Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(11)

“Worshipped her from afar,” Neil supposed.

“Or even a girlfriend. Except it ended badly. Maybe she rejected him. And then he turned on her.”

“And the second victim, Kristy? Plus, the woman downstairs?” Neil asked. They’d gone through the box; there were no more photos.

“Maybe he liked it,” D.D. theorized out loud. “The first time was personal. The second and third were for fun.”

“There’s no way of telling where these pictures were taken,” Neil said. “The framing is too close-up, there’s not enough backdrop.”

“Our survivor claims there’s blood in the garage.”

“I could smell something,” Neil concurred.

“Have the crime scene techs gather samples. And send more uniforms to the bar where Devon Goulding worked, with photos of all three known victims. Let’s see just how close to home he was hunting. Grab a photo of Stacey Summers as well. See if she frequented that bar.”

“She was last seen at a different establishment, Birches over on Lex.”

“I know. But if she’d spent time in Goulding’s bar as well . . . how many psychopaths can one poor girl run into?”

D.D. straightened, wincing as the motion jarred her shoulder, the growing ache in her back.

“You should go home,” Neil said. “It’s our job to handle all this, your job to tell us how we could’ve done it better.”

But D.D. wasn’t listening to him. She was thinking. Of the garage, of Devon Goulding, of his latest victim, who’d beaten him at his own game and was now sitting in the back of a squad car. A blonde with FBI connections and knowledge of how to start a chemical fire. A woman Neil had thought he’d recognized.

She should know this, she thought. Could feel something stirring in the back of her mind.

A knock came from behind her; newbie detective Carol Manley stuck her head in the room.

“D.D., the agent our vic called at the FBI. He’s here.”





Chapter 6


ONCE UPON A TIME, I could’ve told you all about myself.

I would’ve said with certainty that my name is Florence Dane. My mom, who dreamed big for her children, named me after Florence Nightingale and my older brother in honor of Charles Darwin.

I would’ve said that the happiest place on earth was my mother’s farm in central Maine. Mounds of blueberries in the summer, acres and acres of potatoes in the fall. I grew up loving the smell of freshly turned earth. The feel of soil beneath my fingertips. My mother’s contented sigh at the end of the day, when she gazed over all that she had accomplished and felt satisfied.

Our neighbors included several foxes, as well as bears and moose. My mother didn’t mind our local wanderers, but was a firm believer in not feeding the wildlife. We were to coexist with nature, not corrupt it. My mother had grown up on a commune. She had many theories about life, not all of which made any sense to my brother and me.

Personally, I loved the foxes best. I would sit for hours outside their den, hoping for a view of the kits. Foxes are playful, like a kitten crossed with a puppy. They enjoy batting around golf balls or tossing small toys in the air. I learned this the way kids used to learn things, by hanging outside with the sun on my face, by trying a little bit of this or a little bit of that. I brought them an old rubber ball, a catnip-stuffed mouse, even a small rubber duckie. The adult foxes would sniff at the offerings hesitantly, while the kits would come bounding out of the den and pounce on the new toys without a moment’s hesitation. Sometimes, I left a carrot or two behind. Or, if my mother was particularly busy and not paying attention, scraps of hot dog.

Just being neighborly, I tried to explain to my mother the first afternoon she caught me shredding cheese outside the den’s opening. She didn’t buy it: “Every creature must learn to make it on its own. Encouraging dependence doesn’t do anyone any favors, Flora.”

But later, after a particularly bad snowstorm in early November, I caught her carrying scraps from dinner to the same den.

She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. It became our shared secret, because back then, we couldn’t think of anything more scandalous than domesticating wild foxes.

So once upon a time, here is something I could’ve told you about myself: I love foxes. Or at least I used to. That’s not the kind of thing that’s easy to take from someone. But I don’t sit around and watch them anymore, or bring them toys, or smuggle them treats. Four hundred and seventy-two days later . . . I try to find peace in the woods. I definitely prefer the wide-open outdoors to small indoor spaces.

But some pieces of myself, some feelings . . . it’s just not like that anymore. I can do the things I used to do, visit the same places, see the same people. But I don’t feel the same anymore. Some days, I’m not sure I feel anything at all.


*

APRIL IS MY FAVORITE MONTH. I’m fairly sure that’s still true. The farm came with a rickety old greenhouse. How it survived each long, blustery winter we never knew. But by late April, as the snow finally thawed, we’d trudge through the mud and force open the warped door, the whole structure groaning in protest. Darwin would lead the charge inside, the lone male and self-appointed family protector.

My mother would come next with a wheelbarrow full of bags of loam and topsoil. I’d bring up the rear, carting plastic trays and, of course, packets of seed.