Baker admitted her involvement in Abby’s death in the woods that night. She’d been emotional when she confessed to pushing Abby down, to seeing her head hit the rock before she fled. But Kylie didn’t blame her one bit. And the new DA wasn’t going to touch Lily Baker, not after what she’d been through.
As the state lab had confirmed, the fibers found in Iver’s truck and his office at the bar weren’t a match to Abigail Jensen’s blouse, though they were similar in appearance. Those fibers had come off a fringed purse that Iver’s ex-wife, Debbie Wilson, had been carrying the night she and Iver argued, the same night Jensen was killed.
As far as Jensen’s shoes in the crossover toolbox in Iver’s truck, they might never know whether Cannon or Vogel had planted those. They’d located a burner phone in Cannon’s house, used to alert the police of the attack on Lily Baker at Iver’s home. A second burner phone had been used to alert the police that Iver was seen driving in the middle of the night. Kylie suspected that was Debbie Wilson’s doing, but it didn’t much matter now.
There was no question that both Cannon and Vogel played a part in covering up for Cannon. Certainly, DA Vogel had pushed everyone in the right direction, including encouraging Gary Ross to go to the scene of Brent Nolan’s car accident. Anything to keep them all away from the murder investigation until they could be certain that there was no evidence pointing to Cannon.
They were confident that Tanner’s death had also been Cannon’s work. They’d discussed Tanner’s cameras and the footage in their meeting, where Vogel was present. He could have easily shared that information with his nephew. Exactly what happened at Tanner’s the night he’d been killed was unknown. Cannon was in the hospital, and who knew if he would ever talk.
When it came to the question of why Jenna Hitchcock had to die, no one on the team was able to come up with a decent theory. What threat had she posed? Did Jensen and Cannon try to lure her back into the fold, and she rejected them? Or were they cleaning up loose ends before starting again with Lily Baker? Kylie couldn’t imagine she’d ever find out. Or maybe Cannon would be one of those criminals who suddenly got a conscience and wanted to make a deathbed confession. Kylie also didn’t know exactly why Cannon had lured them up to the place where Vogel was holding Lily Baker. Sheriff Davis suggested that Cannon saw her and Iver as more loose ends to be tied up, a theory that Kylie knew would keep her up nights wondering.
As Kylie left the conference room for a breath of fresh, cold air outside, she found herself thinking back on all the clues that might have helped her if she’d seen them more clearly at the time. The gun that Gilbert collected at Larson’s house—the one Lily Baker had taken from Abigail Jensen in the woods—was missing its serial number, so there was no way to know if it had been Cannon’s or come from somewhere else.
Glen Vogel had done everything in his power to protect his sister, Stephanie, and her monster son. Vogel might have gotten away with it. If they had succeeded in killing Lily Baker, no one would have known that Vogel was a criminal. Cannon might have gone on to kill again, and Kylie would have worked alongside him for years, maybe, and never known. She took one last inhale of cold air, shivered, and made her way back inside the warm station.
Sunday afternoon, the mayor arrived in his church suit. Kylie didn’t think the man knew her name, but he came right up to her and congratulated her on the fine detective work. “Hagen is honored to have you, Detective Milliard.” The mayor stayed long enough to hear where they were on the investigation, then left before they got back to work.
He wasn’t gone ten minutes when Glen Vogel’s wife, Wanda, arrived at the station. She wore a black wool dress and flat boots and carried a large Tupperware container of her scones, which she handed to Kylie without meeting her gaze. Wanda Vogel held her back straight, but her cheery expression was absent.
“Thank you for coming,” Davis said.
Kylie led Mrs. Vogel to the conference room and offered her a cup of coffee.
“Please. Decaf with milk if you have it.”
When Kylie returned with the coffee, the men stood awkwardly around the table. Kylie set the cup in front of Mrs. Vogel, and Davis pulled out a chair.
Mrs. Vogel sank into it slowly, as though the process of sitting was painful.
Davis motioned to the scones. “You didn’t have to bring—”
“I had to do something,” she interrupted. “I couldn’t sleep.” She covered her mouth as the tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” Kylie said and passed her a box of tissues.
Mrs. Vogel waved a hand through the air and took the box, inhaling deeply. “Baking helps when I’m upset,” she said, then shook her head. “Usually.” She paused to take another breath, appearing to push away that last thought. “I always knew that boy was trouble. His mother, too,” she added, taking a tissue from the box. “I thought it would be better after Stephanie died. I thought Derek might leave North Dakota, finally. Leave us alone.” She frowned. “But the sicker she got, the less stable Derek became.”
“What did Glen say about Steve?” Davis asked. “About Derek Hudson?”
“Oh, Glen wouldn’t say. He never talked about things that worried him. But I could tell.” She touched the tissue to her nose. “And he was right to be worried. Derek went off the deep end after his mother died,” she said, blinking back her tears. “And he dragged my Glen down with him.”
They did not tell Wanda Vogel that her husband had almost killed a detective and an innocent woman—and possibly others. With the mayor’s blessing, they had decided to keep the details from the public. No need to announce that their district attorney was a killer and his nephew the man who had kidnapped those girls. There was a chance that Hudson would try to implicate his uncle at his trial if he lived to stand trial. They would prepare for that, too.
Kylie had wondered about the timing—ten years almost exactly. But these were no anniversary killings. It had all started again after Hudson’s mother’s death, triggered by grief. They asked Mrs. Vogel to tell them about her husband’s family so that they could better understand Derek Hudson, a.k.a. Steve Cannon. Much of what she knew they’d already heard—his father’s antigovernment leanings, the commune. As for the real Steve Cannon, according to public records, he had never existed in North Dakota. The real Steve Cannon had a South Carolina driver’s license, issued sixteen years earlier. His younger brother had been looking for him for ten years. According to the brother, Steve Cannon had left home and headed west toward Vegas or maybe Los Angeles, working along the way. Cannon’s brother said Steve used to call him every few weeks to check in. Then, ten years ago, the calls just stopped.
Steve Cannon’s brother thought Steve was in Montana when he disappeared, and the brother had traveled to Montana a half dozen times in the following decade to search for Steve, extending the search west into Idaho and Nevada. But no missing person report had been issued in North Dakota, so no one ever discovered the man living as Steve Cannon in North Dakota. Dark hair and a fuzzy driver’s license photo had made it easy enough for Derek Hudson to use Cannon’s ID and adopt his identity.
For a few years after the girls escaped, Hudson had lived off the grid, working odd construction jobs, mostly for cash. Then he’d taken Steve Cannon’s driver’s license to a motor vehicle office in Linton, North Dakota, about a hundred miles east of Molva, and renewed it with his own picture three years later. After that, Derek Hudson officially became Steve Cannon.
It was hard to know if the real Cannon had ever been involved in the kidnappings. There was also no way to know if Lily Baker had shot the real Steve Cannon in a genuine effort to escape or if Cannon’s shooting had been Hudson’s doing. Perhaps Lily had seen the shooting and taken the opportunity to make a run for it. Maybe the sight of Cannon’s death had made Lily believe that she was somehow responsible. After all, another girl had died while they were in captivity. Who could say what that had done to Lily.
And there was no doubt
in Kylie’s mind that Abby would have twisted Lily’s memory of events where she could. It left Kylie wondering if Abby had run after Lily to change her mind about escaping. Or in order to control the narrative with the police.
For her part, Kylie wanted to believe that Steve Cannon had actually been shot by Hudson himself, a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps he’d come across the cabin where Hudson was holding the girls and had given Lily the window she needed to escape. While that scenario didn’t explain why Lily remembered holding the gun over the dead body, memory was a tricky thing. Since Derek Hudson was refusing to say anything to the police, they might never know. Maybe someday.
According to Wanda Vogel, her husband had told her Derek had changed his name to Steve Cannon in order to get a fresh start. Wanda had never known that there was another Steve Cannon. From how Wanda spoke, Glen Vogel had done his best to keep her out of his family’s business.
“But Glen didn’t want anyone to know that Steve was his nephew?” Davis asked.
“No, no. Glen made me promise not to tell anyone. And Steve”—she stopped and shook her head—“Derek, I mean . . . he was always trouble, so I thought it made sense to keep their relationship private, especially with Glen’s job. I figured Glen was worried about what would happen when Steve messed up again.”
The room fell quiet a moment.
Davis asked a few more questions and thanked Wanda Vogel for coming in.
Hudson’s condition was stable. Soon enough, he’d be transferred to the state penitentiary in Bismarck. Hudson might not provide them any help in the case against him, but they didn’t need his help to send him to prison for the rest of his natural life. North Dakota had abolished the death penalty in 1915, but there were strong feelings about men who abused children. While Derek Hudson might not get the death penalty, he would likely live behind bars the rest of his life, and that was enough for Kylie.
As she was heading out of the department, half-dead on her feet and on her way home to get some sleep, she passed Gilbert in the kitchen, holding the Green Bay Packers mug and staring into space.
“Hey.”
He spun around, and she put her hands up.
“I’m really sorry about everything that happened.”
He nodded.
“We going to be okay?” she asked.
He was quiet a moment, then said, “I heard a couple of the Patrol guys talking. Sounds like Davis might resign.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. Looking back, it was clear that Vogel had manipulated the sheriff, pushed Davis to run the investigation in a way that benefited him and Hudson. But Kylie wasn’t sure how Davis could have known what Vogel was really up to.
“You could throw your name in the hat,” Gilbert said.
She frowned.
“For sheriff . . . ,” he said.
Sheriff Milliard. It had a ring to it. She shook her head. “It’s not for me.”
Gilbert shrugged. “Just a thought.”
“See you tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll be here,” he said.
Sheriff Milliard. She repeated the words in her head. It did have a ring to it. But she enjoyed the hunt too much. She didn’t want to sit at a desk or kiss the mayor’s ass. She definitely didn’t want to kiss the mayor’s ass.
She wanted to kick ass and take prisoners.
And she would.
CHAPTER 66
LILY
Three months later
Lily sat in the shade of the house, a red-handled trowel in her hand and Cal at her feet. Her fingers and palms were covered in dirt, lines of black beneath her nails. Along with the new trowel, Iver had bought her a pair of blue gardening gloves, but she found the feel of dirt on her skin comforting. She dug a small pit in the earth six inches in front of the row of blue delphiniums she’d planted earlier. Gently turning over the thin plastic container of a brilliant pink zinnia, she coaxed the flower into her open palm and set it in the divot, then gathered the dirt around the roots and used the watering can to saturate the soil. Moving down the row, she planted a yellow one next, then an orange. Every few minutes, she glanced up at the street. Iver had come by earlier for coffee before his meeting. He would be home soon.
For almost two weeks after she had escaped that shed and Derek Hudson, Iver had slept on the couch in her living room. Lying under the thick down comforter, with only a wall between them, she could feel the energy of him so close. She knew he felt it, too. Night sounds came from the floorboards as he shifted on the couch. Even Cal paced restlessly, the click of his toenails on her wood floor lulling her into a dreamless sleep.
She wanted him to be in bed with her. She wanted him to kiss her, not just on the temple or the cheek or the top of the head. To really kiss her. He wanted the same. In three months, she’d come to know him better than she knew herself. She’d told him everything. And learned everything about him.
But they had yet to take that last step. At the first AA meeting Iver had attended, the Sunday after they almost died, Iver had come back more than just sober. He had looked distraught.
“What is it?” she asked him as he came in the door, the worry etched in his expression.
“They say the worst thing you can do in recovery is to start a new relationship.”
They stood in silence, her mind spinning. What was he saying? What did he want? Finally, she said, “So we won’t start.”
His gaze swept across her face.
She saw the fear in his eyes and grabbed his hand, interlacing her fingers with his. “I mean, we won’t start yet.”
“You mean, like, wait?”
She nodded, swallowing the fear that he would reject the idea, reject her.
“Like a while? A few months?”
“Sure,” she agreed. “Whatever you think.”
“Three months,” he said.
She nodded. “Three months.”
They stared down at their hands, the grip of their fingers, and slowly let go. So they kept their relationship platonic, waiting for Iver’s ninety-day chip. While she was desperate to be with him in every way, there was something comforting in the absence of physical intimacy. Instead, they found every other type. They were inseparable.
He was with her when Detective Milliard came by to tell her that they’d found her phone near the scene of the accident. Showed her the small plastic piece on the back that stored her credit card and driver’s license, though she’d gotten a new one by then. He held her hand while the detective explained what they thought had happened after she’d gotten into the car with Brent Nolan, how Hudson had strangled Abby, then returned Lily’s car to her house before doubling back later to dispose of Abby’s body in the dumpster. Iver had held her afterward while she cried.
She had gone with Iver to confront Kevin, who admitted to drugging him that night at the bar and seemed to think it was no big deal. “I was desperate,” he’d said. In the end, Kevin returned the cash, and Iver agreed not to press charges. Iver seemed fine with putting the incident behind him.
Together Iver and Lily moved forward and made plans. She was beside him when he called his attorney to draft the paperwork to sell Skål to Mike Hammond, then met him for dinner to celebrate the sale. They sat on the couch in his house as he navigated the unexpected emotions that came with ending the relationship with his father’s business, with burying that part of his dad at last.
Each day she shared the memories she gained as pieces of her old life flittered down with the inconsistency of Hagen weather—some days like drips of rain and others like fat clumps of snow. Some memories arrived in a hailstorm. But the memories did return to her—most of them. What remained a void was the period when she’d been held hostage.
Instead, she had what might have been memories but felt like strange dreams—huddling with a crying girl, being stabbed, a man with blood running down his face. She might never remember the period between getting into the van with Abby Jensen and waving down that t
ruck driver sixteen months later. Iver urged her to try not to worry about remembering, and she was trying.
What became obvious to both of them was how much they cared for each other. Sex was not love. And while she wanted to share that with him, he already had her love. They had unknowingly—or maybe not unknowingly at all—gone headfirst into a relationship.
Now, Cal laid his muzzle on her thigh, and she patted his head. “He’ll be here soon,” she told him.
She lifted a fuchsia zinnia from the cardboard pallet, shook it free gently from the plastic, and set it down in the earth. Digging with her fingers to deepen the hole, she nestled the flower into its new home and patted the cool soil across its thready roots.
She glanced up at the house she’d grown up in. The shutters were absent, currently on sawhorses in the garage, sanded and freshly painted charcoal gray. The siding on the front left of the house was a patchwork as they replaced the pieces that were rotting and too far gone to sand and repaint. It all felt like they were building something together.
Maybe the relationship wouldn’t make it. Maybe they ought to have been more vigilant about keeping their distance. They’d talked about this, too, and she’d come to see the idea of their recovery in broader terms than simply Iver’s sobriety. With their pasts—her imprisonment, the things that Iver had seen and done in Afghanistan, all that had happened to him—life would be about recovery for a very long time. Maybe, in some part, forever. AA only gave shape to one piece of that.
With all of the things they had to wade through, why deny each other a partner to gather strength from along the way? How could they deny it?
Iver was more the straight shooter. “We’re not really starting a new relationship,” he said one night when they were cuddled, talking on the couch in the middle of the night.
White Out: A Thriller (Badlands Thriller) Page 31
