by Lisa Gardner
I have a scar. Long and searing across my temple into my hairline. And my left eye and the corner of my mouth droop, my face appearing slightly melted. But I don’t mind my scar. In the middle of the night, I trace the thick ridges with my finger over and over again. This is my mother. The last piece of her I will ever have. Like the special pottery she had from her own mother. You don’t have to own many things, you just have to have the right things.
“Run,” my mother said.
But I didn’t. I turned. I reached out my arms for her.
The crack of the bullet. My mother falling, myself falling.
The Bad Man standing over me.
Girl, fetch that.
Quiet as a mouse, I do, I do, I do.
* * *
—
I HAVE MY ROOM. A tiny closet with a thin sleeping pad and two threadbare blankets. I sleep in my clothes, because once I didn’t and I was sorry. Besides, the bell might ring. Don’t be slow, never be late. Follow the rules and in return, I get pieces of plain white paper and boxes of beloved crayons. I can’t talk or read or write, but I can draw. Pictures, images, symbols. If I am not washing, fetching, tending, I draw.
Some are beautiful, and I hide them under my sleeping pad, though they always disappear sooner or later. I imagine shadow beasts gleefully feeding sheets of bright color to roaring flames, delighting in their power to rob the world of one more speck of light. But I draw more images of green grass, and blue sky, and red and blue tiles, and fountains that bubble with the sound of laughing children because I believe my pictures can sing, even though the beasts don’t hear them. And the monsters can feed the fire as much as they want, because I always have the pictures in my head, and I can repeat them again and again.
A girl must take her victories where she can find them.
Some of my pictures make me cry. Or maybe I’m already crying when I pick up the crayons, and the colored wax weeps with me. I don’t let these drawings survive. I color the paper black. I scribble so hard the paper tears, the crayon breaks. Still I rub, rub, rub till the very floor trembles with the force of my agony.
Then I tear up the page into the teeniest, tiniest pieces. Bite-sized. And I take all that sadness back inside me, cleaning the floor, sweeping up the shredded bits of wax, because I don’t want to leave any trace of my pain behind.
I don’t want the bad people to know that much about me.
Girl, you are stupid, they say.
I don’t nod. I don’t acknowledge them. I let them believe what they want to believe.
Shadows can hurt. They can rob the world of light and ooze into all the cracks and crevices. But no shadow can last forever.
People are coming.
They murmur urgently.
I listen harder. I try to hear more. I can’t learn any details, but something has changed. A discovery in the mountains, something bad for the shadow beasts—so, maybe good for the rest of us?
People are coming. That much is clear. And the Bad Man is concerned.
I must ramp up my own efforts. Tiny little stolen moments in the bathroom, staring at my reflection above the sink, using my fingers to smash my lips, pull on my tongue. Move, roll, speak. I squish my lips into a perfect rosebud and try to exhale. Puh, puh, puh. I hold my palm in front of my lips, waiting to feel the expulsion of air. But I get nothing.
People are coming and all these years later, I’m the same Dumb Girl I’ve always been.
I know what will come next.
Screams in the middle of the night. Sounds from girls who will never make another sound. I feel it, too—something here, then gone, like a tear in the universe.
At night, I huddle deeper in my closet. Waiting for the door to open. Knowing soon it will be my turn. And I try, because I have to try. Because somewhere way down deep, I am my mother’s daughter and I feel her inside of me, as surely as the bullet lodged in my skull.
I get out my pieces of paper. I try to picture those awful lines I see on other scattered documents. If I could just arrange those shapes in the proper order, form words, sentences, meaning. They’re a code everyone understands but me. The right sequence unlocks language, except I just can’t seem to manage it. The lines run away from me. They have minds of their own, and won’t stay where I put them.
I try to start simply. Names. I want to write the names of the other girls because everyone has a name. Everyone but me, but someday I will get mine back. Until then, the least I can do is remember, make a record of all those who’ve been lost. Maybe these people who are coming, they will care, they will help. If only I could talk, write, grunt.
So I struggle, trying to force my clawed hand to grip the crayon, drag down, across, into the shape of these mystery letters. But I can’t get it. The lines grow blurry. Then they dance, bounce up and down on the paper to prove I don’t own them, I don’t understand them at all.
In the end, I draw. Elaborate, vibrant scenes with hidden patches of darkness. The girls that were. The spaces where they will be no more. Late into the night, I draw and I draw and I draw.
So many to remember. I can feel the house shudder around me and I know that it mourns. It’s only a house, and not a bad one. Just an old home that never asked for any of this.
The house and I cry together. Then, when I’m done, I hold up the paper. I memorize each line, color, whorl. This patch of pink, this blur of green, this smile of blue. These new dark shadows.
People are coming.
I need words, letters, something. But all I have is this. The pictures of my pain. Slowly I start shredding. The teeniest, tiniest pieces. Bite-sized. Dots of pink, green, and blue. Larger pieces of red and black.
Then the real work begins. Chew swallow chew. Chew swallow chew.
I consume it all. No record of the girls, no trace of my defiance left behind. Just bits of names, now taken inside me, to carry alongside my mother’s dying breath.
I need a better plan.
I need to act.
Soon.
People are coming.
CHAPTER 5
KIMBERLY
SSA KIMBERLY QUINCY HAD TRACKED killers, taken down art forgers, and tackled government corruption. Her father, Pierce Quincy, had been one of the Bureau’s most legendary profilers, meaning she had both pedigree and reputation on her side. Still, leading a multijurisdictional taskforce was its own kind of challenge. Like herding a pride of lions.
She had fellow agents in the room, plus a county sheriff. And now, adding to the party, a Boston cop, a kidnapping survivor, and a true-crime enthusiast/computer analyst. The agent in Kimberly was slightly annoyed; the investigator in her was genuinely impressed.
Kimberly had been the agent who’d finally identified Jacob Ness as a serial predator, and led the raid on the motel room where he was holed up with Flora Dane. In a career full of memorable moments, Kimberly would never forget that day. The way Jacob Ness, eyes and nose streaming from the tear gas, had tended to Flora first, wrapping her face in a wet towel. Tenderly. Right before he handed her his gun. And Flora used that gun to blow out his brains.
Flora had then turned and stared at the incoming SWAT team with the blankest face Kimberly had ever seen. There was reading about the effects of long-term trauma, and there was seeing it up close and personal. It had been nearly an hour before Kimberly had gotten Flora to respond to her own name. That hour had been one of the longest of Kimberly’s life, when she’d feared they hadn’t rescued a woman after all, but only a shell of one.
The Flora who stalked into the room now, assessing the law enforcement occupants with an upward tilt of her chin and a defiant glare in her eyes? That woman was a far cry from the blood-spattered ghost Kimberly had pulled from the motel room. But Kimberly knew that while the girl might be stronger, she was still PTSD personified. As Kimberly had discussed with Boston sergeant D. D. Warren earlier by phone,
she wasn’t sure if including Flora in this investigation was a good idea or not.
Then again, Flora hadn’t just survived Jacob Ness, she’d studied him, adapted to him, and even, in a matter of speaking, befriended him. She was his legacy, and in the days ahead, the entire taskforce would most likely need her insights to get the job done.
D.D. now ushered Flora and Keith to two seats. She took the third at the end of the table, closest to Kimberly. The trio had arrived in Atlanta shortly after midnight, though none looked worse for the wear. Fortunately, the recently built FBI field office was within miles of a Marriott, making for a short morning commute.
Kimberly cleared her throat, then started handing out the binders she’d been up all night preparing. Introductions were made, including for Flora and Keith. Whatever the other law enforcement officers thought about having two civilians in their midst, they were professional enough to keep it to themselves.
Kimberly got down to business.
“As many of you are aware, most serial predators have two lists: their official victim list and their so-called asterisk list—victims law enforcement believe predators may have killed but have never been able to substantiate, often because we lack human remains. Hence statistics such as Ted Bundy murdered at least thirty women, but maybe killed as many as a hundred. Why the discrepancy? Because we can’t prove the rest.
“In the case of Jacob Ness, whom you all know operated in this area and was ultimately ambushed in an FBI raid in a motel room outside of Atlanta, we’ve definitely tied him to multiple rape and murder cases. But following his death, he’s remained a person of interest in the cases of six missing women. All fit his victimology and timeline of operations. But none of these bodies have ever been recovered, leaving us with open cases and plenty of questions.
“Which brings us to ten weeks ago, when skeletal remains were found off a hiking trail in the small mountain town of Niche, Georgia. The forensic anthropologist positively identified the body as Lilah Abenito, one of the women believed—but never proven—to be a victim of Jacob Ness. I think we all understand the importance to her parents of having answers once and for all. To have their child be more than a name on some infamous predator’s asterisk list.”
Kimberly waited a beat.
“What we do know: Lilah was a seventeen-year-old Hispanic female first reported missing from Alabama fifteen years ago. The actual circumstances of Lilah’s disappearance aren’t well documented. Her parents were both illegals and waited several days before contacting authorities. Her father worked at a local diner as a dishwasher; her mother took in laundry. According to them, Lilah wasn’t one to get into trouble. Serious student, no known boyfriend. She was supposed to walk straight from school to her job at a local nail salon. She never made it. Forty-eight hours later, her parents filed a report. Local police conducted a rudimentary investigation without results.”
Kimberly glanced around the room at her makeshift taskforce, most of whom were rapidly flipping through the reports she’d photocopied last night. The initial investigation’s findings were part of the binder. It was neither the best nor the worst inquiry Kimberly had ever read. Clearly, the police had been inclined toward labeling Lilah a runaway, though her parents had denied it vehemently, and follow-up with her classmates had not revealed any signs of trouble on the home front. From an FBI point of view, with knowledge of a serial predator operating in the vicinity, the investigation was cursory at best. For the knowledge the local LEOs had at the time . . .
“Fifteen years ago,” Kimberly continued now, “social media was still in its infancy. So, given what we’re accustomed to being able to learn about a teenager in this day and age, there’s hardly anything on Lilah. Her parents claimed she was a good girl, looking forward to attending community college in the fall and becoming the first member of her family to graduate. Except, one bright sunny afternoon, she disappeared. Until ten weeks ago.”
Kimberly paused again, let everyone absorb. Kimberly believed in personalizing cases, had learned it firsthand from her profiler father. The victim had to matter—because God knows that in the weeks and months to come it would cost them all significant pieces of their personal lives to pursue justice.
“How did Jacob Ness become a suspect in the disappearance?” D.D. spoke up first.
Flora Dane, Kimberly noticed, remained completely expressionless. They could’ve been discussing the weather. But Kimberly didn’t doubt that Flora was registering every word.
“The age and gender matched Ness’s known targets. Also, the town where Lilah disappeared is near a major truck stop.”
“Her abduction occurred within Ness’s preferred hunting grounds,” D.D. translated.
“Exactly.”
“Cause of death?” Flora spoke up. She stared at Kimberly balefully.
“Unknown. The forensic exam was limited by the lack of any remaining soft tissue and the fact that many of the bones are still missing.”
“You don’t have the full skeleton?”
“Scavengers, unfortunately, wreaked havoc with the site, given the shallow burial. Looking at what was recovered, Dr. Jackson identified a broken hyoid bone, which can be a sign of strangulation. However, in a girl that young, the hyoid bone often isn’t fused yet, so Dr. Jackson can’t conclusively rule that as COD.”
“He preferred knives,” Flora said. Every investigator was gazing at her now. Flora kept her stare on Kimberly.
“True. But remember the timeline. If Lilah Abenito was indeed one of Ness’s victims, her disappearance fifteen years ago would mark her as one of his first.”
“He beat his wife. Raped a teenager. She wasn’t his first.”
“First kill,” Kimberly amended, keeping her tone as matter-of-fact as Flora’s.
The Mosley County sheriff raised his hand. “Hank Smithers here. I’ve read about Jacob Ness. I understand your point that this girl disappeared from his known hunting grounds. But there are two locations for us to be considering. The second, where her body was dumped, is in my neck of the woods to the north. We’re talking more mountains than highway. How do you figure that?”
“We don’t,” Kimberly said honestly. “That’s one of the questions we need to answer. Now, Miss Dane”—Kimberly nodded toward Flora—“in her statement regarding her own abduction, thought she was initially held in a mountain cabin. It’s possible Ness has a connection to northern Georgia, Mosley County, whatever. We’ve never been able to identify that cabin, and as you can imagine, we’d like to.”
“The remains were found off a hiking trail,” Keith interjected, frowning. Kimberly had watched him flip through the binder. From what she could tell, he’d scanned the entire contents in a matter of minutes. “How far up the path?”
“More than a mile.”
“Incline?”
“Six hundred foot altitude gain. Trail gets significantly steeper after that.”
Keith turned to Flora. “He strike you as a hiker? Because I’ve never read about him doing any physical activities, not even high school sports.”
“The Jacob I knew was a fat, out-of-shape addict. I can’t imagine he was magically fitter eight years prior.”
“Hauling a body one mile uphill is no mean feat,” Keith added.
“You’re assuming he was carrying her,” Kimberly replied blandly. “For all we know, Lilah was alive when she walked up that trail.”
“He led her to the location he wanted, then killed her,” Flora stated. “Now that sounds like Jacob.”
“Or he had help.” Keith, looking at Kimberly again.
She nodded slowly. “It’s important to note what we didn’t find in the grave. Clothing. Shoes. Physical restraints. None of that. The body was laid out in the shallow grave unbound and completely naked.”
“Forensic countermeasures,” D.D. interjected. “He removed any objects that might yield evidence.”
“That’s certainly a possibility. To be clear, Jacob didn’t take those steps with his other known victims?”
“No, he just dumped them, bloody clothes and all.” Flora again.
“Maybe that means she was special,” Keith spoke up thoughtfully. “First victims, there’s often a personal connection to a serial predator. Meaning Jacob took extra precautions because he had more to fear if someone found the body.”
“All reasonable assumptions,” Kimberly said to the taskforce. “But just that—assumptions. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. While there’s good reason to consider Jacob Ness a prime suspect in Lilah Abenito’s abduction and murder, we don’t know that he did it. We don’t know anything at all, which is a huge injustice to her and to her parents, who all these years later, are still waiting for their daughter to magically come home.”
“There’s more than one serial killer running around the mountains of Georgia?” Sheriff Smithers drawled sardonically.
“We need to take things one step at a time,” Kimberly agreed, “and keep an open mind.”
Kimberly gave the room a moment to process. When none of the taskforce argued with basic investigative protocol, Kimberly cleared her throat and moved on to the next pertinent part of the briefing. Basically, bringing everyone else in the room up to speed on a conversation she, D.D., Flora, and Keith had started nine months ago in Boston. And a scary discussion at that.
“We recently had some developments regarding Jacob Ness’s recovered laptop. The computer initially appeared devoid of data. Further analysis by our techs revealed Ness had taken steps to automatically clear his computer activity on a daily basis—a much higher degree of sophistication than we expected from a man with limited formal education. Recently, however, Miss Dane and Mr. Edgar helped us identify Ness’s username and password, unlocking a host of dark web and cloud-based activity on the laptop. It’s clear now that while Ness was a loner in real life, on the internet he actively sought out and participated in forums with members who shared his own predatory instincts. The question is, did any of these virtual partnerships result in a real-world relationship?”
