Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(21)

My turn to smile.

“Are you working with Stacey Summers’s family?” I ask him abruptly.

He shakes his head. “Are you?” he asks evenly.

“You know that’s not my style.”

“But you’re following her case.”

“Isn’t everyone?”

Samuel flexes his hands on the wheel. “Do you think he did it?” he asks abruptly. “Do you think the man you just killed is the same person who kidnapped Stacey Summers in August?”

“I want to think that.”

“So you can feel better about what you did.”

“No. Opposite, in fact. If he’s the one who attacked Stacey . . . He’s dead now. Not exactly in a position to lead the police to her body. It’d be better, in fact, if it wasn’t him. At least for her family.”

“So why are you asking about Stacey Summers?”

I open my mouth. I close my mouth. There are things I can’t say, not even to Samuel.

I glance up, my gaze going to the top window of the brownstone and the outline of my mother waiting for me there.

“Thank you, Samuel,” I hear myself say.

I close the door. He backs out of the driveway.

Then, my real work begins.





Chapter 10


DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF HOMICIDE Cal Horgan, a.k.a. D.D.’s boss, stood in her doorway.

“Heard you got a live one,” he said.

“We’re still working the scene, but yeah, at first blush . . . The deceased, Devon Goulding, was most likely a serial predator. We recovered two driver’s licenses, not to mention a cache of photos, which seems to indicate other victims.”

“Stacey Summers?” Horgan asked immediately, the missing college student being first and foremost on most law enforcement agents’ minds.

Given the terrible abduction video and urgent nature, the Summers case had gone straight to “red ball” status, detective-speak for all hands on deck. While D.D. wasn’t the lead investigator, she’d spent the first week of the girl’s disappearance conducting interviews and combing through reports with the rest of her colleagues. Her biggest contribution: spending several days interrogating the girl’s boyfriend. All she got out of it was a young man’s horror. Though Patrick Vaughn and Stacey had been dating only a matter of months, he was clearly smitten. Far from playing it cool, he’d broken down several times. Stacey was such a sweet girl. The real deal. Thoughtful, considerate, the kind of girl who’d never dream of running off or doing anything to hurt her family.

If she’d gone missing, then only the worst could’ve happened.

There were days it was good to be cop. When you got to browbeat some lowlife schmuck into a righteous confession. Then, there were the days you made a clean-cut nineteen-year-old college boy cry.

D.D. hadn’t loved that day on the job. Or, frankly, anything that had to do with the Stacey Summers case. They could place the girl at a local bar, where she’d gone to hang out with half a dozen female friends. Two beers under her belt, probably a little buzzed as she wasn’t a big drinker, she’d excused herself to use the restroom.

Next thing anyone knew, a local business’s security camera had captured video of the petite blonde being forcefully led away by a hulking male, face hidden from view. After that, nothing at all.

Not a single eyewitness, not another video frame. In a city heavily populated by nosy people and observant cameras, 105-pound Stacey Summers ceased to exist.

“I’m told this Devon Goulding was a big guy,” Horgan was saying now. “Pumped-up. Steroid-sculpted. Sounds like our camera man.”

“Size is right,” D.D. agreed. “MO . . . last night’s victim he grabbed by the arm and dragged away. According to her, Goulding’s posture, the way he looked away from the cameras, reminded her of the Summers abduction video.”

“So we got a lead?” Horgan pressed, half impatient, half hopeful. D.D. understood his pain. If Boston PD as an organization was under pressure to find cute, perky, never-hurt-a-fly Stacey Summers, then Horgan, as the deputy superintendent of homicide, was feeling personally responsible. Welcome to the chain of command.

“I’m not convinced.”

“Why not?”

“Assuming the two licenses we recovered tie to past victims, there’s nothing linking back to Stacey Summers. We also found photographs consistent with one of the females from the licenses, Natalie Draga, but again, no evidence of Stacey Summers.”

“But you have at least two possible victims?”

“Natalie Draga and Kristy Kilker. According to Mrs. Kilker, her daughter is currently studying abroad in Italy.”

Horgan arched a brow.

“We’re working on corroborating that now,” she assured him. “Same with Natalie Draga. Her driver’s license is from Alabama. We’re tracking down her family there.”

“So you don’t know if these two women are missing or not.”

“No, sir.”

“But you know he attacked a third girl, the one who burned him.”

“You mean the one who killed him?”

Horgan shrugged. Apparently a dead alleged rapist didn’t bother him much. D.D. knew many on the force who would agree.

“I have some concerns about this ‘new victim,’ Florence Dane.”