Jake was seated behind a table in the room Chief Bowden had designated for the FBI when he spotted Thea through the glass partition. She’d just come into the station and had stopped to show her badge and credentials to the uniformed officer at the front counter. The squad room was nearly empty. Most of the department was either on patrol, attached to a search party or assigned to one of the traffic stops. Jake saw her glance around curiously before the officer pointed her toward the back. She walked with a slight limp as she made her way through the maze of desks and cubicles. He got up and waited for her at the door.
“Thanks for coming,” he greeted her.
She answered with a brief nod. “Of course. You said in your text you needed to see me as soon as possible.” She took in his space with a glance. “Where’s the rest of your team?”
“We had to set up a new command center at the courthouse. We ran out of space here. Most of the agents are either there or in the field. I haven’t made the transition yet.”
“You always did work best alone.”
“Not anymore. I like to think I’ve become a team player.”
“I suppose you have to be when you’re in charge.” Her gaze met his. Was that another note of censure he heard? A flicker of disappointment he detected in her eyes? Surely she didn’t begrudge him his promotion and relocation. Because that would mean she still cared.
“I’ve learned to make the necessary adjustments,” he said.
“Haven’t we all?” She seemed to dismiss their past with a shrug. “So, what’s up? I noticed a strange vibe when I came in just now. The officer at the front desk seemed on edge. You have news?”
“Nothing concrete and nothing good,” he said then quickly added, “We haven’t found Kylie.”
“But there’s been a break in the case?”
“Have a seat.” He went around and took his place behind the laptop, closing the screen. “You want some coffee?”
She pulled out a chair and sat. “I just had coffee with the police chief’s wife.”
“I didn’t know he was married,” Jake said.
“I’m not surprised. You don’t like small talk any more than I do.”
“Then I’m going to surprise you by asking how you are.”
She gave him a reluctant smile. “That’s not really small talk, considering what happened yesterday.”
“No, I guess it’s not.” He trailed his eyes over her features. Her skin looked pale in the artificial lighting and as fragile as parchment beneath the cuts and bruises. “Seriously, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
His blunt assessment didn’t seem to faze her. “I had a rough night. I think I dreamed about those weird twig things you showed me yesterday. And I kept hearing an odd sound all night. That sound is probably what triggered the nightmares.”
“What kind of sound?”
“Hard to explain. Hollow and melodic is the best way I can describe it, but I know that won’t make a lot of sense.”
“It makes more sense than you know,” Jake said. “That’s the sound I heard in the woods yesterday before I discovered the figures hanging from a tree branch.”
She stared at him. “That’s a disturbing coincidence.”
“Yes, it is.”
“But I think I can explain the sound I heard,” she quickly added. “There’s a set of wooden wind chimes in the courtyard across the street from the hotel. My room looks down on it. The sound must have drifted up to me in my sleep.”
“Do you know who owns the courtyard?”
“Yes. Grace Bowden. I saw the chimes myself before I came here. They look nothing like the figures you found.”
Probably nothing to worry about, Jake decided, but he made a note to check out the chimes for himself. “It still seems a little coincidental that you would hear that particular sound in your sleep.”
“Maybe. But it was a strange night all the way around,” she said. “This morning I woke up queasy and disoriented. It took me a moment to even remember where I was.” She paused. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was drugged.”
His voice sharpened in alarm. “Drugged? Where did you go last night?”
“Nowhere. I was with Reggie all afternoon until early evening. I left the hospital around eight and walked straight to the hotel, went up to my room, took a bath and then...” Her brow furrowed as she thought back. “Everything gets hazy after that. But memory loss isn’t unusual under the circumstances. Car wrecks are stressful. People sometimes feel shock for days. I’m no exception.”
“Shock could certainly explain the nightmares and the confusion,” he agreed. “But it wouldn’t hurt to see a doctor and get checked out.”
“I was examined in the ER yesterday. I’ll be fine in a day or two. I wouldn’t have said anything, but I know how perceptive you can be. It was only a matter of time before you picked up on something. Then you would have weaseled it out of me one way or another.”
He smiled. “If only it were that easy. I’m just glad you’re okay. And Reggie? How’s she doing?”
“She sounded surprisingly strong when I spoke to her earlier. She said she had a restful night.”
“That’s good to hear.” He gave her another long scrutiny before dropping his regard.
“Jake.” She leaned forward. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?”
“The police found the truck we think was involved in the hit-and-run. It was abandoned on a dirt road a few miles from the crash site. The vehicle had been torched, so no fingerprints or DNA, but we were able to recover the VIN number. The truck was reported stolen from a campsite near Lake Seminole a few days ago. It’s possible the driver panicked after he hit you. He knew the highway patrol would be looking for the vehicle, so that’s why he burned it.”
“That doesn’t explain why he followed us from the interstate and maintained the same distance until Reggie sped up,” Thea said.
Jake picked up a pen and toyed with the cap. “Can you think of anyone who might harbor a grudge against Reggie?”
She didn’t seem particularly surprised by the question. “As you noted yesterday, emotions run high in this town, especially when it comes to my mother.”
“I’m not talking about gossip or even suspicions. I mean someone who has an actual vendetta.”
His grim tone seemed to give her pause. “No one comes to mind. She and my paternal grandmother have never gotten along, but June is getting on up there in years. Back in the day, she could harbor a petty grudge for decades, but acting on a vendetta at her age? Just to be clear, that is what you’re getting at, right? That someone deliberately ran us off the road to get even with Reggie? You must also think the driver is somehow connected to Kylie’s disappearance. Why else involve yourself in a hit-and-run investigation?”
“It’s a possibility on both counts,” he said. “For the record, I don’t see your grandmother being involved in either incident.”
“Then who?”
“Do you remember a man named Derrick Sway?”
The name seemed to jolt her. She returned his scrutiny, her eyes narrowed and slightly accusing. “What does Derrick Sway have to do with Kylie Buchanan’s abduction?”
“Just answer the question, please. Do you remember Derrick Sway or don’t you?”
“Of course, I remember him. He was Reggie’s boyfriend at the time of Maya’s disappearance. The police hauled him in for questioning any number of times, from what I later read, but they never found anything to connect him to the kidnapping.”
“What can you tell me about his relationship with Reggie?”
“I was only four years old at the time. You’re asking a lot.”
“I realize that.”
She tucked back her hair, taking a moment to think about her response. “I don’t know how helpful I can be. I have vivid memories about the night Maya disappeared, but I’d be surprised if even half of what I remember is real. It’s possible—probable, even—that I’ve used everything I read and heard over the years to embellish a few vague images and impressions. For a time, I devoured everything I could get my hands on about the abduction.”
“That’s understandable,” Jake said. “You never wanted to talk about it when we were together.”
When we were together.
Their gazes clung for a moment before Thea glanced away. Did she remember, as he did, all those lazy Sunday mornings in bed, with their phones silenced and their coffee cooling on the nightstands? Something glimmered in her eyes that told him she did remember. But maybe that was only wishful thinking. His way of embellishing a delusion.
“It’s still hard for me to talk about,” she said. “Maya and I weren’t identical twins but we looked a lot alike and we had a very strong bond. ‘Two peas in a pod,’ Reggie used to say. On the night she went missing, Maya climbed into my bed because she heard a dog baying in the woods and it scared her. I was hot so after she went to sleep, I moved over to her bed.”
“You never told me that.” Jake got up and walked around the table, leaning against the edge as he folded his arms and looked down at her.
“If I’d stayed in my own bed, maybe I would have been taken instead of Maya. Twenty-eight years later, I still wonder about that.”
“Thea...”
Don’t, her eyes seemed to plead. Don’t look at me that way. As if he had the power not to look at her that way.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, you were asking about Derrick Sway’s relationship with my mother. They used to argue, sometimes loudly, but I never saw him lay a hand on her.”
“How did he treat you and Maya?”
“He mostly ignored us. If he’d ever gotten physical, Reggie would have kicked him out. She had a lot of faults, but she wasn’t shy about defending herself or her kids.”
“Maybe she didn’t know.”
“If he’d done anything bad to us, I would remember,” Thea insisted.
“That’s not necessarily true,” Jake said gently. “You know as well as I do that children often block traumatic memories.”
“And yet I’m able to recall that howling dog as clearly as if it were yesterday.”
“Isn’t it possible—”
“No. Maya and I were inseparable back then. I would have known if he’d hurt her.”
Jake didn’t try to push the issue any further. “Did you know that Sway was in prison for ten years?”
“Reggie mentioned it once.”
“Do you remember what she said about it?”
“Just that he finally got what was coming to him.”
“That’s a pretty powerful statement. What do you think she meant by that?” he asked in that same gentle tone.
“He was a thief and a drug dealer. I imagine that’s what she meant.”
“Did she suspect he had something to do with Maya’s disappearance?”
“She never let on if she did.”
“But they parted on bad terms.”
“Relationships end for all kinds of reasons. Maybe she finally saw him for who he really was.” Thea seemed to grow weary of the conversation. Or maybe she didn’t like him poking around in her past. She was a private person who’d experienced tragedy at a young age. He hated stirring up all her old memories, but she’d be the first to agree that nothing could be off limits when a child’s life was at stake.
She got up and walked over to the glass partition, studying the deserted squad room before turning to face him. “Reggie changed after Maya’s disappearance. She stopped drinking and smoking, and started experimenting with religion.”
“‘Experimenting’? That’s an odd way of putting it.”
“Not if you knew Reggie.”
“Do you know if she and Sway kept in touch?”
“I doubt it. When Reggie was done, she was done.”
Like mother, like daughter, Jake thought.
Thea sighed. “This is getting very tedious. Why all the questions about Reggie and Derrick Sway? I think I deserve an explanation. It’s obvious you regard him as a suspect, but why? You must have something more than an abandoned truck and a gut feeling to go on.”
“He was released from prison several months ago. The last known address we have for him is his mother’s home in Yulee. A police officer went by there yesterday afternoon, but Sway was nowhere to be found. His mother claims she hasn’t seen him in weeks.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Is he a suspect or isn’t he?”
“Right now, he’s certainly a person of interest.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Stop beating around the bush and tell me what you have on him.”
“There was a possible sighting of him a few weeks ago at Lake Seminole.”
“Where the truck was stolen,” Thea said. “What else?”
Now Jake was the one who considered his answer carefully. “Sway may be under the impression that Reggie was the one who turned him in to the police. If so, he could blame her for his incarceration.”
Thea came back over to the table. “That’s a very big if, isn’t it? How would abducting Kylie Buchanan give him payback? Unless he thinks he can make Reggie relive Maya’s disappearance. Or somehow frame her for the kidnapping.”
“There may be an even darker motive,” Jake said. “A neighbor said he mistook Taryn for you when he first noticed her and Kylie living at Reggie’s house. He assumed Kylie was your daughter.”
That seemed to take her aback.
“It’s an understandable mistake from a distance,” Jake said. “Especially if he hasn’t seen you in years. You and Taryn have a similar build and coloring. Both blond. Both trim and fit. If Sway made the same assumption about Taryn and Kylie as the neighbor, he could have taken Kylie because he thought she was your daughter. Reggie’s granddaughter.”
Thea let out a breath. “My God. That’s a chilling thought.”
“It is.”
She bit her lip as she contemplated the implications. “It still seems like a reach to me.”
“I thought so, too, until the officer went to talk to his mother. He said the woman seemed scared to death of Sway. He was always trouble, according to her, but she hardly recognized him when he got out of prison. He was into some very disturbing things, apparently.”
“Like ‘making hideous twig dolls and hanging them in a tree behind my mother’s house’ kind of disturbing?”
“Mrs. Sway wouldn’t elaborate, only that after he moved in, strangers started showing up at the house at all hours. She didn’t know what they were up to, but she called them evil.”
“Could she identify any of these people?”
“Unfortunately, no. She said they always stayed outside in the dark or came in through the back door, like they didn’t want to be seen. If she questioned Derrick about what he was up to, he’d burn something in his bedroom to make her think he was setting the house on fire.”
“That’s sadistic.”
“Sadistic would be a good word to describe his behavior, according to his mother.”
“Where is he now?”
“She swears she doesn’t know. She said he got a phone call a few weeks ago and took off in the middle of the night. She hasn’t seen or heard from him since. But she did allow the officer inside to look through his room.” Jake reached across the table for an evidence bag. “Most of his things had been cleared out, but the officer found this slid behind the baseboard in the closet.”
Thea’s face went even paler as she stared at the photograph in the bag. “This was found in his possession?”
“In his room, yes. Do you recognize it?” Jake asked.
She closed her eyes. “It’s a snapshot of Maya standing on our front porch. It was taken on our fourth birthday, just a couple of months before she went missing. Reggie used to keep that photograph on the refrigerator where she could see it every morning when she had her coffee. Then one day she boxed up all the photographs and put them away in her closet. Maybe that was the day both of us gave up on Maya ever coming home.”
“How long ago did you last see this photograph?”
He saw her take a deep breath as she thought back. “I don’t know. I was still a kid. Maybe ten or eleven when she put everything away.”
Maya had been taken when she was four years old. That was a long time to wait for a sister to come home. “The photo has been torn in two.”
“So I noticed.”
“The raw edge looks like it’s been singed.” Jake paused. “Were you in the other half of the photograph?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from her sister’s image. “You can tell from the position of Maya’s arm that we were holding hands. We always did when Mama took our picture.”
Jake had never heard her call her mother anything but Reggie. She had a soft, faraway look in her eyes, as if she’d slipped back in time. He wanted to reach over and take her hand, to tell her everything would be okay, but the present-day Thea knew better. “How do you think Sway came to be in possession of this photograph?”
“I have no idea. There’s no way Reggie would have ever given it to him. He must have come into her house and stolen it at some point or else there were two similar photographs and he took one when he left.”
“Why would he do that? You said he showed no particular interest in you and Maya. He ignored you. Why tear you out of the photograph? Why keep an image of your sister all these years?”
“It makes me sick to my stomach to even contemplate.” She handed him back the bag. “You think he took her, don’t you? Maya, I mean.”
“You said yourself the police never found anything to connect him to her disappearance. Even so, I don’t think we can discount the possibility.”
She was visibly shaken but trying desperately to cling to her composure. “What can I do to help?”
“You’ve already done your part. You’ve answered all my questions. Now the best thing for you to do is to go be with your mother at the hospital.”
“Just like that. No further need of my services.”
Jake gave her a soft smile. “You know that’s not what I mean. We’ve got people actively searching for Derrick Sway. Every law enforcement body in the state is on alert. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything. You have my word.”
“I guess that will have to be enough.”
He placed the evidence bag on the table and turned back to her. “I know I don’t have to tell you this, but please be careful. Even Sway’s own mother is terrified of him.”
“The torn photograph seems to indicate he has no interest in me,” she said.
“Or maybe it indicates the exact opposite. If he abducted Kylie out of mistaken identity, he’s probably been following the news and is aware of who she is by now. If he’s out for revenge against Reggie, his desire for payback won’t have been satisfied. In fact, he may be even more determined. Reggie should be safe enough in the hospital. Sway won’t show his face in public. He’d be too easily recognized. But you need to watch your back.”
“I’m not concerned for my own safety,” Thea said. “What if your theory is true? What happens to Kylie if Sway took her by mistake?”
Jake said nothing for a moment. He didn’t have to.
“All we can do is stay focused and keep looking.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re holding something back?”
He ran a hand across his eyes. “It’s nothing tangible. Even with this new lead, I can’t help thinking we’re missing something hidden in plain sight. Something darker than any of us has imagined.” He gave her a worried look. “I can’t explain it, but I can feel it.”