“She didn’t believe you were a building inspector?”
“I had to show her my ID. Twice.” First flicker of emotion on his face: annoyance. “Even then, she said she’d have to call in to confirm before I could enter.” He shook his head. “Some people.”
“Did she let you in?”
“No. When she called the department, no one picked up. Plus . . .” He hesitated.
“What?” D.D. prodded him. “Plus, what?”
“Her locks. She has multiple key-in, key-out bolts. I informed her those weren’t to code. In an emergency situation, they would impede the fire department’s ability to access her apartment.”
D.D. was intrigued in spite of herself. “And how’d she take that?”
“She informed me that fire was the least of her concerns,” he said dryly. “Then she ordered me to go away; she didn’t need any bureaucrats to teach her about safety.”
“What did you do next?”
He shrugged. “Asked if I could at least check her unit for fire alarms, emergency egress.”
“She agree?”
“Please. She pointed out one alarm in the hall ceiling, which could be viewed from the doorway. Informed me I should be able to see from where I was standing that it worked just fine—the green LED light indicated it had power, while the red flashing light indicated battery backup. As for her unit’s emergency egress, I was welcome to check out the fire escape—from the outside.”
“She sounds charming,” D.D. assured him. “Can you describe her, please?”
Hayes startled, seemed surprised by this request. “I don’t know. Small. I mean . . .” He blushed. “Most girls seem tiny to me. Blond hair, kind of messy. She was dressed casual. Baggy sweats, bare feet. I don’t know. She wasn’t very friendly, that’s what I remember most.”
“And girls are generally friendly? Young, good-looking guy like you?”
He hesitated, his expression once again wary. “What do you want? Did she say something about me?”
“Why? You do something wrong? Maybe lose your temper, grow frustrated? Clearly, she wasn’t treating you with the respect you deserve.”
Hayes shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. Yeah, I inspected the Reichters’ apartment building. Yeah, I talked to some woman on the third floor. But that was it. She didn’t let me in, I didn’t push it. I made a note of the one working smoke alarm I could see, and then, yes, I walked around the building and checked out the fire escape.”
“Climb up it?”
“Of course.”
“Peer in her window?”
“What? Hey, listen to me.” Hands up now, flat on the table, his broad face flushing. “I did my job, nothing more. I don’t know what she said, but whatever it was . . . I walked the building, inspected the fire escape, that was it. Ask the Reichters. I returned all the keys to them, couldn’t have been more than fifteen, twenty minutes tops. And I can show you the draft of my report—the diagrams, everything I have to do. Fifteen, twenty minutes is about right. So whatever she said happened, it didn’t.”
“Care to take a polygraph?”
“Seriously? I mean . . . Do I need a lawyer? What happened?”
“Name Flora Dane ring a bell?”
“No. Should it?”
“That was the woman, the third-floor apartment.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, she wasn’t a talker.”
“She’s missing.”
“What?”
“She’s gone missing. Was possibly kidnapped. Saturday night. Most likely by someone who had a key to all those locks on her door.”
Hayes shut up, face going pale. He looked at D.D., then Carol Manley, then D.D. again. D.D. couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind anymore. Guilt? Innocence? Denial? Rationalization? He was sketchy, she decided. Just enough to be worth provoking.
“I gave the keys back to the landlord,” he stated now. “Whatever happened, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Easy enough to take an impression of the keys—or make an actual copy.”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
“Where were you Saturday night?”
“What?”
“Saturday night. Where were you?”
“I had a date.” Hayes sat up straighter, voice picking up. “Boston Beer Garden. I was out with a group of friends. I can get you their names.”
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“Before that?”
“Getting ready. I have a roommate. He can tell you.” Hayes nodded now. He saw his way out and he was taking it. “Look, ask my dad, ask whomever. I’m a good guy. I show up, do my job, end of story. Tuesday at the Reichters’ building . . . I don’t know what happened to that woman, but I promise you: It had nothing to do with me. Saturday night, I was out with friends and I can prove it.”
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER, back in D.D.’s office.
Carol Manley: “I don’t think that guy copied a set of keys or kidnapped Flora Danes.”
“No.”
“But if not him, who could gain that kind of access? Open a triple-locked door, grab a highly trained semiprofessional in her sleep?”
“I have no idea,” D.D. said.
“So we start back at the beginning. We look at the victim, Flora Dane.”
“Sure.”
“Well, and Stacey Summers, because maybe it’s the same guy, right? Except then there’s Devon Goulding, whom Flora killed, and the pictures of the missing women, whom maybe he killed.”
“Couldn’t be Devon Goulding,” D.D. said. “He was already dead when Flora went missing.”
Carol sighed, dragged a hand through her rumpled hair. “I’m confused,” the new detective said.
“Me too,” D.D. agreed. “Me too.”
Chapter 31
THE WOMAN WHO LOOKED LIKE MY MOM was talking on TV. Sitting alone on the bed in the cheap motel room, I stared at her image. Sound was off. I watched her lips move and felt a sense of déjà vu. For a moment, I could almost hear her say, “This is all of Flora, getting some sleep!”
I climbed off the bed, approached the TV.
A silver fox charm nestled in the hollow of her throat. I touched it, my finger so big against the small screen it obliterated all of the woman’s head. And I felt it again, that sense of déjà vu. Because I’d done this before, seen the woman who looked like my mom talking on TV. But that was months and months ago, eons ago. Way back when I was still a girl who thought I might one day go home.
Now, her picture back on TV caught me off guard. She shouldn’t still be talking about me. She shouldn’t still be missing me.
Jacob said nobody missed me anymore. Jacob said I was already dead. Jacob said my family was better off without me.
Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.
Jacob, who’d left me once again.
He’d screwed up a job. Not that he would admit to such a thing. But last month’s bender had led to last week’s delivery arriving late. Guy hadn’t been happy. Yelling on the loading dock. I don’t know what all was said. I sat inside the cab, the way good girls do, waiting for my man to return to me.
When Jacob finally climbed into the driver’s seat, he was furious, hands fisted on the steering wheel, lips set into a grim line. We’d gone straight from shipping and delivery to a truck stop. He’d parked the rig, ordered me out. Inside the convenience store, he’d loaded up on beer, a carton of smokes, and, on second thought, some chips. Then we’d hoofed it three miles, to a strip motel he’d spotted from the highway.
Once inside, it’d been beer, cigarettes, sex, except not always in that order. Eventually, I got to eat some potato chips, but that was days ago, and now I was hungry.
He’d left first thing this morning. Like he had yesterday, the day before. Where he
went, he didn’t talk about. Beer, cigarettes, sex. That was all this room was about.
Did he lose his job? He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to hit the road again. Was he broke? If he didn’t work, how would he cover the cost of the motel rooms, food, cases of beer?
What would become of me?
My mother who didn’t look like my mother. She had tears on her cheeks. She was crying on TV. More than a year later, still pleading for my safe return.
“This is all of Flora, getting some sleep!”
Footsteps outside the window. Quickly, I snapped off the TV, retreated to the bed.
Jacob walked through the door two seconds later. Wearing his usual grease-stained jeans, yellowing T-shirt, open flannel shirt. Beneath one arm, he carried a case of beer. In the other, a brown paper bag. Most likely Four Roses whiskey, which he’d down straight from the bottle.
“What are you looking at?” he asked as he caught me staring. “What? You still in your pajamas? Like it would fucking kill you to clean yourself up while I’m gone.”
I fingered the edge of my black satin nightgown, edged with cream-colored lace at the top and bottom. He’d bought it for me a couple of months ago. I thought he liked it.
He slammed down the beer. The whiskey. I eyed him up and down, desperate for some sign of food.
“What?” he demanded again, shoving a cigarette between his crooked teeth.
“We’re out of chips,” I whispered.
“Chips? That all you care about? Stuffing your face? Jesus, no wonder you’ve gotten fat.”
I didn’t say anything. My hip bones jutted out beneath the shimmer of black satin. I was many things, but probably not fat.
“Bad day?” I asked at last, not sure what to say.
“Are there any others?”
“You, um, you’ve been gone awhile.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Yesterday too. The day before.” I couldn’t look at him while I spoke. I picked at the fabric balls on the worn blue comforter.
“Jealous?” he asked. He ripped open the case of beer. Picked out the first can. “Figuring out the thrill is gone? I’m a man, you know. Ain’t no girl, ’specially not some cheap piece of trash like you, that’s gonna hold my attention for long. Maybe”—he turned, hefted up the can—“maybe I went sightseeing.”
I stilled, feeling my heart accelerate in my chest. He could be lying. He liked to torment me. But the sneer on his face, the hard look in his eyes . . .
I swallowed, pretended my hands weren’t now shaking on the comforter.
“This is all of Flora, getting some sleep.”
But who is Flora? And how could she ever go home again?
There was just me. This room. This man. My life now.
“Take me,” I heard myself say.
“What, wanna meet your replacement?”
“Sure.” I kept my voice level, forced myself to meet his gaze. “I want to see if she’s pretty enough for you.”
I’d caught him off guard. My secret weapon, my one redeeming trait. No matter how much he sought to control me, from time to time I still surprised him. And he liked it. Even now, I could see the spark of interest in his eyes. He set down the beer, gaze lingering on my thin satin slip.
“All right,” he said. “But you don’t get to change.”
I followed him out of the room barefoot, arms crossed self-consciously over my chest. For the first time, I noticed his rig now parked in front of the motel. No attached container, of course, just the sleeper cab, which was noticeable enough. He climbed aboard. Midafternoon. Sun was blazing. Where I had grown up, sun brought people outside to enjoy the weather. But down here, the heat had the opposite effect, driving everyone indoors to the comfort of air-conditioning.
No one noticed as I walked half dressed around the cab, then clambered on board. Jacob fired it to life, and off we went.
He drove in silence. I figured we’d head toward the beach, the strip of bars we’d visited the first night, where the serving girls wore short shorts and midriff-baring white Ts, a look that would’ve been better if most of the women had been younger than forty and not bloated with layers of this-is-what-half-a-dozen-thankless-kids-do-to-your-figure fat.
But he headed away from the strip, turning off the highway, down small side roads. He headed toward a neighborhood.
At the last second, he stopped, pulled over beside a strip of marshland, long-fingered grass blowing in the wind.
“We walk,” he said, looking at my bare feet, challenging me to complain.
I didn’t. I got out. Kept to the sandy side of the smoking-hot blacktop and trudged forward. Movement in the brush beside me. Could be birds. Snakes. Critters. I didn’t think about it. Just kept walking.
Jacob strolled in the middle of the road, smoking a fresh cigarette, not saying a word.
Road was broken up. Potholed in the center, crumbling at the edge. Not the best road, not the best neighborhood. Houses were small and flat, pastel colors as faded as the laundry hanging from drying lines.
I could hear dogs barking in the back, babies crying on the inside. Here and there, tired kids stood in the dusty front yards, staring at the smoking man and half-dressed girl. Jacob kept moving and so did I.
A turn here, a turn there, and then we were behind a row of houses, partially sheltered by a ridge of overgrown shrubs. Jacob slowed, his footsteps faltering.
Just for a moment, I saw something pass across his face. Yearning.
The look of a man who cared.
He stopped.
I faltered, almost ran into his back. This time, something slithered out, over my foot, and it was definitely a snake. I smothered the scream just as Jacob’s hand slapped over my mouth.
“Not one word,” he instructed hoarsely. I could see the fanatic gleam in his eyes. Whatever I was about to see, whatever we were about to do, it was very, very important to him.
I am not myself, I thought as I turned with him toward the last house on the block. Sagging black shutters, peeling pink paint, dilapidated roof. This is not me, I thought as we moved closer and closer, Jacob’s cigarette long cast aside, and now . . .
A knife at his side.
This is not Flora, I thought, a girl who once played with foxes, now standing outside a chain-link fence, peering in.
I spotted my rival immediately. Back slider of the house was open. She sat inside, in the relatively cool comfort, watching TV. She had long dark hair gathered in a loose ponytail. A faded green tank top paired with cutoff jeans. She stared at the old TV, chain-smoking, her long arms shockingly pale for these parts. But it worked for her, the dark hair, cream-colored skin. Like Snow White, all she needed now was blood-red lips.
I knew, before she ever turned around, that she was prettier than some bony New England blonde like me. No, she was dark fringed lashes, razor-sharp cheekbones, and long sultry nights.
My replacement. Jacob’s new toy.
And I realized, in the next instant, he hadn’t brought the knife for her. He’d brought the knife for me. One quick thrust and I’d be all done, rolled into the swamps for the gators to feed on. Just as he’d always promised.
“This is all of Flora, getting some sleep.”
Is that what death would feel like? Finally getting some sleep?
Inside the house, the girl turned her head. Alerted by a noise, our presence? I found myself holding my breath, while Jacob inhaled sharply beside me.
She looked older than I’d expected. Not a sweet young thing. Maybe closer to midtwenties. Which surprised me. Jacob always favored teenagers. Easier to train, he’d told me.
I glanced at him now, trying to understand.
And . . .
The look on his face. Adoration. Fixation. A man fully, hopelessly in love. A man looking at this new girl in a way he’d never,
ever looked at me.
My turn to inhale sharply, and in the next moment, I understood. This was no random girl, no spur-of-the-moment replacement.
“That’s Lindy,” I said.
“Shhh. She’ll hear you!”
“She’s still alive?”
“’Course she’s still alive!”
“You didn’t grow tired of her? Kill her and feed her to the gators?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he whispered hoarsely. “I’d never hurt her.”
“You love her.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You do. You actually . . . you love her.”
The girl in the house turned, alerted by our conversation. She rose to standing, looking in our direction.
Beside me, Jacob once more sucked in his breath. He watched her walk toward us, completely transfixed.
I knew then that I hated this girl. She was the true enemy. If Jacob had never loved her, never lost her, he wouldn’t be snatching the rest of us off of Florida beaches. Somehow, she’d inspired him; then she’d twisted him.
And now, after everything I’d survived, everything I’d done, she’d be the one who’d take Jacob from me. Because of her, Jacob would finally use that knife, then feed my body to the local wildlife. My mother would never learn what happened to me. She’d spend years talking in front of all those cameras, wearing her little fox charm and pleading for a daughter who was already dead.
I hated Jacob then. Hated him as much as I had that very first day, regaining consciousness in a coffin-shaped box.
But I hated this girl even more.
Lindy. The girl who’d started it all. The girl who’d ultimately destroy me.
Unless, of course . . .
I killed her first.
Chapter 32
WE FOUND A BODY.”
“Don’t you mean bodies?” D.D. glanced up from her desk to find Phil standing in her doorway. He was shaking his head.
“No. Body. At one of the destinations listed on Goulding’s vehicle’s GPS.”
“Kristy Kilker or Natalie Draga?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”