“We won’t be long,” I said.
Brad bent down to Tristan’s level. “Why don’t you go play in your room? I’ll join you soon.”
“’Kay.” He waved a pudgy hand at us. “Bye.”
“Bye Tristan.” I smiled at the kid, and I sensed Jack picked up on my soft spot. Actually, if things had worked out differently with Deb, I could have had a kid about Tristan’s age.
When the kid’s steps reached the upstairs landing, Brad said, “I’ve just given up on her ever coming home. For years, I held out hope she’d walk back in that door. She never did. I told myself I’d get a phone call, and she’d confess she ran off with someone but missed Tristan.”
“He was yours and Leslie’s?” I asked.
Brad nodded. “He was a baby when she disappeared. Maybe she just couldn’t handle being a mother. I’ve been through it so many times, to the point of exhaustion. The same questions, the similar scenarios rolling around, until I realized I can’t live like that.” He gestured to a sitting area off to the right of the entryway. “I had Tristan to care for. It wasn’t just me. If it were, I probably would have let myself fall apart.”
“When you filed the report, you were asked if she cheated on you. Your answer was, ‘Les would never do that to me,’” Jack said, quoting the last part verbatim from the report.
“She wouldn’t. At least, I never thought she—” Brad’s cell phone rang. He held a finger up to us and then answered. “Hello…yes, I’ll be there. It will be fine…good-bye.” He shook his head and stood. “Listen, I don’t know what I can do to help with this. I have to move on with my life. Tristan has to move on with his too.”
Jack studied Brad’s facial expression, and I knew he was also taking in the man’s energy.
“Other women have gone missing,” Jack said.
“Here?” He pointed a finger downward. “In this town?”
“Thirty-two now, including Leslie, and taking in the surrounding areas.”
I noticed he didn’t include the first three known victims.
“Thirty-two?” Brad took a seat again.
“We believe the abductions accelerated after your wife.”
Seconds of silence passed.
“You believe they are all dead.” Brad’s eyes appeared moist. “Guess I always figured she was dead, but to really think about it…you think it started with my wife? Did you find her?”
I studied Jack’s profile, curious what he would disclose to this man and what he would hold back. At this point, Brad Keyes wasn’t a suspect, but no one rose above suspicion until cleared of it.
“We believe some old cases may factor in, along with some new ones.”
“Does this have to do with that rich man’s wife? I should have known. When my wife went missing I was told that missing persons reports were not actively investigated. I guess now that it happened to someone important, well, it gets the FBI’s attention.”
Neither Jack nor I said anything.
“You mentioned old cases. That means this son of a bitch has been out there for all this time? You could have stopped him years ago?”
“Your wife was the first missing persons case in the area since two thousand,” I said.
“Do you think my wife triggered something to make him start up again?”
“We do.”
“What? I mean what could have possibly made this sick asshole snap when he saw her? What made him take her? Did he kill her?”
“It’s likely she is dead,” Jack said.
“Based on statistics.” I tried to lessen the blow, but Brad’s eyes were glazed over. “Did you know of any man who was obsessed with her, maybe stalked her?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t even leave the house much. She was a good mother.” His voice faltered, and mother came out in fragments. “All this time I convinced myself I must have had it wrong, that she did leave me and take off with some other guy. I need to have more faith in people.”
“Sadly, as humans, we’re not made that way. We tend to judge first.”
His eyes spoke a silent, thank you.
“Did your wife frequent a spa or hair salon?”
“No. I don’t think so anyway. Like I said, she was home a lot. After Tristan was born, she came to the gym a few times, but otherwise she stayed around here.”
“And the day she went missing?”
“Just like any other day. Nothing stands out to me.”
Jack stood. His hand was already at his shirt pocket, fidgeting for his cigarettes. “We may have more questions for you so don’t be going anywhere.”
“Sure.”
When we left the house, Brad Keyes was sitting on the sofa, a truly broken man.
Chapter 15
She was so cold. Her toes and fingers had lost feeling. The shivers had her pulling on her restraints and desperately wanting to curl her naked body into a tight ball for warmth.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. She knew the man who was doing this to her—at least she thought she had. Not that he ever talked very much, but she had been with him numerous times before. As her mind cleared in segments, she realized she was no longer on the bed. She was on a stern, flat, and unforgiving surface. A table?
She forced her eyes open and found herself facing a wood ceiling. Beams ran lengthwise, the same direction as she. Wires ran like snakes through holes cut into the wood.
She was underground.
The last thing she remembered was him talking to himself as he came toward her. After that, the rest went black.
Why was he doing this?
No matter how many times she thought that question, the answer remained a blank line. She had trusted this man. She had given herself to him, willingly, numerous times in the past. Why violate her in this manner?
It was as if he no longer saw her, but his eyes went through her.
Her eyes traced the chains that came down from the ceiling to her arms. They were coiled around her wrists. Following them back up, they went along to a ratchet where two more came down.
She lifted her head and confirmed her fear.
Shackles bound her ankles as well. It was as if the sight of her restraints had tightened them, suddenly making her feel as if they were biting into her flesh. She looked back at her wrists—it was reality. They were dripping blood.
She screamed at the top of her lungs which chilled her even further. No one would hear her cries.
Chapter 16
We all got back to the PWPD station about the same time. Detective Hanes and the officer had done a great job of setting up the board. Even though some of the women didn’t have captions beside their names, things were coming together. They had information for all the missing women since, and including, Leslie Keyes.
“And you had most of this information already?” Jack asked the officer.
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
For some reason, the praise that vibrated through his exhaled expression had me feeling jealous of the officer. If I gave him merit, though, he did do an amazing job. Guess he’d earned a name from me, and I’d start thinking of him as Stenson.
“I also looked into whether Brad Keyes would benefit from the pronouncement of his wife, and there was only a standard policy on her that was taken out not long after they were married,” Stenson said.
I acknowledged him as I walked past and closer to the board.
The far left showed the picture of Leslie Keyes, the one filed with the missing persons report. Beneath her picture it noted, victim number 1, along with her name and the last date she was seen in 2005. For all purposes, in this room, she was the first victim in recent years.
Occupation: house wife.
Husband’s name: Brad Keyes.
Husband’s occupation: Manager of Fitness Guru.
Last seen: at her house.
Last known scheduled appointment: unknown.
Beside her, more women were displayed in much the same manner. There were thirty-two women in al
l, and the boards took up the perimeter of the room. Where the whiteboard ran out, old-fashioned rolling chalkboards of the double-sided variety were utilized.
The last board showed pictures of Amy Rogers and Sydney Poole.
I pointed to their faces as I spoke. “Both victims were last seen at their hair salon—Rogers at Hair Fantasy and Poole at Sweet Cuts. Could it be he’s picked these latest victims based on this criterion?”
“What? That they liked to have their hair cut Pending?” Zachery laughed.
Anger flickered inside of me, not so much due to Zachery’s words but the smile on Stenson’s face.
Why did it feel like a competition between us?
“I find it to be an interesting connection. None of the others were last seen at a salon.” I knew there was something more. I needed a few seconds to think about it.
“And Keyes manages Fitness Guru where Nina Harris was a member, at least according to her husband. Has this been verified with the facility itself?” Paige tucked a curly strand of red hair behind an ear.
Detective Hanes pulled out a cell phone.
His motion sparked my memory. “When Jack and I were talking to Kirk Rogers, he said that his wife was last seen at Hair Fantasy, but that her hair dresser, Paulo, commented on the fact she was fussy and in a hurry.”
Paige shifted her weight, jutted her hips to the left, and placed a hand there. “Maybe she was getting ready to see the unsub. I’m leaning toward him being the one these women are having the affair with. I don’t think he’s watching them from a distance. I think he’s up close and personal before he kidnaps, rapes, and murders them.”
“One sick son of a bitch.” Stenson’s words brought everyone’s attention to him. “Well, these women may have been unfaithful to their husbands, but their lives shouldn’t be measured by that. They don’t deserve to die because of it.”
“To our unsub, they do.” I dismissed his comments with five words. I turned to Zachery. I knew he would have read all of the boards by this point.
Jack stood back and pulled a cigarette from its package.
“Keyes is only connected with two of these women—his wife and Nina Harris.”
My words fell on a silent room.
Zachery paced the perimeter and stopped in front of Nina Harris. Her before picture was posted beside a photo of her remains. “I can’t believe this didn’t stand out to me earlier. The fact he buried her with the wedding ring doesn’t necessarily mean regret for having killed the victim. It could be a statement of sorrow for the husbands left behind. This mixture tells me our unsub may not even be sure why he kidnaps, rapes, and kills.”
“You can tell all that from looking at the pictures?” Stenson took up position beside Zachery.
“I can tell all of that from the collective. Consider his victim set—all beautiful women who were unfaithful to their husbands. None of these men can imagine his wife as adulterous. These women were good at what they did. Either their husbands are lying when they say there was no way they’d do this to them, or they were too busy to care or notice. The unsub was close to the victims. He became a part of their world, even if for a brief time, before he decided to carry out his directive.”
“His directive?”
“Based on the timeframe of the cooling-off period, from the last highway killing in two thousand until the abduction of Leslie Keyes, it seems our unsub was dormant.”
“Couldn’t it be we just haven’t found similar cases?”
“Always possible, but based on the expedited rate he is abducting women at this point, unlikely. Something changed when it came to Keyes. She was special to him. She likely hurt him, and it brought back his violent past.”
“You believe he had a horrible childhood?” A glint in Stenson’s eyes said, it’s always the parents’ fault.
“We believe he was involved with the rape and murder of at least one woman in his teen years. You decide.” A cigarette bobbed in Jack’s lips as he spoke.
“Our unsub is controlled by his past. Whatever happened with Keyes reactivated that part of his mind. It made him want to kill again, assuming he wasn’t somewhere else doing this,” Zachery said.
Detective Hanes came toward us, clipping his cell back to its case. “Nina Harris wasn’t an active member of Fitness Guru. She hasn’t been since six months ago.”
“So she changed clubs about three months before her abduction.” I studied the before photo of Harris. She had a healthy glow to her cheeks. “She would have joined somewhere else. I mean look at her. She was beautiful, healthy, and, obviously, placed a high importance on her physical fitness.” My statements provoked a glare from Paige, not that it really mattered.
“We need to find out where she started going.” Jack turned to the detective. “Are you able to take care of—”
“I’ll call all the gyms in the area right now,” Stenson interrupted Jack and was already to the doorway by the time Jack replied.
“While you’re at it, inquire about Rogers and Poole.”
Stenson tapped the doorframe. “You got it.”
“He’s a little overeager with this case, isn’t he?” Jack used his cigarette to point toward the hallway.
“He’s been working on these missing persons cases for years. Pretty much since he became a cop,” Hanes said. “Don’t think any more of it. I know Trent, and he’s not your unsub.”
“Hmm.” After a few seconds, Jack pulled his eyes from the detective.
Chief Steele came into the room and latched both thumbs onto the belt loops of his pants. “Do we have a profile we can share with the public at this point?”
I knew what Jack was like when it came to public announcements. Depending on the case, it could be best to investigate behind the scenes without the added complications of the media’s light, but there were times when either the public needed to be made aware, or it would help draw out the unsub.
“First, gather all your detectives and officers. We’ll have a conference at eight to tell your men the type of man we’re looking for. Then, we’ll go public.”
“There are some officers not on shift,” the chief said.
“Call them in for this.”
The chief nodded.
Chapter 17
She was standing in front of the window as a vision—one he had witnessed many times. Her brown hair was pulled back into a soft french braid, her back was to him. She wore a flowing white dress with embroidered daisies lining the straps. The sweetheart neckline accentuated full breasts that were always swelled and perky. She rested one hip against the glass and had one hand placed beneath her chin, as if she were in deep thought.
The sun shone on her, radiating her with a white glow as if she were an angel. She turned to face him. She never spoke, but she held out her hand.
Her brown eyes were captivating. Her eyelashes long and full. No makeup adorned her face. She was a natural beauty.
He went to her and took her hand. She smiled at him, as only she could—the innocence of a child, yet with eyes possessing the experience of a woman.
She proclaimed her love to him again. They had just made love, as she liked to call it, and she went to the window to watch the deer feeding in the field behind the house. She loved watching them. She’d laugh and call them gifts from God.
He maneuvered behind her and nuzzled into her neck, breathing in her scent and caressing her spirit with his energy. They would become one—again. As his lips brushed her skin, the tender part behind an ear, a baby cried.
Excitement raced through him, a mostly foreign euphoria. It was their child, their life, their future.
“I will get him.” He attempted to smile but the expression always felt forced.
She reached for his hand and pulled him back. Tears were in her eyes, and she shook her head.
“But he is ours. I will find a way to love him like my own.”
She brushed a hand down his cheek, and, as she did, the softness in her eyes steeled over. Her chest
nut eyes were now the color of pitch blackness and devoid of a soul.
“We will be together,” he pleaded with her.
She left him, drifting away, her dress swaying with her movements—a soft fluidity contrasting against a cool aura. She never turned to wave good-bye, but she kept on walking until she disappeared.
“I believe I loved you!”
She didn’t stop.
Anger raged, pulsating within his veins.
“Get back here!”
Then he heard her laughter, and the image faded.
He was in front of the television, and his fists formed on the arms of his chair. He could only see one thing—her face, her mockery, her belittling of him. She was a whore. She deserved nothing, but he had offered her his love and she spun it around, denying him. He would never forget her. Ever.
The reoccurring vision haunted him. Yet it was so real. She was responsible for who he had become. Their lives were on her head.
He picked up the TV remote and flipped through the channels until he reached a local news broadcast. The caption at the bottom of the screen made him stop surfing.
FBI called in for missing women cases.
He returned the remote to the side table and watched with interest as they showcased his work. A queasy fear entwined his insides. He spoke to the voice that had left him alone while he was with her.
“I will make you proud. I am no longer a boy.”
Then her picture came on the screen.
“The remains of Nina Harris were recovered earlier this week…”
“No!”
How did they find her? How did they get her?
He knew the broadcaster continued, but he no longer heard her words. The chant he repeated as a prayer went through his head as he ran out the door toward the woods.
The graves lay silent. The graves lay untouched.
Chapter 18
“The unsub we’re after fits into the community. He’d be attractive, in the age range of mid-to-late twenties,” Paige said.
We stood in a room at PWPD, full of officers and detectives from both that department and Dumfries PD. They all watched us as if we were the most excitement the area had seen in a while.
Silent Graves (Brandon Fisher FBI Series) Page 8
