by Ragan, T. R.
He looked at his watch. “You’ve got thirty seconds.”
“Five girls all disappeared within a fifteen-mile radius. Paige’s mother believes that the woman who tried to take her daughter still watches them.”
His perfectly groomed mustache twitched. “She’s welcome to file a report and tell us what she knows.”
“What if this woman who tried to kidnap Paige also took one of these missing girls?”
“It would make for quite a story,” he said, standing. “Unfortunately I can’t operate on feelings and hunches. Only facts.”
“The woman is white and about five foot six inches. She has dull, grayish hair and dark eyes. I thought it might be a good idea to have a forensic artist talk to Paige Owens and do a sketch of the woman.”
He smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “Paige Owens escaped. She’s alive and well. My team’s focus must remain on Riley Addison.”
“What about the blood spatter at Mark Brennan’s house?”
“What about it?”
“Do you know if it’s Riley Addison’s blood?”
“The results are in, and yes, it’s a match.”
Sawyer released a long breath. “The day before Mark Brennan’s arrest, I was at his house, interviewing him for a story. I took a long look at the gardenia bush, even stuck my nose in the bush to smell the fragrant blooms, and there was no blood.” She lifted her hands. “Then suddenly, less than twenty-four hours later, blood appears, which means Mark Brennan either transferred the girl to his car after I saw him or someone is trying to frame an innocent man.”
“It’s an ongoing investigation, but I’ll tell you this. Blood spatter and fingerprints are often missed on the first go-round. Happens all the time, so you shouldn’t feel badly about missing it. Or maybe you’re right and he removed the girl from the house after you interviewed him.”
“Why would the tipster, whoever spotted the blood yesterday, remain anonymous?”
“Too many reasons to list,” he said.
“What sort of idiot would carry a missing girl outside without wrapping her up in a blanket or a tarp, anything? And even if he did carry the girl down the stairs, how could he possibly get blood on the gardenias? Instead of making a straight line to his car, he would have had to have made a left at the bottom stair and hold the girl over the shrub. It makes no sense.”
“Most criminals are not masterminds.” He rubbed his chin. “Before you come to talk to me again, I would appreciate it if you had proof. Proof that the same gray-haired woman who attempted to kidnap Paige Owens is still watching Paige and her mother. Proof the blood wasn’t on Mark Brennan’s stoop or gardenia bush before yesterday. Whatever it is,” he said, “I need proof.”
Proof. She thought of Geezer. He’d been at Mark Brennan’s house the day after Riley Addison disappeared and then again when Mark Brennan was arrested. She needed to talk to him, see if he had “before” and “after” pictures—proof that the blood had suddenly appeared all those days after Riley disappeared. But even then, what good would it do? They had their man.
“Listen,” Detective Perez said. “Your heart appears to be in the right place. I have two granddaughters. I understand the urgency to find Riley Addison. But hunches do not solve cases.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why Palmer has taken you under his wing, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume there’s more to you than feelings and intuition. If you find something I can use, then come on back and we’ll have another chat. Until then, I’m going to have to ask you to stick to writing stories and stay out of the way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
After dropping off Ella at school, Aria returned to her studio apartment and spent more than an hour making a list of the schools the missing girls had attended. She had the name of every elementary and middle school.
Not sure how she might get her hands on a school yearbook, she called the main office of Silver Valley, the school Cora O’Neal had attended in Elk Grove. After explaining what she was looking for, she was told they kept copies in the library, and if she found what she needed, she could check it out for a few days. Aria jumped in the car, and thirty minutes later, she had a yearbook from the same year Cora had attended Silver Valley.
Greenfield Middle School, the school Paige Owens had attended in Carmichael, didn’t have any yearbooks left, but she made a note to ask Sawyer to talk to Paige about whether she had a yearbook from five years ago.
Online yearbooks were a thing, but all she could find were digital high school yearbooks. Northstar, the school Danielle Woods had attended, also didn’t have any copies available, so Aria decided to look on Craigslist. She jumped up excitedly when she found a copy for sale for twenty dollars. Craigslist never failed to shock and surprise. Hopefully she would be able to get her hands on the yearbook before the end of the day.
It was noon when Aria decided to take a break from looking for yearbooks and drive to 524 Seacrest Drive in West Sacramento, the Butler family home. She didn’t have to be at the SPCA until two thirty. Although investigative work could be tedious, it suited her. And unlike police detectives across the country, she had time to spare. Aria had brought along the file she’d put together with information about all the missing girls, including Carly.
Three years ago, Carly Butler, the oldest of three children, had disappeared on her way home from school. Carly Butler’s mother, Gretchen, was a stay-at-home mom.
The air smelled crisp and clean as Aria walked to the front door and knocked. A dog’s incessant barking made it difficult to hear if anyone was inside. To Aria’s left, the window shade moved. Somebody was home. The door opened, and the woman seemed to take some joy in trying to hold back her barking dog.
Aria wasn’t afraid. She could tell he was all bark and no bite. She put her hand out. Sure enough, the animal stopped to take a whiff. The wag of his tail gave him away.
“That’s just great,” the woman complained. “His name is Bruno. My husband promised me Bruno would make a good watchdog.” She snorted.
Aria scratched the dog behind both ears. He had a big head and a thick neck and body. “Bruno is the best-looking Pitador I’ve ever seen.”
“Pita-what?”
“Oh, I assumed he was half Labrador and half pit bull,” Aria said. “Highly intelligent and obedient.”
“Oh, really?”
Aria laughed. Bruno jumped up on his hind legs, his front paws landing on Aria’s chest, forcing her to take a step backward.
“No, Bruno. Sit.”
He promptly obeyed.
“Now that you know you’re not in any danger whatsoever,” the woman said, “I’m Gretchen. And you are?”
They shook hands.
“Aria Brooks, intern at the Sacramento Independent. I was hoping you could answer a few questions.”
“About Carly?”
Aria nodded as she continued to scratch the dog’s head and neck. “I can’t imagine what you and your family have been through. But I do want to help.”
“Are you a mother?”
“No.”
“Then you’re right. You could never imagine.” She waved her inside. “Come on. Do you drink coffee?”
“I do.”
“Great.”
Sitting on a comfy couch with the dog’s head on her lap and hot coffee in hand, Aria listened to Gretchen Butler tell her all about the day her daughter went missing.
“It was April 15, Wednesday, Carly’s eleventh birthday. Her younger sister and brother had gotten out of school an hour earlier. I had made a cake, vanilla with chocolate frosting, and they were dying to cut into it. I told them we’d have to wait until Daddy got home, but still, I remember it all so clearly. It started out like any other day. Scrambled eggs on toast. That’s what Carly ate before heading off to Crossroads Elementary.”
Crossroads Elementary was Ella’s school. “I thought I read that she attended Pleasant Grove, the private school.”
“She was at Pleasant Grove fro
m kindergarten until the fourth grade. Once she found out her best friend was transferring to Crossroads Elementary the next year, she spent all summer begging and pleading until we finally caved. The principal at Crossroads Elementary gave us a tour and introduced us to a young and vibrant teacher, Ms. Patti Montoni. She was new and excited about teaching. My husband and I were sold.”
Bruno’s ears perked up, and he jumped from the couch and disappeared somewhere inside the house.
“For the first few months,” Gretchen said, “I walked Carly to school to make sure she waited at the crosswalks, that sort of thing. There were always other kids and parents out and about. I never would have stopped walking with Carly if I didn’t think she would be safe.”
Aria nodded.
“Since you’re here, I’m sure you’ve done some research.”
Aria nodded.
“So you know that nobody is safe in this world.”
“It certainly feels that way,” Aria said.
“I asked Carly what she wanted for dinner, a tradition around here, you know, since it was her birthday. She said tacos as she ran out the door. That was the last thing I said to my daughter . . . ‘What do you want for dinner?’” Her eyes watered, but Aria could tell she had cried all the tears. “When she didn’t return home on time, I waited another fifteen minutes before I started to worry. And that’s when all the possibilities started to run through my mind: Had she gone home with a friend? Stayed after school to talk to her teacher? Had I forgotten about an after-school activity? Maybe her friends had surprised her with a party.
“It wasn’t until after I called every person I knew that I began to wonder if she was in trouble. From there on my imagination ran wild. We did everything we could to keep her name in the headlines: fundraisers, ads, posters, and interviews. But the days and weeks simply drifted by without any news of my daughter’s whereabouts.
“A year after she went missing, all the local stations mentioned her in the news: ‘Carly Butler has not returned.’ The year after that: ‘Butler investigation continues’ and ‘Carly Butler’s case is still open,’ and finally, ‘All efforts to locate Carly Butler have been exhausted.’”
She lifted her arms in defeat. “Life does go on,” Gretchen said. “But it never gets easier.”
Aria stood and walked over to the fireplace mantel. She pointed to one of many pictures and asked, “Is this Carly?”
Gretchen came to stand by her side. “Yes. That’s our Carly. She was such a happy kid. Always smiling.”
The photo hardly resembled Carly’s school picture that popped up when you googled her name. In this particular photo, Carly reminded her of another girl: Riley Addison. Come to think of it, Carly and Riley both resembled Cora, the girl whose bones were recently found. Petite, blonde, aged ten to twelve. Maybe there was more to these physical similarities than she and Sawyer had thought.
Aria turned to Gretchen. “You wouldn’t happen to have a school yearbook from three years ago that I could borrow for a few days?”
“I do,” the woman said. “If you promise to take good care of it and return it by the end of the week, I’ll share it with you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The slamming of a door downstairs jolted Riley awake. Her neck was sore from being in an awkward position. She sat up and pressed her ear against the wall closest to the front of the house. She recognized the squeaky sound of a garage door being opened before a car engine roared to life and drove away. The garage door clanked shut.
Bubbles had left for work without saying a word. No cooler filled with food and drinks. Riley had thought being chained to the bed was bad. This was worse. It can always be worse, her mom liked to tell her and her brother whenever they complained about something stupid. She was right. If she ever saw her mom again, she would tell her how much she loved her and missed her and how she was right about everything. Thinking of her mom caused a lump to form in her throat, making it hard to swallow.
Last night Riley had tried to open the door, but it had a keyhole just like on the other side. Bubbles had thought of everything. Since she couldn’t use the bathroom, she’d peed inside one of the plastic bins, ruining pictures and cards and whatever else was inside. But she’d had no choice, since she didn’t want to soil the clothes she had on or pee on the floor.
She grunted as she tried to pull her arms apart. Every muscle ached.
The tape had definitely loosened, but she still had a long way to go. Before falling asleep, she’d spent hours rubbing the tape around her wrists on a corner of one of the plastic bins that had cracked enough to give it a sharp edge.
Looking around the space, she instantly regretted doing so as her gaze fixated on the Polaroid picture of the girl wearing the cone-shaped birthday hat. The picture made her heart sink to the bottom of her stomach. She prayed the girl was alive and that someday she would meet her. Riley would make her a present and a cake, and they would spend the day together doing whatever the girl in the picture wanted to do.
Scooting across the floor to the bin with the crack, she had to sit on her knees so that she could saw the sharp edge of the plastic against the tape around her wrist, back and forth, over and over. If she could free her hands, she could work on the tape around her ankles. Just thinking about being free spurred her onward. After that, she would need to find something sharp. Maybe stomp on the plastic bin that was already cracked and hopefully end up with a good sharp piece of plastic that she could use as a weapon to fight Bubbles if she came to check on her tonight.
Her stomach growled. Her lips felt dry. In her mind’s eye she saw her mom waving excitedly at her as the bus rolled into the school parking lot after returning from camp. Images of her dad popped into her head. He came into her room, his eyes twinkling, his back hunched over, morphing into the tickle monster. They laughed and said good night. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. If only she could see them, talk to them, spend one glorious minute with them.
She stopped what she was doing as a horrible thought overrode all else: If she couldn’t even fight off her brother when he wrestled her to the ground, how would she get away from Bubbles—a full-grown woman with fire in her eyes?
She couldn’t think about that.
Stay positive.
At least she had light. It could always be worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
After her visit with Detective Perez, Sawyer got back in her car and scrolled through her messages. She had more than one missed call from Aria. She was about to call her sister when her phone vibrated. It was an unknown number. She picked up the call and said hello.
“Is this Sawyer Brooks?”
“It is.”
“This is Riley’s father, Patrick Addison. You left a message saying you wanted to help.”
“I do.”
“I can meet you in an hour. You have my address?”
“Yes. I’ll be there. Do you mind if I bring my assistant along?”
“That’s fine.” The call was disconnected.
Sawyer didn’t bother calling Aria. Instead she drove straight to Harper’s house where Aria lived in an unattached garage that had been fixed up into a one-bedroom apartment.
She went to the door and knocked.
Aria called out for her to come inside. “Shut the door behind you and don’t step on Mr. Baguette,” Aria said from where she sat on a contemporary two-seater sofa with her laptop and an open file at her side.
Mr. Baguette was a rescue cockatiel Aria had brought home from the shelter where she worked. The bird had come to see Aria as his best friend. He liked to sing and chirp and run around the house. His wings had been clipped, but he didn’t weigh much and could still fly.
Sawyer shut the door, then said, “We have an appointment to talk to Riley Addison’s father in one hour.”
“You’re kidding me?”
Sawyer shook her head.
“I can’t believe he’s going to talk to us.”
“He wants t
o find his daughter. That’s all he cares about.” Sawyer looked at her watch. “We need to leave in thirty minutes.”
“I’m ready to go.”
Sawyer pulled the envelope from her bag as she walked over to where Aria sat and handed it to her.
“What is this?” Aria asked.
“A little surprise left on my doormat at two in the morning.”
“Rebecca,” Aria said when she saw the photo. She read the note. “This is fucked up.”
“No kidding.” Sawyer took a seat across from Aria. “I was awakened by a noise. When I got up, I saw a car with its headlights turned off drive away. It was gone by the time I stepped outside to take a look. That’s when I found the envelope.”
“You need to go to the police,” Aria said.
“I was just there. Without an inkling of who it might be, no name, and no vehicle make or model, there isn’t a whole lot they can do. But I did talk to Detective Perez about Mark Brennan. Did you hear about his arrest?”
“I did,” Aria said.
“Palmer and I were at Brennan’s house after his arrest yesterday. There was blood spatter on the gardenia bush outside the front window. Did you see any blood when we were there?”
Aria shook her head. “No. If there had been, I’m sure we would have noticed.”
“That’s what I thought.” Sawyer looked around at the stacks of papers and books. “What are those?”
“Yearbooks. I have managed to get my hands on three out of six yearbooks from the year each girl went missing. I was able to find two of them on Craigslist, but I won’t be able to pick up Katy Steiner’s yearbook until tomorrow. I was hoping you could text Paige Owens and see if she has a yearbook from five years ago.”
“What are you using the yearbooks for?”
“Teachers and staff members are usually photographed too. I thought if we gathered all the yearbooks together and then asked Paige to look through pictures of staff and teachers, maybe we’ll get a hit.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Sawyer said.
“You said to start with schools and buses, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m thinking of this as a process of elimination.”
