Hide and Seek (Criminal Profiler #1)(78)
The next half hour was spent on the laptop writing up case notes and compiling a list of witnesses to interview tomorrow. Email came next. There was a message from Andy. The subject line read “Cindy Shaw.”
Andy had accessed the motor vehicles records and found a driver’s license issued to Cindy Shaw in 2004. The color photograph showed a young girl with long dark hair, a wide smile, and a sprinkle of freckles that didn’t soften the wariness in her brown eyes. Macy had seen countless runaways with the same look.
Cindy looked like Tobi, Beth, and the rape victims. “Jesus, kid. What happened to you?”
Macy scrolled down the email and saw Andy’s notation that there were no other records either criminal or public on Cindy.
She closed her laptop and pinched the bridge of her nose. She laid her head back against the headboard and closed her eyes.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
The sound was faint at first, but it persisted. It was the sound of fingernails clawing into dirt. Someone was trying to dig out of a grave.
“I’m still here,” Cindy said. “Don’t leave me behind like everyone else.”
“What do you want?” Macy asked.
“Find me like you did the others. I want to come home.”
“What others?”
“Find me.”
“Where the hell are you?”
A slamming car door outside her room woke Macy up, and she bolted upright in her bed. Heart pounding, she searched the room expecting the worst. She grabbed her gun and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The chair remained in front of the locked door.
“Of all the dead people I’d like to have a conversation with, you’re not it, Cindy Shaw.” She ran her hand over her hair. “How about you, Pop? Why don’t you chime in? You owe me a few good conversations. And Mom? Could use a good word or two.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, set her gun down beside her, and buried her head in her hands. “And now I’m inviting my dead parents to speak to me. I have officially lost my mind.”
There was a logical reason for all this. She’d bet an MRI and a good neurologist could explain it. Even a shrink might be welcome at this point. Anyone who could explain why her brain was now processing facts in the voice of a dead girl she’d never met.
Gingerly, she lay back against the pillows, and for several minutes, maybe even a half hour, she stared at the white popcorn ceiling. Slowly, her racing heart shifted down a notch, and the unnatural buzzing energy seeped from her body. Her eyes closed. Finally, she drifted off to sleep.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Wednesday, November 20, 11:10 p.m.
Brooke drove down the long drive that led to her house. Every muscle in her back ached. Her stomach growled with hunger. She expected to see the glow of the television in her mother’s room, but the house was dark.
She climbed the front steps and let herself in the front door. A nightlight glowing nearby was supposed to make Brooke’s late-night arrivals easier and prevent her from tripping over whatever size-eleven shoes Matt left lying around.
The house was peacefully quiet, and she was glad. She walked back down the center hallway to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There was a plate of chicken, rice, and broccoli wrapped in plastic with a sticky note attached that read EAT!
Brooke smiled as she grabbed the plate and popped it in a small microwave. She plugged in two minutes and hit “Start.” While the machine hummed and the plate turned, she opened the fridge and pulled out a soda. She twisted off the top and took a long pull before holding the cold bottle to her head.
Footsteps had her turning to find Matt standing there. He was wearing gym pants, a basketball T-shirt, and his dark hair stuck up at the crown of his head.
“I wasn’t sure you’d make it home,” Matt said.
“I had to take a break. Is Grandma upstairs asleep?”
“No.” Matt yawned. “She got called in to work. She knows I can take care of myself.”
Of course her son could take care of himself. But having come from the scene of her first homicide, she didn’t like the idea of him being alone. “Did Grandma say when she’d be back?”
“She said she would drive me to school in the morning.”
Brooke stepped closer and hugged her son. His muscles tensed and he tried to pull away, but she held tight. Not only to him but to the memory of when he’d been a little baby and wanted nothing more than to cuddle. Finally, he relaxed into her embrace. There was still some of the little boy in her young man.
Brooke kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for letting your mom give you a hug.”
He wiggled out of her arms. “I hear there was a murder.”
His statement brought the outside world crashing back. “There was. A girl not much older than you.”
“How did she die?”
Brooke walked to the stove, checked the lid of a copper kettle, and then turned the burner on. “I can’t say. When I can, we’ll talk about it.”
“Seems weird that would happen in Deep Run.”
“It happens everywhere, son,” she said. “There’s no such thing as really safe in the world. It’s an illusion, which is why I need for you to be very careful.”
“I’m not a baby, Mom.”