Exposure (19 page)

Ever calm, that voice of his. Kaycee heard no judgment in his tone. Even so, the words ripped through her. She should have told him about the picture on her desktop that morning. If she’d made this possible connection to Hannah’s disappearance sooner, maybe these last hours wouldn’t have been wasted. Wordlessly she picked her purse off the chair near Mark’s desk and followed the chief into his office.

The chief sat down at his desk, Mark and Kaycee taking chairs on the other side. Behind the chief the six screens ran live video. He leaned forward, fingers laced, and focused on Kaycee. “I’m listening.”

She started at the beginning with the previous evening, since the chief still hadn’t had time to read all of Mark’s report. Then she told him about the desktop picture, and finally, the blackened photo now lying on his desk. As with Mark, she didn’t mention her dream and its dark yellow floor come true. Or how she’d smelled blood while going up her stairs —
before
it smeared on her fingers from the third photo.

The chief asked her a string of questions about last night and this morning. He wanted details on all three pictures she’d seen. He found it significant that the blood on this third photo had not dried by the time she found the picture, meaning it couldn’t have been on there long.

“Where’s your car?” he asked Kaycee.

“Across the street. I drove it here.”

“Is it locked?”

She nodded.

“Would you leave me the key? We’ll need to dust it for prints. We’ll also need to dust certain parts of your house and take a look at your computer — ”

Rich stuck his head in the door. “Nothing coming from South Maple over the next hour.”

Chief absorbed the news. “Okay. Keep looking on both intersections. I’m going to go ahead and call in a volunteer tracking team. The dog can start where we last saw Hannah.”

Search and rescue. Kaycee’s last bit of hope that Hannah was hiding somewhere gusted away, a milkweed on the wind. Kaycee’s tone flattened. “How long until a team can get here?”

“Depends on who’s available. Numerous volunteers live around Wilmore. I’ll start with them and work my way out.” Chief Davis reached for the phone, shooting a look at Mark. “When I’m done with this call I want us to take a walk up Rice Street. Then I’ll deal with this blood sample.”

Mark nodded and rose. Kaycee pulled the car key from her purse and placed it on the chief’s desk, then followed Mark from the office. They stood by Emma’s work area, at the moment empty. Kaycee averted her eyes from the heartrending sight of Hannah’s sad face gazing up from the stacked flyers. “When you walk up Rice Street I want to come with you.”

Mark pulled in a deep, tired breath. “If Chief says it’s okay.”

She looked away. “What will he do with the blood?”

Mark’s hands fell to his waist, one resting on his weapon. Why did policemen stand like that so often? Like they were going to draw the gun any minute. “We’ll send it to the lab.”

“Where’s that?”

“Frankfort.”

The capital of Kentucky, about an hour’s drive away. “To do a DNA test to see if it’s Hannah’s?”

“That takes weeks. But it won’t take long to see if it’s human blood, and if the type matches Hannah’s.”

What if it did? Kaycee’s knees weakened. Her gaze rose past Mark’s shoulder to Rich, who sat staring at the monitor. She could hear the chief on the phone. Sounded like he’d gotten through to some track-dog team.

“If it matches Hannah’s . . .” Kaycee’s throat closed up. She lifted a hand, palm out, and shook her head.

Mark touched her shoulder. Her skin tingled beneath his fingers. “Whatever happens, Kaycee, you’re not to blame for this.”

“But I am. If somebody’s out to get me, and got Hannah instead . . .”

“We don’t know that. There are still way too many unanswered questions. And even if it turns out to be true, that’s not your doing.”

It would be
because
of her, and that was enough. Hannah’s face on the flyers pulled at Kaycee’s eyes. She’d thought being watched in her own home was her worst fear come true. That wouldn’t come close to feeling responsible if something had happened to Hannah.

Kaycee’s mouth trembled. “You were right, Mark,” she whispered. “I should never have written my columns. They started all this.”

“Listen to me; we don’t
know
that.”

She pressed her lips together hard and closed her eyes. After a shaky moment she cocked her head in an unconvinced nod.

In his office Chief Davis said thanks to someone on the phone. Kaycee heard the clatter of a replaced receiver. He strode through his door and headed for Rich at the monitor. “Anything new?”

“Not yet.”

He scratched his eyebrow. “I got Seth Wheeler and his hound on the way. They’ll be here in half an hour.” The chief handed Rich Kaycee’s key. “Would you get somebody on to dusting Kaycee’s Cruiser for prints? It’s across the street. Tell them to pay special attention to the driver’s door and visor. The tech also needs to go to her house. We’ll need to do doors and the kitchen area there. And the office. Plus we’re going to have to find someone to look at her computer system. For right now Mark and I are going to take a walk up Rice Street.”

Rich had grabbed a pen and paper and was jotting notes. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” Chief Davis swiveled on his heel to approach Mark. “All right, let’s see if we can find anything out there.”

“Please let me come with you,” Kaycee said. What else would she do? She couldn’t drive her car anywhere, and presumably she couldn’t go back into her house until a tech was with her to dust for prints.

The chief considered her for a moment. “Okay.”

Emma returned to her desk as the three of them filed out. Chief Davis told her where they were headed. As they stepped out of the building into sunlight, a new petrifying thought launched through Kaycee’s head. If she’d smelled blood while climbing the stairs —
before
it smeared on her fingers — what about the screams and footsteps she’d heard? Maybe she was sensing them ahead of time too.

What terrible thing was yet to happen?

On Rice Street they saw nothing. Mark, Chief Davis, and Kaycee spread out across the road, speaking little, heads down. Kaycee was on the left, Mark in the middle, Chief Davis on the right. “Look for anything,” the chief told Kaycee. “A button, a thread. Anything.”

Kaycee’s neck tired of straining downward, and a headache set in. She trudged along, the sense of being watched so severe she wanted to curl into a ball. Were
they
out there, sneaking behind buildings, watching as the three of them sought a single clue?

Was that blood on the photo Hannah’s?

Three times of their own volition, Kaycee’s right fingers raised to her nose. She swore she could still detect a faint metallic-sweet scent of blood.

As they rounded the corner onto Walters Lane, the other senses from Kaycee’s dream flooded her head. Screams, the running footsteps, a dark and closed space. Her limbs trembled. She took deep, steadying breaths and drew her arms tight across her chest.

In her peripheral vision Kaycee saw the stately gray Potters Inn B&B slide by on her right. Beyond it, Mark spotted something in the middle of the street. “Here.” He bent over low. “Looks like blood.”

Kaycee’s stomach fell to her toes. She stumbled over, heartbeat on hold, a buzz in her head. Chief hurried to the spot and squatted down.

The area was only about three inches long and smeared. Color — brownish red. If it was blood, it had long since dried. A few small pebbles were also stained.

“Look here.” The chief pointed to another spot about a diagonal foot away.

They stared at it. Kaycee couldn’t speak.

“Maybe she fell.” Mark held out his right hand, palm down. “She went down on a knee and threw out a hand to catch herself. The skin would be scraped in both places.”

“If she was wearing shorts.” The chief looked to Kaycee. “But she had jeans on in the video.”

Mark cupped his jaw, surveying the first area. “Maybe they tore.”

“We need to secure the street. But let’s see what else we can find.” Chief Davis pushed upright. “Kaycee, please move over to the grass.”

Kaycee obeyed as the two men quickly searched a little farther up the road and past its edges onto dirt and grass. They saw nothing unusual. The chief told Mark to run back and get his vehicle. “Put tape at the bottom of Rice until Seth gets here.”

Mark took off, arms pumping. Kaycee watched his retreating back in a fog of disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Blood here on the road. Blood on the photo.

A car pulled out of Bethel Pointe and turned left, in their direction. Chief Davis strode toward it, hands out and fingers spread. The driver slowed to a stop. Kaycee remained frozen, vaguely hearing the chief ask the man to turn around and go the other way.

Her eyes cut back to the dark stain on the road. She was looking at a potential crime scene.

Mark returned in his car. Chief Davis told Kaycee to walk alongside the road up to her house. She needed to leave the area.

From South Maple, Kaycee watched as the two men strung a second line of yellow crime-scene tape just feet beyond her. Now all of Walters Lane and Rice Street was secured. Looking down Walters, Kaycee could see residents gathering at the Bethel Pointe entrance, other neighbors craning necks from their lawns and porches. Vaguely, she wondered what would happen if any of them needed to drive somewhere.

Officer Ed Freeling was called to guard the tape where she stood. He was in his late forties, a rotund man with a balding spot at the back of his head. In one hand he held a clipboard. Anyone having to go in or out of the area would be noted, Ed told Kaycee. The officer stationed at the bottom of Rice Street would do the same.

“How long?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder. “Until we’re sure we got everything we need. At least till the dog comes through.”

They watched together as the chief squatted by the stained pavement. Using a flathead screwdriver, he loosened red-brown flakes and gathered them up. These, plus the small stained pebbles, were carefully placed in an evidence bag, sealed, and labeled. Chief Davis and Mark then searched within the area at a meticulous pace, looking for more blood, footprints, whatever they might find.

Time blurred. Neighbors gathered near Kaycee, asking Officer Freeling what was going on. Mrs. Foley was not among them. She’d consider it gauche to be so obvious. Kaycee glanced toward her living room window and saw the woman peeking out.

The people around Kaycee whispered and shook their heads. A child vanished — in Wilmore. The town had never seen such a thing. Kaycee heard the talk and could only draw away. This was
her
fault, and the knowledge was going to break her apart. If she’d just stayed home last night. If she’d fought her downward spiral after Mandy’s death better, the sight of some dead man’s photo in her kitchen wouldn’t have thrown her for such a loop.

Mark
had
been right about her columns, no matter how he’d tried to backtrack. Fear had become her identity, even her livelihood. Maybe after fighting it all these years, she didn’t know how to let go.

“No more.” Kaycee said the words aloud. A young woman who’d walked over from Jessamine Village frowned at her. Kaycee’s cheeks heated. Shoving the strap of her purse further up her shoulder, she swiveled and walked up the steps to her porch. She stared at the front door, knowing she should wait for the tech before going inside. Not that she wanted to enter that invaded house anyway.

Tears bit her eyes. Kaycee dug her fingers into the back of her neck and let her head tip up. “God.” Her voice cracked. “You’ve got to help me through this.”

Her chin lowered. She stared at her toes, wondering what to do, where to go. Her mind only half registered the sound of a car driving up the street. Its engine cut suddenly. A door slammed. Kaycee looked around to see Ryan Parksley jumping from the passenger seat of a police vehicle. Officer Sam Walsh, whom Kaycee only knew in passing, was getting out of the driver’s side. Ryan gawked at the crime-scene tape and the officer guarding it, then turned toward Kaycee, as if wondering who to talk to first.

“Hi, Ryan.” Kaycee walked down her porch steps.

He made his way over with the gait of someone lost. Ryan was in his mid-thirties, solidly built, with hair and eyes the color of his daughter’s. Now he looked more like sixty. His expression mixed hope and dread. Lines etched his forehead, and his eyes were dull.

“We left Gail at home.” His voice sounded rough, like an old man’s. “Just in case Hannah shows up.”

Kaycee nodded.

He gestured over his shoulder toward Walters Lane. “They said she’d been down there. An officer took a piece of clothing.”

For the track dog. Kaycee glanced at Sam Walsh as he sidled over to talk to Ed. “Yes. We saw her on the video. We just don’t know how far she got.”

Ryan’s throat convulsed in a swallow. His lips pulled downward, fingers flexing in and out. He opened his mouth but no words came.

Kaycee’s heart lurched. “They’re going to find her, Ryan.”

His head bobbed, even as his shoulders slumped. “Yeah. They will.” He turned halfway to stare at the yellow crime-scene tape, tongue poking out to lick his lips. Disbelief rippled across his profile.