“Have you found anything unusual?” Holt asked.
“Yes and no,” Cahill said. “It’s what I haven’t found that’s interesting.”
“What do you mean?” Marissa asked.
She hated people who talked in riddles. It was as if they delighted in being the smartest people in the room. She waited for Cahill’s condescending smile, but it never came. Instead he met Marissa’s gaze directly.
“The photos from the night she disappeared were almost certainly taken and uploaded with Brooke’s cell phone camera. You see, most of the photos show the time and place where the images were uploaded. These are default settings for the social networking site your daughter uses, but this last one is different.”
“The one of the guy?” Marissa pictured his angry face.
Cahill nodded.
“What’s different about them?” Holt asked.
“Well, this last one doesn’t have a location or time stamp telling us where and when the photo was posted.”
Marissa stared at Cahill, trying to put the pieces together. “Why?”
Grinning like a teenager, Cahill bobbed his head. “Exactly. It’s like someone turned the default settings off.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Why indeed,” Cahill said, turning from Marissa to Holt and back again. “Your daughter has uploaded hundreds of photos to her Facebook site, all with the default setting, except this one.”
“Could she have done it by accident?” Holt asked.
“Those settings are buried deep in the user’s preferences. They’re not easy to shut off. You wouldn’t accidentally do it.”
“Why wouldn’t Brooke want people to know where the photo was taken?”
“Her post says she’s gone on an adventure. She might turn off her settings to hide where she is.”
“I’m not buying it,” Marissa snapped. “I know my daughter. She wouldn’t just take off. She—”
Cahill raised his hands in surrender. “There is another possibility.”
“Such as . . . ,” Holt prompted.
“What if Brooke didn’t post the image?”
“But who else could it be?”
“Someone else who has her phone or has hacked her account,” Cahill offered. “I’ll need to do some more digging.”
“But why would this man, Charles Sully, post a picture of himself on Brooke’s page? Why incriminate yourself?” Holt asked under her breath, her brow furrowed in thought.
Cahill shrugged. “Maybe Sully didn’t post it either.”
Marissa absorbed this in silence.
The door opened, and Evan Holt stepped into the office carrying a tray. He poured a steaming cup of tea into a bone china glass and handed it to Holt. The subtle smell of citrus wafted off the steaming cup.
Holt scowled at the intrusion and waved him away.
“Lizzie,” Evan said reproachfully.
Her scowl deepened and she grudgingly took the cup from his hands. Marissa saw him pass off a small white pill. Holt popped it into her mouth and sipped the tea. She reached for Evan’s hand and gave it a light squeeze. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and Holt set the cup down. It clattered in the saucer. She turned back toward Cahill.
“Okay, so we know there’s something unusual about Charles Sully’s image. What’s next?”
“I’ve put a trace on Brooke’s phone. I’ve pinpointed all the locations she used the phone before it went dead.” Marissa flinched at the word, and Cahill cleared his throat. His cheeks flushed, and his gaze flicked back to the screen. “I mean before the battery was pulled. I’ve set up a script that will ping her phone. If it powers back up, we’ll be able to pinpoint the location.”
“Do you think that’s likely?” Marissa asked.
The look that passed between Holt and Cahill chilled her to the bone.
“We’re going to locate your daughter, Ms. Rooney.”
At least he sounded confident, and she wanted to believe him, but faith wasn’t her strong suit. She had to hope though. Without hope, there was no way she would make it through all of the minutes, hours, or days until they found Brooke and brought her home again. Hope was all she had.
“Thank you, Mr. Cahill.”
“Henry, please.”
“Henry,” Holt said. “Can you give us a few minutes alone?”
Henry rose from his chair and followed Evan out the door.
Elizabeth’s long, bony fingers stroked the amulet attached to the gold chain around her neck. She fixed Marissa with an appraising look.
“How are you holding up?”
Marissa was at a loss. How could she explain to a woman like Holt how totally overwhelmed she was by the situation? There was an army of volunteers out looking for her missing daughter. There were no solid leads. It was as if Brooke had vanished into thin air. And she was starting a brand-new job with no idea what to do or what was expected of her.
Holt was still staring at her, expecting some kind of answer. She swallowed.
“I’m okay,” she lied.
She was a lot of things—okay was definitely not among them. Holt wasn’t fooled. The old woman cocked her head and smiled kindly at her.
“I have to admit, Ms. Rooney, I’d have made a lousy doctor. I don’t have much of a bedside manner, and providing comfort has never been my strong suit. I can only offer you this piece of advice. You have to focus on your goal. Finding Brooke is the only thing that matters—not your pain or your fear. Not what the cops or the media say about the case. Sweep aside everything that distracts you from achieving your goal. It’s not helping you.”
“What happens if we don’t find Brooke?”
The words slipped out before she could catch them, and like wildfire, once voiced, the fear consumed her.
Holt arched an eyebrow. She tented her fingers thoughtfully beneath her sagging chin and regarded Marissa with the cool look of a lawyer assessing a client. “Ask yourself this, Ms. Rooney, do those thoughts make your situation easier to bear? Do they help you focus?”
Marissa stared at Holt in silent agony. She knew Holt was right, but how could she turn them off? She thought about Holt’s story about being attacked as a college student. Had Holt ignored her pain? Her hate? Maybe she was the type of woman who could compartmentalize her feelings, but Marissa . . .
Holt consulted her watch.
“We have an hour before the press conference. Let’s get to work.”
#
“It’s time to head to the conference room, Ms. Rooney.”
Marissa swallowed, her mouth bone-dry. She rose on shaky legs and followed Evan Holt out of the office.
“Is there anything you need?” he asked. “A bottle of water?”
“Yes, please.”
Her hands trembled as she followed him down the hall. She balled them into fists at her sides and looked around. The conference room was jam-packed with reporters. Every news station in Seattle was in attendance. Marissa’s head swam. Panic fluttered in her chest, and her mind went blank. Marissa searched for a familiar face and found Elizabeth Holt at the front of the room, standing with Chief Abrams. The two conferred quietly, expressions grave. Evan handed Marissa a bottle of water and joined his aunt at the front of the room.
Marissa twisted the cap, but the thing refused to budge. She sighed.
“Here,” Detective Crawford said, taking the bottle from her grasp. He removed the cap and handed it back. Marissa shot him a look and he grinned. “You loosened it.”
“Thanks.”
She took a sip. Water dribbled down the front of her blouse. Crawford pretended not to notice. She wiped her lips and cleared her throat.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Panicking a little.”
Crawford held her gaze, the look in his eyes gentle.
“It doesn’t matter what you say, just speak from the heart. Everybody in this room is here to support you, Marissa. Tell them about Brooke. Make her real. If seeing all these peop
le freaks you out, just pretend you’re talking to me. Forget everything else, everyone else.” He gripped her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. His fingers were warm. Strong. “You can do this.”
Marissa smiled weakly and took another sip of water. She glanced back toward the podium.
“Do you know who those people are?” she asked, inclining her head toward the middle-aged couple standing behind Ms. Holt.
Crawford nodded. “They’re Kim Covey’s parents.”
“The Coveys? I didn’t realize they were coming.”
“Ms. Holt didn’t tell you?”
Before he could say more, Holt motioned for Marissa to join her. She looked around for someplace to put her water. A table. Something. Crawford took the bottle from her grasp.
“You’ll do great.”
Wiping her hands on her skirt, she took her place beside Elizabeth Holt.
Chief Abrams took center stage. The brass buttons of his dress uniform glinted in the bright lights.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming today. Two young women in our community are missing.”
The screen flashed, showing two images side by side. Marissa’s heart jolted as she was struck again by the strong resemblance between her daughter and the other missing girl.
“Kim Covey disappeared four weeks ago. Brooke Parker has been missing for five days. We believe these disappearances are the work of a serial kidnapper. This is a very dangerous man. We need your help before any more girls go missing.”
Chapter 21
Brooke’s eyelids eased open. They felt as dry and scratchy as sandpaper. Grainy light filled the cabin. Staring up, she could see the unbroken line of cedar beams overhead and the steep angle of the pitched ceiling. It was unnaturally quiet. The rain had stopped and the wind was still. She was cold, but it was bearable, nowhere near the bone-chilling dampness she’d felt huddled behind the mattress.
Where the hell was she?
Brooke jerked fully awake.
This was a different cabin. He must have moved her here last night. This one was smaller, with a long, rectangular window on the far wall, about seven feet up. If she could get to it, maybe she could find a way out.
She swung her gaze wide, searching for something, anything she could climb on.
A pair of pale-blue eyes collided with hers. Brooke gasped, jolting into an upright position. She scrambled back on the hard pallet of the bed, her back flattened against the wall and gaped at the woman across from her.
The cold eyes looked ancient and alien in the bruised and blood-streaked face. The woman was young, maybe twenty or so, but her puffy eyes and swollen cheeks aged her. She was gagged. Dried blood crusted on the dirty cloth. The smell of stale sweat and urine filled the cabin.
It took a moment for the shock to wear off. Once it had, she eased toward the woman. Brooke grasped the woman’s shoulders and gently turned her around.
The gag was tightly knotted. Gritting her teeth, Brooke struggled to loosen it, but it was no use. Days of soaring blood sugars rendered her fingertips numb. She didn’t have the strength or the dexterity to pry the knot loose.
Her eyes swam with frustrated tears, and she blinked them away. She couldn’t give up. She was this girl’s only hope. Brooke struggled with the knot a few minutes more, but nothing she tried made any difference. So Brooke did the only thing she could. She pulled the knot tighter. The fabric stretched, maybe half an inch. Maybe more.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to work the gag out of the woman’s mouth. She couldn’t do anything about the zip tie binding the woman’s wrists. Brooke sat back on her heels. Sweat beaded her forehead. The cloth hung like a limp, bloody noose around the woman’s thin neck.
Revulsion mingled with the bile at the back of Brooke’s throat, and she stared into the woman’s battered face. She dropped her gaze, afraid she was looking into some kind of sick carnival glass. Was this her future? Would she end up looking like the woman on the floor, if she survived long enough?
“He shot something into your leg.” The woman spoke in a voice that sounded hoarse and gritty from lack of use.
“Who are you?” Brooke asked in a trembling voice.
“Kim Covey.”
Kim shook the long, matted mane of hair off her forehead giving Brooke an unobstructed view of her face. The purple bruises on her cheeks were fading to a muddy brown. The thin white shirt hanging off her shoulders was soiled and torn. The woman’s stench overpowered the musty smell of the forest floor.
“How long have you been here?”
Kim shook her head. A hopeless look crossed the gaunt face and sent Brooke’s heart racing. “I’ve lost count.”
“I’m Brooke Parker.”
Kim nodded, but there was no curiosity in her vacant stare. No fear either. What had he done to this woman? What was he going to do with her? Fear snaked its way through Brooke’s mind, making clear thought impossible. She swallowed, trying to contain it, trying to focus on Kim Covey—the one human face she’d seen besides his in days.
“How did you get here?”
“He brought me.”
All kinds of gruesome possibilities sprang to Brooke’s fertile mind. Had he drugged Kim? Had he carried her bound and gagged down into the valley? Or worse. Had Kim been lured?
Looking into Kim’s dead eyes, she thought she knew the answer.
“You came willingly?” Brooke asked.
“Didn’t you?”
The bitterness in Kim’s voice corroded Brooke’s composure. Brooke shook her head. Tears filled her eyes, and hate welled up inside her. Hate for the monster who had brought them both here and tied them up like animals. Like some evil kind of god, he held the power of life and death in his hands. They were wholly dependent upon him for everything. Food. Water. Shelter. Everything. If he never came back, they would die here at the bottom of the valley, where no one would ever find them.
“What has he done to you?”
“What do you think?”
“He beat you,” she said. Brooke reached out to touch the deep bruises around Kim’s eyes, the cut on her lips. Kim jerked her chin away and Brooke dropped her hand. He hadn’t just beat this woman—he’d tortured her. “Did he . . .”
She couldn’t force herself to say the word.
“Did he rape me?” Kim asked. The pain in her glacial stare was unbearable. Brooke dropped her gaze. She covered her eyes with her hands, not wanting to see, not wanting to think about what was going to happen to her—what fate awaited them both.
“Why is he doing this?”
“Because he likes to,” Kim said.
The simple, awful truth of it hit her with all the force of a ten-ton weight. The tears she’d been holding back leaked from Brooke’s eyes and slid down her cheeks. She pressed the pads of her fingers against her closed eyelids, trying to stop the flow. Crying was pointless. How many tears had Kim cried, and yet here she was, a broken version of herself.
“He shot something into your leg,” Kim said again. “Some kind of needle. I saw him do it.”
Brooke dropped her hands away from her face. The shock of seeing someone else had driven the words from her mind. She brushed the tears away and tried to focus. Yes. She felt different now. Her muscles no longer screamed at her. And though she was thirsty, her mouth had lost the cotton-dry feel of soaring blood sugars.
“Insulin,” she said, running her hands down her skinny legs. The jeans that had fit like a second skin days ago sagged. She was losing weight. It wasn’t a good sign.
“Insulin. You’re diabetic?”
Brooke nodded, and Kim’s expression darkened.
“He’ll like that,” she said.
A stab of dread sliced through Brooke, and she forced herself to look at Kim’s battered face. “We need to get out of here.”
Kim’s thousand-yard stare stretched out beyond Brooke. Her nod was slow. Her smile was grotesque. Terrifying. Blood crusted her swollen lips, and for the first time, Brooke saw the
jagged peaks of Kim’s broken teeth.
“Oh, we will.”
Chapter 22
How many of the righteous sat in this very pew day after day, praying for miracles, praying for jobs, health, wealth? A myriad of secret hopes and dreams offered up to a faceless God. Pathetic souls, looking for forgiveness or deliverance, looking for something spiritual that would lift them up out of the mire and into the rapture, to a holy place. Heaven. Whatever.
But that wasn’t why Drew Matthews was here. There was nothing he needed that he couldn’t already get himself. He longed for neither salvation nor deliverance.
Once, a very long time ago, he’d believed the Sunday school stories about the power of prayer and a benevolent God. Night after night he prayed. But nobody came to his rescue, and left alone with an abusive drunk for a father, he learned all fairy tales lied. There were no happy endings.
And forgiveness? He was beyond asking for that. What would his poor God-fearing mother say about him now, had she lived long enough to see what he’d become? She’d joined her Savior in the heavens above when he was no more than a boy.
So what brought him here to this same pew week after week to stare at the same rosewood altar with the ornate carving of the crucifix hanging above?
The truth was, he liked the dark, the close smell of incense, the candles burning for the righteous, the murmured prayers of the faithful.
He liked the sense of solitude, looking up at the vaulted ceilings, knowing that there was no one staring down in judgment. No vengeful hand of God, poised to reach out of the sky and smite his black soul.
There was no rescue.
Most of all, he came here because he liked the ritual. That’s what Catholics were good at, right? Say the same prayer over and over and expect different results. Yeah. Wasn’t that the very definition of madness?
Slowly, almost reverently, Drew withdrew his mother’s rosary from his pocket, the same rosary she had spent countless hours hunched over in her hospital bed, praying for deliverance. And, well, she’d gotten it now, hadn’t she? Death had relieved her of sickness and pain. Death had removed her to a better place, and left him here. Alone, and very much alive.
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