by Jeff Buick
“He’s calling it harassment.” She still looked pissed, but the edge had gone off the tone of her voice.
“Of course he is,” Bobby said, leaning back in his chair. “He’s trying to deflect, he’s the bad guy here, not us.”
“Did he do anything after you jacked him up? Make a call, go out for a drive?”
Bobby shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Bobby, have you considered that you might be wrong on this one? We’ve watched him since Jocelyn was abducted and he’s gone to work and back, stopped for groceries, and met with a few clients. There’s no physical evidence, Bobby. Not a trace of her in his SUV or his condo.”
Bobby considered telling her that he was sure, but that wasn’t going to fly. “Okay, LT, I’ll back off. Chase some other angles.”
She nodded. “Good.” She turned to leave, then said over her shoulder, “Leave Cedric White alone.”
“Not a fucking chance,” Bobby muttered after she was out of range. Hell, he’d already chased down every other lead and eliminated all of them. White was his boy.
He opened his browser and Googled Logi-line. Their website came up and he spent a few minutes digging around until he found a phone number. He dialed it and when a woman answered he explained who he was and that needed to speak with Hanna Van Warner’s assistant.
“Ms. Van Warner hasn’t worked here for years,” she said.
“I know, but this is police business. If you could connect me, it would be appreciated.”
She hesitated, then said, “Please wait.”
At least five minutes passed with him on hold and listening to elevator music. When the woman came back on the line, she told him Andrea Keyes had been Ms. Van Warner’s assistant and that she would speak with him.
“Thanks,” Bobby said. The line went back to the canned music, but only for a few seconds.
“Mr. Greco, this is Andrea Keyes. How can I help you?” Her voice seemed strained, every word carefully spoken.
“It’s Detective Greco, Ms. Keyes. I’m with homicide in Orlando.”
“And this is concerning Hanna Van Warner?” Her tone took on an excited edge, like she was going to be in on something confidential.
“It is.”
“I’ll try to help, detective, but we have very strict privacy rules.”
Bobby had been in this exact circumstance many times before. This time the woman on the other end of the line was dying to know if her old boss was involved in a homicide—or dead. All he needed to do was make her feel she was on the inside track, and once the pump was primed she would open up.
“I want to know what sort of person Hanna Van Warner was,” he said. “Nothing confidential, just your take on her. You were her assistant and likely know her better than most.”
“What sort of person she was?” Andrea repeated.
“Yes. Was she compassionate or cold hearted? Was she understanding or controlling? That sort of thing.”
“She leaned more towards controlling than understanding,” Andrea said, and there was a touch of acid leeching off the words.
Bobby had her. Everything about her demeanor said Andrea had never liked Hanna Van Warner. “Compassionate? Cold hearted?”
A long pause, then, “Cold, but it’s the nature of the business.”
“I realize high frequency trading is a predatory business.”
“I’m not sure I would call it predatory.” Her voice was unconvincing.
“Perhaps that was a bad choice of words.” Bobby pressed on, she really wanted to talk about this. “What was she like to work for?”
“Hanna was difficult at times.”
“Difficult? How’s that?”
“Demanding. Overbearing. A micro-manager. She treated her staff like…”
Bobby heard another woman’s voice in the background and Andrea’s muffled response. It’s the police, about Hanna. The other woman sounded hopeful with her next comment. Is she dead?
Andrea came back on the line. “She treated her staff like they were beneath her.”
“It doesn’t sound like she was very popular.”
A pause, then, “At first she was nice, took us out for fancy dinners and paid for everything, but things changed when she moved up the ladder. Hanna constantly reminded us how she could make or break our careers with a phone call or two. We were working until nine every night and weekends. She was relentless, and the money went in her pockets. People quit, and she blacklisted them. Honestly, she terrorized us. So no, detective, she wasn’t popular.”
“Okay, fair enough. What was she like away from the office? Her relationships with men, that sort of thing.”
The response was immediate. “Oh, God, how much time do you have?”
“Lots.”
“Hanna was wealthy, and men were attracted to her. She had a method, sort of a Modus Operandi I think you call it.”
“What was her MO?” Bobby asked, now very glad he’d taken Tom’s suggestion to call the assistant.
“She used men. I could give you lots of examples.”
“Please.”
“Okay. Part of my job was to get tickets to exclusive events, and First Monday in May was up there on her list.”
Bobby scratched First Monday in May on his pad, not sure what it was.
“It’s at the Met, and they get all the biggest stars, like the time Lady Gaga and Harry Styles were there. Anyway, the last year she worked here she met this uber rich guy at the event and they started seeing each other. About three months later he dumped her. Nobody ever dumped Hanna, she was the one who ended things. So she decided to get revenge.”
“How’s that?”
“She started rumors that he was violent and had assaulted her. It eventually got so bad that he had to resign as CEO of his own company. She destroyed him, detective.”
“I see.” Bobby was silent for a few seconds, but Andrea appeared to be waiting for another question. “What about kids?”
“Hanna was all over the map on that. Some days they were nothing more than a nuisance. Other times she really seemed keen on them. One of the other traders brought his kids to the office and Hanna spent a lot of time talking with them.”
“But she didn’t have any of her own.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“When did she leave the company?”
“Let’s see. She quit in the spring of 2012, so seven years ago.”
Bobby gripped the phone tighter. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. We were transitioning to new software and it was a nightmare. Hanna up and quit in the middle of the whole thing.”
“Did she say why or where she was going?”
“No, nothing. She was very tight-lipped.”
Bobby had one final question. “Ms. Keyes, do you have any idea what Hanna Van Warner’s net worth would be? A million, five, ten?”
She laughed. “She was pulling in twenty-five a year. Unless she did something stupid with her money, I’d be surprised if she was worth less than a hundred million.”
Bobby thanked the woman and hung up. He stared at the numbers he’d jotted down on the pad of paper. 2012. The year Van Warner had quit her job in New York. She had no steady guy in her life, yet seven years later she had a seven year old daughter. Even if she was already pregnant when she quit, the math didn’t quite add up. $100 million. Enough money to disappear, buy a new identity and acquire a baby girl. That math did add up.
Molly Vaughn was not Hanna Van Warner’s biological daughter.
So where did she get her?
chapter six
The Buchanan file was languishing, and Cedric White was not only walking around a free man, he was causing Bobby no end of grief. White’s complaint about police harassment had landed on the commissioner’s desk and Stacey Daniels was getting the gears over it. That filtered directly down to Bobby in the form of a severe lecture about civilian’s rights. Bobby was in a crap mood—his coffee tasted sour, his favorite parking space was already taken
, his computer took too long to boot up—it was going to be a shite of a day.
He scanned his inbox and found a new email from the forensics lab. He perked up as he opened it, hoping the results would show evidence of Jocelyn Buchanan in White’s condo. The contents of White’s vacuum cleaner had been analyzed and it was a bust. Dust and dirt, a few bits of wood that were likely from the landscape chips in the front garden, and carpet fibers consistent with the floor coverings in his condo. Bobby closed the file, his shitty day a whole lot worse.
Outside, the weather had turned. Rain clouds were pushing in from the gulf and the temperature was dropping fast, just in time for Sarah’s final soccer game of the year. This would be his last opportunity to see Alyssa Vaughn in a neutral environment. Anything after this would be in an interview room at the station and he’d be talking to Hanna Van Warner, a woman who had possibly kidnapped a child.
He looked back at the Buchanan file and stared at the printouts of Cedric White’s banking statements. If nothing else, the man was methodical. He paid his bills the same day every month, sent his tax installments in on time, and loaded a hundred dollars on his Starbucks gold card every time it ran low.
“Fucking shoot me if I ever get like him,” he muttered to the empty room.
Finally, he slammed the thick file closed and slid it to the edge of his desk. He opened his browser and clicked the NamUs icon. Everything about the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System website was horrible. The cold and impersonal landing page, with little boxes on the left side for Missing Persons, Unidentified Persons and Unclaimed Persons, was merely a precursor to the horrors that lay inside. Men, woman and children disappeared all the time, taken by monsters, and so many of them were never found. No body, no trace they ever existed. Over the past few years Bobby had spent hours on the website and felt tinges of despair and foreboding every time he signed in.
Bobby started a search. He keyed in missing female, then narrowed it down to child 0 to 2 years of age. He sorted the list by the dates they went missing, then concentrated on the files from 2012 and 2013. The system was set up to display the results by State, and Alabama was first on the list. It was an exhausting and depressing exercise. After two hours he marked his spot, closed the website and went in search of a coffee to take with him to the soccer game.
Stacey Daniels was at the machine, pouring cream into her cup. “What’s with the fingerprint search on Hanna Van Warner?”
“It’s nothing.” Bobby said. All the searches they ran came up on Stacey’s screen so she could see what leads they were chasing. “She’s one of the soccer parents on Sarah’s team and she’s a bit off. There’s something about her.” It wasn’t time to tell his boss what he had or things would move to the next level and that might tip off Van Warner. The woman had substantial financial resources and it was entirely possible she could have a way of monitoring police activity on her name. With that kind of money she could even have someone on her payroll.
Stacey stirred her coffee. “The Buchanan file? What’s happening there?”
Bobby poured some coffee into his travel cup and screwed the lid on. “No one else is coming up on the radar.”
She leaned on the counter and stared at him long and hard. “You still think White is our guy.”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t break eye contact. “How sure, Bobby?”
She was opening the door for him. “Hundred percent, LT.”
Her stare was intense and unnerving. Her eyes never blinked and for the first time Bobby figured maybe they made the right decision promoting Stacey instead of him.
“All right,” she said. “If it’s him, get the motherfucker.”
He simply nodded and she walked out of the room. She’d given him a clean slate to chase down Cedric White and he headed down the hall with renewed vigor in his step. He opened the door to a blast of wind and driving rain that was going to make the next two hours complete crap. He swore under his breath and zipped up his coat as he ran to his car, his thoughts turning back to Alyssa Vaughn. He had a couple of ideas of how he might get something out of her but he needed to be careful. She already suspected he was fishing or she wouldn’t have mentioned him being a cop. Still, he had the advantage—Vaughn had no idea he knew she was Hanna Van Warner and that counted for something. A lot, actually.
The rain had almost stopped by the time he arrived at the soccer field. Sarah was on the pitch running sprints while Lizzie busied herself working on the soccer mom who had brought the treats. Bobby saw her pop something into her mouth and he couldn’t help grinning. Like father, like daughter, she had the patter. Alyssa Vaughn was on the sidelines, lacing up Molly’s shoes and looking impatient and angry. When she reached out and grabbed her daughter by the shoulder the girl winced and Bobby could tell it had hurt. Every instinct was telling him to make his way over and confront her but he buried the urge. There were other, more efficient ways of dealing with Vaughn.
Bobby kept an eye on Molly and her mom and was rewarded for his diligence. The girl reached into her bag and pulled out a hairbrush, then ran it through her hair and set it on the bench. Vaughn headed back to her car as Molly jogged onto the field and Bobby circled around to the bench and sat down next to the brush. He picked it up and pulled out a fist full of hair from the bristles, then set it back on the bench. He strolled slowly toward Janis and a couple of other moms, slipping a small evidence bag from his pocket and tucking Molly’s hair inside as he went.
“Hi,” he said when he reached the group.
“Bobby, you know everyone,” Janis said.
He nodded. “I do.” He glanced up at the sky. “Our last week and it rains on us.”
That started a whole new conversation about the weather and after a few minutes he excused himself and headed for Vaughn. She was back at the bench and Bobby noticed the hairbrush was nowhere in sight.
“Hey, Alyssa. How are things?”
Vaughn shrugged. “Not bad. You?”
“Shitty.”
That sparked a tiny fire in Vaughn’s eyes, like she enjoyed hearing it. “Why’s that?”
He held up his phone. “I just talked to my financial guy, and everything is down.”
She didn’t bite. She didn’t even respond.
“He said something about equities being risky. All I know is I lost a shitload of money.”
“Well, the markets can be difficult.” The words were measured, clipped.
Bobby looked directly at her. “It’s not like I took a whack of cash to Vegas and dropped it on red.”
“Well,” she said slowly in her most condescending tone. “When you gamble on the markets, sometimes you lose.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow. “Oh, how so?”
“Is this an interview, detective?”
Yeah, that’s exactly what this is.
“Not sure what you mean,” Bobby said.
Vaughn gave him an icy smile and shook her head. She turned sideways, effectively cutting off the conversation. Bobby walked away, seething.
“You are in deep shit, bitch,” he whispered to himself as he caught up with Janis.
Janis watched him approach. “You look angry.”
“Alyssa Vaughn,” he said in a low voice, “Keep the kids away from her.”
Janis studied him for a moment, her eyes narrowed and her lips drawn. “What’s this about, Bobby. Are the girls in danger?”
“I don’t think so.”
She moved closer to him, so they were only inches apart. “What does that mean?”
“It’s confidential.”
“So were a bunch of things you told me when we were together. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t trust her. She keeps avoiding getting her picture taken with the other moms.”
Janis gave him a narrowed eye. “You have more than that, Bobby.”
He knew she would never breathe a word. “Vaughn’s real name is Hanna Van Warner. Seven years ago she was a wealthy New York st
ockbroker with no husband or kids.”
“Well, Bobby, maybe she adopted Molly.”
“Maybe,” Bobby said, knowing the tone in his voice would tell Janis he didn’t believe it.
Every muscle in her body tightened. “Oh, my God. Molly’s seven.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The rain picked up again, this time with enough intensity for the referee to blow the whistle and call the game. Parents and kids were all scrambling to pick up their gear and make a dash for their cars. Janis stood unmoving, arms crossed and glaring at Bobby.
“Jesus, Bobby, why does shit like this follow you around?”
“I didn’t invite the fucking woman to put her kid on the team,” he snapped.
“Come over to the house, Dad,” Sarah said as she ran up to them and grabbed her bag.
“Yeah, Daddy, come over,” Lizzie squealed.
Bobby knelt on the wet grass. “Can’t today, but I will this weekend. Let’s get you guys to the car.”
They tore off ahead and he fell in beside Janis. “The dead people get the best of you,” she said, her voice strained. “Family gets what’s left over.”
“Not fair, Janis. I didn’t cause this.”
She stopped and took him by the arm, her eyes fierce and determined. “Who else would have noticed that Vaughn, or Van Warner or whatever her name is, was ducking out on a photo?” She waited, the rain pounding down and streaking her mascara. “No one, Bobby. No one else would have noticed.”
“And that’s okay?” Bobby wiped the rain from his eyes. “What if she took her? What if this was us? What if this piece of shit grabbed Sarah or Lizzie and we were sitting waiting for the phone to ring?”
They stood inches from each other, the tension palpable.
Finally, Janis said, “Okay, Bobby. If she took Molly, then make the phone ring for that poor family. But Bobby, keep our kids out of this.”
Then she put her arms around him and pulled him close. He held her and didn’t ever want to let go. She was wet and soft and he could only remember the good times. The moment they met, their first date, Sarah’s birth, Lizzie coming along. For a split second he felt whole again. She pulled back and it was gone.
