“Devon Goulding died on scene. Upon further investigation, we found the driver’s licenses for two other women, Natalie Draga and Kristy Kilker. As of Saturday morning, we began investigating the whereabouts of these two women. At the same time, Flora Dane returned to her apartment, where she spent some time with her mother. Shortly after one P.M. on Saturday, Rosa Dane departed her daughter’s space. And Flora has not been seen since.”
D.D. had added a timeline to the bottom of the whiteboard. She now tapped Saturday afternoon on the bar.
“We believed initially that Flora was abducted by a large man who’d posed as a building inspector days before in order to gain access to her apartment keys. However, we have tracked down the inspector, who it turns out is real enough and has no criminal record. He also has an alibi for the time in question. Which leaves us with . . .”
D.D. moved on to her second, longer column.
“Four missing persons cases: Stacey Summers, Natalie Draga, Kristy Kilker, and Flora Dane, all of which may or may not be related. One possible but now deceased perpetrator, Devon Goulding, who is connected to at least three out of the four missing women. And one body, discovered just this morning based on information from Goulding’s vehicle’s GPS. We do not have definitive ID, but believe the remains belong to Kristy Kilker. Meaning we may have found one of the women. But where are the others? And if Goulding is the one behind it all, how could Flora Dane disappear after his death?”
“Do we know she was kidnapped?” Phil spoke up, leaning back from the table with a chocolate chip cookie halfway to his mouth. “I mean, wasn’t half our suspicion based on this inspector the city housing department swore it never sent? Now that you’ve determined the visit was legit, what are we left with? Unlocked front door. Undisturbed apartment. What if Flora simply took off? Got a hot lead on Stacey Summers, freaked out we’d figure out what she was up to after she burned Goulding to death. So she disappeared on her own accord.”
D.D. shrugged—hard to argue with that line of reasoning. Still: “Call me sentimental, but if Flora planned to take off for a few days, I think she’d let her mother know, even if she simply made up some excuse. But she’d call her mom, tell her not to worry. Except, of course, she didn’t.”
“We’d never call you sentimental,” Neil assured her from the back of the room.
Phil nodded grudgingly. “Saw the mom leaving yesterday. Tough cookie, but definitely shaken up.”
“She was at Flora’s apartment,” Alex spoke up. All heads turned toward him. “At D.D.’s request, I swung by. Rosa Dane was already there. She’d brought a tin of muffins for the landlords and was waiting for me on the third-floor landing to break the crime scene tape. She’s, uh, she’s something else.”
“She baked homemade muffins in a hotel room?” D.D. was still trying to work that out.
“If you let her stay in her daughter’s apartment, she’s promised us cake.”
“You let her in?”
“Judging by the look on her face, it was going to happen. At least this way she had supervision.”
“Was an FBI officer, Dr. Keynes, with her?”
“No. Just her.”
D.D. nodded but remained frowning. Her conversation with Keynes still bugged her.
“Did Rosa notice anything?” D.D. asked at last.
“Nothing appears missing, all Flora’s clothes are intact, that sort of thing. The bed was unmade, but according to Rosa that’s not atypical. Flora isn’t a stickler for neatness. That’s more the mom’s department.”
“What did she do in the apartment?” D.D. asked.
Alex shrugged. “Walked around. Seemed to be absorbing the space. She spent a fair amount of time in her daughter’s room, reading the articles on the wall.”
“Are any of those cases Natalie Draga or Kristy Kilker?” a new detective spoke up.
“No,” D.D. answered. “Neither girl was ever reported missing. Natalie was in Boston on her own. Kristy Kilker’s mother thought her daughter was in Italy. So, in theory, Flora was focused on Stacey Summers.” She returned her attention to Phil. “Any leads from Flora’s cell phone or computer?”
“Working through both of them now. Flora was definitely fixated on the bar scene in Boston. She’d been reading up on Tonic in the days before she headed there.”
D.D. frowned. “But Stacey Summers disappeared from Birches, meaning something else would had to have put Tonic on Flora’s radar screen. What?”
Around the table, no one had any answers.
“Natalie Draga used to work at Tonic,” Carol Manley piped up. “Maybe Flora did know something we didn’t know. I mean, just because Natalie wasn’t formally declared missing doesn’t mean a friend hadn’t started asking around, hey, any of you seen Natalie lately, that kind of thing. Given Flora’s obsession, maybe such rumors caught her attention.”
D.D. nodded. Which was exactly why she’d grilled Keynes on the subject. Because Flora did have an obsession when it came to missing persons, and seemed to be better informed than even the police.
“All right,” D.D. said. “For now, let’s focus on the case we know Flora was definitely working, Stacey Summers. I want some suits paying visits to Stacey’s family and friends. Except, this time, show them Flora’s picture. Let’s see how far she got with her own investigation. Because if Flora was looking at other bars in the area, then I’m guessing one of Stacey’s friends must have mentioned something. Maybe Tonic was a nightclub they’d visited often in the past, or Stacey knew someone who worked there. Maybe Flora even figured out that another pretty girl who used to work at Tonic hasn’t been seen for months. Honestly, I have no idea. But whatever the connections are here”—D.D. drew lines between Natalie, Kristy, Goulding, and Stacey Summers—“we need to figure them out.”
“I might have one clue,” Alex offered. He’d finished his sandwich, was now wiping his hands. “On the fire escape outside Flora’s apartment, I found traces of glitter.”
“Glitter?” D.D. didn’t mean to sound so dubious; it just wasn’t the type of clue she’d expected.
“Hey, for us crime scene geeks, glitter is the new duct tape.”
“I don’t even understand that statement,” D.D. assured her husband. Around the table, her fellow detectives were nodding.
Alex leaned forward. “Glitter is nearly perfect trace evidence. It’s very easy to transfer while also being highly unique. Better yet, like duct tape, there are extensive databases available to help determine the particular source of the glitter in question. For example, glitter is present in everything from women’s makeup to greeting cards to various clothing items. Needless to say, the size, color, cut of each of these sources is different. Better yet, on a microscopic level, you can tie an individual piece of glitter to a specific cutting machine from a specific manufacturer, proving once and for all the glitter found on the victim’s bed definitely came from the same source as the glitter on the killer’s fancy shirt. Good stuff, glitter.”
“So what did you find on the fire escape?”
“I found traces of gold on the handrail, I’m guessing transferred from contact with a subject’s hand. With Rosa’s help, I examined Flora’s clothing. No sources of glitter there. No glitter in the bed either, which would have occurred if Flora had gotten some on her skin, say, when she was out and about, then transferred it to her sheets when she tucked in at night. She did have glitter in some of her cosmetic products, but those particles are too fine to match with the fire escape sample.”
“What does that mean?” D.D. asked him.
“It means someone was out on the fire escape with traces of glitter on his hands, clothes, et cetera.”
“And that helps us how?”
“Find a suspect, we can use glitter to place him or her on Flora’s fire escape. Or—” Alex’s gaze grew more thoughtful. He pointed at the circle of names D.D. had join
ed with lines on the whiteboard. “We believe these cases are all interconnected, yes?”
D.D. nodded.
“Then let’s search Devon Goulding’s house for signs of glitter. Kristy Kilker’s body as well. If we find traces matching Flora’s fire escape on either of these other sources, then there’s your proof. These cases are related.” Alex nodded solemnly. “The glitter tells us so.”
Chapter 33
THE GIRL IS INSANE. Molly, Stacey, whoever she is, has definitely been shut up too long, suffered too much trauma. I don’t know. But she’s crazy to think I’m the one who has something to do with this. I save people. Which sometimes does involve hurting others.
Devon Goulding, his skin smoking, then catching on fire.
But I only attack bad people.
And this girl here.
That doesn’t count.
I make the girl move. Actually, I advance closer and she drags herself off the mattress, away from me in the dark. Whatever. It allows me to retrieve the last shard of pine coffin from inside the mattress lining. It’s thinner than I’d like. Decent length, though.
I bring it to the door and get to work. My first challenge, trying to figure out in the dark the approximate location of the latch in the switch plate. I have to think back to other doors. It works best to stand and simply reach automatically for a doorknob.
Once I have that height, I attempt to slide in the wooden shard, only to discover that, as flimsy as it is, it’s still too thick. I sit in the dark and shred it down. Not hard really. The wood pulls away in long strips.
There’s something rhythmic to the work. Therapeutic.
Why would the girl think I had something to do with this?
A shadow looming in my doorway, voice thick with menace. An intruder who got through all my locks without ever waking me. An attacker who removed me from my apartment before I struck a single counterblow and delivered me here.
Sitting in the dark, shredding a piece of pine coffin, I feel the memory become thinner and thinner. Less a memory and more a bad dream. The man’s face . . . I can’t picture it. What did he do next? Lunge forward, I would guess, but I can’t recall. And I . . . I lay in my bed and waited for him to ambush me?
My head hurts again. I instinctively raise a hand to rub my temples, and hit myself with the tethering chain.
Which presents my next challenge. Even if I get the door open, how do I get out of the room? I doubt my tether is long enough. My handcuffs will have to go. Mine and hers, I decide. So we can work together.
Or she’ll run away. From me.
I feel bad. I don’t know why. I’m not sure how I ended up here. I don’t know what’s going on. A girl brainwashed into calling herself Molly. The delivery of pine coffins, a regular blast from the past.
Someone coming in and out of this room, and again, I never wake up, never respond to the disturbance. Because I’m drugged. Or because I’m expecting them?
I shake my head. Hard. No.
I have nothing to do with this. I don’t hurt people.
Only Devon Goulding, screaming as he clutched at his burning skull.
Only a beautiful girl who threatened to take Jacob from me.
That memory comes from nowhere. Hastily I push it away.
“Survivors do what survivors have to do,” I mutter in the dark. “Don’t second-guess your choices.”
I wish Samuel were here. I could use his calming presence in the dark.
Stacey Summers, I think in the next instance. The video of her abduction. Big guy leading her away. Proof positive someone else is involved.
Second rational thought: I’ve spent the past few weeks going all around town, various bars, restaurants, college hangouts, asking questions about Stacey Summers. Maybe I came closer than I realized to discovering the perpetrator involved. And maybe that person became suspicious, looked me up.
My story is hardly private. Please, four hundred and seventy-two days locked in a coffin? The press loved it. No aspect of my degradation, no salacious detail of my captivity, was spared front-page glory.
Not a single person understands what I went through. And yet everyone knows my story.
The nightgown, my stupid flimsy nightgown . . . I try thinking about that. Had Jacob bought me a lacy, satiny nightgown? He bought me some clothes, a summer dress. What do I recall, what did I ever mention out loud . . .
I start to shiver. Goose bumps up and down my arms. I’m going to vomit. I’m going to be ill . . .
I drop the pine shard, my breathing ragged, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
I find myself on my knees, head hanging low, trembling even more violently now and fighting the urge to be sick.
I know something I don’t want to know.
The past does matter. The past has everything to do with this.
Except I can’t afford to stop and think about it. Because the past is the past, and the only way out of this room is to move forward. Deep breath. Forget coffins, and nightgowns, and Jacob Ness. Forget everything.
I’m Flora 2.0. I have training, I have skills, and I’m going to get the fuck out of here. Save myself. Save Stacey Summers.
So, wooden sliver in the door frame. Proceed.
I want to go home.
I want to see my mother with her ugly flannel shirts, the silver fox charm nestled at the base of her throat. I want to throw my arms around her, and even if it won’t be a hug the way we used to hug, or feel the way it used to feel, I want it to be good enough. I want her to know I miss her. And I love her. And I’m sorry.
She worked so hard to get back a daughter neither of us understands at all.
She still works so hard to love me.
I wedge the pine shard into the seam around the door. Slowly but surely, I shimmy it up until I encounter resistance.
The door latch. Okay, this is where the magic needs to happen.
I pause, consider the next steps.
Best-case scenario is that I somehow succeed in suppressing the latch and pushing open the door. At which point . . .
Wounded girl can walk out. Me, I’ll only make it as far as my leash.
And we’ll be encountering . . . how many people? What kind of threat?
Not me, I insist. I am not the bogeyman in the dark. I didn’t kidnap Stacey Summers, no matter what she thinks. I certainly didn’t kidnap myself. I mean, just because I don’t remember anything after my mother left, don’t know anything about how I got into this room . . . No psychotic breaks here.
I’m not the monster.
Of course, once, a long time ago . . . My heart is beating faster again. I find myself sitting on my heels. Suddenly, all I can think of is Jacob.
Nobody wants to be a monster.
It’s true. Nobody does want to be a monster. Not even me.
And yet . . . and yet . . . and yet . . .
Now is not the time, I remind myself again. I’m getting out of this room. That’s the deal; that’s the mission.
But first there’s the matter of handcuffs.
Finally, something I’m good at. I leave the door, wooden piece still jammed into the frame. I wiggle backward to the mattress, where I give up on subtlety and, using both hands, tear at the fragile cover. I rip down long strips of thin covering. The material, old and frayed, hardly puts up a fight.
Inside, I find stuffing. It smells musty, maybe even faintly herbal. I have a sense of déjà vu, as if I should know what I’m smelling. Italian cooking? But that’s not right. I move on, registering the crumbly feel. Foam padding, I deduce, that’s disintegrated with age. I keep digging.
The mattress is thin. The kind meant to top a cot, or be used for one of those Ikea chairs that folds out into a bed, that kind of thing. It’s possible it’s just a giant slab of foam. But it didn’t feel that way, lying on it. It had sections and lu
mps and nooks and crannies.
Even cot mattresses can have coils and springs for durability. Especially in a college town like Boston, where half the apartments are furnished by Ikea, it’s possible this mattress started out in someone’s dorm before being repurposed here.
I keep digging, and sure enough . . .
Metal. Wire. Coiled inside the foam. Everything is a resource. This mattress is my resource. And I’m going to use it to get us out of here.
I’m weak, shaky, stupid with stress. It takes me much longer than it should to find the end of one of the bound coils and slowly but surely straighten it. I don’t know if I can pull it out. I don’t think I’m that strong in my current state. So I go with reworking one end of the coil.
I have these gadgets at home, see. Fashioned from plastic, they look like tiny little black clips. Except they’re not. They’re universal handcuff keys. Available from most major Internet retailers. Usually, before I go out, I tuck them in my hair, the world’s shortest bobby pins, where they’re accessible for emergency situations. Silly me, however, I never thought to sleep with them behind my ears, meaning they aren’t with me now.
But I can remake them. I’ve used them enough. I know them that well. And the thinness of the metal mattress coil is just about right.
My fingers slip in the dark. I gouge the side of my hand with the wire, hiss with the pain. But I keep going, even as I stab another finger, jab my palm, slice open the back of my hand. Both of my hands are slippery with blood by the time I deem my homemade gadget about right.
I take a break. Wipe my hands on the carpet. Steady my breathing.
“What are you doing?” the girl asks in the dark.
“Why? Still scared of me?”
“The door isn’t locked. I didn’t lock it.”
“But you unlocked it.”
“Had to. Open the door. Check on you. Those were my orders.”
“From whom? Who told you?”
“You know,” she whispers. “You know you know.”