by Stacy Green
“The county isn’t plowing the roads that lead to private access. Which means John had to barrel through big snow to get to the cabin. That’s why he took the Tahoe instead of his car.” Nikki pointed to the tire tracks cutting through the deep snow covering the private road.
Nikki parked as far onto the shoulder as she could. “We’re walking from here. Otherwise we’re likely to spook him.”
She and Liam checked their weapons, expecting to have to confront John, and gathered extra ammunition. Bitter cold made her bones ache, but Nikki left her heavy coat in the car, opting for a lightweight jacket she could easily move in. She pulled her wool hat low on her forehead and tightened the scarf around her face.
Liam pocketed his phone. “Courtney said John’s the sole owner now. She left the Cities about an hour ago. And she double-checked property records—the cabin’s the only address on this road. It’s a dead end.”
At least they wouldn’t have to worry about not having a signal to contact her. She and Liam trudged through the heavy snow along the edge of the road.
“There’s only one set of tire tracks,” Nikki said. “Whoever made them is still at the cabin.”
The cabin’s peaked roof emerged through the bare trees. No smoke came from the chimney. Most of the places up here had gas furnaces, but Nikki had no way of knowing if John had lit the pilot light.
Her maternal instincts flared at the thought of poor little Bailey being stuck in a freezing cabin, terrified of the person who was supposed to protect him.
The Tahoe was parked in front of the cabin, blocking their view of the door. They crouched behind the vehicle, and Nikki motioned for Liam to stay put. She inched around the right side, ready to shoot if John ambushed her.
Her teeth chattered with cold, yet her scalp prickled from sweat beneath the wool cap. Her breath unfurled in wispy clouds. She clapped her hand over her mouth. Had the blinds in the single front window moved?
She held her breath. The blind shifted again, a space appearing between two of the plastic slats.
“He knows we’re here.” Nikki shifted into a better position, ready to take a shot if she needed to. She took a deep breath. “John, it’s over.” Her voice sounded fragile in the freezing emptiness. “I’m not up here alone. I’ve got backup, with more cops on the way. Amy told us everything.”
If John realized he’d broken his wife’s jaw, Nikki’s bluff might piss him off enough to open the door.
“We just want Bailey safe.” Nikki moved closer to the front of the vehicle. “Let him go, and we’ll deal with this mess later.”
Would she really allow him to run? He had the money and resources to disappear, especially if he didn’t have a small child in tow. Trading a chance to escape over Bailey meant her parents’ killer may never be held accountable. Her parents hadn’t seen justice in twenty years. Bailey was just an innocent little boy with his whole life ahead of him. And Amy Banks didn’t deserve to lose both her children.
“John, I swear to you, let Bailey walk out of there, unharmed, we’ll take him somewhere safe. You can run. I’ll keep hunting you, but letting Bailey go will give you a fighting chance.”
The cabin’s door trembled. Nikki held up her left hand, signaling for Liam to get ready. The old door continued to rattle until the swollen wood finally broke loose and opened.
Nikki’s heart jammed in her throat and nearly swallowed her.
Bailey stood in the doorway, dressed in a snowsuit and boots. His blond hair stuck up in the back, as though he’d taken off his hat.
“Bailey, can you walk out to me?” Nikki asked. “Your daddy’s going to let you come home and see Mommy.”
Bailey shook his head. “Daddy’s not here.”
Was John playing some kind of trick?
“I’m going to take a look around,” Liam said quietly.
Nikki waited until he’d slipped around to the other side of the Tahoe. “Where’s your daddy?”
Bailey shuffled outside, his heavy snow pants slowing him down. “He said he had to leave. He messed up and was in trouble. That I should wait for you because you’d figure everything out and come to get me.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“He didn’t stay after we got here. He just said you’d come.”
Liam appeared on the other side of the small cabin, pink-cheeked. “Footprints leading away from the back door, men’s boots, single track. There’s a small storage shed, too, but the footprints go past it, and it’s locked tight.”
Bailey looked up at Nikki, increasingly nervous as they towered over him. “Agent Hunt, can I see Mommy now?”
Forty-Three
Bailey refused to leave Nikki’s side, so they walked back to the jeep to get her coat while Liam searched the cabin. She wanted to scoop him up in her arms and hold him tight, but she wasn’t sure she could contain her emotions if she did. Bailey gripped her hand as they picked their way down the icy road. His nose was pink from cold.
Nikki knelt in front of him and zipped his coat so the big collar covered the lower part of his face. “Try to keep your face tucked into this. The wind’s going to chap your face.”
His watchful blue eyes studied her. “Why did you have a gun?”
Lacey had asked her the same question after she’d discovered Nikki’s gun case in the back of the jeep. “I’m an FBI agent. Sometimes I have to deal with people who want to hurt me or others. I carry the gun in case I have to protect myself.”
Bailey looked up at her with serious eyes. “You were going to shoot my dad.”
“No,” she said. “But cops have scary jobs, so we have to be extra cautious and assume the person we’re looking for might try to hurt us.”
“Is Mommy okay?”
“She’ll be all right.”
“Daddy was so mad at her.” Bailey’s voice shook. “I never seen him that mad.”
Nikki tried not to shiver. “What happened?”
“Mommy kept yelling at him about Maddie and her friend. She said that he did it, and he was going to admit the truth.” Tears ran down his chubby cheeks. “Did he really hurt Maddie and Kaylee?”
Nikki wiped his tears with her gloves, unable to shake off the guilt. She shouldn’t have made Amy think that John had hurt the girls until the fingerprints came back. If she hadn’t let her need for personal justice get the better of her, this likely would have all been avoided. “No, I don’t think he hurt her. And he’s a good daddy, right?”
Bailey nodded vehemently. “The best.”
“Do you remember the night you found those pictures?”
His eyes popped wide. “I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
“I understand, but I’m trying to help you and your mommy, remember? I can’t do that if you don’t tell me everything.”
“They were in a big box.” He looked up at her solemnly. “Like the kind printer paper comes in.”
“Why did you open the box?”
“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “But I knocked the lid off when I was playing. I shouldn’t have told Mommy about them. That’s when everything went bad.” His lip quivered.
She held his shoulders. “You didn’t cause any of this, I promise. After you found the pictures, did you tell your mom?”
He nodded. “She looked at them and then got really mad.”
“Do you know if she looked through all of them?”
Bailey chewed his lower lip. “She told me to go play in my room.”
“Did you?”
“For a little bit, but then I snuck back to Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom. The door was mostly closed, but I peeked.”
“What did you see?” Nikki struggled to keep the nerves out of her voice. Bailey had been through enough without thinking he’d said something to upset her.
“Bunches of pictures all over the bed. Mommy was looking at them and crying.”
“Were the pictures printed out like the ones that go in frames? Like does Mommy ever take a picture with her pho
ne and then have it printed out and framed?”
Bailey nodded. “I think there were lots of those. But there were square ones. Like thick and kind of old-looking.”
How did she describe a Polaroid picture to a kid his age? The technology would seem ancient to him. “Did they look like the picture had been printed on a thick, plastic-like white material? Like the actual picture was framed in white?”
He nodded. “Those were weird. Mommy was really upset about those.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No,” he said. “But she kept picking them up and staring, like she was trying to figure something out. Mommy saw me in the door and made me go back to my room. Then I heard Maddie come home. Mommy told her to come here.”
Nikki worked to keep her face and tone neutral. Amy had shown Madison the pictures. “Did you hear what they talked about?”
“I heard Mommy crying and Maddie yell. Not at Mommy, though. Just like really surprised. And Mommy kept asking about her.”
“Who’s her?” Nikki kept waiting for him to tell her he might have seen a picture of her in John’s box. Maybe she was giving herself too much credit, since twenty years had gone by. She definitely didn’t look anywhere near sixteen now.
“I don’t know,” Bailey said. “She just kept asking Maddie if she was sure that was her. She kept saying yes,” he said, playing with the end of his mittens, concentrating hard in an attempt to remember. He reminded her of Lacey when she’d had a bad day at school and was making sure not to miss a single detail. “And then Maddie came back and told me everything was going to be okay. But it wasn’t. She was angry every time she saw Daddy. And then she and Kaylee were gone.” His eyes welled up.
Nikki’s heart broke for the little boy. “I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes really bad things happen, and it’s no one’s fault.” She took his hand and led him to the jeep.
Forty-Four
Bailey finally agreed to watching a movie on the DVD player in the jeep as long as Nikki drove it up to the cabin. She needed to examine the cabin and Bailey wanted to be able to see her. He was still scared, and with the visits that Nikki had made to Bailey’s house in the last few days, she was the person he felt the most comfortable around. After updating the APB on John, she enlisted one of the Mille Lacs County deputies to keep an eye on him and joined Liam and Courtney inside the cabin.
“I can’t imagine multiple families staying here.” Courtney’s equipment took up half the floor space. “Even if there are three bedrooms. Where do the kids sleep?”
“Didn’t you ever go camping as a kid?” Liam asked. “Who cared about sleep?”
“I prefer indoor activities, thank you very much.”
“Kids are usually stuck sleeping wherever there’s room,” Nikki said. “Probably on air mattresses.”
In addition to the three bedrooms and single bathroom, the cabin had a decent-sized kitchen space that opened into a carpeted living area.
“Smells like mothballs and dust.” Courtney ran her gloved finger along the dirty windowsill. “I think it’s been a while since anyone stayed here.”
Nikki looked through the bag of groceries John had left on the counter. Fruit, cereal, bread, plus ham and cheese. He’d also left two gallons of water and a couple of blankets Bailey said his dad always kept in the truck.
“He never intended to hurt Bailey,” Nikki said. “He likely took him on the spur of the moment and then panicked. So, he gives him enough to keep him warm and fed for a couple of days and then leaves.”
“Counting on you to find Bailey quickly,” Liam said. “That’s a risk.”
“He must have known we’d find the cabin in his financials. He’s the sole owner, right, Court?”
“Bought the other guy out after Robert Vance’s death. The third friend, Larry, moved to Illinois to stay with family a couple of years ago. He’s got pretty bad Parkinson’s and didn’t use the cabin anymore. Says he hasn’t spoken to John since then.”
“He locked the Tahoe,” Nikki said. “But it does have OnStar. It would have taken a warrant, but we could have located him using their GPS. John surely knew that.”
“Agent Hunt?” One of the county deputies ducked his head into the doorway. “We got into the storage shed. Something you guys need to see.”
Dread weighed her down as they followed the deputy out back through the knee-high snow. They reached the open door, and Nikki’s stomach hollowed out.
A chest freezer sat against the back wall with its lid propped open. Another deputy snapped pictures of the inside.
“Did you find blood?”
“Some,” the deputy said. “And a fake fingernail.”
Nikki glanced at Courtney, and they both pushed past the deputy.
“It’s big enough he could have put one on the bottom and stacked the other on top, like we thought.” Liam stood behind them, able to look over both their heads.
The medical examiner believed most of Maddie’s bleeding would have been internal, save for her superficial wounds. But she’d torn her skin to leave the initials on her arm.
“Pink shellac nail.” Courtney used tweezers to extract the nail that had been partially stuck in the dried blood. “It’s definitely the same kind Madison wore when she died.”
“But this makes no sense,” Nikki said.
Liam looked at her. “It’s pretty clear to me. He brought her to the cabin, killed her, then stashed her until he thought it was safe—”
“That’s just it,” she said. “John’s the sole owner of this cabin. The storage shed has electricity and the shed is locked. Those girls could have stayed hidden in that freezer for years. Why dump them? And why aren’t his fingerprints on Maddie’s belt?”
“Perhaps he unraveled. Panicked. We agree the killer has been getting more and more desperate. It makes sense that he was struggling with what he’d done before we even got here. Perhaps someone else does use the cabin. Maybe John had an accomplice,” Liam said. “What if the second mark on Maddie’s arm was an unfished ‘T’? As in Todd.”
Nikki stopped what she was doing and stared up at him. “What?”
“The first initial on Madison’s arm could have been an unfinished ‘R’ instead of a ‘P.’ If the second was an unfished ‘T’—”
“Rory hasn’t even been on the suspect list.”
“What’s to say he wasn’t involved?”
“You’re not thinking clearly at all,” Nikki said. “There’s nothing that ties him to either girl.”
“But he helped you get to that conclusion,” Liam said. “He’s hung around you, showing up at the right times. Is his being involved really that far out there?”
Nikki knew people. She would have seen something in Rory. But she’d been wrong about John.
“He’s a local. How hard would it be to get information on John? How well do you really know the guy? Honestly, if he wasn’t good-looking and being so nice to you, wouldn’t you be asking the same question?” Liam held up his hands before she could respond. “That came out wrong, but you know what I mean. Hell, I don’t even know what I mean.”
Nikki paused. Nothing Liam had said made sense, but Nikki was beginning to question her own instincts. Was it worth her asking the question?
Forty-Five
Lacey was fast asleep by the time Nikki called later that night, and she told Tyler to let her sleep. Nikki just needed to see her little face and hear that she was safe. Tyler had heard about Bailey’s abduction on the news and wanted to hear all about his rescue, but Nikki had been too tired to tell him anything but the bare minimum.
They’d dropped Bailey off at the hospital after leaving the cabin. Amy was recovering, and Amy’s mother had gathered her sleeping grandson in her arms and breathed him in. Nikki had watched as her wrinkled hand cradled the back of his head as she promised him that Mommy would be okay, and that Grandma and Grandpa would take good care of him until Mommy was ready to come home.
She found herself driv
ing to Rory’s house and she sat in the jeep for a while with the lights off, wondering what the hell she was doing.
Nikki was sure that Rory couldn’t be involved, but she wouldn’t be able to rest until she’d talked to him. Liam had questioned her too many times, and she needed to prove to him that he was wrong about Rory.
Sleet pelted Nikki’s face as she knocked hard on the door. Rory had probably been in bed for hours. She knew construction workers got up early, though tomorrow was Saturday. Wasn’t it? Nikki realized she had no idea what day it was.
Go home, for God’s sake, a voice told her.
The door opened, and a shirtless Rory stared down at her. His hair was even more wild than usual, standing on end. His thin flannel pajama pants left little to the imagination.
“Nicole, it’s two a.m.,” he said, his eyes half closed.
“I know,” she replied. Sleet dripped off her face. “I have to ask you something.”
“It couldn’t wait? Or did you just really want to see me?”
Her face burned. “It couldn’t wait.”
He smiled and opened the door.
Nikki’s heart pounded as he shut the door, his back muscles flexing. And even then, she couldn’t help but wonder about his cologne. God, she was tired.
“What did you want to ask me?”
She’d come to ask if he was capable of killing two teenaged girls and an innocent young woman because she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Liam’s theory. But now she was at his house in the middle of the night, and facing him, she couldn’t even bring herself to say it.
“Nicole?” Concern laced Rory’s husky voice, and Nikki wasn’t sure what she should do.