by Lisa Gardner
“My professional opinion?” he offered.
“By all means.”
“The manager, Jocelyne Ethier, had a relationship with Devon Goulding.”
“Seriously? That’s all you got? I’m just a city cop and I figured out that much. Woman scorned. Practically had it tattooed on her forehead.”
Keynes shrugged. “She lied. The question is, did she lie because she was embarrassed, or because she has something more to hide?”
“Yet another question to contemplate in the small hours of the morning. The problem is we have too many questions. We need information. Fresh, tangible clues.”
“Which is why I’m here.”
“You brought me a fresh tangible clue?”
“I brought you information. Regarding Jacob Ness.”
“Jacob Ness is dead.”
“Yes,” Keynes agreed. “But his daughter isn’t.”
* * *
“WHAT’S RELEVANT ABOUT this information is that Flora never provided it.”
“What do you mean?” D.D. asked.
“I debriefed Flora while she was recovering in the hospital. She struck a deal. She would tell her story. One time. To one person. Then, never again. She chose me for the honor. Then she talked. And talked. And talked. Four hundred and seventy-two days. She had much to tell. And yet for every story, every horror, every revelation . . . I would never say I know everything that happened between Flora and Jacob. For each anecdote Flora revealed, I could tell there were others she held back. That’s not atypical with survivors. They’re traumatized, shell-shocked, and, in many cases, guilt-stricken.”
“Because they survived? Or because of what they did in order to survive?”
“Take your pick. Either way, guilt is guilt.”
D.D. leaned forward. “The lead FBI agent, Kimberly Quincy, mentioned she still had questions about everything that occurred during Flora’s captivity. Something about other traces of hair, DNA belonging to other women, recovered from a box he had in the back of his rig.”
“Flora would not be the first kidnapping victim coerced into helping target other victims.”
“True.”
“Do you know what the hardest part about survival is, Detective?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Living with it. Every rescued person I’ve ever debriefed. They were so sure if they could just escape, just get through the ordeal, they’d never complain, never want, never suffer again. My primary job is helping them understand that won’t be the case. Survival isn’t a destination. It’s a journey. And most of the people I help, they’re still getting there.”
“Killing off one perpetrator at a time?” D.D. asked dryly, considering Flora’s crime spree.
“Four hundred and seventy-two days. Much of it locked in a coffin. Do you really think you could handle it any better?”
D.D. scowled. She didn’t have an answer for that, and they both knew it. “So, the daughter.”
“The FBI recovered many samples from Jacob’s hotel room and his long-haul rig. As SAC Quincy revealed, we found DNA evidence belonging to others. One sample was identified as being female, and bearing markers consistent with Jacob himself. In other words, a daughter.”
“You found DNA from Jacob’s own daughter? In the wooden box?”
“From cigarette butts littered on the floor of the rig.” Keynes lifted his leather attaché, extracting a file. D.D. took it, then, glancing down at her desk, realized she was officially out of room for new paperwork.
“Who is she?” D.D. asked, finally positioning the file crossways on another stack of God knows what.
“We never figured out. The DNA didn’t match with anything in the system. Agents ran down birth certificates, et cetera, but never found any records bearing Jacob’s name. Of course, it’s possible he was never listed as the father. And since we don’t have an approximate age, it’s hard to be more exact in our search of hospital databases—assuming the hospitals have computerized all their old records. Many small rural hospitals haven’t.”
“What about following up with Jacob’s known love interests, checking with them about a possible child?”
“The Devon Goulding problem,” Keynes said.
It took D.D. a second; then she got it. “You mean Flora killed Jacob, meaning you can’t ask him for a list of prior relationships. Girl’s good at tying up loose ends.”
“Jacob Ness flew under the grid for most of his life. A brief stint in prison. But other than that, he was a loner, driving from state to state in his big rig, his only permanent address being his mother’s house in Florida. According to Flora, in the beginning at least, she was kept in a basement room—”
“There are basements in Florida?”
“It’s primarily slab construction. Which makes us believe Jacob left the state almost immediately after the kidnapping. He mentioned to Flora that they were in the mountains of Georgia, but we’ve never been able to pinpoint an exact location. When Jacob worked, his movements were tracked by a computer system used by all long-haul truckers. Jacob was an independent contractor, however, and he spent weeks at a time not working at all. During those periods, we don’t know where he went. According to Flora, he had a penchant for crashing at cheap motels in small southern towns. But we’ve never been able to retrace all of his movements.”
“More questions he can’t answer and she won’t tell?”
“I don’t know if Flora has the answers,” Keynes said bluntly. “Hard to get your bearings, locked in a box.”
“Good point.”
“We know Jacob moved around. Mostly in the South. We know he didn’t return to his mother’s house during the time he had Flora. But we also know, at some point he met up with his daughter. Happily, unhappily, we have no idea.”
“What’s Flora’s official position?”
“Jacob was partial to prostitutes. She doesn’t know anything about a daughter.”
“He had his own personal sex slave and he was still hiring prostitutes?”
“Jacob Ness was a sex addict. Claimed it wasn’t his fault he was a monster.”
D.D. didn’t have words for that. She could tell by the hard set of Keynes’s jaw that neither did he.
“But you think Flora is lying. You think she knows something about the daughter. Why?”
“Small things. Do you know about the postcards Jacob sent?”
“Some.”
“The messages ran toward irony. Met a handsome guy, when, in fact, Flora had been kidnapped by Jacob. Amazing views, when, in fact, she was locked in a box.”
“Got it.”
“Last e-mail Rosa received: Made a new friend. Very sweet, I know you’d just love her.”
“You think that’s a reference to Jacob’s daughter,” D.D. said. “Which, if he’s describing her as sweet . . .”
“I asked Flora about it directly. She wouldn’t respond. Judging by the completely blank look that overtook her face, perhaps she couldn’t answer. The more I pressed, the more vehement became her denials. She had an emotional response to my questions, even as she sought to distance herself from the answers.”
“And if there was no daughter, why would she care?”
“Exactly.”
“Given that the cigarette butts with DNA were recovered from the floor of Jacob’s cab, that seems to imply a relationship. The woman wasn’t stashed in the back in a box but sitting up front, smoking. A meeting of equals. Maybe even father-daughter bonding. Could Flora have felt threatened?”
“Possible.”
D.D. frowned, picked up the file Keynes had brought her, which was painfully thin. A profile of a woman with no name, no address, no known associates. Just genetic markers indicating her half match to a sexual deviant.
“Why are you bringing this up now?” she asked Keynes at l
ast.
“You keep implying I know things about Flora I’m not telling. You also seem to feel Flora’s recent disappearance might have something to do with her first abduction. I don’t know. Personally, I have more questions than answers at this point. But I am concerned about Flora. And despite what you think, I’m being honest. Anything, everything Flora has ever told me, I have shared. That’s my job, Sergeant Detective. I’m not a shrink. I’m a victim specialist. Flora knows this. Which is yet another reason why she never told me about Jacob’s daughter.”
Keynes nodded at the file. “You now know everything I know about Flora and her time with Jacob. It’s not complete. It’s not perfect. But I’m hoping, for Flora’s sake, it’s enough.”
“A virtually empty folder on an unidentified woman?” D.D. picked up the file. “This isn’t a piece of information. It’s another damn question!”
“You wanted to know everything. And now you do.”
Keynes rose to standing, retrieved his coat.
“Flora didn’t run away,” he stated.
“I know.”
“Meaning if she’s gone, someone took her.”
“But not the building inspector,” D.D. conceded with a sigh.
“And not Devon Goulding,” Keynes said, “who was already dead. Which leaves us with?”
“A connection. Someone who knew the victims, but also knew Devon Goulding.” D.D. looked up at Keynes. “Someone who either partnered with Devon on the original abductions or was inspired enough to keep on going.”
“A connection,” Keynes agreed.
D.D. stared at all the mounds of paperwork on her desk and realized it was up to her after all. Because she was the central keeper of information. Each detective wrote up his or her piece. It was the sergeant’s job, however—D.D.’s job—to study the whole.
“I have to get to work,” she muttered.
Keynes smiled, left her without another word.
Chapter 38
THE CORRIDOR ISN’T LIT, and yet is somehow lighter than our shuttered room. Standing with my body halfway behind the door, peering warily down the hall, it takes me a few moments to figure it out. There are no windows, no overhead lights. Hence the relentless gloom. But neither are the walls painted black, enabling some sense of lightness, though maybe mostly in comparison.
I count four doors in addition to mine. One next to this room, two across the hall. The final door is at the end of the hall. Maybe leading to a staircase? All are closed, so it’s hard to know.
I don’t see any signs of life. Nor do I hear footsteps approaching, noises from other rooms, levels. The hall isn’t long; four rooms isn’t many.
A house, I think. We are in a house. How many stories there are, which level we’re on, I have no idea. If we’re still in Boston, most of the construction is triple-deckers. Common living space would be the first floor, bedrooms on the second and third. I would guess we’re on the third floor, as far away from the common areas—where neighbors or guests might hear us—as possible. But I don’t know anything, and my roommate isn’t exactly talking.
Confronted by the empty hallway, dotted with dark rectangles of shuttered doors, she is shaking uncontrollably, her hand pressed to her injured side.
My first instinct is to get us down the hall to the end doorway, which I’m guessing leads to a stairwell. Over. Down. Out.
Somehow, I doubt it will be that simple.
The girl—Stacey—is staring at the closed door directly across from us. She shakes harder.
Which is when I start to get nervous. What’s behind that door? What does she know that I don’t?
I wish I had a weapon.
I don’t like guns. I still remember that last day, the weight of the .45 in my hand . . .
I don’t like guns. But a Taser, pepper spray, even a good old-fashioned baseball bat would make me feel better right about now.
I have a bent mattress coil in my hand. Guess it will have to do.
As I creep silently out from behind the door. Leave my pitch-black prison for the first time in . . . Well, I have no idea.
I don’t go left. I don’t go right. Instead, responding to Stacey’s continuous shudders, I cross the hall, wrap my hand around the doorknob, and pull.
The door opens out into the corridor, just like ours did. It enables me to keep my body positioned behind it, half protected from whatever wild creature might leap from its yawning black depths.
I yank. I step back. Stacey hisses sharply and . . .
Nothing.
No sounds. No activities. No humans or animals appearing from the void. I peer around the door, study the depths more intently.
The room is dark, dark. Like ours was. Same blackout paint job, which makes me wonder what else might be similar. All of my explorations of my room never revealed a light switch. So now I feel along the hall next to the doorway and, sure enough, find the switch out in the corridor. I flip it on.
Stacey shrieks. I snap my eyes shut, my fingers scrambling belatedly to reverse the light process. Off, off, off.
Light burns, burns, burns. We can’t handle it.
We’ve already spent too long in the dark.
I’m breathing heavily. Behind me, Stacey is too. I wait for the sound of pounding footsteps, alerted by Stacey’s shriek. The animals are out, have escaped from their cages! Get them!
But the house remains still. Eerily so.
It makes me anxious. No house is this quiet. Just like no room should be that dark. What is this place? And what has happened here?
I’m starting to panic. My breathing is irregular, my heart pounding in my chest. The room in its own way was comforting. A defined void. And, frankly, a fairly luxurious one for a girl once confined to a coffin-size box.
But a house, an entire house with shuttered rooms and unseen levels and unknown quirks . . .
I fist my hand, force myself to focus. Are you tired, are you hungry, are you cold, are you in pain?
No? Then you are okay.
I am okay.
And I’m going to get out of here.
The light went on. The room lit up. What did I see? I try to recall, but I can’t. Just an impression of blinding brightness, like a blowtorch in front of my retinas. I take a deep breath. If I’m going to figure out what’s in that room, I’m going to have to flash the light again.
“Look away,” I instruct Stacey. I lower my own gaze, then once again work the switch.
I look sideways first, still blinking hard against even the ambient glow. Behind me, Stacey is doing God knows what. She whimpers but at least doesn’t scream this time.
I count to three, then:
I glance up swiftly, register the room, snap the light back off.
Both Stacey and I breathe easier, and now I understand her anxiety about that space. It had contained a thin mattress, plastic bucket, and a length of chain dangling from the ceiling.
I turn to her.
“Was that your room?”
It takes her a moment. She nods. Which makes me glance down the hall, to the two other closed doors.
“And those rooms?” I ask her.
She shrugs, appears more miserable. She is struggling. With evidence of her past captivity, with the hope of new escape, I don’t know. But in the gloom, her face is pale and shiny, like a waxy moon.
Maybe she has an infection. Maybe she’s dying right now while I stand here and interrogate her in the middle of the hall.
I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
I keep my ears attuned for any sign of approaching noise, clutch my mattress coil tighter, and advance to the next door.
There are locks on the outside, but near the top of the door frame. I didn’t notice on the first door because I hadn’t looked up that high. Now I realize all four doors have external latches, placed hi
gh. None of them are bolted shut, however.
Why? Why have locks but not use them?
My uneasiness increases again as I approach the next closed door, position myself behind it, and yank it open.
Same pitch black. Some external switch snapped up for a brief, blinding flare of light. Same contents. Bare mattress, heavy chains.
I’m starting to see the theme of this house; it’s not a happy one. And now, for the final piece of the puzzle: the closed door next to my room.
Stacey isn’t talking. Stacey isn’t moving. She simply stands in the hallway, clutching her side, sagging on her feet, as I do the honors.
This is the room with the viewing window. The room where I assumed our abductor liked to hang out, enjoy the show. And now? Is he waiting inside, still one step ahead? I’ll open the door and he’ll . . .
Taze me, drug me? Laugh his head off at our pathetic attempt to escape?
My hand is shaking. It pisses me off. I don’t want to be scared or anxious or intimidated.
I am not hungry. I am not tired. I am not cold, thirsty, hot, or in pain.
I’m okay.
And I’m going to do this.
Door open. Flick light on. Snap light off.
I inhale sharply, exhale fully. Then I shut the door and return to Stacey. No Evil Kidnapper. No bogeyman hiding in the dark. Instead, I saw behind this door exactly what I’d spotted behind the first two. Which brought us to four rooms, counting my own, with four blackout paint jobs, four mattresses, four buckets, and four tethers of chain.
Two of us.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
Stacey looks at me. She opens her mouth. She closes her mouth.
Then, just like a marionette whose strings have been cut, she collapses soundlessly to the floor.
* * *
I HEAD STRAIGHT FOR THE DOOR at the end of the corridor. The exit, most likely to the building’s staircase.
I tell myself I’m not running away. I tell myself I’m not abandoning a young girl I’ve already stabbed in the ribs.
I’m getting out. I’m finding help. It’s the sensible thing to do. Come upon an injured person, first thing you do is dial 911. Well, I don’t exactly have a cell phone on me. Hence, I’ll go out and fetch help.