Vanished (22 page)

“That’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?” Evelyn asked. “Murdered little girls keep showing up wherever you are.”

“Hey, now.” Darnell lifted his hands in front of him. “Charlotte—that was horrible, horrible, to see what had been done to her. But I don’t have anything to do with these other girls. Just because they’re in a nearby town. I don’t know them. I
didn’t
know them.”

“Is that what Lauren’s going to tell us?” Carly asked. “Police are talking to her right now.”

“Hell, yes, that’s what she’ll tell you!”

Evelyn frowned at the confidence in his voice. Then again, if the killer was Walter or Frank, neither had even bothered to run. If the killer had expected Lauren to be found, did he also have some reason to expect she’d keep quiet?

Evelyn stepped closer to Darnell, drawing his attention. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Darnell said, but sudden doubt flickered in his eyes.

Evelyn pounced on it, taking a step closer to him. “Whatever you might have threatened her with to keep her from talking, it won’t work. Lauren is surrounded by cops. They’re going to convince her that you can’t do whatever you threatened her with.”

Evelyn could guess what it was. Pedophiles were predictable. Threaten the people around the child with harm if the child tells anyone. Tell the child she’ll be blamed or get into trouble. The younger or more naive the victim, or the more control the predator had in her day-to-day life, the easier it was to pull off.

But the child’s silence would only last so long. Eventually, she’d start talking—especially if she learned the person who’d made the threats was locked up himself.

Darnell glanced back and forth between them. “
I
didn’t threaten her with anything.”

“The cops will tell her—”

“They’re telling her to name me?” Darnell burst out. He jumped to his feet, which made Carly get warily to hers.

“I didn’t do this!” He looked frantic, the gravity of his situation clearly setting in. “This— I was framed! Fuck! The text was a lure—a...a lie.”

“If there’s really a text, let us see it,” Carly insisted.

“I...” Darnell turned from one to the other, a trapped expression on his face. “If that girl says it was me, someone told her to do it!”

“Give me a break,” Carly snapped.

“He’s setting me up because
she
thinks it’s me!” Darnell pointed at Evelyn again, his finger shaking. “I didn’t do this! Damn it! I didn’t make that cellar!”

Evelyn placed her hands on her hips, wearing a disbelieving glower. From the corner of her eye, she saw Carly follow her lead, although Carly had already been looking skeptical.

“I didn’t do it!” Darnell backed away from the table, knocking his chair over and not seeming to notice as he kept backing toward the far wall.

“If your story is true, then show us this text,” Evelyn demanded, stepping closer.

“I can’t. I, uh, erased it. But you can check my cell provider! The number will show up, anyway, right?”

Carly frowned. “We can probably retrieve a text message,” she said slowly.

“I got a message. I got a message to meet there. Just by that big tree off to the side.” Darnell’s voice was getting higher and higher pitched. “You can check the call records for the number, but not the text. It’s, uh, trade secret stuff—I’d lose my job.”

“You
knew
where that cellar was when you ran into that field!” Evelyn raised her own voice with every word. “You said yourself that you didn’t think I would catch up to you. You went there to go into that cellar, to your victims!”

“No!” Darnell shook his head frantically. “No, I didn’t—”

“You went straight there!”

“I didn’t know there was a cellar there! I was going to the tree, for my hook... For the sales meeting.”

“And it’s a total coincidence that exactly the same thing was done to these girls that was done to Charlotte?” Evelyn kept her tone and posture unchanged as she laid the bait.

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” Darnell’s eyes went saucer-wide. “He’s framing me. Charlotte—that was an accident. But I didn’t—I didn’t...”

Evelyn faltered in her movement toward Darnell and she realized he saw it. She’d expected him to smirk at her again, knowing they wouldn’t find evidence of sexual assault on Brittany or Lauren.

“I... That’s not what I meant. I didn’t...” Darnell closed his eyes and sank to the ground. “I want a lawyer.”

“You’re going to need one,” Carly said, pulling him to his feet and leading him out of the room to take him back to a holding cell.

Evelyn stayed rooted to the same spot she’d stopped when Darnell had blurted out the truth.

He’d killed Charlotte Novak.

But he wasn’t the Nursery Rhyme Killer.

So who was?

Twenty-One

“Y
ou believe him?” Tomas asked Evelyn. He sat slumped in a chair in the CARD command post.

Around him, Carly, Greg and Kyle all stared back at her. The other agents and cops who’d been out searching for Darnell had been reassigned to chase down other leads, mostly from tips that had come in regarding Mandy and where she might be. So far, none of them had panned out.

“About not being the Nursery Rhyme Killer?” Evelyn nodded. “I do. You watched the interview. He didn’t know what condition Lauren and Brittany were in.”

“Any chance he could be lying?” Tomas asked next.

“I doubt it. He thought he was going down for everything, and that made him confess to killing Charlotte. If he really was guilty of all of it, I don’t think he would’ve done that. At least not this way, not this fast.”

“I agree,” Greg said. “He panicked over Charlotte. He’s not the one.”

“He said her death was an accident,” Tomas reminded him.

“No way!” Greg said. “He killed her so she wouldn’t be able to tell that he’d sexually assaulted her. And his confession may have been unusual, but it’ll stick. Especially because I think I know why he was so cagey about that text message.”

“Why?” Tomas pressed.

“Before he cut himself off the last time he mentioned it, didn’t it sound like he’d started to say he was going to that spot for his
hook-up
?”

“That could be it,” Evelyn said. “That’s what had him so nervous. He was so busy trying to hide what he’d been doing in that field, he wasn’t watching the rest of what he said carefully enough.”

Carly swept back curls that had gone wild in the humidity. “Why the hell would he be hiding a
hook-up
?”

“If this person set him up, what would lure Darnell Conway to a deserted location?” Greg prompted. “What would that text message say?”

Carly leaned back in her chair. “Of course. I should have known.”

Tomas glanced at both of them. “What?”

“I bet if we look at Darnell’s computer, we’re going to find a series of chats between him and someone claiming to be a twelve-year-old girl,” Greg said.

Tomas rubbed his eyes. “He would do that in the middle of this kind of investigation?”

“Pedophiles are determined SOBs.”

“And he didn’t suspect he was being set up?”

“I’m sure he did. But either this guy was very convincing or Darnell couldn’t resist checking it out once he thought he’d slipped away from Evelyn.”

“Well, maybe we can track Darnell’s message to the real Nursery Rhyme Killer,” Tomas said.

“We’re going to try,” Carly told him. “But I’ve got to say, anyone smart enough to do what this perp’s done probably didn’t send these texts from his own phone.” She stood up and began to pace. “At least Kiki Novak will finally know the truth. At least she’ll finally have closure.”

“I think this is actually going to make it worse,” Evelyn said sadly.

“Why?” Carly asked. “After twenty years, her daughter’s killer will be going to jail, probably for the rest of his life.”

“Yeah, but she believed him. She harbored him when we thought he was the Nursery Rhyme Killer. She lived with him for another nineteen years after her daughter’s death. She brought him into her house, treated him as a surrogate dad for Charlotte. If we never found Charlotte’s killer, she could’ve gone on believing it was a fluke, a stranger who spotted Charlotte on her way home from school. Now, she has to live with knowing it was her boyfriend. Now, she has to live with the guilt of not just giving him access to Charlotte, but standing by him all those years since.”

“You can’t tell me you’re sorry we closed that case?” Carly demanded.

“Of course not.” But it made her sad, and as she met Kyle’s gaze across the table, she could see that he knew she was thinking of more than just Kiki Novak. Had her mother ever felt any guilt? In the years Evelyn had been gone, living with her grandparents, her grandparents had made sure her mom stayed away. And in the thirteen years since her grandma had gotten sick, her mom had tried calling, but Evelyn had refused to talk to her. Refused to forgive her.

She had no idea what her mom believed about that night twenty years ago. Did she tell herself Evelyn had lied, unable to accept that she’d brought home someone who would hurt her daughter? Or did she know what she’d almost allowed to happen? Did she live with that guilt? Or was she still burying it in a haze of alcohol?

Trying to tell herself she didn’t care either way, Evelyn sat straighter, ready to get back on topic.

Carly beat her to it. “If it’s not Darnell Conway—and I agree with you, it’s not—then why did he draw so much attention to himself, following you in the dunes and showing up at the search parties?”

“Charlotte,” Greg said simply.

“He knew I suspected him because Jack Bullock and I went to question him at his house. And he’d gotten away with this for twenty years. He wanted to flaunt it. He figured after this long, he was in the clear. The forensic evidence couldn’t convict him, so he was feeling smug about it. He didn’t plan to ever admit anything, so he just wanted to taunt me.”

“Really?” Carly’s eyebrows went up. “That seems pretty ballsy. And risky. Especially if he was still trolling for girls on the internet.”

“Well, the other side of it is his compulsion,” Greg put in. “He thinks like a pedophile first, with his specific compulsions. He wanted to be part of the search parties when we found the girls. He wanted to be there. He wanted to see.”

“Gross,” Tomas muttered.

Carly closed her eyes, looking worn out. “Yeah, that makes sense—in a totally sick way.”

“So, if it’s not Darnell,” Kyle said, “who’s the next best bet?”

“Frank?” Carly suggested.

Greg nodded slowly.

“What about Walter Wiggins?” Tomas asked.

“He’s still a possibility,” Evelyn agreed.

Tomas looked around the room at the somber-faced agents. “You don’t sound convinced about either one.”

That was because if she’d been laying bets, she would’ve placed everything on Darnell Conway.

Evelyn gave it to Tomas straight. “Or it’s someone we haven’t even considered yet.”

* * *

Mandy’s tears subsided as she looked up and saw a tiny sliver of light. She’d never been afraid of the dark before, but then she’d never seen such pitch-black as the darkness that enclosed her here. She was under the ground, huddled on a blanket that didn’t disguise how hard the floor was.

The whole place was made of dirt. The floor, the ceiling, the walls. And she was going to live here! That was what she’d been told.

Mandy clutched a teddy bear to her chest. It wasn’t her teddy bear. It was old and it smelled like it had been stuck in someone’s attic for too many years. But at least it was something to hold on to. Otherwise, it would just be her and the darkness.

Fear crept in again, a fear Mandy had never experienced before. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know how long she’d been down here. But it felt like a long, long time.

Her heart was pounding, and her mouth was dry and her eyes ached from crying. She wanted to scream, to tell people where she was, but she knew she couldn’t. She knew what would happen if she said a word. And she didn’t want anyone to hurt her mom and dad. So she stayed silent.

But that sliver of light beckoned.

There hadn’t been any light before. Slowly, slowly, Mandy got to her feet. One hand clutching tight to the teddy bear, Mandy held her other hand out in front of her and took a step forward, then another, until her fingers closed around the bottom of a ladder.

It was difficult to climb holding the teddy bear, but Mandy didn’t want to let it go. She pulled herself up, her hands slippery with sweat, terrified she’d get to the top and that door would open again and...

Mandy closed her eyes.
Don’t think about it!

She lifted a shaking hand up to the door and pushed. It moved!

Mandy gasped, then quickly slapped her hand over her mouth, almost falling down the short ladder. She tried again. The door hadn’t been latched right.

Mandy tried pushing harder, but she wasn’t strong enough to open it. She started to sob at the thought of never seeing her mom and dad again. But she fought her tears, tucked the teddy bear under her armpit and used both hands to shove the door as hard as she could.

It popped back, letting in sunshine so bright that even after Mandy squeezed her eyes shut, white light still flashed over her eyeballs. Her breath coming in short, panicked gasps, she pushed herself up, and fell into the dirt.

She was surrounded by high grass. She scampered to her feet, crouching down, looking around for anyone. But she saw nothing except empty land.

Her gaze darting around her, she stood there, unmoving. Which way? Which way?

The huge shadow of an ibis flying overhead drifted past her and Mandy scampered forward, following his flight path, praying he’d lead her home. Clutching the teddy bear close, she ran as fast as she could.

Her feet tangled and she hit the ground, bumping her chin and scraping skin off her knees. But she ignored it, pushed herself back to her feet and kept running.

* * *

“We found Mandy Toland.”

Tomas’s announcement echoed off the walls in the near-empty CARD command post as Evelyn leaped to her feet.

Beside her, Kyle stood more slowly. “Alive?”

“Yes.” Tomas turned back the way he’d come. “She escaped. I’m going to the hospital to talk to her now. I want you to come, Evelyn.”

Leaving her briefcase, Evelyn yanked photos out of the file Carly had begun, then hurried toward the door.

“I’ll stay here and keep going through this,” Kyle said. “I’ll call you if I come up with anything.”

For the past hour, they’d been reviewing the coroner’s reports on Brittany Douglas, along with everything that had come back on the cellar. Kyle was HRT now, but just like her, he’d started in a regular FBI unit. She’d started in violent crime; he’d cut his teeth working terrorism cases. He knew his way around evidence and coroners’ reports.

Evelyn nodded at him gratefully as she followed Tomas. She still couldn’t believe he’d taken time off work to stay here for her.

As soon as she had a minute that wasn’t taken up by this case, she had to figure out what was happening between them. And what it might mean for her career—if she still had one.

“Where’s Carly?” Tomas asked, striding through the near-empty station.

“Talking to Frank again. She took her partner in with her. Greg is advising.”

Tomas glanced over at her as he held open the front door. “Why Greg? Why not you? And is that going anywhere?”

“Greg was advising on Frank’s and Walter’s interviews from the beginning. He knows what’s been going on. We talked about it beforehand, but it seemed like a better idea for me to look through the information from the crime scene. And no, we don’t have anything from either interview. What do we know so far about Mandy?”

They rushed to Tomas’s car and climbed in, then Tomas peeled out of the parking lot, sirens blaring.

“We got a call from a guy on the outskirts of Rose Bay. He found Mandy wandering on his property, dirty, bleeding, confused. The ambulance already picked her up. We’re meeting them at the hospital.”

“Do Mandy’s parents know?”

“They’re on their way, too.”

“She escaped?”

Tomas nodded, his jaw a hard line as he raced through the streets of Rose Bay. “As far as we can tell. The guy who called said she wasn’t talking. She actually ran from him at first, so he yelled for his wife, and between the two of them, they convinced her they were going to help her. She refused to go in their house, so they waited outside with her for the ambulance.”

“Where exactly was she found?” Evelyn asked as Tomas swung into the hospital parking lot.

“Way out on the edge of Rose Bay. The couple whose property she showed up on live on a hundred or so acres. They spotted her in their field and went running out there. They said she came from the west, which means the same direction as the place we found Brittany and Lauren.”

Evelyn stepped out of the car, slamming the door shut. “How close?”

“Maybe a mile.”

“Could there be more cellars dug behind where we found Brittany and Lauren?”

Tomas raked a hand through his hair as he hurried toward the hospital entrance. “You know how much empty land is out there, Evelyn. Obviously we were searching the whole area, but the priority was to excavate the cellar and those older bodies.”

He held open the door and Evelyn half ran to catch up. The smell of antiseptic and sickness crept into her nostrils, reminding her of all the times she’d visited her grandma in the hospital after she’d first had her stroke. She couldn’t go into a hospital without the memories rushing back. The fear of losing her grandma, only two years after her grandpa. The fear of being all alone in the world.

“We thought we had everything we were looking for,” Tomas continued, bringing her attention back where it needed to be. “I mean, we have three older bodies and we found Lauren and Brittany. Last night, that was the right number. Our focus wasn’t on searching for more cellars.”

“But we still have a presence out there, don’t we?”

“Of course. There were cops out in that field, still working the scene this morning when Mandy went missing. There’s no way Mandy was brought there, not to that particular location.” He shook his head as he approached the front desk. “But that field stretches for hundreds of acres. Could she have been somewhere else on that land? Yeah, it’s possible.”

A nurse stepped toward them. “Come with me, Chief Lamar.”

“How is she?” Evelyn asked.

“She just got here. Her parents, too. You’ll have to wait until the doctor sees her, but I can tell you she’s pretty traumatized.”

Tomas sighed. “Shit, she’s not talking, either?”

“Not yet,” the nurse replied, leading them down a long, sterile white hallway to a different waiting room. She left them there, promising to return with the doctor soon.

“What about Lauren?” Evelyn asked, settling into the closest chair.

Tomas sat down next to her. “Not a single word,” he said. “We’ve gotten her to nod, or shake her head a few times, but that’s it.”