I See You

by Burton, Mary

  “Sure. I mean, we were super close for a little while, but she’s all about her boyfriend now.”

  Zoe pulled out a chair and sat beside Devon. “Skylar is missing, Devon. And I’m doing everything I can to find her. What can you tell me about her?”

  Devon looked up at her mother and then back at Zoe. “I don’t know.”

  “Anything you can tell me about her. Habits, boyfriends, friends her parents might not have known about.”

  “She got along with everyone here okay. No big drama.”

  “What about back in Oregon?”

  Devon was silent for a moment. “Well, she had a boyfriend out in Oregon, and he tried to break up with her. She said it really hurt her feelings, and she had a hard time letting go. Sky started following him around.”

  “She was stalking him?”

  “When you say it that way, it sounds really creepy.”

  Was there a nice way to say it? “What did she do?”

  “Sky got caught breaking into his house. I think she might have even trashed his room.”

  But was that the kind of offense that caused a family to uproot and move across the country? “Did she hurt anyone?”

  “I don’t think it was on purpose,” Devon said.

  “What happened?”

  “She accidently hit him with her car. He’s okay now, but I think it kind of scared everyone. She’s on medicine now and doing better. She’s going to be pissed when she finds out I told you this much.”

  “Do you remember the boyfriend’s name?” Zoe asked.

  “George Tate.” Devon rushed to say, “She seems really happy with Neil.”

  “Has she made any threats against anyone you know in Alexandria?”

  “No. She was always super sweet. And when she wanted, she could charm anyone.”

  “Thanks, Devon,” Zoe said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “It’s weird what happened in the Foster house. Do you think Skylar is okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  “She could be hiding out until the drama passes.”

  “Has Skylar run away before?”

  “A couple of times, but only for a few hours, and it was always to Jessica’s or my house. We’d eat ice cream and talk about how her parents sucked. She didn’t like to be around them when they fought.”

  “I never saw them fight,” Barb said.

  “They were super careful that no one heard them,” Devon said. “They wanted everyone to think they were perfect.”

  “Is that what Skylar said?” Zoe asked.

  “Yeah. She hated that they were always getting into it.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “Money, mostly. Mrs. Foster liked to buy things. And I think Mr. Foster wasn’t making the money he used to,” Devon said.

  “I never knew any of this,” Barb said.

  “Did Mr. Foster ever threaten his wife?” Zoe asked.

  “No. At least not that she told me.”

  Kids absorbed more than most parents realized. Zoe fished two cards from her pocket and handed one to Barb and one to Devon. “If you think of anything else, call me.”

  “Of course.”

  “She’s going to turn up,” Devon said. “She always does.”

  “I hope so,” Zoe said.

  Outside, Zoe called Bud Clary. When he answered, she asked, “What’s the status of the messages on Skylar’s phone?”

  “She’d been in contact with a guy by the name of Mr. Fix It,” Bud said.

  “Really?”

  “He’s told her multiple times how special she is and how much he loves her. Let me read an exchange.”

  “Fire away.”

  Wild Blue: My mother is leaving my father.

  Mr. Fix It: I told you she would.

  Wild Blue: How am I going to survive without my family.

  Mr. Fix It: I’ll be your family now.

  “Damn it,” she said. “Thanks, Bud.”

  She returned to the house and rang the bell. Barb answered it. “I have one more quick question for Devon.”

  “Sure.” Barb called to her daughter, who came down the stairs.

  “Sorry to bother you again. Have you heard of a guy named Mr. Fix It? Skylar was messaging him through an app.”

  “No, she never mentioned him to me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, thanks again.” When Zoe found Vaughan, his phone was to his ear and he was frowning, deepening the lines around his mouth and eyes. She imagined in a few years those lines would be permanently etched into his face, and the flecks of gray in his hair would be thickened. At least on him, the extra wear looked good. He was a hard man to ignore.

  When she reached Vaughan, he said in a weary tone, “Agent Spencer and I will be right there.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He tucked the phone in his breast pocket. “A couple of morning joggers on the W&OD Trail found a body in Waterfront Park. It matches the description of Hadley Foster.”

  The fifty-mile trail, which followed an old railroad bed, started thirty miles to the west in Loudon County and meandered along the Potomac River to Mount Vernon. “Any sign of Skylar?”

  “No.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Wednesday, August 14, 9:00 a.m.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Twenty-Six Hours after the 911 Call

  By the time Zoe and Vaughan arrived at the thirty-acre park ten minutes later, she had briefed him on Skylar’s conversation with Mr. Fix It. His grim expression mirrored her own worries for the girl and her mother.

  Flashing lights and a dozen cop cars greeted them. They parked and moved toward the yellow tape, ducking under it, and headed for the grassy shoreline along a wide creek. The sun was already high in the sky, and the air was heating up. Another hot, humid day.

  Zoe tugged on latex gloves and moved directly to the shore. She spotted the white athletic shoe and then the jogging shorts. Slowly, her gaze trailed up the trim body to the face of Hadley Foster, which stared, sightless, up to the clear blue sky.

  A deep sense of sadness and disappointment washed over her as she studied the knife wounds slashing the woman’s neck and arms. Cops tried to be cynical and hardened about how these cases played out, but that did not stop them from hoping they could beat the odds. For just a moment, she allowed outrage and disgust to roil inside her before she carefully shoved both inside an already brimming box deep within her. Hadley Foster’s body had to now be considered strictly as evidence.

  Her gaze lowered to the woman’s hands. One lay in the water and was already discolored and bloated. Water did terrible things to the dead. The other hand was on shore and still in fairly good shape. The nails, though dirty now, were not broken or chipped. Her hands weren’t scraped or cut.

  As the water gently lapped against the side of the body, she inventoried the knife wounds and counted three in the chest and neck region. The direct frontal attack, combined with the absence of defensive wounds, suggested to Zoe that Hadley had either recognized her attacker or been caught completely by surprise. And considering that the initial attack had occurred in her bedroom, perhaps it was a combination of both.

  Her thoughts pivoted back to Mark Foster. The man had been having an affair. His ex-girlfriend was now on ice at the medical examiner’s office. His own wounds had been superficial. He was in debt. His kid had exhibited unstable behavior. There was already enough probable cause to hold him for questioning.

  But until she knew where Skylar Foster was, she would tread carefully. Foster already had a lawyer and, at this point, was a desperate man with little to lose.

  Vaughan approached the body and crouched like a lion stalking prey. He removed a pen from his breast pocket and pushed back the collar of Hadley’s workout jacket so that they both had a clear view of the knife wound that sliced directly across the jugular vein.

  “Foster said the assailant had a knife to Hadley’s thro
at,” she said.

  Thick, dried brown blood caked her throat, making it impossible to see if there were any small nicks on Hadley’s neck. All that was visible now was a large gaping wound that appeared to have been slashed in an upward motion.

  “Any word on the Quick-DNA testing on the blood in the Foster house?” Zoe asked.

  Vaughan rose and called the forensic department, nodding, listening, and thanking the person on the other end. “The blood in the master bathroom and in the Lexus is Hadley Foster’s.”

  “Any sign of Mark’s blood in either location?” she asked.

  “So far, his was only found by the front door,” he said. “But that could change. It’s going to take weeks to test it all.”

  “What about in the trail leading to the garage?” Zoe asked.

  “All Hadley.”

  The end corner of a terry cloth bath towel caught her attention. It matched the hand towels in the Fosters’ master bathroom. “The towel looks as if it were used to stop the bleeding. Why would the assailant try to stop the bleeding?”

  “Maybe Skylar tried to save her mother. Perhaps the assailant wanted to contain the blood until he disposed of her.”

  “Mark Foster never said their attacker or Skylar ran into the bathroom for a towel.”

  Vaughan’s eyes glinted with skepticism. “He could have forgotten the detail in all the confusion.”

  “Do you really believe that?” she asked.

  “My job is to play devil’s advocate.”

  “If this was done by a stranger like this Mr. Fix It, and Hadley knew her daughter was in the house, why didn’t she fight her attacker?” Zoe countered.

  “Maybe she was scared. Maybe she froze. Maybe it all happened so fast she never saw it coming.”

  “It’s all possible.”

  “And then her killer laid her down on the back seat of the Lexus and, if we can believe Mark Foster, had Skylar drive them here.”

  “We need to find Mr. Fix It.” Zoe noticed the marbling on Hadley’s chest. When the heart stopped pumping, the blood pooled at the lowest point in the body. If Hadley had been faceup—as she might have been if she had still been alive—her back would have been black and blue. In this case, it was her chest. “He tossed her in the back seat facedown because he knew she was dead by the time they got her to the car.”

  Zoe lifted her gaze to the creek that wound through the park. On the other side was a thick stand of trees and a couple of picnic tables. “How long do you think she’s been near the water?”

  “Twenty-four hours plus,” Vaughan replied.

  “You need to have some of your officers search the waters close to the shore. The placement of Hadley’s body looks rushed. And if I were a killer and needed to get rid of a knife, I might be tempted to throw it in the creek in the hopes it would get carried away.”

  “I’ll have them on it right now.”

  She opened her social media apps on her phone and checked Skylar Foster’s accounts. There had still been no activity since late Monday night, eight hours before the reported stabbing.

  “Is there any sign of the girl in the park?” Zoe asked.

  “Not yet, but they’re bringing in a cadaver dog to search the entire area.”

  “How did he get away from the park with Skylar?” Zoe asked. “He could have dragged her, but she doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid that wouldn’t fight back.”

  “Maybe it was Mr. Fix It,” he said. “We know they were in communication. Maybe she got in his car willingly.”

  There were many fragments that simply did not fit. “Maybe.”

  The two watched as the forensic team took pictures, made sketches, and then lifted the body and placed it on a tarp. Rigor mortis had stiffened the limbs, and the belly was beginning to bloat.

  The technician searched Hadley’s pockets, finding loose change in the right pocket and a single house key in the left.

  “She had just gotten back from her run, but she didn’t shower,” Zoe said. “The bathroom was so clean because she’d not used it yet, and neither had Foster.”

  The autopsy technicians laid a body bag beside the remains and unzipped it. Working in tandem, the two men lifted the body into the plastic bag as a forensic tech took pictures.

  “Before this leaks to the press, we need to inform Mark Foster we’ve found his wife,” Zoe said. “I want to see his reaction when he receives the news.”

  “We better go now, because this isn’t going to stay a secret long,” Vaughan said.

  The two drove to the Pollard house, parked, and approached the front door. Vaughan rang the bell, and almost immediately, footsteps sounded in the hallway. They both stood back from the door, eyeing the peephole and ensuring whoever was looking out from the other side could plainly see them. The door latch slid back, and a dead bolt turned before the door swung open.

  A faintly welcoming smile on Mrs. Pollard’s face did little to soften the dark undereye smudges left behind after a sleepless last night. “Officers, how can I help you?”

  “Is Mark Foster still here?” Vaughan asked.

  “Yes. He’s in the sunroom, resting.”

  “We’d like to see Foster,” he said.

  Any hint of hospitality slipped away, and Zoe was not sure Mrs. Pollard would let them inside. “My husband isn’t here now. He had to go into the office and won’t be back for a few hours.”

  “We have news for Mr. Foster,” Vaughan said. “He doesn’t have to speak, only listen.”

  Her brow wrinkled, and then she stepped aside before leading the two down the center hallway to a room filled with plants, floral prints, and sunshine streaming in through the glass.

  Foster was sitting in a rocker, facing the back side of his house. He was dressed in a pair of ill-fitting dark sweats, an oversize T-shirt, and a pair of house slippers.

  “Mr. Foster?” Vaughan asked.

  Foster winced as he rose to his feet and cradled his arm as he shuffled toward them. Beard stubble covered his chin. His hair, which had been flawless when they had first met, looked as if he had spent the night pulling his fingers through it. “Has there been any word on my wife and daughter?”

  “Yes, sir,” Vaughan said. “We’ve found your wife.”

  Zoe studied Foster’s blank expression as Vaughan approached the man.

  “We found her body an hour ago,” Vaughan said.

  Mrs. Pollard drew in a sharp breath and pressed trembling fingers to her lips. “Oh my God. That poor woman.”

  Foster lowered into the chair and dropped his face into his hands, hiding his expression. “This is a nightmare. My wife has to be all right.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said.

  “Jesus.” Foster threaded trembling fingers through his hair and then looked up, tears streaming. “What about Skylar? Have you found her?”

  Zoe noted a keen desperation in the words.

  “No, sir, we have not found Skylar. So far there are no leads. Has your daughter made any attempt to contact you?”

  “No,” Foster said. “If she had, I would have said something to you.”

  “Would you?” Vaughan asked.

  “Of course I would!” Foster shouted. “I want my daughter found. I love her more than anything. I’m not sure what you’re insinuating, but I don’t like it.”

  “I’m trying to solve this case and bring your daughter home alive,” Vaughan said. “You’ve had the night to think about all this. Have you thought of anything that might be of help to us?”

  “No. And I haven’t slept at all.” Foster leaned back and let his head drop against the chair.

  “That’s true,” Mrs. Pollard said. “He paced all night. Rodney was up with him until almost 2:00 a.m. The man is devastated.”

  “Can you go over again for me what happened yesterday?” Vaughan asked.

  “I told you. Twice,” Foster said.

  “Do it again.” Vaughan’s polite tone had sharpened.

  “I was on my way to work
when I remembered the trash. I took out the trash, and when I came in the back door, I heard my wife scream. I ran upstairs and found her standing in our bedroom. There was a man standing behind her, holding a knife to her throat.”

  “Had he stabbed her at that point?” Vaughan asked.

  “Stabbed her?” Foster asked.

  “Your bedroom is covered in blood.” It was common to ask the same question several times. People who told the truth didn’t have trouble with details. Liars sometimes did.

  Foster closed his eyes and didn’t answer.

  “Mr. Foster, where was your wife stabbed?” she pressed.

  “It must have been in the bedroom!” Foster almost shouted.

  “Where were her wounds?” Zoe asked.

  “I don’t know.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “There was blood on her shirt and around her neck.”

  “Was she fighting to get free?” Zoe asked.

  “Her eyes were wide with shock and fear. She was terrified.”

  “Was she reaching for the knife?” Zoe asked.

  “I don’t know. I suppose.”

  “Did she speak to you?” Zoe asked.

  “Why do you keep asking me about my wife? Shouldn’t you be out there finding her killer and my daughter?”

  “We need all the facts from you,” she said.

  “I’ve given them to you. But clearly, it’s not what you want to hear, so you keep asking me over and over again.”

  “Sometimes people remember more in the hours and days after an event,” Zoe said. That was true, but she was more interested to see if Foster’s story changed.

  Vaughan drew in a breath. “Who is Mr. Fix It?”

  “I have no idea,” Foster said.

  “Your daughter has been in communication with him.”

  “Where? How?”

  “An app on her phone,” he said. “We were lucky enough to get the password from her friend Jessica; otherwise, we never would have read their messages.”

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “We have no idea.” Vaughan shifted his stance. “Mr. Foster, I’d like you to come down to the station.”

  “Why? Am I under arrest?” he demanded.

  “No.” Not yet. “We have more questions for you,” Vaughan said.