Stolen

by Carey Baldwin

  Exactly what Spense would have done in his shoes.

  But Caity knew Webber better than they did. He wanted to hear her explanation. “First, I wanna say I’m sorry you didn’t feel safe telling me about Webber and the dress shop.”

  She pulled her afghan tighter around herself. “I wanted to tell you. I realize now, no matter what, I should’ve been honest.”

  He sat down beside her and laid his head on her shoulder. “I can’t promise I’ll never lose my cool again, babe. But I promise to do better, to try harder, and to learn from my mistakes.”

  “And I can’t promise I’ll never get hurt again, but I do promise to do better, to try harder, and to learn from my mistakes.”

  He squeezed her knee. “I guess we both have a lot to learn. Now, if you wanna explain why you don’t like Webber for this, I’m all ears.”

  “Just in case the moms are all ears, too . . .” She got up, checked the hallway and then closed the door to the study. “I agree Grady’s a misogynist. Educated, cunning, feels entitled. He manipulated Laura with psychotropic medication—there’s no question about that, but we don’t know for what reason—he quite possibly thought it was for her own good. Then there’s the fact that he’s a hedonist. Whatever makes him feel good, he believes to be morally correct.”

  “So far, I’m with Hatcher—Grady seems like our guy.”

  “As much as I deplore the man, Grady Webber, while not above using his position of power to take advantage of women lacks one key element of the profile—he doesn’t have poor ego strength.”

  “You mean he’s an arrogant SOB and our UNSUB . . .”

  “Many rapists obtain sexual gratification by instilling terror in their victims. But our UNSUB doesn’t. He can only get off when there’s no threat. No witness to his perceived inadequacies. Think about it. No one is less threatening than an unconscious victim because they can’t criticize or fight back.”

  “And you’re sure Webber wouldn’t enjoy taking such complete control over a woman?”

  “I am. I hate to have to think about my own experiences with him, but based on those, I believe that in the bedroom, Grady needs an audience. He uses intellectual discourse as foreplay, and he needs someone who can appreciate how clever he is.”

  “Someone educated, like you.”

  “And like Inga . . . someone awake to tell him he’s brilliant. Whenever I think about Inga, it crushes my heart. I don’t believe Grady’s our UNSUB, but I do wonder if he might be responsible for Inga’s death.”

  “How long will it take you to get dressed?”

  “One minute to put on my shoes. Why?”

  “I still like Webber for our UNSUB. But I get your point, and one way or the other, I think a field trip is in order—you said Inga’s sister lives in Boulder, right?”

  Chapter 45

  Tuesday, October 29

  10:00 A.M.

  Boulder, Colorado

  “Ms. Rundstrom, thanks so much for seeing me.” Caitlin had phoned from home and mentioned she was an old friend of Inga’s. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought someone with me. This is Special Agent Atticus Spenser.”

  “Call me Spense,” he said.

  “Call me Asta.” She looked like a worn-down version of Inga—tall with blond hair and blue eyes, but she had smoker’s lines around her lips. The sunlight on her makeup-free complexion accentuated a sprinkling of broken capillaries on her cheeks, and the deep creases in her forehead aged her beyond her years.

  Caitlin believed her to be only a couple of years senior to Inga.

  Asta swung open her front door in invitation for Spense and Caitlin. They followed her through a small foyer into an open family room, graced with natural-wood floors and high ceilings. Though leaded glass windows and old world architectural style lent the home a certain panache, Caitlin couldn’t help noting the place had been neglected. A thick layer of dust coated the mantle on the fireplace. Old newspapers were piled everywhere, and unopened mail had commandeered the love seat, leaving the couch and a rickety wooden chair for seating.

  Caitlin took the chair—Asta and Spense the couch.

  “Special agent. What is that?” Asta asked, stifling a yawn.

  “FBI, ma’am. I hope we didn’t wake you.”

  “I don’t really sleep, just snooze a little here and there, when I can.”

  Caitlin was surprised that Asta’s expression remained unchanged. Most people got a little nervous around FBI agents. But from Asta’s slumped posture and slack jaw, it seemed as though she didn’t care one way or the other who sat down beside her on the couch.

  She’s depressed.

  “We’d like to talk to you about your sister,” Caitlin said—still no change in expression.

  A long silence followed then finally, “May I offer you a coffee or something?”

  “If you’re having some, thanks.” Sharing a food or beverage put people at ease, though Asta didn’t look as though she could be any more at ease if she were curled up in her jammies in front of the tube.

  Spense stroked his chin. “Got anything stronger? A whiskey, maybe?”

  Asta smiled. “Neat okay?”

  “Neat’s great.”

  Good job on Spense’s part. Caitlin had pegged Asta for a drinker, but still, she wouldn’t have thought to suggest a cocktail at 10 a.m.

  “All righty then, you and me will have an eye-opener and toast my dead little sister and her poor, pitiful, grieving husband.”

  A glimmer of emotion flicked across her flat eyes.

  Clearly Inga’s death had affected her sister more deeply than it had Grady. And the sarcasm in her voice was telling.

  Asta went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses nearly half-filled with an amber liquid.

  Apparently Caitlin would be driving.

  Asta looked at her and frowned. “I forgot your coffee.”

  “No worries, really. I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Suit yourself.” Asta flopped down on the couch and handed Spense his drink, somehow managing not to spill a drop despite the way the cushion bounced.

  “Why don’t you like Grady Webber?” Spense didn’t beat around the bush.

  “Does it matter? Everyone else loved him. My parents, for example, were ecstatic when he married Inga.” She tossed back a slug of whiskey. “All that money. Brilliant future. A doctor and what-have-you. You think they even cared that Inga was a doctor, too, and could’ve had a brilliant future all on her own? Once she met Grady, she barely managed to finish residency. All that work, all that education, and then she just gave up her own career to traipse around the country after that piece of crap. She never got to practice psychiatry a single day.”

  Caitlin hadn’t been aware of that.

  “Toward the end, just before her accident . . .” Asta continued, “. . . she’d decided to go to work. She was going to try to start her own practice, but Grady didn’t like that, because it meant she couldn’t drop everything for him and those Chaucer family junkets he was always going on. He called her ungrateful. Implied any wife should want to travel the world with her husband and grovel at his feet while he tended to the mind of that poor little rich girl.”

  “You mean Laura Chaucer.”

  “Yes.” She tossed her whiskey back again. “That child’s been through it, I know. But talk about spoiled. If Laura so much as looked at something in the window, the next day it was wrapped up with a bow waiting for her to open it. If you asked me, that whole family needed better boundaries. But of course no one did ask, because I’m not a psychiatrist. No one listens to anything I have to say about the Chaucers, or about Grady, or about my own sister because what would an uneducated woman who works at the supermarket know that Grady Webber does not. If Grady says he and Inga were blissfully happy, well then, I guess they were.”

  Caitlin raised her eyes to meet Asta’s. “I’d like to hear your opinion. What you think matters.”

  “Too late now. She’s already gone. After Ing
a’s funeral I tried to tell the cops I didn’t think it was an accident. She hiked all the time, and she was very careful. I told them I thought Grady might’ve pushed her off that mountain. And they told me that was impossible because he had an airtight alibi. He was at a symposium with a group of doctors—he’s got six witnesses and security cameras that place him at the hotel while she was out hiking.”

  “But you still believe he pushed her off the trail?” Caitlin asked.

  A tear ran down her face. “I don’t think all of those witnesses are lying, but that doesn’t mean Grady couldn’t have hired someone to do the dirty work for him. I don’t understand why the police just took his word that they were happy.”

  “Did she tell you otherwise?”

  Asta blew her nose. “Not exactly. And I know he loved her, but in a very possessive way. The day before she died, she called me from Paris and said something was very wrong.”

  “She didn’t tell you what?” Spense set his drink on the coffee table atop an old newspaper. Thus far, he hadn’t imbibed.

  “No, but she did say this was the last time she’d be part of the Chaucers’ entourage, and that Grady was furious with her when she told him so.”

  “That doesn’t seem like the strongest motive. It doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “It sure doesn’t make him a considerate husband. And did you know he was accused of raping a girl in college?”

  Caitlin gripped the rails of her chair.

  The room seemed to be shrinking. The musty odor of newsprint and the sickly-sweet smell of whiskey and stale cigarette smoke made Caitlin want to bolt from the room for a breath of clean air.

  “Grady was here on Sunday,” Asta continued. “He won’t leave me alone because he says Inga would want him to check on me. He says I’m stuck in the anger phase of grief, and I’m taking it out on him.”

  “Don’t you hate it when shrinks interpret your feelings to their own advantage?”

  Spense addressed Asta but sent Caitlin a look as though checking to see if she was okay.

  She was. Now that she’d had a minute to process the bomb Asta had dropped.

  “Let me ask you a question.” Asta’s voice turned slightly singsong from drink—this likely wasn’t her first of the morning. “If Grady has such a great alibi, and I’m the only one in creation who doesn’t believe Inga’s fall was an accident, what the hell are you two doing here?”

  Caitlin rose and walked over to Asta. “Is there room for me beside you on the couch?”

  Asta didn’t object so Caitlin folded down beside her and met her eyes. “I came to offer my condolences for your loss. Inga was a good person. I liked her very much. And the truth is, I want to know what happened to her, and I don’t trust Grady either. Can you tell us more about this alleged rape in college?”

  Asta wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand. “All the charges were dropped.”

  “Do you know the name of the woman who accused him?” Spense asked.

  “Her name is Lisa Blake.”

  “I don’t suppose you know where she is now? I’d like to talk to her,” Caitlin said softly. Asta’s resigned, helpless demeanor was cracking her heart open.

  “Not really. I do know that after she recanted the rape accusation, she dropped out of college and moved back in with her parents. They’ve both passed since, but she stayed put. Inga went to see her one time, just before the trip to Paris. Inga said Lisa was living in a spooky old two-story house at the top of a road that leads into the Gore Mountains.”

  “Not outside Dillon? At the edge of the Eagles Nest Wilderness?” Caitlin remembered a spooky two-story house set back from the road they’d taken up to Frank’s Cabin. She’d wondered how the owners got in and out in bad weather.

  “I think so. But like I said, that was a couple of years ago. I got no idea if she’s still up there.”

  Chapter 46

  Tuesday, October 29

  1:00 P.M.

  Frank’s Cabin

  Eagles Nest Wilderness

  Laura had nowhere else to go.

  For three days now, she’d been living in the wilderness. She still had a little food and her jacket to keep her warm, but her water was gone, and she didn’t think she could survive the elements even one day without it. She was too spent.

  Time to make another decision.

  She’d been getting a lot of practice at that, and she was beginning to make better choices. With her heart in her throat, she stared at the map she held.

  X marks the spot: Frank’s Cabin.

  She closed her eyes and tried to wipe away the images of blood and feces on the floor. The silk scarves that had bound her to the chair. The knife at her throat.

  Her monster.

  Surely the crime scene people would’ve cleaned and cleared the cabin by now. The road was closed to the public. The hut wouldn’t reopen for the season for at least another month. There was fresh water and a cabin full of supplies.

  Shelter.

  This was no longer her nightmare.

  This was the place where she’d found the will to survive.

  Here, she wasn’t a fugitive on the run from both the law and her monster. She was a free spirit. A wanderer. Come to the cabin for rest and renewal. And like her fellow travelers, she had good in her heart. She not only wanted to live, she believed, for the first time, that she deserved to be on this planet.

  Her hand shook as she raised it. As high as her spirits had climbed, there was also trepidation. What if the monster came back here?

  She pulled in a breath. Then she would’ve accomplished her aim. She’d have found him. And that meant she’d have a chance at stopping him. Hesitating only a heartbeat more, she steeled her shoulders and pushed through the door to Frank’s Cabin.

  And nothing terrible happened at all.

  She smiled, sighed, and slipped her pack from her shoulders.

  Yes!

  The bed was stripped, but clean. The floors scrubbed. Even the cracked glass windowpane had been repaired. The forest service must’ve come in and fixed the place up after it’d been cleared by the cops. Which made sense since so many hikers relied on it in winter. In fact, the rangers had probably replenished the supplies she’d raided from the cellar. At the very least, she guessed she’d find clean sheets and a blanket. She eyed the bunk bed again. How wonderful to sleep on something other than the cold hard ground.

  Yes, this was definitely her safe place.

  No one would ever expect her to come back here.

  She crossed to the table and shoved it aside to expose the woven throw. Then she dragged the rug away and bent to grab the handle of the trap door to the cellar. A scraping noise sounded beneath the floorboards, making her shoulders jump. She cast a glance around and saw no sign of anyone else. No jacket cast aside, no cap hanging from the wall hook.

  She heard the noise again, and this time, she shrugged off her worry.

  Probably a mouse.

  After everything she’d been through, she wasn’t going to let a mouse keep her from opening that cellar door and climbing down to claim her treasures. Bracing one hand on the floor, she clasped the handle tightly with the other. Suddenly a great force from below pushed the door up.

  The hard metal slammed into her face.

  She fell back, knocking her skull against the floor.

  A sickening crack sounded in her ears as the world began to tilt away from her grasp.

  Do not lose consciousness. No way are you taking the easy way out. Not this time.

  She blinked hard, trying to bring her surroundings into focus.

  Oh, dear God.

  No!

  Her monster loomed above her, straddling her between his legs.

  No! Please, not Cayman!

  “Help!” she screamed, but there was no one there to hear.

  “Laura, get up.”

  She cowered away from him, slithering on her back toward the wall. The floor shook beneath her from his footsteps as
he followed.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  “Laura, do exactly as I say. And I’m warning you, do not scream again.”

  She saw, for the first time, the pistol in Cayman’s hand.

  “Y-yes. Anything you say.” She lifted her shoulders off the ground and gathered herself into a sitting position.

  “Get up, Laura. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  That was a lie.

  He was a monster.

  It was him all along.

  He’d stayed in the room next to hers on all those trips, and he’d known she was drugged and sound asleep when he went out on his night excursions. Cayman killed those women. He killed Angelina. And now he was going to kill her.

  Let him try.

  Something deep inside crackled to life, snapping her arms open like her wrists had been zip tied and then suddenly cut loose. “I—I can’t stand up. Will you help me?”

  He reached down to pull her to her feet.

  As soon as she had her balance, she shoved him, hard.

  Bam!

  A gunshot rang out.

  As the stench of gunpowder filled the room, a bright flash blinded her. She touched her forehead—it was wet and warm. She brought her hand in front of her eyes, staring at the blood in disbelief. Her skin had gone cool and numb. She couldn’t feel her heartbeat.

  Gasping, she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  Chapter 47

  Tuesday, October 29

  1:00 P.M.

  Borderline Road

  Edge of Eagles Nest Wilderness

  Spense could tell it had irritated Caity when he’d insisted on driving. But he hadn’t imbibed so much as a drop of whiskey back at Asta Rundstrom’s house, and the road up to the Eagles Nest Wilderness was closed to the public for a reason. It was soupy and icy and he was the one with experience in tactical driving. At times, he’d struggled to keep the four-wheel drive Jeep they’d rented upright and in forward motion, but they’d made it to the top, and now here they were.