Girls In White Dresses: A Detective London McKenna Novel

by Alex Gates

  At least she’d talk to me, maybe give me an ounce of the truth without making me work too hard. But that meant she had to wait. I stared through the one-way glass. Watching.

  Trying to figure out how I got this so goddamned wrong.

  I didn’t look at Falconi or the report. “You’re sure it’s her gun?”

  “The serial number matches the weapon found in Jonah’s hand,” he said.

  “How the hell did the Goodmans get the weapon?”

  Falconi gave a smirk, far too amused for how complicated this case had become. “You tell me, McKenna. You’re best buds with the Goodmans now. Chit-chatting over coffee. Meeting the family. Making friends.”

  “Friends who deliberately hurt my niece.”

  “To be fair, they did hand-stitch a teddy bear.” He leaned against the window. “You don’t find that sort of craftsmanship in a weapon anymore. Ask them nicely, they might just knit you a confession.”

  I ripped the file from his hands. “I’ll prove it was them.”

  “How?”

  The only way I could.

  By using the only other person who had contact with them.

  “Last night, my niece slept in a hospital. I’m done screwing around. I’m getting my answers.”

  Falconi toasted me with an empty coffee mug. I didn’t need luck.

  Just the truth.

  For once.

  I pushed the door open. Louisa flinched, the momentary terror in her face fading as she recognized me.

  The woman looked awful. Her sable hair dulled to a muddy brown, and the ring of smudged mascara and eyeliner darkened the circles under her eyes. She clutched her purse. The leather strap twisted in her hands—over, under, rubbed, knotted. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought the fidgeting to be a side effect of some sort of drug.

  But guilt was worse than any withdrawal.

  “Detective…” She patted the table. Her nails were bitten raw. “What’s going on? They won’t tell me anything.”

  I took the seat next to her. My silence only terrified her more.

  “Oh, no. It’s Anna, isn’t it?”

  Louisa crumbled, falling to the floor. The sobs crackled through her. Fifteen years of mourning condensed into fifteen seconds of tears.

  I hauled her into the chair. She clutched at my arm.

  “Anna’s dead?” Louisa hiccuped. “He killed her. Oh, God. It’s my fault. This is because of me.”

  Interesting. I’d have pressed her, but no good information was ever born of hysterics. We didn’t have any Kleenex in the interrogation room, my usual tactic with female perps. I signaled to Falconi to find a box before Louisa blubbered all over my table. He stuck his head in for only a moment, tossed me the tissues, and the door closed.

  I offered her one and kept my voice calm. That wasn’t easy after the hellish week I had.

  “Anna’s fine. Nothing’s happened to her.”

  Another break. Louisa leaned over, face in her hands. But the relief was short-lived. Her fingers curled tight, and she tugged at her hair instead, nearly wrenching a handful from her shaking head.

  “Why haven’t you helped her yet? I can’t do it on my own. I can’t…I can’t keep imagining what’s happening to her. We have to help her.”

  Yes. We did.

  But not like this.

  “I spoke with her,” I said.

  Louisa’s shock silenced her. She stared at me, mid-quivering breath.

  “She calls herself Eve. And she’s well. Not going hungry. No signs of visible abuse. She takes care of the children. And she says she loves her husband.” I watched as Louisa murmured a mournful cry. Sounded honest. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Knew what?”

  “Everything.”

  Louisa pretended not to understand, but the uneasy glance wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t even remorse.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.

  I’d make it easy. “You lied to me.”

  “I…”

  “You said you just saw your sister’s kidnapper. That it was a random occurrence. That you happened to find him that day in the Strip District. And when I pressed you, you claimed you’d never forget a face like his, even after fifteen years.”

  Louisa paled. “But…that’s the truth.”

  “No. It’s not. You knew exactly who had Anna. You knew who he was. Where he lived. The cars and vans he owned. His habits. His business partners. You knew it all.”

  She presented her trembling hands, motioning for me to wait so she could collect her thoughts.

  Would they be any more truthful jumbled?

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “Oh, I understand perfectly. All the information you gave me was good because you had already spoken to them.”

  “Detective—”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I had to lie!”

  My patience and pity ran out long before we dredged up the documents I tossed before her. I opened the folder to the first record.

  “I never thought to run your name through our system,” I said. “Imagine my surprise.”

  “I can explain. Please.”

  “Harassment. Stalking.” I met her gaze. Lies made people shake. She shivered half-way off the chair. “The court ordered a PFA against you on behalf of Jacob Goodman. You’re not allowed within one hundred yards of the Harvest Dominion Farm.”

  For the first time, Louisa’s voice darkened. She gripped the table.

  “Don’t tell me you’re defending that animal.”

  “I just want to know why you said you had no idea who’d kidnapped your sister even though you’d been stalking the family responsible for years.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You claimed you saw two of the digits on their license plate. Tell me, Louisa, how long have you had the entire plate memorized?”

  “It’s not how it sounds.”

  “You gave me nothing to solve this case even though you knew, the entire time, every last detail.”

  “I had to, Detective.”

  I heard enough. “You lied to me.”

  “Only about this!”

  “Bullshit.” I flipped to the second page—a copy of her gun registration. “Got another secret to tell me, Louisa? Cause, I’ll be the first to admit…I don’t have an explanation for this. Your gun was the weapon used in Jonah Goodman’s double murder-suicide.” I flashed the autopsy photos of Jonah, Cora, and Nina. “Your gun was in Jonah Goodman’s possession. Given your predilection for his father, our DA will have her choice of charging you with any number of accessory crimes.”

  It wasn’t true, but Louisa burst into tears. “No! Please!”

  “Tell me right now how Jonah Goodman got your gun, or I can’t help you anymore.”

  Louisa cried out, kicking her chair away so she could collapse to the floor. “I’m sorry! But he has my sister!”

  “And you think stalking the family and lying to the police is going to save her?”

  “It was the only thing I could do!” Louisa panicked. “It’s a cult detective. That farm is a portal to hell. Do you know what they do there? What they did to Anna?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “No. You don’t have a clue. Those men are taking girls. Young girls. They kidnap them off the streets, force them into that church. They’re brainwashed. Starved and sleep deprived and completely dominated. They break them, Detective, through beatings and terror and all manner of evil. That’s the only way to control them. The girls are scared and alone, and they’re forced to do these terrible things in the name of God.”

  The cold pricked my skin. Tears streamed over Louisa’s face. She gasped. Hiccupped. Turned beat red as she sobbed at the table.

  It was either a damned good performance or the truth.

  “They did this to Anna?”

  “Of course, they did,” she sniffled. “The instant they get a new girl, they keep her is
olated. Left alone in the dark and cold. It’s a room under the barn. That’s where they do it. Where they beat and starve the poor thing and do…other evils. They call it Repentance. Once the girl is cleansed of her sins, she can go free to the farm where she’s welcomed with warmth and love…and her new husband.”

  “What are her sins?”

  Louisa tore the Kleenex in her hand. “Their former life.”

  “They punish her for her life?”

  “She’s a sinner, no matter what. She’s listened to the wrong music. Spoken the wrong words. She may not have worshiped in their way. But her greatest sin is not devoting her soul to God and body to her family. They punish them for not doing as God intended—providing children to a man as soon as their body is physically capable.” Louisa looked away. “They’ll hold a girl in Repentance and beat everything out of her. Break her will. They torment her, destroy her, tell her that her previous life had ruined her and nearly cost her Heaven. Only once she’s broken, once that old girl has died, are they baptized new.”

  “That’s why Anna thinks she’s Eve?” I asked.

  “Yes. Everything about their past was beaten out of her. Her real memories are repressed under the threat of more Repentance.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Louisa batted the folder towards me. “How do you think I got those charges? I watched. I went to the farm. I studied them. I catalogued it. I did everything that I could, everything the police refused to do. Everyone except you.”

  “You still lied to me.”

  “If I had told you my sister was held by a religious sex cult that brainwashes children into becoming child brides, would you have believed me?”

  Nothing like all of my worst fears coming true.

  I rubbed my face, but my hand traveled behind, desperately attempting to massage the pulsing pain between my shoulder blades.

  I checked the forensics report once more. “And the gun?”

  “I gave it to Anna,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Why else? To use against that pervert if he ever touched her again.”

  “Jacob’s still alive.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice embittered. “And he’s still raping her. I wanted her to use it against him. But I had no idea how ensnared she was. She thinks she’s in love with him. She probably gave the gun to Jacob the instant I left the farm. Jonah must have grabbed it from the house.”

  “You never reported it missing.”

  “That was right before the restraining order…” Louisa rubbed her eyes. “Anna testified against me. She swore she didn’t know who I was or why I attempted to reach her.”

  My heart broke for her.

  And for Anna.

  And the other girls.

  “Do you know what they do with their daughters?” She met my gaze. “Their own flesh and blood?”

  I already guessed. “Only the men stay on the farm?”

  “They marry the girls they kidnap. If they have sons, they stay. If they have daughters…” Louisa rubbed her fingers, as if brushing away dust. “Given away as soon as they reach puberty. Jacob’s daughters, his sisters, his nieces, his granddaughters. They’re married off to pre-determined men, arranged at their birth. They’re given to men two or three times their age, and no one says a damned thing. God’s will.”

  “Who are they given to?”

  “This type of evil is pervasive. They have like-minded friends across the entire East Coast.” She lowered her gaze. “It’s profitable for them to give away the girls. Easier than kidnapping their own. Only the Goodmans are brazen enough to snatch their victims. The other families wait for their benevolence.”

  Christ.

  How many families were involved?

  How the hell could an entire network of underground child brides exist without anyone having an idea it was happening?

  “They’ve taken other runaways too,” Louisa said.

  The resounding dread in her words twisted my stomach. I held her stare. The hollow trauma was there, hidden away, but never gone.

  “Some girls never make it out of the barn,” she whispered. “The ones who resist. The ones who refuse to repent. Check the family graveyard, Detective. There’s too many graves for that family.”

  “They murder them?”

  “They can’t all be good little Christian wives, can they?”

  My head pounded. I groaned, suppressing the urge to shake her shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place? I could have investigated it!”

  “And instead of a fire in my parents’ home, they’d have murdered me in my sleep.” She bit her lip until it left an indent. “You have no idea how dangerous these people are, what they’ll do to keep their secret.”

  I had a good idea. I’d attacked their family, and now they were coming after mine.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” I promised. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “And the girls on the farm? What about them? Who will keep them safe from those men?”

  The knock on the door interrupted us. I turned, ready to bitch at Falconi, but I didn’t recognize the dark, nearly terrified expression twisting his features. He curled his finger for me to follow, his voice a tense warning.

  “Phone call,” he said. “She’ll only talk to you, McKenna.”

  “Anna?” Louisa leapt from her chair. “It has to be!”

  “Sit,” I said. I followed Falconi, excusing her from the room. “You’re free to go, but don’t you dare visit that farm.”

  Louisa wasn’t going anywhere. “That’s my sister on the phone, isn’t it? Please. I have to talk to her. I can’t…”

  I rushed to my desk. Louisa fought against the detective. She screamed for me, for the phone.

  “Anna! No! Please!”

  “Let her go,” I said. “But keep her quiet.”

  I picked up the phone, anticipating the nightmare awaiting me.

  Would they gloat about the teddy bear? Offer another warning?

  Threaten me once more?

  “London McKenna. Who is this?”

  The line was silent. Crackling, but no one spoke.

  “Hello?” I tried again. “It’s Detective McKenna. I’m here.”

  A timid, innocent voice whispered over the line. “H—hello?”

  I’d be sick.

  I waved to the others. Falconi wrestled Louisa into a seat, clapping a hand over her mouth as I put the call on speakerphone.

  Louisa shouted, but it wasn’t Anna who’d called.

  This voice was far too young. Too innocent.

  It wavered, light and childish, with the breathy cadence shy little girls used when speaking to strangers.

  “Hi.” I softened my words. “Thanks for calling me. Are you okay?”

  “I…” She was nothing if not polite. “Yes, thank you.”

  Falconi asked the silent question with a shrug. Who was she?

  “Mariam, is that you?” I asked. She didn’t answer. I fought the bile rising in my stomach. “Mariam, talk to me. Did something happen to you?”

  “I don’t want to get married.”

  The station silenced.

  Terrified.

  No.

  Oh god, no.

  I clutched the phone. “What’s happening, Mariam? Tell me what’s going on. Are you getting married?”

  “…I guess so.”

  “To who, honey? Who are you marrying?”

  A long delay.

  Too long.

  “I gotta go,” she said.

  I’d leap through the phone if it kept her on the line. “Mariam, no, sweetheart. Don’t go. Can you find somewhere to talk? Stay with me.”

  “I gotta get dressed.”

  “Dressed?”

  “I have to look pretty. It’s supposed to be a special day.”

  “Mariam, don’t hang up. When are you getting married? Soon? Tell me about it—”

  The line went dead.

  And my heart crushed with it.
>
  I dropped the phone. It thudded on the desk, the only sound in the entire precinct.

  Mariam was only ten years old. A child.

  A baby.

  It’d take two hours to get to the farm.

  And two hours was enough time to commit countless evils.

  22

  Run.

  -Him

  Two hours. I could make it there in two hours.

  God, I hoped the Goodman’s had long traditional weddings.

  I didn’t let the others speak. I grabbed my gun and ran to the door. “Call the ADA. Tell her I need a warrant now. Falconi, can you swear it for me?”

  “Go.” He tossed a sobbing Louisa in a nearby chair. “Riley and I will run it to the judge. We’ll call when it’s signed.”

  I turned to Adamski. “Call the Tionesta Sherriff and the State Police. Tell them to move. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Adamski was already on his phone. “You don’t take a single step on that property without a warrant. Tionesta has jurisdiction. Follow their instructions.”

  Screw the bureaucratic bullshit.

  A little girl’s life was in danger. Her innocence. Her future.

  I crashed down the stairs two at a time, racing to see if I broke my neck or an ankle first. Cold sweat drenched me by the time I reached the car. I nearly hyperventilated when I pulled onto the highway.

  It’d been years since I felt this sort of panic, rage…

  Helplessness.

  Even with my lights on, Pittsburgh traffic clustered tight and unforgiving. I veered between cars on the highway, zipped onto the shoulder when the cars slowed to stop-and-go, and I busted out of the city as quickly as I could make it without hurting any other innocent people.

  I beat the steering wheel with frustrated fists. I’d known the wedding was coming. They’d been preparing for it, revering it. Anna had prattled on about the arrangements. Simon and Jacob practically salivated over the event. The damn wedding was more important than their harvest.

  Probably because they sowed their own seeds this way.

  And that was the disgusting truth of the family. The dirty little secret they all shared in the depths of their souls. They knew the crimes they committed—that was why they stole the runaways, the ones who’d probably never find their way home.