“How long did you sleep?”
“Longer than you,” Darcy says, leaning against the frame. “Fisher looks rested. Let him run the show for a while.”
He waves away her concern.
“I can go another twelve hours. Hey, I just got off the phone with Warden Ellsworth.”
Darcy stands a little straighter.
“What did Rivers say?”
“They can’t break him, Darcy. He refuses to speak, and short of the guards clubbing the hell out of him behind a locked door, Rivers will outlast them.”
“What about his phone access?”
Tipton calls Hensel’s name from the end of the hall. Hensel holds up a finger so he’ll wait.
“Ellsworth takes offense to the notion one of his workers betrayed him to aid a serial killer. He promised to look into it, but—”
“Forget it, Eric. It’s not Ellsworth’s daughter. Why should he give a shit?”
Flustered, Hensel tries to reply as Darcy slams the door in his face. She hears him breathing in the hallway. Several seconds pass, and he knocks softly. She doesn’t acknowledge him. Darcy didn’t lock the door, so if he wants to barge in, there’s no stopping him. A pang of guilt hits her when his footsteps trail down the hallway.
Craning her neck at the window, she verifies the hallway is empty. For added security, she draws the blinds.
Before she fell asleep, she called a contact at the Buffalo Police Department, a balding detective named Brady who aided the FBI in cracking the mob ring. The detective remembered Darcy. If he knew she’d left the FBI, he didn’t say. And she didn’t offer. A little smooth talking won her Leo Vescio’s phone number. The mob boss was the new kingpin of Western New York, a title which put the target squarely on his forehead if the authorities decided Vescio had grown too powerful. That meant he was likely to cooperate and stay on the government’s good side. Vescio needed a friend in the FBI. And like Brady, Vescio didn’t need to know Darcy’s employment status.
An uncertain hello greets Darcy when Vescio answers the phone. Rechecking the hallway, Darcy fights her shaking voice until she gains control.
“Sure, I remember you, Agent Gellar,” Vescio says. “To what do I owe this pleasure.”
“You’ve come a long way, Leo.”
“Top of the world,” he says with a snicker, quoting Jimmy Cagney. “I hope you haven’t forgotten how instrumental I was in helping the FBI.”
She senses a threat beneath the words.
“Nobody here has forgotten you, Leo. Which is why I’m offering you an opportunity to maintain your good neighbor status.”
“Forgive me, Agent Gellar, but you speak as if it’s already in question.”
“Perhaps with some of my colleagues, Leo. But I worked closely with you and understand your intentions are good, if a little misguided from time to time.”
“We all make mistakes.”
This feels like a dance to Darcy. One misstep will blow everything. While he’s still on board, she tells him about the trouble Michael Rivers is causing the FBI.
“He’s a pedophile, Leo. It doesn’t get any lower than that.”
“But you locked the Full Moon Killer away, Darcy. For life, I believe I read.”
“He wields a great deal of power from his jail cell,” Darcy says, recalling the picture Vescio once shared of his teenage daughter. He was attempting to convince the FBI he was a good man. As though only a good man could raise a beautiful daughter. “Unfortunately, we can’t track the money flow, but Rivers pays child abductors to kidnap teenage girls and send him…videos.”
“I see.”
The disgust in his voice is clear. Darcy hit her target.
“If something were to happen to Michael Rivers…”
“Are you recording our conversation, Agent Gellar? You’re straying toward entrapment.”
“I’m not a fool, Leo. If my superiors caught wind of our conversation, I’d be in a lot more trouble than you.”
Vescio goes silent. She can hear the wheels turn in his head and senses he’s a hair away from ending the call. Darcy clamps her eyes shut and bites her lip.
“So this isn’t an official call, I presume,” he says.
“Let’s just say there are those who need to know inside my agency, and those who don’t. Regardless, this offer stays between the two of us.”
Vescio smiles through the phone.
“What do you have in mind, Agent Gellar?”
When Darcy ends the call, she bites her hand and cries. The door opens, and she shoves the phone into her pocket and turns her head away. A moment later, the door drifts shut. Swiveling her head around, Darcy spies Reinhold through the crack in the blinds as the profiler seeks Tipton, giving Darcy space. A minute earlier, Reinhold would have walked in on Darcy’s conversation with a mob boss.
Reminding herself of the phone call stiffens Darcy’s spine. She made a deal with the devil and will pay dearly. Her bank account, most of it funded by Tyler’s life insurance payout, is dangerously low, and she hasn’t worked as a freelance graphic designer since the madness began at Darkwater Cove. Whatever price Vescio demands, it will cripple Darcy financially. Any price to get her daughter back.
After opening the blinds, Darcy ventures into the hallway. Voices come from all directions inside the building, so she follows Hensel’s voice toward the break room. She pulls up when Hunter rounds the corner with Laurie. Laurie whispers in Hunter’s ear and stands back, leaning against the wall as Hunter advances. Laurie gives a half-hearted wave and lowers her head.
“What are you doing to find Jennifer?”
The aggression in Hunter’s eyes knocks Darcy back a step.
“Search parties are working around the clock, and the sheriff and state police are stopping vehicles—”
“No, what are you doing to find her?”
Darcy folds her arms and looks over Hunter’s shoulder. His raised voice draws Hensel and Tipton out of the break room.
“Everything I can.”
“She’s gone because of you,” he says, curling his hands into fists. “Do you know that? Because of your stupid rules. What good did banning us from talking to our friends do? Did it keep us safe, Mom? Did it keep Jennifer safe?”
Laurie hurries forward and grabs Hunter’s arm, imploring him to walk away. He shrugs Laurie off.
“That’s not fair,” Darcy says in a soft voice. “You’re upset, Hunter.”
“I’m upset? Tell me you didn’t know about Bethany.”
“What about Bethany? Hunter, we’ve been away from home for almost a week.”
“But you must have heard. You know everything that goes on in our lives and never let us breathe.”
“Come inside the briefing room so we can talk about this in private.”
He spins in a circle, taking in the stares of the deputies and FBI agents. Raising his hands, eyes wide, he sends out a silent challenge to anyone who wants to silence him.
“They raped Bethany. Aaron and Sam. Her own fucking brother!”
Darcy’s knees buckle. She didn’t know. She reaches for Hunter, but he backs away with a wild grin on his face.
“I couldn’t even talk to her,” Hunter says, laughing as tears roll off his face. “Because it was so important to keep us away from our friends. That’s why Jennifer sneaked outside—to talk to Bethany. She was safe in the house. You did this to us.”