A car screeched to a stop outside.
“Are the police here?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes,” Livia said, but her voice was filled with forced hope and relief. The noise outside was not what she expected. She longed to hear far-off sirens slowly growing louder, culminating in red-and-blue lights bouncing and flashing through the house. She wanted to hear ambulance horns waking the night. Instead, she heard a single car with no sirens and no lights. Absent were shouting or clamoring officers. There were no paramedics banging gurneys and equipment through the empty house and down the stairs. No radios squawking. Instead, Livia listened to a single set of footsteps as they walked overhead, pausing at the crest of the stairwell before finally descending, the glow of a flashlight preceding the strides.
Livia noticed, over the sound of the approaching footsteps, Elizabeth Jennings began to hyperventilate. She retreated to her defensive position with her knees tucked to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. Megan, too, was panicking. Livia pushed Megan behind her and stood in front of the bed as if she could protect them both from what was coming.
The light shined brightly in her eyes when he came around the corner, a fierce spotlight that brought the entire space to life and blinded them all as though looking into the sun. Livia dropped her own flashlight when the brilliant light found them. It clattered to the floor and pointed toward the corner.
The voice that came was strong and firm.
“Megan. What’s happening, honey?”
“Oh my God,” Megan said at the sound of her father’s voice.
“Where’s Nicole?” Livia said.
“Megan, I’d like you to go outside to my car.”
“Where’s my sister!” Livia yelled.
“I’m not sure what she’s told you, Megan, but I’m here now. I’ll take care of everything. Other officers are on the way. Go outside and wait for them in my car.”
Megan began to move. Livia grabbed her arm.
“Right now, Megan! Go outside so I can gain control of this situation.”
Megan walked past Livia, out of her grip.
“Good girl. Wait outside.”
Trembling, Megan walked toward the bright spotlight, unable to see her father behind its powerful glow. When she drew next to him, instead of turning to climb the cellar stairs she reached for his gun. The holster strap was fastened and she fumbled while she tried to wrestle it free. Livia saw the light drop from her eyes. With her retinas bleached, she was still blinded. There were no rational thoughts to her movements. Adrenaline flooded her circulatory system and Livia ran at him. Their bodies collided in the center of the cellar, his much heavier and thicker than hers, reminding Livia of her sparring sessions with Randy. She saw Megan tumble onto the stairs, and Livia felt Terry McDonald’s powerful grip throw her to the floor. She lunged at his feet and wrapped his ankles in her arms as she continued forward. Falling to the ground as Livia tangled his feet, the powerful spotlight rattled and landed against the wall, dousing much of its brightness.
The bottom of his shoe found Livia’s face and she felt herself propelled backward. They were both quick to their feet, Livia letting loose a side kick that landed to his ribs and took the wind from his lungs, doubling him over. She transferred her weight to her left foot, about to deliver another side kick.
Your kicks are lethal, but they get stale if you go to them too often.
Instead, she brought her right knee sharply upward and felt a clean connection with his nose. His knees crumbled and he fell in a pile to the floor.
Livia stood frozen with indecision. She wanted to grab Megan and run up the stairs, but she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the lost girl on the bed. She heard a hiss, and the acidic odor of ammonia filled her nostrils even before her eyes registered the pain. She tried to shield herself in the dark cellar, bringing her hands in front of her as the pepper spray covered her face. The burning was immediate and intense and it drove her backward.
She felt him grab her by the hair, and Livia let out a gothic scream as he launched her through the air. She landed on the table by the wall and crashed into the corner of the cellar. Her eyes bled burning tears and her lungs wheezed as the irritant entered her system. Against protests, she raised her eyelids. The flashlight Livia had dropped lay still on the floor, pointing to the spot next to Livia and brightening her hip and the concrete and the thing she had felt when she careened across the table. It was a bottle of spray paint. Livia’s mind flashed to the two strange symbols painted onto the wall. In a single motion, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the Bic lighter Kent Chapple had given her when he swore off smoking during his visit to her house the other night. She picked up the paint can with her right hand and lit the Bic with her left. Just as Terry McDonald reached her, she depressed the aerosol cap on the paint can and sprayed it through the flame. A giant fireball erupted, as if the canister itself were filled with flames. The horizontal blaze struck Terry McDonald in the face, igniting his hair. He recoiled immediately, turning away from the flame, but it was too late. First his hair, then his shirt took to flames. They were violent orange and lit the cellar brightly as the three girls watched his burning body stumble and turn. His screams were prehistoric and sickening.
He stumbled across the room, shrieking and moaning and slapping his face and head and chest. Megan ran to her father, pulling the blanket from the bed and throwing it onto his burning torso and head. He collapsed to the ground and she smothered the flames.
Semiconscious, he lay panting in the far corner. The smell of burnt flesh mixed with ammonia was worse than anything Livia had encountered in the morgue. Livia lifted the heavy flashlight that had landed in the corner. It provided all the light needed to see Megan staring at her incapacitated father, his face and chest burned black and greasy.
Livia worked hard to keep her burning eyes open as Megan unhooked her father’s gun from the holster. For an instant Livia, lying in the corner, raised her hand and tried to speak no. But before she was able, Megan adjusted the gun, both hands playing over its surface until it clicked and clattered. Then she carried it to Livia.
“Here,” Megan said. “Safety is off. Shoot him if he moves.”
Megan went back to her father and pulled the radio from his shoulder. She twisted and adjusted the knobs, tricks of the trade, Livia guessed, learned from watching her father over the years. Megan pressed a button on the side of the mouthpiece and placed it to her lips. She knew the quickest way to draw police to a scene.
“Officer down at Stellar Heights.”
CHAPTER 63
It took the first squad car six minutes to arrive. But soon after they surveyed the scene, the ghost town of Stellar Heights was alive with red-and-blue flashing lights, scores of headlights, ambulances, and fire trucks. After an hour, detectives arrived with stadium lights that brought the abandoned subdivision to life as if it were high noon. News helicopters hovered overhead as word spread.
Elizabeth Jennings was placed in an ambulance and brought to Emerson Bay Memorial. Terry McDonald was airlifted to Raleigh to be treated by the Duke burn unit. Megan was taken, under the supervision of Dr. Mattingly, to a private treatment facility undisclosed to the press. Livia, after being treated by paramedics who flushed her eyes with saline, stuck around Stellar Heights, refusing the suggestion of scans and observation.
They searched all six houses. Three appeared unused. The others showed signs of life, at one point in time. Each had similar characteristics of boarded-up basement windows with filthy living conditions in the cellars. The furnishings were consistent between all the spaces, and shared a common floor plan of a bed, a dresser, and a small table where it was determined meals had been placed. Each basement wall was graffitied with dual X’s.
Livia relayed to the police and the detectives Elizabeth Jennings’s claim that she had been in contact through the ventilation system with a girl named Nicole. She was sure it was her sister, missing for nearly a year and a half. Livia s
howed the detectives the second-story bedroom where similar living conditions were found—bed, dresser, and shackle. Yellow tape went across the doorway and detectives waited for the crime scene unit to pick through the room.
The search for Nicole Cutty continued.
* * *
It was a week before Terry McDonald was able to answer detectives’ questions. He was mummified in heavy white bandages, so that only his mouth and eyes were visible during questioning. It took three days at the hospital for detectives to put together the last three years. They found that Megan McDonald’s father wanted to talk. Was eager, in fact, to rid his soul of sin. He confirmed all the facts Livia had brought to the detective’s attention about Nancy Dee and Paula D’Amato. Elizabeth Jennings was pieced into the puzzle and tied with what Megan was beginning to divulge.
The only missing link, which they got to at the end of the third day, was the whereabouts of Nicole Cutty. Under tremendous pressure, he told them, with the coming destruction of Stellar Heights, he worked feverishly to find a new “home” for the girls who remained—Elizabeth and Nicole. But as pressure mounted and his ailing daughter began her nightmares, he was certain her memory would betray him. So instead of moving the remaining two “Loves,” he disposed of them. Nicole first, Elizabeth Jennings meant to be next.
Two weeks of excavation, however, by the Montgomery County police force, who used donated Bobcats to dig up the forest where Terry McDonald had buried Nicole, produced no body. Pressed hard for details and location, he told detectives through tears that he was certain of the locale. He had, he confessed, in his haste buried Nicole without the protection of a body bag. Perhaps, it was suspected, animals had taken her remains.
When this news reached Livia, she listened with a stoic expression as detectives and social workers explained their theory. Livia tuned out after a moment. All she could concentrate on was that Nicole’s body was no longer waiting to be discovered. There was no longer the chance that her sister’s remains would come to her morgue and beg Livia to uncover the answers they held.
Livia slept that night under the red fan of her childhood bedroom, finding in her slumber both peace and angst that this opportunity was gone.
CHAPTER 64
Livia’s jabs were crisp. They landed with a whistling pop each time she connected with Randy’s headgear. He covered up well enough for her to know she wasn’t causing any damage, merely keeping him at bay. She transferred her weight to her left leg and was ready to bring her right shin up to Randy’s midsection when she noticed his arm rise in anticipation. Instead, she quickly spun to her right and connected solidly with a spinning elbow that caught Randy clean in the temple. He went down in a heap.
“Oh!” Livia said when his huge body crumbled to the mat. “Are you okay?”
But Randy was laughing while he lay on the mat, holding his head. “Thought you were going to the well with that side kick.”
Livia crouched down. “Where’d I get you?”
“Right where you were aiming.”
“Let me have a look.”
Randy sat up. “No, thanks.” He swatted her hands away. “You work on dead people. I don’t want to be your patient.”
“Okay.” Livia lifted her gloved hands in surrender. “Tell me what hurts.”
“My pride. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
Livia offered a hand and pulled Randy to his feet. They both climbed out of the ring while the onlookers snickered.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Randy said to the crowd. “Get it all out.”
This brought a few more laughs until the crowd returned to their workouts. He took a seat on the bench as Livia handed him a water bottle.
“How’re you handling your fame, Doc? I keep seeing you on the news.”
“I’m just filler. It’s not me they want.”
“I take you as a very modest person, but I hope you know you’re a hero.”
“Let’s not get dramatic, Randy. I think that spinning elbow has made you delusional.”
Randy pulled off his headgear. “I didn’t expect you to own up to it. But I’ve heard you talkin’ around here about how you look for answers to give the families of your patients. That girl you found in that house might not be a patient, but you saved her. And you answered the biggest question her family could ever ask.”
“Maybe.”
Livia took a seat next to him. Randy’s hulking body seemed to dwarf Livia’s more when they sat side by side than when they sparred in the ring.
“You know something?” she said. “You were with me in the house at Stellar Heights.”
“I know that ain’t true. I’ve seen the pictures of that place on the news, and you’d sooner catch this black man at a Klan rally than in that basement.”
Livia smiled. She pointed to her heart. “You were in here. And up here,” she said, tapping her temple. “I could have died if I didn’t know the things you’ve taught me.”
“Well, you just knocked a three-hundred-pound man on his ass, so there’s nothing left to teach you.”
Livia stood up. “You’ve taught me a lot more than how to fight.” She kissed him on top of his head. “Thanks.”
Livia headed for the locker room.
“Hey,” Randy said. “Hope this weekend goes okay for you.”
Livia smiled and nodded her head. “It will.”
* * *
Nicole’s funeral officially took place fifteen months after she disappeared. It was a quiet ceremony made up of family and friends. Jessica Tanner and Rachel Ryan spent the entire day with the Cuttys. The presence of Dr. Colt and his wife as they entered the church put a lump in Livia’s throat. It was a short service that served a single purpose of closure, the atmosphere saturated with both torment and relief.
The church was nearly empty when Livia saw the old man walk through a side door and approach the closed casket. He ran his hand over the mahogany and bowed his head in prayer. It took Livia a moment to place him before it registered. She walked over and took a spot next to him, stared at Nicole’s casket for a while before he noticed her.
“I’m very sorry about your sister,” the man said.
“Thank you.” Livia held out her hand. “Mr. Steinman, correct?”
He nodded and shook her hand. “I don’t mean to intrude on such a private matter, but I’ve got a message from a friend of yours. She’s very sorry to not be here. She wanted to come, but with the news cameras outside . . .”
“Oh,” Livia said. “Of course. I understand.”
“She wanted me to tell you,” Mr. Steinman said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket to make sure he got the message correct. “Thank you for coming when I called you. And for being a good friend.”
Mr. Steinman handed Livia the note, the words written in curly cursive. Livia took the note, wiped her tears, and inhaled a long breath.
“She okay?”
“Getting there. She’s helping me with my wife, who’s ill. She’s offered her help for as long as I’ve known her. I’m finally taking her up on it. She’s a great caretaker, and come hell or high water, I’m going to get her to college and medical school.”
“Tell her I’m proud of her, okay?” Livia said.
Mr. Steinman nodded.
“And I can’t wait to see her again. When she’s ready.”
* * *
Livia returned to Raleigh on Sunday night. She wasn’t sure she’d ever talk with Megan again, although the message from Mr. Steinman gave her hope. What would become of Megan after this ordeal, Livia couldn’t begin to imagine. The media were frenzied. Elizabeth Jennings drew their peripheral attention, but the country was intimate with Megan McDonald. They wanted details about the night she faced down her father in Stellar Heights. They wanted exclusives. They wanted to see her on the morning and evening news discussing the fascinating details of her journey to Stellar Heights. But Megan, this time, stayed underground. She was nowhere to be found, and Livia had no intention of outing her friend.
> Camera crews camped overnight in front of the McDonald home, scampering and running whenever the garage door opened and a car backed down the driveway. With microphones stuck on long poles and television cameras pointed through the windows, reporters shouted questions at the car’s occupants. For the first few days it was Megan’s mother and aunt, but like Megan, they eventually disappeared to undisclosed locations. A permanent crew remained at the McDonald home, just in case they returned. The rest scattered around and hedged their bets, some camping at Megan’s aunt and uncle’s, others at her grandparents’. There had not yet been a picture taken of Megan since her father was arrested. The networks were forced to loop old photos from her book tour, and the stale ones of Megan from before the abduction. But the media were growing restless. They all wanted a piece of America’s renewed heroine. Dante Campbell promised that her audience would be the first to hear from Megan. She was, after all, a friend of the show.
In her absence, the hungry public ate up Megan’s book. After the Stellar Heights discovery, Missing soared to the top of the charts. No longer simply the girl who made it home, Megan McDonald was the girl who brought her captor to justice. She was the girl who triumphed. She was, indeed, everything the audience wanted.
CHAPTER 65
May 14, 2018
Six Months Since Stellar Heights
The week before, Livia Cutty stood over the autopsy table. The body that waited had been her 232nd autopsy. With two months left in her training, she’d easily make the magic number of 250 postmortem examinations the program promised. Her autopsy times had come down to fifty minutes, and the mistakes and worries from the early months of her fellowship could hardly be recalled. She considered herself, after ten months of training, a medical examiner.
She walked through the front door of the OCME on Monday morning and rode the elevator to the third floor. As comfortable as she had become with her position as a senior fellow, trepidation brewed about the week ahead. She was scheduled for her last stint of ride-alongs with Kent Chapple, who had recently separated from his wife. Kent had shown up at Livia’s the week before, drunk on whiskey like he’d been the last time. During an uncomfortable purging of emotions, he’d confessed his feelings for her. He liked her “more than a friend,” he had said—stealing a line Livia hadn’t heard since college—and asked her to dinner. Caught off guard, Livia politely rebuked his offer under the excuse that coworkers shouldn’t become romantically involved. She suggested they talk when he was less emotional, and when his words weren’t quite so slurred. Ten days had run past since that night, and the conversation had yet to take place. Their relationship, once easy and spirited, had grown awkward. A week together in the morgue van was sure to be what Jen Tilly would refer to as a hot mess.
The Girl Who Was Taken Page 30
