I See You

by Burton, Mary

  The instant their gazes locked, she knew he recognized her. Though she had been off the air four months now, most who lived here had probably spent more time with her each day than they had with many of their friends and, sometimes, family.

  He acknowledged her with a nod and a grin she found utterly charming. He moved to the left rear tire, which was now completely deflated. He knelt and ran his finger over the tire and whistled. “Looks like someone is out to get you.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, moving closer.

  “Sidewall has a puncture that’s not from a nail.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I would not kid you, ma’am.”

  She didn’t want to overplay. The less said, the better. “If I had the time, I’d be pissed or worried, but I don’t. How soon can you fix it?”

  He rose up, threading long calloused fingers through his hair. “I’ll get it up on the lift right now and pop the tire. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re an angel.”

  He shook his head as he slid behind the wheel of her car. “Not even close. But thank you for saying so.”

  Jason held out his open palm, and she dropped her keys in his hand. He drove her car onto the lift and then got out to operate the controls.

  He moved with an ease that telegraphed confidence that she bet had made Marsha and Hadley melt. Far from the metrosexual males she had worked with at the station, he was rugged. No buffed nails or facials for this guy. Given a different set of circumstances, she might have taken him for a whirl.

  With a pneumatic drill, he removed the lug bolts and pulled the tire off as if it weighed nothing. On the workbench, he inspected it. “Whoever did this destroyed the tire. There’s no patching it.”

  “Seriously?” Had she really destroyed her tire? And how much was that going to cost her?

  “Yep.” He grinned, regarding her with eyes that danced with humor. “You know, if you wanted to ask me questions, you could have just asked. You didn’t need to ruin a good tire.”

  Nikki could have tried to bolster up her pretense, but she knew the time had come to cut her losses. “Do you have a new tire?”

  He moved a few inches closer. “A hundred and fifty bucks will cover the tire and the labor.”

  “Fine.” She was fairly sure her credit card had not fully maxed out.

  “Be right back.”

  He returned minutes later with a new tire. “Shouldn’t take long now.”

  “You know why I’m here. Mind if I ask you a few questions while I wait?”

  “Fire away, sugar.”

  “How long did you work with Larry Prince?”

  “About nine months, give or take.” He hefted the new tire onto the car and hand tightened the lug nuts.

  “Why did you quit a couple of weeks before Marsha Prince vanished?”

  “I quit because he was cutting back my hours. I couldn’t make my rent, so I headed to Florida to work for a friend.”

  “And ended up doing time in prison.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. “Shit happens.”

  “Did you kill Marsha Prince?”

  “Cops were here earlier asking me the same question. The answer is the same. No, I did not.”

  “Were you sleeping with her?”

  He reached for the drill, and its whir-whir silenced her questions for a moment. “She was of age, and the sex was consensual. I’ve always liked the ladies, and the good Lord has seen to it that they like me back.”

  “Who do you think killed her?”

  “I always thought Hadley did. She was always jealous of her sister, and they fought a lot that last summer.” He set the drill down and turned the tire. Satisfied, he lowered the lift.

  “What did they fight about?”

  “Anything that was bugging Hadley at the time. She was a manipulator. Face of an angel. Heart of the devil. Someone you wanted to tread softly around.”

  “Could Mark have killed Marsha?”

  “I don’t think he had the stones.”

  “Could Mark have killed Hadley?”

  Jason paused, staring at the tire. “Like I said, I don’t think he had the stones, but if there was a woman who could tune a man up and piss him off to the point of murder, it was Hadley.”

  “What about Skylar?”

  The humor in his eyes dimmed. “That kid is a survivor. She’s alive and well.”

  “That sounds like wishful thinking.”

  “It’s not. It’s fact.”

  “I did a little research on the woman who owned the storage unit. She has no idea how the trunk got there.”

  “That so?”

  “It really was a perfect hiding place. She’s eighty-eight, and it’s not likely she keeps up with her unit or visits very often.”

  He stared at her with an intensity that made her feel as if they were the only two people in the world. “That’s fascinating.”

  “Someone wanted me to find Marsha. But what keeps chewing on me is why now? Why after all this time?”

  “I’m not the kind of guy to ask a complicated question like that. I’m a simple man at heart.” He rested his hands on his hips. “How about you and I get a drink tonight after I get off work? I might have all kinds of good things to tell you.”

  She smiled. “How about I take a rain check on the invitation?”

  “I’m always here, sugar.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Wednesday, August 14, 4:30 p.m.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Thirty-Three Hours after the 911 Call

  When Vaughan and Spencer arrived at the police station, they went directly to Captain Preston’s office. The captain, in his midforties, was tall, with a naturally dark complexion, and wore a perpetually skeptical glare. Vaughan knocked, and the captain waved them in as he rose and said, “That’s right. Do what you can. Now I got to call you back.”

  Preston’s phone’s receiver landed in the cradle with a firm click as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Foster showed up thirty minutes ago. He said he wants to confess to his wife’s and daughter’s murders. But I’ll warn you, he seems like he’s high on pain medications.”

  “So we can’t use anything he says in court,” Vaughan said.

  Spencer shook her head. “Has he said where he stashed Skylar’s body?” she pressed.

  Preston pursed his lips, as if pausing to control anger. “He said it doesn’t matter where his daughter’s body is now. She’s with the angels.”

  “The hell it doesn’t,” Vaughan growled. “I want to know what happened to that kid.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Preston nodded in the direction of the interview rooms. “He’s all yours.”

  “I’m on it.” Vaughan stopped in the doorway, his mind already turning with questions. “Does Foster drink coffee or soda?”

  “Coffee,” Preston said. “One sugar.”

  “Thanks.”

  Vaughan paused at the break room and made a fresh pot of coffee. He offered a cup to Spencer, but she declined, and he then poured one for Foster and the other one for himself. A packet of sugar and a stir stick, and he was ready to go. He had learned a long time ago that if you wanted a man to talk about his crimes, he had to believe you were his friend.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Spencer said. “It’s too easy. All of a sudden, he wants to talk? What about his lawyer? He can’t be happy about this.”

  His eyebrows knitted. “Sometimes it simply is. Let me talk to him alone. I don’t want this to seem like an interrogation.”

  “I’ll be across the hall, watching on closed-circuit television.”

  “Perfect.”

  Legal pad tucked under his arm, he entered the small interview room, where Mark Foster sat at the table. Foster cradled an empty foam cup marred by small divots dug out by his thumbnail.

  Vaughan set the fresh cup of coffee, sugar, and stir stick in front of him and then sat kitty-corner to him. “Thought you co
uld use this,” he said.

  Foster blinked slowly and nodded. “Thanks.”

  Vaughan sat back in his seat and casually sipped coffee he really did not want. There was an art to looking calm and friendly when all he wanted to do was reach across the table and grab him by the collar.

  “Can I get you anything else?” Vaughan asked. “Are you hungry? I could get us a pizza or burgers.”

  Foster let a breath trickle out over clenched teeth. He swayed slightly. “No. I don’t need anything else.”

  Vaughan carefully sipped the coffee, categorizing the dozens of questions that demanded to be asked. Instead of firing the first, he paused, knowing if he built a rapport, Foster might believe they were on the same side. The goal now was not to get a pound of flesh but to find the girl.

  “I know you’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress,” he said. “I can’t imagine how difficult the last few days have been.”

  “It’s been the worst time in my life,” Foster said, dropping his gaze to his cup. “Never did I think I’d be here.”

  “I believe you.” Vaughan set his cup down and reached for a pen in his breast pocket. He clicked the end of it and let the silence settle between them, knowing it could coax some kind of conversation.

  Foster reached for the sugar packet and carefully tore off the top, poured it into the cup, and stirred. “Hadley hated it when I used sugar. She said it was poison for the body.”

  “You’ve got to live a little,” he said, forcing a smile.

  Images of Hadley Foster’s mutilated body, as well as the dead bodies of Galina Grant and Veronica Manchester, crowded around him. He took a mental step back from the memories as he added sugar to his coffee.

  “That’s exactly what I used to tell her.” Foster took a sip and set the cup down carefully.

  “Was she always so set in her ways? Disciplined, I guess?”

  “Not when we first met.” His mind seemed to drift. “She was carefree and so much fun. In those days, I woke up and fell asleep thinking about her.”

  “When a woman gets in your blood, it’s hard to shake,” Vaughan said truthfully.

  Foster looked up. “A teenage boy never had a chance against Hadley Prince. She blew into my life like a hurricane, and I was never the same.”

  He leaned back, shifting tactics again. “How did you meet Hadley?”

  “She was running a register at her father’s shop. Once I saw her, I applied for a job.”

  “You worked there for a summer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Marsha also worked there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Before we talk about Hadley, I’d like to talk about Marsha Prince.” Vaughan would work the conversation around to Hadley in a minute. “Were she and Hadley close?”

  “On the surface, but Hadley resented Marsha because their dad’s business had been profitable enough to send her to Georgetown. The tables turned when it was Hadley’s time to go. Marsha was still going back to Georgetown, and Hadley was headed to community college, if she was lucky.”

  “Did they fight?”

  “Sure. Sisters fight. But Marsha didn’t instigate the trouble. Hadley did.”

  “I have three sisters. My sister Kendra was always the one stirring the pot.” He sipped his coffee. “But Kendra would never kill any of our other sisters.”

  Foster’s brow tightened with a frown as he stared into his cup. “And Hadley wouldn’t have killed Marsha. I always believed that deep down she loved Marsha. Hadley was never the same after Marsha vanished. She carried tremendous guilt over all the fights she picked with her sister.”

  “It must have thrown her off after our visit,” Vaughan said.

  “She was a mess. I couldn’t get her to calm down. I was supposed to go back to the office and offered to stay home, but she insisted I go. She wanted to be alone.”

  “But she wasn’t alone that night, was she?”

  He frowned and blinked, as if trying to remember. “No, I guess not.”

  “When you got home that night, did you realize she’d been with Roger Dawson?”

  He shook his head. “No. She was home when I got home. We didn’t speak until the morning.”

  Vaughan reached for a memory, hoping it would appeal to Foster. “When my marriage went south, it didn’t happen right away.” The sincerity of his own words surprised him, and it wasn’t lost on him that he was having this conversation with a suspect in front of Spencer. “It was a slow and steady downhill slide.”

  Foster’s hand trembled a little when he took a sip of coffee. “It sneaks up so slowly you don’t see it coming.”

  Again he let the silence simmer. “Is that when you reached out to Veronica Manchester?”

  He looked up, his gaze earnest. “Yes, but I broke it off.”

  “Did you? Your phone records recorded multiple conversations recently, and we found no text that suggested a breakup.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a text. Maybe I called her from the office phone. I just don’t remember.”

  “Where is she now?” he asked casually.

  “Vacation. In France.”

  “She kept in touch with her friends while she was traveling?”

  “Not that I heard of.”

  Vaughan tapped a finger on the table, trying to figure out if this guy was telling the truth or playing him for a fool. DNA, surveillance tapes, and possible new eyewitness testimonies would eventually tell the story, but what he needed now was to find Skylar.

  “Tell us about yesterday. How did it start?” Vaughan asked.

  “Like it always does.” Foster sipped his coffee. “It was very ordinary. I got up, and Hadley wasn’t in bed but out for a run. She likes to get up early and get a workout in before she sees her clients.”

  “She’s dedicated.”

  “More likely, obsessed.”

  “Did that bother you?” Vaughan asked.

  “Not when we first married. I knew she was carrying the guilt over Marsha. I thought it would get better, but it only got worse, and after a while, it bugged the hell out of me.” The frown lines on Foster’s face deepened, and he looked as if he was ready to slip back into his brooding silence.

  Vaughan scratched his chin. “You wake up. She’s out running.”

  He dropped his gaze to the coffee. “I went downstairs to make coffee. I checked email on my phone, and when the pot was brewed, I took a cup up to Skylar. She’s always slow to wake up.”

  “You were downstairs having your coffee?”

  “Yes, and then I went upstairs for a shower and to get dressed for work. I had an early morning. While I was putting on my tie, I heard Hadley come upstairs.”

  Vaughan sensed the truth was thinning and the lies growing. “What happened next?”

  Foster swallowed more coffee and, for a long moment, stared at a deep scratch in the wooden table. “After I gave Sky her coffee, Hadley called out to me. She was pissed about something, and I chose not to answer. It only fueled her anger, and she blurted out that she loved Roger and was leaving. I don’t remember much after that. I was angry because we were supposed to be trying to fix our marriage for Skylar’s sake. I saw white and barely remember going to the kitchen and getting the boning knife. I came back, and I stabbed that bitch in our bedroom.”

  “Where was Skylar?” Vaughan asked.

  Mention of his daughter’s name made him stiffen. He closed his eyes, as if trying to block out the image of her.

  The pain crimping the man’s face felt genuine. His pain was real. But murder and regret often went hand in hand. Lashing out in the heat of the moment often led to a lifetime of regret. Murderers were people. They did suffer guilt. But that sense of remorse did not exonerate them from punishment.

  “Skylar screamed. She was standing behind me and saw what I’d done to her mother.” Foster pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed slowly in clockwise circles. “Hadley was making the worst gurgling sound. She was struggling so hard to breathe
. The look in her eyes.” He swallowed. “She was shocked.”

  “What did Skylar do next?”

  “Nothing. She kept screaming. I had to stop the sounds. I didn’t think, but I reacted. I told her to help me get her mother in the car. I told her we had to get to the hospital.”

  None of the neighbors he’d spoken to had reported screaming. “Did you intend to go to the hospital?”

  “At first, yes. Sky got in the back seat with Hadley. She was cradling her mother’s head as I drove. Skylar kept saying, ‘Daddy, help me. Mommy’s not breathing.’”

  It was another lie. He knew from the examination of Hadley’s body that she had been facedown in the back seat. Once he had Foster’s version of events, he would compare every word of it to the evidence. “But you didn’t make it to the hospital.”

  “Skylar said Hadley stopped breathing. She said there was no pulse. I pulled into the entrance of the park and checked Hadley. She was dead. The hospital was pointless. I panicked because I didn’t want to go to jail. I picked her up in my arms, carried her to the creek bank, and laid her down. I threw the knife into the creek.”

  “Where was Skylar?”

  “She was in the car. At first she was quiet, but then she started screaming. She was making so much noise. I just wanted her to be quiet. I put my hand over her mouth. She struggled. I kept pressing harder and harder, and then finally she crumpled in my arms. It was too late when I realized she had suffocated.”

  “Where did you take her body?”

  “I don’t remember. I was in shock and just started driving. I remember leaving her somewhere safe. And then I went home. I stabbed myself and made up the story about the attacker.”

  Vaughan studied the man for a few moments. “Mr. Foster, we need to find Skylar.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” he stammered. “I don’t remember.”

  “How many pain meds have you taken, Mr. Foster?” Vaughan asked.

  “I don’t know. I got a little confused and took an extra, but I am clearheaded.”

  “You told me yesterday a masked intruder broke into your house.”