Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(73)

Four hundred and seventy-two days of companionship later . . . D.D. could see why he’d be loath to give her up.

“Did you worry about Stockholm syndrome?” she asked Kimberly now. “That Flora might not welcome your rescue efforts?”

On the other end of the phone, D.D. could hear the agent’s hesitation. “We were prepared for anything,” Kimberly said at last, which D.D. took to be a yes.

“So you have an armed subject holed up in a hotel room with a victim who’s suffered severe long-term trauma. What did you do?”

“Let SWAT lead the charge,” Kimberly said bluntly. “They fired in half a dozen canisters of tear gas through the room’s front window. Then they took down the door.”

The federal agent paused. “They found Jacob sprawled on the ground, clearly incapacitated by the gas. Next to him was a damp hand towel. Apparently, he’d noticed the officers mobilizing outside, had made some effort to prepare for their charge. But he hadn’t been fast enough.”

“And Flora?”

“She sat on the floor beside him. She had a wet towel tied around her mouth and nose. She also had a gun.”

D.D.’s eyes widened. Of all the things . . . “She had Jacob’s gun.”

“Yeah.”

“Did she point it at the SWAT team?”

“No. She had the gun on her lap. She was . . . stroking Jacob’s face. She was wiping the tears from his eyes.”

“Oh.” D.D. didn’t know why, but somehow that image was worse.

“Jacob was conscious when I entered the room. Whispering to Flora. The gas was already starting to dissipate, we needed to move quickly, but no one wanted to rush Flora as long as she had the gun. We were afraid if we spooked her . . .”

“She might open fire.”

“It was a strange sight. He was begging her. Jacob Ness was sprawled on the floor, begging Flora to kill him.”

D.D. didn’t have words for that.

“I tried to get her attention. I called her name, tried to get her to look at me. But she wouldn’t respond. Not to me, not to any of the officers. Her attention was solely for Jacob, stroking his hair, rubbing the tears from his cheeks. She seemed not just attentive to him but . . . tender.”

D.D. knew tear gas. It didn’t just inflame the eyes. It turned the subject’s nose, everything, to a giant, streaming mucusy mess. Jacob Ness would’ve been in a great deal of discomfort. Desperate for water to flush his eyes, tissue to blow his nose. But he hadn’t surrendered. Instead, the man who’d been taunting his victim’s family and investigators for more than a year had pulled himself together for one last move.

“What did he do?”

“He kept talking to Flora. Talking, talking, talking. And then, just when we thought we’d have to make our move one way or another, Flora suddenly leaned over and whispered something in his ear.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Flora’s never said. But she told him something. And the expression on his face . . . Jacob Ness looked scared out of his mind. Then Flora grabbed the gun off her lap and pulled the trigger. Forty-five Magnum to the top of the skull. It got the job done.

“Flora dropped the gun. SWAT took her down. And that was that.”

D.D. couldn’t speak.

“You know about trauma bonding, right?” the agent asked abruptly. “Forget kidnapping victims, you see it all the time with battered women. They’re isolated, at the mercy of their dominating spouse, going through intense spells of abject terror followed by even more emotionally draining periods of soul-wrenching apologies. The trauma itself creates a powerful bonding element. The things these two have gone through together, how could anyone else ever understand? It becomes one more thing that makes a woman stay, even after her husband has beat the crap out of her again.”

“I know trauma bonding.”

“I expected to see it with Flora Dane. How could you not? Four hundred and seventy-two days later, I couldn’t even get her to respond to her own name. Instead, she identified herself as Molly, the name Jacob had given to her.”

“Okay.”

“Trauma bonding is most likely to occur in situations where the victim is isolated and the perpetrator appears all-powerful. We found in the rear of Jacob’s cab a wooden coffin bearing a padlock. It bore traces of Flora’s hair as well as DNA.”

D.D. closed her eyes. “That’s isolating,” she agreed.

“Jacob put her in the box. But Jacob was also the one who took her out. Jacob starved her for long periods of time. But he was also the one who gave her food.”

“Which would make him all-powerful.”

“So here’s the issue: Flora absolutely, positively shows signs of trauma bonding. Which, we know from other cases, makes victims stay even when they could run.”

“Flora had opportunities to escape but didn’t take them.”

“We learned that, by the end, Flora accompanied Jacob everywhere of her own free will. He could leave her sitting alone in restaurants or waiting for him in hotel rooms. She stayed, which to outsiders makes her appear complacent, a willing victim. Anyone who has experienced trauma bonding, however, will tell you that in those moments, she was just as physically restrained as if he’d wrapped her in chains. Such is the power of the bond.”