“SSA KIMBERLY QUINCY.”
“Hi, um . . . This is Flora Dane.”
There’s a pause. I’m not surprised. What does catch me off guard is the sound of my own voice, shaky and faint. SSA Quincy and I are hardly BFFs. She organized the raid that eventually led to Jacob’s death and my escape. But we haven’t exactly spoken since.
Sitting across from me, Keith eyes me uncertainly. Nine P.M., I’ve just called a federal agent on her personal cell, and she isn’t exactly responding with gushing enthusiasm. But I know how these things work. The raid on Jacob’s motel room didn’t just save me; it also boosted Quincy’s career. One way or another, our lives are intertwined. I also know from Samuel that Bureau types don’t exactly keep regular hours. This isn’t the SSA’s first late-night call, just her most unexpected.
“How can I help you, Flora?” Quincy’s voice is perfectly neutral. Apparently, she’s decided to give me enough rope to hang myself. Fair enough.
Now it’s my turn to collect my thoughts. Keith sits up straighter. He has his fingers poised over the keyboard of his laptop as if he’s ready to record every word of the call. Maybe he is.
“I need information on Jacob Ness,” I finally announce.
“I see.”
“It’s come to my attention he might be a person of interest in some other missing persons cases.”
Another pause. “Flora, it’s nine P.M. You’re calling me at home. You’re going to have to do better than sudden interest in a bunch of cold cases.”
“So you do think he’s connected to other missing women?”
“You have till the count of three, then I’m going to hang up. Future requests can go through official channels. One, two—”
“There’s been a development!” I get it out in a rush. “A murder. Here in Boston. I recognized the victim. He met Jacob in a bar. It wasn’t random. They knew each other.”
Keith’s eyes widen. I hadn’t told him this part yet, but he doesn’t make the mistake of gasping audibly or distracting from the call.
This time, the quiet on the other end of the phone is thoughtful. “Name of the murder victim?” SSA Quincy asks finally.
It occurs to me that Sergeant Warren is probably going to kill me. I decide it’s a small price to pay. “Conrad Carter. Now I have questions of my own.”
“Of course.” Quincy’s tone is droll.
“Do you think Jacob kidnapped other women?”
For the first time, there is no hesitation. “Yes.”
“Murdered them?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
Cool tone again: “The investigation is ongoing.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“Can you? Because you never have before.”
I wince, the effects of my onetime, one-telling policy coming back to bite me in the ass. She’s right. I’d declined all official requests for interviews, debriefing, whatever the agents chose to call it back in the day. I gave my statement to Samuel while still collapsed in a hospital bed. I watched him run off to vomit. Then I never spoke of it again.
“I want to help.”
“Does Dr. Keynes know?” SSA Quincy is a clever one.
“Do you know what I do now?” I ask the agent.
“No.”
“I work with other survivors. Run a support group of sorts. I’m not qualified, I’m not brilliant, but I am experienced. I teach others to stop surviving and start living again.”
SSA Quincy doesn’t say anything. Neither does Keith. His fingers are still waiting above the keyboard. He wants details, I realize, not pleasantries.
“I understand I’m late to the party,” I say at last. “That by not giving a statement earlier, maybe there were other victims of Jacob’s or their families that I’ve let down. Samuel tells me not to second-guess, but it has been six years. I like to think I’m not the same girl anymore. I like to think . . . I’m stronger now. I want to do better. I can do better.”
“I can be on a plane to Boston first thing in the morning,” Quincy says.
“I have questions now. Information I need right now.”
“Flora, it’s late—”
“You really think I sleep at night? You think I care about rest at all anymore?” My voice turns hard. Quincy doesn’t hang up the phone.
“There has to be quid pro quo,” she begins. “Otherwise known as you gotta pay to play. Official department policy.”
“I already paid. Conrad Carter. Shot Tuesday night by his wife in Boston. Look it up. Lead detective Sergeant D. D. Warren.”
“D. D. Warren?” I can tell by the change in Quincy’s voice that she knows the name. “Does she know you’re calling me?”
“Not yet. But I’m also her CI, so if she decides on bodily harm, at least she’ll feel conflicted about it.”
Across from me, Keith’s eyes are growing rounder and rounder.
“I want to know what was on Jacob’s computer.” I plunge ahead. There’s no stopping now. “Did you find evidence of e-mail correspondence, chat-room visits, online associates? He spent a lot of time on his computer. In real life, he was a loner. I already know that. But on the internet . . . Some predators network. I know that, too.”
Keith is nodding softly, leaning closer to his laptop. Both of us eye the phone positioned on the table between us. This is the heart of the conversation. I paid. Now, would SSA Quincy play?
“Yes and no,” she says at last.
My shoulders sag. Keith rolls his eyes. We share an immediate and unplanned moment: feds. Good God.
Then, as if she could see our exasperation: “Ness’s computer was curiously clean.”
“What does that mean?”
“We know he took photos and videos; we have the images he sent to your mother.”
I nod. Keith starts to type.
“But his laptop was clear. Not a single copy existed. And wiping a hard drive is no easy task. Most experienced computer techs can rebuild anything these days. Find ghost images, piece together fragments of a fragment. So how did a long-haul trucker with only a high school–level education know how to clear his entire hard drive?”
Keith opens his mouth. I immediately hold up a hand to silence him, vigorously shaking my head. I probably should’ve mentioned his presence in the very beginning of the call. Having failed that, I wasn’t about to spook a federal agent by mentioning we had company now.
“You think someone must’ve taught him how to cover his tracks,” I say.
Keith is scribbling furiously. He holds up a note.
I continue: “Maybe even told him about particular apps that would assist in clearing his hard drive.”
Keith nods.
“What did this Conrad Carter do?” Quincy asks.
“I don’t know. He traveled. Spent time in the South, I know that.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“A bar. Honky-tonk. He sat down right beside us. After a bit . . . I had the impression Conrad was there for me. Like, maybe Jacob had made a deal with him.”
Keith starts typing.
“Did you leave with him?” SSA Quincy asks.
“No. I threw up on him. Then he went away.”
There’s silence. Keith is no longer typing. I refuse to look at him. I don’t want to see what’s in his eyes.
“Were there other such instances?” Quincy asks. “Other meetings with other men?”
“No. But soon after that . . . I realized I’d never make it if I kept fighting.” I stare at nothing in particular. “I decided to become Jacob’s friend. Make him need me a little, as my entire existence depended on him.”
“You survived, Flora. That’s what matters. You picked a strategy and it enabled you to come home safe to your family.”
I smile; I can’t help myself. But I know it’s a sad expression, because both my mother and brother will tell you that I didn’t come home at all. They just got a shell that looks like their beloved daughter and sister, except there’s nothing left on the inside.
Keith is scribbling another note. He holds it out to me. I read his question to the agent. “When was the last time the computer was analyzed?”
“Six years ago.”
I glance at Keith, already anticipating his next point. “There have been advancements in computer forensics since then,” I say.
He nods vigorously.
“Given the new development, I could have the computer reexamined. Did Jacob strike you as techie?”
“No. But—” I catch myself. “He was clever. And mechanical. I mean, he could keep his rig running on his own. And you know, building the pine coffin and all. He prided himself on self-sufficiency. I can’t imagine him in a classroom environment. But pursuing something that would help him get something he wanted, yeah, he’d do that.”
“He still would’ve had to utilize resources,” Quincy states. “We never recovered any books on computers, web surfing, or programming one-oh-one from his vehicle. On the other hand, he only made contact with your mother through internet cafés, which reveals a certain level of sophistication right there. He knew better than to use his own laptop, which we might have eventually been able to trace back to him via IP address, et cetera.”
“You never found the cabin in Georgia.”
“We’ve never found anything resembling a permanent residence for Jacob Ness.”
“His lair,” I murmur. “What about his mother?”
“He used her address for mail. According to her, she hadn’t seen him in years. We did a full sweep of that house, mostly recovering clothing and porn.”
“There should’ve been porn on his computer. He was always watching porn.”
“We found DVDs in the front cab; nothing on the computer. Not even a history of porn-site visits or searches.”
“That’s not right. The guy was a sex addict. His computer should’ve been ninety percent smut.”
Across from me, Keith is nodding. Predator one-oh-one, no level of murder or assault is ever enough for them. They all have to feed their appetites in between, even the ones who travel around the country with their own girls stashed in coffin-sized boxes.
“I’m going to get on a plane in the morning,” Quincy says.
I nod, then realize she can’t see me. “Okay.”
“I want to know everything about Conrad Carter.”
“Be sure to use your nice voice,” I offer weakly, already picturing D.D.’s face when the federal agent shows up at HQ. Maybe I should warn her in advance. Or call Samuel and beg for safe harbor.
“I’m going to use my bright, shiny federal shield.”
Yep, I’m a dead woman. “I want information on the other missing women,” I say, because as long as my time on this earth is limited . . .
Keith nods adamantly.
“Flora—”
“I have more to offer.”
“Than embroiling me in a pissing match against one of BPD’s toughest detectives?”
“I want to find his lair. We need it. If we could find it, think of the evidence.”
My voice is soft but certain. Keith regards me curiously. I can’t decide if he thinks I’m incredibly brave or truly self-destructive. Quincy must think the same because she doesn’t answer for a long time.
“We already checked for cabins in Georgia whose owners died the year you were abducted. We didn’t have any luck,” she says at last.
“Maybe it wasn’t Georgia. Maybe the owner didn’t die. Maybe he lied to me, another layer of protection in case I did manage to escape. I mean, if we’re now saying Jacob was clever enough to wipe his laptop, what’s a few lies to a girl he has locked in a box?”
Again the silence. Then, because I can’t help myself: “Was there other forensic evidence in the box? Of, you know, of other girls?”
“We think he built the box for you.”
There’s something in the way she says it that catches my attention. “But it wasn’t his first box,” I fill in slowly. “There were others, for . . . other girls.”
“An UNSUB doesn’t achieve Ness’s level of organization and sophistication overnight.”
Which is nothing new. Keith had already told me the same. But it’s starting to hit me now. Truly register. I might’ve been Jacob’s last girl. Maybe his longest-surviving girl. But there had been others. Ones who, most likely, had been fed to the gators. Ones who’d screamed and begged and still never made it home. Maybe they’d each slivered their fingers on the crudely bored air holes, then sucked their own blood to have something to do. Maybe they’d recited their favorite stories, the names of their childhood pets. Maybe they’d promised anything, everything, if they could just see their mom, brother, boyfriend, ever again.
Except it never happened.
And I’d failed them. Me, the one who did survive. I killed Jacob Ness. I put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger because it had to be done. Then I came home to my family and left all those poor girls behind. Never asked any questions. Never provided any answers. Simply abandoned them, faceless victims whose bones were moldering God knows where, whose own loved ones would never have the closure at least my mom and brother got.
I don’t feel guilty. I feel ashamed. I can’t look at Keith anymore, because I don’t want him to see my eyes filling with tears.
“There are memory techniques,” Quincy says at last.
“I know.”
“Dr. Keynes,” she begins.
“He’ll help us,” I answer for him.
“And if he recommends against it?”
“He won’t. I’m a survivor. Survivors are tough. If I could endure the real thing, then I can handle the memories.”
“I’ll be on the first flight in the morning,” Quincy says.
I nod. A tear splatters down onto the screen of the smartphone. Keith doesn’t touch me. But he does reach over and gently wipe the moisture away.
I end the call.