by Hannah Jayne
There was nowhere to go but up the stairs so Bex shot upward, taking them two at a time. She knew she should be formulating a plan: scream, find a phone, call 911, but all of that seemed impossible. She couldn’t make her mouth move, couldn’t remember seeing a landline phone in the house—and what was the number for 911 on a cell phone? She had tunnel vision, seeing nothing but an endless staircase in front of her.
“Go! Go away!” Bex didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice.
“Just listen to me!”
The stairs were a blur. She was crying, sweat and tears and snot running over her lips, her chin. She felt his grip on her ankle—a single tug—and she crashed facedown, her breath whacked out of her. The man pulled her down two carpeted steps, then stood over her, pinning her ribs with his calves, one hand between her shoulder blades, pushing down firmly.
“I’m a police officer.”
His admission did nothing to quell the tremors that went through her body, and her teeth clacked together. Somewhere behind her, she heard him fiddling with fabric and metal—maybe his belt buckle—and the tremors grew to quakes.
“Please,” she whispered, “please don’t.”
The man bent over and waved something in front of Bex, then pushed it into her hands.
Leather. A wallet. A badge.
“I’m not here to hurt you.” He spoke in a soothing voice as though she were a child.
“I’m Detective Lieutenant Daniel Schuster.”
He slowly removed his hand from Bex’s back, released the pressure on her ribs. She stayed facedown, still trembling, still terrified. Anyone could say they were a cop. Anyone could get a badge. But the name…it was vaguely familiar. A TV cop? Maybe he stole the name from a movie?
“Cops don’t barge into people’s houses,” Bex said slowly, her mouth so dry her lips stuck to her teeth.
“You wouldn’t answer my calls.”
“You—” Everything inside Bex stopped when Detective Schuster dropped the yellowed newspaper article on the carpet in front of her. It had been folded and refolded so many times that the paper looked like worn fabric. The text and the black-and-white picture had been softened by fingers smoothing it flat again and again. Bex didn’t need to read the article. Her stomach turned to liquid.
She was looking into the saucer-wide eyes of her seven-year-old self.
In the photograph, her mouth was covered by the belly of a stuffed animal, Princess Pig, she remembered, a bright-pink pig that her father had won her at the county fair when she was six. Beth Anne couldn’t sleep without Princess Pig’s soft belly pressed up against her lips. She couldn’t remember what had happened to the pig, but she’d never thought she’d forget the face of the mustached man in uniform standing beside her.
“Do you remember me now?”
Disgust roared through Bex. “Where did you get this?”
“It was in the Raleigh Tribune ten years ago.” He pointed at the date. “I kept it. That was the day we got him, the Wife Collector. That was the day we saved you, Beth Anne.”
Anger replaced disgust, sparking like a white-hot flame low in her belly.
“You saved me?”
That day, Bex remembered, was the day her life broke in two. That was when her life became before and after, when normalcy was eaten away by news vans and police officers and social workers who took her away from her home and her father who had never done anything but love her. That day her “saviors” had shuttled her out of her house and into a squat building with linoleum floors and hard plastic furniture. They had handed her a pair of itchy pajamas and tucked her into a cot that squeaked if she dared to move, and handed her a stiff teddy bear as if that would make up for the cinder-block walls and the destruction of her life. That teddy bear didn’t have a soft belly like Princess Pig did; Beth Anne knew because she had stayed awake all night staring at it.
Bex rolled over and sat up, curling her hand around the stair railing in case Detective Lieutenant Schuster made a grab for her again. Her other hand went to her neck, to the hollow at her throat, where the necklace had been all that time ago.
“You were the one who took my necklace.”
“It was a ring, and it belonged to one of your father’s victims. It was little consolation but the Harrises were happy to have it back. You did a good thing. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
Bex stared at the carpet, her gaze laser focused, jaws clenched. “I was just a kid.”
Schuster bobbed his head and rubbed his hand over his chin. “Still, if it hadn’t been—”
She tore her gaze from the carpet and forced herself to look at the detective. He was much older now. The hair that she had remembered as inky black had gray at the temples, but the slope of his brow and the way he held his mouth were more familiar. His teeth were yellowed, and he bore the faint scent of cigarettes and strong coffee.
“Why are you here? How did you even find me? I… My social worker… No one was supposed to know where I am.” She pulled her knees to her chest. “Who I am.”
“Beth Anne…” Detective Schuster looked away, the confidence and bravado sapped from his body. “We have reason to believe your father might be in the area.”
The air was snatched out of Bex’s lungs. “What?”
She saw the shackles that dragged on the ground as her father shuffled into the courtroom. She heard the sound they made: innocent, like keys rattling in a pocket, then a heavy clank when his foot hit the ground. She heard that sound in her dreams, in her nightmares. She remembered the way the silver handcuffs clenched his wrists, his hands fisted in front of him, and the thin chain that wrapped around his waist. He didn’t have a belt. His sneakers didn’t even have laces. Then, the next day, he was gone.
“If that were true, it would be on every news channel.”
“We’ve been able to keep it quiet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s here.”
“How do you know that?”
Now it was Schuster’s turn to look disgusted. “The police department has been working on tracking him for a long time. I’ve been working on it for longer. There have been signs…” He let his voice trail off before amping up again. “The more important thing is that I found you. And if I can find you, so can your father.”
An image of Darla, dumped on the beach, flashed in her mind. The scent—the hideous, unforgettable stench of death—flooded Bex’s nostrils as though she were back there.
“If he can find you—Bex, is it?—he can find the people you love too.”
For ten years, Gran had protected Beth Anne. Since her grandmother died, she’d had nothing. Now she had someone and something to protect—her foster parents, her new friends. If her father did the things he was accused of doing and if he was truly back, he could ruin it all. Bex licked her lips.
“What do you want me to do?”
Eighteen
Detective Schuster followed Bex as she rode her bike the three blocks to Kill Devil Coffee. He had offered to drive her, even insisted, but she refused to get in his car, intent on making a quick getaway if the need arose. As she rode, her mind was trilling, dropping pieces into place in her memory—the first time she saw Detective Schuster, how he looked at her father’s arraignment. She trusted him, just not enough to get in the car and ride with him.
Bex rode into Kill Devil Coffee following behind the detective’s car. She locked up her bike and steadied herself with a deep breath before pulling open the coffeehouse door. Her heart started to tick again when she saw the detective at the counter. What am I getting myself into?
“Did you want something, ah—”
Bex could tell he was trying to figure out what to call her. She had no inclination to help him. “I’m good, thanks.”
She sat down and Schuster came over with a steaming cup of black coffee. Bex watched him stir in a handful of sugar packs,
her tension and anxiety throbbing until it was all she could think about.
“What do you want me to do?” she said again.
Schuster sucked on the stir stick and raised his eyebrows as if the subject of their conversation hadn’t been gnawing at the back of Bex’s mind every minute of the last ten years. He leaned closer to her, wriggled a manila file folder from his messenger bag, and dropped it on the table, covering it with his hands.
“We’re not entirely sure of the exact date your father appeared back in North Carolina.”
Bex felt herself gape. “Good tracking work.”
Schuster bobbed his head apologetically. “Believe me, I had the same reaction. But, again, he did reappear.”
“You have reason to believe he has reappeared.” Her voice was snide.
“It’s been ten years, Beth Anne.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry. Bex. It’s not that easy to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”
“I didn’t want to be found.”
Schuster didn’t make eye contact while he raked a hand through his hair.
“Okay, fine,” Bex said, shaking her head. “What does any of this have to do with me?”
“Nothing, we hope,” Schuster said, taking a sip of his coffee. “But there is the chance that he’ll contact you. I’m thinking that might be why he came back into town.”
A shudder went through Bex—something between hope and disgust. Did her dad know that her gran had died, that she would be all alone? Did he want to help her—or hurt her?
“We’re thinking maybe you could be the one to draw him out.”
Bex’s gut lurched. It wasn’t a sinking feeling; it wasn’t fear; it wasn’t anxiety—it was something else entirely.
Would he want to see me?
A tiny spark of hope flickered but was just as quickly stamped out by guilt.
He murdered six women…
Or didn’t he?
“Bex?” Schuster touched her hand. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“We’re not sure what he’s going to do—if he wants to disappear again, if he wants to make contact with you, if he wants to…” He wouldn’t look at Bex.
“If he wants to kill again,” she supplied.
Schuster nodded and Darla’s crumpled image washed over her again. Had he killed again already?
“Has anyone tried to contact you?”
“You know, Darla wasn’t his typical”—Bex choked on the word—“victim. Maybe it’s not him, just a—”
“Copycat? Believe me, we’ve considered all the possibilities.”
“And?”
“Has anyone tried to contact you?” Schuster asked again.
Bex picked up a napkin, rolling the fibers between her fingers. “Other than you, no.”
“Anything strange, out of the ordinary happening around here?”
Bex thought about the postcard with its glaring, overly cheerful “Greetings from the Research Triangle” moniker.
“No, nothing like that at all.” She didn’t know why, but the words were out of her mouth before she could consider them.
Detective Schuster held her gaze and Bex felt as though he were looking right through her, reading her mind to know she was lying. She cleared her throat, looked at the napkin, and kept rolling it between her fingers.
“A body was found on the beach not too far from here?”
“Stop! What is that?”
Headlights glaring over the dunes.
A single foot, big toe buried in the sand.
“Yeah. I know. We’re not certain it’s him, of course, but the timing and the victimology do line up.”
Victim. Darla was a teenager, a high school cheerleader who sat at the popular table and threw tremendous house parties, and now she was a victim. She wasn’t a person anymore. She was a type, a specimen to be dissected and catalogued and discussed as though all that mattered about her were the things that mattered to her killer: blond hair, big blue eyes, sixteen to twenty-two years old, missing ring finger.
Bex sucked in a sharp breath. “Was her ring finger missing?”
“What’s that?” the detective asked, setting his coffee down.
She pulled at the manila file folder and began pawing through it, suddenly desperate.
“Bex, you don’t want to look at that.”
Her gaze was steel. “Didn’t you bring them for me?”
“Let me just—”
But it was already too late. The numbness started at Bex’s fingertips and deadened everything inside her. A picture of Darla, nude, with an enormous, jagged-looking Y cut on her chest, her lips lightly parted and a haunting, deep purple was at the left. To the right, a four-by-six glossy photograph of what could have been Bex’s father, dressed in a slim-fitting flannel shirt, his hair unkempt and shaggy, brushing his shoulders. He was getting into a big rig, one booted foot balanced on the sideboard, the other still on the ground. The details of his face weren’t clear, except for the eyes. The eyes that had once been so warm and full of security and love were cold and black and vacant as he stared into the camera and out at Bex.
“That was taken three months ago,” Detective Schuster clarified, trying to close the folder. “Somewhere around Beaufort.”
“South Carolina.”
She snatched the picture and held it closer, squinting, trying to take in every detail. He was heavier than she remembered, with square, blocky shoulders and a stomach that was just starting to slide over his waistband. He looked much older too, with lips that seemed incapable of any expression other than the slight, disgusted frown he showed in the shot. Behind him, the truck-stop gas station had nothing to mark its character or give Bex a sense of anything but disconnection from the photo and its subject.
She took a long, slow breath, hoping that would be enough to process ten years of absence and longing and guilt. Ten years of abandonment, of hiding from the whispers and shadows and memories of what her father might have done. Finally, she shook her head.
“Look, as far as I know my father hasn’t tried to contact me in ten years.”
Saying that out loud hit Bex squarely in the chest. She cleared her throat, hoping to keep the wobble out of her voice.
“I don’t think anything would change just because he’s…” It was hard for Bex to say the word. “Here” meant that he was alive and out of hiding. He was living among his “targets”—potential victims and his accusers. And he didn’t care about the daughter he had left behind. Unease rolled through Bex.
“I don’t…I don’t even know how I would go about finding him or”—she made air quotes—“‘drawing him out’ like you said. I don’t really know that much about him.”
It pained her to admit that she knew little about her father beyond the few memories she had of him. Anything personal—anything more than the old truck, the Black Bear Diner, and that he always called her “Bethy”—had been forgotten or blotted out by newspaper headlines and what the attorneys and reporters called “cold, hard facts” about him. He was as charming as he was ruthless. He was a pathological liar. He had an inability to feel. He hunted his prey before making a move.
“Besides, if he’s trying to keep out of jail, he’s probably not going to be sending up rescue flares. Even if he does know where I am, he probably won’t come knocking on my door, right?” Another torrent of emotions surged through Bex. Would he come to her door? Would he want to see her at all?
Detective Schuster seemed undeterred, but there was a careful edge to his voice. “How aware are you of your father’s crimes, Bex?”
She gaped, rage overtaking her. “I know what my father is accused of, Detective Schuster. I don’t need a needlepoint to hang over my bed.”
He didn’t look at her, and for that, Bex was g
lad. She didn’t want him to hang on the word “accused.” She didn’t want to have to defend her father, especially when she wasn’t really certain how she felt.
“I’m sorry, Bex. I didn’t mean anything by that.” Detective Schuster paused and raked a hand through his brushed-back hair. “Your dad probably won’t have an email address or a website, but there are lots of websites about him. Did you know that?”
Bex dug her thumbnail into the layers of veneer on the table. “I knew that.”
The truth was that Bex—Beth Anne—had had a debilitating need to know exactly what her father was accused of. Once the files became available on the Internet, she had nearly lost an entire summer poring through the documents—the testimony, the crime-scene photos, the autopsy reports. Somewhere in her mind she thought that maybe the clue was there, something that the police had missed that would vindicate her father, that would vindicate her for attempting to send him to prison. The clue to absolution wasn’t there. A preponderance of evidence linked her father to the sadistic, horrifying murders of young women all over the county—including the one who Bex remembered getting into her father’s car and another who tucked her number into his hand.
She had run across the other websites accidentally, but then her curiosity drew her in. The sites were horrible. One showed a grinning photo of Bex’s father—she remembered the shot and had herself been cropped out. The webmaster had made red flames flash across the picture with the words “The Wife Collector Should Burn in Hell.” Another site rooted for her father with photographs and court documents and was populated by sickos who thought the Wife Collector was “the greatest,” listing his body count and even some of their “favorite kills.” Bex wasn’t sure which site was worse.
“People who run these sites have followers, and while we’re not one hundred percent sure, there’s a really good chance that your father could be one of those followers.”
