Stolen Daughters

by Carolyn Arnold

  It was eight o’clock Sunday morning and most of the county was still in bed, but she and Trent were at Central. They had Samuel shown to an interrogation room and would soon join him.

  On their way there, Trent turned to her. “I’m not sure about this, Amanda.”

  “I know you have your doubts about him. Honestly, so do I.”

  “Open mind then?”

  “Open mind,” she agreed.

  “We can’t place him at either crime scene. I’ve looked at the photos again.”

  “Maybe he didn’t watch, or he was good at avoiding having his picture taken.” She realized she was convicting the man again, and that wasn’t like her, but this case was making her a little crazy.

  They entered the room, and Samuel barely lifted his head.

  “Have a good night’s sleep?” she asked.

  “Yeah. The best,” he responded sardonically.

  She didn’t say anything but pulled photos of Ashley and Shannon from the folder and laid them out.

  He rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I was hoping you’d clue in that I didn’t kill them.”

  “Not there quite yet. Ashley Lynch—” she pressed a fingertip to her photo “—was strangled, just like Joyce.”

  “As you told me yester—”

  “She was stabbed, also just like Joyce,” she interrupted him and pointed to Shannon Fox.

  “But I don’t know these women.”

  “You know that we’ll get to the truth, Mr. Booth. You killed Joyce. In your words she was a slut. Ashley Lynch prostituted herself, but it wasn’t because she had a choice. She was coerced and beaten into doing so. She was only sixteen.” She could feel anxiety ratcheting in her chest. If Samuel had killed her, he deserved the heaviest sentence the law could give. “Did you see her as a slut, Mr. Booth? Is that why you killed her?”

  He met her gaze, his eyes wide and wet.

  She pushed on. “Did you kill Ms. Fox because she interfered in your plans?”

  “You’re losing me now.”

  Her heart was palpitating off rhythm. Maybe she was rather stubbornly latching onto Samuel being the killer because she wanted this case put to rest and get justice for two victims—one of which was only a young woman. She withdrew another photo from her folder. It was of Samuel’s mother, and he visibly recoiled. “Just as I thought. You hate your mother, Mr. Booth.”

  “I, ah…” He rubbed his neck.

  She was getting to the meat of what she’d uncovered. “She was a single parent, and she was a drunk all the time and slept around. She brought strange men into your house. Maybe some of them even liked little Sam—”

  “I want a lawyer, now!”

  Her heart was pounding wildly. She felt a little out of control. Maybe she had taken her hypothetical too far, but she got a telling reaction. Brandon had mentioned the possibility of their killer being abused as a child, and Samuel’s strong outburst just as much confirmed he had been. “The lawyer’s probably a good idea.” She got up and left with Trent. She faced him and said, “While he’s waiting on his attorney, you and I are going to Washington.”

  “For?”

  “We’re going to talk to Detective Robbins in person and see what he has to say about Crystal Foster and Ashley Lynch. Maybe Booth even came up in his investigations?”

  “I don’t know about that…”

  She could see her partner’s doubt all over his face, and his expression served as a mirror for self-examination. She was the one having a hard time keeping an open mind, but all she could think about was the branding tattoo on Ashley’s chest. That poor girl had lived in hell, and Amanda was determined to get her justice.

  Thirty-Five

  Amanda tried reaching Detective Robbins several times before leaving Central as Trent drove them to Washington, but she kept landing in his voicemail. When they arrived at Robbins’s police district station, they were told to wait in the seating area and that Detective Robbins would be out shortly.

  “You looking for me?”

  She raised her head to see a man with a stern demeanor bent down and waving a hand in front of her face. She’d hadn’t even heard him approach.

  “If you’re Detective Robbins, we are,” she said.

  “I am. Who’s asking?”

  Amanda and Trent both stood. Chester Robbins was a giant of a man and had to be six four at least.

  She was quite sure the person at the front desk would have told him who they were, but she’d play along. “Detectives Amanda Steele and Trent Stenson with the Prince William County PD.” They held up their badges, and Chester immediately turned to leave. “Uh… we need to talk to you, and we’re not leaving until we do. I left a message for you last night, and I’ve tried to reach you several times today.”

  Chester mumbled something that resembled “come with me” and set off down a hall. She and Trent followed.

  “Did you get my message?”

  “Uh-huh.” He just kept walking.

  She caught up to his side. “Okay, then you were going to call me back?”

  Chester glanced over at her. “When I got a chance. I looked up the name. Ashley Lynch, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She was reported missing three years ago. I’ve got fresh cases on my desk that need attention.”

  “Isn’t that a coincidence? We have a fresh homicide, and we believe the victim may have been Ashley Lynch.”

  He stared at her but kept moving.

  She couldn’t understand why he was being so difficult. They were there with potential news about a case of his. Then again, maybe that explained the attitude—he didn’t want to be shown up, and by a detective from another department no less. But shouldn’t justice trump ego? “You heard what I just said?”

  He stopped outside a door marked Interview 2. “You go in there and get comfortable. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Ah, sure? Where are you—”

  He was already down the hall. For a big man, he moved quickly and stealthily.

  “Okay then,” she said to Trent. Either Robbins was too proud to accept help from a fellow detective and/or he was having a bad day before they’d shown up.

  Amanda and Trent sat at a table that would normally be used for questioning perps. Chester really wanted to remind them they were on his turf. Personally, she didn’t have any interest in getting into a battle over jurisdiction. She just wanted a killer to go away.

  A few minutes later, Chester returned with a laptop under his arm. He proceeded to put it on the table, then sat across from her and Trent. “Talk to me.”

  “The body of a young woman was pulled from a house fire in Dumfries, but her cause of death was strangulation.”

  “You’re sure it was Lynch?”

  Amanda pulled the computer-rendered photo of Lynch up on her phone and showed it to Chester.

  Chester didn’t give the screen much attention. “I don’t remember what she looked like.”

  Amanda tucked her phone away and pointed to his laptop. “We’ll wait if you want to bring her picture up. Keep in mind that she would have been three years younger at the time she went missing.”

  Chester seemed to debate whether he was going to do as Amanda suggested. He flipped the lid on the laptop open, clicked some keys, grunted. He was slower at typing than she was at texting—and that said a lot. “Could be her, I suppose.”

  “Do you remember much about the case?”

  “What would you like to know?” He crossed his arms on the table, his body language closed off and rigid—defensive.

  Maybe it wasn’t so much that Chester didn’t want to be shown up, but rather that he was feeling guilty about possibly missing something that led to the girl’s death. “To start with, did a man by the name of Samuel Booth surface in your investigation?” He could have been the man to lure her away from home—and then been the one to take her out. She wasn’t dismissing an
y possibilities at this point, though she also wasn’t trying to convict him yet either—something she needed to keep reminding herself.

  “Name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  She pulled up a photo of Booth on her phone. “Look familiar?” She put her screen in front of him.

  “Nope.”

  She put her phone back in her pocket. “We read that Ashley may have been groomed through social media.”

  “Is there a question in there?”

  “Were there messages to support this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And…?” she prompted.

  “Lynch was communicating with a male—or perceived male—online. More specifically through social media, in the month proceeding her running away.”

  “A month?” That surprised her. Shouldn’t her parents have noticed? But maybe they were much like the Fosters and only orbiting in the same vicinity of their child, not really a part of her life. Then there was the breaks and fractures. “What were the Lynches like?”

  “Don’t like to jump to conclusions about people, but I didn’t like the dad. Pretty sure he was abusing the wife and daughter. I found out that she broke her arm when she was about nine. They said she fell, but I wasn’t buying it.”

  Amanda and Trent met each other’s gaze.

  “Take it that means something to you?”

  Amanda nodded. “The ME found a healed break like that in our victim.” She was gaining more confidence that their Jane Doe was Ashley Lynch. “What was the name of the person contacting her?”

  “Riley Sawyer. Definitely an alias. Most likely a pedophile. Sawyer approached Lynch and told her that he was a senior at Woodrow Wilson High School. She’d just started there that fall. He told her she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.”

  Amanda hated to admit how easily flattery worked on most teenage girls—her younger self included.

  Chester went on. “This guy filled her head with a bunch of nonsense. He also said she deserved a boyfriend who treated her right.”

  Whoever this Riley Sawyer really was, he would have had to know about her love life for the ruse to work. That could indicate someone within Ashley’s circle, but it might also suggest that people in the sex-trafficking network were staking out the school. “This person was aware of her personal life to say that,” Amanda concluded. “It also sounds like this guy she may have been seeing was abusive.”

  “You’re not the only detective in the room,” Chester said. “And we spoke with some of her friends at the high school. Even spoke to the boy she had been seeing. He was a senior and had already moved on with another girl.”

  Heartbreak alone could have explained a change in behavior, especially for an emotionally charged teenager. Amanda remembered sulking for months after she and her first boyfriend broke up. She’d only been sixteen, but it might as well have been the end of her life. After all, she’d thought she was going to marry the guy. Her father told her being in the house at the time had made him feel like he was in the elevator business—up and down.

  “I take it you had no luck tracking this Sawyer guy down?” Trent asked.

  “Dead end. Obviously, I got Cyber Crimes involved.”

  “We’re sure you did all you could at the time. What came of questioning Ashley’s friends and family?” Amanda asked.

  Chester’s posture softened at the flattery. “There was one uncle on the mother’s side. A Ralph Field. He was one of those oddballs. A loner. Stuck to himself. He was forty-seven, never been married. And let’s just say his looks and level of intelligence came from the shallow end of the gene pool.”

  “Was he involved in Ashley’s life?” she volleyed back.

  “Just during the holidays. The mother felt sorry for her brother and had him over that Easter—that was just days before the communication started with Riley Sawyer.”

  “Did the uncle know about the breakup?” Trent asked, beating Amanda to the question.

  “Uh-huh. We searched his computers but didn’t turn up anything.”

  “He could have just been good about deleting the evidence. Or used a computer you didn’t know about.” A bubble of frustration rose in Amanda’s chest. “Anyone else fall under suspicion?”

  “Nothing that led anywhere.”

  That doesn’t exactly answer my question… “We’re trying to solve this girl’s murder. Any names you can give us would be appreciated.”

  “I can get you the list.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Just three, but they were all cleared.”

  “Yes, please send me the names. Also send me the string of correspondence between Sawyer and Ashley,” she requested.

  “Sure, if you think it will help.”

  Amanda observed how much his attitude toward them had changed once he realized they weren’t in any way blaming him for what happened to Ashley. “The day she ran away, did Ashley leave any note?”

  “Don’t remember that.”

  “We think she might have run away with a friend, Crystal Foster.”

  “Yes, I thought the same. Trust that I did everything I could think of to find those girls.” With that statement Chester finally showed some emotion.

  Her phone rang, and caller ID told her it was Malone, but she sent him to voicemail. “So this Sawyer groomed Ashley. I assume that this person arranged a meet. Where was that?”

  “At the food court in City Center Mall here in Washington. We were able to find witnesses who saw Ashley and another young girl, who we concluded was Crystal. They spoke to an adult woman. We never tracked her down, and she was good at averting security cameras.”

  It sounded like the woman knew what she was doing. The fact a woman was involved in the recruiting didn’t surprise Amanda at all. The sex-trafficking case from a couple of months ago had also led her to a woman, but she wouldn’t be hurting anyone anymore.

  “Now, if I remember right… Just give me a second.” Chester proceeded to click on his laptop. After a few moments, he said, “Here it is. There was an eyewitness—a male clerk at one of the burger joints. He said the woman got an order of fries, and he described a tattoo that went up the side of her neck.”

  Amanda felt a prick of dread. “What did it look like?”

  Chester clicked on the laptop. “Like a bunch of entangled rose vines.”

  That would qualify as thorny vines. She inched forward on her chair. “Colored? Black and white?”

  “Black and white.”

  “Any letters on it?” Her heart was racing.

  “Not that the guy saw, but he said it continued under the collar of her shirt.”

  The DC ring tattoo was also black and white, though they typically placed it just above their girls’ left breasts. Did this woman have hers extended up her neck?

  “Is there something else I should know?” Chester asked. “You two are lookin’ pale.”

  “Ashley was branded by a similar type of tattoo,” Amanda began. “It’s been linked to a sex-trafficking ring that goes by the name of DC.”

  “So it’s one here in DC?”

  “Unsure. One could assume there’s a connection. All I know for sure is that’s the name they go by, and they have a reach into Prince William County. We’re going to need a copy of the case files on Ashley Lynch and Crystal Foster.”

  “I’ll need to run it by my boss, but it shouldn’t be a problem. You haven’t found Crystal Foster, have you?”

  Amanda shook her head. “Not yet, but it’s entirely possible she ended up in the ring too.” Her phone buzzed, and caller ID told her it was Malone again. “I need to get this.” She answered, and Malone started talking right away. His words were hurling at her so fast she could hardly catch them all, but she did get the message, and it turned her cold. “We’ll be right there.”

  “Hot lead?” Chester asked.

  “Hot homicides. Two of ’em.” She flicked a card across the table to Chester. “Email me the investigation files. Thanks.” Next she lo
oked at Trent. “We’ve gotta go.”

  Thirty-Six

  Another fire. Two young women dead.

  That was the recap Malone had given her. The timing of the incident meant that Samuel Booth was innocent. It was clear now that he likely never had anything to do with murdering Lynch or Fox either. She made the call to cut him loose, feeling just a touch of remorse for hauling him in and putting him through what she had. But she’d only been following what she had to go on.

  The second blaze was in a higher-end neighborhood than Bill Drive. The houses were newer and bigger, and the vehicles in the driveways, luxury.

  It was almost noon when she and Trent arrived. Officers had cordoned off the scene a few blocks back. Trent parked at the perimeter, and they walked toward 816 Clear Mountain Circle.

  The air was heavy with smoke, and she coughed. She’d guess this fire was a lot worse than the first one and their killer hadn’t left anything to chance this time around.

  As they got closer, that thought was confirmed. Fire engines and other trucks from Dumfries Triangle Volunteer Fire Department were parked on the street in front of a burnt-out husk of a structure. A concrete foundation and some wood framing were all that was left. The bodies would be nothing but bones.

  The gawkers were also there, gathered for the latest tragedy. Malone was standing on the lawn next to a For Sale sign. Did that mean this house had been sitting vacant too?

  She hustled toward Malone, but a woman in yellow turnout gear played interference. “Before you go any further, I’m going to need to know who you are.”

  Amanda showed her badge, held it there as the woman diligently took her time reading it. “Detective Amanda Steele with the Prince William County PD. That’s my sergeant over there.” Amanda pointed toward Malone, who was now walking straight for them.

  The woman let her gaze drift to Trent. “And you?”

  Trent held up his badge. “Detective Trent Stenson.”