Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(61)

“He put her in a box, you know. He shut her away in a pine coffin, day after day after day. And when he finally let her out, it was under the condition that she call him by her late father’s name.”

D.D. got up. She had a box of tissues on the filing cabinet behind her. Now, she placed it on her desk in front of Rosa Dane. But the woman remained dry-eyed, stoic. The kind of grief too deep for tears. Keynes’s hand was still on her shoulder. He seemed in no rush to pull it away.

“Do you have a child?” Rosa asked.

“A son, Jack. He’s four, currently obsessed with Candy Land.”

“And if something happened to him?”

“I’d do whatever it took to get him back,” D.D. agreed.

“I did. I completed paperwork and designed fliers and personally worked the phones. Then, after that first postcard . . . I wore what the victim advocates told me to wear. I said what the FBI experts told me to say. I went on national television and begged for my daughter’s life.

“Then I waited, and waited, and waited. Morning shows, nightly cable news. Watched my son return from college and lose himself to Facebook drives, Twitter appeals. Neither one of us had any idea. We’d been a family, just a family of farmers from Maine. Except then my daughter disappeared and for four hundred and seventy-two days . . .”

“I’m sure the police appreciated your cooperation.”

“They didn’t.” Her voice was blunt. “The investigators were hopeless. No leads, no clues. First it was all don’t call us, we’ll call you. Then, later, why hadn’t I done this, why didn’t I do that, as if suddenly it was my fault they couldn’t find her. You know who helped us find Flora?”

D.D. shook her head.

“Jacob Ness. Him and his damn messages. At a certain point, postcards weren’t enough. He started sending e-mails, even posting on her Facebook page. Escalation, they called it. But he e-mailed one too many times and an FBI agent in Georgia was able to trace the IP address to some Internet café that was part of a truck stop. But if not for that message, Flora would still be lost. We found her not because the police were that smart but because Jacob was that stupid.”

“Is that what you told Mr. and Mrs. Summers?” D.D. asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you know that Colin met with Flora? Did you know that she had agreed to help find Stacey?”

For the first time, Rosa fell silent. She sat back. Not saying yes, not saying no, but processing.

“Do you think the same person who took Stacey has now kidnapped Flora?” she asked at last.

“We don’t know what to think. But it’s certainly a possibility.”

“I love Flora,” Rosa whispered.

D.D. didn’t say anything.

“I will always love her. That’s what mothers do. But I . . . I miss her.”

D.D. remained silent. Rosa looked up, eyes so much like her daughter’s, searching D.D.’s own.

“My daughter disappeared March eighteenth. My beautiful, happy child. The girl who loved to climb trees and eat blueberries straight from the bush. I can remember how she looked, the full brilliance of her smile. I can remember how she felt, hugging me as if her whole body depended upon it. The lilt of her voice—’bye, Mom—as she was halfway out the door, always cheerful, never worrying because of course we’d see each other again. My daughter disappeared March eighteenth. Seven years ago. Jacob Ness destroyed her, as surely as if he’d fired a bullet into her brain. And now . . . I love her. I will always love her. But this new Flora, she scares me. And she knows it.”

“Did Flora ever talk to you about the Stacey Summers case?”

“Never.”

“But you can believe she’d take an interest, go looking for Stacey herself.”

“I’ve seen her bedroom wall, Detective.”

“Was she getting counseling, therapeutic support?”

Rosa glanced up at Keynes. He’d finally taken his hand off her shoulder. Now, his arm hung by his side. Was it just D.D., or did he seem smaller somehow? Lonelier?

“Samuel designed a plan for her reentry,” Rosa said, gaze on the victim specialist. “In the beginning, it included sessions with an expert in trauma. But Flora didn’t care for those meetings. She claimed they didn’t help. Ironically enough, it was her first self-defense class that made the most difference. After having spent so long feeling powerless, she delighted in discovering her own strength. Samuel approved. The best antidote for anxiety is confidence.”

“But she didn’t stop with a few self-defense classes,” D.D. filled in.

“She became . . . obsessed. With both safety and security and then other missing persons cases. All the other children out there who still haven’t made it home again.”

“Do you think she could find Stacey Summers?” D.D. asked.

“I’m afraid that she could.”

“Afraid . . .” D.D. didn’t have to consider it too long. “You think there’s more to it than saving others. You think it’s also about punishing the perpetrator.”

Rosa didn’t look at Keynes this time when she spoke. She stared straight at D.D.

“After everything Jacob Ness did to her, he died too quick.”

“What happened when they rescued Flora?”