Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(99)

“True.”

“Do you know what the hardest part about survival is, Detective?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“Living with it. Every rescued person I’ve ever debriefed. They were so sure if they could just escape, just get through the ordeal, they’d never complain, never want, never suffer again. My primary job is helping them understand that won’t be the case. Survival isn’t a destination. It’s a journey. And most of the people I help, they’re still getting there.”

“Killing off one perpetrator at a time?” D.D. asked dryly, considering Flora’s crime spree.

“Four hundred and seventy-two days. Much of it locked in a coffin. Do you really think you could handle it any better?”

D.D. scowled. She didn’t have an answer for that, and they both knew it. “So, the daughter.”

“The FBI recovered many samples from Jacob’s hotel room and his long-haul rig. As SAC Quincy revealed, we found DNA evidence belonging to others. One sample was identified as being female, and bearing markers consistent with Jacob himself. In other words, a daughter.”

“You found DNA from Jacob’s own daughter? In the wooden box?”

“From cigarette butts littered on the floor of the rig.” Keynes lifted his leather attaché, extracting a file. D.D. took it, then, glancing down at her desk, realized she was officially out of room for new paperwork.

“Who is she?” D.D. asked, finally positioning the file crossways on another stack of God knows what.

“We never figured out. The DNA didn’t match with anything in the system. Agents ran down birth certificates, et cetera, but never found any records bearing Jacob’s name. Of course, it’s possible he was never listed as the father. And since we don’t have an approximate age, it’s hard to be more exact in our search of hospital databases—assuming the hospitals have computerized all their old records. Many small rural hospitals haven’t.”

“What about following up with Jacob’s known love interests, checking with them about a possible child?”

“The Devon Goulding problem,” Keynes said.

It took D.D. a second; then she got it. “You mean Flora killed Jacob, meaning you can’t ask him for a list of prior relationships. Girl’s good at tying up loose ends.”

“Jacob Ness flew under the grid for most of his life. A brief stint in prison. But other than that, he was a loner, driving from state to state in his big rig, his only permanent address being his mother’s house in Florida. According to Flora, in the beginning at least, she was kept in a basement room—”

“There are basements in Florida?”

“It’s primarily slab construction. Which makes us believe Jacob left the state almost immediately after the kidnapping. He mentioned to Flora that they were in the mountains of Georgia, but we’ve never been able to pinpoint an exact location. When Jacob worked, his movements were tracked by a computer system used by all long-haul truckers. Jacob was an independent contractor, however, and he spent weeks at a time not working at all. During those periods, we don’t know where he went. According to Flora, he had a penchant for crashing at cheap motels in small southern towns. But we’ve never been able to retrace all of his movements.”

“More questions he can’t answer and she won’t tell?”

“I don’t know if Flora has the answers,” Keynes said bluntly. “Hard to get your bearings, locked in a box.”

“Good point.”

“We know Jacob moved around. Mostly in the South. We know he didn’t return to his mother’s house during the time he had Flora. But we also know, at some point he met up with his daughter. Happily, unhappily, we have no idea.”

“What’s Flora’s official position?”

“Jacob was partial to prostitutes. She doesn’t know anything about a daughter.”

“He had his own personal sex slave and he was still hiring prostitutes?”

“Jacob Ness was a sex addict. Claimed it wasn’t his fault he was a monster.”

D.D. didn’t have words for that. She could tell by the hard set of Keynes’s jaw that neither did he.

“But you think Flora is lying. You think she knows something about the daughter. Why?”

“Small things. Do you know about the postcards Jacob sent?”

“Some.”

“The messages ran toward irony. Met a handsome guy, when, in fact, Flora had been kidnapped by Jacob. Amazing views, when, in fact, she was locked in a box.”

“Got it.”

“Last e-mail Rosa received: Made a new friend. Very sweet, I know you’d just love her.”

“You think that’s a reference to Jacob’s daughter,” D.D. said. “Which, if he’s describing her as sweet . . .”

“I asked Flora about it directly. She wouldn’t respond. Judging by the completely blank look that overtook her face, perhaps she couldn’t answer. The more I pressed, the more vehement became her denials. She had an emotional response to my questions, even as she sought to distance herself from the answers.”

“And if there was no daughter, why would she care?”

“Exactly.”

“Given that the cigarette butts with DNA were recovered from the floor of Jacob’s cab, that seems to imply a relationship. The woman wasn’t stashed in the back in a box but sitting up front, smoking. A meeting of equals. Maybe even father-daughter bonding. Could Flora have felt threatened?”