“Great.” He glanced at his watch. They had another two hours before they’d have to leave for the airport. “Who put you on to Johnson?”
“The owner of one of the restaurants Channing worked for. I got the names of his prior employers by running the social security number he was using back then. I matched up the restaurants with the towns where we had confirmed kills that matched back to Channing. Seems he drifted from town to town for several years, restaurant to restaurant.”
“Kill to kill,” Will murmured.
“So it would seem.”
“The owner didn’t have a number for Johnson?”
“No. He said Johnson left his employ about three years ago, left no forwarding information. The Wynnefield police are doing a search for me. I’m expecting to hear from them.” She glanced at her watch. “I hope they call back soon. I’d love to know what caused Johnson to fire Channing and how Channing reacted.”
“Well, I say for now, we put Johnson’s name on our list of maybe victims.”
“I already did. You find anything interesting in your stack of files?”
“Only that there’s a stretch of time when Channing seems to have disappeared from the area for a while.” Will frowned. “For almost a year, there were no kills in the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, or Pennsylvania areas that we can attribute to him.”
“You sent his DNA through CODIS; if he’d been active elsewhere, it would have shown up.”
“If he left DNA behind. If he’d smartened up by then, who knows? He could have been just about anywhere.”
“Did you imput his kills for similar MOs?”
“I just started doing that when Evan called.”
“Want me to help?”
“No, thanks, that’s okay. It’s giving me an opportunity to take another look at his patterns.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.” She stood up and stretched. “By the way, I spoke with Regan Landry this morning. Apparently all’s quiet on the Plainsville front. She isn’t happy about having to be in Philadelphia right now—she feels she should be with her dad until this is over—and her father isn’t particularly happy about having Art Phillips in his hair, as she put it.”
“Her father would be even less happy to have Archer Lowell in his face.”
“Regan agrees. But she said Landry and Phillips keep rubbing each other the wrong way. Landry goes outside without telling Phillips, Phillips gets pissed off. Landry gets pissed off.”
“Sounds like one big pissing contest in the fields of New Jersey.”
“That pretty much sums it up. Regan told her father he’d just have to live with it. She’s trying to keep him in line, but you know, as she explained it, he thinks he’s the authority on the criminal mind.”
“Thinks he can outsmart Lowell, does he?”
“Well, so did we, if you remember.”
“Ouch.”
“Anyway, Regan’s riding herd on her father to just ignore Phillips and just let him do his job.”
“Let’s hope he listens to her.”
“Yeah, well, in the meantime, Livvy’s ordering lunch. You want anything?”
“Where’s she going?”
“Luigi’s. They deliver. No one really feels like going out into this storm.” She nodded toward the window. “Or hadn’t you noticed it’s raining like crazy out there?”
“I noticed,” he said, nodding. “But I heard it’s supposed to stop early this afternoon.”
“Hopefully before our plane takes off. I don’t relish going up in this. So. Are you ordering lunch?”
“Ham and cheese on whole wheat. Lettuce and tomato.” He reached for his wallet.
“I’ve got it,” she told him as she started for the door. “It’s the least I can do, since you insist on picking me up in the morning and driving me home at night.”
“Gotta keep you among the living, Cahill.”
“There’s a man in a van who is watching my house twenty-four hours each day now. I doubt I need an escort back and forth to the office.”
“Tell it to the boss.” He tilted his head in the direction of John Mancini’s office. “Besides, it gives us a chance to go over what we’re finding in the files.”
“Ha. All we went over on the ride in this morning was Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.”
“A classic, in the best sense of the word.”
“Yesterday, it was The Wall. Tuesday, it was . . . what was that, anyway?”
“The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Very sixties, very psychedelic.”
“Yeah, well, it was a little too sixties for me. I’ve heard enough psychedelic rock to last a lifetime, thank you very much.”
“What can I say? I just got the CD player in the car fixed. I haven’t been able to play Floyd in . . .” He glanced to see the look on her face. “Oh. It’s the Mad Marlow thing, isn’t it?”
“There are some people who never left the sixties, Fletcher. My mother is one of them.”
“Stuck in a time warp?”
“World’s oldest living hippie.”
“She looked pretty straight when I met her. So did your stepfather.”
“Roger is an insurance salesman.” She laughed and shook her head. “My mother waited twenty-five years for my father to come back and marry her, then turned around and married an insurance salesman.”
“Hey, easy on the insurance salesmen. My favorite uncle sells insurance.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just that, well, look at Jack.” Miranda shook her head. “He’s a crazy man. I saw an interview with him on television a few years back. He has seven children by five different women in different parts of the world, one of whom, by the way, is reported to be a princess in some small, obscure European country.”
“Hey, you’re related to royalty.” He tried to make light of it.
“No. I have Portia. I have my mother. Roger. That’s it.”
“Aren’t you even curious about—”
“No.” Her blue eyes darkened to cobalt. “Not about any of it. Not about Jack or his life, not about his kids or his music. He’s never been involved in our lives, and he doesn’t exist in mine.”
“Those photos I saw the other day, he looked like he was pretty involved then.”
“I think we were a novelty to him back then. After all,” she said dryly, “we were his first offspring. He did support us financially when we were growing up, but he’s never been a father to us. And we could have used one, since our mother wasn’t much of a mother. I find his attempts to get in touch with us now little more than an annoyance.”
“How did the two of you grow up to be what you are?” he wondered aloud.
“How could we have been any different? When you grow up fending for yourself, you get strong because you have to be. Your instincts about people grow sharp because they have to be. And you trust the law because you never learned to trust anything else.”
“You’re really something else, Cahill.”
His phone rang, and she pointed to it. “Answer it,” she said, and left his cubicle.
“So, have you thought about what you might want for your reward?” Genna slowed her stride as she and Julianne approached the drugstore. Her heart was beating like crazy. She’d been in more dangerous situations, surely, but she could count on the fingers of one hand the number that had held such personally high stakes. She’d gotten Julianne out of the Valley of the Angels. Could she get her out of Linden?
“I don’t know.” The girl shook her blonde head.
“Well, Eileen got a sketchpad, and Caroline picked out a journal. Maybe something along those lines?” Genna opened the door to the store and held it until the girl stepped inside.
“I’m afraid I’m not much of an artist.”
“A journal is nice to write your thoughts in.”
“My father . . .” she began, then stopped.
“Your father what?” Genna asked casually.
“He doesn’t like me to
be secretive. He always tells me to talk everything over with him.” She smiled faintly.
“But every girl has her secrets,” Genna whispered conspiratorially.
“I don’t.” The admission seemed almost apologetic.
“You tell your father everything?”
“He likes to know what I’m thinking about.” Julianne stopped to look over a package of faux tortoiseshell hair clips. “I guess it’s because I don’t have a mom. That’s why he makes me stay with him and Pamela, in their apartment, instead of in the cabins with the other girls. He wants me to know her.”
Genna had seen Jules with his new young wife. She was pretty and blonde and, well, young. Barely of legal age, Genna guessed, though she suspected that Jules Douglas was just too smart to take an underage bride.
“You stay with them, not in a cabin, like the other girls?” Genna asked, though she knew. It appeared Jules used his position as one of the reverend’s financial advisers to keep his daughter from harm’s way. For that, Genna grudgingly gave him credit.
“My dad says a family should stay together.”
“Well, the cabins are a bit crowded. And I’m sure your father likes to have you close to him,” Genna said. And your father would probably like to keep you from forming any attachments that might cause you to ask too many questions when girls you become close to disappear.
As she’d anticipated, Genna had had a hard time getting Jules to agree to permit Julianne to leave the compound today. Only the fact that Reverend Prescott approved of Genna’s mission and would be sending Daniel to accompany them persuaded Jules to let his daughter leave the Valley of the Angels. Genna was grateful for Prescott’s backing. There was something about Jules Douglas that she found menacing. The sooner she could get Julianne away from him and back in her mother’s arms, the happier Genna would be.
“I think I like this little dish.” Julianne stopped in front of a display of small ceramic items. “See, it has a little lid.”
She carefully lifted the box to show Genna. “It has a tiny pink flower painted inside.”
“Pretty, yes.” Genna peered inside. “But what will you put in it?”
“Tiny stones, maybe.” Julianne smiled. “Or other pretty little things I find.”
“Sounds like a winner. Let’s take it.” Genna gestured for Julianne to follow her to the front of the store and the cash register, where she paid the unsmiling clerk for their purchase.
The middle-aged woman hadn’t been the only person in Linden to show a lack of friendliness to Genna and her charges over the past few weeks. It was an odd position for Genna to be in. She’d made a solid place for herself in the Bureau by being one who always fit in, wherever she was. Here in Linden, she was the odd man out, identified as a member of Reverend Prescott’s followers by the white scarf she wore around her neck. Apparently the good people of Linden had their reservations about strangers, especially those who dwelled in the Valley of the Angels.
As well they should have, Genna thought as she accepted her change and pocketed it. What will they think, once the reverend’s little empire is exposed for what it is?
She could almost hear the interviews on CNN and the morning news shows. “We always knew there was something going on out there. . . .”
Soon enough, Genna told herself as she took Julianne by the arm and leaned into the wind that snaked around them and blew the snow in whirls of icy mist.
Soon enough, of course, assuming that those who were responsible for their escape from here on out had everything in place. Genna simply had to trust.
The Jeep was still where Daniel had parked it outside the grocery store, but Daniel was nowhere to be seen. They were just crossing the street when Julianne tugged at her sleeve and said, “Look, there’s Daniel.”
They stopped in the middle of the street.
“Who are those men he’s talking to?” she asked, and pointed to the three men in black who surrounded Daniel at the entrance to the store.
“Maybe someone from the compound.” Genna hurried the girl toward the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.
“They’re not. At least, I don’t think they are.” Julianne had paused to study them. “I’ve never seen any of those men before.”
“Well, I’m sure Daniel knows them, or he wouldn’t be talking to them. Come on, Julianne. The diner is another block up the street. It’s freezing, and I’m starving. Have you thought about what you might like?”
Minutes later, Genna and Julianne were seated in the diner, shaking off the cold. Every few minutes, Julianne looked out the window, as if watching for someone.
“Is something wrong?” Genna finally asked.
“I was just wondering if Daniel . . . if he was in some kind of trouble.” Julianne looked up and down the street.
“I’m sure if he’d been in trouble he’d have said something while we were crossing the street.”
“Can I bring you a nice hot cup of hot chocolate, honey?” The tall blonde waitress appeared with their menus. “It’s pretty nippy out there today.”
“Thank you.” Julianne smiled. “I love hot chocolate.”
“You, miss?” the waitress asked Genna.
“Coffee would be fine. Thanks.”
They were ready with their sandwich orders when the waitress returned with their hot drinks.
“It’s been so long since I’ve been in a restaurant,” Julianne told Genna. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“You don’t travel with your father when he leaves the compound?”
“No. He doesn’t like me to leave. He didn’t want me to come today,” Julianne said sheepishly.
“What does he think will happen to you?”
“I think he thinks I’m going to be kidnapped or something.” Julianne shrugged.
“Why would he think that?” Genna asked.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged again. “Maybe he doesn’t really.”
“You mentioned your mother earlier. . . .”
“She died when I was little.” Julianne tore a tiny hole in the corner of her paper napkin.
“How little?” Genna asked.
“I was five.”
“That’s old enough to remember her,” Genna said. “I hope you have some good memories of her.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do, remember things, that is. But when I ask my father, he says I should just put it all out of my mind. That it was a long time ago and none of that matters now.”
“I lost my mother when I was nine or ten,” Genna confided. “And it still matters.”
“Did she die, too?”
“Eventually.” Even now, Genna found it hard to talk about her past, about the parents who abandoned her, about the life she’d led up until the time the state had placed her in the foster care of Patsy Wheeler. Genna recalled that time as one of fear and uncertainty, until she realized that with Patsy, she’d found her home. Her heart ached for Julianne, for all she would go through during the coming weeks and months. Before the next forty-eight hours had passed, Julianne would lose one parent and find another. She prayed that the shock wouldn’t devastate the child.
“You were old enough to remember your mother, too,” Julianne was saying.
“Yes. I remember her.” Not always fondly, Genna thought of the weak woman who had permitted a tyrannical husband to rule their lives with an iron fist and who had made fire and brimstone a part of their everyday lives.
“I guess your dad raised you, too,” Julianne continued.
“No. No, he died, too.” Why go into that now? Genna mentally shrugged it off. She was grateful when the waitress appeared with their sandwiches.
“I love potato chips.” Julianne grinned as she munched a chip. “We almost never have them at the compound. Mrs. Miller says they’re fatty and greasy and unwholesome. That’s her favorite word. Unwholesome.”
Genna bit into a pickle and wondered if Mrs. Miller, the cook, knew of her boss’s penchant for young girls
. Now that was unwholesome.
“Can I get you some more hot chocolate?” asked Jayne, the waitress.
Julianne nodded. “Thank you.” She turned and looked out the window. “Oh-oh. Look at the snow. . . .”
“It is starting to come down, isn’t it?” Genna bit the inside of her lower lip, wondering if the snow would help or hinder their escape.
“I wonder where Daniel is.” Julianne stared out the window.
“Maybe he got held up someplace.”
“I hope he comes for us before it starts snowing too hard.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be out of here in no time.” Genna glanced up at Jayne as the waitress served Julianne’s hot chocolate.
“You worried about getting a ride someplace?” Jayne asked.
“I’m sure our friend will show up soon,” Genna replied.
“Well, hey, I’m off in about fifteen minutes. I’d be happy to drop you someplace.”
“That’s very nice of you, but I’m sure our ride will be along,” Genna assured her.
“The offer stands,” Jayne said. “Just say the word . . .”
“That’s nice of her,” Julianne noted after Jayne had cleared the table and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Very,” Genna agreed.
“But I know Daniel will be along soon.” Julianne yawned.
“Tired, sweetie?” Genna asked softly.
“I don’t know why I am.” Julianne covered her mouth as she yawned again. “I just feel so sleepy. . . .”
Genna looked across the diner and met Jayne’s eyes. Jayne nodded and returned to the kitchen. Moments later she came back out, her coat over her arm.
“Well, I’m leaving now. Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off?” she called to Genna.
“Well, maybe you could drive us a few blocks down, and we’ll see if our ride is ready,” Genna called back. “How ’bout that, Julianne? If the waitress drives us back to where Daniel left the car?”
“Not supposed to get into anyone’s car except Daniel’s.”
“I know, sweetie, but this one time will be fine.”
To Jayne, Genna whispered, “Was it necessary to sedate her?”
Dead Even Page 17
