Vanished (11 page)

Walter’s body seemed to go into spasms, and he ducked his head farther into his chest.

Jack turned toward her, and the smirk playing on his lips and his raised eyebrow seemed to ask,
This is low-key?

Walter wrapped his arms around his stomach, folding further into himself. “I didn’t—”

Jack’s lips twisted in a snarl, and Evelyn interrupted before he could. “I don’t want to argue about that. I just want to eliminate you as a suspect today. Can you help me?”

Walter’s mouth dropped open, but just as quickly he snapped it shut and narrowed his eyes. He was clearly suspicious of what she’d said, but it was true. She had to consider him a suspect, but she didn’t think he was sophisticated enough to pull off the recent abductions without being seen.

“How?” Walter asked. “The police already questioned me about Brittany. I was home, but they don’t believe me.”

“What about today? Where have you been the past three hours?”

“Home,” Walter snapped, straightening up, his hands squeezing the chair arms.

“Can anyone corroborate that?”

“My father was home, but he’s not well. His health... He was asleep and...”

“You want to prove you’re innocent?” Jack broke in. “How about you walk us through your house, basement included?”

Walter squinted at Jack a long moment. “Like that would prove anything. Doesn’t matter what I do, you’re going to insist it’s me.”

Evelyn studied him as he glared at Jack. Was it pure resentment that made him refuse? Or fear of what they’d find?

Even if it was the latter, it didn’t necessarily mean he was guilty of abducting Brittany and Lauren. The fact was, given his history, there was a strong likelihood he was hiding
something
in this house. Assuming he was innocent of these crimes, she guessed child pornography on his computer.

She tried to keep the disgust off her face. She needed him to see her as an ally—but how?

She knew he was intelligent; the degree from a top university and subsequent job with a high-powered lobbyist firm proved that. And judging from the way he was staring Jack down, he was less browbeaten than he’d originally appeared.

If he’d started abducting children when he was twenty, that meant he’d gotten away with it for a few years. Then he’d moved to DC and discovered he could find victims without having to kidnap them, which should’ve been less dangerous. But he’d been arrested, so maybe the brief stint in jail had scared him off. At least for a while. Then, by the time he’d worked up the courage to try again, with his record, no one would let him near their kids. Maybe he’d once more resorted to abducting them.

But it still came back to whether or not he could get away with it without being noticed. He was a pariah in Rose Bay, his every move watched. Could he really have pulled it off?

As Evelyn pondered this, Jack raised his eyebrows at her, then finally let out an exaggerated sigh and stood. “I gotta use the bathroom, Wiggins.”

Walter frowned. “Then go back to the station.”

“Come on,” Jack said. “Some reason you don’t want me in there?”

Walter scowled and fidgeted, apparently trying to come up with a good answer, then finally stood up, too. He led Jack down the hall, glancing repeatedly back at her.

When he returned to the living room, his beaten-down mask was firmly back in place. “What’s with all the harassment? You see what’s happening in my dad’s yard? Where are the police when I call?”

“You’ve called the police about this?”

“Yeah.” Walter dropped back into his seat. “They took a statement. And they were sure to tell me how I was taking time away from searching for Brittany.”

Evelyn leaned toward him. “Look, Walter, how about you walk us through the house? We’re not interested in what’s on your computer, okay?” Not now, anyway. But she was definitely going to be talking to Tomas about getting permission to check Walter’s computer once Lauren and Brittany were found. “Just show us that no one’s here.”

He looked pensive and she thought he was ready to agree when Jack strolled back into the room.

Anger showed on Walter’s face. “So you can find some way to set me up? I don’t think so.”

“I promise you, I don’t care about any pictures you have down there,” she lied, desperate for a chance to search his house. “Just let us take a quick look, verify the girls aren’t there and we’ll leave. Cross you off our list.”

“Bullshit,” Walter barked, straightening in his seat and folding his arms over his chest.

Okay, time for a new approach. “Have you seen the search parties around, Walter?”

“What? Yeah, I guess.”

“How do you feel about them?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you think they’ll find the missing girls?” she prodded. If she could get him to talk about the case, hopefully it would give her a sense of how much he was hiding.

Whoever had gotten away with the abductions for eighteen years was careful, resisted the natural urge to brag or talk excessively about the investigation. But he’d want to. And the abductions starting up again, with two so close together, meant he was less controlled this time around.

Walter glowered at her. “How should I know?”

Jack’s annoyed gaze landed on her, too, and Evelyn tried not to squirm. She’d guided plenty of interrogations before, dealt with lots of uncooperative subjects. Was she approaching Walter wrong or was it the whole case?

Dan’s voice rose in her mind, telling her she was too close to the case to be objective.

She vaulted to her feet and asked if she could use Walter’s bathroom, too.

He threw her an incredulous look. “The police station have plumbing problems?” When she didn’t answer, he pointed down the hall, apparently less willing to leave Jack alone.

This hallway resembled the one into the living room—poorly lit with bare walls. The bedroom doors she passed were closed, so finally she let herself into the small bathroom. Just like the living room, it was stuck in the past, with green trains on the walls and rubber ducky adhesive strips on the tub floor.

She assumed it was designed for Walter as a boy and had never been redecorated. But then, she didn’t know how ill Walter’s father was. Maybe he never left his bedroom and didn’t know what was happening right down the hall.

After a brief internal argument, Evelyn eased open the medicine cabinet. Inside, everything had its place. Bottles of over-the-counter medicine were positioned just so, all the labels facing front. A manicure set was on the bottom shelf, Walter’s name printed on it in black ink. A razor lay beside it.

Everything in the cabinet belonged to Walter. Nothing for a child. She frowned, closing the cabinet.

Unlike the living room, this was almost too orderly, even the soap dispenser at a perfect right angle to the sink. This was entirely Walter’s space.

So, he was precise and careful, somewhat obsessive-compulsive. Not unexpected, really, given his personality. Though they were also traits the abductor shared.

She flushed the toilet and ran the sink tap for a minute. She was about to leave the room when she realized something was off. Glancing around, she noticed the tank on the toilet. The lid was slightly askew. Just a centimeter, but that was a lot for someone this neat.

She stared at it, debating. She shouldn’t even have opened the medicine cabinet. But her feet were already moving and as she carefully lifted the lid and set it on the seat, her pulse picked up. Taped inside was a sealed plastic bag.

She pulled the edge of her T-shirt over her fingers as she took the bag out and removed the contents. And holy shit, Jack was right. Walter Wiggins could very possibly be the Nursery Rhyme Killer.

She flipped through the stack of pictures inside, carefully memorizing the faces of the young girls. And the backgrounds. Some of them had been shot at the park near where she’d once lived. And others had the elementary school in the background. How the hell had Walter gotten those shots?

And why was he taking them? Because he was a voyeur who couldn’t get close enough to an actual child to go back to his criminal ways? Or because he’d been choosing new victims he planned to abduct?

She hadn’t thought he was the Nursery Rhyme Killer, but that was partly because she hadn’t thought he’d be able to get close enough to a child to grab one. She didn’t know when these shots had been taken, but either he’d been using a damn good zoom lens or she was wrong on that second count.

Carefully resealing the bag, she taped it exactly where it had been. She debated whether to set the lid back straight, but decided to leave it slightly tilted, just as she’d found it.

Unease settled over her as she returned to the living room where Jack and Walter were silently scowling at each other.

Had her insistence on putting surveillance on Darnell instead of Walter given him the opportunity he needed to grab Lauren?

They needed a real plan for Walter. And they needed it now.

“We should go,” she blurted to Jack, then spun toward the door before he could respond.

“What?” he called after her. “If you don’t have any more questions, I sure as hell do!”

“Let’s go!” Evelyn shouted, replaying the pictures she’d seen in her head over and over again.

Neither Brittany nor Lauren had been in the shots. But maybe that was because he’d already grabbed them. For all she knew, Walter had a brand-new note waiting on his computer right now. Maybe one of the girls in the pictures was his next intended victim.

Ten

N
ausea rose in Evelyn’s throat as she replayed the girls’ faces from Walter’s pictures over and over in her head. Along with the images came memories she had pushed down for years. She gagged and tossed Jack her rental car keys.

“What the hell?” he demanded as he caught them. “We need to question him some more.”

“I’ll explain in the car. Just get in.”

Scowling and swearing, he shoved the driver’s seat backward so he could climb in and then they were speeding toward the police station.

When she stayed silent, Jack snapped, “So, explain.”

“Inside the toilet tank in the bathroom, Walter had pictures of girls. Not Brittany or Lauren, but that age.”

Jack glanced at her, looking unsurprised even as his hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I told you. He’s a sick, slimy bastard. He did this.”

“We need to talk to Tomas about trying to get a warrant.”

“Yeah? How, exactly? Inside the toilet tank isn’t in plain sight.”

“I don’t know.” Evelyn sighed. “But you guys can get class pictures, right? I want to go through and identify them for you.”

Jack punched down on the gas. “Yeah. How many were there?”

“About a dozen.”

“A
dozen
?” Jack rubbed his forehead, swearing under his breath.

Evelyn turned her head and stared out the window into the darkness. It was past midnight, the streets empty, the search parties home in bed by now.

Had she made a mistake rushing out fast so she could try to identify all the girls she’d seen in case they were intended future victims? Should she have stayed, pressed harder to search the whole house?

Back in Walter Wiggins’s basement, was Lauren locked up, unable to scream for help? Was Brittany there with her? If so, what hell were they living?

The nausea worsened until she knew she couldn’t hold it back. “Jack, stop the car. Stop the car!”

He slammed on the brakes and she just managed to get her seat belt undone and heave herself outside before throwing up her dinner all over the curb. Her eyes watered, and the memories she’d suppressed for so many years raced through her, as vivid as if it had been yesterday.

The smell of cheap vodka seemed to fill her nostrils as an image of the old apartment she’d shared with her mom so long ago overwhelmed her. Evelyn’s father had been dead four years by then, and his features had already started to blur in her memory.

Her mom had been trying to replace him ever since, with one man after the next. None of them lasted. Most ignored her, and she’d quickly learned how to hide from the ones with angry fists.

He’d
been different. She’d never even known his name, but the guy before him had moved out and suddenly he was living with them. He’d looked normal. Not strung out or drunk like most of the others. But there’d been something predatory in his eyes that warned her to keep her distance.

For two weeks, he’d kept his distance, too. Until the night her mom passed out on the living room couch. Evelyn had been in her bedroom, using a reading lamp instead of her overhead light so they wouldn’t realize she was still awake as she worked on her homework.

Slowly, the door had pushed open, and she’d seen his surprise that she wasn’t sleeping. As he’d shut the door behind him, she’d instinctively scrambled off her bed. But he’d continued toward her, palms out as though he was trying to reassure her.

The bedroom seemed to shrink as she’d backed up until she hit the wall, with nowhere to run, no way to hide. She’d already been crying, silent tears dripping down her cheeks as she lifted her hands in front of her, expecting his palm to connect with her face.

Instead, he’d picked her up, lightning-fast, and tossed her on her bed. She’d landed on top of her spiral-edged notebook, the spine bruising her back. Then he’d been hovering over her, tearing at her pajamas, his rancid breath in her face mingling with the scent of her own fear.

She’d fought back, pummeling him with her small fists until he’d slapped her, so hard it bloodied her nose and halted her punching. Her right hand had landed on top of the pencil, and without thought, she’d clutched it. Somehow, he’d already pushed his jeans down, so when she’d stabbed at him as hard as she could, the pencil had torn through the skin on his thigh, deep enough to embed in muscle. He’d yelped, stumbling on the jeans around his ankles, and falling backward.

And she’d run, screaming for help. But her mother hadn’t moved on the couch, so she’d turned the other way, toward the bathroom, the only room in the apartment with a lock. She’d managed to latch it just in time and then he was there, pounding on the door until it shook and she knew it wasn’t going to hold.

She’d curled up on the floor, huddled against the bathtub, sobbing. Then she’d heard banging at the front door, the police yelling at him to open up. She’d stood, held her ear to the bathroom door. Waited for the cops to take him away.

Then she’d heard her mom’s voice, sounding only slightly drunk, telling the cops they’d had an argument and they’d quiet down. Evelyn shouldn’t have been shocked, but she was.

As the police left, her tears had stopped. Strangely calm, she’d opened the bathroom window and climbed through it, then walked down the street in bare feet and ripped pajamas to the nearest pay phone. Thank God someone had left change in the return chute.

She’d called the only people who’d made her feel safe since her dad. Her grandpa had arrived so fast to pick her up he must have run every light for three towns. She’d gone to live with him and her grandma and never looked back.

It wasn’t until later that she’d discovered how much her grandparents had agonized over what to do. They’d been afraid if they pressed charges, somehow they wouldn’t stick—something Evelyn had seen too many times since, during her years in law enforcement. And they’d been afraid if they hadn’t, her mom would have a kidnapping claim and still get her back.

Her mom had shown up again when Evelyn was seventeen and her grandma had her stroke. Evelyn had been shocked to learn her grandparents had threatened their daughter. They’d told her mom that if she ever tried to take Evelyn back, they’d do whatever it took to make sure she went to jail.

It was probably a threat they couldn’t have fulfilled, but they must have convinced her mom, because she’d stayed away for seven long, blissful years.

Her grandparents had still kept in touch with their daughter, trying to get her clean, hoping one day she and Evelyn could have a relationship again. It had been Evelyn who’d cut off ties entirely. And she’d never really regretted it.

As the memories faded, Evelyn realized she was still hunched on the curb, her arms clutched around her stomach. Jack was crouched next to her, patting her back and muttering nonsense about everything being okay, they’d get Wiggins.

Her face heating, Evelyn got to her feet. “Sorry,” she croaked.

Jack eyed her speculatively as he stood. “The cases with kids are always the worst. I get it. I go to domestic scenes, or these damn kidnappings, and I feel so helpless, so fucking useless.” His voice gained volume. “Especially this kind of thing. You know someone’s guilty, or you know someone is neglecting their kids, and you don’t have the power to
do
anything. Makes me sick.”

He blew out a huge breath, then got back into the car. They drove the rest of the way to the station in silence and then Evelyn was telling Tomas what she’d seen at Walter’s house.

Tomas glanced back and forth between her and Jack. “You put them back exactly where they were? He’s not going to know you found them?”

“I put them back exactly where I found them.” Evelyn frowned. “But he’s obsessively organized. It’s possible he’ll move them, since both Jack and I were in there.”

Jack nodded, scowling. “Yeah, and as soon as you left that bathroom, you practically dragged me out the door.”

Tomas rubbed bloodshot eyes. “I’ll talk to a judge, but it’s not going to be easy. Just the fact that he’s an offender isn’t enough reason to get a search warrant. Shit!” He strode to his office door, then yelled, “T.J.!”

When he came running over, Tomas told him, “I need pictures from all the elementary school classes. Check with Ronald—I know we’ve got copies.”

As T.J. ran back into the bull pen to talk to Ronald, the station’s second administrative assistant, Evelyn gave Tomas a questioning look.

He sighed heavily. “Precautions. All these damn mass shootings over the past few years, we do drills at the mall and the schools. The school district went a step further and sends us information on personnel and students every year, just in case. I hoped like hell we’d never need any of it. Will you be able to pick the kids out?”

“I tried to memorize all the pictures, but there were twelve,” Evelyn said.

T.J. hurried in with a small stack of pictures. “What’s happening?”

“Get back out there,” Tomas said. “And shut the door.”

T.J. didn’t look happy, but from the glance Jack shot him, Evelyn knew he’d get the scoop soon enough.

When he’d left the room, Tomas had her flip through the photos, and Evelyn identified nine of the girls, then shook her head. “I don’t see any more.”

Tomas turned to Jack. “What about you?”

“I never saw the photos.”

“Damn it.” Tomas slid behind his desk again, taking the class photos, now marked up with black circles around the girls featured in Walter’s pictures. “I’m going to talk to these girls’ parents.”

“I don’t think—” Evelyn began.

“I won’t tell them you found the pictures illegally,” Tomas interrupted. “I’m not going to tell them we found pictures at all. I’m just going to say we have reason to believe they should be particularly careful.” He glanced at his watch, swore, then set down the phone he’d picked up. “I didn’t realize it was already past midnight. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

When Evelyn got ready to argue about not saying anything to them, he asked, “Evelyn, do you have children?”

“No.”

“Well, trust me, it’s better I scare these parents than I stay silent and one of these girls is the next to go missing. I’ll work on the warrant, but in the meantime, I’ve got to put those officers back on Wiggins and not Darnell.”

Evelyn nodded, even though the idea of leaving Darnell without surveillance made her uneasy. “We’ve got to consider Walter a serious threat. But is there anyone you can spare for Darnell? He was with the search parties, his girlfriend’s daughter’s murder twenty years ago was never solved and he fits the profile in a lot of ways.”

“Except race,” Jack reminded her.

“Yeah, well, Walter was low on my suspect list for the same reason—not his race, but why I profiled the perp as white. That otherwise he’d get noticed on those streets. I just...”

“I know,” Tomas said. “But I don’t have the manpower. Talk to the CARD agents. Maybe they can spare someone.”

Evelyn’s shoulders dropped. She knew how these cases worked. The CARD agents couldn’t sit on Darnell, either, not unless there was a much more compelling reason to suspect him than her gut.

But they could probably get the bloodhound close enough to Walter’s house to do a perimeter sweep, if they hadn’t already. She suggested it to Tomas and he picked up the phone again, waving her to the door.

Suddenly feeling every minute of the past eighteen hours since she’d woken and headed for the dunes, Evelyn stood. “Let me know about the search warrant.”

Meanwhile, if the cops were covering Walter Wiggins, she’d have to figure out what to do about Darnell Conway.

* * *

Evelyn had intended to drive straight back to the hotel. But instead she found herself in Treighton, driving slowly onto Darnell’s street.

The neighborhood was dark and silent, no streetlights and few porch lights lit up. Evelyn glanced at the dashboard clock as she pulled to a stop down the street from Darnell’s house—2:00 a.m.

What had she expected? Darnell to be outside, with Lauren and Brittany in tow?

She rubbed her eyes, exhausted and frustrated, with her trip to Walter Wiggins’s house too fresh in her mind. Brittany had been missing more than two full days now. And since Evelyn had arrived, all she’d been able to give the cops were possibilities.

Maybe he’s a molester. Maybe he thinks he’s a savior. Maybe it’s Walter Wiggins. Maybe it’s Darnell Conway.

She needed something concrete. She needed to bring Lauren and Brittany home, and God, perhaps even Cassie.

Evelyn got out of her car. When she and Jack had visited Darnell earlier, she’d gotten the impression that in this neighborhood, no one saw anything. Hopefully she’d been right.

She walked slowly toward Darnell’s house, blinking to adjust to the moonless night. She kept her steps measured, knowing that in the darkness movement might attract the attention of anyone who happened to be looking out the window.

She was at Darnell’s house before she’d really thought it out—either what she could possibly hope to find or what she planned to do. But then she was slinking along the side of Darnell’s house, toward his backyard.

The shades on the windows she passed were all drawn, no sign of light inside. The yard itself was darker than the street, lined entirely with thick arborvitae trees that provided a live fence. And a lot of privacy.

She moved carefully, her hands in front of her, because even with her eyes mostly adjusted, it was hard to see. But as far as she could tell, there was nothing in Darnell’s yard. No patio furniture, no flowers, no sign of personality besides an obsessive neatness in the precision of the trees.

At the back of the house, too, the shades were completely lowered. Evelyn’s steps slowed, even as her heart rate kept up its unnatural pace. There was nothing here.

And as a six-year law enforcement veteran, she knew how reckless her actions were. She was trespassing, and if she did find something, it would be tainted and useless. But as the best friend of a girl who’d had her whole life stolen from her, Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to turn back.

Especially when she saw the shed at the corner of the property, nestled tight against the trees. Smaller evergreens had been placed in front of it, as though someone had planted those later to conceal the tiny structure.