by Lisa Gardner
The man smiled at me.
“Now was that really so hard?” he asked me.
I didn’t say a word.
He climbed off the floor, started rooting around on the coffee table.
“So. Time to write a note. I mean, as long as you’re running off with me, don’t you think you should at least tell your mother?”
Chapter 13
D.D.’S SUNDAY MORNING BEGAN with a phone call. Walking into her office (no rest for the wicked, or for a homicide supervisor who’d just landed a major case), she was juggling coffee in one hand and her crossbody leather messenger bag in the other. She barely set down her travel mug in time to snag the receiver.
“Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren.”
“Is it true? Did that man take my daughter? Do you know what happened to her yet? For the love of God, why are we having to learn all this from the press? What kind of unfeeling monsters are you?”
D.D. slowed. She didn’t recognize the voice, but could deduce from the level of anguish she was most likely talking to Stacey Summers’s father. Given the beating Boston PD had taken in yesterday’s news cycle—rumored suspect in college student’s kidnapping found dead, Boston police refusing to discuss circumstances—she shouldn’t be surprised. And yet still . . .
“Sir? With whom am I speaking?”
“Colin Summers. Who the hell do you think?”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask the question. As I’m sure you’ve learned by now, the press isn’t above resorting to tricks to get inside information.”
An angry sigh on the other end of the receiver, the sound of a man trying very hard to pull himself together. D.D. used the moment to set down her messenger bag, then pull out her chair and take a seat at her desk.
“Is it true?” Colin Summers whispered at last.
“At this time, we have no evidence linking Devon Goulding to your daughter’s disappearance.”
“Stop. That’s cop-speak for bullshit. This is my daughter we’re talking about. Please just give me the truth.”
“Sir, I personally attended the crime scene. We’ve spent the better part of twenty-four hours tearing apart the Gouldings’ house. I am telling you the truth: We’ve found nothing to link him to your daughter.”
“But in the news . . . They said he was a big guy. They said he matched the picture in the video . . .”
“That’s true.”
“And he was a bartender. That could be the connection. Stacey was last seen at Birches downtown. He could’ve worked there.”
“We checked. Devon Goulding has no employment history with Birches.”
“But what if Stacey met him at the bar where he did work? Maybe he spotted her there. And he . . . liked her. That’s how these things sometimes work, right? He took one look at her and she became his target.”
D.D. hesitated. Talking to grieving family members was her least favorite part of the job. It was tempting to answer all their questions. To soothe and to explain. But the truth was, her primary obligation wasn’t to Colin Summers or his wife. It was to Stacey. And working a case was as much about safeguarding key details as it was about discovering new ones. She couldn’t risk telling Mr. Summers everything they knew about Devon Goulding. There’d been too many other occasions where the grieving father had shared valuable information with his wife or best friend, who inevitably shared it with another person, then another, until the next thing the police knew, everything they couldn’t afford known about their ongoing investigation was now fodder for the evening news.
Most family members would tell you they’d do anything to help find their loved one. Unfortunately, for their sakes, what the investigating officer genuinely needed from them was restraint.
D.D. said: “Did Stacey ever frequent Tonic bar?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t a big drinker, or a big partier. But . . . she was social,” he conceded. “If her friends wanted to go, she’d follow along.”
D.D. nodded. That was consistent with what they’d established up to this point. Yesterday afternoon, Phil had personally visited Devon Goulding’s place of employment, Tonic, with a picture of Stacey Summers. Several bartenders recognized her from the news coverage of her case, but none could place her in the establishment. Of course, that didn’t rule out Devon Goulding having crossed paths with her at a different time or at a different bar. Boston offered up a robust scene for the college crowd. The choices were endless.
Not to mention, given Goulding’s abduction of Flora Dane, they couldn’t argue that blondes weren’t to his taste.
“Do you know Florence Dane?” she asked abruptly.
There was silence on the other end of the phone line. Silence that definitely went on several beats too long.
“Why do you ask?” Colin Summers spoke up at last.
“Has she been to your house? Has she met with you?”
“We met with her mother.”
“What?”
“When your child disappears . . . There’s a program. Through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Another parent, someone who’s been there, calls to offer support. Rosa Dane was appointed as our mentor. Within the first twenty-four hours, she called, then stayed on the phone with my wife while she cried.”
“Have you personally met with her?”
“She’s been to our house a couple of times. She’s been very helpful, Sergeant. After what she went through . . . she understands. She listens and she helps. Which is more than we can say for the rest of you.”
D.D. winced at the man’s bitterness, reminded herself again it was nothing personal. The family wanted answers. They wanted their daughter back. But to date the detectives could only provide more questions at best, and fresh suspicions at worst.
“And her daughter, Florence?” D.D. pressed again.
“I’m familiar with her case,” Colin Summers said, which was, in fact, no answer at all.
“She accompanied her mother on one of her visits,” D.D. stated.
“No.”
“Reached out via phone, e-mail, Facebook? You know her, don’t you, Mr. Summers? You’ve spoken to her personally about your daughter.”
“No.”
But D.D. didn’t believe him anymore. There was something more here. Something he still wasn’t willing to say. And then . . .
“Was she the one who killed him?” Colin Summers asked.
“Who?”
“Flora. Did she kill the bartender, the suspected kidnapper? Is that why you’re asking all these questions?”
D.D. didn’t say anything. So far, they’d managed to keep Florence Dane’s name out of the news. Mostly by virtue of not having pressed any formal charges against her, meaning there wasn’t any information for overeager reporters to discover.
“Why would you assume that, Mr. Summers?”
“You investigators have your sources of information. The families of victims have ours. And given how likely you are to share with us . . .”
“We are all on the same side, Mr. Summers. We’re all doing everything in our power to get your daughter back.”
“Then why isn’t she home?”
A click in her ear as Colin Summers hung up, clearly having gotten in the last word. D.D. held on to the phone receiver for a moment longer, feeling the weight of his rage. Indeed, three months later, why hadn’t they found Stacey Summers?
And what the hell did Flora Dane know about the college girl’s abduction that the rest of them apparently didn’t?
Eight thirty A.M. D.D. had mounds of reports to sort through and approve, from the night-duty detectives on down. The joys of management, the burden of restricted duty. As a field detective, she’d always groused about the need to dot every i and cross every t. And yet reports mattered. Paperwork created the building blocks of a prosecutable case, and there was no po
int in identifying perpetrators and making arrests if you couldn’t actually put the rat bastards away.
Paperwork mattered. Sitting here at this desk mattered.
Then again, so did asking the right questions.
What was it Dr. Keynes had said yesterday? Flora preferred an honest, straightforward approach.
D.D. got up, retrieved her messenger bag, grabbed her travel mug, and headed out the door.
* * *
FLORENCE DANE’S REGISTERED ADDRESS turned out to be a third-story walk-up in an older, slightly tired-looking row home. This time of morning on a Sunday, the house and street appeared quiet. D.D. walked through the unlocked outer door into the requisite inner vestibule lined with half a dozen metal mailboxes. Some were labeled with names; Flora’s wasn’t, instead providing only her initials, F.D. Another security-conscious decision from a woman who clearly took self-protection seriously.
The vestibule’s inner door was locked but, as often happened in frequently trafficked areas, hadn’t been pulled tightly shut. Flora definitely wouldn’t have approved of D.D.’s ability to nudge open the door and walk straight in.
She could buzz up. It would be the polite thing to do, but where was the fun in that? Instead, D.D. spied the stairs straight ahead and made the executive decision to hike up three floors to Florence’s apartment. Of course, she hadn’t counted on her breath growing quite so labored—maybe it was time to cut back the hours in PT and work in some cardio instead—nor was she expecting to arrive at Flora’s door and discover it cracked open.
D.D. hesitated, already feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck. At first blush, there was no need for alarm. The door looked perfectly fine, no scratches on the locks as if they were jimmied, no shredded doorjamb. And yet . . .
She rapped hard. The door yawned wide.
“Flora Dane? Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren here to see you.”
No response.
D.D. took the first step forward, reaching instinctively for her sidearm before remembering she still wasn’t authorized to carry.
“Flora? You home? Florence Dane?”
Nothing. Not the sound of footsteps or rushing water or creaking inner doorways. D.D. took another step inside, encountering a kitchen dead ahead, tiny family room to the left, and another open doorway that provided a glimpse of a bedroom beyond it.
Lights were off. Granted, daylight streamed through the large bank of bay windows. But the sky was overcast, meaning corners of the apartment were still cast in gloom, giving the place a neglected feel. More than that, however, the apartment felt empty. For whatever reason, the front door had been left open, but Florence was no longer here.
Which made no sense at all. A woman who made studying criminal behavior her bread and butter leaving her apartment unsecured in downtown Boston? No way. Something was up. But what?
Slowly, keeping her back to the wall, D.D. made the rounds. Except, in the end, there wasn’t much to see. The kitchen appeared immaculate, the modest seating area untouched. She used her toe to push in the bathroom door, taking in a pedestal sink, toilet, and standing-room-only shower. Nothing.
Finally, the single bedroom. Again, using her foot to open the door wider, careful not to touch anything. She spied a double bed, covers pulled back and obviously recently slept in. Next to it was a single nightstand table bearing a lamp and a charging iPhone. Which gave her pause. Because in this day and age, who stepped out for even the briefest errand without first grabbing her cell phone?
Next, D.D. eyed a rickety old desk, which bore a state-of-the-art Mac laptop. Finally, she let her gaze take in the room’s main attraction: Newspaper articles. Photographs. Dozens of them plastered across all four walls. It took her only a moment to deduce the theme. Missing persons cases. Each and every one. Thirty, forty, fifty people, male and female, who’d stepped outside one day, never to be seen again. Including Stacey Summers, the Boston Globe article announcing her disappearance posted in a place of honor right above Flora’s bed.
Definitely, Flora had been following the case. And now?
D.D. circled in place, taking in the full weight of one survivor’s obsession. And she suddenly had a very bad feeling about things.
Chapter 14
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I had a hard time falling asleep. I would spend my days running wild across the fields of my family’s farm and through the dark Maine woods. And yet no matter how often my mom ordered me outside to “burn it off,” come nightfall I’d lie in bed with a spinning brain and twitchy legs.
My mother developed an elaborate bedtime ritual to help wind me down. First, she’d place both hands on the top of my head. She’d gently stroke my hair: “This is Flora’s head.”
Then she’d move her fingers down, trace the shape of my eyebrow, the curve of my ears, the line of my jaw. “These are Flora’s eyes, cheeks, ears, face. This is Flora’s face.”
Next, she’d squeeze both my shoulders, not too hard, but firm. “These are Flora’s shoulders.”
More squeezing, of both elbows, my wrists, all five fingers of each hand. Compression, I later learned. My mother was practicing a basic therapy often used for hyperactive children. Basically, a joint-by-joint bear hug, as she squeezed my ribs, pressed against the sockets of my hips, then finished with my knees, ankles, feet.
“This is Flora’s leg, Flora’s knee, Flora’s ankle. This is Flora’s foot. And now, it’s time for all of Flora to GET SOME SLEEP.”
When I was little, I would giggle at the end. And of course, I would beg her to do it again. Sometimes she would. But mostly, I got a peck on a cheek, maybe an affectionate tousle of my hair. Then my mother was up and out, a busy single mom with many worries to tend and chores to complete.
By the time I turned ten, eleven, twelve, the ritual died a natural death. Another stage from childhood passed through. Sometimes, when I was sick or feeling blue, my mother would return again. A quicker, abbreviated version, but just as comforting.
Once I hit high school, my mother teased it was now my turn to tuck her into bed. Being someone who regularly started her day at five, she certainly didn’t stay up much past nine or ten. Sometimes, if I was feeling mischievous, or maybe just missed her, I would show up and make a big production of it. This is Mom’s hair, this is Mom’s eye. Oh my God, what happened to Mom’s face?
If my brother was home, he might even join us. Holy crap, is that really Mom’s hand?
Before long, the three of us would have collapsed with a fit of giggles, my mother at the bottom of the pile, shaking her head. Moments of a family. The kind of thing that somewhere in your heart you know is special, and yet you can’t help but take for granted.
After I was found, my mother arrived at the Atlanta hospital. That first night, she touched my hair. Traced the line of my brow. Followed the curve of my ear. “This is Flora’s face,” she whispered to me.
I didn’t look at her. I kept my eyes open, my gaze fixed on the ceiling. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her hands felt like sandpaper against my skin. And that, far from soothing me, I wished desperately, with every fiber in my being, that she’d just stop.
And yet in the weeks and months to come, on the very bad nights when I woke up screaming again and again, and my brother hovered uncomfortably in the doorway, my mother would take her place on the edge of my bed. She’d once again trace my cheekbones, squeeze my shoulders, compress the joint of my elbows, wrists, all five fingers of each hand.
Slowly but surely, my patient mother would help me find slumber again.
I am asleep now.
But it is wrong, bad.
I need to wake up. I have a sense of urgency, dread. A bad dream. I’m having a bad dream and I need to wake up now. Scream, yell, thrash. Then my eyes will pop open. I will find myself back in my own bed. My mother will be beside me, rubbing my temples even as I flinch. I’m moving. I shouldn’t
be moving.
Wake up, Flora. Wake up!
I try. I will my eyelids to roll up. I order my limbs to jerk to life.
Nothing happens. I can’t move, I can’t see. I can’t find my way back to the safety of my locked apartment or my childhood bed.
A mist. I feel it, cool against my cheeks. I inhale instinctively, wrinkling my nose at the smell.
And then . . .
I am rushing away into the dark. My mother disappears from view, and even if her touch feels like sandpaper, even if I’m the one who constantly pushes her away, I still wish I could call her back.
I need to tell her something.
I need to say I’m sorry.
Wake up, Flora. Wake up!
But I can’t.
I’m moving.
I shouldn’t be moving.
I am in trouble.
Chapter 15
FLORA’S CELL PHONE WAS PASSWORD PROTECTED. No surprises there. Instead, D.D. used her own phone to make the call. Boston FBI field office. Requesting one Dr. Samuel Keynes. It took another three minutes for the operator to take her seriously enough to track down a federal employee on a Sunday. One more minute for Keynes to return her call. From there, however, the rest was a matter of seconds. Yes, he’d returned Flora to her apartment on Saturday. And no, she would never leave her apartment unlocked. He’d be right over.
Which didn’t surprise D.D. at all. She didn’t know much about victim specialists and their interactions with their charges, but it already had struck her that Keynes and Flora had an unusually close relationship.
D.D. had just finished conducting a visual tour of the outside of the apartment, as well as an inspection of the fire escape, when Keynes pulled up.
Keynes was wearing the same knee-length, double-breasted cashmere coat as the day before. How he’d gotten it dry-cleaned so fast, she’d never know, but it didn’t contain the faintest whiff of human barbecue or rancid garbage. Maybe he’d simply willed the odor away. Walking up to the building now, shoulders set, gaze direct, he had that look about him: the kind of guy who could take over the world through sheer presence alone.