Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(100)

“Possible.”

D.D. frowned, picked up the file Keynes had brought her, which was painfully thin. A profile of a woman with no name, no address, no known associates. Just genetic markers indicating her half match to a sexual deviant.

“Why are you bringing this up now?” she asked Keynes at last.

“You keep implying I know things about Flora I’m not telling. You also seem to feel Flora’s recent disappearance might have something to do with her first abduction. I don’t know. Personally, I have more questions than answers at this point. But I am concerned about Flora. And despite what you think, I’m being honest. Anything, everything Flora has ever told me, I have shared. That’s my job, Sergeant Detective. I’m not a shrink. I’m a victim specialist. Flora knows this. Which is yet another reason why she never told me about Jacob’s daughter.”

Keynes nodded at the file. “You now know everything I know about Flora and her time with Jacob. It’s not complete. It’s not perfect. But I’m hoping, for Flora’s sake, it’s enough.”

“A virtually empty folder on an unidentified woman?” D.D. picked up the file. “This isn’t a piece of information. It’s another damn question!”

“You wanted to know everything. And now you do.”

Keynes rose to standing, retrieved his coat.

“Flora didn’t run away,” he stated.

“I know.”

“Meaning if she’s gone, someone took her.”

“But not the building inspector,” D.D. conceded with a sigh.

“And not Devon Goulding,” Keynes said, “who was already dead. Which leaves us with?”

“A connection. Someone who knew the victims, but also knew Devon Goulding.” D.D. looked up at Keynes. “Someone who either partnered with Devon on the original abductions or was inspired enough to keep on going.”

“A connection,” Keynes agreed.

D.D. stared at all the mounds of paperwork on her desk and realized it was up to her after all. Because she was the central keeper of information. Each detective wrote up his or her piece. It was the sergeant’s job, however—D.D.’s job—to study the whole.

“I have to get to work,” she muttered.

Keynes smiled, left her without another word.





Chapter 38


THE CORRIDOR ISN’T LIT, and yet is somehow lighter than our shuttered room. Standing with my body halfway behind the door, peering warily down the hall, it takes me a few moments to figure it out. There are no windows, no overhead lights. Hence the relentless gloom. But neither are the walls painted black, enabling some sense of lightness, though maybe mostly in comparison.

I count four doors in addition to mine. One next to this room, two across the hall. The final door is at the end of the hall. Maybe leading to a staircase? All are closed, so it’s hard to know.

I don’t see any signs of life. Nor do I hear footsteps approaching, noises from other rooms, levels. The hall isn’t long; four rooms isn’t many.

A house, I think. We are in a house. How many stories there are, which level we’re on, I have no idea. If we’re still in Boston, most of the construction is triple-deckers. Common living space would be the first floor, bedrooms on the second and third. I would guess we’re on the third floor, as far away from the common areas—where neighbors or guests might hear us—as possible. But I don’t know anything, and my roommate isn’t exactly talking.

Confronted by the empty hallway, dotted with dark rectangles of shuttered doors, she is shaking uncontrollably, her hand pressed to her injured side.

My first instinct is to get us down the hall to the end doorway, which I’m guessing leads to a stairwell. Over. Down. Out.

Somehow, I doubt it will be that simple.

The girl—Stacey—is staring at the closed door directly across from us. She shakes harder.

Which is when I start to get nervous. What’s behind that door? What does she know that I don’t?

I wish I had a weapon.

I don’t like guns. I still remember that last day, the weight of the .45 in my hand . . .

I don’t like guns. But a Taser, pepper spray, even a good old-fashioned baseball bat would make me feel better right about now.

I have a bent mattress coil in my hand. Guess it will have to do.

As I creep silently out from behind the door. Leave my pitch-black prison for the first time in . . . Well, I have no idea.

I don’t go left. I don’t go right. Instead, responding to Stacey’s continuous shudders, I cross the hall, wrap my hand around the doorknob, and pull.

The door opens out into the corridor, just like ours did. It enables me to keep my body positioned behind it, half protected from whatever wild creature might leap from its yawning black depths.

I yank. I step back. Stacey hisses sharply and . . .

Nothing.

No sounds. No activities. No humans or animals appearing from the void. I peer around the door, study the depths more intently.

The room is dark, dark. Like ours was. Same blackout paint job, which makes me wonder what else might be similar. All of my explorations of my room never revealed a light switch. So now I feel along the hall next to the doorway and, sure enough, find the switch out in the corridor. I flip it on.

Stacey shrieks. I snap my eyes shut, my fingers scrambling belatedly to reverse the light process. Off, off, off.