“But you said Charley was your friend.” And it was the first she’d heard of any wife.
Todd was moving around the apartment, gathering his things. “I thought you might be jealous if I gave you a woman’s name.”
“Is she an ex-girlfriend of yours?” Jamie didn’t see why she’d be jealous. The woman was married to Charley now. “Maybe you should call her and sort it out. You know, in case the cops show up.”
“Nah, I don’t want to cause trouble for them. Let’s pack up and leave.”
“Leave?”
“We don’t have time for this, Jamie. Go on, pack our stuff. And make it quick.” He shoved her toward the bedroom. “Get moving. Don’t make more trouble than you already have.”
Jamie didn’t understand what was going on but she didn’t have time to think about it. She found it odd, though, that there was nothing in the apartment to indicate a woman lived there.
Chapter 35
Marta’s stomach soured as she watched Detective Phillips examine the photo of Jamie, stark naked, in the bathtub. The pose was tame by contemporary standards, but this was her daughter Phillips was staring at, not some unknown girl on the Internet. She had to remind herself that the photo was evidence and Phillips was a cop. He wasn’t leering. At least, she hoped not.
Next to her, Gordon looked uncomfortable, too. “You can track the location where it was sent from, can’t you?” he asked.
After a sleepless night, they’d headed to the station first thing that morning.
“The FBI might be able to,” Phillips said.
“So have them do it.” Gordon was practically breathing fire.
Phillips responded with something between a cough and a laugh. “It doesn’t work that way.” He leaned over his desk to hit the intercom. “Let me run this by our tech guy and our legal people. The phone companies won’t even speak to us without a court order.”
He was going through the motions, Marta gave him credit for that, but the bottom line was, the text probably convinced him that Jamie was in no danger. He might even believe she was safer and happier now than she had been living at home. Marta had learned a lot in the past week about the abuse and neglect that often drove kids to leave home.
A few seconds later, the door opened and a younger officer joined them. Phillips introduced him as the technical specialist, Jack Pickering. He, too, examined Jamie’s photo while Phillips filled him in on the background and Marta continued to squirm.
“This isn’t from a number you recognize?” Pickering asked.
“Definitely not,” Gordon said. “We’re guessing it’s from a disposable phone.”
“Looks like your daughter is going out of her way to keep you from locating her.”
Marta crossed her arms. “That message is not from Jamie. I already explained that to Detective Phillips.”
Gordon glanced her way but kept silent. He wasn’t so sure that Jamie hadn’t sent it. But whether the message was from Jamie or not, he agreed they needed to find her.
“Give me a few minutes,” Pickering said. He took Marta’s phone and left the room.
“As we’ve told you,” Marta explained to Phillips, “we think Jamie is with a man we know as Todd Wilson. We believe he took that picture and sent the message, pretending to be Jamie.”
“What about the photo itself? It doesn’t look to me like your daughter is miserable or frightened.”
Gordon exploded. “She’s seventeen years old, for God’s sake. Whether she’s happy or not isn’t the issue.”
“I’m just trying to get the lay of the land,” Phillips said. He looked down at the file on his desk. “This Wilson is the same man you claim killed your friend Carol Hogan?”
“I didn’t claim anything,” Marta replied, smarting at the detective’s tone. “All I said was that he possibly had a motive.”
“But you did volunteer his name, didn’t you?”
“It was your guy, Officer Beck, who asked if I knew of anyone with reason to harm her.”
“Besides,” Gordon added, “the issue is Jamie. We need to find her and bring her home.”
Phillips frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me again how this man Wilson came into your lives.”
Marta felt her face flush. She hoped Phillips didn’t notice. “I met him at a conference.”
“And then I met him by chance when he was in the neighborhood,” Gordon added. “We believe now that he was stalking Marta, but I didn’t know that at the time.”
“And you don’t know anything more about him?” Phillips sounded skeptical.
“If we did, you can be sure we would tell you. He’s lied to us from the beginning.” Marta glanced at the door, eager for the tech specialist to return with answers. Then she turned back to Phillips. “What have you learned? Do you have any leads about where Jamie might be?”
“No responses to our ‘be on the lookout for’ dispatches, but that’s not surprising if she’s left the local area.”
“You only sent them out locally?” Gordon made no effort to disguise his outrage.
“If every runaway teenager warranted a national alert, people would stop paying attention to any of them. Besides, there isn’t really a system for national alerts of this sort.”
Marta put a hand on Gordon’s arm since he looked ready to argue. “How about the attorney, J.D. Conrad?” she asked Phillips. “What did he tell you?”
“I spoke to him myself. He wasn’t any more forthcoming than he was with you. I’m afraid it’s not illegal to let someone else use your phone.”
“But why wouldn’t he want to help?”
Phillips shrugged. “That I can’t answer.”
“So you’ve made no progress at all?” Gordon shook his head in disbelief.
Phillips pressed his fingers together and stared at them a moment. “As I told you initially,” he said, “there’s not a whole lot we can do about a runaway teen. Especially one who’s almost eighteen.”
“She’s still seventeen,” Gordon reminded him.
Thankfully, the tech specialist returned. “You can have your phone back,” he said, handing it to Marta. “I’ve downloaded what I need. I’m not sure what I’ll come up with, though.”
She imagined Jamie’s nude photo was among the files downloaded.
Phillips rose from his seat, signaling the end of the interview. “I’ll be in touch if we learn anything.” He walked them to the door. “And just so you know, Todd Wilson is on our radar. We’re not letting him off the hook.”
“Great,” Gordon said hotly. “Meanwhile, our daughter is still missing.”
As they left the station, Gordon muttered, “That was useful.”
Marta nodded. “It’s like they don’t care.”
“They don’t. To them, Jamie’s just some boy-crazy teenager who can’t stand her parents.” He stopped to face her with a level stare. “And maybe that’s not far from the truth.”
“What? You know that’s not the case.”
“Do we?” he said bitterly. “Perhaps she’s more like her mother than we imagined.” Gordon looked at her pointedly, then turned. “I’ve got to get to class.”
“That’s not fair, Gordon. Please don’t be like that.” But he was already heading to his car.
Marta blinked back tears. Gordon refused to talk about what had happened between her and Todd, but he didn’t shy away from rubbing her nose in it. She had it coming, but it hurt all the same.
There was no solace to be found. Her daughter was missing and her husband hated her. All because she’d made a foolish, impetuous mistake. And now it looked like her best friend’s death might be her fault, too.
The chaos she’d caused, the boundless pain—Marta felt physically ill. She clung to the hope that Jamie was still alive.
*****
As Gordon headed across campus to his office, he spotted one of his students. The young man waved and Gordon waved back, then picked up his pace, hoping to avoid becoming embroiled in conversa
tion. He had too much on his mind for idle chitchat.
Try as he might, he couldn’t get the photo of Jamie out of his mind. His little girl, stark naked, grinning like some wannabe starlet while the creepy guy behind the camera gawked at her. It made his blood boil.
Worse, the creep was Todd Wilson. Someone Gordon had considered a friend.
He had seemed like such a nice guy. Gordon wondered now how long Todd had been coming on to Jamie. He’d probably been laughing at Gordon the entire time. Hey dude, I’m doing your daughter and you don’t even have a clue.
Of course he’d also been doing Gordon’s wife. Probably laughing even harder.
Gordon kicked a loose stone on the path, sending it onto the grass. He was so angry at Marta he found it difficult to be civil. Angry, and of course, hurt. Devastated, in fact. He’d never, in all the time they’d been together, had any reason to doubt her. Marta was grounded, loyal, kind. She wasn’t flighty, or even flirtatious. Her behavior with Todd was totally out of character.
Or maybe he didn’t know his wife as well as he thought.
Chapter 36
Between Jamie’s running away and Carole’s death, not to mention the trauma of her failing marriage, Marta had let work slide. She wasn’t taking on new projects, even for existing clients, but she couldn’t in good conscience abandon work already contracted for. Reluctantly, she headed into the office.
The room was stuffy and stale when she entered, and it felt horribly empty. Carol’s outspokenness might have grated at times, but she was an easy partner and a good friend. Her death was a profound loss.
On top of so many other losses.
And if Todd was responsible . . . Marta’s throat tightened. It all came back to her and her fatal misstep.
As she gathered the mail and checked phone messages, she wondered if she’d be able to keep the business going. Or if she even wanted to.
Now was not the time to think about that.
She decided to start with Carol’s files since it was a task that needed to be done and didn’t require creativity or serious concentration. Gordon’s barbed comment as they left the police station that morning still stung. He’d made her sound like a brainless floozy, and she wasn’t.
Okay, maybe the brainless part fit. She had committed adultery with a man she’d met only hours earlier. That was the sort of airhead thing Cassie did, not Marta. Again, the weight of her guilt settled over Marta like a dense, dank fog. Her world was collapsing around her.
She took a moment to catch her breath and focus, then settled at Carol’s desk. Three of her projects were active and Marta was familiar with all of them. She opened the first file and began to bring herself up to speed.
She’d just begun a letter laying out her thoughts about how to proceed when Alyssa’s mother, Elaine, called. They’d talked only once since Jamie’s disappearance, and for a brief moment, Marta harbored a flicker of hope that Alyssa had heard from her.
“How are you holding up?” Elaine asked. “Have you heard anything?”
“Nothing. I was hoping you were calling with news.”
“I wish I was. I know you must be going through hell right now.”
Hell might have been preferable. Marta was on the verge of telling Elaine about the recent text and bathtub photo when she thought better of it. “It hasn’t been easy,” she replied instead.
“I imagine not.” Elaine hesitated. “I want you to know … I had no idea Jamie was seeing an older man. I thought it was a boy at school. I don’t want you to think I was concealing anything. I would have told you if I’d had any inkling that wasn’t the case.”
“Of course.” Marta didn’t know Elaine well enough to have an opinion one way or another, but it was clear that Elaine needed to set the matter straight.
“It’s been weighing on me. I mean, someone quite a bit older really puts a different spin on it.”
It did, but there was more wrong with Todd than his age. “Tell me,” Marta said. “In your work as a therapist, have you ever had a client who was a stalker? Or maybe a client who was being stalked?”
“Not in terms of a criminal investigation, but unwanted or obsessive attention can play a part in many therapeutic cases. Why?”
Having opened the door to the subject, Marta decided to go for broke. “The man Jamie is with initially developed a thing for me. When I made it clear I wasn’t interested, he went after Jamie as a way of punishing me.”
A moment’s silence. “You think that’s what’s behind this?”
“Obviously. What else?”
Elaine cleared her throat. “Men do sometimes fall for young girls. And vice versa.”
Marta wondered if she’d already said too much, but she couldn’t let Elaine’s comment stand. “That’s not what’s going on here. I met the man on a business trip. He began sending me messages, flowers, photos, and then he unexpectedly showed up here in town, hoping to convince me we were meant for each other.”
“Well, that does fit the pattern. It’s not unusual for a stalker to feel entitled to an intimate relationship with someone who has caught his interest. But substituting Jamie for you is a bit of a twist. It borders on sociopathic.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sociopaths are manipulative and controlling. They’re incapable of normal emotional attachments. What’s important to them is winning. And they win by diminishing the lives of others.”
“Like being a bully?” Marta asked.
“I suppose they are bullies on some level. But they are usually also quite charming, and often fancy themselves irresistible. The controlling behavior emerges in subtle ways at first. That’s how women, and it’s usually women but not always, get trapped in relationships with these individuals. A sociopath can sweep a woman off her feet. She’s so enamored she doesn’t recognize the abusive behavior, or she makes excuses for it.”
“Or maybe,” Marta noted, “there are enough trade-offs, she’s willing to overlook it.” She knew women who were happily married to men she found impossibly manipulative.
“Right. Relationships are never simple. I know that as well as anyone.” Elaine laughed. “Some of these men are simply narcissists, but others can be dangerous, especially because they tend to feel invincible.”
“Dangerous?” Marta’s heart skipped a beat.
“I had a client, a young woman who broke off her engagement at the last minute when she learned her fiancé had been married twice before. Both former wives died under suspicious circumstances.”
Marta gasped. “He killed them?”
“Possibly. Probably, in fact. And my client might have been next. The man had wooed her with attention and flattery, convincing her they were destined to be together. He claimed he’d been terribly hurt in past relationships. Said his experiences had turned him off to love, but that she made him feel worthwhile again. When she called off the marriage, he spread horrible, untrue rumors about her and married her best friend less than a year later. He’s now in prison for that wife’s murder.”
Marta shuddered. The description sounded a lot like Todd. “How does a person deal with someone like that?”
“By staying as far away as possible.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Marta pointed out.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. It’s just that you asked and I guess when it comes to psychology, I sometimes get carried away. Jamie’s probably not in any physical danger. The man I was describing was an extreme case.”
Marta wasn’t so sure. Todd was unpredictable. Who knew what he was capable of?
She thanked Elaine for calling, so few people had, but she couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. She tried to get back to work, but Elaine’s words echoed in her head, making it impossible to concentrate. She boxed up the loose papers from Carol’s desk to go through at home and left the office.
Chapter 37
“How much farther?” Jamie asked.
“We’re almost there.” Todd sou
nded annoyed, as though she’d been bugging him all day like an antsy five-year-old, which she hadn’t been. She’d barely said anything the entire trip. He must have realized how he came across, because he added, “I know this has been a difficult day for you.”
Not so much difficult as confusing. She didn’t really mind their hurried departure from the condo or the long drive that followed, but it bothered her that Todd seemed angry, like she’d done something terrible and he blamed her for it.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have called the guy back and explained that you arranged the stay through his wife,” Jamie had said when he’d hurried her out the door of the condo.
“Drop it, Jamie. I don’t want to hear another word out of you.” And then he’d barely spoken to her for the next five hours.
She remained quiet, curled up tight inside her skin, wishing she could make herself invisible. Why was he so upset with her?
They were headed for a fishing cabin that had been in Todd’s family for years. Jamie had no idea where they were at this point since she’d fallen asleep along the way, but they’d left the main highway and were winding up into the mountains.
“Smell that mountain air,” Todd said. Now that they were getting closer, his mood seemed to have improved.
Jamie relaxed a little. “Do you spend a lot of time at the cabin?” she asked, eager to make conversation.
“I used to. Haven’t been there in years, though. There’s a stream not far from the back porch and at night the sky is something to behold.”
Jamie would have preferred to stay in the city, but she’d gradually warmed to the idea of a remote, romantic getaway. “Sounds pretty.”
“It is. Also, very secluded and private.”
“A family compound.” Jamie knew the term but she wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Rich families had them, and important politicians.
“Not quite.” Todd looked amused. “Not like the Kennedy compound, that’s for damn sure.”
“A stream sounds nice.”
“I used to catch frogs in that stream,” he said. “Lots and lots of frogs.”
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