Authors: Leslie Tentler
She returned to where she’d been seated. Looking purposely away, she felt him tie the rubber tubing around her right biceps and then the sharp prick of the needle in the inside of her forearm.
“Why don’t you lie down and close your eyes? Focus on slow, deep breathing.” Dr. Wilhelm dimmed the lights in the room, then went over to lower the window blinds, choking out the bright afternoon sunlight. “Imagine you’re sitting in a theater, all alone, facing a blank, white screen.”
Smoothing down her sleeveless linen blouse over her cropped khakis, Mia settled herself on the couch. She felt a little foolish. Eric stood silently with his arms crossed over his chest, his features strained.
She gave him a final look, took a breath and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Eric glanced at her from behind the steering wheel. “Don’t be. Dr. Wilhelm said it could take a few sessions to know if it’s going to work. The good news is that you responded to the hypnosis. Not everyone does.”
It was true; she
had
fallen under the psychiatrist’s hypnotic suggestions. Mia had felt herself relaxing, being slowly drawn backward to the moment of her disappearance. It had all seemed so real. She recalled hearing the echo of her own footsteps on the concrete floor of the parking garage, the cheerful chirp of her car’s key fob as she unlocked the door. She had been hungry and thinking about what to have for dinner as she slid into the driver’s seat. But at that precise moment, the screen inside her head went blank. Dr. Wilhelm had taken her through that critical time span using various approaches, hoping she might recall seeing her abductor. None of them had worked. Her memory seemed to stop at the moment she closed the car door. He had mentioned the possibility of using a higher concentration of the drug during their next session, as a way to get past what he had called a
trauma block.
“How are you feeling?” Eric asked.
Mia touched the injection site on her arm, which was a little sore. “I’m fine. No headache or dizziness.”
“I want you to call me if that changes.”
They were headed over the bridge toward San Marco. The late afternoon sun sat lower in the sky and cast golden dapples of light across the omnipresent river. It was slow going since they were caught in the Friday rush hour, with traffic inching along. She glanced at Eric’s profile and thought again of the brief moment they seemed to have shared inside the psychiatrist’s office. There was no denying she felt an attraction to him. Mia realized it only complicated her situation.
“I’m going back to work next week,” she announced.
“Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”
“You sound like my editor.” She tucked her hair behind one ear as she gazed out the window. “I asked for the abduction story back. He said no.”
“Smart man.”
Mia looked at him. “The
no
is temporary. No as in
not yet.
He wants me to handle smaller assignments for a while, but I’m hoping to convince him otherwise.”
“I’m being honest with you, Mia. Your name on those articles already attracted this guy’s attention once. Putting yourself back out there like that…” He shook his head. “It would be rare for someone like this to go after the same person twice, but he could see it as a challenge. It’s just not a good idea.”
His cell phone rang. Mia lapsed into silence, hearing only Eric’s side of the conversation. Still, it was pretty clear what they were talking about. She felt her stomach clench as she thought of Pauline Berger.
“The M.E. made the identification through dental records,” he said. “Two of the teeth were missing, however.”
Mia closed her eyes, feeling a coldness creep over her despite the warm sun beating down on her through the windshield. She realized she’d referred to the investigation as an abduction case a few moments earlier. That had now officially changed.
A short time later, they pulled in front of her apartment building. Will’s convertible was gone, although the third-floor tenant appeared to be at home judging by her Toyota Prius in the driveway.
“Wait there. I’ll walk you up.” Eric exited the vehicle. He went around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. It was something he’d done at the Naval Air Station, as well. Normally, she would scoff at such old-fashioned behavior, but it seemed to suit him as if it were second nature, something ingrained in his DNA. Mia was reminded of his family tree. She imagined private prep schools and cotillions, an Ivy League college education. It was a vast difference from her own background.
As they went up the steps to the building’s second floor, she asked, “Are you going to speak with Pauline Berger’s family?”
“Agent Vartran is on his way to see them, along with Detective Boyet and Detective Scofield.”
At the top of the stairs, he took her keys and unlocked the door, pushing it open for her and then handing them back. “I’ll pick you up at four-thirty tomorrow?”
Mia nodded, entering her pass code into the security system console as they stepped inside. Even though the following day was Saturday, Dr. Wilhelm had recommended another session within twenty-four hours. He’d suggested the late-afternoon time frame so he could get in a round of golf with some visiting military VIPs.
“I imagine Dr. Wilhelm doesn’t schedule Saturday appointments for just anyone,” she acknowledged softly, looking up into his face. Her searching gaze held his for several long moments. “I’m a journalist, Eric…I do research. I’ve looked into the Maryland investigation.”
She saw the small lines of tension form around his eyes. Several beats of silence passed before he spoke. “Then you know why stopping this psychopath is so important to me.”
After he was gone, Mia stood alone inside her apartment. She had believed it important for him to know that
she knew.
She thought of Pauline Berger’s husband and understood why Eric hadn’t gone with the others to deliver the heartbreaking news.
7
T
he two little girls sat on a street curb nearly hot enough to burn the backs of their thighs. Mia felt sweat roll down her face and she wiped it away with a skinny forearm. Miss Cathy—as she made them call her—didn’t like kids in the house.
There’s a water hose out back if you’re thirsty. You can come in at dark. Have dinner and wash up. No talking. Go to bed.
Mia felt a sickness in her stomach. She didn’t like it here. Three days had passed since the lady who frowned and wore too much perfume dropped her off.
“Don’t be scared, Mia,” her new friend said, taking her hand. The girl had scraggly, reddish hair and was about her same age. There were a lot of kids who lived in the house. None of them were Miss Cathy’s own children. Mia felt tears sting her eyes.
“It’ll get better, you’ll see.”
A car came down the residential street, a powder-blue hatchback with a white racing stripe and loud engine. It slowed as it went past. The driver stared at them, turning his head to look for as long as he could. His face was in the shadows, but something about him made her want to run and hide.
The car stopped and began to back up.
Mia jerked awake on the couch. Sitting up in her living room, she ran a hand over her face, her heart thudding. The dream had been so real.
She hadn’t thought of Miss Cathy’s in years. She had lived there for only a few weeks, her first in a long line of foster care homes. But Mia didn’t recall a red-haired girl ever being there or a man in a car at all. She wondered if Dr. Wilhelm’s therapy session had confused her subconscious.
One thing was for certain; it had exhausted her more than she realized.
She’d lain down after Eric’s departure, expecting to doze for only a little while. But apparently she had been asleep for hours. Outside, the sky had grown black, bathing the room in shadows. Mia stood and bumped her shin on the coffee table in her haste to get to a lamp. She’d never liked the darkness. She released a pent-up breath as soft light filled the space. Based in reality or not, the dream had brought back old memories she had worked hard to suppress.
Two days before her sixth birthday, the Florida Department of Family and Child Services removed Mia from her mother’s home, relinquishing her into foster care. Luri Hale had been a mess, unable to care for herself, much less a child. Abandoned by her husband, jobless, given to binge drinking and interchanging bouts of mania and depression, she had made Mia’s young life a maelstrom of uncertainty. During Luri’s up periods, their filthy apartment hosted an endless parade of strange men. And when the crash—the corresponding down period came—it was much worse. Mia was left alone with her mother’s drunken sobs and abusive outbursts.
The removal by DFACS came after Mia, dirty, barefoot, had been caught shoplifting food from a neighborhood grocery store.
Still, foster care had been a rough ride, with families often taking children only for the modicum of cash they brought in. And Mia learned quickly not to get too settled anywhere, since the following week or month might mean a move somewhere else, including back home whenever Luri regained custody of her before losing her again. Because she refused to give up her rights, Mia had been ineligible for adoption. Not that many couples were looking for kids who weren’t babies or toddlers, especially ones who weren’t blond-haired and blue-eyed.
Mia knew Luri was still alive, living somewhere near Brunswick, Georgia, an hour and a half up the coast. But she never saw her, hadn’t spoken to her in years. Even now, she felt a sense of anger and loss for the family she’d never had.
Wandering into the kitchen, she noticed the blinking light on the phone console, indicating two new voice mails. The phone’s ringer was on low—had the calls come in while she’d been asleep? She pressed the button and waited for the first message. It was from Grayson, who was checking in on her. He’d heard about the ID on Pauline Berger’s body, he said, and wanted Mia to call him back. Concern threaded his voice.
She
would
call him, soon. An image of the woman’s corpse filled her head and sent a shiver running through her all over again.
Mia moved to the second message but was met with only silence—a good ten seconds of static-filled dead air before the voice mail system cut off the connection. She checked the caller ID screen, which read Unknown Caller. Zeroes were displayed where the number should have been. She received calls like that all the time, everyone did, and she hated that she was letting some telemarketing firm put her even more at unease. The draining therapy session, the strange nightmare—all of it had shaken her a bit. Mia realized it wasn’t Grayson but Eric she wanted to call. She shoved away the impulse, however, not wanting to seem anxiety-prone and needy.
As she went to the fridge and rummaged through the Thai leftovers from the previous evening, her mind returned to the little red-haired girl. Even now, she could almost feel the child’s thin fingers grasping hers, could see her clear hazel eyes.
It’ll get better. You’ll see.
Mia only hoped the dream-child was telling her the truth.
Eric had taken his beer out to the deck of Cameron and Lanie’s house. The couple lived in St. Augustine, south of the Jacksonville area in a weathered, Craftsman-style waterfront home that overlooked the Matanzas Bay. The home had been built in the 1920s and passed down through three generations of Vartrans. A short distance away, the lighthouse on Anastasia Island was visible, its still-operational beacon glowing like a bonfire in the dark night.
“You know that thing’s haunted,” Lanie said, following his gaze as she came out onto the deck from the kitchen. She cupped the mound of her belly and eased down onto the step next to where he sat. Her blond hair lifted in the warm, brackish breeze. “As the story goes, the lighthouse keeper’s young daughter drowned in the bay and her ghost can be seen on the observation deck from time to time.”
Eric raised his eyebrows. “Do you really believe that?”
She smiled slightly, shrugging. “I’ve never seen her but it’s good for tourism.”
“Where’s Cameron?”
“Doing the dishes for his poor, knocked-up wife. I thought I’d come out here and check on you.”
Eric had found out at dinner that Lanie was due in early August, and she was having a baby girl. He had known Lanie for nearly as long as he’d known Cameron. During the years in which they’d been partnered, it had often been the four of them on weekends—Cameron and Lanie, Rebecca and himself. Cameron had served as a groomsman at his and Rebecca’s wedding. Sitting on the deck with nothing but quiet and the water’s dark beauty stretching out in front of him, he could easily understand why his friends had made the choice to return home.
“How are you, Eric?” Lanie nudged his shoulder with hers. “I mean,
really.
How are you?”
“I’m okay.”
When she continued to gaze at him, concern on her face, he added quietly, “It’s been almost three years, Lanie.”
She pushed her hair from her eyes. “Time flies. We miss you. We miss Rebecca, too.”
Eric took a sip of his beer.
“Even after Cam and I moved back home, Rebecca and I still kept in touch by phone. We talked every few weeks or so.” Lanie didn’t look at him as she spoke. Instead, she stared out over the water. “I know you guys were having problems. But she still loved you, Eric.”
He sighed. He suspected she knew anyway. “We were getting a separation. Rebecca wanted it—I didn’t.”
His job had come between them. Bureau work was always demanding, but Eric’s move to the VCU had only intensified the long hours and travel, as well as the pressure. The daily violence had worn him down more than he’d expected. Rebecca had always needed his attention, his time, and he hadn’t been able to give it to her. At least not in the amounts she desired. Even if she really did love him, she had still wanted out.
“I let her down,” he murmured, more to himself than Lanie.
“It’s not your fault. Rebecca knew what she was getting into when she married a federal officer—”
“She didn’t plan to die because of me.”
Lanie fell silent. There really was no response she could give. Eric felt bad for the harsh edge to his words. Rebecca’s murder had screwed him up, but he didn’t need to take it out on someone else. After a few moments, he said, “Thanks for dinner, and for letting me stay at the bungalow. It beats the hell out of the Holiday Inn.”
“Cam figured you get your share of hotel rooms without having to stay in one down here.” Lanie played with her wedding band, sliding it up and down on her finger as she spoke. “We’re lucky. His parents left him the rental property, and this house. The bungalow is a nice supplemental income, but it’s in an older area of Jax Beach and usually doesn’t rent out until the summer when everything else is full.”
She hesitated. “I’m sorry we hadn’t mentioned the baby before now. Called or dropped you a postcard or something. It’s just that it’s taken a while and with the miscarriage two years ago, I’ve been a little superstitious about talking about it.”
Eric nodded his understanding. “You guys have a good life down here. You’ll be good parents. Do you have a name picked out?”
“Rosalie Marie.” She let out a small laugh. “It’s horribly old-fashioned, but it was Cameron’s mother’s name. He’s dead set on it.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Eric had braced his hand on the thigh of his jeans, and Lanie covered it with hers. She gazed at him, her china-blue eyes serious. Even in the shadows, he could see faint sun freckles on her cheekbones.
“You deserve a good life, too, Eric,” she said softly. “But Cameron thinks you’re still not through punishing yourself.”
He looked away and swallowed another sip of beer. Maybe when The Collector was dead or behind bars—and he admitted he’d prefer the former—he’d be able to let go of the past. But not until then.
Both he and Lanie turned as the door to the kitchen opened. Cameron came outside. Eric got to his feet and helped Lanie to a standing position. Truth be told, she wasn’t all that big yet but she was small-framed and her rounded stomach did make her seem a little off balance.
“Kitchen all done?” she asked.
Cameron nodded. He still had a dish towel slung over one shoulder.
“Do you want some dessert now? You boys can have coffee or another beer, and I’ll be stuck with boring old herbal tea…” She halted, apparently catching the seriousness on Cam’s face.
“We’re going to have to take a rain check on dessert, babe,” he said. His eyes moved to Eric. “I just got a call from Boyet. Another woman was reported missing an hour ago.”