Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(16)

D.D. nodded slowly. "Except, then you have Annabelle Granger."

"Yeah, well, except."

"My God, she looks exactly like her. I'm not crazy, right? Annabelle could be Catherine Gagnon's twin."

"She could be Catherine's twin."

"And what are the chances of that? Two women who look so much alike, growing up in the same city, both becoming targets of madmen who favor kidnapping young girls and sticking them in underground pits."

"This is where we make the left turn into the Twilight Zone," Bobby agreed.

D.D. sat back. Her stomach growled. She rubbed it absently. "What do you think of her story?"

Bobby sighed, sat back himself, clasping his hands behind his head. His favorite thinking pose. "Can't decide."

"Seems pretty far-fetched."

"But richly detailed."

D.D. snorted. "She flubbed half the details."

"All the more realistic," Bobby countered. "You wouldn't expect a perfect list of dates and names from someone who'd been just a kid."

"Think the father knew something?"

"You mean, did he sense his daughter had been targeted somehow and that's why they fled?" Bobby shrugged. "Don't know, but this is where life gets tricky: If something was going on in Arlington in the fall of '82, it definitely wasn't Richard Umbrio. He was arrested without bail at the end of '80, tried in '81, and began his stint at Walpole by January '82. Meaning the threat would have to be from elsewhere."

"Troubling. Any chance Catherine was wrong about Umbrio? It was someone else who grabbed her? I mean, yeah, she ID'd him, but she was only a twelve-year-old kid."

"Subsequent events would appear to rule that out, let alone the corresponding pile of physical evidence."

"Bummer."

Bobby shook his head, equally frustrated. "It's hard without the father to interview," he said abruptly. "Annabelle just can't—or won't—tell us enough."

"Rather convenient that both parents are dead," D.D. muttered darkly. She slanted him a look. " 'Course, we could ask Umbrio, but conveniently enough, he's dead, too."

Bobby knew better than to take that bait. "I'm sure Annabelle Granger doesn't find it so convenient that her parents are deceased. Sounded to me as if she wouldn't mind questioning her father some more herself."

"You got the list of cities and aliases?" D.D. asked abruptly. "Look 'em up. See what you can find. It's a good detective exercise."

"Gee, thanks, Teach."

D.D. rose out of her chair, their little conference apparently over. At the doorway, however, she paused.

"Have you heard from her yet?"

No need to define who. "No."

"Think she'll call?"

'As long as we keep calling the scene a grave, probably not. But the minute the media finally figures out it was an underground chamber…"

D.D. nodded. "You'll let me know"

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Robert Dodge—"

"You want an official phone call with Catherine Gagnon, you pick up the phone. I'm not your lackey"

His tone was level, but his gaze was hard. D.D. took the rebuke about as gracefully as he'd expected. She stiffened in the doorway, features frosting over.

"I never had a problem with the shooting, Bobby," she said curtly "Myself, a lot of officers out there, we respected that you did your job, and we understood that sometimes this job really sucks. It's not the shooting, Bobby It's your attitude since then."

Her knuckles rapped the doorjamb. "Police work is about trust. You're either in or out. Think about that, Bobby"

She gave him one last pointed look, then she was gone.



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Chapter 7


I FELL IN love with a coffee mug when I was nine years old. It was sold in the little convenience store next to my elementary school where I sometimes used my milk money to buy candy after class. The mug was pink, hand-painted with flowers, butterflies, and a little orange-striped kitten. It came in a variety of names. I wanted Annabelle.

The mug cost $3.99, roughly two weeks' worth of chocolate/milk money. I never questioned the sacrifice.

I had to wait another agonizing week, until a Thursday when my mother announced she had errands to run and might be late picking me up. I spent the day jittery, barely able to focus, a warrior about to launch her first mission.

Two thirty-five the school bell rang. Kids who didn't ride the bus congregated at the front of the brick building, like clusters of flowers. I'd been at this school six months. I didn't belong to any of the groups, so no one cared when I slipped away. Those were the days before you had to sign kids in and out. Before parent volunteers stood guard after hours. Before Amber Alerts. In those days, only my father seemed obsessed with all the things that could happen to a little girl.

In the store, I picked out the mug carefully. Carried it all the way to the register using two hands. I counted out $3.99 in quarters, fingers fumbling the coins with my urgency

The clerk, an older woman, asked me if my name was Annabelle.

For a moment, I couldn't speak. I almost ran out of the store. I could not be Annabelle. It was very important I not be Annabelle. My father had told me this over and over again.