Trix

by Kate Morris

  “Just let Special Agent Masterson know,” Jack said, trying to avoid having to see his ex again. “He’ll get it to me.”

  “Sure,” Elizabeth said.

  She seemed disappointed. Jack would sure as hell know that look on her face. She wore it almost perpetually their entire marriage.

  “What about you, Victor?” Jack asked the other man, whose dark eyes jumped to his.

  “What about me?”

  “Do you have any enemies in business or political enemies?”

  Victor shook his head, “No, I’m only running for Attorney General, not the Senate. I hardly have any enemies.”

  Jack took a swift peek at Elizabeth and found her chewing her bottom lip. She was nervous about this subject. He also figured she didn’t agree with her husband. Jack had been married to her long enough to know her tells.

  “What about your family’s business? Any enemies there?”

  Victor sighed, “I already answered these questions, Foster. Check the notes.”

  “I’m just asking to see if something jars your memory.”

  “No, nothing, no enemies. My family’s business is legitimate and not a cause for concern.”

  Jack doubted this very much. He was getting ready to push the subject further when Lorena cleared her voice.

  “Can I see your daughter’s room, ma’am?” Lorena interrupted and rose, obviously not expecting to be refused.

  “I’ll show you,” Victor offered and also stood. “Would you like something to drink, Detective?”

  “No, thank you,” Lorena answered as she left the room with the wolf.

  Jack also rose and walked to a set of windows overlooking the backyard. There was a barbeque, a covered veranda, and the newly finished concrete patio. Elizabeth joined him there a moment later holding a glass of red wine, her usual evening night cap.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Jack,” she said, touching the sleeve of his shirt.

  Jack looked down at her long, slim fingers.

  “What’s he hiding about his business, Lizzy?” he asked, using her nickname, something she dropped later.

  “You know Victor, Jack,” she said as if that would make him feel any better about their bizarre situation. “He’s always into one thing or another. Stocks, bonds, trading.”

  “I mean his family’s business.”

  She sighed, “It’s not that. Don’t waste your time barking up the wrong tree, Jack. Victor’s family’s business is clean. You won’t find anything there, and he’d bury you in a long court trial if you tried digging around.”

  “Do they still work in importing?”

  She nodded and pressed her hair down on the side of her head as if trying to catch a flyaway. There weren’t any, but Elizabeth also did this when she was nervous.

  “Who do you think took her? Don’t waste my time here, Liz. If you have any idea, speak now. If it was one of Victor’s enemies, just say it. You know how this goes. The sooner we move on this, the better. You know the odds on these kinds of cases. We need to find her and soon.”

  “I know,” she said, flinching. “I’ll think about it and call you later.”

  He nodded. Seeing her again was harder than he’d thought it would be.

  “Why don’t you show me around?” he requested. “I read the file. They think he took her out the side door?”

  “Yes, I found it wide open when we got home.”

  “No dog?”

  “No, you know I don’t like animals in the house,” she reminded him as she led Jack through the other set of doors in the long room and into the kitchen.

  It was a massive white room with white cupboards that reached the ceiling and black granite covering every counter space.

  “So, you cook now?”

  She chuffed, “Victor paid for me to get lessons when we first got married. I kind of like it now.”

  He rose his eyebrows and tried to offer a friendly grin. Jack doubted it came off as such.

  Then she took him to the side entrance where they hung their coats and kept shoes. The space was impeccably clean and tidy. The mansion certainly didn’t look like a family with kids lived in it. There was fingerprint dusting powder residue still on the doorknob.

  “They sprayed the area to check for blood,” she told him.

  Jack nodded, noticing the residuals of Luminol. “I saw in the report that they didn’t come up with anything.”

  “No footprints, either,” she said in a sad tone.

  He nodded, “That’s fine. This man isn’t stupid. But he also is just a man. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “I just can’t believe this happened. Victor is beside himself. Hailee is his everything. After Hailee’s mother died, Victor devoted all his time to Hailee or work. They used to be really close.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Everything changes, Jack.”

  “Yeah. Is he also close with your son?” Jack asked, crossing every possible boundary he could with this question. It had nothing to do with the case, and he knew it.

  “Sure. He tries. Victor’s just been so busy since he started getting more into politics.”

  “What about the man he’s running against? Do you think he’d have anything to do with this?”

  “No, not at all. He’s a good man.”

  “And Victor isn’t?”

  She scowled at him. “Jack, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Sorry,” he said. Then he admitted, “It was a mistake to come here.”

  She grabbed his arm and said, “No, I’m glad you’re here. Somehow knowing you’re working on this is going to help me sleep at night. If that’s even possible.”

  He nodded but didn’t share her opinion. All he wanted to do was collect Lorena and get the hell out of Victor’s home.

  “Jack, tell me you’ll find her.”

  His ex-wife’s eyes pleaded with him. Jack frowned and looked away, unable to lie to her.

  “We’re doing everything we can, Liz.”

  She nodded, and he saw that she recognized his mechanical statement. She’d been his wife, the wife of a cop, a man who’d said this phrase many times to other families. She knew he couldn’t promise her anything. Jack couldn’t promise to bring her step-daughter home because she was not simply kidnapped. She was kidnapped by a man that never let his victims go because he was a lethal serial killer, and Jack wasn’t sure at all that they’d find Hailee alive. The odds were against it.

  “I’m so scared, Jack,” she confided with tears threatening to spill over.

  “We’re working hard. Just help us out by not letting Victor get in the way of the investigation.”

  She nodded vigorously, “I’ll do whatever I can. I’m just so glad you’re here.”

  “Go work on that list for me of her friends and contacts,” he said and walked toward the staircase where Lorena had gone with Victor. “I’m going up to help my partner.”

  Elizabeth nodded, seemed a little harried, and left the room a second later. It took everything he had not to look at the master bedroom as he passed it on his way down the hall on the second floor to the daughter’s room. Jack couldn’t bear to look into the private lives of his ex-wife and her new husband, the man she left him for.

  Chapter Seven

  Lorena

  The first thing she did was pop an Atomic Fireball into her mouth. Then she looked around the young girl’s bedroom, a place she obviously didn’t let her step-mother decorate. The walls and carpeting may have been white, but Hailee loved color. There were pink and blue throw pillows on the bed that was covered with a pink floral comforter. Touches of peach and yellow made up the flower arrangements placed on each nightstand. Colorful art, not modern art, but tastefully done landscapes in a classical Monet style hung on the walls. There was a window seat at one end of the room covered in blue, floral chintz. All in all, the room was definitely feminine and even a tad shabby chic.

  Pulling her iPod from her pocket, she pushed play and inserted her earbuds,
letting the sounds of The Cranberries distract her as she took in the room. Lorena walked first to the bedside tables to see if Hailee had written anything, a note or reminder to perform some deed in the morning. Perhaps she had plans that her parents weren’t aware of. Nothing was there, not even a journal. If there was, the FBI agents that swept the house already probably took everything in as evidence. Lorena didn’t figure she’d find much, but she’d wanted to see what the girl’s room looked like. It could give her an insight into her life, which could lead them to their killer.

  She was also glad that Victor left her at the door. Lorena wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want to enter his missing daughter’s bedroom or if he realized she wanted to be alone. Either way, she was relieved. Something about Victor Neumann didn’t sit well with her. He was so polished and poised that he came off as a little creepy. His thick, German accent also creeped her out. It only added to his strangeness.

  “Find anything?” Jack asked from the doorway before entering. He shut the door behind him.

  “No, nothing yet,” she answered honestly and knelt beside the bed to look under it. It was spotless.

  She stood and went to the girl’s desk sitting against the wall with no windows. With all the great views, it was interesting that Hailee hadn’t wanted her desk to overlook the back or side yards. Jack looked around the room and also through the long, walk-in closet while she raided the bedroom. He always left her alone when she wanted it. He could tell by now when she needed to get inside her own head. This was definitely one of those times.

  Lorena sat at Hailee’s desk in the comfortable, plush office chair and leaned back to observe the wall in front of her. There were small posters of movies she must’ve liked, photos of friends, and a push pin board with notes and mementos like ticket stubs. She looked closer at the friends in the pictures because not all of them looked like they were from a few years ago or at some beach in California with bright sunshine and killer waves. A few seemed very recent. There were also many with her little brother, with whom she was apparently very close. She smiled for the camera, her brown eyes kind and her light brown hair shining. She didn’t fit Trix’s typical victim, who was usually blonde. Her parents obviously didn’t know everything that was going on in her life because her father didn’t figure she had many friends yet in Portland.

  She looked down and was surprised to see the girl’s daily planner still sitting there on her desk. Most kids kept this sort of stuff on their electronic devices, but Hailee had things written in pencil. The techs must’ve looked at it and deemed it not worth taking. Lorena knew that they’d found her cell phone on the island in the kitchen. They wouldn’t be getting a tower ping off of it by which to rescue her. It was never going to be that easy, not with the Tooth Fairy.

  She flipped through Hailee’s planner, noticing that most of it was about school tests, cello practice, doctor appointments, French tutoring, and special events held by their school that she must’ve wanted to attend. Lorena took particular notice of the last four weeks. This man, this Tooth Fairy knew Hailee. It’s how he got into their house without forcing entry. It’s how he knew her schedule and where she’d be and that she’d be alone. The first and most obvious place to start looking would be school teachers, counselors, coaches, and anyone else who had close and recent contact with her.

  Nothing stood out as something to set off alarm bells in her head, but Lorena decided to take it into custody just the same. She opened and closed the drawers of her desk, finding paperclips, sticky note pads and the usual array of similar office supply items. The bottom drawer caught when she tried to open it, so Lorena knelt on the plush carpeting to investigate the reason. A file or book or something was impeding the desk drawer from completely opening. She took a pencil from the desktop and carefully stuck it up and under the lip of the drawer to flip down whatever was stopping it from opening. A second more and she felt it go back into place, and she was able to pull the drawer open. However, there wasn’t a file or book in the way. There were just book reports and school project papers and essays stapled together laying in the bottom of the deep drawer. This had Lorena puzzled. Something had hindered the drawer from opening, so she got down on both knees and reached in. Then she flipped her hand upside down and felt around on the floor of the drawer above it. Paper. Something. She brought out her flashlight and practically stood on her head to look. A legal size yellow envelope was taped to the underside of the top drawer. Lorena carefully extracted it. Then she sat back on her heels and opened it.

  She was shocked to find photographs of their victim inside. Some were innocent enough, photos with her friends, some of them on the beach, which Lorena recognized as the same ones in the pics tacked to the message board. Other photographs, however, were not quite so innocent. Hailee topless without a bra or camisole dancing around her bedroom, not the room Lorena was in, so it was obviously her old room. She was mugging for the camera like so many young girls did when they thought taking naked selfies was a brilliant idea. There were more photographs, some that looked recent because they were taken in this room. Again, she was semi-nude and posing. The angles of the photographs, though, led Lorena to believe that Hailee had not taken them unless she had a ten-foot-long selfie stick.

  She flipped to the next picture and had her assumptions confirmed. It was a photo of Hailee with a boy, probably close to the same age as her. They were lying on the bed Lorena just looked under in this very room. Hailee was in her bra, and this time it was taken selfie style from just inches away. The boy was handsome, different from what Lorena would think the girl would go for. He had a rebellious, bad boy look about him but he was smiling shyly. His appearance definitely leant to the idea that Victor Neumann would not approve of this young man, especially since he’d only moments ago told them that his daughter was not allowed to have a boyfriend. Unless the bad boy was Hailee’s extremely young gynecologist, then the next few photos were going to be a shock when her father finally discovered them. Unfortunately, Lorena couldn’t leave them. They were evidence.

  She had no idea how old the kid was, but if he was in the right age category, he would have to be questioned as a potential suspect. At the very least, he might have seen her alive last if he’d come to this house, this very bedroom the day of Hailee’s disappearance.

  Jack tapped her shoulder, causing her to startle and shove the photos into the envelope quickly. She unplugged one earbud and stood again.

  “Watcha’ got?” he asked.

  “Photos. Some inappropriate. I definitely think the girl had a boyfriend.”

  “And a lot of secrets,” he confirmed and held up a shoe box.

  “What’s in it?”

  “A lot of cash. Condoms. Cigarettes. A couple joints,” he told her and tipped it to show Lorena.

  “How’d you find that?”

  “How’d you find what you did?” he asked with a grin. Then answered, “Mine was hidden in the attic access panel above her closet.”

  “Taped to the underside of a drawer,” she nodded and answered about her own find. “The FBI should’ve caught both.”

  “I think they’re assuming that none of this matters, that he came here and took her and didn’t know her,” Jack said. “Plus, they’re probably scared shitless Victor’s gonna sue them for illegal search or some nonsense.”

  “Her hair is dark,” she said, indicating the photos. “He usually goes for blondes.”

  “The photo Elizabeth showed me downstairs was more recent. She was definitely a brunette, but Liz took her to get some highlights, I guess.”

  She nodded. She saw that one, too. It still wasn’t blonde but light brown. They went back to work. When they were done, Jack called Masterson to come up and collect the evidence they’d found. Lorena took a stance near the tall windows overlooking the backyard. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a lake. This home stood on a lake, near the end of it from what she could tell. The rain was still coming down, but she could see acr
oss the lake. She also spotted a pair of binoculars resting on the window sill, so Lorena used them to spy on the neighboring homes.

  “This is a lake house,” she said to Jack as he drew near.

  “Yeah, didn’t you know?”

  She shot him an irritated look, “How would I know that? I’m not the one who lived here.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not that. Hell, Evans, it’s not like I could’ve afforded to live here, either. I just meant that Masterson mentioned it.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” she admitted and resumed her spying.

  People across the lake, most around two to three hundred yards away, were home from work because most of the houses had interior lights glowing.

  “We need to figure out who that boy in the photos is,” Lorena said. “We’re gonna have to talk to her friends. She was obviously leading a double life. Connecting with her friends is going to be the fastest way of figuring out who the secret boyfriend was.”

  “Yep,” he said and borrowed the glasses to look. “I’m quite sure the geeks are digging through her social media accounts right now, too. I’m gonna go find Masterson and see which neighbors they talked to. It’s later in the day now, so people are getting home from work.”

  “I’m sure they’ve interviewed everyone,” Lorena said and glanced down at the lake, the water reflecting the lights inside the homes as long streaks of liquid gold.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he agreed. “Wanna’ look around with me or are you still working in here?”

  “No, I’m coming,” she told him and followed Jack from the room.

  They talked to Masterson on the first floor again, and he confirmed that the neighbors had been interviewed and that agents were still working the homes on the street, a few of which were empty from families being on vacation, probably spring break.

  “What about the people across the lake?” Lorena asked.

  “Across the lake?” he repeated, to which she nodded. “Hm, don’t think so. We canvassed this street, the people in the neighborhood, don’t think anyone went over there.”

  “Not across the lake opposite of the Neumann’s?” she asked. He consulted his file and finally shook his head. “Care if we do it? You can see this house from over there. Could be a chance that someone saw something yesterday.”