A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(39)

Abby stared at the screen. “Can you print this picture for me? And I want a list of all his comments on Gabrielle’s posts.”

“On it. There’s a printer over there.” Will pointed at the far end of the room. “I’ll send the printout of the profile image to it.”

Abby went over to the printer and took the page as it slid out. She scrutinized the picture of the man again. On paper, he somehow seemed creepier, his beard wild, his clothing hanging loose on his body. She imagined him lurking around the block. Not surprising that Eden had noticed this guy.

She walked over to Carver, who was now speaking to Griffin by the map.

“ . . . anything from the last call to Ms. Fletcher?” Griffin was asking.

“The call was made from a new number,” Carver answered. “And again, the caller turned off the phone as soon as he ended the call. Same voice modulator, which we can’t reverse, but we can be certain it’s the same guy in both cases. It was made in the vicinity of the corner of 66th and Park Avenue in Manhattan. We can estimate that he called within two hundred yards of that location. We think he called from his car, but it’s possible he called from one of the buildings in the vicinity.”

Carver took a blue thumbtack and plugged it into the map at the location he’d mentioned. There were two other blue thumbtacks in Manhattan—the locations of the previous calls. They weren’t particularly close to each other. Another red thumbtack marked the presumed location of the abduction.

“We sent a patrol over to the location with our sketch.” Carver gestured at the whiteboard where the sketch was taped. “Nothing so far.”

“Agent Kelly sent the photo of Nathan for analysis,” Griffin said. “It’s most likely photoshopped, but they’re making sure. Our current assumption is that the kidnapper found an image of Nathan in his room holding up something, probably a picture he drew. And the kidnappers inserted today’s newspaper on it. It’s likely that he found the image on Gabrielle’s feed.”

“If it’s an altered image, it could mean that Nathan’s dead,” Carver said heavily. “The kidnappers modifying an image of him would indicate they can’t take a picture of the actual boy.”

“That was what I thought,” Griffin said. “Except we have a recording of him reading the text, right?”

He was right. It made no sense. Why would they go through the effort of modifying an existing image if Nathan was fine?

“We have a probable ID of our suspect,” Abby said, interrupting their conversation. She taped the photo to the whiteboard. “This guy is a rabid fan of Gabrielle’s Instagram profile. Will is looking into it. And I also have some other people we should check.” She opened her bag and took out a folder she’d prepared earlier.

Inside was a photo, which she handed to Carver. “This is Otis Tillman. He was convicted of three charges in his twenties: illegal arms trafficking and two counts of sexual assault. He spent four years in prison. These days, he has a large farm in Suffolk County. There are over sixty people living on that farm. The ATF raided the place six years ago, but as far as I know they came up empty.”

Abby thumbed through the folder, looking through her printouts and notes. “Two years ago, the police investigated a case of statutory rape, but the charges were dropped. I talked to the detective who investigated the case, and she was convinced this so-called community was a cult with Tillman as its leader.”

“What’s Otis Tillman’s relation to this case?” Griffin asked.

Abby took out another picture and showed it to them. “This is a picture of David Huff, Eden’s ex-husband, alongside Otis Tillman. That’s Gabrielle Fletcher as a child with them. David was the one who recruited Eden to Tillman’s cult. She lived there for over thirteen years.”

Carver and Griffin gaped at her. Then Carver taped the picture of Tillman to the board.

“So Eden Fletcher was part of a cult?” Griffin said. “That might change our approach to the entire case.”

“She’d been in a destructive religious cult as a child,” Abby said. “It made it easier to recruit her.”

“How could it make it easier?” Carver asked. “I’d have thought that if a person had been in a cult once, they’d want to stay as far away as possible.”

Abby shook her head. “It’s complex. When people are in a cult, they have a tight community. And you have a purpose. When they leave, all that is gone, and that feeling is hard to replace.”

“So she wanted to find that feeling again?” Carver asked.

“Yes. There’s a phenomenon called cult hopping. It sounds frivolous, but it’s anything but that. People who leave cults are often badly hurt. They have a void they need to fill. Or they’ve been abused and emotionally scarred. And people like Otis Tillman, or Keith Raniere, or Jim Jones swoop in and take advantage of that. They tell you that they can help you get better. That you were in a bad group, but this is the right group. And if those predators catch you at the right moment, when you’re alone and isolated and lost, there’s nothing you can do.”

Carver looked at her strangely. “Did you have dealings with the Tillman cult before?”

“No, but negotiation with extreme groups and cults is one of the cornerstones in crisis management,” Abby said. “I’ve done my research.”