Stolen Daughters

by Carolyn Arnold

“Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  She pulled out her phone and checked her email. She wasn’t going to pressure him to talk; she knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of such an endeavor. It was shit.

  “Tara probably just lied to cover for him,” Trent eventually said.

  “She could have.”

  “But he just gets away with being an ass.”

  “For now.”

  “It was my aunt… After my uncle’s death, she met this guy. She really thought she’d found love again. At first, it seemed she had, but that quickly changed. He ended up breaking her arm and three ribs.” He paused but didn’t meet her gaze, seeming lost in his own thoughts. “The shithead ended up getting away with it too. My aunt was too afraid to turn him in.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Did she ever get away from him?”

  Trent slowly shook his head. “Still with him, as far as I know. But, as you said, they have to want to help themselves. Sadly, my aunt lost her confidence and started to believe she deserved the way this guy treated her.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing much to say.” He looked over at her now, pressed his lips. “But now you know why I go off when I run into assholes like Sean Fitzgerald.”

  “Understandable.” She knew she should have discouraged his behavior, but she couldn’t find it within herself. Sometimes, people just brought out the nasty side. It was human, badge or not.

  “Hey, I know we have no real choice but to take Tara’s word. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t piss me off.”

  “Just take a few deep breaths,” she encouraged without sounding patronizing. Her red-headed temper had gotten her into trouble more times than she could count, so she wasn’t qualified to stand as anyone’s judge.

  Trent just sat there and breathed for a few seconds.

  “Feel better?”

  “Yeah. No. Not really. But thanks for trying.” He smiled at her.

  “Anytime. Let’s just focus on what we got out of this visit. With Fitzgerald off the list, we can assume that the same person killed Jane Doe and Shannon Fox.”

  “A serial killer? Not feeling all warm yet.”

  She laughed. “I’m not concluding it’s a serial killer yet.”

  “Okay, I can live with that.”

  You will; the victims might not…

  She glanced down at her phone. No email from Rideout, but there was one from Aiden Adkins. Seeing his name stamped home how talking with him had felt like another lifetime ago with everything that happened since.

  She opened the banker’s email and scanned it. “We’ve got the names and contact numbers for the bank’s inspector, estimator, real estate agent, and contractor. Looks like the estimator is in Mexico on vacation and has been since last week. One person we can rule out. Aiden said he’s been dealing with Ester Hansen at County Services. Gives us someone to ask for.”

  Trent started the car and pointed to the clock on the dash. 3:20 PM. “We have plenty of time to make it over there. They probably close at five.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  As Trent drove away, Amanda looked at Sean and Tara’s house. She wished she could just storm inside the place, snatch Tara, and get her to see the light. But her efforts would likely be useless. She just wished the same couldn’t be said for their list of potential suspects. Surely, their killer had to be on there somewhere.

  Twenty-Two

  It was three thirty when Trent pulled into the lot for County Services. The sign posted on the door confirmed they closed at five, but that left Amanda and Trent plenty of time to ask the questions they needed.

  The woman at the front desk greeted them as she shuffled a stack of papers from one side of her desk to the other.

  “Hi.” Amanda offered a kind smile and pulled her badge. “I’m Detective Steele, and this is Detective Stenson with the Prince William County PD. We’d like to speak with Ester Hansen if she’s in.”

  “Ah, that’s me, but I’m not sure why the police would want to speak with me.”

  “Your name came up during an investigation. There was a house fire in east Dumfries yesterday morning, and a body was found inside the home. You might have heard about it on the local news.” Amanda hated giving any glory to the media, but it was an easy way to establish a foundation for the conversation.

  “Yeah, I did.” Ester’s shoulders sagged, and her face went blank. “Why are you interested in me?”

  “Woodbridge Bank owned the property and has informed us that they were waiting for approval from this office before they could put the place on the market. You’re the bank’s contact.”

  “What’s the address?” Ester poised her fingers over her keyboard.

  “Five thirty-two Bill Drive.”

  “Oh, I’m familiar with that address.” She sank back in her chair. “Let me guess. It was Aiden Adkins who sent you.”

  “He gave us your name.”

  “Mr. Adkins… He’s, um, persistent, always asserting himself and applying pressure on me to get things moving faster. He doesn’t seem to grasp there’s a procedure and a queue.”

  Amanda could imagine Aiden being that way, but she couldn’t blame the man with the way he’d painted management hanging over his head. “We’re just trying to determine everyone who may have been aware the property was sitting empty. I assume you were?”

  “Yes, of course, but…” Ester’s voice trickled off into nothingness.

  Amanda didn’t see anything in Ester’s demeanor that spoke to her being a heartless killer who took out a teenage girl. Her hands were also small and feminine, not large enough to match the bruising on Doe’s neck. “Who goes out and does the inspections? Is it someone within this office?”

  “No, third parties are used.”

  “Who was assigned to inspect the work done at five thirty-two Bill Drive?”

  “I might be able to find out.”

  “Might?” Amanda pressed.

  “Well, depending on how far out it is in the schedule, it may not have been assigned to anyone yet. I’ll check.” Ester tapped away on the keyboard. “Okay, so that property isn’t booked for inspection yet so that means the wait is longer than two weeks. Usually that’s how far in advance appointments are firmed up.”

  “Who has access to the calendar?” Trent asked.

  “Pretty much everyone in this office, but they’d have no reason to look.”

  Unless they are a psychopathic killer looking for a place to dump a body and burn down… But she and Trent couldn’t exactly pull records or speak with everyone who worked in the county’s office. Maybe Ester could point them in someone’s direction. “Is there anyone in this office who has been a little ‘off’ maybe, or who has shown an interest in that property recently?”

  Ester held up a hand, and her mouth was twitching, like she was fending off laughter. “Sorry, I know none of this is funny.” She sought out Amanda’s eyes as if to stamp home the apology. Amanda saw a woman battling with shock, and levity being her defense against it. The clerk continued. “It’s just the entire bunch here is a little ‘off,’ me excluded, of course.” She paused to insert a small chuckle. “But no one stands out and fits what you’d be after. At least not that I’ve noticed.”

  Amanda nodded, disappointed, and handed Ester one of her cards. “Call if you think of anyone after we leave.”

  “All right, but don’t be waiting by the phone. We might all be nuts, but I don’t think anyone here is a killer.”

  Amanda wasn’t going to terrify the woman by saying that murderers were usually the person one least suspected. “Thank you for your help, Ms. Hansen.”

  Ester nodded, and Amanda and Trent saw themselves out.

  Back in the car, she did up her seat belt and leaned against the headrest. “Well, we can’t exactly pull backgrounds and visit everyone who works as county inspectors or has access to that database.” She was sulking, and she heard it in her voice, but she was frustrat
ed. Fox was dead because she’d dropped the ball with the Doe murder—or at least it felt like it. Not that she’d had a lot of time to work the case.

  “We just need to keep moving forward and exhaust the leads we have. It makes sense that the killer knew the house was empty, and it’s too soon for us to rule out anyone on our list.”

  She looked over at him. Trent, her cheerleader. “Look at you. All right, Mr. Positive, what’s next?”

  “To talk to the bank’s inspector?”

  “Sure.” She pulled up the information the banker had sent them, and said, “Turns out he lives just a few blocks over.”

  Trent nodded but didn’t put the car into drive.

  “What are you waiting for?” She pointed out the windshield in much the same fashion Captain Picard did on Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of Kevin’s favorite television shows. Only Picard would say, “Engage.” She found herself smiling.

  “The address would be helpful.” He was laughing.

  “Oh, that?”

  * * *

  Over the next few hours, Amanda and Trent ruled out the bank’s inspector, the real estate agent, and the contractor. None of them looked good for Doe’s murder, but visiting all of them had eaten up time. It was going on eight at night, and they were headed back to Central with full stomachs. They’d stopped for something to eat at a chicken place in Woodbridge.

  Otherwise, they were in need of some leads. Even her email inbox wasn’t providing anything useful. Rideout hadn’t come through with Doe’s picture, and there was zero news about the girl’s dental records scoring a hit in Missing Persons. Was it too much to hope that they could give the young woman a name after being objectified most of her life?

  She looked over at Trent. “What if we’re making too much out of the killer knowing the property was empty? And really, how could we even narrow that down? Anyone passing by could have noticed.”

  “Quite a chance for the killer to take, though, if he didn’t know it was going to be left alone for a certain time period.”

  “Maybe not. The windows were boarded up. That sort of screams it’s uninhabited and probably will be for a while. Our killer was likely quite confident no one would be showing up in the early hours of the morning either. But I definitely think he wanted to make a statement by killing her there, or transporting her there…”

  “What are you thinking? Something about the history of the home?”

  “Not sure.”

  “It’s interesting he returned about twenty-four hours later,” he said, “to the same street, no less. He could be drawn there geographically.”

  She looked over at him. Impressed with him again.

  He continued. “I picked that up when I worked with the FBI. Some serial killers can select an area for a reason, such as personal attachment. He could have lived there when he was younger.” He pulled into the lot for Central. “Then again, maybe the location doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Don’t know, but I’m quite sure our killer has brass balls and an ego the size of a Mack truck.”

  “Wouldn’t doubt that.”

  Just what they needed—a killer with an inflated sense of self. If so, she’d happily give him a reality check.

  Twenty-Three

  Amanda and Trent spent a couple of hours slogging away at their desks, reading police interviews from both crime scenes, and studying photos of the crowd. Nothing was standing out. By ten thirty, her vision was starting to blur, but it probably didn’t help that she’d hardly slept last night. Still, she felt by going home she was giving up on both Doe and Fox. But sometimes calling it a day and getting a fresh start was the most productive thing to do.

  “I’m heading out,” she told Trent as she stood. “You can, too, if you want. We can get an early start.”

  “Works for me. I’m beat.” He hadn’t needed to say it; his cheeks were red, as they often got when he was tired.

  He left ahead of her, and she got in her car to go home. She could really handle popping a sleeping pill, climbing into bed, and shutting out the world. She honestly needed a break from everything—the investigations and the matter with her mother, and how it made her feel so damn responsible.

  She thrummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove, trying to shove the murders from her mind but having a difficult time doing so. It was always frustrating when leads seemed to dry up. It also left her feeling like she was missing something that was right there, but just out of reach.

  She was approaching Becky’s house, and it was lit all up. Amanda could use some mindless chitchat with her best friend and to maybe veg out on the couch in front of the TV. As she got closer, Amanda noticed there were two cars in her driveway. Only one was Becky’s, so she had company. Amanda should probably just keep going, but she found herself pulling in.

  She turned off the ignition and looked at her friend’s bungalow, which was much like her own. She was just about to restart the car when the front light flicked on.

  The door opened, and Becky stepped out. “Amanda? That you?”

  Amanda got out of her vehicle. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Another figure stood behind Becky, but it wasn’t much more than a shadow until the person stepped into the light. Brandon Fisher, Becky’s FBI boyfriend. Amanda groaned a little internally. It wasn’t that Amanda didn’t like him—okay, maybe it was. He could have treated Becky a lot better, and even though they seemed to be in a good place right now, they’d had their rough patches. Becky had shared it all with her, including that Brandon had been romantically involved with a member on his team and the two still worked together.

  “I should go.” Amanda jacked a thumb over her shoulder. “Leave you guys alone.”

  “Just get in here.” Becky rolled her arm in a big, welcoming wave.

  Amanda felt her heart lift, and she locked her car doors with her fob and jogged up the front walk.

  Becky hugged her. “Everything all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Amanda drew out of the embrace.

  “Ah, let’s see. You’re at my door at almost eleven at night, unannounced.”

  “I thought we were close enough that a heads-up call wasn’t necessary, no matter the time of day.”

  “Never is. Doesn’t mean it isn’t suspicious.” Becky smiled at her. “Come in.”

  Brandon shuffled back to allow them more room. He pressed his lips and dipped his head as a greeting.

  “Hi, Brandon,” Amanda said. She sometimes forgot that he had red hair too. It still didn’t mean she had to like him.

  “I’ll just go turn off the TV.” He headed for the living room, which was visible from the front door.

  He sounded pleasant enough and not irritated by the interruption to his evening with Becky. Maybe he wasn’t that bad. Her friend seemed to love him, so he had to possess good qualities. Also in the “pro” column was his career in law enforcement. Although, if she bought into her father’s criticism of feds, that would add a mark in Brandon’s “con” column. According to her father, feds were a bunch of conceited jackasses.

  “As long as you’re sure I’m not messing up your night.”

  “Nonsense,” Becky shot out. “Something’s obviously bothering you, and Brandon doesn’t mind.”

  He was fiddling with remotes and didn’t say anything.

  “Want something to drink?” Becky asked. “We’re drinking wine, but I know I won’t be talking you into that.”

  Tonight, it did sound tempting, but she hadn’t had a sip of booze since the drunk driver had wiped out her family. She’d patronized several bars in the last few years, but only to pick up her one-night stands. “I’ll have some water.”

  “You got it. Just sit where you’d like.” Becky headed for the kitchen, and Amanda slipped out of her shoes and sat in an overstuffed chair, which was her favorite piece of furniture in the home. A person could lose themselves in the hug of foam and suede.

  Brandon dropped onto the couch and took a sip of h
is wine. As he lowered the glass, he met Amanda’s gaze and smiled.

  They’d never exactly bonded, but in fairness, they hadn’t spent a lot of time around each other.

  “How’s everything going in your world? FBI, right?” She put it out there like she was clueless.

  “Yep. Profiler with the Behavioral Analysis Unit.” Short and blunt.

  She’d guess he didn’t really like her a lot either, but they didn’t need to be friends. They just needed to tolerate each other for Becky’s sake. Still, there was something in the way his eyes darkened when he mentioned his job that sparked a thought. That’s if she bought into things happening for a reason. As an FBI profiler, he might be able to lend some ideas on her current investigations. She’d opened her mouth, about to ask him a question, when Becky stepped in front of her with her drink.

  “Thank you.” Amanda took the glass from her friend and guzzled back some water.

  Becky sat on the opposite end of the couch from Brandon, moving a throw blanket aside.

  “Is this one of those times you just want to watch TV with me, or do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” Becky asked.

  Amanda glanced at Brandon, back at Becky. “I had just wanted to hang out, but now that I see Brandon’s here, maybe I could run the cases I’m working past him.” She realized how she was talking to Becky, as if seeking her permission and implying Brandon didn’t have a say. “I mean if you’re okay with it?” she said to him.

  It was Becky who groaned softly, then did her best to cover her dissatisfaction.

  Amanda met her friend’s gaze. “We don’t have to. It is Friday night, and no one’s on the clock. You—” she gestured toward Brandon “—especially would probably prefer to talk about anything else but murder. You track serial killers all day, and now here I am wanting to talk about the killer I’m after.”

  Brandon’s posture stiffened, but he leaned slightly forward, showing an interest. “I wouldn’t say all day.”

  Amanda cleared her throat. “What is a serial killer anyway… by definition?”