostly adults and young adults. Why?”
“What if we can’t find the culprit because we’re not looking at the children? Children who would be young adults today.”
“Why would a child from a decade or more ago want to kidnap Cosette? Or kill her?” Wilder asked.
“Maybe at first they didn’t. At first, it was a fixated fantasy, but it didn’t go like the vivid dream in their mind. Many times, it’s very common for a young patient to transfer maternal feelings onto their therapist. These can be good feelings or bad. If Cosette worked with a child that had been abused or neglected, and was caring and kind to this child, then he or she could have wished for a mom like her...therefore, Cosette became their mom.”
“You mean they wanted her to be their mom, but knew she wasn’t, right?”
“At first. It’s possible. But if this child fixated, dreamed...became delusional due to a break in reality, then it’s very possible that they believe Cosette is indeed their mother.”
“You said good feelings or bad. How do we know what’s what? What do you mean?” Wilder wasn’t sure where this was going, but he’d follow any rabbit trail that showed itself.
Roger exhaled. “If the child hated the mother, then those bad feelings would surface and it would be difficult for Cosette to have had any success in her sessions. She might have even been threatened. But because she was given gif
ts and positive notes at the beginning of this, I believe at the time of their therapy, it was a good maternal transference—if this theory proves to be right.”
They didn’t have any other theories. They’d work this one and see if it led anywhere. Wilder rubbed the back of his neck. “You think a patient of hers from her past might have had this maternal transference and came back now to do what?”
Roger perched on the edge of the desk as if he were teaching a psychology class. “Could be to reconnect. But like I said, it didn’t go as the fantasy played out in their head and it turned aggressive.”
“So we have a psycho on the loose.” Great.
“Psychosis is a symptom of something. Not an actual diagnosis. The abductor may indeed be psychotic—had a break from reality. But my guess is that symptom is surfacing from someone who suffers from antisocial disorder. A former patient who’s dreamed about their mom for a very long time.”
Scrubbing his face, Wilder sighed. “How does one get this disorder?”
Roger cocked his head. “You can be born with it. Or develop it from experiencing neglect and abuse at a young age. Or it can be a mix of both. People with this disorder will have no remorse. As children, they’d exhibit disruptive behaviors, no impulse control, and as they grew it would develop into sociopathy. They would be masters of deception and manipulation.”
That tracked with their suspicions about her patients being manipulated and deceived into trying to harm Cosette. “What happens if she tries to explain she’s not Mommy Dearest?”
“For her safety, she’s smart enough to go along with the break in reality. You can’t reason with someone like that. Someone delusional.” Roger scanned the room. “This person is highly calculating. No empathy. Unable to rationalize, as they’ve reverted back to the age of their trauma, and yet, incredibly, they can function in society as adults. It’s complex, intriguing.”
Roger seemed entirely too thrilled. This wasn’t a research project.
“So what do we do, Renfrow?”
“Let’s narrow the patient search to children with abusive and neglectful mothers. Prepubescent. New Orleans cases.”
Wilder balled his fist. He didn’t care if he was dealing with an adult with a warped child brain. He didn’t even fully understand it. Whoever had Cosette was off their rocker and could kill her with a change in the wind.
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