“I’m in Dutton. I need those pictures.”
Luke was silent a moment. “What happened?”
“I think I’ve identified another one.”
“Alive?”
“Until twenty minutes ago, yes. Now, no.”
“God.” Luke blew out a breath. “What’s the combo to your safe?”
“Your mama’s birthday.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thanks. Bring them to 1448 Main. It’s a little one-story bungalow next to a park.”
Daniel hung up, and before he could change his mind, he called Chase. “I need you in Dutton. Please come.”
Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 12:55 a.m.
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything, Agent Hatton?”
“I’m fine, ma’am.”
“Well, I’m not,” Alex muttered, pacing the length of the small living room and back.
“Alex, sit down,” Meredith said calmly. “You’re not helping anything.”
“I’m not hurting anything either.” She started to walk toward the window, then caught Agent Hatton’s warning glance. “Sorry.”
“Your cousin is right, Miss Fallon. You should try to relax.”
“She’s running on no sleep and no food,” Meredith told the agent.
Hatton shook his head. “And you’re a nurse. You oughta know better than that.”
Alex glared at them both and sat down hard on the sofa. Then popped up a second later when there was a knock at the door.
“It’s Vartanian,” Daniel called, and Hatton opened the door.
“Well?”
“Three dead,” Daniel said. “One of them my witness. Hatton, I need to talk to Miss Fallon,” he said, and Agent Hatton touched his temple in a mock salute.
“Ladies,” he said. “I’ll be outside,” he said to Daniel.
“Should I go?” Meredith asked and Daniel shook his head. Then he closed the door and stared at it for a long, long time, and with every moment Alex felt her panic climb.
Finally she could stand his silence no longer. “What did you need to tell me?”
He turned. “It’s not good.”
“For who?” she asked.
“Any of us,” he said cryptically, then walked to the counter where he’d kissed her, and leaned against it, head bowed. “When I first saw you I was shocked,” he said.
Alex nodded. “You’d just seen Alicia’s picture in the old article.”
“I’d seen her face before that. You read the articles about my brother Simon.”
“Some of them.” Alex lowered herself to the sofa. “ ‘I’ll see you in hell, Simon,’ ” she murmured. “You knew what it meant when I first told you.”
“No. Not until tonight. Did you read the article that talked about how my parents went to Philadelphia looking for a blackmailer?”
Alex shook her head but Meredith said, “I read that one.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t color all the time. I was going crazy. The article said a woman was blackmailing Daniel’s parents. When they went to Philadelphia to confront her, they learned Simon had been alive all that time and he killed them.”
“You didn’t get the latest, greatest,” Daniel said sardonically. “My father had known Simon was alive all along. He’d thrown him out of the house when Simon turned eighteen. He had… insurance to make sure he stayed gone. Then he told everyone Simon was dead so my mother wouldn’t keep looking. He faked Simon’s death, burial… everything. I believed he was dead. We all did.”
“You must have been shocked to find he was alive,” Meredith said quietly.
“That’s putting it mildly. Simon was always bad. When he was eighteen my father found something that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was because of this he banished Simon and it was this that he used as insurance that he would stay dead.”
“What was it, Daniel?” Alex demanded. “Just tell me.”
A muscle in his jaw spasmed. “Pictures of women, girls. Teenagers. Being raped.”
She heard the quick intake of Meredith’s breath, but for Alex there was no air.
“Alicia was one of them?” Meredith asked.
“Yes.”
Meredith moistened her lips. “How did that blackmailer get these pictures?”
“She didn’t. My mother had them, and when she realized Simon had been alive all that time, she left them for me in the event she didn’t… survive. The blackmailer knew Simon when they were kids. She saw him in Philly and knew he should be dead.”
“So,” Meredith said, “she blackmailed your father on the faked death and burial.”
“Essentially, yes. Two weeks ago, I found the pictures my mother had left for me. That was the day I learned my folks were dead. A few days later, Simon was dead, too.”
“So what did you do then?” Meredith asked. “With the pictures, I mean.”
“I gave them to the detectives in Philadelphia,” Daniel said. “The day I got them. At the time I still thought they were the reason for the blackmail.”
“So they’re up there?” Alex asked. “Pictures of Alicia are up there… with strangers?” She heard the thread of hysteria in her voice and fought it back.
“Copies, yes. But I kept the originals. I vowed I’d find the women. I didn’t know who they were or what part Simon played in it all. I didn’t know where to start. And then my first day back we found the woman in Arcadia.”
Meredith drew a breath, understanding. “The blanket and the ditch. It was the same.”
“One of the Arcadia men remembered Alicia’s murder. When I saw her picture in an old newspaper article, I knew she was one of the girls in Simon’s pictures. I was going to track down Alicia’s family the next day.” He looked at Alex. “And then you walked in.”
Alex stared at him, stunned. “Simon raped Alicia? But they caught the man who killed her. Gary Fulmore. He was a drifter. On drugs.”
Daniel hung his head wearily. “There were fifteen girls in those pictures. Only one of them had died, that I knew of anyway. Alicia. Until tonight.”
“Oh, God,” Meredith murmured. “Sheila.”
Daniel lifted his head, his eyes bleak. “I think so.”
Alex stood, vicious rage bubbling up from deep inside her. “You knew. You bastard. You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
“Alex,” Meredith cautioned.
Daniel’s face became stern. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Alex shook her head. “You didn’t want to hurt me?” she repeated, stunned. “You knew that your brother raped my sister and you didn’t want to hurt me?”
“Your stepbrother may have been involved,” Daniel said quietly.
Alex stopped cold. “Oh my God. His letter.”
Daniel nodded and said nothing.
“And the letter he sent to Bailey,” she added. Dazed, she sat down. “My God. And the reverend.” Her eyes flew to his. “Wade confessed to Beardsley.”
“And now he’s missing,” Daniel said.
“Wait.” Meredith stood up, shaking her head. “If Simon and Wade raped these girls, and both of them are dead, then who’s behind all this? Who took Bailey? And who killed all those women?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think Simon did the raping.”
Alex’s temper blew again. “Of all the-”
Daniel held up his hand, wearily. “Alex, please. Simon was an amputee. None of the men in the pictures were missing a leg. I think Simon may have taken the pictures. It would have been just like him to do.”
“Wait,” Meredith said again. “Men? Like more than one man in the pictures?”
“Maybe five, maybe more. It’s hard to say.”
“So others were involved,” Alex said.
“And they don’t want anyone to know.” Meredith sighed. “Fifteen girls. That’s a hell of a secret to need to keep.”
Alex closed her eyes to keep the room from spinning. “Where are these pictures?”
“They were in my safe, at my house. Luke’s bringing them here, as we speak.”