by Lisa Regan
“Did you run toxicology to see if he had been drugged?”
Moore laughed. “Drugged? Who would have drugged him?” When Josie didn’t answer, he sighed. “Okay, okay, well as a matter of fact, we did run toxicology, but it came back negative.”
“He could have been drugged with GHB,” Josie said.
“What? The date rape drug?” Moore asked.
“Yes. It’s usually not detectable in blood or urine after twelve hours, sometimes even less than that.”
Moore gave another heavy sigh. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here—like maybe if you can connect the cases, maybe there’s some person out there in the woods taking women, you can stop him—but I’m telling you, Garrett Romney wasn’t drugged. He was lying.”
“But Moore,” Josie insisted. “He didn’t kill Maya Bestler. I know that because she’s a patient at Denton Memorial Hospital right now.”
“What?” he said, his tone sharpening.
She told him what had happened after they’d left the Sanctuary to return to Denton. When she finished, he said, “Are you sure it’s the real Maya Bestler?”
“I had someone from my team pull her driver’s license. It looks like her. I haven’t had a chance to properly interview her or locate next of kin yet, but I’m pretty certain it’s her. You think it’s some kind of hoax?”
“I don’t know what to think now. I’m just telling you that Garrett Romney is guilty of something. Mind if I drive up there? Talk to her? I can contact her family. She was taken from my jurisdiction.”
There was the jurisdiction thing again. Josie let it pass. She would take whatever help she could get, even from someone as irritating as Moore.
“Of course,” Josie said. “She’s been admitted, so she’s not going anywhere. Noah and I will head over there soon to check on her condition and see if we can get more information from her.”
“Great,” Moore replied.
“One last thing,” Josie said before he hung up. “When you spoke with Maya’s boyfriend and family, did they happen to mention that she was partially deaf?”
“What? No. It never came up.”
Fourteen
By the time they got back to the hospital, Maya had been moved to a private room on the fourth floor. Her baby was still in the NICU. Josie and Noah met the doctor at the nurses’ station on her floor. “She’s stable,” he told them. “We were able to get the hemorrhage under control. She’s severely dehydrated. She’s got a lot of cuts and bruises. Luckily none of the lacerations on her feet needed stitches. She’s got some old scars around her wrists, as Detective Quinn saw earlier. We did some X-rays. She’s got several old fractures—ribs, jaw, both forearms, and her left tibia.”
Noah said, “She was abused?”
The doctor scratched his chin. “Well, I can’t say that for sure but in someone her age, when we see that many old fractures, especially to the face and ribs, we do worry about domestic abuse.”
“How old are the fractures?” Josie asked.
“Also hard to say but on average between three and five years old, I’d say.”
“It fits with what Moore told me about her boyfriend,” Josie said to Noah. “How about her hearing?”
“Well, you already know she’s got hearing loss,” the doctor said. “From what we can tell, it’s from scar tissue.”
Noah asked, “What would cause scar tissue in her ears?”
“Most likely untreated ear infections,” the doctor said. “She has some hearing, but not much left. Other than that, she’s in pretty good shape. Not malnourished. Appropriate weight. Since she can’t tell us much, we took some blood for tox screens. We need to make sure she didn’t have anything in her system that could affect the baby.”
“How is he?” Noah asked. “Is he okay?”
“As far as I know, yeah. We’re just covering all our bases.”
“Has she said anything?” Josie asked.
The doctor shook his head. “No. We gave her something for pain so that made her a little sleepy. She just keeps asking us to help her. She asked if her baby was okay a couple of times. That’s it. She’s resting but lucid enough that you could ask her some questions if you’d like. Just not too long, okay?”
Quietly, they slipped into Maya’s room. Someone had pulled the shades, closing off her view of the torrential downpour outside, although the occasional rumble of thunder could still be heard. A monitor above her head measured her heart rate, blood pressure, respirations, and oxygen saturation. An IV tube snaked from the crook of her right arm to a bag of fluids hanging next to the bed. Her eyes were open, staring straight ahead at a blank television across the room. Josie and Noah flanked the bed, and Maya startled when she saw them, her hands flying up toward her face.
“It’s okay,” Noah said.
“She needs to see your face, remember?” Josie reminded him. “She reads lips, like your ex-girlfriend did. Remember?”
“Right,” Noah said. He leaned over the bed, keeping his movements slow and smooth. With a tentative hand, he touched her forearm. She tensed but then lowered it. Her eyes darted from him to Josie and back. Noah positioned his face so that she could see his lips move. “It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re the police. We need to ask you some questions.” He told her their names and each of them showed her their credentials.
Maya looked at Josie. “I talked to you earlier.”
“Yes,” Josie said. “You told me your name and that you were taken.”
She looked back at Noah. “You delivered my baby.”
He smiled and pointed to Josie. “Detective Quinn delivered your baby.”
Her head swiveled again in Josie’s direction. She reached out a hand and Josie took it, feeling a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” Maya said.
While she had her attention, Josie said, “Maya, I know you’re exhausted, but I want you to know that you’re safe now.”
“Safe,” she echoed, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“We’d like you to tell us what happened to you,” Josie said. “Can you do that?”
“Where am I?”
“Denton, Pennsylvania,” Josie answered. “About two hours west of where you live.”
“What day is it? What’s the date?”
Josie met Noah’s eyes momentarily and then told her. More tears spilled from her eyes. She released Josie’s hand and covered her face with both hands. Sobs rocked her body. They gave her a few minutes. When she peeked from between her hands, Josie offered her a tissue and she took it, dabbing at her eyes and nose.
Her gaze landed on Noah. “Is Garrett coming? My boyfriend?”
Josie had filled Noah in on everything she’d learned from Deputy Moore on the way to the hospital. Noah answered, “No, he’s not coming. He hasn’t even been notified that you’ve been… found.”
“Someone should tell him,” Maya said. “He’ll be worried.”
“Do you want to see him?” Noah asked.
She pressed the crumpled tissue to her mouth and nodded.
Josie touched her forearm to draw her attention. “Garrett told the police that the two of you were camping, and then he blacked out and when he woke up you were gone.”
Another nod. Maya said, “We had a campfire. It was nice. A cool night. Clear skies. We were—we were having fun for once. Drinking beer. Then I—I woke up tied to a tree. Everything was gone. Garrett was gone.”
“You don’t remember what happened?” Josie asked.
“No. I was with Garrett. It was nighttime. Then it was morning and I was tied up. Somewhere else in the forest. I didn’t recognize anything.”
“Tied with what?” Josie asked. “Rope?”
“Yes, thick rope.”
“Who took you?” Josie asked. “Who tied you up?”
“It was a man,” Maya said. “I never saw him before. He looked like—like a monster. He was kind of old. He smelled and looked like he hadn’t bathed or changed clothes in years. I didn’t want him nea
r me, but he was strong. I had no choice.”
The monitor above the bed beeped softly. Josie glanced at it to see Maya’s heart rate and respirations climbing. “It’s okay,” Josie said. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about that right now. Just breathe. Look at me.” Josie pointed to her eyes. “Focus on me. Breathe. You’re safe now.”
Maya’s gaze locked onto Josie’s and the rise and fall of her chest slowed. When Josie saw her numbers go back to normal range, she asked another question. “Where did he keep you?”
Maya licked her lips. “In the woods for a long time. He kept my wrists tied.” She lifted her hands and pushed her wrists together to demonstrate. “He dragged me around through the woods for days. At night he tied me to a tree. We moved every morning. Then we came to some caverns.”
“Caverns?” Noah said but Maya didn’t hear him.
Josie said, “What kind of caverns?”
“Underground,” Maya said. “Not like a cave. Bigger. It was huge. There were tunnels and even a stream running through them. It was dark. So dark.” She shuddered. “There was a place in there, almost like a room. He sometimes built a fire. It was so big in there and so cold. Other times he had flashlights. I don’t know where he got them but when the batteries ran out, that was it. That room, it was pretty high up in the caverns. They would flood from time to time, and we’d have to stay up there until the water receded.”
“What did you eat?” Josie asked.
“Plants. Fish. There was a creek nearby. He had this old wooden boat he would take out so he could catch fish. Sometimes he would trap a rabbit or a pheasant and cook those. I was sick a lot though.” She touched her left ear. “My ears hurt. I got dizzy and nauseated. It seemed like it went on for weeks at a time, but I couldn’t tell you how long any of it was—he kept me in the dark so much. Eventually, when I was too sick to even try to fight him anymore, he started taking me outside. I tried to get him to trust me so he’d let me out more without being tied up. So I could get away. I was trying to get better so I’d have the strength to run. He made stuff from plants and things and made me drink and eat them. He said it would make me feel less sick. Sometimes I felt better, sometimes not. I kind of got used to it, but then I realized…”
She drifted off, more tears rolling down her face. She touched her deflated abdomen. Clearing her throat, she started speaking again, “I realized I was pregnant. I didn’t know how much time I had. I just knew I had to get away from him before the baby came. I would die giving birth in that place.”
“How did you get away?” Josie asked.
“He was always making broth. It was so disgusting. He used to hit me when I wouldn’t drink it. He said it had everything I needed to be healthy, and I should just be grateful I had something to eat. I snuck some foxglove into the cavern and when he was out trapping game, I crushed it up and put it into his broth. I had to wait a long time but eventually he got very sick. It went on for hours and then finally he fell asleep. That’s when I left.”
Josie glanced at Noah to see his curious expression. He touched Maya’s arm and she turned her gaze toward him. “How did you know to use foxglove?”
Maya said, “One of the times he let me out of the caverns, he was foraging. He kept me tied to him and I saw the foxglove flowers. I thought they were so pretty. I hadn’t seen anything pretty in the longest time. I picked some and he freaked out. He told me they’d make me very sick. Later, I saw some growing not too far from the caverns, and I knew that I’d have to get close to them and pick them without him seeing if I was going to have any chance of getting away from him.”
She turned back to Josie. “I knew the baby was coming. I had to do it. I didn’t think it would really work.”
“When you escaped the caverns, was it daytime or nighttime?” Josie asked.
“Night,” Maya answered. “I just started walking. I had no idea where I was—I just needed to get away. I started to have contractions—I guess that’s what they were—and it got harder and harder to walk. Then I saw the road, and I thought maybe someone would find me if they drove past.”
“We almost hit you,” Noah said although Maya wasn’t looking at him.
Josie said, “Did he ever tell you his name? Anything identifying?”
Maya shook her head. “No, nothing. I never even called him anything. He didn’t talk much at all except to tell me to shut up or to—to give me commands whenever he—he f-forced himself on me.”
Her shoulders quaked with a new round of sobs. Josie squeezed her hand again. “It’s okay,” she said. “I think that’s enough for today. We just have one last question.” She took out the photo of Tyler and Valerie Yates. As she had told Noah in the car, it seemed unlikely that the two cases were connected, but there was only one way to know for sure. She turned her phone so Maya could see the picture. Josie waited while she studied the two faces and then looked back at Josie’s face. Josie asked, “Do you know either of these people?”
Maya shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Didn’t think so,” Josie said. She smiled and was rewarded with a small return smile from Maya. “You need to rest now. Doctor’s orders. We’ll be back to check on you later, okay?”
Fifteen
Noah and Josie walked down the hallway to the bank of elevators. Josie checked her phone, but there were no calls yet from anyone on her team. “Let’s go down to the morgue,” she said. “See if Dr. Feist has gotten anywhere finding the Yates couple’s next of kin.”
She pressed the down button. Noah jammed his hands into his pockets. “You think she’s telling the truth?”
Josie sighed. “I don’t know. She’s obviously traumatized. She’s been missing for two years. She had someone’s baby. But a man living in caverns in the woods?”
“There are a lot of underground caverns in Pennsylvania,” Noah said. “Although I’ve never heard of anyone living in them.”
The elevator dinged open and they stepped inside. Josie pressed the button for the basement. Noah reached across her and hit the button for the second floor. “I’m just going to check on the baby,” he told her. “I’ll meet you down there, okay?”
“The doctor said he was stable,” Josie said.
“I know but I just want to see if there have been any changes.”
Before Josie could say anything more, the doors opened on the second floor and Noah was gone. She watched him jog down the hall until the doors closed and the elevator proceeded to the basement. She emerged into a windowless, drab hallway lined with jaundiced tiles. The smell of chemicals and biological decay led her to the small suite of rooms that Medical Examiner, Dr. Anya Feist, presided over.
Inside the main exam room, the body of Tyler Yates lay on a table, a white sheet pulled up to his chin. Dr. Feist stood near the stainless-steel countertop that ran along the far wall, marking something down in a file in front of her. She smiled grimly when she saw Josie. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve autopsied the husband.”
Josie said, “Where’s Valerie?”
“Ramon has her. He’s taking a full set of X-rays now.” Ramon was Dr. Feist’s assistant. “He’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“What’s the verdict on Tyler? Respiratory failure?”
Dr. Feist raised a brow as she moved down the counter to where Josie could glimpse a specimen of some kind—pink and red with blood— laid out on a surface protector. “Well, he does have inflammation in his mouth and throat. There’s excess blood in the vessels around his stomach. There wasn’t much in terms of stomach content as it looks like most of that was vomited into the woods. He definitely ingested a toxin of some sort.”
“We found hemlock in the woods, about a half mile from the campsite,” Josie said.
“Yes,” Dr. Feist said. “I was made aware. That could definitely have caused severe illness but that’s not what killed this guy.”
“It’s not?” Josie asked.
Dr. Feist waved her over to have a closer look at
the specimen. Up close Josie saw that it was horseshoe-shaped and probably only two or three centimeters in length. It almost looked like the tiny bones of a bird, but Josie knew it had come from Tyler Yates.
“That’s his hyoid bone, isn’t it?” Josie said, feeling a sudden chill shoot straight up her spine.
Dr. Feist smiled. “That’s correct.”
Josie saw the places where it had broken, and Dr. Feist had pieced it back together. “It’s practically shattered.”
“Yes,” Dr. Feist agreed. “As you know, the hyoid is here.” She pointed to her throat, just below her chin. “Trauma to the hyoid can cause asphyxiation.”
“Someone strangled him.”
“With great force, yes.”
Josie turned back toward Tyler’s body. “There was no bruising on his neck.”
“Because he died quickly,” Dr. Feist explained. “He was probably quite weakened from his illness. There are no defensive wounds. Whoever strangled him did it fast but with enough force to break the hyoid in four places. That’s a lot of force.”
“Could a woman have done it?”
“I can’t rule it out, but I strongly doubt it. I think it’s more likely that a man would have the hand strength for something like this.”
“So the cause of death is asphyxia secondary to manual strangulation and the manner of death is—”
“Homicide,” Dr. Feist filled in with a grim look.
“What about Valerie?”
“Like I said, I’ll have to perform the actual autopsy but if her husband was murdered, it’s not a stretch to think we might find further evidence of homicide. I did the external exam. She had bruising on her inner thighs but no signs of sexual assault internally. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t assaulted in some way. Certainly, the bruising is what I have seen in other cases where the victim was sexually assaulted, but I found no bruising or tearing internally and no DNA from another person.”
