“How sure are you it was her?” Anna asks.
“Positive. But . . . it was an old picture. I’d say back from when she first went missing. Oh my God. It was . . . so . . .”
“I’m assuming Snapchat wasn’t around back when Randa went missing,” I say.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So someone . . . probably her killer . . . set up an account in her name to taunt us,” I say. “How hard would that be to do?”
“Not hard at all,” Nancy says.
“Can we trace the account?” Anna says.
“I’ll call Chris and see if he can help us,” I say.
“And it was the podcast snapchat not your personal?” Anna asks.
“I don’t have a personal. That’s why we put the show one on my phone.”
“May I take a look at it?” Nancy asks.
Daniel hands her his phone.
It starts ringing and she jumps. “Shit,” she says. “Scared the shit out of me. Merrick’s calling.” She hands the phone back to Daniel.
“Hey,” he says into the phone. “Yeah, we saw it too. Well, I did. Where’d . . . oh shit.”
He pulls the phone away from his mouth and says to us, “He got the same pic on his personal account. He was driving and couldn’t screenshot it.”
I look at Nancy. “If he sent it to Merrick’s personal account and not just the show’s, he may have sent one to you too.”
Her eyes widen and she grabs her phone.
“Maybe he’ll send it again,” Daniel is saying to Merrick. “Who do you think it is?”
“Shit,” Nancy says. “Bastard. I have one too.”
“Nancy got one too,” Daniel tells Merrick.
“But . . . it’s not on my personal account. It’s on my Nancy Drury Woman Detective show account.”
“Can you screenshot it?” Anna asks.
“I’m gonna try.”
25
Nancy holds her phone out in front of her, fingers in place.
“Wait,” I say, getting up and moving over to stand behind her chair. “I want to be looking at it in case you’re not able to save it.”
“Wait,” Anna says, jumping up and joining me. “I want to see it too.”
“Okay,” Nancy says. “Ready? Here . . . goes . . . nothing.” She presses a button on the screen to open the image, then quickly starts pushing buttons on her phone.
The disturbing image is only on the screen for a second, but it’s long enough for it to sear through my eyes and into my mind.
Randa is not only bound, but she’s gagged, and true terror fills her green eyes.
“Oh my God,” Anna says, placing her hand over her mouth.
“Did you get it?” Daniel asks.
She presses a few places on her screen and brings up a group of images. The most recent one is a screenshot not of the picture of Randa, but her Snapchat contacts background.
“Damnit,” she says. “I missed it. Sorry.”
I try to remember everything I can about the image.
Not much of the background was visible—and what was, was dim—but it looked to be a basement or garage or workshop of some kind. She was tied to a table or workbench, not a bed—there was no frame or headboard. Her face was damp with both sweat and tears. Duct tape held the gag in her mouth. The man leaning over her was average, but his knife was definitely above average—a long, wide serrated blade that gleamed even in the dimness.
“Weren’t those . . .” I begin. “Her clothes. Isn’t that what she was wearing the day she disappeared?”
“That’s all I can picture now,” Daniel says.
“Me too,” Nancy says. “Don’t know if that’s what she had on or if I’m just projecting them onto her now. Sorry.”
“Merrick says it is,” Daniel says. “They are. That’s what she was wearing.”
“Wonder if he killed her right away and this is one of his trophies,” Anna says.
“And with all the renewed interest in and added attention on the case,” Nancy says, “he had to gloat, to interject himself into the case to make sure we know he did it.”
I nod. “Best thing y’all could do is ignore it, not acknowledge it on your show.”
“That has my vote,” Daniel says. “This is freaking me out. Would it make me a total pussy to admit I’m a little scared to stay here by myself tonight?”
“I think the term you mean is ball sack,” Nancy says. “They’re very fragile and tender, whereas everyone knows a pussy can really take a pounding.”
He laughs. “Point taken.”
“I like this woman,” Anna says.
“But no,” Nancy says, “it doesn’t make you a total ball sack. This is creepy, freaky shit.”
“Merrick says it does,” Daniel says.
“Remind him he’s the one out there all alone in his car on that dark, empty road,” Nancy says.
“Says he has a ball sack of steel,” Daniel says, then to Merrick, “Okay. Sounds good. We’ll talk tomorrow if any of us are still here.” He disconnects the call. “He’s gonna tell Reggie about it and let us know what she says.”
“This is the most excitement I’ve had in a very, very long time,” Nancy says, “and I really don’t want to, but I have to go. I’ve already been away from Jeff a lot longer than I should’ve been.”
“We’ll follow you,” Anna says.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I’ll be fine. Besides, you can’t leave Daniel.”
“I’ll get a deputy to come over here and we’ll follow you,” I say.
“That’s sweet, but not necessary. It’s just a picture. Hell, it may be Photoshopped. Could be one of those nasty little trolls punkin’ us. But even if it’s Randa’s actual killer . . . doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything to us.”
“Let them follow you,” Daniel says. “I’d feel a lot better about you going.”
“John needs to work on this, not babysit me,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”
“He can work on it when we get back,” Anna says. “We insist.”
“Just as long as you insist on leaving an armed deputy here when you go,” Daniel says.
He’s smiling and partially kidding, but only partially. He suffers from panic attacks—something being alone here with Sam after what’s happened can’t be good for.
Over the years, Daniel has consulted on some pretty high-profile ritual murder cases, and even helped Sam with a couple of her more challenging and brutal investigations—one in which a compulsive killer was using fire as a weapon and another that involved kidnapped conjoined twins. He had survived but not before a significant amount of damage had been done.
Daniel gives Nancy a hug. “I know you have your own escort and everything, but call or text when you’re in safe and sound and let me know.”
We follow Nancy in her small Rav 4 SUV along 98 out of Port St. Joe, into the woods of Franklin County that leads to Tate’s Hell, through the old fishing village that is now a quaint, quiet tourist destination of Apalachicola, up on the high bridge over the bay, to her small wooden home in East Point.
“Thank y’all so much,” she says as we get out of our vehicles. “I feel bad making you drive all this way.”
“You didn’t make us,” Anna says. “We made you.”
“Mind if I look around before we go?” I ask.
“Not at all,” she says. “That’s sweet. Let me just check on Jeff and let the nurse go. I know she’s way past ready. She lives right there behind us. A few times she’s actually left a few minutes before I got back.”
I nod.
We don’t have to wait long.
“Had she already gone?” Anna asks.
Nancy shakes her head. “But she didn’t waste any time leaving once I walked in.”
I search the house while she and Anna make us coffee and snacks in the little kitchen for our drive back.
The house is small and chopped up into little rooms the way all of them used to be. Two bedrooms, a living room with a fireplace, a
dining room, a den, one bathroom, and a tiny kitchen in the back. Jeff is asleep on a hospital bed surrounded by various machines in the small front bedroom. Nancy’s computer and podcast equipment is set up in the den.
Looking through this modest house and the modest life it holds for Nancy, I’m grateful again that she and Daniel have podcasting as a new outlet, and I hope we’ll be able to close the case for them—as well as for Randa and her family. Of course, if we do, what will they do then?
After everyone is gone, Daniel’s house is quiet again, and he returns to his lonely little life.
But tonight he’s not just alone and lonely, he’s frightened, and can feel a panic attack at his ragged edges, threatening to develop, to descend upon him like the merciless bird of prey it is.
He tries to distract himself by thinking about the podcast, the case, but that inevitably leads him to the horrific image on his phone and . . .
He can feel an attack coming on.
Heart pounding.
Head spinning.
Panic.
Pressure.
Fear.
Loss.
Stop. Breathe. Relax. You’re okay.
He had lived in fear for so long, and then Sam came along and he had found his equilibrium, his calm. She had been his equilibrium, his calm. But now she’s gone, she’s living a kind of half-life where she’s—
It’s nowhere near half a life she’s living.
Taking a deep breath, he attempts to slow the progress of the panic attack by thinking of what a badass Sam used to be—and how, with her, he was too for a little while.
She had fought the Phoenix and won. Together they had beaten the killer making burnt offerings of his victims. They had worked the Shelby Emma Summers case, not just looking but diving into the abyss, fighting monsters not fearlessly but relentlessly, never letting fear stop them.
Now look at them.
Sam is less than half alive. And he’s less than half the man he was with her.
After wiping down the counters and putting away the last of the leftovers, he goes into what should be their bedroom, but is her home hospital room.
As he does, he pictures Nancy doing the same thing, living the same half-life as him.
Each evening, after the day is done and it’s just the two of them again, he bathes and changes her. It’s the closest thing to intimacy they experience, and though he finds it infuriatingly frustrating, he nonetheless looks forward to it.
He misses Sam so much he feels it physically, feels the deep, dull ache in every single cell of his body.
He studies her scars, tracing the tumescent tissue with his fingertips.
She is more scarred and more attractive than any woman he’s ever seen. Her body is a beautiful poem of pain, of strength and healing and resiliency.
We are our scars, he thinks. Both seen and unseen. I am no less mine than she is hers.
With a soft, warm bath cloth he washes her scarred body, caressing every contour, making love to her with the basin and the towel, symbols the world over of love and service, acceptance and purification since Jesus first used them to wash his disciples’ feet.
Except for the scars, the missing breasts, the paleness of her skin, her body still looks like that of a woman half her age, and he’s so grateful the physical therapy is enabling her to keep much of her muscle tone. She’s certainly lost some strength and athleticism, but she has plenty left to build on if she is able to recover to an extent where she might be active again.
But what are the chances of that really happening?
She’s making gains, but they’re so slight it seems inaccurate to call them progress.
He leans down and gently kisses her ear.
“I miss you,” he whispers to her. “Please come back to me.”
When he pulls back, she is looking up at him with sad eyes, and they both begin to cry.
26
Anna and I are driving back home from Nancy’s when Reggie calls.
“Whatta you think?” Reggie asks. “Is it him?”
“The killer?” I ask. “Or abductor or whatever he is?”
We’re on the winding coastal section of 98 not far from East Point, Apalachicola Bay to our left, above it a big bright moon, orange earlier, now fading to bone as it rises higher in the night sky.
“Yeah.”
“No idea,” I say, “but I think there’s a good chance it could be. Fits with a certain type of killer. But . . . that’s the problem. Fits with a certain type of internet troll too.”
“We really do battle with evil sometimes,” she says. “More and more it seems like.”
I don’t say anything, just think about the truth of what she’s saying.
“Did you see the news tonight?” she asks.
“No.”
“You were on it,” she says. “So was Jerry Raffield. It was at the search site. You were in the paper today in a story about the case that young reporter for the Star did.”
“Sofia Garcia?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay?” I say, wondering where she’s going.
“Bet you anything you’re next,” she says.
“Next for—”
“To get a message.”
“Not if he only uses Snapchat,” I say. “I don’t have an account.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “Bet he sends something to the dad too. Unless it is the dad.”
“Well, if he does,” I say, “it’s more likely we’re dealing with the killer.”
“How do you figure?”
“Podcast goes everywhere,” I say. “They have listeners all over the country, all around the world. The paper and the TV news are local. If he sees them, it’s far more likely it’s her killer and he’s still in the area, not some maladjusted loner with a computer and internet connection in his basement in Wisconsin.”
“Then I hope you hear from him.”
“Me too.”
“Be careful,” she says. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Will do.”
“Samantha Michaels is such a vivid reminder of how quickly something horrible can happen.”
“She’s gonna get better,” I say, “and I’m gonna be fine.”
“Let’s make sure Merrick and Daniel are too.”
“And Nancy,” I say. “She’s a target now too. We will. Speaking of . . . Could you ask the Franklin County Sheriff to send deputies by to keep an eye on her place?”
“On it. See you in the morning.”
Reggie was right.
When I arrive home and check my email, there’s a message from [email protected] waiting on me.
I know you think you are smart, Mister Detective Chaplain John Jordan, but I am smarter. You think you are everything. You are really not much. You have only been up against lightweights before, but now you’re in with a real heavyweight. Way over your head. You have never seen a cold-blooded ruthless son of a bitch like me. Be assured of that. Back off now or I will come for someone you love and like that pretty little auburn-haired girl, they will never be seen again. Think about it. There is nothing you can do to make Randa come back to life, but you can cause someone you love to lose their life. Is it worth it? For what? I do not want to see that happen. I am warning you because I do not want to do it. I really do not. But I will. I will do what I have to. And you should know that I can. I did not get away with this for twelve years without being brilliant and merciless. I will win. You cannot beat me. You will lose. Someone will die. And for what? For nothing.
“So . . .” Anna says, “he’s local. Still in the area.”
We are at the desk in my library looking at the computer together, waiting for Chris Andrews to arrive.
“Can’t know for sure, but . . . I think he is. Got to figure out how to protect everyone. I’m sure Merrill and Dad and maybe even Jake will help us. We’ve got to figure out protection for Johanna in Atlanta. I think Reggie can handle protecting Merrick and their kids, but
. . . I’m most concerned about Daniel and Sam and Nancy and Jeff.”
Anna nods.
“Do you want me to stop?” I say.
“Would you?”
“Absolutely. No question. You and the girls are . . . everything. I’ll walk away tonight if you tell me to.”
She shakes her head, her eyes glistening. “Thank you, but . . . just keep us all safe—including yourself.”
“I will.”
“It means more to me than you’ll ever know that you’re willing to walk away for me, for us.”
“It’s not even a difficult decision,” I say.
“But I know it’s who you are, what you were created to do.”
“Who I am is yours. I’m Taylor and Johanna’s father. I’m your husband—or soon will be. We still need to pick a date and plan a wedding, by the way. I’m those things first and last. I’ll stop being an investigator if you want me to. Right now. I’ll call Reggie and resign right now.”
“But you’d be unfulfilled, you’d . . . Don’t you think you’d eventually resent me and the girls?”
“Absolutely not. No way.”
She smiles and her eyes do that thing where they express nearly more love and appreciation than I can handle. “I believe you. I know what you’re saying is true. Thank you.”
She starts to cry, and I hug her.
“I lived with a self-centered man for so long,” she says. “He always put himself before me, before everything and everyone. I . . . I just . . . I’m so grateful for you, John.”
“I’m grateful for you, for what we have. Nothing else comes close. Nothing.”
“I know. I . . . just . . . don’t . . . know . . . how to handle that.”
“You’re handling it just fine,” I say. “Now, let’s get everyone protected and see if we can’t track down who sent the picture and this email.”
27
Chris Andrews is a small, soft-spoken man in his early forties with a clean-shaven head and face and blue eyes the color only contacts can create.
He was a few years behind me in high school but we were good friends even back then and have only grown closer since then.
COLD BLOOD (a John Jordan Mystery Book 13) Page 11
