New York City
A scream pierced the air.
It was followed with squeals of delight rising from crowds at the Children’s Zoo in Central Park where Kate had taken Grace.
This was one of their favorite places to go. Kate had even brought Grace here for her birthday a couple of months ago.
Now, it was after school and Kate had finished at Newslead, but she was anxious to hear back from sources and checked her phone often. There was nothing new from Goodsill in Denver on a link to Alberta and nothing from Davidson on reaching out to hackers. Looming over everything was Kate’s agitation while awaiting identification of the third victim at Rampart.
The fear that it could be Vanessa gnawed at her in ruthless juxtaposition to the park’s calming beauty, the trees arching over the sidewalk portrait sketchers, the vendors, and the young street artists creating huge iridescent soap bubbles. And there was Grace’s favorite, the musical clock tower with its animal band that circled while striking a classical tune every half hour.
Sometimes the songs were seasonal, like “April Showers” in spring or “Jingle Bells” in December.
“Look, Mom, they’re starting!” Grace pointed.
The musicians began playing the nursery rhyme, “Three Blind Mice,” with the hippo on the fiddle leading the elephant, the goat and the others. As the animals danced and Grace sang along, Kate’s phone rang. She took the call while keeping her eyes on her daughter.
“Kate, it’s Ed Brennan in Rampart.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve confirmed the identity of the third victim.”
In the moment before Brennan said another word, Kate gripped her phone and held her breath. Her world moved in slow motion—the penguin banging the drum, the bear tapping the tambourine. All sound suddenly deadened as if she was underwater, again, struggling to breathe.
“Kate? Did you hear me?” Brennan repeated. “It’s not your sister.”
“Yes.” She took a breath, sat on the nearest bench, dug out her pen and pad, looking at Grace as the clock played on. “Yes, can you give me the name and details?”
“We’re putting out a news release within the hour.”
“Can’t you tell me anything now?”
“We’re playing things pretty tight.”
“Are you any closer to finding Nelson, any leads?”
“Kate.”
“But you’re still looking for more victims, right?”
“I can’t discuss anything further. Watch for the release.”
The call ended, leaving Kate stunned.
Now, another family is going to be devastated. If it’s not Vanessa, then where is she? How many more bodies will they find?
Kate sat there, wondering. And as the clock’s tune played she recalled its haunting words.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife. Did you ever see such a sight in your life?
Grace ran to her.
“Mom, can I get a drink?”
“Sure, then let’s go home.”
* * *
In the cab, Kate alerted Newslead that she’d have a story coming on the third victim. Less than a minute later, Reeka called.
“We’re going to need something with an exclusive peg, Kate.”
“I don’t even have a name yet, Reeka. I’ll do what I can.”
Kate exhaled and shook her head slowly. When the cab got to their neighborhood, Kate and Grace picked up soup, salads and sandwiches from the corner deli for their supper. By the time they got home, the news release had been posted on the Rampart PD’s website. As they ate, Kate looked into the pretty, smiling face of the victim, then read the information.
She was Mandy Marie Bryce, aged twenty-six, from Charlotte, North Carolina, a dental assistant who’d been missing for four years. She was last seen at Virginia Beach, Virginia, walking from a restaurant to her hotel where she’d been attending a conference.
Rampart PD’s release provided few other details, so Kate went online, pulling older articles from the Virginia and Charlotte newspapers, gleaning data from them. She soon learned that Mandy had a little brother with Down syndrome and that she’d volunteered with many groups. She was engaged to a carpenter, who’d been cleared as a suspect, and had organized searches for Mandy in Virginia. To help their case, police had pinpointed Mandy’s last known whereabouts and released her last text to her boyfriend and his response.
Probably my imagination, but I think I’m being followed.
Go into the first store or bar and call a cab.
Mandy had never answered and her boyfriend had called Virginia police.
Investigators soon determined that Mandy’s hotel room key was never used after she’d texted her boyfriend. Records showed no activity on her phone, bank and credit cards at any point after her last text. Mandy had vanished. Until four years later, when her remains were found in a shallow grave near a barn in New York.
She compared Mandy’s case to what had happened to the first victim, Bethany Ann Wynn, aged nineteen when she went missing. Bethany was last seen leaving her part-time job at a mall. She was waiting for a bus to her home in suburban Hartford, Connecticut. Both cases were miles apart but seemed to fit a pattern: young women who’d vanished while alone in vulnerable places.
Kate’s heart skipped a beat when she felt a hand on her lap.
“Mom, can I have some cookies?”
She smiled at Grace.
“Just one. Then brush your teeth and reach back, like the dentist said.”
Kate sighed, then resumed reading.
It appeared that both Bethany and Mandy had been stalked. Was there a connection to their financial records and the data center where Nelson worked? What was his real name? Did he have a tie to Denver, or was everything circumstantial? Kate needed to do a lot more digging but it had to wait, because right now she had to pull a story together.
In the older news articles she saw that from time to time, Mandy’s mother, Judy Bryce, had spoken to the Charlotte Observer.
The keys on Kate’s keyboard clicked and within a minute she had a listing in Charlotte and called it, hoping that Brennan had notified the family. The line rang five times before a man answered.
“Hello, my name’s Kate Page. I’m a reporter with Newslead, the wire service in New York.”
“Yes.” His tone was neutral.
“Would it be possible to speak with a relative of Mandy Marie Bryce? It concerns the news release issued a short time ago by police in Rampart, New York. I take it you’re aware of it?”
“Yes, we’re aware.”
“Would you be a relative, sir?”
“Me? No, you want Judy. I’m a friend of the family, hang on.”
The sound of a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and muffled words about a reporter in New York.
“I’m Judy Bryce, Mandy’s mother.”
“My condolences for your loss, Mrs. Bryce,” Kate said, repeating her introduction and explanation for calling before requesting Mrs. Bryce reflect on her daughter for her news story.
“My Mandy was a selfless angel who always put everyone’s needs before hers.”
Kate underlined those words in her notes. As she continued talking with Judy, the older woman said her devotion to her faith had helped her deal with her daughter’s tragedy.
“It may sound funny, even cold, but when she first went missing, I knew in my heart that I’d never see her again.”
“How did you know?”
“I can’t explain it, but a mother just knows, or maybe God let me know. When Mandy was ten, she took a bad fall down the stairs. In the hospital, seeing her in the bed, I had this powerful, crystalline feeling that I was going to outlive her. I just knew it. I—I—I’m sorry.” Judy stopped to choke back a sob. Kate overheard her say something to the man at her end that she was okay to go on. Then she came back to Kate. “Deep in my heart I just knew that when Mandy disappeared, I’d lost her forever. The pain will never go away, but I’m at peace with it now. We’re making arrangements to bring her home.”
Struggling with her own emotions, Kate opened up to Judy about her personal connection to the story, about Vanessa and how she couldn’t give up her feeling that she was somehow still alive. After listening, Judy gave Kate advice.
“Trust your heart. It’s telling you there’s hope. Hang on to that.”
The woman’s unexpected compassion for Kate, when she was the one who’d intruded on her pain, was somehow therapeutic. Kate then asked if Mandy had any ties to Bethany Ann Wynn in Hartford, or Carl Nelson or Vanessa, or Alberta or Denver?
There were no links, Judy said.
After hanging up Kate sat alone in the kitchen with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, as if to stem the emotion draining from her. Calls to the bereaved were never easy. They always cost Kate a piece of her soul.
Get to work.
Kate marshaled all of her concentration and threw herself into writing her story as fast as she could. She didn’t think there was much of an exclusive angle to it but didn’t care. It brought Mandy Marie Bryce to life, letting readers know what the world had lost. Kate looked at Mandy’s picture and, for a moment, smiled back at her.
She pressed Send and filed her story.
Then Kate joined Grace, who was on the sofa watching a movie about puppies. She put her arm around her and for a moment tried not to think about missing women, shallow graves and monsters.
“Ouch, Mom, you’re scrunching me too tight!”
“Sorry, honey.”
As Kate’s mind raced back to…the mountains, the river, Vanessa’s hand—letting go…her cell phone vibrated. Thinking it was likely Reeka with some problem with her story, she was inclined to ignore it. But the area code was for Colorado and she answered.
“Hi, Kate, Will Goodsill in Denver.”
“Yes, hi, Will.”
“I found something in my notes that may help you.”