D.D. paused midstep. “Someplace near Tonic?” Devon Goulding’s bar.
“Yes. At Hashtag. Just up the street. How much do you want to bet, after hours, Goulding was known to hang out there as well?”
“Oh, you’re not getting money out of me that easily. You got detectives visiting the place and flashing photos?”
“As we speak.”
“Which would connect Devon Goulding with Kristy Kilker, who hasn’t been seen or heard from in . . .”
“Mom hasn’t gotten a call since June.”
D.D. resumed climbing. “That’s like five months ago. She really thought her daughter was still hanging out in Italy?”
“Kristy had planned to travel around on her own, after the program ended in September. The whole ‘me, my backpack, and various youth hostels’ experience. Which, by definition, would mean she wouldn’t have much money left for international calls and apparently the mom herself doesn’t care for e-mail.”
“So we have Natalie Draga, who left home a year ago, and Kristy Kilker, who’s been MIA for at least five months. Now, we know Natalie Draga actually worked at Tonic. Carol have any luck talking to the manager?”
“Yeah.” They’d rounded two flights, kept on trucking. “Manager confirmed that Natalie used to be an employee. Nine months ago, however, she stopped coming in. Never called, never showed up to collect her last paycheck. Manager still has it sitting in her personnel file.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Was Devon working there nine months ago?”
“Devon Goulding has been an employee in good standing for the past three years. Excellent bartender. Does have a tendency to flirt with customers, fellow employees, et cetera, but what are you gonna do? His looks helped draw in the crowds while deterring overly aggressive riffraff. That he could be a rapist, no way. Manager doesn’t believe it for a second.”
D.D. arched a brow.
Phil nodded. “Exactly, especially once Carol started asking about temper tantrums, rage management. Manager’s story changed. As a matter of fact, in the past year or so, Goulding’s behavior has taken a turn for the worst. In fact, he got in a fistfight with another customer several months ago. Manager had to clean it up, Goulding promised it would never happen again.”
“So Goulding’s roid rage was making itself known,” D.D. guessed. “And he now has ties with at least two missing women.”
“Yep.”
They’d finally arrived on their floor. D.D. felt energized. Phil looked like he was about to keel over.
“So what happened to them?” she asked out loud. “Kristy Kilker, Natalie Draga? Where are they now?”
Phil shrugged, his look saying what they both already knew. Most likely, they were searching for bodies, and the number of dumping options in Boston . . . Just ask Whitey Bulger. Boston was a criminal’s playground.
“Techs have seized his vehicle,” Phil said.
Which made sense. If Devon had been hauling around bodies, he’d need a private means of transport. “And if it has a navigation system . . . ,” D.D. prodded.
“We should be able to download frequently driven routes. Whatever he did, wherever he took them, chances are he’d want to visit.”
“Absolutely,” D.D. agreed. “To relive the glory, revel in his own power, all of the above. Maybe . . .” She thought of the pictures of Natalie Draga, so many photos, clearly from a man either in love or worshipping from afar. “Maybe,” she decided, “even to mourn. If Natalie was his first . . . he might not have intended to kill her. Maybe he really did just want to talk, or win her back, assuming they’d once been together. But when that didn’t work . . .”
Phil shrugged. The motives for murder were many and varied. At this point, it mattered less to the team why Devon had killed the girls and more what he’d done with them afterward. Sometimes detectives worked to put away the bad guy. And sometimes detectives worked to find closure for the families.
Speaking of which . . .
D.D. and Phil walked down the corridor to the homicide unit.
Where D.D. found Rosa Dane waiting for her, Samuel Keynes by her side.
*
ROSA WAS DEFINITELY DRESSED for comfort—yoga pants, an interesting assortment of tops that seemed to end in an oversize blue flannel shirt. Her son’s shirt? Maybe even her late husband’s, given the frayed cuffs and hem. It definitely contrasted with Keynes’s classically tailored suit.
Rosa’s face, however, was pure Flora. Or vice versa. The grim set of her lips, the hard line of her jaw. Clear gray eyes that peered straight at D.D. and didn’t flinch. Rosa’s hair was lighter, blond streaked with gray. But otherwise, she could be her daughter’s older sister.
D.D. thought of what the victim advocate Pam Mason had said about how close Stacey Summers was with her mom. She wondered if Rosa saw the parallels with the relationship she used to have with her own daughter, and whether that helped her or hurt her when it came to mentoring the Summerses.
“She’s missing.” The woman stated the phrase. Again, eyes clear, jaw set. “When Samuel called”—she nodded her head in his direction—“he didn’t say as much, but the questions he asked. I’ve been asked those questions before.”
“I suggested she meet with you directly,” Keynes spoke up. “And I assured her you were doing everything in your power to help locate Flora.”
D.D. resisted the urge for sarcasm. Now was not the time. With one last parting glance at Phil, whose expression was completely sympathetic, she motioned for Rosa and Keynes to follow her to her office.
“After talking to Samuel,” Rosa continued, falling in step behind D.D., “I tried calling Flora again. Four, five times. She never called back. It’s not like her to go so long without making contact; she knows better.”
“Would you like some coffee?” D.D. asked.
“So I drove down. Hoping for the best, because that’s what mothers do. But I knew. The entire way. Driving, driving, driving. I knew she was gone. Then, arriving at her apartment, seeing the police cars . . . I spoke to the Reichters. They told me what happened.”
D.D. had finally reached her office. Not the largest or grandest in the unit, but perfect for private conversations. She ushered Rosa and Keynes inside, once again offered coffee, water, any kind of refreshment. Keynes shook his head. Rosa simply stared at her. D.D. took the hint.
“We are actively searching for your daughter,” D.D. stated, making herself at home behind her desk. “We have concerns for her safety.”
Rosa smiled. It was not a happy expression, and immediately, D.D. recalled Flora sitting in the back of the patrol car just yesterday morning. Survivors, D.D. realized. She was dealing with not one survivor of a traumatic kidnapping seven years ago but two of them. Mother and daughter. And the scars the ordeal had left on both of them.
And Keynes, standing patiently beside the door as Rosa took a seat. What was his role in all this? Just what kind of victim specialist remained on such familiar terms with a mother and her daughter five years later?
“I’m here to file a missing persons report. That will help, yes?” Rosa’s tone was even.
D.D. nodded. She kept her gaze on Samuel, who hadn’t spoken since entering the office and yet he seemed to assume he was part of this meeting. Why?
“I last saw her around one fifteen yesterday, Saturday,” Rosa said. “You need to know that too.”
D.D. picked up a pad of paper, made a note. The woman was clearly a pro.
“She was dressed in her pajamas: blue plaid cotton boxers and a white T-shirt. Last I knew, she was planning on taking a nap, after being . . . out all night. I can go through her clothes and tell you if anything else is missing.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“You think she was taken from her bed, then. Kidnapped straight from her apartment.”
“There were no signs of a struggle,” D.D. said.
“He ambushed her. Drugged her?”