Stolen

by Carey Baldwin

  “Post-traumatic stress.” Webber patted Tracy’s hand. “No shame in that, Tracy.”

  She nodded absently. “Where were we?”

  “About midnight you woke up screaming.”

  “Yes, Whit held me until I fell back asleep. The next morning, he woke me around eight. He’d gotten up to make coffee and . . . and he found a ransom note on the breakfast table.”

  “Did you read the note?” Spense leaned in to hear her answer. Her voice had become very soft.

  “Whit read it to me. It said they had taken Laura and Angelina, too. They asked for a one-hundred-thousand-dollar ransom. They said they’d be in touch. The note also said they’d torture and kill Laura if we tried to contact the authorities.”

  “But you called 911,” Caity said.

  “Not me. That was Whit. He said we needed help if we were going to get Laura home. I was terrified, but I looked to Whit for guidance. After he called 911, he called Grady to come over. I—I was hysterical, and Grady gave me a sedative.”

  “So then—” Spense pinned Webber with his stare “—you were present on both the evening before and the morning after Laura Chaucer went missing.”

  “I don’t care for the insinuation, Agent Spenser. I’ve been a friend of the family for years.”

  “And were you a friend of Laura’s, too?” Spense asked.

  “Hardly. Laura was an eight-year-old child.”

  “Oh, but she adored Grady.” Tracy looked admiringly at her psychiatrist, then added, “Angelina was crazy about him, too.”

  Caitlin turned the volume up on the flat screen television that hung on the war room wall. Hatcher and the rest of the task force detectives had convened downstairs in the hotel ballroom, where a press conference was already in full swing, but she and Spense had remained behind. Of late, they’d had more than their share of media attention. Neither of them wanted to siphon the focus off the Chaucer family, who planned to make a direct appeal for the safe return of their daughter.

  The commander introduced Hatcher, his lead investigator. Hatcher told reporters about a hiker’s report of suspicious activity in the Eagles Nest Wilderness and the subsequent gruesome discovery of the body of a young woman, late teens to early twenties, with long dark hair and slender build.

  A hotline number flashed behind him on the screen. “Anyone with any information about a young woman fitting this description, or any other information you may deem useful to this investigation, please call the hotline.”

  A cacophony of voices shouted questions at once. Hatcher pointed, and the camera zoomed in on a short, balding man. The man climbed to his feet. “Ronald Saas—Mountain Times. Is there a reward?”

  Hatcher cleared his throat. “I’m going to get to that in a moment.”

  “Why not get to it now?” Saas fired back.

  “Take a seat and I will.” Hatcher removed his handkerchief from his pocket as if to wipe the perspiration beading on his brow, but didn’t use it. “We have another missing woman. But she is not our Jane Doe.”

  A photograph of Laura, standing in front of the Holly Hill College entrance sign, appeared on the screen behind Hatcher. The hotline number was printed in bold across the bottom of the image. “Laura Chaucer, age twenty-one, a student at Holly Hill College was last seen on Monday night, October 21, entering her off-campus apartment. The family is offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to her return.”

  A shuffling noise sounded from backstage. Then Whit and Tracy Chaucer appeared. An audible buzz started up in the crowd. Once it finally died down, Grady Webber walked to the podium.

  “Son of a bitch,” Spense muttered.

  “I’m going to hand things over to Dr. Grady Webber, the family spokesperson.” Hatcher made way at the mic for Grady.

  “Senator and Mrs. Whitmore Chaucer are unable to speak, due to their grief. On their behalf, I’m begging you, if you have any knowledge of Laura’s whereabouts call this number immediately.” He looked piercingly into the camera. “If you have Laura in your custody, please return her to the loving arms of her mother and father. They miss her. Think of the pain you’re causing . . . if you’ve taken her. And Laura . . .” He spread his arms wide. “If you’re watching this, please come home. No matter what you’ve done, your parents love you.”

  Blood rushed to Caitlin’s face. She jumped to her feet. “What the hell did Grady just do?”

  “Blamed Laura for her own disappearance, or maybe worse.”

  Bile rose in her throat.

  “Remember.” Webber turned his remarks to the general viewing audience. “There’s a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the return of Laura Chaucer.”

  Caitlin’s hands clenched at her sides. She swallowed back a stream of expletives.

  She and Spense exchanged a glance.

  The hotline was ringing.

  Chapter 28

  Friday, October 25

  10:30 A.M.

  Elm Street

  Denver, Colorado

  Cayman had something Laura desperately needed, and until she got hold of it, she couldn’t go home. The locks of hair alone weren’t enough proof. Because of that note, the locks of hair could make her look even more guilty. But if she could get into Cayman’s house, maybe she could find the one thing that could prove her theory: that there were more victims.

  Over the years, she’d seen pictures on the news of other women who looked like Angelina—women who’d gone missing or turned up dead. But her mind was so jumbled, she’d been so heavily medicated, she couldn’t recall the pertinent details . . . like who and where and when. She needed a thread that would connect the dots, shore up her faulty memory. And she had a good idea about where to find that thread.

  She scratched her arm and noticed a couple of red welts appear. Hopefully, it was just from the sun concentrating its fire on her skin and not an allergy to this fragrant, pokey hedge she was hiding behind. Twisting her wrist, she frowned. She needed a watch to keep time. Counting might work for a minute or two, but there was no telling how long she’d been sitting here cross-legged on the dirt, staring at the door of that brown frame house, waiting for Cayman to emerge. More than one thousand seconds for sure, since that’s when she’d given up keeping track.

  Buried in her backpack was her purse. The pack in turn was lashed to her stolen bike, also hidden behind the hedgerow. But she could figure her remaining cash in her head. She’d spent forty dollars at the motel, nine ninety-nine on breakfast, twenty-one dollars for a cab from the diner to campus, seventeen-fifty on wire cutters, and fifty-three dollars on a blond wig. That left three hundred fifty-eight dollars and fifty-one cents. The youth hostel would hopefully run her around ten dollars a night.

  If she could find a watch for twenty dollars, she’d buy it. She smacked herself on the forehead. Yes, she needed a watch, but more importantly she needed a burner phone in case she needed to call in an anonymous tip to the cops . . . or to Caitlin. She liked Caitlin, and she wondered if there might be some way to reach her directly—maybe an internet search would turn something up. A trip to the electronics store and to a coffee shop with Wi-Fi was definitely in order.

  The thought of her strange to-do list made her smile.

  Break and enter Cayman’s house.

  Hit the electronics store.

  Order a venti latte.

  Catch a killer.

  The wind shifted. The sun ducked behind a bank of clouds, taking her smile with it. She let out a long, lonely breath. It felt wrong, spying on Cayman. He’d been as much a friend to her as a bodyguard. And she’d had very few friends since Angelina died. Laura considered marching up the front steps, ringing the bell and announcing to Cayman that she was back. But then she thought about her friend’s body lying mutilated in the wilderness and about Angelina’s bright smile. The way her sweet nanny had always read Harry Potter to her before tucking her into bed with a good-night kiss.

  And she thought about the monster.
r />   No.

  She wasn’t going to ring the front bell. She was going to sit here on the hard ground until her butt flattened into a pancake and her muscles atrophied. However long it took for Cayman to leave—that’s how long she’d keep watch.

  It was a sad day—whatever the outcome, she wouldn’t be rejoicing. She wasn’t a killer—she knew that, finally—her soul simply wasn’t black enough, but there was still the question of her sanity.

  Yet even if she was nuts, even if her theory was all wrong, someone had killed Angelina. Someone had killed her friend. And Laura was determined to do everything in her power to stop that someone from striking again.

  She heard the creak of a garage door opening.

  Craning her neck, she saw a black sedan pull out from the house where the blue bike was still chained up on the porch.

  She held her breath.

  It looked like a man driving the sedan, but the side window was tinted so she couldn’t be sure who.

  The window buzzed down.

  Cayman.

  He was leaving. And from the way he peeled out of that drive, he was in a hurry to get wherever he was going.

  This was her chance.

  She crawled out from behind the bushes, heart in her throat, palms sweaty.

  But what if he’d taken the one thing she needed with him? Then there would be no point breaking into his house.

  Stop stalling.

  As she sauntered casually across the road, she pursed her lips, attempting a carefree whistle, but her mouth was too dry.

  Just act cool.

  First, she approached the neighbor’s yard that contained a treasure she’d had her eye on while lurking behind the bushes. A football, lying in the grass, waiting for its quarterback to come out and play. She felt a pang of guilt, knowing that quarterback would probably have to take the blame for her sin . . . but wasn’t that the point?

  Just do it.

  She snagged the football and kept moving.

  She reached the backyard of Cayman’s house. No screens on the windows.

  Good.

  She hauled her right arm back and concentrated. She’d often played touch football with Cayman, and it was he who’d taught her to throw a mean pass. When the ball smashed through the bedroom window, she did a victory dance, like she’d just hit a wide receiver fifty yards downfield.

  Touchdown!

  Spurred on by her unqualified success—the window had shattered to bits—she made quick work of clearing away the glass stalactites and stalagmites from the windowsill with her jacketed arm. Then she removed her dusty boots and crawled through the window into Cayman’s bedroom in her stocking feet.

  Center stage, the football nestled in the gray shag carpet, announcing to all the world that the only foul play here had been that of a rowdy neighbor kid with bad aim.

  She drew the curtains across the broken window, and they lifted in the breeze. Lucky for her the high masonry fence surrounding the backyard kept her safe from view.

  What next?

  If she was careful, no one would ever know she’d been here. The football explained the broken window, and Cayman might not realize what she’d stolen for ages, and even then he’d probably think he’d simply misplaced it. Determined to leave no trace behind, she hurried into the bathroom and found a clean washcloth. She didn’t have gloves, but she could make do with this instead.

  Back in the bedroom, she wiped down the windowsill and the adjacent wall in case she’d left a palm print. Using the cloth, she pulled open the top dresser drawer then carefully sorted through its contents: Socks. Boxers. A dirty magazine—one of the tamer kind that ran a lot of celebrity interviews.

  A deep, dark fear that she didn’t want to face, surfaced for the second time that day, then quickly evaporated like steam from a boiling pot.

  Cayman couldn’t be her monster.

  Such a beast would require more twisted fare than a garden-variety girlie mag to satisfy his carnal urges. She slipped the magazine back into place and moved on.

  Drawer after drawer left her disappointed. She didn’t know why Cayman would hide it, but in case he had she should try the obvious places. She dragged the mattress off the bed and was left huffing and sneezing from the effort.

  Nothing but dust mites under here.

  And now she had to deal with the mess she’d made. With weary arms, she shoved and tugged the mattress back into place. She jerked the sheets up and smoothed them. Had the bed been neatly made, or had the covers been pulled up in a jumble? She couldn’t remember. If she was lucky, neither would Cayman.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  She should’ve checked the closet before wrestling with that mattress. Something to think about the next time she broke into someone’s bedroom! With her rag in hand once again, she stepped into the walk-in. His closet was full, containing clothing for all seasons. This was no spur-of-the-moment trip. So he really had been here, watching her, all along. She batted her worry away, and rifled through all the pockets of his pants and jackets. When she came across a wad of cash, she opened and closed her fist around it three, four times, before making up her mind and stuffing the bills in her pocket. Funds were running low, and she didn’t know how long she’d be on the run.

  She glanced at her bare wrist, realizing she had no clue how much time had passed. At least now she could buy that watch.

  Hurry!

  Tiptoeing up she stretched her neck, trying to get a good view of the top shelf. The absence of dust in one spot told her something rectangular had been shoved to the rear. She dragged a hard-shell suitcase over and stood on it.

  Yes!

  She’d been right.

  A box had been shoved to the back of the shelf.

  An ordinary shoe box.

  Probably containing ordinary shoes.

  Extending her arm, she wiggled her fingers but couldn’t quite reach her goal. With a hanger, she coaxed the box toward her. Finally, she got her fingertips under the lip and fished the thing off the shelf. She lost her balance. One foot came off the suitcase, and she bumped her head against the wall, making her brain zing with pain.

  When she touched her scalp, she was relieved to note that although it was sore and a goose-egg was already beginning to from, her hand came away free of blood. She carried the box to the bed she’d just made and sat down, cradling the contraband in her lap. The box felt lightweight, not what you’d expect if it contained a pair of men’s shoes.

  She closed her eyes.

  Please. Pease. Please.

  Let it be here.

  She sucked in a breath, and then opened her eyes and the box at the same moment.

  Her spirits soared.

  She might really be able to stop the monster after all. The status of her mission had just been upgraded from snowball’s chance to highly unlikely because lying right on top of a bunch of odds and ends was what she’d been seeking: the thread she needed to connect the dots in her memory.

  Cayman’s passports.

  As she turned the pages, her fingers tingled with excitement. She flipped through them, touching each stamp reverently. It was everything she’d hoped to find.

  Because Cayman’s travels were her travels.

  Where she’d gone, he’d gone.

  Her parents kept her passports under lock and key, which made it impossible for her to reconstruct a timeline of her life abroad. But it was all laid out for her now. Cayman had been with her since the day she’d been ransomed. These little booklets, trembling in her hand, showed every country she’d visited and every date since Angelina had been murdered.

  If she could cross-check the dates of her travel with reports of missing women in the same locations, she might find the victims whose faces she recalled from the news, but whose names she didn’t know.

  Exhaling a long breath, she zipped the passports into the pocket of her jacket.

  Before she put the box away, curiosity prompted her to inspect the remaining contents. It was an odd c
ollection of receipts, ticket stubs, and mementos mixed with utilitarian items like toenail clippers and super glue. At the bottom, an envelope caught her eye. She could tell from the firm sleek feel of it that she’d found a rarity in today’s world—a physical photograph—the kind you can hold in your hand. Sure enough, inside the envelope was a long narrow strip of photo paper.

  Outside the window, a car engine roared to life.

  Her shoulders jumped, but then relaxed when she heard the car buzz down the street. It wasn’t Cayman . . . yet. But she’d better get out of here fast. She’d peek at the photo, return the shoe box to the top of the closet, and then get the hell out.

  She turned the photo strip face up.

  It had obviously been taken in a fun booth.

  Her eyes blurred with tears, and it took her a minute to process what she was seeing.

  But when she did, her bones, her lungs, her skin seemed to freeze, as though she’d just stepped naked into a cryotherapy chamber.

  A couple was pictured pulling a series of funny faces for the camera.

  They looked very happy together. Cayman and his beautiful companion—a young woman with blue eyes and long dark hair.

  Chapter 29

  Friday, October 25

  12:00 P.M.

  Campus Ridge Apartments

  Denver, Colorado

  “Truella Underland . . .” Spense began to read, rapid-fire, invoking his sternest tone “. . . you have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. Do you understand?”

  The young woman’s jaw dropped, and her facial muscles went slack.

  She seemed both stunned and confused—exactly the effect Spense had been going for, not to mention it never hurts to cover your ass with Miranda rights just in case. When he’d finished reading them, he slipped the card back in his suit pocket and produced a pair of handcuffs he’d lifted from a detective’s desk back in the war room.