Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(69)

“Then we need to find more witnesses and engage the public in the hunt, which calls for a press conference.”

“Gotta love the job,” Alex said.

She made a face at him.

“Anything found at the apartment?” he asked.

“No. Except for her unmade bed, it’s pristine. Mom apparently is a neat freak, and had tidied up hours before. Given Flora’s training, we suspect it had to be an ambush. Maybe he even drugged her. Otherwise there should be signs of a struggle.”

“I could take a look at it,” Alex offered. “I have some time before I have to head to the academy tomorrow, if you want a second set of eyes.”

“Given how much we don’t know at this time, I’d welcome a second set of eyes, or a third, or a fourth.” She shifted restlessly, adjusting the ice on her shoulder. “Strangest aspect of the scene: The front door as well as all the windows were unlocked. I mean, I get the front door. Guy thoughtfully prepared himself a master key ahead of time, then used it to access Flora’s apartment. But why unlock all the windows? Why even take the time for such a subtle piece of theatrics?”

“To prove he could? To emphasize no one is safe?”

“Arrogant,” D.D. muttered.

Alex shrugged, topped off his wine. “Not the first time. But sounds like your missing girl, Flora, has some skills as well. She might have been abducted, but she’s hardly a helpless victim.”

“True. I think I’m gonna make a call in the morning. Talk to an FBI agent out of Atlanta, Kimberly Quincy.”

“Name sounds familiar.”

“I spoke with her once before, couple of years ago for the Charlene Grant case. Quincy was apparently the agent who finally located Jacob Ness. She led the raid to rescue Flora.”

Alex gave her a look. “And you want to talk to Quincy why?”

“I don’t know,” D.D. said honestly. “But somehow . . . Whatever happened five years ago, Flora’s never gotten over it.”

“How could she?”

“Sure. But most victims of these long-term kidnappings, they retreat. They work on their recovery, focus on appreciating everyday life, write a book, sell movie rights, whatever. According to Flora’s mother, however, Flora never talks about her time with Jacob Ness. And yet . . . the self-defense classes. The bedroom wall lined with missing persons cases. Her obsession with Stacey Summers. Flora’s absolutely, positively still driven by what happened to her. My guess: If I’m going to anticipate what she did leading up to Saturday afternoon and what she’s capable of doing next, I need to learn about her own experience. She survived the unthinkable once before. So what compels her back to that same set of circumstances? Is there some wound she’s trying to heal? Or a lesson she still hasn’t learned?”

“Survivor’s guilt.”

“Maybe.” D.D. adjusted the ice pack on her shoulder. “I’ll tell you what she should feel guilty about, though. Her mom. Her poor mother. Having to go through this all over again.”


*

D.D. DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. Not unusual when working a major case. Her mind swirled with investigative details, leading to dreams of faceless girls running down endless black corridors. Then D.D. was racing breathlessly through a shadowed house . . . basement . . . house again . . . heart thundering against her chest.

She rounded a corner and there she was: Flora Dane. Or Stacey Summers? No, definitely Flora Dane, holding a gun leveled at D.D.’s head.

“Bang,” dream Flora said. “You’re dead.”

D.D. woke up. D.D. got out of bed.

She crept into her son’s room. Soothed herself with the sight of him sleeping peacefully. Then, she headed to the kitchen and got serious about her day.


*

FBI AGENTS HAD A TENDENCY to work civilian hours. Sure, they bragged about their “go bags,” ready to fly out the door at a moment’s notice. But compared to the demands of urban policing, say, a Boston detective’s job, fed hours were pretty sedate.

D.D. decided to play an educated guess. If memory served, SAC Kimberly Quincy had two daughters, meaning, like most parents, she was up early. Combine that with the horrendous traffic in Atlanta—what with that Spaghetti Junction, whatever—any commuter had an incentive to head to the office sooner versus later. Meaning D.D.’s best bet for contacting the federal agent would be first thing in the morning.

Five thirty A.M. seemed a tad early, so D.D. worked on her shoulder and arm PT. She showered, changed, then heard Jack calling. Scooping him out of his race car bed with her good arm, she remembered the mandatory vroom, vroom noises; then they were zigzagging down the hall, careening downstairs, before a pedal-to-the-metal sprint for dinosaur-shaped pancakes in the kitchen. The dino shapes were courtesy of molds purchased by Alex, an impulse buy that had caused D.D. to roll her eyes, but God knows Jack adored them. Pancakes were definitely twice as good when shaped as a brontosaurus.

Jack took breakfast in his footy pajamas, as pancakes were a messy, mapley affair guaranteed to wreck any hope of clean clothes, let alone the amount of syrup he managed to get in his fine hair. The pajamas would go in the wash. As for the maple syrup do . . . D.D. thought he could carry the spiky-haired look. Syrup, hair gel. In the world of toddlers, what did it matter?

Having missed so much time with her son, she did the honors of dressing him for preschool. Then she produced Candy Land, and with a stack of color-coded cards, not to mention Jolly the gumdrop, to keep Jack entertained in the family room, D.D. retreated to the kitchen to dial Atlanta.