CHAPTER 11
T
he question for Bannon was where to start looking. He was going more on instinct than anything at this point, with the sketchiest of clues. Three words, “girl of gold,” that weren't from some old song. Words that seemed machine-printed on a store-bought card, but had been penned in ink. He'd taken screen shots from the digital microscope image, saved them on his laptop.
Bannon touched a key to bring the screen to life. He opened the folder with the screen shots and studied the calligraphy again. He was no expert on the subject, but it seemed flawless, offering no clue to the personality of the writer.
But he couldn't shake the feeling that the same person had used the same words on another card. He wanted a much closer look at the sentimental card handcrafted by Ann's mother. The photos in the scrapbook it had fallen out of might tell him something more about the lonely-looking woman in some of them. His guess: She had been an unhappy wife, married to an oddball who kept his distance from the world. One child dead, one living. Who had known them? Who remembered them now? Bannon had a hunch that the Randall family had hidden in plain sight.
And that Randall wasn't necessarily the real family name.
He'd have to hit some databases, maybe call in a couple of favors on the federal side through Linc or Deke.
Bannon sifted through the copied papers of the Montgomery files several more times, looking for something he might have missed, setting aside anything, no matter how minor, that concerned the little girl. Crimes of this type often involved crossing state lines. He and everyone else with a badge in the state of Virginia had sat through talks on the subject by federal officers and the occasional criminologist, but Bannon had listened more than most, studied up on his own time when he could. Child predators wanted sex; child abductors sometimes just wanted a child. But those lines blurred.
Before he'd made detective, he'd been schooled some by a grizzled veteran of the state police on the grim truths of crimes against children.
Sometimes the victim is killed within an hour or less. Sometimes not. Some kids are kept for years, until they forget their own names.
What else had the man said?
Sometimes there's more than one perp, especially in abduction cases. Easier to take a kid if a woman's involved.
One trick the old guy had shared was that it could help to put yourself in the shoes of an abductor or predator. Set aside the concept of right and wrong. Adopt the twisted logic of a psychopath and think like one. Then look at the clues again with that mindset.
Bannon would try to.
He had very little to go on, but the most likely scenario was that there had been two people involved in the Montgomery kidnapping. A woman to keep the little girl from becoming too frightened and screaming. A man to take care of the rest.
But there were no details to go on. In the months the case had been headline news, virtually no physical evidence relating to Ann's disappearance had turned up. Reviewing everything spread out on the coffee table once more didn't reveal points of connection he'd missed.
But he wasn't going to dismiss his instincts. He had more digging to do, that was all, in places other than the official files. Bannon rubbed his forehead. He'd have to search county records, libraries, look through bound copies of newspaper accounts in those yearsâgrunt work. Not thrilling. But he would do it.
He sat back into the couch cushions and closed his eyes, constructing scenarios in his mind, interweaving theme and variations, methods and motive.
A pair of child abductors had snatched a little girl from a rich family, reasons unknown. They had never asked for a ransom. The whirlwind of media attention could have panicked them into killing little Ann, most likely within a few days of taking her.
Think like them.
The idea was loathsome, but he forced himself to do it.
They hadn't wanted money. They had wanted a child young enough to forget where she came from. And they had left no trace, a sign of meticulous planning. Ann had been taken in the night, when the household was asleep.
But why would anyone assume they could get away with kidnapping the only daughter of the Montgomerys? For the perpetrators, there had to have been an element of challenge to the crime. To Bannon, that suggested a high degree of intelligence.
Ann Montgomery had been taken in a more innocent time, before nationwide Amber Alerts. The abduction had been all over the newspapers, but that didn't mean the investigation was everything it should have been.
Then and now, kids vanished without kidnappers. Off the record, the officers involved could have seen the case not as an abduction but a simple disappearance, especially without a body and or any apparent clues. A curious child wandered out of bed and out the door. It did happen. Lost in the woods. Swept away by a rising creek in a nameless gully. Trapped in the twists of a hidden cave at the back of a rock overhang.
Missing, presumed dead.
It was a routine phrase for official documents. Still, it nagged at him. It was the first thing he'd read on the Montgomery case. Had the original investigators been too quick to jump to that conclusion? Bannon had no way of knowing.
He pushed himself up and off the couch, afraid he was overthinking things. Sure, his scenario was plausible, as far as it went, but believing it instead of finding out facts wasn't going to get him anywhere. The way certain elements of Erin's story fit his theoryâthat could trip him up, big time.
Bannon found his cell phone and punched the speed dial key for her number as he walked to the window. It was a nice day. She might be outside. He was pleased when she answered before the last ring on his side of the call.
“Hey.” She sounded happy to hear from him. “I was just going to call you.”
“Yeah? Then I must be psychic.”
Erin laughed warmlyâthe sound that did something to his heart. “Were you thinking about a big black dog?”
“Uh, no,” he said honestly. “But is Charlie okay?”
“Oh, he's fine,” she assured him. “But I was going to get started on the painting for Montgomery today. I can't bring Charlie to the stables and I don't know how long I'll be there. So it just occurred to meâif you happened to be driving out this wayâ”
“Yes,” he said instantly.
Erin laughed again. “You don't even know what I was going to ask.”
“I don't care. I just like saying yes to you.”
“Be careful, Bannon. I might take advantage of you.”
“Please do. Whenever. So you want me to walk the dog? No problem. Over the hills and through the woods. I'll even check him for ticks afterward.”
“Charlie, did you hear that?” Her voice was distant for a few seconds as she spoke to the dog. “Bannon's a good guy.”
“I try,” he said. He felt a little guilty for not asking her if he could look at the card she'd tucked back into the scrapbook. He was just going to do it. “When are you leaving?” he asked.
“In fifteen minutes.”
He frowned. That was sooner than he could get there. “Okay. I'll be out there in half an hour.”
“Sorry to miss you.” Her voice held a seductive, faintly teasing note.
“Yeah. Well, I have a lot of things to do. Another time, right?”
“You bet. I'll make dinner.”
Bannon grinned. “Sounds great. Tell me when.”
“As soon as I go food shopping. We'll figure it out. Oh, by the way, before I forget, the key will be under the mat.”
“You might as well leave the door wide open,” he said wryly.
“Okay, it's dumb, but I can't think of a better place.”
“Then maybe I can get out there a little sooner.” He could practically hear her sigh.
“I'll be gone. Thanks again, Bannon. I really appreciate it. And so does Charlie.”
She hung up and Bannon grabbed his car keys and a jacket. It had been years since he'd gotten a speeding ticket. If he got pulled over, he'd flash his badge at the highway patrol officer, say he was on a case. If the guy didn't buy it, so what? Keeping Erin safe was worth a few points on his license.
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Her car was nowhere in sight as he drove up to the house. What he'd expected, but he felt a pang knowing she was gone, even though he'd have the house to himself.
Charlie's deep bark came to his ears as he got out and slammed the car door. It was a good sound. Intimidating.
He glanced through the driver-side window, remembering the laptop he'd strapped to the passenger seat so it wouldn't bounce around on the road. Bannon opened the door again and moved the laptop to the footwell, and then locked the door. You never knew.
He saw the dog move from window to window inside the house as he walked around outside, doing a perimeter check for the hell of it. Everything looked okay.
Charlie must have caught a whiff of his scent through the rattletrap windows, because he stopped barking by the time Bannon got to the rear windows. From where he was, about fifteen feet away, he could see in pretty well. The dog had his paws up on the windowsill and was grinning at him.
“Yeah, you're going for a walk,” Bannon said. He gave everything a once-over and then his gaze was caught by white bits of something on the ground under the windows. He went closer to have a look-see, squatting on his haunches to touch a finger to the dirt and pick up a couple of the white bits.
They were paint flakes. He straightened and inspected the old panes and the frames, paying particular attention to where the upper window met the lower.
On the other side of the glass, Charlie followed his motions. “Down, boy,” Bannon said. The dog might have pushed against the windows, loosened the old paint. Hard to tell. There were no marks on the exterior wood, nothing that showed an attempt at forced entry. He ran his fingertips over every inch of the frame that he could reach, feeling for what he might not be able to see.
A couple of places flaked under his touch and more white bits fell to the ground. Inconclusive. But it worried him. Bannon stepped back. From a distance, everything looked fine again.
He turned around and headed back to the front door, letting his gaze sweep over the surrounding land. The gently rolling acres blended into the brushstrokes of green that brightened the woods. Spring was coming on strong. Above it all the Blue Ridge loomed, gradually diminishing toward the north and south.
He came around the corner of the house, went up the porch stairs, and bent down to raise the mat and retrieve the key. Unlocked, the door swung in and there was Charlie, sitting firmly like the well-trained dog he was, ears up and alert. His tail just barely wagged.
“At ease,” Bannon said jokingly. He covered the distance to the dog and gave him some solid pats. Charlie scrambled to all fours, shamelessly making the most of the unexpected attention until it stopped.
Bannon straightened and turned his head, suddenly aware of a faint, very feminine scent in the airâthe sweet essence of Erin. He guessed that it was wafting from her bedroom, brought to him by a drafty window. The door of her sanctuary was slightly ajar. Maybe she had left the cap off a perfume bottle.
He could just see inside, but he forced himself not to look.
Desperately in need of a distraction, Bannon glanced around for the dog's leash. Not that he would need it for Charlie. But one thing for sure, it wasn't in her bedroom. He spotted it on a hook by the front door and grabbed it, yanking open the door. He was nothing but a hound dog himself.
He and Charlie set out in the same direction that Erin had taken him before, ambling over fields that were a little muddy, then running where it was drier. Bannon sucked in deep breaths, enjoying the freshness of the air. He stopped for a little while, warming his hands in his pockets as Charlie found something unbelievably interesting to sniff. Bannon surveyed Erin's house from this new vantage point.
His fingers found the key he'd taken along. It bothered him that she'd left it under the mat, even though she'd done it for him. Granted, she'd grown up in the country, but things had changed. There were no safe places left in the world.
Charlie brushed by his leg and Bannon realized the dog was heading back to the house. He followed, wanting to get back in himself. True to his promise, he checked the dog for ticks and found none before he opened the front door for both of them.
The big dog padded to a rug that had to be his favorite, judging by the way he thumped down on it and stretched out.
“Did I wear you out?” Bannon asked.
A heavy black tail pounded in answer. Charlie raised his head to look at Bannon.
“Lie down,” he said. He was heading for the box that held the scrapbook and he didn't want to be watched by the dog. Charlie obeyed.