Anna stepped out onto the metal side-wall stairs that ran down the side of the building. “Hey.”
With his arms resting lazily on the railing, the man flicked his cigarette into the gravel side street below. “I don’t know nothing.”
“I’m not a cop,” Anna admitted, joining him beside the railing. She looked out past the apartment filled with the lower class sector and at the murky Arkansas River, the Victorian-style historical district, and far-reaching farmlands in the distance.
“You’re a concerned citizen. Right,” he replied sarcastically. A black teardrop tattoo rested below his eye. More body art ran down his neck and arms. Country-born by the fishing cap, but deep urban lifestyle. It was an odd mix in a town like Van Buren.
“Private investigator,” Anna admitted. “I’m looking for the girl from apartment 216. Know her?”
The man turned to her, looking her up and down. “Nah.”
“Nothing?” Anna pressed. “You don’t want to show up on the witness stand, fine. I’m only after the girl. Whatever happens after isn’t yours or my problem.”
The man cracked a twisted smile. “It never was my problem.” He turned back. “You’re that chick from TV. The one with the freak brother? Yeah, I recognize you. They said you set up the whole Keisha Rines kidnapping for five minutes of fame.”
“The media says a lot of things,” Anna retorted. “I’m only after the girls. Can you help me, or are you going to help some pervert steal children from your home?”
The man paused. Subtle sympathy fractured his cocky resolve. “Alright, I saw something.”
Anna listened intently.
“White dude, wearing a cap and sunglasses like a shady mofo. I was coming back from the store when I saw him chase a little girl out here. I didn’t know if he was the father or something, so I let it slide.” With a guilty frown, he turned to Anna. “You think he’s the same dude that took the Rines girl?”
“It’s looking like it. Did he ever come back for the mother?”
The tattooed man thought for a moment and shook his head. “I was inside the rest of the night, preoccupied.”
Anna looked out at the small side street alleys and left corner of the parking lot. “He went this way?”
“Yeah.”
Anna thanked him and traveled down the metal stairs. She ended on a small side street and looked both ways. Scanning the gravel, she spotted two sets of tracks. The footprints had a slide to them, revealing that both parties were running. Anna jogged parallel to the path, careful not to disrupt it. Eventually, the footprints came to an end at a patch of road where the gravel was kicked out in all directions, like the young runner was slipping on ice.
Anna’s own abduction flickered in her mind. The feeling of helplessness as she was grabbed and dragged. She shut her eyes, stowing the memory from when she was fourteen. When she opened them, she found that the trail had gone cold. At walking speed, the gravel wouldn’t be molested enough to warrant a track.
Police cars lingered in the parking lot along with more locals, standing inches out of sight and exchanging whispers amongst themselves. The presence of cops kept them close, but not too close.
“It could’ve been a lot worst. You’re lucky,” the EMT told Grace as he bandaged her head up. Wincing, Grace sat on the back doors of the ambulance. When she saw Anna approach, Grace pushed away the medical technician
“Well?” she asked anxiously. Her eyes were big, tired, and full of trepidation. “Anything?”
Anna fumbled with the words. “I-I’m afraid Lily was taken.” Saying them made it worse.
“No…” Grace’s shoulders slumped as she whimpered.
Anna took her hand. “I’ll get a hold of Evan. You need your rest.”
“Why would someone do this?” Grace asked no one in particular. “She’s only nine years old.”
Anna didn’t have an answer. She kept strong for Grace, but inside, she felt like she had swallowed hot blades that tore into her heart and belly. An attack on her own blood couldn’t be put into words and sure as hell wouldn’t be forgettable. View it as every other case, Anna told herself. You must stay level-headed. Thoughts of Dade County came to mind. Her walk out of the south Florida townhouse with bloodstained clothing and a rescued teenager in her arms.
The EMT checked his watch. “We need to get going.”
Grace didn’t move.
“Go on, now.” Anna let go of Grace’s hand and smiled sadly. “I’ll contact you as soon as I find something.”
She repeated it a second time before Grace wiped away a tear and climbed into the ambulance. The EMT followed. Rubbing her fingers up through her brunette hair, Anna watched Grace trembling upright in the gurney, the life and will sucked out of her angular face. The ambulance eased out of the parking lot and into the night. Reluctant to share the news, Anna contacted Evan.
“It’s hers, isn’t it?” Evan said fiercely. “That finger you found on the night of my release?”
Anna struggled with the right words. She shut her eyes, pain thundering between her temples. “We don’t know yet.”
“You better stop him, Anna,” Evan replied. “Or I swear, I’ll do it myself, and it won’t be quick or pretty.”
“I’ll find him and Lily,” Anna promised. “No one escapes justice forever.”
The other side of the line went silent for a moment. “I’ve seen enough in my travels to know that’s not always true.”
Anna agreed but needed to stay hopeful, for her family’s sake if not her own. “Stay with Grace. She needs you by her side.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious. Crash at a hotel if you must, but no running out at late hours or going places alone. That has to stop. At least until this case is closed.” She looked back at the ugly apartment. “I have to go.”
“Yeah… me too.” Evan hung up.
Anna took a deep breath and folded back in with the officers. She entertained the thought that the two attacks could be separate events. After all, one was expertly planned and the other had been messy. Just like Keisha and Lily. Night and day.
More and more locals gathered around the parking lot, and it seemed like everyone living in the tenement was either outside in groups of four or more or watching from their windows like ghastly specters. The night had gotten louder and the crowd more restless. Though Van Buren was a small town of twenty thousand, there were still homes and lower income trailer parks that the police were inclined to avoid. This was one of those places. Anna overheard officers exchanging judgmental chatter. The locals glared at them violently, refusing to speak.
“Perfect,” Greenbell grumbled. “Our only witnesses would rather eat glass than talk to us.”
“So now that a white girl goes missing, you’re finally interested in our problems,” the bug-eyed woman from room 214 said to the sheriff.
Greenbell turned red with anger. “We work day in and day out to keep this community safe. You know how much sleep I’ve gotten since Keisha Rines went missing? A total of eight hours in five days.”
“That chick doesn’t count,” a man from the crowd replied. “She has more money than all of us. You want to get her so you can have a taste of the money.”
A few joined him in their heckling.
“Back off!” an officer yelled.
“What? You going to shoot me?” a man from the crowd shouted back.
Anna did not need this right now. She needed witnesses. She needed to find her niece, not deal with the latest squabble. She jogged to Greenbell and pulled him aside. “Stay on task.”
“Can you hear what they are saying?” Greenbell ignored her. “They’re what’s wrong with this town.”
Anna thought about bringing up the crap she dealt with in Miami but couldn’t see the use of pulling out measuring sticks now. “Lily Kendale and Keisha Rines, that’s our problem. Not this.”
In the distance, press vans came screaming down the road. The news reporters hopped out of the back of the
van as the cameraman and sound guys fixed microphones. Wonderful. Anna watched them with lifeless eyes.
“We are on site where a second abduction has occurred…” a reporter started as the local crowd pulled away from the cops and gathered around the camera. They smiled ear to ear, knocking into each other to fit into the frame. An idea sparked. Anna approached the local rabble. One man at the back of the gathering peeked his head over the others to get a better look at the reporters. Anna tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to turn around with a snap. He loomed over Anna by nearly a foot and snarled at her.
Anna faked a smile. “How would you like to be on TV?”
While questioning an apathetic witness off to the side, Rennard spotted Anna moving the tall man to the front of the crowd. He returned his attention to the woman before him. “Anyone you know watch the news?” She grinned, and Rennard started gathering his own witnesses.
With a few choice words with the producers, Anna got her man in front of the camera. She stepped out of the frame, drew out the notepad on her phone, and let the reporter do the talking.
“You were here the night of the attack?” the reporter asked and brought the fuzzy mic to the man’s mouth.
With a giddy smile, the man nodded. “Uh, yeah. I heard it before I saw it. The little girl screamed and ran down the hall. A man chased her down the fire escape.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Very tall. About my size. And white, with a crew cut. He was screaming about something.”
“Did he have any distinguishable features?”
“Uh... what’s it called when you have two different eye colors?”
“Heterochromia.”
“That’s your man,” he turned to the camera. “And if we see you around here again, we’ll make sure a little girl is the least of your problems.”
“Thank you for your time--”
“Wait!” A local shouted and elbowed his way to the front of the line. “He’s lying. That ain’t what the man looked like.”
“You ain’t seen a darn thing, Carl!” the first witness shouted with a pointed finger.
The second man leaned into the reporter's microphone. “He’s lying. The guy that took the girl was a short fella. Five foot. Black as night. I’d seen him around days before. Lingering in the shadows, chatting on the phone. You know, creepy shi--stuff.”
“No, no, no!” A woman from the crowd shouted. “The guy had a mask and baseball bat, kicked in the door and grabbed the girl. He even came back for the mother.”
“Yeah. I saw that, too!” another said.
The first witness boiled. “You’re all liars.”
Anna lowered her phone and watched everything unfold with an agape mouth. More and more “witnesses” pushed their way to the front of the camera. Apparently, everyone saw a different man or woman attack Grace and take Lily from her apartment. The stories devolved into convoluted movie plots where the abductor wore elaborate disguises, had three other partners, and in one story, had a hooked hand and scar over his milky eye.
Sheriff Greenbell pinched the bridge of his nose and directed each of the witnesses to the sketch artist in the event that one of their stories might have some basis in reality. Anna looked for any similarities in the tales, but all details were either extreme or too mundane. After three long hours, they headed back to the station.
“Well, that was a frick’n debacle,” Greenbell stated and sipped his coffee.
Anna turned her attention from the evidence whiteboard to the window where another witness was escorted out of the station. “I’m sure Pinky got a kick out of it.”
“Pinky?” Agent Rennard asked, typing on his laptop keyboard.
“That’s what the media calls him,” Anna explained as she looked over the notes on her phone. “Every victim he takes, he always starts with the pinky.”
Rennard stopped tapping the keys. He looked up at Anna and Greenbell. “I’m sending you both a link.”
Anna pulled up the website on her smartphone. The website design was outdated and bland and contained a news article from ten years ago published by the local press in Hannibal, Missouri. In silence, the three of them read it.
A child prodigy, female, eight years old, and master painter, went missing after showcasing her artwork in a gallery. Her parents got no demand letter, only paintbrushes left on their doorstep.
“Sounds familiar.” Greenbell traded looks with the others.
“Keep reading,” Rennard said.
The fourth paintbrush was discovered in the police mailbox. The next six appeared in seemingly random locations throughout the town. After the lead detective found the tenth in the glovebox of his car, the case went cold. Three days later, his house caught on fire with him and his wife trapped inside. The autopsy revealed that the couple had their throats slit before the fire began. The child painter was never found.
Rennard directed them to a different web page. Six years ago in Nowata, Oklahoma, an eleven-year-old theater actress vanished after her biggest show. This time, her teeth appeared on the doorstep. After ten teeth were delivered, the gung-ho officer and his family on the case were gunned down in their home before the house caught fire. The child actress was never found.
Greenbell sank into a chair and cursed under his breath.
“He’s getting bolder…” Anna mumbled.
Rennard lowered his laptop screen without shutting it. “That’s all I got for now. I’ll keep searching though and make a few calls. Someone from Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team must’ve taken these cases.”
“I’ll contact…” Anna glanced at the author of the second article. “Terrence Lindon.”
“Will he pick up at two in the morning?” Greenbell asked.
“One way to find out.”
The sheriff headed outside for a smoke while Agent Rennard slipped into an unoccupied interrogation room to make his calls.
Anna found Terrence's website. Shoe marketing, cashmere sweaters, and flashy graphics, he’d traded journalism for ad copy. Looking over the glamour shot of Keisha Rines on the whiteboard, Anna made the call.
She rested the ringing phone against her shoulder, hearing a tired, “Hello?”
“I apologize for calling you this late, my name is Anna Dedrick. I’m a private investigator with questions regarding an article you wrote in 2011?”
“Bugger off,” the man growled and then hung up.
Anna sighed and redialed.
“I said bugger off!”
“It’s about the actress, Caroline Saxton,” Anna said swiftly.
Terrence went quiet for a moment. “What about Saxton?”
“I want to know everything about her case.”
“You got coffee?”
Anna looked at her half-empty mug. “Sure.”
“Good. ‘Cause it’s going to be long night.” Terrence grunted and mumbled a few choice words before saying, “I assume you already know about the abduction and the, uh… teeth, but there’s more to the story.”
Putting the phone on speaker mode, Anna uncapped a marker and found a clear corner of the whiteboard. “I’m listening.”
“After the tenth tooth was found, the detective on the case was murdered along with his brother-in-law, son, and wife.” A refrigerator opened. “Not a clue or no clear motive outside of his involvement in the Saxton case. What the papers didn’t tell you is that there was evidence discovered, just not until a few weeks later. The house was only partially scorched, you see, and the realtor was keen on cleaning the place up and put it back on the market. That’s when she found the message.”
Anna’s hairs stood on the back of her neck. “Message?”
“Painted in crusty blood on the inside of the chimney was the word Cain. I thought to myself, now that deserves a follow-up article, so I brought a draft to my editor. He shared the same enthusiasm as me, but only for a day.”
“What happened?”
“Someone left a ring box on his front por
ch. Inside was a note with his daughter’s name on it. He gave me a call, begging me not to run the story. I asked why. He told me the truth, packed his bags, and moved out of state. I called him over the next few days. Not a peep. He’d vanished. Him and his daughter. I took the warning and moved to New York, gave up my journalism career for advertisement copy.”
“Did this Cain guy ever threaten you?”
“No. But I’ve not been stupid enough to get in his way. I’d advise you to do the same… By the way, why are you calling?”
Anna dreaded saying it. “Two little girls are missing. Their fingers were delivered in red velvet ring boxes. We’re on number four.”
Terrence chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Anna asked.
“It’s utterly hopeless, don’t you see? You won’t find those girls. No one will, and once the tenth gift is delivered, he’ll be coming for you, Ms. Dedrick. No one escapes him. No one.”
The door swung open. Anna twisted around, hand reaching for her weapon, belatedly remembering she left it in the truck.
Pale and wide-eyed, Agent Rennard stood in the doorway. “I found something.”
Anna snatched her phone from the ground. “Terrence?”
He’d hung up.
“What did you find?” Anna asked, feeling caffeinated from Rennard’s abrupt arrival.
“You know how the detective’s house in the child painter’s case burned down? One of the floorboards recovered from the ash had a name carved into it.” Rennard paused, hesitant to give the word power. “Cain.”
5
Adversary
Anna and Sheriff Greenbell gathered around Rennard’s laptop as he typed “Cain” into the FBI database. Dozens of abductions, assaults, and cold cases flashed on the screen. Each had the letter C or word Cain carved into the wall, spelled out on refrigerator magnets, or taped together out of collaged magazine headlines. Pictures of prepubescent girls from the mid-West crowded the monitor. Each shared a commonality: stardom. All the cases went cold after a few weeks. The girls were never found. Rennard and Anna expanded the geo profile, adding Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, west Tennessee, and Illinois to the list.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 48