The makeup on her cheeks was applied a little bit too thickly, as was the eyeliner that surrounded her swollen eyelids. The woman was trying to put on a face — literally — in order to mask her sorrow.
“I just have a few questions for you,” Stitts said after Jordan introduced him.
The woman nodded but refrained from speaking. She was clearly on the verge of breaking down.
“Mrs. McMahon, did you and your daughter attend a fair recently?”
The woman looked confused, her frown causing the makeup caked on her forehead to crack.
“Affair? What do you mean, an affair?”
Stitts shook his head.
“No, not an affair, but a fair — A county fair. Did you guys go to one as a family in the last month or so?”
The woman’s forehead relaxed, but the creases remained.
“Yes, we usually go to the Williamson County Fair, but this year we missed it. Instead, we went to the Kingston Springs fair. It wasn’t as good as the Williamson fair, but it was all right. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of them, but Steffi just loved them.”
Stitts nodded.
“And did you come across anybody suspicious while you were there? Anybody that looked out of place?”
Mrs. McMahon thought about this for a moment.
“It was a fair — there are always weird people there. Between you and me, that’s one of the reasons why my husband and I let Steffi drag us there every year. The jugglers, the fire eaters, that sort of thing. We liked to people-watch.”
Stitts nodded; he couldn’t argue with the woman.
“I understand.”
“Do you think someone from the fair took Steffi? You think someone followed us home? I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary — more out of the ordinary. You can ask my husband, but—”
Jordan leaned forward.
“Please, just take a deep breath, Mrs. McMahon. We’re not saying that anyone at the fair had anything to do with your daughter’s disappearance, we’re just exploring all possibilities.”
“Maybe we should never have gone to the fair… I mean, it was kinda cruel, if you think about it. Judging those people just because they were different. Maybe Steffi didn’t even like it, maybe it was just my husband and I who liked being sick voyeurs, staring at—”
Mr. McMahon suddenly stepped into the doorway, briefcase in hand. He was dressed like a Wall Street banker and his expression matched the look. But after surveying the scene and recognizing the anguish on his wife’s face, he ran to her and wrapped her in a large embrace. Mrs. McMahon immediately started sobbing into his suit sleeve.
Both Stitts and Jordan had their badges at the ready when Mr. McMahon finally turned to face them.
“Oh God, tell me she’s okay… please, tell me that she’s all right, that my baby girl is alive and well.”
Jordan once again came to the rescue.
“Mr. Peterson, I’m afraid I don’t have any news at all — not bad or good. We’re just here to ask a few more questions, to see if we can find some links between the missing girls.”
Mrs. McMahon pulled away from her husband and looked up at him; her tears had made awful caked streaks on her cheeks.
“They think it was the fair, Rob. They think that someone at the fair took our little girl. Our little Becky.”
“Mrs. McMahon, I think you misunderstood. We only want to find some—”
“One of those degenerates took our daughter?” Mr. McMahon spat, rising to his full height. Even though Jordan was the much bigger of the two men, he took a respectful step backward.
“I think your wife—”
Mr. McMahon raised a finger and aimed it at Jordan’s face.
“I’m not talking about my wife! I’m talking about my daughter!”
Stitts saw Jordan’s jaw clench and knew that the man was on edge as well. They all were, but particularly Jordan because of his relationship with Rose Thompson.
Stitts reached out and grabbed Jordan’s tense bicep and pulled him back.
“Mr. McMahon, I assure you that we’re doing everything we can to find your daughter. Our intention in coming here wasn’t to alarm you, but just to ask you a few questions. I understand—”
And now Stitts became the target of Mr. McMahon’s rage.
“You understand nothing!” he shouted, his face turning a shade of crimson.
Stitts gently guided Jordan behind him and together they backed toward the door.
“Get out of my house! How dare you come here and harass us! Get out of my house and don’t come back until you’ve found my daughter!”
Stitts said nothing; he just kept backing toward the door. Eventually, he heard Jordan open it and together they stepped outside.
As they made their way to the car, the now purple faced Mr. McMahon stood on the stoop, his hands above his head as if he were trying to make it rain.
“Don’t come back until you find my daughter! Do your fucking job and find my goddamn daughter!”
Chapter 31
Chase drove in silence back to the TBI headquarters. Her hands were trembling so violently that it was all she could do to keep the car on the road. She knew that Terrence was watching her closely, that he was trying to figure her out. Clearly, the man thought that his little pep talk in the car beforehand had straightened her out.
It hadn’t.
Well, fuck him. Fuck all of them.
Chase was still confused, mostly because Stacy Peterson’s narrative kept bleeding into her own — the interaction with the man in the mobile snow cone truck who claimed that Mr. Robin-Graff was sick, for instance — until the two events were nearly indistinguishable in her mind.
And then there was Rita’s story about the little girl at the grocery store, the one that Chase was convinced was her sister even though she was thirty years too young.
Chase ground her teeth against the confusion and the horrible headache that rattled her brain.
But the fair… it all has to do with the fair. Doesn’t it?
Chase’s mind then pulled a one-eighty to what happened outside Mr. Peterson’s house.
Did I really kiss Terrence? Or was it Stitts? Was Stitts even there?
“Jordan just texted me,” Terrence said, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. His voice, although calm and measured, was so startling that Chase swerved out of her lane.
With a curse, she righted the car.
“You need to hurry. There’s not much time,” the girl whispered before disappearing out of sight. “You need to hurry before they come back.”
“Yeah?” Chase said after clearing her throat. “What did he have to say?”
“It looks like the McMahons also attended a fair a couple of weeks back.”
Chase scowled.
“Yeah, a dead end. Isn’t that what you said?”
Terrence overlooked her sarcasm.
“Yeah, but they were different fairs spread across several counties. It looks like,” he glanced down at his phone for a moment before continuing. “It looks like Tracy Weinberg and her family attended the Triune fair as did Becky Thompson and her mother. The McMahon family went to the Kingston Springs fair, while Stacy Peterson was at the Williamson fair.”
“Still think it’s a dead end? I mean, it’s impossible for a fucking pedophile to attend two different fairs on different days, am I right? I mean, seeing as it’s about a whole twenty minutes or half hour to drive from one county to another.” Chase snapped back.
Terrence sighed, and Chase looked over at him. He was tired, and she could tell that it was taking all his willpower to keep it together. Missing children, whether or not you actually knew the victims, were some of the most difficult cases you could work. And, as paradoxical as it sounded, in some ways, they were even more stressful than cases with dead children.
There was a finality with death that allowed scars to heal. With missing persons, the tiny glimmer of hope, no matter how small, put a stain on your soul that would ma
ke even Lady Macbeth cringe.
“This is Tennessee, Chase. Things have changed since you left. There’s no longer just one fair; there are dozens of them popping up every few months. Franklin County, Kingston Springs, La Vergne. Shit, I even heard of one opening next year as far north as Rural Hill. Personally, I hate the damn things, but I don’t get a vote. Most of the time, the worst things that happened at these fairs is some underage drinking or someone smokes too much weed before getting on one of the rides.”
Chase pulled into the TBI headquarters and parked her car.
“Yeah, well, I hate the damn things, too. But in my experience, the worst thing that happens at them isn’t just some teenager being an asshole teenager. The worst thing that can happen is that your sister can be kidnapped.”
Chapter 32
“Listen up everyone,” Terrence said as he entered the conference room. Stitts, who had just arrived, hurried to the back of the room and sidled up next to Chase. He looked over there wanting to say hello, but she didn’t even appear to notice him. Her face was flushed and as she brought a cup of coffee to her lips, he noticed that her hand was shaking.
Stitts’s thoughts immediately went to drugs, to the time when he’d found her heroin stash beneath her bed in Quantico.
She can’t be using again… she’s done with all that…
But there was a look on her face, a blank stare that told a different story.
Fuck, I hope we find these girls and Chase can get the help she needs.
“Thanks to the good work of Special Agent Jordan James and FBI Agents Adams and Stitts, we’ve solidified a connection between all of the missing girls. We previously knew that three of the four had attended a local fair within weeks of going missing, but new evidence not only puts all four girls at a local fair, but there is enough to suggest that they may have encountered their kidnapper at one of these locations. I know that several of you are still actively watching the Williamson fair, but I want to redouble our efforts. It’s the perfect location for our unsub to scope out a child and then follow them back to their house. Based on what happened to Becky Thompson, it appears less likely that their abduction was a random event. This appears to be something more sophisticated, something planned. Detective Mayberry, did you come up with anything from the Williamson County fair employee files?”
A rotund man with thinning hair in the front row rose to his feet.
“Man, I gotta tell you, these fairs are just a breeding grounds for criminals. It’s like the Catholic Church for pedophiles or the NYPD for murderers.”
Terrence frowned.
“Let’s keep it clean, Mayberry. We all know that ex-cons are cheap labor. Did any of the cons' records have anything to do with child abductions? Pedophilia? Indecent exposure to a minor? Anything like that?”
Detective Mayberry shook his head.
“We’re not done going through them all, but so far most convictions are for robbery and assault, that sort of thing.”
Terrence nodded.
“I want you to expand your search to employees from all of the county fairs in the region. Focus on the Williamson County fair, Kingston Springs, and the Triune fair, but I want you to search any employees that worked at a Tennessee fair over the past three months or so. And I want a list of potential suspects by the end of tomorrow.”
Mayberry grumbled something under his breath and sat back down.
Once seated, another TBI Agent raised his hand. Terrence indicated for the man to speak.
“Did all the families of the missing girls go to the same fairs every year? Like an annual thing? Maybe the kidnapper sought them out during previous years and waited.”
Terrence shook his head.
“Unlikely, given the short time frame between abductions.”
Stitts pushed himself away from the wall.
“True, but we know from Stephanie McMahon’s mother that they usually go to the Williamson fair, but this year they were busy and went to Kingston Springs instead. Making a prolonged planning period unlikely.”
The man who had asked the original question turned to face Stitts.
“But Stephanie McMahon was abducted from her home in Franklin, is that correct?”
Terrence confirmed that this was the case.
“So, our unsub is perusing the fair for young girls, sees Stephanie McMahon who is, for a lack of a better word, his type. And yet, he doesn’t grab her there at the busy fair, but follows her all the way back to Franklin County? Then he waits a couple of days to snatch her?”
Stitts shrugged.
“More like a week, but if we are correct about the stalking pattern, this is the most likely case, yes.”
Chase scoffed at this, but Stitts ignored her.
“I’m working on a profile of our unsub and I hope to have something by the end of the day.” Stitts hooked a chin at Detective Mayberry. “Something that might narrow it down more specifically than just a criminal record.”
Terrence took control of the room again.
“I want the rest of you on the streets, asking anybody if they’ve seen any of the missing girls. We’ll reconvene in a few hours and hopefully will have more to go on then. Again, even though you are out on the streets, I don’t want the media—”
“What about the other girls? Did the other girls also go missing from a fair?” Chase asked suddenly. Her voice, while not as commanding as Terrence’s, grabbed everyone’s attention nonetheless.
Stitts cringed. He should have predicted another outburst from his partner, but he hadn’t thought her capable given her state of mind.
“What Special Agent Adams is referring to,” Terrence began, addressing the room once more, “is missing cases from—”
“Connected cases of missing girls from 30 years ago. I know that at least one was taken from a fair, but what about the others? We should cross-reference the employees from back then to the employees now to see if there’s any connection.”
A silence fell over the room then, but Stitts wasn’t sure if this was because everyone knew about Chase’s sister or if they were just confused about this new information. Terrence was right about one thing: no kidnapper went thirty years without succumbing to their urges. They moved away, they were incarcerated, they died, but they didn’t willingly stop. If anything, they ramped up their activity, escalated the violence, and the time between their crimes got shorter, not longer.
In fact, murderers and kidnappers were much like heroin addicts in that respect; nothing was as good as their first hit, but that didn’t stop them from trying to replicate it.
Terrence turned to Detective Mayberry.
“Mayberry, after you’ve done your search on current fair employees, see if you can find out anything from thirty years ago and cross-reference the information.”
Detective Mayberry groaned.
“That’ll be tough… I doubt they even kept records back then.”
“You just said that most of the employees are ex-convicts, so instead of sitting on your ass and lamenting on how difficult the task might be, go fetch police reports from that time and correlate them that way,” Chase snapped.
For several seconds, no one in the room said anything. Even though everyone was staring at Chase, it was Stitts who felt his face go red.
For what felt like the thousandth time, he thought that it was too soon for Chase to be involved again.
Too soon since her last episode.
What did I say to Jordan? I don’t care about your conflict of interest as long as it doesn’t get in the way of finding those girls? Well, Stitts thought, Chase is on the verge of getting in the fucking way.
Terrence suddenly clapped his hands.
“Alright everyone, let’s get out there and find Stacy, Tracy, Becky, and Stephanie.”
The room promptly cleared out, leaving only four people behind: Terrence, Jordan, Stitts, and of course, Chase Adams.
Chapter 33
“I think they should go, to be honest,” Jo
rdan said, his eyes locked on Terrence’s. “Send the FBI back to Quantico or Washington or wherever the hell they came from. These outbursts — it’s not just that they’re not helping, but they’re confusing the shit out of the TBI Agents.”
Chase balled her hands into fists.
“Why? Because I called you out for missing the fact that all of these kids were scoped out at a fair before they were kidnapped? Or maybe because I brought up a case that you mental midgets haven’t solved in thirty years?”
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