Deep Hurt

by Eva Hudson

  Ingrid didn’t respond.

  “Marcus thinks I flirt with Kyle.” She tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Silly sod. I flirt with every bloke who comes into this place. It’s part of the job. It doesn’t mean anything. Especially not with Kyle.”

  Ingrid wriggled forward in her seat again but didn’t speak.

  Sherwood looked towards the door. “I don’t want Marcus to find out about this.” She tipped back her head and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments. “I feel so stupid about it now.”

  Ingrid maintained her silence.

  Sherwood puffed out a steadying breath. “A few months ago… Oh God. I’m only telling you this because it might change your opinion of Kyle…” She took another deep breath. “A few months ago I made a pass at Kyle. I was a bit tipsy. The kids had finally won a match and everyone was celebrating. Kyle and I were getting on really well. I misjudged the situation.” She put a hand across her eyes. “I can still picture the shocked expression on his face. He didn’t need to say anything—it was clear I’d crossed a line. Kyle might join in with a bit of banter now and then, but he only has eyes for one girl.”

  Ingrid made no comment.

  “You do know I’m talking about Carrie?”

  “Actually I’d heard things had been a little… difficult between Kyle and Carrie since Molly was born.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I really can’t divulge—”

  “No—I don’t suppose you can.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “Kyle mentioned it a few times. He confided in me, I suppose. It’s what made me think that he might be interested in…” She shook her head. “What a bloody fool I was.” Sherwood leaned in towards Ingrid. “Can this stay just between you and me? I’m only telling you because I want you to understand that Kyle and I became quite close. That’s how I know he couldn’t do what you say he did.”

  “Tell me what happened between Carrie and Kyle after Molly was born.” While Sherwood was in a confessional mood, Ingrid hoped she could squeeze a little more information from her.

  “I’m not a doctor, I couldn’t tell you. But I suppose Carrie had a touch of the baby blues. I know she didn’t sleep much when they brought Molly home from the hospital. Not for months. I think the sleepless nights took their toll.”

  “Do you know if Carrie went to see the doctor about it?”

  Sherwood was just about to answer when Gurley strode back into the room. Why couldn’t he have stayed in the car?

  “Yvonne?” Ingrid said gently.

  The woman was clearly distracted by the sight of Jack Gurley heading toward her. “What?”

  “Did Carrie visit the doctor?”

  “Why don’t you ask her about it?” she snapped.

  Ingrid knew that the interview had come to an end. Gurley’s reappearance had seen to that. She got to her feet. “Thank you for your frankness.”

  “What happens now? Should I expect a visit from the police in the early hours?”

  Ingrid was inclined to keep the police out of the picture for now. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t get much more out of Sherwood than she had. Although the prospect of prosecution might make the woman more forthcoming, Ingrid decided to hold the threat of police involvement in reserve.

  “Not at all. We’ll be in touch.”

  30

  On the drive back to the base Ingrid got Gurley up to speed with what Sherwood had told her. “You agree we hold back on informing the police about her involvement?” she asked him when she was done.

  “I’d like to keep them out of the picture until we’ve come up with our own strategy for what we do next.”

  “We will have to tell them something, though.”

  “Let’s sleep on it, deal with that whole pile of crap in the morning. Agreed?”

  “OK.” The idea of getting some sleep was suddenly so appealing to Ingrid, right then she might have agreed to anything Gurley suggested. But she knew her day wasn’t nearly over. She still had a whole lot of her own crap to confront.

  When they reached the base, Gurley personally escorted her to a guest room he’d had prepared for her in advance. As soon as she closed the door behind him, Ingrid collapsed onto the single bed and took a moment to focus on her next task. It was already well after midnight. If she didn’t act now, her first chore would have to wait until the morning.

  She eased herself upright then carefully retrieved the pill she’d found in the Fosters’ bathroom cabinet from her pocket. She then grabbed her cell phone from her purse and called Natasha McKittrick.

  “Bloody hell—what time do you call this? Is everything all right?”

  “I need a quick favor.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I need you to identify a drug for me.”

  “Me?” McKittrick exhaled noisily. “What makes you think I can help you?”

  The hostility in her friend’s tone took Ingrid by surprise. “You told me you were on a prescription drugs bust a little while ago. Sounded to me as if you knew a little something about the subject. Did I get that wrong?”

  The line went quiet, but Ingrid could hear McKittrick breathing. “Natasha? Have I said something out of line?”

  “No—you woke me up—that’s all. I can get a bit tetchy. Sorry.”

  “Hey, no problem. I’m sending you a photo of the pill now.” Ingrid found a sheet of plain white writing paper on the bureau next to the door, carefully placed the small capsule on it so that the writing printed on the side was clearly visible and snapped a couple of shots with her phone. She sent them to McKittrick. “You get them yet?”

  “No—where did you find this pill, anyway?”

  “Bathroom cabinet of Kyle Foster.”

  “What does it say on the bottle?”

  “The bottle was unmarked—you think I’d be calling otherwise?”

  “OK—the pictures have arrived. Give me a second.” A few moments later she was back on the line. “It’s an anti-depressant. A bit like Prozac with knobs on. You think Foster was taking them for his PTSD?”

  “The therapy he’s been getting is the cognitive behavioral kind. Do you know if there are any common side effects to these drugs?”

  “Like most of this class of drugs: disorientation, fainting, drowsiness maybe.”

  “Not exactly ideal if you’re a pilot.”

  “Maybe that’s why they were in an unmarked bottle. Perhaps he’s been getting some unofficial extra help with his problem.”

  “How easy are they to get ‘unofficially’?”

  “If you have the contacts, it’s no problem at all.”

  Ingrid couldn’t imagine how Kyle Foster would have the right connections to get hold of prescription drugs and wondered what other secrets he might be keeping.

  “Are they something he’d need to keep taking? Are there any withdrawal symptoms?”

  McKittrick paused a beat before answering. “You can’t just stop them dead. Otherwise you might suffer severe mood swings, maybe even suicidal thoughts.”

  Ingrid thought about Tommy. If Kyle Foster were that volatile, it wasn’t surprising he’d lashed out at his eight-year-old son. “I don’t think the police found any drugs in the hotel room.”

  “Maybe Foster keeps some with him all the time.”

  “But if he has stopped taking them… does that mean Tommy is at risk?”

  “Foster might not even have any withdrawal symptoms. But it could affect his stability, his judgement.” McKittrick yawned.

  “I really did wake you up.” Ingrid glanced at her watch.

  “Nothing shameful about getting to bed early on a school night.”

  “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “It’s OK. Try not to make a habit of it, will you. Do keep me posted, though.”

  “We’re not making much progress.”

  “I don’t mean with the bloody case. I want to know what’s happening with you and my detective constable. What kind of
spell have you put on him?”

  “I genuinely do not know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh yeah, right.”

  “Look—I’ve got to go. Pleasant dreams.” Ingrid hung up before McKittrick had a chance to protest. As she sat staring at the phone, she wondered if she should tell Gurley about her discovery. She quickly decided it was something that could wait until the morning.

  She put the phone on the nightstand and started to get ready for bed. In the bathroom she was pleasantly surprised to discover toothpaste, soap and shampoo. The US Air Force knew how to treat their guests.

  While Ingrid cleaned her teeth, hoping to let her mind drift, she started to think about the mp3 attachments Mike Stiller had sent her. She’d managed to keep any thought of them buried all day, but now she was on her own, with nothing else to distract her, their presence on her phone was harder to ignore.

  She thought about the phone sitting innocently on the nightstand. Now she’d started to consider the content of Mike’s email, she knew it would be impossible for her to get to sleep until she’d at least listened to one of the interviews.

  She quickly finished up in the bathroom, changed into her tee shirt, turned off all the lights except the one on the nightstand and picked up her phone. Mike’s email was easy to find—it was the only one in her private mail account flagged as both urgent and important. She stared long and hard at the mp3 attachments before summoning the courage to open one of them. When she did, the recording started playing automatically. She hit the pause button, not quite ready for what she might hear.

  She grabbed a bottle of water from the nightstand, slowly drank a third of it, then hit ‘play’.

  The first voice she heard was a man’s. He had a thick Kentucky accent. He introduced himself, a colleague, and the interviewee for the purposes of the recording. The sound quality wasn’t good. There was a low background hum and the voices sounded distant. As Ingrid strained to make out the words, she jotted down a few notes. The start of the interview merely covered the basics: name, date and place of birth and date of abduction. The twenty-eight-year-old woman, Karla Anderson, then quickly went on to describe the basement where she’d been held captive, unprompted by the two agents. She seemed anxious to convey just how bad her living conditions had been for the last fifteen years.

  It took Ingrid a little while to notice she had started to cry. It wasn’t until tears had actually started to dribble around her jaw and down her neck that the dampness registered. She found a Kleenex in her purse and dabbed her eyes. She wasn’t sure whether she was crying in sympathy for the woman’s plight or if she’d been imagining Megan Avery in the same house, forced into the same deprivation and depravity.

  When the interview moved on to the other women and girls being held, Anderson had nothing to say at all. “First I knew I wasn’t there on my own was when I was taken to the hospital in the same ambulance as another girl. Soon as I laid eyes on her I knew she’d been through the same things I had. The pain in her eyes, you know? I could see it plain as day.”

  “You thought you were alone in the property with your abductor?” a female agent asked.

  “He was the only person I spoke to in fifteen years.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “He didn’t wear a mask, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Can you give us a description?”

  “Why do you need me to do that? You know what he looks like. I can identify him no problem—just tell me when.”

  The recording fell silent.

  “What, what is it?” Anderson asked, the panic in her voice building. “Wait a minute. You have arrested him, right? You do have him locked up?”

  “At this time, the suspect is not yet in custody.”

  “Sweet Jesus. How could you let him get away?”

  “Have no doubt, Miss Anderson, we will arrest him. How quickly depends in part on the detail of the description you can give us.”

  Ingrid heard a muffled sob, then a louder one.

  “Please, Karla. We know you’ve been through so much. But the sooner you give us the information, the faster we can get him behind bars.”

  “OK. Where should I start?”

  “How about height and build?”

  “He’s skinny… wiry, I guess, only a few inches taller than me, I’m five-foot-six. No, wait. That’s how tall I was when I was fourteen. Maybe I grew since then.”

  Ingrid heard a distant rustling of paper.

  “You’re five-foot-nine.”

  “I am?”

  “You don’t remember the nurse measuring you during the medical exam?”

  “I guess I had other things on my mind.”

  “What else can you tell us about him?”

  “He’s white, but tanned, like he’s spent a lot of years outside. He has tattoos on his arms, from the middle of his forearms right up almost to his shoulders. Old style ones, like you’d see on some old sailor or something. He has greased-back dark hair, going gray a little above his ears. Long sideburns.”

  “Does he have an accent?”

  “Southern. Couldn’t say which state, though.”

  “Did he ever talk about where he came from, originally?”

  “He always said he was from everywhere. Real proud of the fact he lived like a gypsy.”

  “A gypsy?”

  “He traveled around the country, always moving from state to state, he said. Until he came here. And decided to settle down.”

  “What was he? Some sort of salesman?”

  “No! He told me he managed the roller coaster at a traveling carnival.”

  Dear God.

  Ingrid closed her eyes. Her head started to buzz. An intense heat rose from the middle of her chest up into her neck and head. She couldn’t breathe.

  A traveling carnival?

  It had to be the same man who took Megan.

  31

  The next day Ingrid rose early. She was dressed and making her way to the officers’ mess for breakfast before seven.

  The previous night she had continued to listen right to the end of the mp3 recording, then listened to the whole thing again, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Then she’d called Mike Stiller, impressing upon him once again the importance of the DNA test for the third woman.

  “I’m still working on it,” he’d said. “You have to trust that I’m doing everything I can here.” He’d sounded pissed that she’d interrupted the ball game he was watching.

  “The more I hear about this case, the more convinced I am that this guy took my friend. Is the investigating team getting any closer to finding him?”

  “They’re making some progress. That’s all they can tell me.”

  By the time she’d hung up on him and laid her head on the pillow, her mind was swirling with images of carnival men, tattoos, bright lights and contorted half-smiling, half-grimacing faces. She could taste the sweetness of cotton candy at the back of her throat and hear the off-key steam organ music all jumbled up with the screams of people on the roller coaster. It hadn’t taken much to transport her back eighteen years and four thousand miles. Mike Stiller had to come through with more information for her. He just had to. The waiting and not knowing whether or not the third victim was Megan was getting harder with each day that passed.

  Halfway through breakfast a Security Forces sergeant came to her table and told her Gurley was waiting for her in his office. Five minutes later she arrived at a single-story cinder block building that looked like a bunker from WWII.

  She was met at the door by another uniformed sergeant, this one a woman, and led through an outer office to an interior door. The sergeant knocked twice and opened the door without waiting. As Ingrid stepped inside the inner office she saw Gurley sitting behind a wide metal desk, his back to her, his chair facing the wall. He was on the phone, but he wasn’t speaking. After a moment he swung around to face her and held up a forefinger indicating he’d be another minute. Ingrid decided to fill the t
ime by looking at the framed photographs hanging on the wall next to the door. They all featured Gurley posing with high ranking officers, various Secretaries of Defense, and even one or two ex-presidents. Gurley hadn’t struck Ingrid as the boasting kind, so an array of his claims to fame arranged on the wall like a collection of hunting trophies seemed a little out of place.

  Gurley slammed down the phone. “Sonofabitch!” He took a breath. “Him, not you,” he said, staring at the phone.

  “Something to do with the Foster investigation?” Ingrid asked.

  “No—Air Force bureaucratic bullshit. I should be used to it by now, but it still pisses me off. It’s a waste of time and money.” Gurley stood up and stretched his arms above his head. For a moment Ingrid was sure his knuckles would graze the ceiling. “I didn’t ask you last night,” he said, “did you get a sense from Sherwood that she thinks Foster is likely to stay in the area?”

  “I don’t think she was lying when she told us she has no idea what Foster’s plans are. Without the supplies and the cash from Sherwood, I guess Foster has fewer options.”

  “I wouldn’t be taken in by her story.”

  “I have done this before, you know. I can get a sense when somebody is lying to me.”

  “Well, I don’t trust her. I’m planning on keeping her under surveillance today, just in case she gets any ideas about helping Foster again.”

  “I’m not staking out the pub. It’d be a waste of time.”

  Gurley folded his arms across his broad chest. “I had no intention of asking you to. I’ll get a couple of my team to check it out.”

  “Good, waste their time instead of mine.”

  The landline on Gurley’s desk started to ring. Its tone sounded particularly shrill as the noise bounced off the cinder block walls.

  “Excuse me.” Gurley snatched the handset and turned away from her. “You’re saying he’s on the line right now?” He glanced over his shoulder at Ingrid. “Of course you should patch him through. Set up a trace on the call, as fast as you can.”

  Ingrid ran around the desk. “Is it Foster?”

  Gurley nodded.

  “Put the call on speaker phone.”

  Gurley narrowed his eyes, clearly reluctant to comply with her request. “He called to speak to his superior officer. His superior officer has transferred the call to me. Foster doesn’t know who the hell you are.”