by Allen Eskens
“I’m here now. I’m coming to you now.”
“What do you want from me, Lila?”
“I want…” A lump in Lila’s throat nearly blocked her words from coming out. “I want to know that it wasn’t my fault.”
“Your fault? Oh my God! No!” Charlotte knelt on the floor in front of Lila. “No. No. Of course it wasn’t your fault. Why would you ever think—?”
“What did I do wrong?” Tears trickled down Lila’s cheeks. “You wouldn’t look at me…you couldn’t. You were ashamed of me.”
Charlotte took hold of Lila’s hands, her words falling between sobs. “I was never—”
“I felt dirty.” Lila let her tears flow as she spoke. “You couldn’t stand me.”
Charlotte moved from the floor to the couch, wrapping her arms around Lila and kissing the top of her head. “I just wanted my little girl back. I didn’t know.”
Lila could hear the beat of her mother’s heart and the quavering of her breath as Charlotte gently rocked and cried.
Then Charlotte said, “When you were born, I held you in my arms, and I promised I’d never let anyone hurt you. It never dawned on me that I would be the one…I’m so sorry. I was never ashamed of you. And what I did, I did because I wanted to protect you. I thought that if we could just get past it…”
A shaky inhale followed, and Charlotte paused for a long time as if to gather her strength. “I know what those men did to you. They…they raped you. They raped my little girl. I know that. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. I just didn’t know how to handle it. I’m sorry I got it so wrong.”
Something softened inside of Lila when she heard her mother finally speak those words, and Lila settled into an embrace that she had once thought she would never again feel.
Chapter 48
On the morning of Gavin Spencer’s status hearing, Niki Vang carried four files to her meeting with Andi Fitch, three cold case homicides and the Vauk file. The Vauk file now held a stack of pictures of the Bronco, taken by the crime scene tech. Every inch of the vehicle had been examined, photographed, and pressed with tape in an attempt to draw the tiniest speck of evidence out of hiding. And yet she and Matty had nothing more to give Andi beyond those pictures.
“He probably took it through a car wash before ditching it,” Matty said as he handed the pictures to Fitch. “I’ve seen brand-new cars dirtier than this.”
“Vacuumed, wiped down, the floor mats and cargo mat gone,” Niki said. “I’m surprised he didn’t rip the leather off the seats.”
“What about the tread?” Andi asked. “Does it match the cast from Nicollet Island?”
“No,” Niki said. “Either that wasn’t his tread print, or…he was smart enough to swap out his tires before he ditched the truck. We’ve been calling some tire shops, but it’s a needle in a haystack.”
“Do you have any good news for me?” Andi asked.
“A couple things,” Niki said, pointing at two of the pictures in front of Andi. The first was of the side of the Bronco taken at the impound lot. “Look at the door. The Bronco used to belong to a well drilling company. There used to be a magnetic sign on the door and you can see where it faded the paint.”
Then Niki pointed at a grainy shot from a stoplight camera taken a few blocks from Bebe’s Salon. “See the spot on the door?”
Andi picked the picture up and examined it carefully. “I think so.”
“It’s the same vehicle. We can put Gavin’s Bronco within a few blocks of Sadie Vauk within an hour of her abduction.”
Andi squinted as she looked again at the picture. “I’m not sure a jury will buy it. I mean, I see the spot because I want to—but a jury?”
“We sent the footage to the FBI to see if they can clean it up, but this might be as good as it gets,” Niki said.
“It helps, but the case is still weak. You got anything else?”
Niki laid the three cold case files on the table. “I’ve been looking into the other women pulled from the river, and…” She opened the Ludlow file first. “We think we have something that might bolster the Vauk case. Chloe Ludlow was a model. She worked the Twin Cities Auto Show a week before she died. Gavin Spencer was there as a photographer.”
Niki slid a photo across the table to Andi. “Matty found this picture of Gavin at that same event, taking pictures of cars.”
Matty said, “They hired him to do publicity for the high-end room. Notice that green shirt he’s wearing.”
Niki slid a second photo to Andi. “This one’s from a distance, but—you see that man in a green shirt standing in front of that booth with the orange logo?” Niki pointed with the tip of a pen. “That’s Gavin Spencer standing at the booth where Chloe was working.”
Andi looked hard at the second photo. “So, you have Gavin standing at her booth. Do you have them talking? Are there any pictures that put them together?”
“No,” Niki said. “But a week later, Chloe climbs into a black SUV with a stain on the door in the shape of a teardrop—her roommate saw it. Chloe also told her roommate she was leaving with a photographer to get some headshots done. That was the last time anyone saw her alive.”
Andi didn’t respond, as though waiting for more.
“We have a pattern,” Niki said. “He meets them before the abduction, puts together a plan, gets them alone, and slips them GHB. The Bronco connects the two cases.”
Andi thought for a moment before saying, “The problem is the proof—or lack of it. Gavin’s prior bad act with Chloe is only admissible in the Vauk case if we first prove by clear and convincing evidence that Gavin killed Chloe. We don’t have that. No judge will let that in.”
Niki wanted to spit. She was so close she could taste it, but again, the damned rules got in the way. “Chloe’s killer had a tear-shaped stain on his door. That’s why I knew we’d find that stain on Gavin’s Bronco. I can draw a line from Spencer’s homecoming date with Ellie Abrams to her death on Halloween. Ginny Mercotti disappeared days after she refused to pay Gavin for a photo shoot. He’s as guilty as hell. Those women didn’t commit suicide. They didn’t jump or fall into the river. They were pushed there, drowned and discarded by Gavin Spencer. If a judge would just let the jury see the damned evidence, they would know he was guilty too.”
“I’m on your side,” Andi said, “but I need more than your beliefs. We have to have proof that Spencer killed Ludlow. We can’t get his other bad acts in unless we can cross that threshold.”
“Chloe Ludlow got in that Bronco the night she disappeared,” Niki pleaded. “We can prove that it’s Spencer’s truck. That’s got to count for something.”
“I’m sorry,” Andi said. “But Sadie’s jury will never hear about Chloe Ludlow. No judge will let that in.” Her words sounded like an apology.
Lila, who had been sitting quietly next to Andi, sat up straight and held out her hand as if to stop the conversation, her eyes darting back and forth in thought. After several seconds of silence, she said, “We have it backwards.”
“We have what backwards?” Niki asked.
“We don’t use Chloe’s case to convict him for Sadie—we use Sadie to convict him for Chloe.”
The room fell silent, and Andi looked at Lila to explain.
“Rule 404 allows us to bring in evidence of other wrong acts, but not to prove action in conformity therewith—”
“Action in what?” Matty said.
“Sorry,” Lila said. “Say John Doe gets arrested for shoplifting ninety-nine times. You can’t use those prior thefts to prove he shoplifted that hundredth time. But you can bring those acts in to show that he commits his crime in a specific way—his modus operandi. And for modus operandi, it doesn’t matter which crime happened first, as long as it shows the pattern.”
“But don’t we still have the issue of proving he killed Chloe?” Matty asked.
“We convict him for Chloe’s death by proving Sadie’s case.”
“I don’t understand,” Niki said.
Something came alive in Lila. She leaned in to the table as if feeding off the attention. “In order to get a conviction in Sadie Vauk’s case, the jury will have to agree—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Gavin drugged her, raped her, and then dressed her back up and drowned her in the river. That’s his MO. The jury can’t convict him for Sadie’s case unless they agree that we’ve proven the modus operandi beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Andi picked it up from there. “If we convict him for Sadie’s case…we could use that MO as evidence in the Ludlow case—show how the facts in Sadie’s case line up with Ludlow’s.”
“Exactly,” Lila said. “The jury would hear about what he did to Sadie.”
Andi continued. “Sadie’s case is only attempted murder, but Chloe’s case—and the others—are all first-degree murder. Life without parole.”
“First we win Sadie’s case,” Lila said. “Give him fifteen years or so, but then we go after the others and put him away forever.”
“So, all we have to do is win Sadie’s case,” Niki said.
“Yeah,” Andi said, with an obvious dip in her mood. “That’s all we have to do.”
Chapter 49
On the day of Gavin’s status hearing, Lila had come to work certain that it would be her last at Hennepin County. Before going to see Andi, she fired up her computer to look for an interoffice message from Frank Dovey. It wasn’t there. She remained at her desk for a moment, looking around the small room, realizing with a touch of sadness that she would take nothing with her when she left other than the picture of Joe on her desk.
In Andi’s office, Lila took her seat as she did every day, and waited for the swing of the scythe. Andi had her head down in thought, a set of police reports spread out on her desk. When she finally looked up, she launched into a to-do list for Lila. Lila hadn’t bothered to bring a legal pad, thinking “You’re fired” didn’t require recording.
When her meeting with Andi adjourned—with no bad news—Lila eagerly joined Andi in her meeting with Vang and Lopez. If nothing else, she would have one last chance to contribute to Gavin Spencer’s conviction before she left. Even if she only got to read about it in the newspaper, it would brighten her day to know that she had a hand in bringing him down.
She put Dovey out of her mind and let her thoughts drift through the tangles of the problem at hand, listening as Niki and Matty laid out the wall they were up against.
The modus operandi seemed to be the key to it all. They had evidence that Gavin had met Sadie, as well as the other three victims, in the days and weeks before they were abducted. But they had no proof that Gavin had killed the three women. Without that proof, the connection was speculative at best, so Sadie’s jury would never hear how Gavin had drowned the others and floated them down the Mississippi—just as he had tried to do to Sadie. He might be convicted for Sadie’s case, but he would walk free on the others.
That’s when it hit her. They needed to reverse the order. The voices in the room faded into a low hum as Lila moved pieces around in her head. It would work. Suddenly excited, she explained her idea to the detectives, and they gave her their complete attention. In their eyes, she wasn’t a girl with broken parts. She was a prosecutor. And she felt the way she had when she stood atop that rock wall.
As they left the conference room, Niki said to Matty, “You go on ahead. I’ll meet you in the atrium.” To Lila, she said, “I have something I want you to see.”
In Lila’s office, Niki pulled a flash drive from her pocket and handed it to Lila.
“What’s this?” Lila took a seat at her desk.
“Spencer’s mother paid him a visit last night.”
Lila plugged in the drive and pulled up the footage.
“Fast-forward to minute seven,” Niki said.
“What am I looking for?”
“Watch his reaction. I’m curious if you see what I see.”
Lila moved the indicator to the seventh minute and hit play. The screen was split. On the left was a woman who Lila assumed to be Spencer’s mother, and on the right sat Gavin. The footage started with Gavin talking, making no attempt to hide his lisp.
“Is that all they asked about,” he said, “my allowance?”
“No,” the woman said. “They asked me about a bunch of names.”
Lila saw Gavin cock his head as if curious. “What names?”
“They asked me about that girl you went to high school with, um, Eleanora what’s-her-face.”
Gavin’s eyes widened slightly before returning to a heavy-lidded stare, held without a blink. Recognition?
“And then there was a Chloe and a Virginia and…” Amy was counting the women off on her fingers, pausing at number four to come up with a name. Gavin’s breathing had shallowed. A line formed between his eyebrows, flashing a note of worry before it disappeared again.
“Now I remember,” Amy said. “The fourth girl’s name was Lila Nash. That was the one.”
The change was, at once, subtle and stark. Gavin’s eyes deepened, and the line on his forehead returned—and stayed. His lips went tight until he pressed out his tongue to wet them. His breath stopped in his chest long enough for his mother to notice and say, “Are you okay?”
Gavin’s features turned blasé once again as he answered, “Never heard of her.”
“He knows me,” Lila whispered. “His face when she said my name…He knows me.”
“That’s how I see it too. It’s nothing we can take to a jury, but…there’s something there.”
“What about his alibi?”
“I don’t know. I’m still looking for his roommate. I’m also trying to track down footage of the graduation ceremony. There has to be a video out there showing that he didn’t walk across the stage to get his diploma.”
A cold wave washed over Lila, a fear so pure that it blinded her for a second. She spread her fingers open on her desktop just to feel something stable. One of her ghosts now had a face and a voice. She had no memory of him, but at the same time, she had no doubt. A man who had murdered at least three women—and almost a fourth—had left her alive. He had made a mistake and would surely seek to rectify that.
“He knows that we know,” Lila said. “If he gets out…”
“He’s going down for Sadie,” Niki said, “and the others.” She put her hand on Lila’s arm. “I promise, he’ll never get near you.”
“There were two of them that night. What if he doesn’t need to get out?”
“We’ll protect you. I promise.”
Lila looked at the hard steel in Niki’s eyes and knew that if grit could carry the day, the detective would stand by her word. But Gavin Spencer was smart and careful. He would never come at Lila from the front; he would find a way to snake the blade in from the shadows. Niki couldn’t protect her—Lila knew that—but she gave Niki an appreciative nod all the same.
Lila handed the flash drive back to Niki and walked her out of the office, her thoughts lost in a maze of What ifs. Gavin stopped at nothing to wash away his crimes—she had seen the bodies. And now he knew they were on to him.
When Lila returned to her desk, she pulled Gavin’s mug shot up on her computer screen and stared into his eyes, her fear melding into anger. Gavin had raped her, and now that the secret was out, she was certain he would try to kill her.
Lila knew how far Gavin would go to silence her, but as her anger grew, she began to wonder how far she would go to stop him.
The game had changed. The entire world of right and wrong now played out like a coin tossed into the air. For her, it all came down to a simple choice. Him or me.
Chapter 50
Gavin’s attorney came early to the status hearing that Wednesday, walking into the court’s holding cell with pictures of Gavin’s Bronco in his hand.
“They just gave me these,” he said, handing Gavin the pictures.
“I need the phone.” Gavin had his back to the door. The green folder with his paperwork lay on the table in front of him.
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“They have pictures of your Bronco only three blocks away from where Sadie Vauk was kidnapped.”
“It’s not my Bronco. Give me the phone.”
“Look at that patch on the door. You don’t think they can match that? A jury’s gonna—”
“Give me the fucking phone!”
Leo Reecey looked at the window on the door, clear of any guard, and handed Gavin the phone. “I think I have a right to know who you’re texting.”
Gavin slipped the SIM card from its hiding place in the folder and slid it into its tray. “Tomorrow’s my omnibus hearing. You have a right to collect that fifty grand. That’s the only right you have. Cough if you see a guard.”
He typed Jack’s number and began his text message.
What the Fuck Jack? You think I’m joking? You know what I’m capable of. You know what you have to do. Look at the time stamp on this message. You have twenty-four hours and not one minute more. If she’s not silenced in twenty-four hours, I will send your picture to the police. We will both go to prison. I don’t fucking care. I have nothing more to lose—you have everything to lose. The clock starts now!
Gavin had a backup plan should Jack fail him—Gavin always had a backup plan—but that plan came with a high level of risk. Jack would do what was needed, Gavin was sure of it, but time was running out. He needed to get out before they could build up any of the other cases—especially Lila Nash’s. She had seen his face and heard his voice all those years ago. Was the fog of her amnesia somehow lifting?
He needed the plan to move faster. He needed to get out so he could take care of things himself—do it right.
He deleted the text from the phone after he sent it. Then he removed the SIM card and slid it into its hiding place in the green folder. Reecey sat sideways at the table, his eyes studying the cinder block wall, as though his act of looking the other way—literally—somehow absolved him of his involvement in Gavin’s offense.
“Did they give you anything else?” Gavin asked. “Reports about other women?”
