Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(31)

She studied him a moment longer. "Why do you keep asking why my family fled so many times?"

"I think you know."

"Because perpetrators don't magically stop. An UNSUB doesn't spend years stalking and abducting six girls, then suddenly decide one day to get a new hobby You think my father knew something. You think he had a reason to keep us on the run."

"Locks are smart," he said again.

She simply smiled, stoic this time, and for some reason that made him sad. "What time?" she asked.

He considered his watch, the phone call to D.D. he was gonna have to make, the temper tantrum he was about to endure. "Pick you up at two."

She nodded.

He exited, starting back down the stairs, as up above the bolt locks once again fired home.





[page]Chapter 12





I'D NEVER RIDDEN in a police car before. I didn't really know what to expect. Hard plastic seats? The stench of vomit and urine? Like my experience with the Boston police station, reality was a letdown. The dark blue Crown Vic looked like any other four-door sedan. Inside was just as prosaic. Plain blue cloth seats. Navy blue carpet. The dash had a two-way radio and a few extra toggle switches, but that was it.

The vehicle appeared recently cleaned—floor freshly vacuumed, air scented by Febreze. A small consideration for me? I didn't know if I was supposed to say "Thank you" or not.

I belted myself in the passenger's seat. I was nervous, hands shaking. It took me three times to work the metal clasp. Detective Dodge didn't try to help or make any comment. I appreciated that more than the car's freshened hygiene.

I'd spent the time since the detective's departure trying to complete an elaborate window valance for a client in Back Bay. Mostly, however, I'd held the watered silk fabric beneath the needle of my sewing machine, foot off the pedal, eyes glued to the TV. Coverage of the Mattapan case was easy to find, every major news station giving it round-the-clock attention. Few, unfortunately, had anything new to say.

They had confirmation that six remains had been found in a subterranean chamber, located on the grounds of the former lunatic asylum. The remains were believed to be those of young girls and had possibly been in the chamber for some time. Police were pursuing several avenues of investigation at this time (Is that what I was? An avenue of investigation?). Reports diverted quickly into wild speculation from there. No mention of the locket. No mention of Dori. No mention of Richard Umbrio.

I'd abandoned my sewing and looked up Umbrio on the Internet. I had found the story under "Fatal Shooting in Back Bay," an account of how the survivor of a midnight police shooting, Catherine Gagnon, had endured tragedy once before: As a child, she'd been held captive by convicted pedophile Richard Umbrio until rescued by hunters shortly before Thanksgiving.

Umbrio, however, was merely a sidebar. The big story—how Jimmy Gagnon, Catherine's husband and the only child of a wealthy Boston judge, had been fatally shot by a police sniper during a tense hostage situation. The officer who had made the kill: Robert G. Dodge.

Criminal charges had been filed against Officer Bobby Dodge by the victim's father, Judge Gagnon, who alleged that Officer Dodge had conspired with Catherine Gagnon to murder her husband.

Now, there was a small tidbit neither Detective Dodge nor Sergeant Warren had bothered to mention.

In case that wasn't shocking enough, I then found another story, dated a few days later: Bloodbath in Penthouse… Three people were declared dead and one critically wounded after a recently paroled inmate, Richard Umbrio, stormed a luxury hotel in downtown Boston. Umbrio murdered two people, one with his bare hands, before being fatally shot by Catherine Gagnon and an assisting Massachusetts State Police officer, Robert G. Dodge.

Interesting and more interesting.

I didn't say anything as I sat beside Detective Dodge now. Instead, I hoarded my little nuggets of truth. Bobby had been exploiting the details of my past. Now I knew some things about him.

I stole a glance at him, sitting next to me. He drove with his right hand resting casually on the wheel, left elbow propped against the door. Life as a police officer had obviously made him immune to Boston traffic. He zigged in and out of narrow side streets and triple-parked cars like a NASCAR driver doing a warm-up lap. At this rate, he'd have us to Mattapan in under fifteen minutes.

I didn't know if I would be ready by then.

I turned away, staring out the window. If he could be comfortable in the silence, then so could I.

I didn't know why I wanted to go to the crime scene so badly I just did. I had read the story of Dori's last days. I'd stared at my locket, worn so proudly around her neck. And then my brain had filled with too many questions, the kind her parents had probably wondered about every night for the past twenty-five years.

Had she screamed for help as she was snatched from the yard in front of her grandparents' house and stuffed into an unmarked van? Had she struggled with her abductor? Had she tried to open the doors, only to discover the true evil of childproof locks?

Did the man speak to her? Did he ask about the locket? Accuse her of stealing it from her friend? Had she begged him to take it back? Had she asked him, once he got started, to please stop and kidnap Annabelle Granger instead?

I honestly hadn't thought of Dori Petracelli in twenty-five years. It was humbling, horrible, to think now that she had died in my place.