"Fade To Black" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parrish Leslie)
7
In the car on the way to Lisa Zimmerman’s mother’s house, Dean forced himself to focus on the unpleasant task ahead. Notifying next of kin was never easy. With a murder case, it was a hundred times harder.
He wanted to focus only on the unsub, on what he might be doing this minute to another innocent victim, but he couldn’t allow himself to. Being distracted by that would make him less effective in his job, and he needed every brain cell in his head focused and in control. And every emotion he had shoved away to be dealt with later.
He needed Stacey to be the same way. Remembering what had happened before Wyatt’s call, when he’d realized just how much she blamed herself for what had happened to Lisa, he wanted to get that out of her head. Though he wasn’t the king of comforting women, and he knew she wasn’t the type who would be interested in being comforted, he couldn’t help saying, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Her hands clenched on the steering wheel.
“Stacey, you know as well as I do that she was dead by the time she was reported missing. There was nothing you could have done to save her, even if she’d been the mayor’s wife and the whole town had been in an uproar over her disappearance.”
“Tell her mother that,” was the flat reply. “Explain to Winnie that the past year and a half of crying and waiting and hoping and praying wasn’t my fault for not really believing something bad had happened to her daughter.”
He knew he shouldn’t, but something made him reach over and touch her shoulder. She flinched, taking her eyes off the road for one moment to glance at him.
“Anybody would have thought the same thing,” he insisted, focusing only on getting Stacey’s head back where it needed to be, in the now, rather than in the recriminations of the past. He squeezed lightly. “I would have. Wyatt would have. With someone like Lisa, who you admitted had disappeared before-”
“I know,” she acknowledged, shaking her head. “But that doesn’t make it right.”
He pulled his hand away, knowing Stacey wouldn’t be forgiving herself anytime soon. Sometime in the future, when they’d nailed this bastard to the wall, maybe she’d give herself a break. But not before then, if he was any judge of character.
Maybe that was one more reason he liked her. The incidents in her past that had forged her into the powerful woman she was today had also instilled a strong moral boundary within her. And the need to make a difference. He found the combination of sexy, sometimes playful, woman over that solid, implacable center incredibly appealing.
It could have been that the steel core inside her had been forged by fire in the heat of brutality she’d witnessed as a state cop. God knew, he’d never experienced anything like she must have at Virginia Tech. And part of him-a big part-wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her for the awful memories that he suspected haunted her.
He couldn’t, of course. She’d never accept that kind of gesture without reaching out for it first.
He only wondered what it would take to make her reach out.
Considering he’d never been able to acknowledge his own emotions about anything in his personal life until that life had been completely disrupted by his ex-wife’s choices, he couldn’t even venture a guess. He just hoped that whenever the moment did come, someone who really understood her would be there to respond.
“Do me a favor, okay?”
“Of course,” he said.
“When I tell Winnie, keep a close eye on her husband, would you? He’s not the nicest man in the world.”
His eyes narrowing, he tried to read between her simple words, wondering if Stacey suspected Lisa’s own stepfather of killing her. That seemed like a long shot, the Reaper being reckless enough to kill someone so close to him. But he’d certainly seen criminals do reckless things. “Of course.”
When they reached the same small, dingy, shuttered house they’d visited the previous evening, Dean noted the beat-up old hatchback in the driveway, as well as a dusty sedan with a smiling laptop logo on the side, and heard Stacey’s slow exhalation. “They’re both here.”
“It’s a rotten part of the job, but you’ll do fine,” he murmured.
When he saw the thin, wasted-looking woman appear in the doorway before they’d even exited the car, however, he had to rethink that. She didn’t look strong enough to carry a gallon of milk, much less hear news of her only child’s murder.
The victim’s mother had obviously heard from her neighbor that the sheriff had come looking for her the previous night. She walked down the steps toward them, looking both hopeful and terrified. “Sheriff?” she called. “You got some news?”
Stacey reached for her hat, which she’d set between the front seats, and put it on her head as she stepped out of the car. It was the first time he’d seen her in it, and somehow it completed the whole image of a strong, in-control professional.
The slight tremble of her lips, however, said a thousand times more about the woman wrapped up in all that professionalism.
His heart twisted in his chest, an unfamiliar sensation that he’d only ever experienced with Jared, when his little boy had been hurt or was afraid. He wanted to soothe her, to protect her, to take this burden from her. But Dean knew he could only cover her back. And be there for the inevitable recriminations and emotional overload once she had done her job and gotten far away from here.
“Can we speak in private?” she asked.
The woman paled, her eyes darting frantically, as if she half expected to see her daughter appear, safe and sound, maybe in handcuffs but okay. Alive. Accounted for.
“Please, Winnie. Let’s go in out of the heat.”
The older woman nodded, twisting her hands in the front of her drab, shapeless housecoat. “All right.”
The house, with its dingy and weather-beaten exterior, was equally as morose on the inside. From the cluttered foyer, he noted that every curtain was drawn, each visible room cast in shadows that defied the bright morning sunshine. As if it weren’t welcome here, as if the whole place were already in mourning.
He supposed it had been, for seventeen months. But for Lisa’s mother, the true mourning was about to begin.
“Winnie, this is Special Agent Dean Taggert, from the FBI.”
He extended his hand. She merely stared at it, as if it were a snake ready to bite. Maybe she thought not acknowledging his presence would forestall the dark news she already sensed was coming.
“Is Stan here?” Stacey asked.
“He’s sleeping. He works nights a lot now.”
“Maybe you should get him.”
“He’ll be mad,” the woman whispered. “Tell me about Lisa.”
Stacey took her hat off, holding it at her side. “We should wait for Stan.”
The two women stared at each other, Stacey resolute, Mrs. Freed visibly afraid. Finally the older woman looked away, knowing in her heart what was coming, wanting to forestall the inevitable moment when reality could no longer be evaded. “I’ll go get him. Have a seat in there,” the woman said, gesturing toward a shadow-filled living room.
They watched her trudge down a hallway, open a door, and descend into what must be a finished basement. Separate bedrooms in the Freed marriage, perhaps?
When she was gone, her slow, aged footsteps growing lighter until they disappeared altogether into the bowels of the house, Dean stepped into the cavelike living room. Cluttered with a mishmash of furniture, it was as hot as an oven despite the closed curtains blocking out the sun. A sad assortment of ceramic figurines covered the surface of the coffee table, shepherds, milkmaids, and farm animals, gathering dust and ignored. The room had an abandoned feel, and he suspected that when Mrs. Freed was in this house, her existence consisted of sleeping, bathing, and eating. Not really living.
Catching sight of a number of framed photographs on the wall above the well-worn couch, he leaned closer. “Lisa?” he murmured, eyeing the sweet-faced little blond-haired girl in school pictures like the ones he had of Jared back at his place.
Stacey joined him, though she looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else. “Yes.”
“I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was so pretty, so innocent,” he said, having to swallow hard as suddenly something clicked in his brain. He recognized it as the moment that came in almost every case, when the victim became a person. Someone’s loved one, someone’s daughter. “Sad.”
“She was a doll,” Stacey admitted through a throat that sounded tight. “I used to babysit her. Can’t tell you how many puzzles we did together right on that table.”
He jerked his attention from the half dozen photographs of the ponytailed child, and stared at the woman standing so stiffly beside him. Stacey had admitted she knew Lisa, just not how well she’d known her. Realizing how much this had to be personally affecting her, he again felt the urge to put his hands on her shoulders and tug her close to enfold her in his arms. He sensed she didn’t lean on anybody very often.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, knowing he couldn’t reach for her, couldn’t make this personal. Not here, not now.
Not until she made it personal.
“I’ve got to catch whoever did this, Dean.” Her voice shook with angry emotion, her slim body suddenly seeming too fragile to handle the weight that had been dumped on it. “I can’t live the rest of my life without catching him.”
Hearing the depth of her frustration, he couldn’t resist putting one hand out, touching the tips of his fingers lightly to her arm. He wanted her to feel the unvoiced support he was offering her. “We’ll catch him. I promise you.”
She glanced at his hand, but didn’t pull away. Instead, she lifted her own and covered his fingers with her soft, capable ones. And in that moment, the touch, intended to be comforting and impersonal, simply became more. It secured an invisible connection between them, reinforcing his promise that he was here and wouldn’t let this case go unsolved. And underscoring her belief in that promise.
It also acknowledged that they both knew there was some personal force at work between them that went beyond the job, beyond the case. Beyond this room in this house.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Nodding and clearing her throat, she ducked away and turned her back on the photographs, as if unable to stand the innocent eyes that he knew she saw as accusing. Glancing at the floor for a moment, then at the figurines on the table, she suddenly stalked back out of the room to wait in the foyer.
He followed, knowing she couldn’t stand being in that room with those memories.
A moment later, Mrs. Freed returned from the basement of the house, still wearing her faded housecoat, but having pulled her hair back off her thin, bony face. The style emphasized the dark circles under her eyes and the haggard folds of skin hanging on her neck. “He’s comin’.” As if realizing they might be curious about why her spouse was sleeping in the basement, she grudgingly added, “Air’s not very good up here. It’s cooler down there, so he sometimes sleeps on the sofa in his office.”
“Understandable,” Stacey said, shifting on her feet. She obviously hated the delay and wanted to get this over with.
Mrs. Freed glanced toward the room they’d just exited, then at Stacey. “Want to go into the kitchen for a cup of coffee?”
Nodding once, her back stiff, Stacey followed the woman, Dean taking up the rear. Though small, the kitchen appeared immaculately clean. With no shades or curtains to darken it to a tomb, it was better, less cloying than the rest of the place.
Gesturing for them to sit at the round table, Mrs. Freed prepared two cups of coffee and brought them over. She pointed at the sugar bowl, plopped a small carton of milk beside it, and mumbled, “I’ll go see what’s keeping him.”
The woman had been morose and frightened when they’d arrived. Now her tension had shifted, worry changing to jittery nervousness, and he wondered just what her husband had had to say to her when she’d awakened him. Was it even possible that her motherly concern had been diluted by the annoyance of an angry husband? Given the few comments Stacey had made about the victim’s stepfather, he imagined so. Winnie Freed looked cowed by life, by tragedy, and also, perhaps, by the man she’d married.
When that man entered the room a moment later, Dean felt sure of it.
“What’s this all about?” the man asked, his tone nothing less than surly.
Stan Freed was a head taller and about a hundred pounds heavier than his waif of a wife. With heavy, bloodshot eyes, a deep frown on his brow, and a belligerent jut to his chin, he obviously didn’t appreciate being awakened.
Stacey immediately rose to face him. “You and Winnie might want to sit down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do in my own house, young woman.”
Dean stiffened, already disliking the man intensely.
Ignoring him, Stacey turned to Lisa’s mother, putting a hand on her shoulder and taking her arm. She gently pulled her forward and helped her down into a chair, then sat directly in front of her. Bent at the waist, with her elbows on her knees, she took Mrs. Freed’s hands in her own. “It’s about Lisa.”
The other woman sniffed, staring at her own lap. Before Stacey said another word, a drop of moisture dripped out of the woman’s eye, slid down her cheek, and landed on the women’s joined hands.
“I’m very sorry to tell you this, Winnie, but we have evidence that Lisa is dead.”
The older woman’s shoulders shook, and the single teardrop was joined by another. And another. But her grief remained silent, pent-up.
“We believe she died a long time ago, probably the same night she disappeared.”
“Well, that’s a fine job you’ve done as sheriff, then, isn’t it?” Stan Freed muttered. He remained stiff and scowling, his arms crossed over his chest, watching the scene as if it didn’t affect him. As if he hadn’t just learned that his stepdaughter, his wife’s only child, was dead.
Dean felt heat rise from low in his body up into his head until his pulse throbbed in his temple. He struggled to keep a lid on it, to not let anger drive him, to avoid giving his temper free rein by saying what he really wanted to say to the man.
Stacey remained remarkably calm, ignoring the husband, focused only on the wife. “I wish this had turned out differently. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
A long shudder racked the woman’s body; her chin jerked; her thin shoulders banged into the back of her chair. She managed to bite out one strangled word: “How?”
Stacey glanced up for a brief moment, meeting Dean’s eye. He offered her what silent assistance he could, knowing she’d be careful in what she revealed.
“It appears she was murdered, Winnie.”
The woman moaned, then tilted her head back, looking at the ceiling. A low, keening wail began to fill the room.
“Knew that girl would get herself killed one day,” Stan muttered under his breath.
Stacey finally put her attention squarely back on the man, leveling him with a glare so heated it was a wonder he didn’t singe.
As if just realizing the hateful words had actually left his mouth, he flushed a little. Then the mean-spirited husband reacted in a somewhat normal way, finally stepping over and putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder and squeezing it. Hard.
Dean frowned. Freed’s hand went white as he squeezed.
“Mr. Freed?” he said, no longer able to remain out of this strange situation, not when he suddenly realized just how cold and detached Lisa’s stepfather appeared about her murder. As if he wasn’t surprised. As if he didn’t give a damn. And that harsh hand on his wife’s shoulder seemed more threatening than comforting. “Why don’t you and I go talk in the other room?”
Mrs. Freed’s hand came up and she covered her husband’s, clawing at it frantically, not letting him go, even though his grip appeared punishing. “Please…”
“I’m not leavin’,” he said to both of them.
Dean nodded in concession, but also held the man’s eye, making sure he knew they would be having a conversation sooner or later. Because Dean was suddenly very curious about Lisa Zimmerman’s stepfather. How they got along. Whether the man had a history of violence. If he’d ever been arrested. Whether he was really going to work at night, as his wife had said he was.
And suddenly, remembering what Wyatt had told him earlier, he found himself wondering if Stan Freed really had been asleep downstairs in his office.
Or if he’d been online.
Mrs. Freed swiped her arm across her eyes. “Who did it?”
“We don’t know yet,” Stacey said. “But we’ll find him. I promise you. We’re working on it; the FBI is working on it; he won’t get away with it.”
The woman shook her head, hard, as if to wake herself from a dream. The low wailing continued, whimpers bubbling up in her throat and falling out of her mouth like helpless coughs. “When can I see her?”
Stacey glanced at Dean again, wariness visible in the tense lines of her face. She’d worried about this moment; she’d admitted that last night. Knowing from experience that some people simply would not accept a loved one’s death without seeing the visible proof, Dean understood completely. Though, in his mind, it was unfathomable to think of a parent witnessing the remains of a child who had been dead for a year and a half.
In this instance, it was almost a blessing that Lisa had not yet been found.
“Mrs. Freed,” he murmured, taking the situation out of Stacey’s hands, “while we are sure that Lisa was killed, we have not yet located her remains.”
The woman’s head jerked as if she’d been slapped. So did her husband’s. They both gawked at him. “Well, how do you know she’s dead?”
“Ma’am, we have irrefutable proof.”
“Maybe it’s not her; maybe she’s not-”
Stacey cut her off. “I saw the proof, Winnie. It’s her.”
“I want to see this proof.”
“No,” Stacey said. “I identified her myself; there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind, and I’ve known her since she was a baby.”
The woman stared, saying nothing.
Leaning close, still holding those tired, trembling hands, Stacey lowered her voice, sounding like a parent comforting a child. “Please do yourself a kindness. Remember your daughter by those photographs in the living room, and mourn the child you raised. I know you have lots of wonderful memories. She was a happy little girl and she loved you very much. Let that be enough. I’m begging you.”
Stan cleared his throat, obviously reading between the lines how graphic their proof must be. For the first moment since they’d arrived, Dean saw a hint of humanity in the man’s hard-eyed stare. His shoulders slumped, and he cleared his throat and mustered a concerned tone. “Sheriff’s right, Win. You shouldn’t be cuttin’ yourself up like that.”
Human tenderness? Or guilt?
Whimpering, Mrs. Freed gave it one more effort. “But what if they’re wrong?”
Dean met Stan’s eye, shook his head once, expressing every bit of confidence that they weren’t.
“They’re not wrong. And you’re not looking at that proof, Winifred, so get it outta your head.” Stan slid his hand across his wife’s shoulders, tugging her hard against his side to underscore his command. She flinched, then allowed it.
That flinch said more than a million words Winnie Freed might have uttered.
If this scumbag hadn’t beaten his wife at least once a week since he’d married her, Dean would give up his badge. Nearly choking on the disgust of it, he had to turn away and stare out the window, noting the decrepit, rusting swing set rising like an ancient ruin from the scraggly, knee-high grass.
Poor Lisa. No safe, happy playgrounds for her. Not for a very long time.
“I promise you, we’ll catch whoever did this,” Stacey added. “And God willing, we’ll find her remains soon so you can bury her.”
The victim’s mother must have heard the resolved certainty in Stacey’s tone. That word
As he entered Brandon and Lily’s joint office Saturday afternoon, Wyatt felt the frustration thick in the air. It was evident in their frowns, the tension of their bodies, the angry jabs of their fingertips on two computer keyboards.
His two IT specialists had been working since just after dawn, trying to keep up with the sick inhabitants of Satan’s Playground. Especially one sick inhabitant. But the site kept throwing up barricades, stumbling blocks that its “legitimate” users obviously knew how to get around. Unwelcome visitors, however, didn’t find it as easy. Even visitors as brilliant as Brandon Cole.
“Have you found anything else?” he asked. He hadn’t checked in since noon, not wanting to pressure the two, who’d put in hours just as long as his own since this Reaper case had started.
“He’s gone. He put up that sign, let the crowd worship him, then disappeared.” Brandon sprawled back in his chair and shook his head. The young man scowled at the monitor in disgust, watching the sick acts taking place all over it. “He crawled back into his hole and hasn’t come out again, though I can tell by the users list that he’s online, watching. Just not participating.”
Or maybe not sitting in front of his computer. But always there, hovering, like some damned malevolent presence.
“Keep trying,” he said.
Lily, he noted, kept her head down, focused only on the long strings of numbers rolling across her computer screen. Her chair was turned, slightly, as if to absolutely ensure she didn’t get a random glance at anything happening on Brandon ’s monitor. Something had hit her hard this morning; he had the feeling it was witnessing the actions of one cartoonishly frightening predator in the Playground, who’d made a great show of taking young children into his gated mansion.
He knew enough about her to know that she wouldn’t let herself be distracted from the job. He also knew that if she had the chance, she’d do whatever she could to bring down the pedophile.
Now, though, her thoughts went in only one direction: toward the Reaper. But the frown of concentration and the curl of disappointment on her mouth said she wasn’t having any better luck with the financial tangle than Cole was with the site itself.
“I’ve been making calls, keeping an eye on all missing persons cases,” Wyatt said. “Nothing new has come in, not yet, anyway.”
“Meaning he hasn’t grabbed his victim?” Lily asked, appearing, for the moment, hopeful. “He usually gives himself seventy-two hours, right?”
True. But Wyatt wasn’t sure he agreed with her. They’d already lost a full day. And they knew their unsub was very careful. He’d allow himself plenty of time to commit his crime, record it, then go over every millisecond of that recording to ensure he didn’t leave anything that might hint at his identity.
He didn’t want to admit it, but Wyatt suspected there was a better than fifty percent chance they were already too late. Just because no young woman had been reported missing in any nearby state didn’t mean one hadn’t already been removed from her life with surgical precision. There could be any number of reasons for a delay in a report-a victim living alone, one who was known to travel. All kinds of possibilities.
“I mean, he’d have to find someone first, right?” Lily said, her usual optimism not allowing her to give up on the idea. “The conditions would have to be just right; he can’t simply snatch a woman the moment the auction is over.”
“Unless he’s had one under surveillance and knows exactly who he’s going to grab each time,” Brandon said. No optimism there. He was thinking along the same lines as Wyatt. “He might have a whole list of possibilities that he keeps tabs on, knowing how and when to make his move, given the location and time of day.”
Wyatt revealed something he’d just discovered when scouring through every word of the case files. “One of the victims told a friend she’d seen a strange-looking guy in a long black coat watching her a few weeks before she was snatched. The friend didn’t think too much of it, until after the victim’s body had been found.”
“Oh, God,” Lily murmured, a stricken look appearing on her face.
“He wouldn’t leave anything to chance,” Wyatt explained, gentling his tone. “In every previous case, he’s known exactly where and when to strike to minimize the possibility of witnesses. In one case, he shot out surveillance cameras. He doesn’t leave anything-like waiting to choose his prey-until the last minute. I don’t think the unsub would have scheduled the auction if he didn’t have his eye on his next victim.”
The two computer experts remained momentarily silent, acknowledging what he was saying. Then both, as if sharing the same mind, spun in their chairs and went back to work, more determined than ever to find something they could use to stop the nightmare.
Stacey and Dean spent much of the morning in the stifling little house on State Street. They told Lisa’s mother what they could, offering few details, but a lot of comfort and promises of justice.
And they asked questions.
These people knew Lisa the best. If there was a personal connection between her and her killer, here was the best place to start trying to find it. They needed to learn everything they could about the men she’d dated, those she’d fought with, anything that might have been a motive for murder.
So far, they’d learned nothing Stacey hadn’t already known about the young woman.
“I don’t know who her boyfriends were,” Winnie said, probably for the tenth time. “She was a popular girl; she was so pretty. Nobody would want to hurt her.”
Stacey didn’t quite accept prettiness as the reason for Lisa’s popularity. And she knew plenty of people who had reason to dislike the young woman. But she let it go.
Across the kitchen, Stan mumbled something, apparently in response to his wife’s statement. It wasn’t the first time he’d had an under-the-breath comment. So far, nearly all his answers had held a note of belligerence, and more than once he’d made a disparaging remark about his stepdaughter.
Seeing the way the cowed woman’s eyes constantly shifted toward her husband before she answered anything, Stacey finally had enough. “Winnie, why don’t you and I go into Lisa’s room to talk, while Special Agent Taggert gets a few details from Stan.”
Her husband immediately began to object. Winnie, though, leaped from her chair. “Yes, yes. Her room. It’s exactly the way she left it.”
“Win…” Stan said, his voice holding a note of warning.
“Mr. Freed, if you wouldn’t mind,” Dean said, smoothly distracting the man by stepping between him and his wife. “I really would like to talk to you.”
The older man frowned. “I need to go shower and get ready for work.”
Work. Hours after being informed of his stepdaughter’s murder. That really ought to go on his husband-of-the-year application.
“I’m sure they’ll understand if you’re late, given the circumstances,” Dean said, somehow managing to disguise the disgust she suspected he felt. His quick, unguarded glance in her direction confirmed it.
“I’d appreciate more information about how your stepdaughter got the keys to your car. You said she borrowed it without permission?”
Mr. Freed was well and truly distracted. “More like stole it,” he spat. “And that’s a company car; I don’t own it, and if she had gone out and wrecked it, I could have been fired. After all I did for her, she didn’t even care that we could end up on the streets.”
To Stacey’s knowledge, the house belonged to Winnie. She’d certainly lived here before her first husband had died, and had come into some kind of insurance settlement after that drunk driver had killed him. Where that money might have gone was anyone’s guess.
“All right, then,” Dean said, “let’s go discuss it.”
“Fine. Do you want to go outside and look at the car?”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
Stacey blessed the distraction. Stan had seemed reluctant to get out of earshot from his wife, almost as if he feared what she might say. Now, he seemed focused only on sharing his grievances about his stupid car.
She suddenly wondered if Stan’s employer provided other vehicles for their tech guys. Like pickup trucks… It was worth checking out.
“Come on,” Winnie said, only a small furrow of her brow revealing what she thought of her husband’s actions. Stacey suspected she’d gotten quite adept at hiding her feelings. And her pain.
Following Winnie down the back hallway, Stacey steeled herself for whatever they might find in Lisa’s bedroom. She had no doubt Lisa had been doing drugs and hated the idea of finding paraphernalia in front of her heartsick mother. But when Winnie pushed the door open with a creak, and she stepped inside the immaculately clean room, she sucked in a shocked breath.
Because it wasn’t just in the same condition it had been in on the day Lisa had disappeared. It was the same as it had been when she was a child.
The twin-size bed was made with a frilly pink cover and a profusion of lacy pillows. Wide-eyed, pink-lipped dolls sat on a white wicker rocking chair in the corner. A bookshelf laden with childhood titles stood beside a small dresser sized for a young child’s hands to open. Framed prints of butterflies and puppies hung on every wall.
Stacey’s breath caught in her throat; she could neither inhale nor exhale. She could only stare as the awfulness of it washed over her.
It was as if Lisa had stopped growing-stopped aging-at around the age of twelve.
The only concessions that an adult woman had lived here were the closet, which contained jeans and sheer blouses, spike-heeled boots, and carelessly tossed lingerie. And the faint, lingering scent of cloying perfume emanating from the bottles on the dresser.
“Neat as a pin, my Lisa was,” Winnie mumbled. She stood in the middle of the room, unwrapping her arms from around her body only long enough to gently smooth the soft, fluffy bedspread. A half laugh, half sob burst from her throat. “Except for her closet. Never could get her to keep that closet clean. I think she liked it cluttered and dark because she’d go in there and play cave explorer. I’d find her in there all the time when I’d get home from work, even when she was a teenager.”
Hiding in the closet. God in heaven, was it really possible this woman had had no idea what was happening in her own house, to her own daughter?
Stacey found it hard to speak, but somehow managed to ask, “Did Lisa say anything to you, before she died, about anyone who might have threatened her? Or frightened her?”
“Everybody loved my little Lisa.”
“She was a sweet child.” Knowing she needed to tread a fine line, she still said, “But we both know Lisa had her troubles when she grew up. Those died with her, but they could still mean something. I need you to be honest now, and think about the way things really were right before she disappeared.”
The older woman’s mouth tightened into a tiny, dime-size circle. If Stacey pushed her into thinking about the way her daughter had really been, she might not cooperate at all. So she proceeded very carefully. “Had Lisa been feeling all right?”
“Of course.”
“No illnesses?” She thought of the teenage pregnancy scare, wondering if Lisa’s mother had ever even known about it. “No signs that anyone had hurt her in any way?”
“Hurt her?”
“Yes. She didn’t appear injured-bruised, did she?”
Winnie’s right hand instinctively moved up, rubbing her left arm below the shoulder before flinching in obvious discomfort. If that housecoat was sleeveless, Stacey would lay money a large bruise would be visible on the woman’s parchment-thin skin.
Stacey shoved her hands into the pockets of her khaki trousers to keep from fisting them in visible anger.
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Winnie snapped. “She was just fine.” Lowering her voice, she mumbled, “I took her to the doctor all the time when she was growing up. To make sure…”
“To make sure of what?”
The woman’s head rose defiantly. “To make sure she was absolutely healthy and nothing was wrong with her.”
So Winnie Freed had suspected.
“You can talk to the health clinic downtown; I’ll give permission if you need it. Lisa was troubled; I’ll admit that. But she was not being hurt in any way. By anyone.”
“Okay, then. I’ll try to stop by and see if they can tell me anything Lisa might not have felt comfortable talking to you about.”
Winnie’s pale face lost what little was left of its color, as if she were more frightened of that mild threat than she’d been of anything else. But the good mother still existing somewhere deep inside of her must have wanted to know the truth, too. No matter how painful. “All right. You do that.”
Stacey knew she wasn’t going to get much more from the woman, but she couldn’t walk out of this house without making an effort. So she asked a few more questions, steering clear of the triggers that might make Winnie shut down-including anything suggesting that her daughter had been abused, perhaps right here in this house.
Finally, though, knowing she’d gotten as much information as she could, she had to push one more time. “So that night that Lisa disappeared,” she said, casually flipping pages of her notebook instead of looking at Lisa’s mother, “you and Stan were where?”
“Right here.” Winnie’s coldness could not disguise her sudden nervousness as she twisted her hands together.
“All night?”
The woman thought about it, biting so hard into her bottom lip Stacey thought she would break the skin. “Oh, I remember now,” she said, her face flushing with color. “I had a little accident, fell down the porch steps going outside to watch for Lisa. Stan had to run me up to the emergency room in Front Royal.”
“Okay, then,” Stacey mumbled, putting the notebook away. She already knew it would do no good, but her job, and her sense of humanity, demanded that she try to help the defeated woman. “What about you?” she murmured, intentionally looking away, as if fascinated by Li sa’s doll collection. “Have you been seeing the doctor?”
“For what?”
Stacey brushed the tips of her fingers across one plump, blond curl on the head of what she remembered was Lisa’s favorite. “You haven’t been looking well, Winnie.” Finally turning her head to meet the woman’s stare, she added, “I’ve been worried. So has Dad. Is there anything we can do to help you?”
Winnie’s mouth opened and closed twice. Her lips quivered, her jaw, too. She blinked rapidly, the thin lashes doing little to get rid of gathering tears. As if the idea that she might have friends, people who cared about her, who might help her, were almost too much to grasp. Finally, though, she cleared her throat and jerked her head up and down once. “Yes. There is.”
Stacey waited.
“Find my daughter so I can bury her. And catch her killer.”
 |
Stan Freed stood on the sagging front porch of the crummy little house he hated and watched that bitch of a sheriff and the nosy FBI agent get into her squad car. His hands gripping the railing, he forced himself to remain there, nodding his thanks as they backed out of the driveway. That was the normal thing to do.
Above all, Stan liked things to appear normal.
It was only once they were well down the block that he let go and saw the impression the wooden railing had made on the insides of his big hands. Splinters protruded from the puffy flesh of his palms and his fingertips. He hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t felt any pain. He’d been too focused on grabbing something, needing to remain in control. Keep cool. Stay normal
Everything would be fine if he didn’t lose his head, kept things going the way they had been. The cops couldn’t prove a thing. Winnie knew better than to shoot off her yap, even if she did know something, which she didn’t. And the only other person who knew a damn thing was dead and rotting. So there was no reason to panic. No way could that little bitch reach out from the grave and ruin his life now, after all this time.
Lisa. How he’d loved her. How he’d hated her. She’d been so beautiful, so perfect, an angel.
Then she’d grown up to be so hard, so ruthless, a whore.
He’d wanted to give her the world once, and she would have taken it. She might have pretended otherwise, but she had loved him, too. And she’d wanted him. It was her nature; she’d liked what they did in this house when her mother was at work or asleep.
Until she got older and began whoring herself out to other men. She’d started resisting, calling him names, acting like she hadn’t been into it all along. And had laughed in his face just a few days before she’d disappeared.
“ Stanley?”
He stiffened at the grating sound of his wife’s whiny voice. God, how he hated it. Hated her. Hated everything about this place, where he’d been trapped for eleven years. If only he’d found out exactly how much-or how little-insurance money she’d gotten after her first husband’s death before he’d married her, rather than listening to rumors. His life could have been so different.
“ Stanley, please…”
“Quit whining, woman,” he snapped as he spun around and entered the house. He slammed the door shut behind him with enough force to shake the frame. “Just quit your goddamned whimpering and let me think.”
She’d been standing in the front hall, still wearing that ugly rag, her face red and splotchy from the tears she’d shed over her no-good daughter. And suddenly, he couldn’t even stand to look at her.
“I’m going to work,” he growled, heading toward his room.
She reached for his arm. “No, please.”
He threw off the touch, backhanding her across the cheek for good measure. And she shut up. Like usual. “Have my lunch ready in a half hour.”
He didn’t bother turning around to see whether she’d hop to it and obey him.
Because she knew what would happen to her if she didn’t.
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