Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(114)

No, in my wildest fantasies, I slayed the beast. I did what I should’ve done years ago.

A woman with promises left to keep.

Except the truth is, five years of training later, I still haven’t headed to Florida in search of Lindy. Because five years later, she still terrifies me.

She’s laughing. The sound drifts down the stairs behind me as I round the first landing and keep on trucking. Beneath my hand, the railing is wooden and wobbly, clearly in need of repair. Old home—I was right about that.

I have to find the door. Make it to ground level, locate the front door, and flee into the night.

Leaving Stacey Summers behind with Jacob’s beloved daughter and favorite partner in crime.

I hit the bottom. No more stairs. Just a dark enclosed space. With no lights, it’s hard to get my bearings. I think I’m in a small foyer, not unlike the one in my apartment building. As my eyes adjust further, I can make out an open doorway to my right, where I can peer through to the lighter shadows of other rooms. Then I identify another opening to my left, leading to yet another corridor. This confuses me. I’ve been picturing a traditional triple-decker layout in my head. In that case, the stairs should be at one end of the building, not in the middle. Meaning this probably isn’t a triple-decker. Meaning I have no idea where I am after all or where the front door might be.

Play the odds. Doors have a tendency to lead directly to the stairs, hence straight across from me should be an egress. At least that’s the best place to start.

I approach with my arms outstretched, feeling for a doorknob. Behind me, I hear groaning wood as Lindy begins her descent.

Come on, come on, come on. There must a door. Any kind of exit. Come on!

I feel wood panels, then to my left the thin outline of a hinge. My hands fly to the right, and lo and behold. Knob. I have located the doorknob. I twist, yank, and . . .

Nothing. The door doesn’t open. Doesn’t budge.

It’s locked.

My fingers fly around the knob, searching for latches to twist, bolts to undo. I find one, then two.

A second twist, a second yank.

The door moves, rattles in the frame. But it doesn’t open. Something is still connected, a bolt, a chain, something I haven’t found yet.

I remember the doors of the upstairs rooms, then stretch up, up, up. And sure enough. I find it. Them. Two more bolts latched tight at the top of the door frame.

I whimper. I can’t help myself.

The stairs, creaking right behind me.

I’m running out of time.

And then . . .

She’s here.


*

“I GOT A T LINE,” D.D. announced to Neil over the phone. Ethier and Larissa had vacated the office, given D.D. and Keynes space to work. She rattled off the information to Neil, heard the scratching sound of him taking notes. “Combine that with our other requirements, plus frequent destinations on Goulding’s GPS, and give me the address.”

“It doesn’t help,” Neil said.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t help?”

“I mean, nothing makes sense!” Her favorite redheaded detective sounded frustrated. “I’ve been over and over the vehicle’s list of frequent destinations. None of them match our location profile, with or without subway lines included.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” D.D. said.

“Told you so!”

“He had to have used his vehicle, right?” She paused, backing up and revisiting their original logic. Across from her, Keynes nodded encouragingly. “The night Goulding abducted Flora, he knocked her out, loaded her in his vehicle, drove her home. Right?”

“He knocked her out,” Neil supplied. “Meaning she didn’t know how he transported her home; she was unconscious.”

“But you can see that trip in his car, right? It would be his last drive.”

“Hang on. Okay, Friday night, car journeyed from downtown Boston to home address.”

“His abduction of Flora. Where, of course, he used his personal vehicle for transport. It’s not like you can take an unconscious girl on the T, or dump her into a taxi. So he’s gotta be using his vehicle for at least the initial kidnapping.”

“Okay,” Neil agreed.

“Parking garages,” Keynes mouthed across from her.

D.D. nodded, then repeated the words into the phone. “If Devon’s driving someplace all the time, he’d need to park. What about parking garage passes, memberships, something like that?”

A pause. She could hear Neil talking to someone, most likely Carol, on the other end of the phone.

“No monthly payments to a parking garage,” Neil reported shortly.

“Really? But that doesn’t—”

“Make any sense?”

Both she and Neil sighed heavily. They were close. D.D. could feel it. Just one last connection, deduction, and then . . . Flora and Stacey Summers at the mercy of Jacob Ness’s daughter. D.D. shuddered just thinking about it.

“Oh. Oooh,” Neil said suddenly.

“What?”

“Carol has a point. Maybe it’s not separate.”

“What do you mean?”

“The location, maybe it’s not unique. For example, we wouldn’t notice him driving to work, right? Because that’s his job, of course he’s going there.”