KENDRA: You know nothing.
MARTIN: Growing up in a church? Yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard too many to count. But this isn’t an empty lie. This is a fact. I’ve seen it.
KENDRA: Church? How’d you—never mind. You’re a fucking charlatan, is what you are. Trying to trick me, confuse me, when all that really matters are those missing girls. Why’d you fucking take them? Are they related? Is that it? Are you working for their birth—?
MARTIN: In time, Kendra. In time.
Inaudible.
KENDRA: God damn it! We don’t have time! Tell me where they are!
MARTIN: I know—
KENDRA: Fuck! You don’t know shit!
MARTIN: I know—
The door to the interrogation room suddenly burst open, cutting the interview short.
“—I know your father, Ken-Ken. I know your father and your mother.”
Kendra’s heart seemed to stop.
Ken-Ken.
It had been decades since she had heard those two syllables.
And only one person had ever called her that.
“Leave the room, Kendra.”
Director Ames stood in the doorway, making it the first time that she had seen him outside his office. For some reason, seeing him standing there made him seem older. Not old, but older than she remembered based on the many times she had sat before him, either being briefed or berated.
Brett, you fucking asshole.
She eyed the man, looking him up and down. He was shorter than she would have thought, coming in at around five ten or five eleven. And thin; he was a skinny man, his body holding the blue shirt more like a hanger than an actual person.
“Ken-Ken?” It was Martin again.
Ken-Ken.
Not much of what Martin had said made any sense, but for some reason his words had conjured the picture that Stephanie Black had drawn, the one of the swamp, the one with the pyre and the shadowy figure within. There was torment in that crudely drawn silhouette, emotion that she would have thought a four-year-old impossible to produce.
And her dreams.
She was reminded of those, too.
And Christine. And—
Kendra bit the inside of her cheek, stopping the whirlwind of thoughts before they ran off the track and debilitated her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered. A shudder racked her body. “I’m close; I’m close to finding the girls.”
To finding myself, almost slipped from her lips.
The director shook his head and she caught a glimpse of Brett standing behind him, and the priest behind them both. They all had matching grim expressions on their faces.
It’s a man’s world—
“You are, Kendra. You are going to leave the room now or I’ll have you arrested.”
—I’m only living in it.
Her hand slipped into her front pocket as the police officer pushed by Brett and stepped into the room. He had his handcuffs out already, she saw.
“No, I’m not.” Her hand found the syringe that she had stolen what seemed liked decades ago. Both of them were empty, of course, already having been injected into Martin, but they didn’t know that.
Kendra had had cases before when both Brett and the director had warned her that she was taking things too far. Several times, in fact. On those occasions she had pulled back; not all the way back, but enough that they had let her be—let her do her job.
But this was different.
This was too close to home.
I knew your father, Ken-Ken.
She slid behind Martin, who was still chained to the table, and pulled out an empty syringe.
This time, she wouldn’t step back.
“I’m not fucking going anywhere, and if you want this man to live, you’re going to give me the keys to his handcuffs.”
Brett stepped forward.
“Kendra… please.”
Kendra put the point of the needle to the man’s carotid, which pumped away in his throat. Other than his increased heartrate, Martin didn’t react. If anything, he seemed to facilitate her.
She hoped that from their vantage point they would only see shadows, that they wouldn’t be able to see that the syringe was empty. She thanked her lucky stars that the B52 cocktail that the orderlies administered to Jenna McGuire had been clear.
“Brett… Give me the fucking keys!”
Chapter 40
Brett gaped at his friend and colleague in disbelief.
Despite all of the telltale signs, the warnings from Director Ames, her slow descent into madness or depression or PTSD, he’d never thought for an instant thought that it would come to this.
Back at the hospital, Brett had wished he had his gun with him. Now, he was eternally grateful that he didn’t have it. He didn’t know what he would do if the director demanded he draw on her.
Seven years ago nearly to the day, he had become Kendra’s partner, but he had known about her even before that. All the agents did, young and old. Most were scared of her, not in the sense that she was dangerous—although there were rumors of that, too—but because they were scared that there would come a time when she would cost them their careers. That she would do something so unforgivable that even her impeccable record of solving crimes wouldn’t exonerate her, and that they would be dragged down with her.
That she would do something like this.
But Brett hadn’t shied away from a partnership with Kendra, he had sought it out. A psychology major in college, and with a partially completed Master’s in clinical psychiatry under his belt, he was acutely aware of why he had gone to such lengths to connect with her.
He had dropped out of his Master’s due to the need to make money when his wife had become pregnant. But he had done so only after making himself a promise: when his daughter was a little older, he would go back and finish his Master’s. He had even gone so far as to bring up the possibility of taking a leave from the Agency with Director Ames to finish it, and the man had seemed supportive.
But that was before… and now it wouldn’t happen. It would never happen because his daughter would never be a little older.
Shortly after his wife and daughter had passed, he had felt an uncanny attraction to Kendra. Not to her physically, at least not only physically, but to her plight as well. Anyone with half a brain in their head could tell that the woman was as driven as she was because she was lost. He didn’t need a degree to tell him that—undergraduate or Master’s. And for every crime that she solved, for every little girl Kendra brought back to her parents, Brett knew that she became a little more whole, that she found out a little more about herself.
Brett folded the letter in his hand, then slowly slipped it into the back pocket of his pants.
There was just something about this case, though, something that he had seen in Kendra’s eyes when he had caught her staring at the little girl’s painting.
Director Ames had shown him her psych evaluation, so he knew about her nightmares, about the recurring visions of a swamp, of a cold, dark cellar. And he also knew, of course, about her abandonment.
Too close… the case is too close to her—I should have never let it get this far.
“Kendra, put the syringe down,” he ordered, breaking the stalemate.
“Fuck you, Brett. I thought I could trust you, that I could rely on you. But you’re just a man like the rest of them. Snakes in the fucking weeds.”
The words hit Brett like slap.
“Please,” he said, barely holding back his tears now.
“Give me the keys, Brett. I will ask you once more, then I push the plunger.”
The director turned back and nodded toward the officer, who took a step forward.
“Don’t move,” Kendra warned. “This may just be B52, but injected directly into his carotid? That will kill any man.”
“You won’t do it, Kendra. I know it, Brett knows it. If you kill this man, we’ll never find Lacy or Meghan or Taylor.” The director’
s voice was calm, even. He spoke as if they were discussing whether Kendra should fold her hand in a friendly game of poker.
An image of Kendra from last night on all fours, completely nude, her ass in the air, begging him to fuck her harder, came to Brett then. And it was so unexpected and vivid that he nearly stumbled.
Blinking hard, he tried to focus on Kendra as she was now, but it was as if she was a completely different person. Last night she had been angry, furious even, and while she tried to exude this same emotion now, she just came off sad to Brett.
Sad and lonely.
Brett let go of the envelope that he still clutched in his back pocket, and moved his hand to the front. Inside this pocket, he found his car keys and the keys to his handcuffs. Without thinking, he pulled them out.
The sound of the clanging keys drew Director Ames’s gaze.
When the man spoke again, his voice still had the same monotone quality, but his eyes had changed. They were small and tight.
They were a warning.
“Don’t,” the man said simply. Brett hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he moved past the director and police officer and toward the large metal table.
“Put them on the table, Brett,” Kendra demanded.
“Agent Cherry, if you give those keys to Agent Wilson, I will make sure that you are court marshaled and charged with aiding and abetting.”
Brett reached out, his movements slow, as if he were but a marionette controlled by his and Kendra’s tangible emotions.
“Brett! If you do this, you’ll go to prison. I promise that—”
Brett tossed the keys and they landed with a loud clanging sound that was like ice in his ears.
Then he bowed his head and put his hands behind his back.
“Arrest him,” the director instructed to the officer.
With his head low, he could hear Kendra scrambling with the keys, and then the sound of Martin’s cuffs being released. In his mind, he also pictured the expression on the clueless police officer’s face, and it was the same one he had given Brett when he had asked about the priest.
What was I supposed to do? Arrest the priest?
Cold metal slid over his wrists, and then his hands were pulled tight together.
Clearly, whatever respect or fear that had made the officer hesitate when it came to the priest did not extend to an FBI agent.
This is it; it’s over now.
“Kendra, take me with you. Please, this is the work of the Devil—you’re going to need me.”
Brett raised his head at the sound of the new voice.
It was the priest. The man’s lined face was sagging, his features like dripping wax.
“You need me—I can help you find the girls… all of them.”
All of them.
Kendra’s eyes softened, but only for a moment.
“No, I need to do this alone.”
With the four other men in the room watching on, Kendra shuffled toward the door, Martin in front of her, the syringe pressed to his throat.
She passed Brett first, and he saw something akin to relief in her face. His eyes darted to the syringe and he got his first close-up glance of the smooth, clear cylinder.
It was empty, he saw, but he said nothing. Instead, he bowed his head again as Kendra took a wide berth around the director and moved toward the door.
“Sir?” the police officer asked, clearly looking for some direction.
But the director remained silent; he just clenched his jaw and watched as Kendra left the room with the only suspect in a murder/suicide and three missing four-year-old girls.
Part IV – Welcome to the Swamp
Chapter 41
Batesburg, South Carolina.
The words echoed inside Kendra’s mind like a mantra.
Batesburg was where they were headed now, and although Kendra was certain that during or even before her time in the FBI she had never been to the place, it had a strange familiar ring to it.
Batesburg.
A quick Google search revealed that it was a small town, about fifty miles from Lexington, with a population of roughly five thousand.
“Keep driving,” she instructed Martin as she unlocked her phone again. She knew it was a risk calling Agent Grover, knew that Director Ames was probably just waiting for her to make a call in order to trace her phone using the GPS tracker that was embedded in it.
After the call, she would take the battery out and toss it. But that was after—now she needed more information.
Taking Martin hostage would end with her going to prison—she knew this, like she knew her own name—but it was disobeying the stone-faced director that she thought might carry an even stiffer penalty.
He would make her pay, she knew. And pay dearly.
Kendra shook her head.
None of this mattered now. What mattered was finding the missing girls, and if that meant she was incarcerated afterward, then that was a consequence she accepted.
Martin nodded, and Kendra dialed.
The line rang seven times before someone picked up. This alone a telltale sign that Agent Grover had already been contacted. Her only hope was that Director Ames had only instructed him to trace the call, but had otherwise kept him out of the loop.
“Kendra? What the fuck, Kendra? What’s going on out there?” His voice was high and tight.
“Peter, I can’t talk much now. I need some information.”
“I… I can’t, Kendra. I have strict orders to try to convince you to return and under no circumstances should I provide you with any information.”
Kendra swore inside her head.
“Pete, please. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think that I could solve this case. Just two minutes; do a search for me. Then you can call Director Ames and tell him that you did everything to convince me to come in.”
“Shit, Kendra, I don’t know. Brett’s been detained, as has the father of the missing girl… Peter? Peter McGuire?”
“Paul, please. Do this for me one time.”
There was a long pause, and Kendra chanced a glance at the man behind the wheel. He was handsome, she realized, with his stark gray hair that didn’t quite match his age. And there was something different about him now. Back at the station, he had almost been jovial, what with them playing his stupid question and answer game. But now sadness had crept into his features.
“Fuck, Kendra. Shit, make it quick, what do you need?”
Kendra cleared her throat.
“Two things: I need to know what you found out about Martin Reigns, and I need to know about Batesburg—tell me if there have been any missing children, any abductions, over the past few years.”
Kendra heard typing on the other end, and she instinctively pulled the phone away from her ear to check the call duration.
Three minutes; they have already triangulated my position.
Google had told her that Batesburg was a two-hour drive from the Rickshaw Police Station, and Kendra hoped that when she finally ditched her phone, they would still be far enough from their final destination that her current position wouldn’t give them away.
In the back of her mind, however, she knew that Grover would tell the director everything about where she was headed. She just wasn’t sure that it mattered. After all, he probably knew already. He might even be listening in now.
When Paul cleared his throat and began speaking, Kendra put the phone back to her ear.
“Kendra, you there?”
“Shoot.”
“I already pulled up some info about Batesburg after I found out about the connection between the three missing girls. You spoke to Detective Tennison already?”
Kendra admitted she had.
“Good; but, shit, there is much more to this, Kendra. I count seventeen missing children over the past twenty years from the region. Seventeen.”
He paused for effect, and Kendra let this sink in.
“How is that possible? How has the FBI not gotten involved be
fore? Aren’t we always informed when there is a missing minor?”
“Usually, yeah. But these…” There was the sound of more typing. “These fell under the radar, I guess.”
Kendra scoffed.
“Seventeen missing girls go under the radar? What the fuck, Peter?”
“I’m just telling you what I see. Wait, wait.” There was another pause. “Got something else. There was an investigation of sorts, at least one that was opened, but it was never closed. There was a police officer… an Officer Woodward that pinged our servers several years back based on some record searches. But then he went dark. Hasn’t been heard from since.”
“And this officer… Officer, what did you say his name was, Woodward?”
The car suddenly lurched, and Kendra’s eyes shot up at Martin. He was trying to look stoic, as if he hadn’t just let his foot off the gas pedal, but she didn’t buy it.
Woodward—the name means something to him.
“Yeah, Woodward. Anyways, FBI did open cases on the girls, but usually the mother was missing as well. All unsolved, but most have a gold circle attached to them all.”
Gold Circle was an FBI code that was used when they thought that the mother simply took off with the child, usually to escape from an abusive husband. They still searched for the duo, but these cases didn’t demand the same resources. Kendra herself had been involved in two such cases in her career, and they had been pretty cut and dry. A hard-drinking husband, usually working sixty hours a week at some unionized factory position, taking his frustrations out on the wife’s face.
But seventeen?
“Yeah, I know. Seventeen, right?” Peter said, reading her mind.
If this raised a flag with someone as dimwitted as Peter, then how come the director or someone more competent in the Agency hadn’t noticed?
“Shit, ten of the reports show that the girls were four years old, too. The other files don’t say.”
“Goddamn.”
Kendra couldn’t help herself. What had started out as a murder/suicide was destined to become one of the worst, if not the worst, child abduction cases in the country’s history. But she wasn’t in this for accolades, she was in it for Lacy. And Meghan. And Taylor. And seventeen other girls—women now.
Father Page 14
