Stepping carefully, he wandered about the room. The set of shelves held books and notebooks, framed photos of Whitney and friends. All had been identified in the file. Each one had been questioned, with the exception of Macy Odegaard, whom they’d been unable to reach. Shannon had thought they were out of state for the girl’s grandma’s funeral. Hopefully, they’d have a line on the family tomorrow. Maybe Macy would know more about Whitney’s relationship with the supposed Patrick Allen. The other friends all had denied any knowledge of a boyfriend, although Mark had accumulated a lengthy list of boys who were supposedly interested in the girl, which they were checking out.
Next to the window, a poster of Justin Bieber shared wall space with one of Nicki Minaj, each hung with neon-pink poster putty. There was a huge bulletin board covered with overlapping photos, concert-ticket stubs, sports clippings of the local high school teams, and a couple of selfies of Whitney with friends. All had been identified and spoken to. There was an empty spot on the cluttered desk where her school-provided laptop had sat. Cyber forensics had found nothing on it so far. Social media sites were blocked, and the only e-mail accessed on it was a school account. It appeared that she used her phone and the family computer for personal communications.
“To be honest, it almost always looks like this.”
Swiveling, Mark saw Shannon standing in the doorway, her gaze scanning the space. “Drives me nuts. I make her clean it every Saturday, so I can get in here with a vacuum. I always tell her, ‘Whit, it’d be so much less work just to keep it clean.’ But Brian says we have to pick our battles, and a clean room and made bed are pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.” She fell silent, her eyes welling with tears. “I guess he was right.”
“I don’t know much about raising teenagers, but that sounds like a good idea.” And he was sort of surprised to hear that it came from her husband. It reflected an indulgence and understanding that he wouldn’t expect from the man. He pointed to the area next to her bed. “Is that where she usually kept her school bag?”
Shannon nodded, her gaze riveted on it. “After fifty reminders to carry it to her room, yeah.” A little smile played across her lips before disappearing. “She’s got a million great qualities, but organization isn’t one of them.”
“Are she and her dad close?” Other than the original statement taken by the chief of police when BCI got called, Shannon had never been questioned without Brian at her side. Mark couldn’t get a read on whether that was the woman’s choice or her husband’s.
Eyes misting, Shannon nodded. “She’s his little girl.” Her voice cracked a little on the words. “He was thrilled when Ryan was born, of course, but I never got the idea that he was disappointed when we had a daughter first. Some men . . . it matters to them, you know? But not to Brian. She was his world. And it’s killing him. He doesn’t let anyone see, but he’s dying inside. Because he’s her daddy, and he didn’t protect her.” She was crying now, silent tears tracing paths down her cheeks, and Mark took a handkerchief from his pocket, handed it to her. Being good at dealing with parents meant he always had a clean one ready.
He waited for her to compose herself, studying the room again, his gaze lingering on the slipper, the sense of familiarity stronger. Crossing to it, he picked it up. Let it dangle from the end of one gloved index finger. “Did she dance?” He tried to recall if they’d listed dance as one of her activities. He didn’t think so.
Shannon leaned against the doorjamb as if the strength had suddenly streamed out of her, the damp handkerchief clutched in her fingers. “She took jazz and ballet from the time she was three. I was so upset when she quit. She nagged me about it for six months before she finally wore me down. Guess I loved it more than she did. I have a scrapbook of all the recital pictures and newspaper stories about her group. They were pretty good.”
“How long ago did she stop taking lessons?”
“It was May. I made her go through the recital and everything. Maybe a little part of me was hoping once she did, she’d change her mind, but she didn’t.”
“Almost six months then.” He sent her an easy smile, but something was still niggling at him. “Why would she have her dance shoes lying around if she hadn’t had lessons for six months?”
“For the same reason she has a teddy bear she hasn’t touched in years under her bed. I don’t know how she gets the place in such a shambles in the space of a few days. She goes searching for something, and anything in her way gets tossed aside and pretty soon . . .” She gestured to the room.
Mark smiled. “Sounds like my son when he’s going through his toy box. Most things go right over his shoulder.” He turned the slipper over. Size seven, which matched the description they had of the girl. And he was bothered more than he should have been that the parents had forgotten to include Whitney’s former interest in the background they’d given the BCI. You never knew what might be important . . . The thought splintered as another intruded.
“What?” Distracted, he glanced at Shannon, who was regarding him closely. “You looked . . . I don’t know.” She gave an uneasy laugh. “Like something just occurred to you.”
“I just remembered I was supposed to call Agent Craw fifteen minutes ago,” he lied. “I appreciate your time tonight. You and your husband’s. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. And I’ll keep you apprised of developments.”
Suddenly in a hurry, Mark headed through the door and down the hall, with Shannon on his heels. Moments later, he was hunching against the wind’s bitter bite as he hastened to his car. If he did speak to the other agent tonight, he knew better than to share the thought that had struck him as he had contemplated that ballet slipper. The older man would chew his ass. Probably rightly so.
He slipped into the vehicle. Started it. The memory of the dance shoe refused to be shunted aside. It looked like thousands of others worn by girls across America.
It also looked like those worn by the dead victims of the Ten Mile Killer.
Mark pulled away from the curb, noting the neighbor watching him through her front window.
There were few agents in the BCI who hadn’t checked out the TMK case file at one time or another. The case was the most notorious one in the agency’s recent history. The fact that it had remained unsolved made it all the more bitter. All the victims had been found in a ten-mile radius deep in the Wayne National Forest. He remembered from his reading that many of the TMK’s victims had taken dance. And when their bodies had been discovered, each victim had been clad in leotard, tights, a tutu, and ballet slippers. It was the most notable commonality in the crimes. The memories of the photos of their posed, decomposing bodies had acid churning in his gut.
Without a body, Craw hadn’t been convinced that Kelsey Willard had been victimized by the Ten Mile Killer, no matter what the locals thought. But the cases of two teenage girls missing from towns twelve miles apart—even with seven years between the occurrences—had enough surface similarities to be examined for links before they could be dismissed as coincidence.