Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(60)

D.D. thought of what the victim advocate Pam Mason had said about how close Stacey Summers was with her mom. She wondered if Rosa saw the parallels with the relationship she used to have with her own daughter, and whether that helped her or hurt her when it came to mentoring the Summerses.

“She’s missing.” The woman stated the phrase. Again, eyes clear, jaw set. “When Samuel called”—she nodded her head in his direction—“he didn’t say as much, but the questions he asked. I’ve been asked those questions before.”

“I suggested she meet with you directly,” Keynes spoke up. “And I assured her you were doing everything in your power to help locate Flora.”

D.D. resisted the urge for sarcasm. Now was not the time. With one last parting glance at Phil, whose expression was completely sympathetic, she motioned for Rosa and Keynes to follow her to her office.

“After talking to Samuel,” Rosa continued, falling in step behind D.D., “I tried calling Flora again. Four, five times. She never called back. It’s not like her to go so long without making contact; she knows better.”

“Would you like some coffee?” D.D. asked.

“So I drove down. Hoping for the best, because that’s what mothers do. But I knew. The entire way. Driving, driving, driving. I knew she was gone. Then, arriving at her apartment, seeing the police cars . . . I spoke to the Reichters. They told me what happened.”

D.D. had finally reached her office. Not the largest or grandest in the unit, but perfect for private conversations. She ushered Rosa and Keynes inside, once again offered coffee, water, any kind of refreshment. Keynes shook his head. Rosa simply stared at her. D.D. took the hint.

“We are actively searching for your daughter,” D.D. stated, making herself at home behind her desk. “We have concerns for her safety.”

Rosa smiled. It was not a happy expression, and immediately, D.D. recalled Flora sitting in the back of the patrol car just yesterday morning. Survivors, D.D. realized. She was dealing with not one survivor of a traumatic kidnapping seven years ago but two of them. Mother and daughter. And the scars the ordeal had left on both of them.

And Keynes, standing patiently beside the door as Rosa took a seat. What was his role in all this? Just what kind of victim specialist remained on such familiar terms with a mother and her daughter five years later?

“I’m here to file a missing persons report. That will help, yes?” Rosa’s tone was even.

D.D. nodded. She kept her gaze on Samuel, who hadn’t spoken since entering the office and yet he seemed to assume he was part of this meeting. Why?

“I last saw her around one fifteen yesterday, Saturday,” Rosa said. “You need to know that too.”

D.D. picked up a pad of paper, made a note. The woman was clearly a pro.

“She was dressed in her pajamas: blue plaid cotton boxers and a white T-shirt. Last I knew, she was planning on taking a nap, after being . . . out all night. I can go through her clothes and tell you if anything else is missing.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“You think she was taken from her bed, then. Kidnapped straight from her apartment.”

“There were no signs of a struggle,” D.D. said.

“He ambushed her. Drugged her?”

“We’re still looking into that.”

Rosa nodded. Her face remained set. Not calm, nor simmering with the barely suppressed rage that animated Colin Summers’s entire body. Instead, she was preternaturally composed. Like a fellow cop, D.D. thought. A woman who’d been there and done that before.

The woman gazed up at Keynes. He gave a faint nod, and she reached down for her oversize cloth shoulder bag, digging around until she produced a manila folder. “Recent photo,” she said, placing it on D.D.’s desk. “Written description. Her fingerprints are already on file.”

D.D. took the file.

“What about Flora’s cell phone password?” D.D. asked. “Because we’re subpoenaing records of her texts and messages now, but that will take a few days, versus if we could access the phone directly.”

Rosa rattled off four digits. D.D. wrote them down, then glanced up. “That’s not a birthdate,” she said.

“No. It’s a random code. More secure. Flora was big on security.” A slight fissure in the woman’s composure. Rosa squared her shoulders, soldiered on. “She shared the code with me, however. More security . . . in case something happened to her.”

“Were you worried about Flora, Mrs. Dane?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. No shirking.

“Do you know what she’d been doing? Even before Devon Goulding?”

“Yes.”

D.D. leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk. “Mrs. Dane, do you think Flora was truly trying to save the world, or do you think it’s possible that Flora has a death wish? That she wasn’t looking to continue her good work, she was looking to end things?”

Rosa Dane’s facade cracked. A wide, gaping schism that revealed a world of pain and sorrow and resignation. A mother’s aching, powerful, powerless love for her daughter.

Keynes reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder.

“She was my happy child,” the woman whispered. “Darwin . . . he was old enough to feel the loss of his father. To know, at an early age, that a phone can ring and nothing will ever be right again. But Flora was just a baby. She didn’t bear those kinds of scars. She loved the farm. Chasing the hens, planting spring seeds, running through the woods, sneaking food to the foxes. She loved everything, everyone. All I ever had to do was open the front door, and she was happy.