—
Faith paced the lobby of Xac Homage, the ridiculously named design firm that employed Pauline McGhee. The offices took up the thirtieth floor of Symphony Tower, an architecturally awkward skyscraper that loomed over the corner of Peachtree and Fourteenth Street like a large speculum. Faith shuddered at the image, thinking about what she had read in Jacquelyn Zabel’s autopsy report.
In keeping with the pretentiousness of their name, Xac Homage’s window-lined lobby was furnished with low-to-the-floor couches that were impossible to sit in without either clenching every muscle in your ass or just falling back into a slouch that you would need help getting out of. Faith would’ve gone for the slouch if she hadn’t been wearing a skirt that was prone to riding up even when she wasn’t sitting like a gangster’s whore in a rap video.
She was hungry but didn’t know what to eat. She was running out of insulin and she still wasn’t sure she was calculating the dosages correctly. She hadn’t made an appointment with the doctor Sara had recommended. Her feet were swollen and her back was killing her and she wanted to beat her head against the wall because she could not stop thinking about Sam Lawson no matter how hard she tried.
And she had a sneaking suspicion from the way Will kept giving her sidelong glances that she was acting like a raving lunatic.
“God,” Faith mumbled, pressing her forehead into the clean glass that lined the lobby. Why did she keep making so many mistakes? She wasn’t a stupid person. Or maybe she was. Maybe all these years she had been fooling herself, and she was, in fact, one of the stupidest people on earth.
She looked down at the cars inching along Peachtree Street, ants scurrying across the black asphalt. Last month at her dentist’s office, Faith had read a magazine article that posited that women were genetically wired to become clingy with the men they had sex with for at least three weeks after the event because that’s how long it took for the body to figure out whether or not it was pregnant. She had laughed at the time, because Faith had never felt clingy with men. At least not after Jeremy’s father, who had literally left the state after Faith had told him she was pregnant.
And yet, here she was checking her phone and her email every ten minutes, wanting to talk to Sam, wanting to see how he was doing and find out whether or not he was mad at her—as if what had happened was her fault. As if he had been such a magnificent lover that she couldn’t get enough of him. She was already pregnant; it couldn’t be her genetic wiring that was causing her to act like a silly schoolgirl. Or maybe it was. Maybe she was just a victim of her own hormones.
Or maybe she shouldn’t be getting her science from Ladies’ Home Journal.
Faith turned her head, watching Will in the elevator alcove. He was on his cell phone, holding it with both hands so it wouldn’t fall apart. She couldn’t be mad at him anymore. He had been good with Joelyn Zabel. She had to admit that. His approach to the job was different than hers, and sometimes that worked for them and sometimes that worked against them. Faith shook her head. She couldn’t dwell on these differences right now—not when her entire life was on the edge of a gigantic cliff, and the ground would not stop shaking.
Will finished his call and walked toward her. He glanced at the empty desk where the secretary had been. The woman had left to get Morgan Hollister at least ten minutes ago. Faith had images of the pair of them furiously shredding files, though it was more likely that the woman, a bottle blonde who seemed to have trouble processing even the smallest request, had simply forgotten about them and was on her cell phone in the bathroom.
Faith asked, “Who were you talking to?”
“Amanda,” he told her, taking a couple of candies out of the bowl on the coffee table. “She called to apologize.”
Faith laughed at the joke, and he joined her.
Will took some more candy, offering the bowl to Faith. She shook her head, and he continued, “She’s doing another press conference this afternoon. Joelyn Zabel’s dropping her lawsuit against the city.”
“What prompted that?”
“Her lawyer realized they didn’t have a case. Don’t worry, she’s going to be on the cover of some magazine next week, and the week after she’s going to be threatening to sue us again because we haven’t found her sister’s killer.”
It was the first time either of them had voiced their real fear in all of this: that the killer was good enough to get away with his crimes.
Will indicated the closed door behind the desk. “You think we should just go back?”
“Give it another minute.” She tried to wipe away her forehead print on the window, making the smear worse. The momentum of the tension between them had somehow shifted in the ride over, so that Will was no longer worried about Faith being mad at him. It was now Faith’s turn to be worried that she’d upset him.
She asked, “Are we okay?”
“Sure we’re okay.”
She didn’t believe him, but there was no way around someone who kept insisting there wasn’t a problem, because all they would do is keep insisting until you felt like you were making the whole thing up.
She said, “Well, at least we know that bitchiness runs in the Zabel family.”
“Joelyn’s all right.”
“It’s hard to be the good sibling.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you’re the good kid in the family, making good grades, staying out of trouble, et cetera, and your sister’s always screwing up and getting all the attention, you start to feel left out, like no matter how good you are, it doesn’t matter because all your parents can focus on is your crappy sibling.”
She must have sounded bitter, because Will asked, “I thought your brother was a good guy?”
“He is,” Faith told him. “I was the bad one who got all the attention.” She chuckled. “I remember one time, he asked my parents if they would just give him up for adoption.”
Will gave a half-smile. “Everyone wants to be adopted.”
She remembered Joelyn Zabel’s awful words about her sister’s quest for a child. “What Joelyn said—”
He interrupted her. “Why did her lawyer keep calling Amanda ‘Mandy’?”
“It’s short for Amanda.”
He nodded thoughtfully, and Faith wondered if nicknames were another one of his tics. It would make sense. You would have to know how a name was spelled before you could shorten it.
“Did you know that sixteen percent of all known serial killers were adopted?”
Faith wrinkled her brow. “That can’t be right.”
“Joel Rifkin, Kenneth Bianchi, David Berkowitz. Ted Bundy was adopted by his stepfather.”
“How is it that you’re suddenly an expert on serial killers?”
“History Channel,” he told her. “Trust me, it comes in handy.”
“When do you find time to watch so much television?”
“It’s not like I’ve got a busy social life.”
Faith looked back out the window, thinking about Will with Sara Linton this morning. From reading the report on Jeffrey Tolliver, Faith gathered he was exactly the kind of cop Will was not: physical, take-charge, willing to do whatever it took to get a case solved. Not that Will wasn’t driven, too, but he was more likely to stare a confession out of a suspect instead of beating it out of him. Faith knew instinctively that Will was not Sara Linton’s type, which was why she had felt so sorry for him this morning, watching how awkward he was with the woman.
He must have been thinking about this morning, too, because he said, “I don’t know her apartment number.”
“She’s in the Milk Lofts over on Berkshire.”
“There’s bound to be a building di—” Faith stopped herself. “I can write out her last name for you so you can compare it to the directory. There can’t be that many tenants.”
He shrugged, obviously daunted.
“We could look it up online.”
“She’s probably not listed.”
The door opened and the bottle-blonde secretary was back. Behind her was an extremely tall, extremely tanned and extremely good-looking man in the most beautiful suit Faith had ever seen.
“Morgan Hollister,” he offered, extending a hand as he walked across the room. “I’m so sorry I left you out here so long. I was on a conference call with a client in New York. This thing with Pauline has put a real spanner in the works, as they say.”
Faith wasn’t sure who said that sort of thing, but she forgave him as she shook his hand. He was at once the most attractive and most gay man she had met in a while. Considering they were in Atlanta, the gay capital of the South, this was saying quite a lot.
“I’m Agent Trent, this is Agent Mitchell,” Will said, somehow ignoring the predatory way Morgan Hollister stared at him.
“You work out?” Morgan asked.
“Free weights, mostly. A little bench work.”
Morgan slapped him on the arm. “Solid.”
“I appreciate your letting us look through Pauline’s things,” Will said, although Morgan had made no such offer. “I know the Atlanta police have already been here. I hope it’s not too inconvenient.”
“Of course not.” Morgan put his hand on Will’s shoulder as he led him toward the door. “We’re really torn up about Paulie. She was a great girl.”
“We’ve heard she could be a bit difficult to work with.”
Morgan gave a chuckle, which Faith understood as code for “typical woman.” She was glad to hear that sexism was just as rampant in the gay community.
Will asked, “Does the name Jacquelyn Zabel mean anything to you?”
Morgan shook his head. “I work with all the clients. I’m pretty sure I’d remember it, but I can check the computer.” He put on a sad face. “Poor Paulie. This came as such a shock to all of us.”
“We found temporary placement for Felix,” Will told the man.
“Felix?” He seemed confused, then said, “Oh, right, the little guy. I’m sure he’ll be okay. He’s a trouper.”
Morgan led them down a long hallway. Cubicles were on their right, windows looking out onto the interstate behind them. Material swatches and schematics littered the desktops. Faith glanced at a set of blueprints spread out on a conference table, feeling slightly wistful.
As a child, she had wanted to be an architect, a dream that was derailed promptly at the age of fourteen when she was kicked out of school for being pregnant. It was different now, of course, but back then, pregnant teenagers were expected to drop off the face of the earth, their names never mentioned again unless it was in reference to the boy who had knocked them up, and then they were only referred to as “that slut who nearly ruined his life by getting pregnant.”
Morgan stopped in front of a closed office door. Pauline McGhee’s name was on the outside. He took out a key.
Will asked, “You always keep it locked?”
“Paulie did. One of her things.”
“She have a lot of things?”
“She had a way she liked to do stuff.” Morgan shrugged. “I gave her a free hand. She was good with paperwork, good at keeping subcontractors in line.” His smile dropped. “Of course, there was a problem there at the end. She messed up a very important order. Cost the firm a lot of money. Not sure she’d still be here if something hadn’t happened.”
If Will was wondering why Morgan was talking about Pauline as if she was dead, he didn’t press it. Instead, he held out his hand for the key. “We’ll lock up when we’re finished.”
Morgan hesitated. He had obviously assumed he would be there while they searched the office.
Will said, “I’ll bring it back to you when we’re finished, all right?”
He slapped Morgan on the arm. “Thanks, man.” Will turned his back to him and went inside the office. Faith followed, pulling the door shut behind her.
She had to ask, “That doesn’t bother you?”
“Morgan?” He shrugged. “He knows I’m not interested.”
“But, still—”
“There were a lot of gay kids at the children’s home. Most of them were a hell of a lot nicer than the straight ones.”
She couldn’t imagine any parent giving up their child for any reason, especially that one. “That’s awful.”
Will obviously didn’t want to have a conversation about it. He looked around the office, saying, “I’d call this austere.”
Faith had to agree. Pauline’s office appeared as if it had never been occupied. There was not a scrap of paper on the desktop. The in and out trays were empty. The design books on the shelves were all arranged in alphabetical order, spines straightened. The magazines stood crisply at attention in colored boxes. Even the computer monitor seemed to be at a precise forty-five-degree angle on the corner of the desk. The only thing of sentimental value on display was a snapshot of Felix on a swing set.
“ ‘He’s a little trouper,’ ” Will said, mocking Morgan’s words about Pauline’s son. “I called the social worker last night. Felix isn’t handling it very well.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Crying a lot. He won’t eat.”
Faith stared at the photograph, the unchecked joy in the young boy’s eyes as he beamed at his mother. She remembered Jeremy at that age. He’d been so sweet she’d wanted to eat him up like a piece of candy. Faith had just graduated from the police academy and moved into a cheap apartment off Monroe Drive; the first time either she or Jeremy had lived away from Faith’s mother. Their lives had become intertwined in a way she had never known was possible. He was so much a part of her that she could barely stand to drop him off at day care. At night, Jeremy would color pictures while she filled out her daily reports at the kitchen table. He would sing songs to her in his squeaky little voice while she fixed him supper and made lunches for the next day. Sometimes, he would crawl into bed and curl up under her arm like a kitten. She had never felt so important or needed—not before and certainly not since.
“Faith?” Will had said something she’d missed.
She put the photograph back on Pauline’s desk before she started bawling like a baby. “Yeah?”
“I said, what do you want to bet Jacquelyn Zabel’s house in Florida was neat like this?”
Faith cleared her throat, trying to shift her focus. “The room she was using in her mother’s house was extremely orderly. I thought it was something she did because the rest of the house was so messy—you know, calm in the storm. Maybe it’s because she’s a neat freak.”
“Type A personality.” Will walked around the desk, opening drawers. Faith looked at what he’d found—a row of colored pencils side by side in a plastic tray. Extra Post-it notes in a squared stack. He opened the next drawer and found a large binder, which he pulled out and put on the desk. He thumbed through the pages, and Faith saw room sketches, swatches, clippings of furniture photos.
Faith booted up the computer while he looked through the other drawers. She was pretty sure they would find nothing here, but, oddly, it felt as if what they were doing was helping the case. She was clicking with Will again, feeling more like his partner and less like an adversary. That had to be a good thing.
“Look at this.” Will had opened the bottom drawer on the left side. It was a mess—the equivalent of a kitchen junk drawer. Papers were wadded up, and at the bottom were several empty bags of potato chips.
Faith said, “At least we know she’s human.”
“It’s weird,” he said. “Everything’s so neat except this one drawer.”
Faith picked up a balled piece of paper and smoothed it against the desk. There was a list on it, items checked off as they had probably been completed: grocery store; get lamp fixed for Powell living room; contact Jordan about couch swatches. She took out another balled piece of paper, finding much the same.
Will asked, “Maybe she wadded them up once she finished doing what she needed to do?”
Faith squinted at the list, blurring her eyes, trying to see it the way Will would. He was so damn good at fooling people into thinking he could read that sometimes Faith forgot he even had a problem.
Will searched the bookcase, taking down a magazine box from one of the middle shelves. “What’s this?” He pulled down another box, then another. Faith could see the dial of a safe.
Will tried the handle, but there was no luck. He ran his fingers along the seam. “It’s concreted into the wall.”
“You want to go ask your buddy Morgan for the combination?”
“I’d bet some serious money he doesn’t know it.”
Faith didn’t take the bet. Like Jacquelyn Zabel, Pauline McGhee seemed to enjoy keeping secrets.
Will said, “Check the computer first, then I’ll go look for him.”
Faith looked at the monitor. There was a box asking for a password.
Will saw it, too. “Try ‘Felix.’ ”
She did, and miraculously, it worked. She made a mental note to change her password from “Jeremy” at home as she clicked open the email program. Faith skimmed the messages as Will went back to the bookshelves. She found the usual correspondence from people working in an office, but nothing personal that would point to a friend or confidant. Faith sat back in the chair and opened the browser, hoping to find an email service in the history. There was no Gmail or Yahoo, but she discovered several websites.
Randomly, she clicked on one, and a YouTube page came up. She checked the sound as the video loaded. A guitar squeaked through the speakers on the bottom of a monitor, and the words, “I am happy,” came up, then, “I am smiling.”
Will stood behind her. She read the words as they faded into the black. “I am feeling. I am living. I am dying.”
The guitar turned angrier with each word, and a photograph came up of a young girl in a cheerleading outfit. The shorts were low on her hips, the top barely enough to cover her breasts. She was so thin that Faith could count her ribs.
“Jesus,” she mumbled. Another picture faded in, this one of an African-American girl. She was balled up on a bed, her back to the camera. Her skin was stretched, her vertebrae and ribs pronounced enough to show each individual piece of bone pressing against the thin flesh. Her shoulder blade stuck out like a knife.
“Is this some kind of relief site?” Will asked. “Money for AIDS?”
Faith shook her head as the next picture came up—a model standing in front of a cityscape, her legs and arms as thin as sticks. Another girl came up; a woman actually. Her clavicle jutted out with painful sharpness. The skin across her shoulders looked like wet paper covering the sinew underneath.
Faith clicked on the browser history button. She pulled up another video. There was different music, but the same sort of intro. She read aloud, “Eat to live. Don’t live to eat.” The words faded into a photo of a girl who was so painfully thin that she was hard to look at. Faith opened another page, then another. “The only freedom left is the freedom to starve yourself.” she read. “Thin is beautiful. Fat is ugly.” She looked at the top of the screen, the video category. “Thinspo. I’ve never heard of it.”
“I don’t understand. These girls look like they’re starving, but they’ve got TVs in their rooms, they’re wearing nice clothes.”
Faith clicked on another link. “Thinspiration,” she said. “Good Lord, I can’t believe this. They’re emaciated.”
“Is there a newsgroup or something?”
Faith looked back at the history. She skimmed the list, finding more videos, but nothing that looked like a chat room. She scrolled to the next page and hit pay dirt. “Atlanta-Pro-Anna-dot-com,” she read. “It’s a pro-anorexia site.” Faith clicked on the link, but all that came up was another screen asking for a password. She tried “Felix” again, but it didn’t work. She read the fine print. “It’s asking for a six-digit password and Felix is only five letters.” She typed in variations on his name, saying them aloud for Will’s benefit. “Zero-Felix, one-Felix, Felix-zero …”
Will asked, “How many letters is ‘thinspiration’?”
“Too many,” she said. “ ‘Thinspo’ is seven.” She tried this, to no avail.
Will asked, “What’s her screen name?”
Faith read the name in the box above the password. “A-T-L thin.” She realized spelling wouldn’t help him. “It’s shorthand for ‘Atlanta thin.’ ” She entered in the screen name. “No dice. Oh.” Faith mentally kicked herself. “Felix’s birthday.” She opened up the calendar program and did a search for “birthday.” Only two hits came up, one for Pauline and one for her son. “One-two-eight-oh-three.” The screen stayed stagnant. “Nope, didn’t work.”
He nodded, absently scratching his arm. “Safes have six-digit combinations, right?”
“Couldn’t hurt to try it.” Faith waited, but Will did not move. “One-two-oh-eight-oh-three,” she repeated, knowing he was perfectly capable of processing numbers. Still he didn’t move, and finally she felt something in her brain click. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s my fault.”
“It’s mine.” She stood up and went to the safe, spinning the dial to the right, locking onto the twelve, then going left two turns and dialing in eight. It wasn’t the numbers Will couldn’t manage. It was the left and right.
Faith dialed in the last number, and was slightly disappointed it had been so easy when she heard the instant thunk of the last tumbler falling into place. She opened the safe and saw a spiral-bound notebook, the sort of thing every schoolkid had, and a single piece of laser paper. She skimmed the page. It was a printed-out email dealing with measuring an elevator so a couch could fit in it, something Faith had never considered had to be done, even though the first refrigerator she’d bought had been too big to fit through the kitchen door. “Work stuff,” she told Will, taking out the notebook.
She flipped open the cover to the first page. The hair on the back of her neck went up, and Faith suppressed a shudder as she realized what she was seeing. Neat cursive lined the page, over and over again, the same line. Faith flipped to the next page, then the next. The words had been traced so hard in places that the pen ripped the paper. She was not one to believe in the supernatural, but the anger she felt coming out of the notebook was palpable.
“It’s the same, right?” Will had probably recognized the spacing of the lines, the same short sentence repeatedly written, covering the notebook like a sadistic form of art.
I will not deny myself … I will not deny myself … I will not deny myself …
“The same,” Faith confirmed. “This connects Pauline to the cave, to Jackie Zabel and Anna.”
“It’s in pen,” Will said. “The pages in the cave were in pencil.”
“It’s the same sentence, though. I will not deny myself. Pauline wrote this on her own, not because she had to. No one made her do it. As far as we know, she was never in that cave.” Faith thumbed through the pages, making sure it was the same to the end of the notebook. “Jackie Zabel was thin. Not like the girls in the videos, but very thin.”
“Joelyn Zabel said her sister weighed the same weight when she died as she did in high school.”
“You think she had an eating disorder?”
“I think she had a lot of the same attributes that Pauline has—likes to be in control, likes to keep secrets.” He added, “Pete thought Jackie was malnourished, but maybe she was starving herself already.”
“What about Anna? Is she thin?”
“Same thing. You could see her …” He put his hand to his collarbone. “We thought it was part of the torture—starving them. But, those girls in the videos, they do that on purpose, right? These videos are like pornography for anorexics.”
Faith nodded, feeling a rush as she made the next connection. “Maybe they all met on the Internet.” She went back to the password box overlaying the Pro-Anna chat room and entered Felix’s birthday in every combination she could think of—leaving out the zeros, adding them back in, doing the full date, reversing the numbers. “It could be that Pauline was assigned a password she couldn’t change.”
“Or maybe what’s in that chat room is more valuable to her than what’s on the rest of the computer and in the safe.”
“This is a connection, Will. If all the women had eating disorders, then we finally have something that links them all.”
“And a chat room we can’t get into, and family that isn’t being exactly helpful.”
“What about Pauline McGhee’s brother? She told Felix that he was a bad man.” She turned away from the computer, giving Will her full attention. “Maybe we should go back to Felix and see if he remembers anything else.”
Will seemed dubious. “He’s only six years old, Faith. He’s bereft about losing his mom. I don’t think we can get anything else out of him.”
They both jumped when the phone on the desk rang. Faith reached for it without thinking, saying, “Pauline McGhee’s office.”
“Hello.” Morgan Hollister sounded none too pleased.
Faith asked, “Did you find Jacquelyn Zabel in your books?”
“ ’Fraid not, Detective, but—funny thing—I’ve got a call for you on line two.”
Faith shrugged at Will as she pressed the lighted button. “Faith Mitchell.”
Leo Donnelly went straight into a tirade. “Didn’t occur to you to check with me before barging in on my case?”
Faith’s mouth filled with apologies, but Leo didn’t give her time to get them out.
“I got a call from my boss who got a call from your butt-boy Hollister asking why the state was pawing through McGhee’s office when we’d already been through everything this morning.” He was breathing hard. “My boss, Faith. He’s wanting to know why I can’t do my job on this thing. You know how that makes me look?”
“It’s connected,” Faith said. “We found a connection between Pauline McGhee and our other victims.”
“I’m real fucking happy for you, Mitchell. Meanwhile, my balls are in a vise because you couldn’t take two seconds to stop and give me a heads-up.”
“Leo, I’m so sorry—”
“Save it,” he snapped. “I should hold this back from you, but I’m not that kind of guy.”
“Hold what back?”
“We’ve got another missing person.”
Faith felt her heart do a double beat. “Another missing woman?” she repeated, for Will’s benefit. “Does she match our profile?”
“Midthirties, dark hair, brown eyes. She works at some fancy bank in Buckhead where you gotta be filthy rich just to walk in the door. No friends. Everybody says she’s a major bitch.”
Faith nodded at Will. Another victim, another clock ticking down. “What’s her name? Where does she live?”
“Olivia Tanner.” He shot out the name and address so fast that she had to ask him to repeat it. “She’s in Virginia Highland.”
Faith scribbled the street address on the back of her hand.
He said, “You owe me for this.”
“Leo, I’m so sorry I—”
He didn’t let her finish. “If I were you, Mitchell, I’d watch myself. Except for the successful part, you’re looking a hell of a lot like that profile lately.”
She heard a soft click, which in some ways was worse than him slamming down the receiver in her ear.
Olivia Tanner lived in one of those deceptively small-looking Midtown bungalows that from the street appeared to be around a thousand square feet but ended up having six bedrooms and five and a half baths, with a price tag running slightly north of a million dollars. After being in Pauline McGhee’s office, seeing the missing woman’s psyche laid bare, Faith looked at Olivia Tanner’s house differently than she would have otherwise. The flower garden was beautiful, but all the plants were lined up in uniform rows. The outside of the house was crisply painted, the gutters in a graceful line along the eaves. Based on Faith’s knowledge of the neighborhood, the bungalow was probably thirty years older than her own lowly ranch house, but comparatively speaking, it looked brand-new.
“All right,” Will said into his cell phone. “Thank you for talking to me.” He ended the call, telling Faith, “Joelyn Zabel says that her sister struggled with anorexia and bulimia when she was in high school. She’s not sure what was going on recently, but it’s a pretty fair bet that Jackie hadn’t given it up.”
Faith let the information settle in her brain. “Okay,” she finally said.
“That’s it. That’s the connection.”
“Where does it get us?” she asked, turning off the ignition. “Tech can’t break into Jackie Zabel’s Mac. It might take weeks for them to find the password on Pauline McGhee’s computer, and we don’t even know if the anorexia chat room is where she met the other women or if it was just something she cruised during her lunch hour. Not that she ate lunch.” She looked back up at Olivia Tanner’s house. “What do you want to bet we don’t find a damn thing here, either?”
“You’re focusing on Felix when you need to be thinking about Pauline,” he said softly.
Faith wanted to tell him he was wrong, but it was true. All she could think about was Felix in some foster home, crying his eyes out. She needed to concentrate on the victims, the fact that Jacquelyn Zabel and Anna were precursors to Pauline McGhee and Olivia Tanner. How long could the two women endure the torture, the degradation? Every minute that passed was another minute they would suffer.
Every minute that passed was another minute Felix was without his mother.
Will told her, “The way we help Felix is to help Pauline.”
Faith breathed a heavy sigh. “It’s really starting to annoy me that you know me so well.”
“Please,” he muttered. “You are an enigma wrapped in a sticky bun.” He opened the car door and got out. She watched him walk toward the house with a determined stride.
Faith got out of the car and followed him, noting, “No garage, no BMW.” After her awful phone call with Leo, she had followed up with the desk sergeant who took the initial report on Olivia Tanner’s disappearance. The woman drove a blue BMW 325, hardly distinctive in this neighborhood. Tanner was single, worked as a vice president at a local bank, had no children, and her only living relative was her brother.
Will tried the front door. Locked. “What’s keeping the brother?”
Faith checked her watch. “His plane landed an hour ago. If traffic’s bad …” She let her voice trail off. Traffic was always bad in Atlanta, especially around the airport.
He leaned down, checking under the welcome mat for a key. When that didn’t work, he ran his hand along the top of the doorsill and checked the flowerpots, coming up empty. “You think we should just go in?”
Faith suppressed a comment about his eagerness to commit breaking and entering. She had worked with him long enough to know that frustration could act like adrenaline to Will, while it acted like Valium to Faith. “Let’s give him another few minutes.”
“We should go ahead and call a locksmith in case the brother doesn’t have a key.”
“Let’s just take this slow, all right?”
“You’re talking to me the way you talk to witnesses.”
“We don’t even know if Olivia Tanner is one of our victims. She could end up being bottle blonde and vibrant with tons of friends and a dog.”
“The bank said she hasn’t missed a day of work since she started there.”
“She could’ve fallen down the stairs. Decided to skip town. Run away with a stranger she met in a bar.”
Will didn’t answer. He cupped his hands and peered into the front windows, trying to see inside. The uniformed patrolman who had taken the missing persons report yesterday would have already done this, but Faith let him waste his time as they waited for Michael Tanner, Olivia’s brother, to show up.
Despite his anger, Leo had done them a solid by handing over the call. Procedure would have dictated a detective be assigned to the case. Depending on what the detective had on his books, it might have taken as long as twenty-four hours for Michael Tanner to talk to someone who could do more than fill out a report. From there, it might’ve taken another day before the GBI was alerted to a match on their profile. Leo had bought them two precious days on a case that desperately needed help. And they had kicked him in the teeth in the way of thanks.
Faith felt her BlackBerry start to vibrate. She checked the mail, saying a silent thank-you to Caroline, Amanda’s assistant. “I’ve got Jake Berman’s arrest report from the Mall of Georgia incident.”
“What’s it say?”
Faith watched the flashing file transfer icon. “It’ll take a few minutes to download.”
He walked around the house, checking each window. Faith followed him, keeping her BlackBerry in front of her like a divining rod. Finally, the first page of the report loaded, and she read from the narrative title. “ ‘Pursuant to complaints made by patrons of the Mall of Georgia …’ ” Faith scrolled down, looking for the relevant parts. “ ‘Suspect then made the typical hand gesture indicating he was interested in sexual intercourse. I responded by nodding my head twice, at which point he directed me back toward the stalls at the rear of the men’s room.’ ” She skimmed down some more. “ ‘Suspect’s wife and two sons, approximately age one and three, were waiting outside.’ ”
“Is the wife’s name listed?”
“No.”
Will walked up the steps of the deck that lined the back of Olivia Tanner’s house. Atlanta was in the piedmont of the Appalachians, which meant it was riddled with hills and valleys. Olivia Tanner’s bungalow was at the base of a steep slope, giving her backyard neighbors a clear view of her house.
“Maybe they saw something?” Will suggested.
Faith looked at the neighbor’s house. It was huge, the sort of McMansion you usually only saw in the suburbs. The top two stories had large decks and the basement had a terraced seating area with a brick fireplace. All the shutters and blinds on the back of the house were closed except for a pair of curtains that were pulled back on one of the basement doors.
“Looks empty,” she said.
“Probably a foreclosure.” Will tried Olivia Tanner’s back door. It was locked. “Olivia has been missing since at least yesterday. If she’s one of our victims, that means she was either taken right before or right after Pauline.” He checked the windows. “Are we thinking Jake Berman might be Pauline McGhee’s brother?”
“It’s possible,” Faith conceded. “Pauline warned Felix that her brother was dangerous. She didn’t want him around her kid.”
“She must have been scared of him for a reason. Maybe he’s violent. Maybe the brother is the reason Pauline moved away and changed her name. She cut all ties at a very young age. She must have been terrified of him.”
Faith listed it out. “Jake Berman was at the scene of the crime. He’s disappeared. He wasn’t very cooperative as a witness. He hasn’t left a paper trail except for the one arrest for indecent exposure.”
“If Berman is an alias Pauline’s brother is using, then it’s pretty established. He was arrested and went through the system with the name intact.”
“If he changed it twenty years ago when Pauline ran away from home, that’s a lifetime as far as public records are concerned. They were still playing catch-up, trying to enter info and old cases into computers. A lot of those files never made the transition, especially in small towns. Look at how hard it’s been for Leo to track down Pauline’s parents, and they filed a missing persons report.”
“How old is Berman?”
Faith scrolled back to the front of the report. “Thirty-seven.”
Will stopped. “Pauline is thirty-seven. Could they be twins?”
Faith rifled around in her purse and found the black-and-white copy of Pauline McGhee’s driver’s license. She tried to recall Jake Berman’s face, but then remembered she was holding his file in her other hand. The BlackBerry was still loading. She held it up above her head, hoping the signal would get stronger.
“Let’s go back to the front of the house,” Will suggested. They went around the other side, Will checking the windows, making sure nothing looked suspicious. By the time they reached the front porch, the file had finally downloaded.
Jake Berman had a full beard in his arrest photo—the sort of unkempt kind that suburban dads sported when they were trying to look subversive. Faith showed Will the picture. “He was clean-shaven when I talked to him,” she said.
“Felix said the man who took his mother had a mustache.”
“He couldn’t have grown one that quickly.”
“We can get a sketch of what Jake would look like without facial hair, with a mustache, whatever.”
“It’s Amanda’s call whether or not we put that out on the wire.” Releasing a sketch could make Jake Berman panic and go even deeper into hiding. If he was their bad guy, it could also serve to tip him off He might decide to kill any witnesses and leave the state—or worse, the country. Hartsfield International Airport offered over twenty-five hundred flights in and out of the city every day.
Will said, “He’s got dark hair and dark eyes like Pauline.”
“So do you.”
Will shrugged, admitting, “He doesn’t look like her twin. Maybe her brother.”
Faith was being stupid again. She checked the birthdays. “Berman had a birthday after he was arrested. He was born eighteen months before Pauline. Irish twins.”
“Was he wearing a suit when he was arrested?”
She scrolled through the file. “Jeans and a sweater. Same as when I talked to him at Grady.”
“Does the report list his occupation?”
Faith checked. “Unemployed.” She read the other details, shaking her head. “This is such a sloppy report. I can’t believe a lieutenant passed this on.”
“I’ve done those stings before. You get ten, maybe fifteen guys a day. Most of them plead it down or just pay the fine and hope it goes away. You’re not going to be going to court, because the last thing they want to do is face their accuser.”
“What’s the ‘typical hand gesture’ they use to ask for sex?” Faith asked, curious.
Will did something absolutely obscene with his fingers, and she wished she hadn’t asked.
He insisted, “There has to be a reason Jake Berman is hiding.”
“What are our options? He’s either a deadbeat, he’s Pauline’s brother or he’s our bad guy. Or all three.”
“Or none,” Will pointed out. “Either way, we’ve got to talk to him.”
“Amanda’s got the whole team looking for him. They’re doing all the derivations on his name they can think of—Jake Seward, Jack Seward. They’re trying McGhee, Jackson, Jakeson. The computer will run the permutations.”
“What’s his middle name?”
“Henry. So, we’ve got Hank, Harry, Hoss …”
“How can he have an arrest record and we still can’t find him?”
“He’s not using credit cards. He doesn’t have a cell phone bill or a mortgage. None of his last known addresses have given up anything useful. We don’t know who his employer is or where he’s worked in the past.”
“Maybe it’s all in his wife’s name—the name we don’t have.”
“If my husband got caught getting his willy winked at the mall while I was standing outside with our kids …” Faith didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “It would help if the lawyer who handled his public indecency case wasn’t a total prick.” The man was refusing to divulge any of his client’s information and insisted he had no way to get in touch with Jake Berman. Amanda was filing warrants to look into the files, but warrants like that took time—something they were running out of.
A blue Ford Escape pulled up in front of the house. The man who got out of the car looked like the textbook example of anxiety, from his wrinkled brow to the way he was wringing his hands in front of his slightly paunched belly. He was average looking, balding, with stooped shoulders. Faith would have pegged his occupation as one that required him to sit in front of a computer for more than eight hours a day.
“Are you the police officers I spoke with?” the man asked brusquely. Then, perhaps realizing how abrupt he had been, he tried again. “I’m sorry, I’m Michael Tanner, Olivia’s brother. Are you the police?”
“Yes, sir.” Faith pulled out her ID. She introduced herself and Will. “Do you have a key to your sister’s house?”
Michael seemed worried and embarrassed at the same time, as if this could all just be a misunderstanding. “I’m not sure we should be doing this. Olivia likes her personal space.”
Faith caught Will’s eye. Another woman who was good at putting up boundaries.
Will offered, “We can call a locksmith if we need to. It’s important we see inside the house in case anything happened. Olivia might’ve fallen, or—”
“I’ve got a key.” Michael fished into his pocket and pulled out a single key on a springy band. “She mailed it to me three months ago. I don’t know why. She just wanted me to have it. I guess because she knew I wouldn’t use it. Maybe I shouldn’t use it.”
Will said, “You wouldn’t have flown all the way from Houston unless you thought that something was wrong.”
Michael’s face went white, and Faith caught a glimpse of what the last few hours of his life must have been like—driving to the airport, getting on the plane, renting a car, all the while thinking that he was being foolish, that his sister was fine. All the while knowing in the back of his brain that the exact opposite was probably true.
Michael handed Will the key. “The policeman I spoke with yesterday said he sent a patrolman to knock on the door.” He paused, as if he needed them to confirm this had happened. “I was worried they weren’t taking me seriously. I know Olivia is a grown woman, but she’s a creature of habit. She doesn’t depart from her routine.”
Will unlocked the door and went inside the house. Faith kept the brother on the porch. She asked him, “What’s her routine?”
He closed his eyes for a moment as if to collect his thoughts. “She works at the private bank in Buckhead, has for almost twenty years. She goes in six days a week—every day but Monday, when she does her shopping and other chores: cleaners, library, grocery store. She’s in the bank by eight, out by eight most nights unless there’s some kind of event. Her job is community relations. If there’s a party or a fundraiser or something the bank is sponsoring, she has to be there. Otherwise, she’s always at home.”
“Did the bank call you?”
He put his hand to his throat, rubbing a bright red scar. Faith guessed he’d had a tracheotomy or some type of throat surgery.
He said, “The bank didn’t have my phone number. I called them when I didn’t hear from Olivia yesterday morning. I called them when I landed. They have no idea where she is. She’s never missed work before.”
“Do you have a recent picture of your sister?”
“No.” He seemed to realize why she wanted the photograph. “I’m sorry. Olivia hated to be photographed. Always.”
“That’s okay,” Faith assured him. “We’ll pull it from her driver’s license if we need to.”
Will came down the stairs. He shook his head, and Faith led the man into the house. She tried to make small talk, telling Michael, “This is a beautiful home.”
“I’ve never seen it before,” he confessed. He was looking around like Faith, probably thinking the same thing she was: The place was like a museum.
The front hall went all the way back to the kitchen, which gleamed with white marble countertops and white cabinets. The stairs were carpeted in a white runner, and the living room was equally Spartan; everything from the walls to the furniture to the rug on the floor was a pristine white. Even the art on the wall consisted of white canvases in white frames.
Michael shivered. “It’s so cold in here.”
Faith knew he didn’t mean the temperature.
She led both men into the living room. There was a couch and two chairs, but she didn’t know whether to sit or stand. Finally, she sat on the couch, the cushion so hard that she barely made a dent. Will took the chair beside her and Michael sat at the other end of the couch.
She said, “Let’s take it from the beginning, Mr. Tanner.”
“Doctor,” he said, then frowned. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter. Please call me Michael.”
“All right, Michael.” Faith kept her voice calm, soothing, sensing he was close to panic. She started with an easy question. “You’re a doctor?”
“A radiologist.”
“You work at a hospital?”
“The Methodist Breast Center.” He blinked his eyes, and she realized he was trying not to cry.
Faith got to the point. “What made you call the police yesterday?”
“Olivia calls me every day now. She didn’t do that before. We weren’t close for many years, then she went off to college and we drifted even farther apart.” He gave them a weak smile. “I got cancer two years ago. Thyroid.” He touched his hand to the scar on his neck again. “I just felt an emptiness?” He said this as a question, and Faith nodded as if she understood. “I wanted to be with my family. I wanted to have Olivia back in my life. I knew it would be on her terms, but I was willing to make that sacrifice.”
“What terms did she impose?”
“I could never call her. She always was the one to call me.”
Faith wasn’t sure what to say to that. Will asked, “Was there a particular pattern to the calls?”
Michael started nodding his head, like he was glad someone finally understood why he was so worried. “Yes. She’s called me every single day for the last eighteen months. Sometimes she doesn’t say much, but she always calls at the same time every morning no matter what.”
Will asked, “Why doesn’t she say much?”
Michael looked down at his hands. “It’s hard for her. She went through some things when we were growing up. She’s not someone who thinks of the word ‘family’ and smiles.” He rubbed his scar again, and Faith felt a profound sadness coming off him. “She doesn’t smile much about anything, actually.”
Will glanced at Faith to confirm it was okay for him to take over. She gave him a slight nod. Obviously, Michael Tanner was more comfortable talking to Will. Her job now was to just blend in with the background.
Will asked, “Your sister wasn’t a happy person?”
Michael slowly shook his head, his sadness filling the room.
Will was silent for a moment, giving the man some space. “Who abused her?”
Faith was shocked by the question, but the tears that fell from Michael’s eyes told her that Will was spot-on. “Our father. Quite the cliché these days.”
“Our mother died when Olivia was eight. I guess it started shortly after that. It went on for a few months, until Olivia ended up at the doctor. She was damaged. The doctor reported it, but my father just …” Tears came in earnest now. “My father said she had hurt herself on purpose. That she had put something down … there … to injure herself. To draw attention to herself because she missed our mother.” He angrily wiped his tears away. “My father was a judge. He knew everyone on the police force, and they thought they knew him. He said that Olivia was lying, so everyone assumed she was a liar—especially me. For years, I just didn’t believe her.”
“What changed your mind?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Logic. It didn’t make sense that she would … that she would be the way she is unless something horrible had happened.”
Will kept staring straight into the man’s eyes. “Did your father ever hurt you?”
“No.” He had answered too quickly. “Not anything sexual, I mean. He punished me sometimes. Took out the belt. He could be a brutal man, but I thought that’s what fathers did. It was normal. The best way to avoid a beating was to be a good son, so I was a good son.”
Again Will took his time getting to the next question. “How did Olivia punish herself for what happened?”
Michael struggled with his emotions, trying to contain them but failing miserably. He finally pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, sobbing. Will just sat there, motionless. Faith followed his lead. She knew instinctively that the worst thing she could do right now was comfort Michael Tanner.
He used the backs of his hands to wipe his tears. At last, he said, “Olivia was bulimic. I think she might still be anorexic, but she swore to me the purging was under control.”
Faith realized she had been holding her breath. Olivia Tanner had an eating disorder, just like Pauline McGhee and Jackie Zabel.
Will asked, “When did it start?”
“Ten, eleven. I don’t remember. I’m three years younger. All I can recall is that it was horrible. She just … She just started to waste away.”
Will only nodded, letting the man speak.
“Olivia was always obsessed with her looks. She was so pretty, but she never accepted …” Michael paused. “I guess Dad made it worse. He was always pinching her, teasing her, telling her she needed to get rid of her baby fat. She wasn’t fat. She was a normal girl. She was beautiful. Was beautiful. Do you know what happens when you starve yourself like that?”
Michael was looking at Faith now, and she shook her head.
“She got pressure sores on her back. Big, gaping wounds where her bones rubbed holes in her skin. She couldn’t ever sit down, couldn’t get comfortable. She was cold all the time, couldn’t feel her hands and feet. Some days she didn’t even have the energy to walk to the bathroom. She would just defecate on herself.” He stopped as the memories obviously flooded back. “She slept ten, twelve hours a day. She lost her hair. She would go into these uncontrollable shaking fits. Her heart would race. Her skin was just … it was disgusting. Flaky, dry scales would just fleck off her body. And she thought it was all worth it. She thought it made her beautiful.”
“Was she ever hospitalized?”
He laughed, as if they couldn’t begin to understand how horrible the situation had been. “She was in and out of Houston General all the time. They would put her on a feeding tube. She would gain enough weight so that they would let her leave the hospital, then she’d go back to purging herself again as soon as she got out. Her kidneys shut down twice. There was a lot of concern about the damage she was doing to her heart. I was so angry with her then. I didn’t understand why she was doing something, willingly doing something so awful to herself. It just seemed … Why would you starve yourself? Why would you put yourself through …” He looked around the room, the cold place his sister had created for herself. “Control. She just wanted to control one thing, and I guess that one thing was what went into her mouth.”
Faith asked, “Was she better? I mean, recently.”
He nodded and shrugged at the same time. “She got better when she got away from my father. Went off to college, got a business degree. She moved here to Atlanta. I think the distance helped her.”
“Was she in therapy?”
“No.”
“How about a support group? Or maybe an online chat room?”
He shook his head, certain. “Olivia didn’t think she needed help. She thought she had it all under control.”
“Did she have any friends, or—”
“No. She had no one.”
“Is your father still alive?”
“He died about ten years ago. It was very peaceful. Everyone was so pleased that he just passed in his sleep.”
“Is Olivia a religious person? She doesn’t go to church or—”
“She would burn down the Vatican if she could get past the guards.”
Will asked, “Do the names Jacquelyn Zabel, Pauline McGhee or Anna mean anything to you?”
He shook his head.
“Have you or your sister ever been to Michigan?”
He gave them a puzzled look. “Never. I mean, I haven’t. Olivia has lived in Atlanta all her adult life, but she might have taken a trip there I wasn’t aware of.”
Will tried, “How about the words, ‘I will not deny myself.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“No. But it’s the exact opposite of what Olivia does in her life. She denies herself everything.”
“How about ‘thinspo,’ or ‘thinspiration’?”
Again, he shook his head. “No.”
Faith took over. “What about kids? Did Olivia have children? Or want children?”
“It would have been physically impossible,” the man answered. “Her body … the damage she did to herself. There was no way she could carry a child.”
“She could adopt.”
“Olivia hated children.” His voice was so low that Faith could barely hear him. “She knew what could happen to them.”
Will asked the question that was on Faith’s mind. “Do you think she was doing it again—starving herself?”
“No,” Michael said. “Not like before, at least. That’s why she called me every morning, six sharp, to let me know she was okay. Sometimes I’d pick up the phone and she’d talk to me; other times, she’d just say, ‘I’m okay,’ and hang up the phone. I think it was a lifeline for her. I hope it was.”
Faith said, “But she didn’t call you yesterday. Is it possible that she was mad at you?”
“No.” He wiped his eyes again. “She never got mad at me. She worried about me. She worried about me all the time.”
Will only nodded, so Faith asked, “Why did she worry?”
“Because she was …” Michael stopped, clearing his throat a couple of times.
Will said, “She was protecting him from their dad.”
Michael kept nodding, and the room got quiet again. He seemed to be working up his courage. “Do you think—” He stopped himself. “Olivia would never change her routine.”
Will stared him straight in the eye. “I can be kind or I can be honest, Dr. Tanner. There are only three possibilities here. One is that your sister wandered off. People do that. You wouldn’t believe how often it happens. The other is, she’s been in an accident or she’s hurt—”
“I called the hospitals.”
“The Atlanta police did, too. They checked all their reports and everyone’s accounted for.”
Michael nodded, probably because he already knew this. “What’s the third possibility?” he asked softly.
“Someone has taken her,” Will answered. “Someone who means to do her harm.”
Michael’s throat worked. He stared down at his hands for a good long while before finally nodding. “Thank you for your honesty, Detective.”
Will stood up. He asked, “Do you mind if we look around the house, check through your sister’s things?”
Again the man nodded, and Will told Faith, “I’ll check upstairs. You take down here.”
He didn’t give her time to discuss the plan, and Faith decided not to argue with him, even though Olivia Tanner probably kept her home computer upstairs.
She left Michael Tanner in the living room and wandered into the kitchen. Light poured in from the windows, making everything seem even more white. The kitchen was beautiful, but just as sterile as the rest of the house. The countertops were completely bare except for the thinnest television Faith had ever seen. Even the cords for the cable and plug were hidden, snaking down a thin hole in the lightly veined marble.
The walk-in pantry had very little food. What was there was stacked neatly in line, boxes face-out to show the brands, cans all turned in the same direction. There were six economy-size bottles of aspirin still in their packaging. The brand was different from the one Faith had found in Jackie Zabel’s bedroom, but she found it odd that both women took so much aspirin.
Yet another detail that did not make sense.
Faith made some phone calls as she searched the kitchen cabinets. As quietly as she could, she requested a background check on Michael Tanner, just to clear him from the picture. Her next call was a request to borrow some patrolmen from the Atlanta police to canvass the neighborhood. She’d put a phone dump on Olivia Tanner’s home phone so they could see who she had been talking to, but the woman’s cell phone was probably registered to the bank. If they were really lucky, there was a BlackBerry somewhere so they could read her email. Maybe Olivia had someone in her life that her brother didn’t know about. Faith shook her head, knowing this was a long shot. The house was a showplace, but it didn’t feel lived in. There were no parties here, no weekend get-togethers. Certainly, no man was living here.
What had Olivia Tanner’s life been like? Faith had worked missing persons cases before. The key to finding out what happened to the women—they were all usually women—was to try to put yourself in their shoes. What were their likes and dislikes? Who were their friends? What was so awful about their boyfriend/husband/ lover that made them want to pick up and leave?
With Olivia, there were no clues, no emotional anchors to pounce on. The woman lived in a lifeless house without a comfortable chair to sink into at the end of the day. All her plates and bowls were unscratched, unchipped and looked unused. Even the coffee cups were sparkling at the bottom. How could Faith relate to a woman who lived in a perfectly kept white box?
Faith returned to the kitchen cabinets, again finding nothing out of place. Even what she would’ve considered the junk drawer was neat—screwdrivers in a plastic case, hammer resting on a ball of twine. Faith ran her finger along the inside seam of the cabinet, finding no grit or dirt. There was something to be said for a woman who dusted her kitchen cabinets inside and out.
Faith opened the bottom drawer and found an oversized envelope like the kind used for mailing photographs. She opened the top and found a stack of glossy pages that had been neatly cut from magazines. All of them showed models in various stages of undress, no matter whether they were selling perfume or gold watches. These weren’t the usual women you found in sweater sets and pearls as they cheerily dusted their houses and cleaned up after adorable children. These models were meant to convey sex, wantonness and, above all, thinness.
Faith had seen some of these bone-thin models before. She skimmed the pages of Cosmo and Vogue and Elle just like every other person who ever waited in line at the grocery store, but seeing these anorexic women now, knowing that Olivia Tanner had chosen these pictures not because she wanted to remember to buy a new eye shadow or lip gloss, but because she considered the airbrushed skeletons an attainable goal, made Faith feel sick to her stomach.
She thought again about Michael Tanner’s words, the torture his sister had put herself through in order to be thin. She couldn’t figure out why Will was so certain the woman had been trying to protect her brother. It seemed unlikely that a man who raped his daughter would go after his son, but Faith had been a cop too long to believe criminals followed a logical pattern. Despite her own teenage pregnancy, the Mitchell family was fairly normal. There were no abusive alcoholics or sex-crazed uncles. In matters of severe childhood dysfunction, she always deferred to Will.
He had never outright confirmed anything, but she guessed that he had suffered a great deal of abuse as a child. His upper lip had obviously been busted open and not allowed to heal properly. The faint scar running down the side of his jaw and going into his collar looked old, the type of thing you got as a kid and lived with for the rest of your life. She had worked with Will during the hottest months of the summer and never seen him roll up his shirtsleeves or even loosen his tie. His question about how Olivia Tanner punished herself was especially revealing. Faith often thought that Angie Polaski was a punishment that Will continually brought down on himself.
She heard footsteps on the stairs. Will entered the kitchen, shaking his head. “I hit the redial on the upstairs phone. I got the brother’s answering machine in Houston.”
There was a book in his hand. “What’s that?”
He handed her the slim novel, which had a library band on the spine. The jacket showed a naked woman sitting on her haunches. She was wearing high heels, but the pose was more artistic than kinky, sending the distinct message that this was literature, not trash. So, not the type of book Faith would ever read. She skimmed the back copy and told Will, “It’s about a woman who’s a diabetic meth addict and her abusive father.”
“A love story.” He guessed the title. “Exposé?”
He was close enough. Faith had figured out that he generally read the first three letters of a word and guessed the rest. More often than not, he was right, but odd words threw him off.
She put the book facedown on the counter. “Did you find a computer?”
“No computer. No diary. No calendar.” He opened drawers, finding the television remote. He turned on the set, tilting the screen toward him. “This is the only TV in the house.”
“There isn’t one in the bedroom?”
“No.” Will flipped through the channels, finding the usual digital offerings. “She doesn’t have cable. There’s not a DSL modem on the junction box in the basement.”
“So, she doesn’t have high-speed Internet,” Faith surmised. “Maybe she uses dial-up. She could have a laptop at work.”
“Or someone could’ve taken it.”
“Or she just keeps her work at the office. Her brother says she’s on the job from sunup till sundown.”
He turned off the television. “Did you find anything down here?”
“Aspirin,” Faith said, indicating the bottles in the pantry. “What did you mean about Olivia protecting Michael?”
“It’s what we were talking about at Pauline’s. Did your parents have much time for your brother when you got into trouble?”
Faith shook her head, realizing what he had said made perfect sense. Olivia had drawn all the negative attention away from her brother so that he could have some semblance of a life. No wonder the man was racked with guilt. He was a survivor.
Will was looking out the back window, up at the seemingly vacant house behind Olivia’s. “Those curtains on the door are bothering me.”
Faith joined him by the window. He was right. All the blinds were closed on the back windows except for the curtains that hung open on the basement doors.
Faith raised her voice. “Dr. Tanner, we’re going to step outside a minute. We’ll be right back.”
“All right,” the man returned.
His voice still sounded shaky, so Faith added, “We haven’t found anything yet. We’re still just looking.”
She waited. There was no response.
Will held open the back door and they both walked onto the deck.
He said, “Her clothes are all size two. Is that normal?”
“I wish,” Faith mumbled, then realized what she had said. “It’s thin, but it’s not horrible.”
She scanned Olivia Tanner’s backyard again. Like most in-town lots, it was barely more than a quarter of an acre, fences delineating the property lines and telephone poles springing up every two hundred feet. Faith followed Will down the deck stairs. Olivia’s yard was cordoned off by an expensive-looking cedar fence. The boards were flat, the supports on the outside. She asked, “Does this look new to you?”
He shook his head. “It’s been pressure-washed. Fresh cedar is more red than that.”
They reached the back of the property and stopped. There were marks on the cedar planks. Deep scratches running up the center. Will leaned down, saying, “It looks like someone did this with their feet, probably trying to get over.”
Faith glanced up at Olivia Tanner’s backyard neighbor again. “It looks vacant to me. You think it’s a foreclosure?”
“Only one way to find out.” Will went to a different section of the fence and started to lift himself up and over before realizing that Faith was with him. “Do you want to wait for me here? Or we could walk around.”
“Do I look that pathetic to you?” She grabbed the top of the fence. They had done this sort of thing at the police academy, but that was years ago, and she hadn’t been in a skirt. Faith pretended not to notice when Will gave her an assist from behind, just as she hoped he would pretend not to notice that she was wearing her powder blue granny underwear.
Somehow, she managed to scramble to the other side. Will made sure she was clear, then bolted the fence like a ten-year-old Chinese gymnast.
“Show-off,” she mumbled, making her way up the steep hill toward the empty house. The basement was a wall of windows onto the backyard with French doors at either end. As she got closer, she could see that one of the doors was open. The wind picked up, and a piece of white curtain flapped outside in the breeze.
“This can’t be this easy,” Will said, obviously thinking what Faith was thinking: Was their suspect hiding inside? Was this where he was keeping his victims?
Will walked toward the house with a determined gait.
She asked, “Should I call for backup?”
Will didn’t seem concerned. He pushed open the door with his elbow and poked his head inside.
“Ever hear of probable cause?”
“Do you hear that noise?” he asked, even though they both knew that he hadn’t heard a thing. Legally, they couldn’t go into a private home without a search warrant or threat of imminent danger.
Faith turned around, looking back at Olivia Tanner’s house. The woman obviously did not believe in window coverings. From Faith’s vantage point, she could see clear through to the kitchen and what must have been Olivia’s bedroom. “We should call for a warrant.”
Will was already inside. Faith cursed him under her breath as she took her gun out of her purse. She went into the basement, stepping carefully onto the white Berber carpet. The basement was finished, probably a media room at one time. There was a pool table and a wet bar. Wires stuck out of the wall where a home theater system had been. Will was nowhere to be seen. “Idiot,” she mumbled, taking another step inside, pressing back the door until it was flat against the wall. She listened, her ears straining so hard that she felt a phantom pain from the effort.
“Will?” she whispered. There was no answer, and Faith ventured farther, her heart pounding in her chest. She leaned over the wet bar, looking behind the counter and seeing an empty box and a soda can on its side. There was a closet behind her, the door partially open. Faith used the muzzle of her gun to open it wide.
“It’s empty,” Will said, rounding a corner and scaring the shit out of her.
“What the hell are you doing?” Faith snapped. “He could’ve been in here.”
Will didn’t seem fazed. “We need to find out who has access to this house. Realtors. Contractors. Anyone interested in buying the house.” He took a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and checked the lock on the French door. “There’s tool marks here. Someone picked the lock.” He walked over to the windows, which were covered in cheap plastic blinds. One of the blades was bent back. Will twisted open the plastic wand, letting natural light flood in. He squatted down and studied the floor.
Faith put her gun back into her purse. Her heart was still beating like a snare drum. “Will, you scared the crap out of me. Don’t walk into a house like that without me with you.”
“You can’t have it both ways.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded, though she figured it out before the question left her mouth. He was trying to be more aggressive to please her.
“Look.” He motioned her over. “Footprints.”
Faith could see a reddish outline of a pair of shoes on the flat surface of the carpet. One of the great things about living in Georgia was the red clay that stuck to every surface, whether it was wet or dry. She glanced out the window, past the broken blade on the blinds. Olivia’s house was on full display.
Will said, “You were right. He’s been watching them. He follows them, learns their routines, knows who they are.” He walked behind the wet bar, opening and closing cabinet doors. “Someone used this Coke can as an ashtray.”
“Movers, probably.”
He opened the refrigerator. She heard glass rattling. “Doc Peterson’s Root Beer.” He had probably recognized the logo.
“We should get out of here before we contaminate the scene any more than we already have.”
Thankfully, Will seemed to agree. He followed Faith outside, pulling the door back to where they’d found it.
She said, “This feels different.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “We didn’t find anything at Jackie’s mother’s house or Pauline’s work. Leo searched her house. There was nothing there. Our guy doesn’t leave clues, so why do we have a pair of shoe prints? Why was the door left open?”
“He lost his first two victims. Anna and Jackie escaped. Maybe Olivia Tanner was in the pipeline. Maybe he had to move her ahead to replace them.”
“Who would know this house was vacant?”
“Anybody who was paying attention.”
Faith looked back at Olivia’s house and saw Michael Tanner standing on the back porch. The thought of wrangling her ass over that fence again was not a welcome one.
Will said, “I’ll go. You walk around.”
She shook her head, walking back down the yard with a determined gait. The fence would be easier from this side, since the supports were facing out. There was a long two-by-four down the middle that served as a step, and Faith was able to lift herself over with less assistance than before. Will did another swoop, vaulting over with one hand.
Michael Tanner stood at the back door of his sister’s house, hands clasped together as he watched them approach. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing we can share with you right now,” Faith told him. “I’m going to need you to—”
Her foot slipped out from under her as she stepped on the bottom stair. A comical noise close to a woof came out of her mouth, but there was nothing funny about the way Faith felt. Her vision went crazy for a few seconds, her head spinning. Without thinking, her hand went to her stomach and all she could think about was what was growing inside.
“You okay?” Will asked. He was kneeling beside her, his hand cupping the back of her head.
Michael Tanner was on her other side. “Just breathe very slowly until you catch your breath.” His hands went down her spine, and she was about to slap him away before she remembered he was a doctor. “Slow breaths. In and out.”
Faith tried to do as he said. She had been panting for no apparent reason.
Will asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded, thinking maybe she was. “Just knocked the breath out of me,” she managed. “Help me up.”
Will’s hands went under her arms, and she realized how strong he was as he easily lifted her to standing. “You’ve got to stop falling down like this.”
“I’m such an idiot.” She still had her hand on her stomach. Faith made herself move it away. She stood there, silent, listening for something inside her body, trying to feel a twinge or a spasm that might indicate something was wrong. She felt nothing, heard nothing. But was she okay?
“What’s this?” Will asked, pulling something out of her hair. He held up a piece of confetti between his thumb and forefinger.
Faith ran her fingers through her hair, looked behind her. She saw tiny pieces of confetti in the grass.
“Dammit,” Will cursed. “I saw one of these on Felix’s book bag. It’s not confetti. These are from a Taser.”