“Tell me you’ve got something.” DeVries’s voice was pleading. “At least that you’re close. You’ve got a person of interest. Something.”
“Go home, Brian.” Mark was suddenly weary. It was possible, he was finding, to have sympathy for the man while wanting to slug him. “Waiting for news on your daughter is the worst kind of torture, but that’s what you have to do. We’re looking in several areas. We’re talking to people with links to both Kelsey Willard and your daughter. In fact, we just discovered another one who we’ll be interviewing tomorrow. The best way you can help us do our jobs is to be open and honest with us.”
Hope had bloomed in the man’s expression. “So you do have a suspect?”
“He’s a person of interest until we determine otherwise. And we’ll let you know either way. Go home to your wife and son now. They need you.”
“I want to know who you’ve talked to. Everyone you’ve eliminated.”
Already, the man was reverting to form and issuing demands. “We’ll tell you what we can,” Sloane promised.
The man’s chair scraped as he pushed out of it. Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away.
“Well.” Sloane watched the man’s exit. “What should we do as an encore? Find some puppies to stomp?”
“He put himself into this situation. He’s hardly blameless.” Mark was used to treating parents with kid gloves, but Brian DeVries could have derailed this investigation by inserting himself into it. Mark’s cell vibrated. He’d turned off the ringer for this conversation, but it was the third time since they’d sat down that it had alerted. Pulling the phone from his pocket, he squinted at the number that showed on the screen. The same one who’d called him at the motel. He answered it. “Mark Foster.”
“Agent.” Mark recognized Sergeant Rossi’s voice, but it’d lost its dispassionate tone. The edge of excitement in it was difficult to miss. “I’m at the lake house with my crime-scene team. The drug dog alerted to a spot in the bedroom next door to where Newman had the girls. Someone had chiseled out a stone from the fireplace, and there was quite a haul in the empty space.”
“Congratulations.”
“That’s why we decided to take the dog through the whole place. We’re in the basement now. The dog didn’t alert, not with the sit and bark it gives for narcotics. But it kept whining and returning to the west wall.”
Mystified, Mark said, “Okay.”
“There’s a crawl space there covered by a screen.” Mark glanced at Sloane, and his expression had her leaning forward in interest. “There’s something inside. We’re not sure what. Could be some sort of contraband that’s been hidden away. But we called the coroner. Because whatever’s in there sure looks like it’s in a body bag.”
The address Mark had been given wasn’t difficult to find, despite its isolation. The light bars atop the official vehicles parked outside the house were as visible from the blacktop as a beacon. He pulled up the steep winding drive and parked in back of a white van marked Allama County Coroner.
Neither of them spoke as he and Sloane got out of the vehicle. They made it up the front steps before the door opened and a uniform stepped out. From his garb, Mark pegged him as a reserve deputy. “BCI. Agents Foster and Medford.” The man took their credentials and examined them under the beam of his Maglite, before nodding and handing them back. “They’re in the basement. Follow me.”
Large spotlights dotted the empty space they walked through. The rough log-cabin walls, stone fireplace, and beamed ceilings provided rustic touches to what had once been a luxurious home. Mark recognized the quality of the polished wood floor, the intricate woodwork around the doors and windows. The kitchen they entered next was similarly well equipped but somewhat dated. He wondered how long the property had been empty.
Then they started down the split-log steps, and all other thoughts vanished. “Sending BCI down,” the reserve called from behind them. Mark led the way. The basement had been left unfinished, with the same stone he’d seen on the fireplace upstairs used for the walls. The floor was cement. The space was open and ran the length of the house. But it was full right now. More spotlights were set up. No cords, Mark noted. So there was no electricity in the place. There was a collapsible wheeled gurney in the center of the room. And a collection of men standing around a rectangular cavity high in the west wall. A screen had been removed and was leaning against the wall near the floor. He identified Rossi by the three stripes on his uniform coat. He was standing near a short balding man in civilian clothes. Adrenaline thrummed inside him as Mark made his way toward them.
“Sheriff Jeff Richards.” The shorter man introduced himself. “You’re just in time. We haven’t touched a thing. Waited for the coroner.”
Mark and Sloane stood in silence as two individuals, standing on an overturned crate of some sort, worked a wide, canvas-covered board into the opening. With one man lifting the edge of the object inside, the other was able to work the board beneath it, an inch at a time. Minutes later, Mark moved forward with Rossi and Richards to help balance the board and its contents as it was withdrawn and gingerly lowered it to the gurney.
The sergeant had been right. It looked like a black body bag, if an extra-large one. It hadn’t been especially heavy. Mark’s pulse quickened as they got the bag settled on the gurney. One of the men wearing a flak jacket with Coroner emblazoned across reached out a gloved hand to unzip the circular zipper on top. The sound echoed in the silence.
“Jesus,” one of the deputies muttered, pressing his nose into the crook of his arm. Mark’s stomach plummeted. Not because of the smell that emanated from the bag, but what that smell meant.
Rossi raised his flashlight, catching the bag’s contents in its beam. “Ah, shit.” Mark’s tone was bleak as his gaze traveled from the tip of one black ballet slipper, up the tights-clad legs, the left drawn up to rest alongside the opposite knee. The tulle of the pink tutu had been smashed by the bag. The matching leotard was long sleeved, and the skeletal arms were arranged above the head. He saw something on the bony fingers. Wire. Holding the hands in a clasped position. The long, dark hair was intact. Not much of the facial skin was. But in his gut, he had no doubt.
They’d found Kelsey Willard.
Whitney DeVries
November 14
10:37 p.m.
She lay on the mattress, silently counting away the hours. Whitney had thought about her plan all day. Mentally polished it during every second of the hated practice. It had run through her mind on a constant loop, even while she talked to the freak, who had noted her distraction. Missing her mom and dad had been Whitney’s excuse, which was no more than the truth. It had pissed off the freak, she could tell, resulting in another one of his lectures about gratitude and her good fortune for having the opportunity for a new family.