Into the Black Nowhere

by Meg Gardiner

On Main Street, the sidewalk was empty. The Red Dog Café went past. Solace Hardware. Betty’s Pets. Life at the speed of molasses.

  “Plenty of places for the abductor to hide his victims,” Rainey said.

  Telephone poles flashed by, covered with fluttering flyers. It had now been thirty-six hours since Shana Kerber was taken. With every hour that passed, the likelihood of finding her alive plunged.

  “Streets are too quiet,” Caitlin said.

  “Small town,” Rainey said.

  “Fearful town.”

  They pulled into the Gideon County Sheriff’s Office.

  • • •

  The sheriff’s station was the size of a McDonald’s. Outside, the Lone Star flag whipped in the wind beneath the Stars and Stripes. With Caitlin’s coat unbuttoned, the chill pierced her thin black sweater. Inside, the scuffed linoleum and bulletin board featuring Ten Most Wanted photos felt comfortably familiar to her. The clerk behind the counter appraised the three of them astringently.

  Emmerich raised his credentials. “SAC Emmerich for Chief Morales.”

  Morales emerged from an office down the hall. “Special Agents. Appreciate your coming. We’re all hands on deck.”

  Morales had an oil-drum chest that filled his brown uniform shirt. Chief undersheriff for Solace, he wore jeans and old cowboy boots. Behind his rimless glasses, his brown eyes were sharp. He led them to a back room, crowded with desks, that served as the station’s Investigations Section. On one wall, corkboards were covered with eight-by-ten photos.

  They were the same photos Caitlin had glimpsed on the drive into Solace—stapled to telephone poles and taped inside the window at the Red Dog Café and laminated to the cyclone fence outside the high school.

  Blond young women with cheerleader physiques. The missing five.

  She approached the board. “No question he has a type.”

  “Yeah,” Rainey said. “Texan.”

  Morales rubbed the side of his nose, seemingly annoyed. Rainey raised a mollifying hand.

  “I went to Randolph High in San Antonio,” she said. “My father was stationed at the base.”

  Caitlin walked along the board.

  Kayley Fallows, 21. August 25. 11:45 P.M. Red Dog Café.

  Heather Gooden, 19. November 17. 11:10 P.M. Gideon Western College campus.

  Veronica Lees, 26. December 29. 10:15 P.M. Gideon Gateway 16 Cinema.

  Phoebe Canova, 22. January 19. 12:15 A.M. Main Street, Solace.

  Shana Kerber, 24. February 2. 1:00 A.M. (approx.) Residence.

  Emmerich turned to the chief. “We’ve read the files. Tell us what else you know.”

  Morales approached the corkboard. “One minute they were there. The next, gone. Starting with Kayley Fallows.”

  The girl in the photo had sunlit hair and a coquettish smile.

  “She walked out the kitchen door at the end of her shift at the Red Dog Café. Cook having a smoke watched her walk away. Cracked a joke, saw her wave over her shoulder. Or maybe shoot him the bird. She was kind of a saucy kid. Is.” He straightened. “She cut across the parking lot behind the café, walked out from under the lights, and that was it. We’ve investigated the cook. Everyone on staff. All the customers we could identify.”

  He tapped the next photo—Heather Gooden, pictured in a Solace High cheerleader’s uniform.

  “Heather stepped out the front door of her dorm to walk fifty yards across a quad to the college coffeehouse.” His voice roughened. “Never made it.”

  “You sound like you know Heather,” Emmerich said.

  “She’s been friends with my daughter since kindergarten. It’s a blow.”

  Morales cleared his throat and continued. “Veronica Lees. Went to the movies at the multiplex with a girlfriend. Halfway through the film she went to the concession stand—and never came back.”

  The young woman had a big smile, big hair, and a big cross on a chain on her neck, gold against her pink blouse.

  “The file indicates there’s CCTV,” Emmerich said.

  Morales sat at a desk and teed up a video. In low-resolution color, they watched Veronica Lees appear, wallet in hand, walking briskly through the crowded lobby to the counter. She bought a box of Junior Mints, then worked her way back through the crowd. She turned a corner into a hallway.

  Morales stopped the video. “That’s it. She never returned to her seat.”

  It was spooky. Simple. There, then not.

  “Can you play it again?” Caitlin said.

  This time, Caitlin watched the crowd in the lobby, assessing whether anybody paid obvious attention to Veronica Lees. Nothing jumped out at her. But there were dozens of people on-screen. She needed to take the time to watch it analytically.

  “Can you send that to me?”

  He nodded.

  Rainey said, “Exterior video footage?”

  “’Fraid not,” Morales said.

  Emmerich examined Lees’s photo. “Personal issues?”

  “We looked,” Morales said. “But she hasn’t contacted a single friend or relative. Credit and ATM cards haven’t been used since that night. Veronica left her purse on her seat when she went to the concession stand. And her husband didn’t concoct a story that she took off with a lover, like that ass in Austin a couple years back.” He tossed his head in the direction of the state capital to the north.

  Emmerich, pacing near the corkboard, crossed his arms. “George de la Cruz.”

  Morales nodded. “He was convicted of murder, even though his wife has never been found.”

  A man came through the door like a fullback, bulling toward them. He shook hands. “Detective Art Berg. You’re the profilers.”

  Emmerich turned back to the corkboard. He tapped the photo of the fourth victim. It showed a thin young woman with a stringy blond dye job. Black roots. A choker with a heart, wearing a dingy tank top. It was a mug shot.

  “Tell me about Phoebe Canova’s experience in the system,” he said.

  “Arrests for prostitution and possession of methamphetamine. The two were related,” Berg said. “She stopped her car at a railroad crossing. When the train passed, her car was empty.” His lips thinned. “She has an eighteen-month-old. Little boy named Levi.”

  “Pimp?” Rainey said. “Johns?”

  “Working on both,” Berg said. “But in those circles, people refuse to talk.”

  “They think she did something that got her killed. And that if they talk to the cops, they’ll put a target on their own backs.”

  “Basically,” Berg said. “Fear of retaliation.”

  “Have other women involved in prostitution disappeared?”

  “Over the last two years, in San Antonio, definitely. But not like this.”

  Rainey said, “Were any of the victims besides Phoebe Canova known drug users?”

  Berg shook his head. “Phoebe’s life was spiraling around the drain. Sad case.” He folded his arms. “But I don’t want to take her off the board. Don’t want to blame the victim. What was she wearing? Why was she out so late? Nope.”

  Emmerich turned, tightly. “Nor do we. But we need to investigate the UNSUB’s victimology.”

  UNSUB was the FBI’s term for the unknown subject of a criminal investigation. Emmerich nodded at the photos. “Why did the abductor choose these women? Understanding that will help us narrow the search for the offender.”

  Chief Morales nodded. His shoulders dropped a short inch. Caitlin thought she knew why: because Emmerich had said the offender. The UNSUB. He’d validated Morales’s conviction that these disappearances were related.

  Detective Berg looked at them with weary eyes. “Now Shana.”

  “Connections between the victims?” Caitlin said.

  Morales rocked on the heels of his boots. “Three of them graduated from Solace High but did
n’t know each other. Aside from that, what connects them is getting grabbed late on a Saturday night.”

  Emmerich looked at the chief. “The decreasing interval between disappearances is a dangerous sign.”

  Morales ran a hand through his hair. “This has the whole town on edge. Talk’s going round, people think the occult is involved.”

  “As in satanic panic?” Caitlin said.

  “Solace is a religious town. The idea somebody’s taking women for a ritual purpose . . .”

  “But you’ve seen no evidence of that.”

  Morales shook his head. “Zip.”

  She didn’t doubt him. Satanic ritual killings were an urban legend, not an epidemic.

  Berg said, “The problem is, they’re just gone. We have no evidence.”

  Emmerich turned. “That’s inaccurate. We have the victims’ entire lives to examine. And we have the things they left behind.” He tapped the board.

  “Phoebe’s car,” Berg said.

  “And Shana’s baby.” Emmerich turned to Caitlin and Rainey. “You go to the Kerber house. Then the scene where Canova’s car was found.”

  “Yes, sir,” Caitlin said.

  Morales told Berg to go with them. “Examine everything that’s been left behind, down to molecules of air. I know you’ve looked at it all, thoroughly, but do it again. Shana’s out there, and we’re running out of time to bring her home.”

  4

  In the afternoon light, the farmhouse where Shana and Brandon Kerber lived looked quaint. A porch swing hung outside the main window. Beyond the cedars and lantana along the edge of their property, a new condo complex was visible. When Caitlin and Rainey got out of the Bureau Suburban, they heard distant traffic on I-35.

  Detective Berg climbed out of a years-old Caprice. “Brandon’s staying at his folks’ house with the baby.”

  “We’d like to talk to him. It will help develop the victimology,” Rainey said.

  “You know, that sounds like a fancy word for prying into Shana’s life.”

  “Figuring out why the missing women were chosen will help us understand the UNSUB’s psychology. That’ll allow us to build a profile,” she said. “Does Shana have any enemies? Anybody who might want to harm her?”

  “Nobody. I already asked.”

  “Did she mention anybody watching her or following her in the past few months? Anybody who made her feel uncomfortable?”

  “Brandon says no. So do Shana’s parents.”

  Caitlin felt the wind on her back. “What do they say about Brandon?”

  Berg’s glance was sharp. “They love him. And he has a rock-solid alibi. He was on the jumbotron at the basketball arena in San Antonio when Shana disappeared.” He led them to the porch. “They’re all torn up pretty bad.”

  Caitlin hadn’t intended her question to sound cold—just thorough. Investigators needed to evaluate situations analytically. They couldn’t let sympathy cloud their judgment. But equally, they had to guard against becoming jaded. When Caitlin had been a street cop, she had to remind herself not to become so cynical and suspicious that she started eyeing everyone as a potential offender—even off duty, at kids’ birthday parties. People who became police officers tended to rank high on belief in authority. Some officers struggled to separate the power of the badge from their yearning for control.

  Intimidation was a drug. But control was an illusion.

  And right now, Caitlin didn’t feel they had any kind of grip on this case, or even a clear view of what was happening. She felt like there was a tiger slinking through the tall grass, camouflaged by its stripes.

  Yellow crime scene tape strapped the Kerbers’ front door. Berg slit it open with a penknife. Inside, the heat was off, the light jaundiced, slanting through blinds onto the dark wood floor. The place already felt sadly empty.

  Caitlin examined the door. “Signs of forced entry?”

  Berg shook his head. “Brandon insists that Shana always locked the door, but who knows?”

  She studied the latch bolt and strike plate. “This lock is so flimsy, a credit card could jimmy it.”

  Rainey said, “Maybe Shana opened it.”

  “When Brandon got home, only the hall light was on,” Berg said. “If Shana had opened the door, I think she would have turned on a light in the living room.”

  Caitlin slowly circled the room. “Something woke her.”

  “The baby.” Rainey’s gaze swept the view. “The Kerbers keep firearms in the house?”

  “Shotgun,” Berg said. “It was found under her bed.”

  “Loaded?” Caitlin said.

  He nodded.

  Rainey scowled. “That little girl crawling yet?”

  Berg said nothing. Caitlin would never leave a loaded weapon unsecured, much less within even a crawling child’s reach. From the disapproving way Rainey shook her head, she wouldn’t either.

  “Prints on the shotgun?” Caitlin said.

  “Brandon’s and Shana’s,” Berg said. “Nobody else’s.”

  Rainey stepped toward the hall. “Shana had no warning of danger.”

  “None,” Caitlin said. “Or she would have come out of that bedroom holding the shotgun, and barred the way to the nursery.” She glanced at the master bedroom. “Whatever got Shana out of bed, it literally disarmed her.”

  “This guy was slick, and quiet, and fast.” Rainey turned. “And he left only one thing in the house out of place.”

  The wind rattled the door and crept around the eaves. Caitlin recalled the written statement given by Brandon Kerber, describing the scene he found when he arrived home. She felt a chill.

  “The baby,” she said.

  Rainey nodded. “He had a plan, and it used a ten-month-old. As bait, or a bargaining chip, or a way to overpower Shana. He is one calculating, remorseless predator.”

  5

  In Solace, at the railroad crossing where Phoebe Canova had disappeared, Caitlin and Rainey parked and walked toward the tracks.

  Under the white sun, the crossing looked ordinary and, perhaps because of that, strangely ominous. It was spooky. Simple. There, then not. The tracks cut across Main Street and ran south into scrubland. Vehicle traffic was sporadic. A brown pickup truck pulling a horse trailer clattered across the tracks. As it passed, the driver slowed and eyed them through the window before pulling away.

  “We’re going to be news soon,” Caitlin said. “Word spreads in a small town.”

  “Believe me, some guy on Reddit is already speculating about this from his cubicle in New Jersey. There’ll be twenty-five theories on this case by the time school lets out.”

  They crossed the tracks, stood in the road, and looked back.

  Another pickup, older, red, cruised to a stop behind their SUV. A man in his fifties got out. He hitched up his belt and walked toward them.

  “Heard the FBI was in town. Would that be you?” he called.

  Two women in black suits, surveying a crime scene. Good odds on that guess.

  Caitlin nodded. “Yes, sir. You are?”

  “Darley French. I was in my truck, right where you’re standing, when she disappeared.”

  Rainey’s eyebrows rose. “You witnessed the abduction?”

  He had a wad in his cheek. “No, ma’am. The crossing arm came down just before I pulled up. That Phoebe gal hadn’t arrived yet. I was the only one on the road.”

  “You’ve given a statement to the sheriff’s office?” Caitlin said.

  She knew he had. She wanted to hear what he had to say now.

  “You bet.” He turned to the tracks. “Freight train come along, and when it finally passed and the crossing barrier went back up, saw her car across the tracks. Just sitting there, headlights shining, exhaust blowing from the tailpipe. Driver’s door was open.” He spat. “I pulled forward. Dome light inside
her car was lit. Purse was on the passenger seat. Car was empty.”

  Rainey said, “That must have spooked you.”

  “Felt like a beetle was ticking up my spine. No other cars on the road—not even taillights.”

  “You saw nobody else on the street? On foot?” Caitlin said.

  He shook his head. “Car was here. Girl was gone. I called the sheriff.”

  Caitlin gestured at the asphalt where she stood. “This is where you were stopped.”

  “It was.”

  “How long did it take the train to pass?” Rainey said.

  “Few minutes. Leon Russell song played almost all the way through,” French said.

  Caitlin pulled the file folder from her shoulder bag and flipped through it. “It was a freight train a mile long. Traveling at thirty-one miles per hour.” She ran her finger down the page. “Train that length, traveling at that speed, it would have taken one hundred twenty-five seconds to clear the crossing.”

  Rainey stared at the spot where Phoebe Canova had parked.

  “She was abducted during a two-minute window.” She raised her arm. “Freight cars coupled in a train are separated by roughly three feet. Mr. French, you would have seen headlights between them as the train passed.”

  “I was vaguely aware. Not paying attention. Turning up the radio.”

  Rainey set her hands on her hips. “Two minutes.”

  Caitlin nodded. “From initial approach to abduction to escape without a trace.” She looked around. “It was midnight.”

  Rainey nodded slowly. “Most businesses shut down. Still.”

  They walked across the tracks to the spot where Phoebe Canova’s car had been found. The exact location was marked with spray paint on the asphalt. Four corners, neatly lined up.

  “She was well back from the crossing barrier, and stopped square,” Rainey said.

  “Didn’t swerve. No sign that somebody was pursuing her.”

  Darley French sauntered up to them. “You have a theory, ladies?”

  “Do you?” Rainey said.

  “Customer didn’t like the service she provided him. Decided he wanted the next session free.”