The man steps off the curb and towers over the hood.
“You sure? He looks like he wants to talk.”
“Get us out of here.”
The man’s eyes follow the car as Hensel backs up and speeds down Main Street.
“That was kinda fun,” Hensel says with a smirk.
“For you, not for me. Who knows what he would have done?”
“In broad daylight in front of half the town?”
“I doubt he cares.” Darcy looks over her shoulder at the predator, still watching their progress as the truck moves from light to light. “Jennifer fits the kidnapper’s target age, and that guy seemed awfully interested in my daughter.”
Hensel slaps the steering wheel.
“Damn. We missed our chance to ask him where he disappeared to over the last ten years.”
“Laugh it up, Eric. That guy isn’t playing around.”
Despite Hensel’s reservations, Darcy convinces her former FBI partner to swing past the park before they leave town. The bustle continues, young children laughing and playing tag while mothers in sweatshirts and wool sweaters watch from benches. With Hensel trailing, Darcy removes the photograph of Nina Steyer and shows it to the women. Nobody has seen Nina, and worse yet, the women shrink from Darcy as if she carries the plague. They whisper among themselves when Darcy moves to the next group.
She spends twenty minutes strolling from one group to the next. By the time she converges on the last few women, they snatch their children and hustle out of the park before Darcy can question them. Word spreads ahead of her approach.
In the car, Darcy folds Nina’s picture and stuffs it into her bag.
“Why are they afraid to talk?”
“The kidnappings caused this area a great deal of trauma,” Hensel says, cutting down an unmarked street as he searches for the road back to Laurie’s. “You’re unearthing bad memories they buried years ago.”
“But there’s a good chance one girl is still alive. Nobody will ever find Nina if they bury their heads in the sand.”
Darcy feels eyes watching them until they pull into Laurie’s driveway, the truck gone and the house empty. A twinge of anxiety pangs at Darcy before she remembers Laurie drove the kids to the mall. Inside, she tosses her keys on the kitchen table and rubs the cold off her arms. The fire burned out, but it shouldn’t be this cold.
“You want to get started on the door?” Hensel asks.
“Good idea. It feels like someone left a window open, it’s so drafty.”
Hensel climbs onto the truck and hauls the steel door off the bed. With Hensel in front and Darcy in the back, they carry the door around the house and set it against the wall. Darcy’s eyes halt on the old door.
It’s wide open.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hip-hop thumping out of a sneaker store overwhelms the monotonous Muzak playing over the mall sound system. Leaning against the rail on the shopping center’s third level, Hunter and Jennifer people-watch, Jennifer sipping on a yogurt smoothie and Hunter nursing a Coke. It took a lot of persuading before Laurie allowed the teenagers to break off on their own. After a short debate, Laurie agreed, acknowledging the teenagers hadn’t been out of their mother’s watchful glare since the kidnapping in North Carolina. Hunter loves his mom, but ever since the Darkwater Cove murders and the altercation with Aaron Torres and his jock goons, she’s given him the mother hen treatment, following him everywhere and binding him with rules. For all of Laurie’s faults—she’s better at recognizing everybody else’s messes than cleaning her own—at least she gives Hunter and Jennifer space. They have an agreement to meet in the food court in an hour, and Hunter keeps one eye on the big clock outside Lord & Taylor’s so they aren’t late.
Jennifer swipes through her phone.
“Hey, you sent Mom into a shit-fit after I messaged Bethany,” Hunter says, swinging his sneaker store bag against her leg. “Now you’re cruising. What’s the deal?”
“What Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, I’m not texting, just reading.” She smiles at Hunter’s dubious smirk. “And you wouldn’t tell Mom, anyway, because you agree with me. These rules are bullshit. Nobody’s watching every move we make. There’s like security and stuff on our phones.”
Hunter grunts in semi-agreement and slips his own phone out of his pocket.
“Holy shit!” Jennifer’s exclamation draws a glare from a woman pushing a stroller. “Oh my God. This is why we should be able to use the Internet. You won’t believe what went down back home.”
“Genoa Cove?”
“The police just charged Aaron Torres and Sam Tatum with rape.”
“But they were in jail.”
“No, the Smith Town rapes. Remember?”
Hunter slides down and sits on the floor, leaning his back against the rail. The Smith Town rapes preceded the murders by a few months, and to this point, the police believed Richard Chaney went from raping girls to murdering them. Escalation, they called it. Hunter is surprised the police never charged him with the rapes after they attempted to pin the murder conviction on him. While playing on the football team with Aaron, Hunter realized Aaron and Sam were bad kids and bullies, though he never believed they would attack Hunter just because he dated Bethany. And he never suspected they raped Smith Town girls.
“I gotta talk to Bethany. She’s taking the arrest hard, but she must be going crazy now. Damn. It couldn’t happen to a better guy, though. Screw Aaron Torres and Sam Tatum.”
“Truth. I hope they cut off their—”
“I don’t think the police do that.”
“Well, they deserve it.”
Hunter opens his contacts and finds Bethany’s number, indecision yanking him in opposite directions. Mom overreacts, and she’s been paranoid since the Full Moon Killer attempted to murder her, but she’s no fool. A group of miscreants search for Hunter and Jennifer on the Internet, and there’s no telling how far the extremists will go. But a FaceTime session shouldn’t pose a threat.
“Just call her,” Jennifer says, reading his mind. “I won’t tell Mom.”
“You did last time.”
“Because I was the only one following Mom’s orders. But if we both break the rules…”
Jennifer’s eyes sparkle. Hunter grins.
“That’s my cue to test perfumes,” Jennifer says, leaving Hunter to speak with Bethany. “No witnesses.”
“Stay where I can see you,” says Hunter, giving her a pointed look.
“Yes, boss.”
Jennifer wanders into the department store and sets her bag down at the perfume counter. Two women stop to test perfumes, spraying the scents against their wrists.
Keeping Jennifer in sight, Hunter calls Bethany. A moment later, her face appears on the screen. Despite the red, sleepless eyes, Bethany Torres is more beautiful than he remembered. Dark locks curl down to her shoulder. A copper, tanned face forces a smile. He realizes with a jolt he’d begun to forget what she looked like.
“You heard,” she says, swiping a tissue across her nose.
“Yeah, I just found out. Hey, Bethany. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry, Hunter, because we both know you’re not. Shit. I don’t even know if I’m sorry. My brother is a rapist. How can I look him in the eye again?”
“More like how can he look you in the eye.”
Bethany sniffles.
“He’s such an asshole, but he’s my brother, you know? I can’t turn my back on family, but I never want to see him again. Those girls…some of them were a few months out of middle school. And I don’t understand any of it. You remember how popular Aaron was. He could have dated any girl at school. Why would he need to rape someone?”