Daniel looked at the photo on the bottom row and his heart hurt. Susannah Vartanian maintained a cool, sophisticated air in her senior picture, but he knew she’d been silently miserable. He needed to call her before the press got wind of the rapes Talia Scott was investigating. He owed her that much. He owed her a great deal more.
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 11:15 a.m.
Most likely to be president of the United States. Daniel traced a finger over his senior picture in his high school yearbook. His classmates had voted him so because he’d been so serious and sober. So studious and sincere. He’d been the class president and captain of the debate team. He’d lettered in football and baseball every single year. He’d had straight As. His teachers had seen him as having integrity. Ethics. The son of a judge.
Who’d been a sonofabitch.
Who’d been the reason Daniel had pushed himself so hard. He’d known his father was not all everyone believed. He’d overheard the whispered conversations between Judge Arthur Vartanian and the late-night visitors to his office on the first floor of the house in which Daniel had grown up. He knew where his father had hidden things all over their old house. He knew his father kept a whole cache of unregistered guns and stacks of cash. He’d always suspected his father had been on the take, but he’d never been able to prove it.
He’d lived his life trying to make up for being Arthur Vartanian’s son.
His eyes moved to the other yearbook and stared sadly at his sister Susannah’s picture. She lived her life trying to forget she was Arthur Vartanian’s daughter. She’d been voted most likely to succeed and she had, but at what cost? Susannah harbored secret pain she’d share with no one… even me. Especially me.
He’d gone away to college, then he’d gone away to the police academy. Then after his father had burned Simon’s pictures, he’d just gone away. And left Susannah in that house. With Simon.
Daniel swallowed. And Simon had hurt her. Daniel knew it was true. He was afraid he knew how. He had to find out. With fingers that trembled, he dialed Susannah’s number at work. He knew all her numbers by heart. After five rings, he heard her voice.
“You’ve reached the voicemail of Susannah Vartanian. If this is urgent, please-”
Daniel hung up and called her assistant. He knew the assistant’s number by heart, too. “Hi, this is Agent Vartanian. I need to speak to Susannah. It’s urgent.”
The assistant hesitated. “She’s not available, sir.”
“Wait,” Daniel said before the woman hung up. “Tell her I have to speak to her. Tell her it’s a matter of life and death.”
“I’ll tell her.”
A minute later, Daniel heard Susannah’s voice again, live this time. “Hello, Daniel.” But there was no joy in her greeting. Only wary distance.
His heart hurt. “Suze. How are you?”
“Busy. Being out of the office for so long, I had stacks of work waiting for me when I got back. You know how that goes.”
They’d buried their parents, but immediately after the funeral Susannah had flown back to New York and he hadn’t talked to her since. “I know. Have you seen the news from down here?”
“Yes. Three women, found dead in ditches. I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“Four, actually. We just found the fourth. Jim Woolf’s little sister.”
“Oh, no.” He heard pain and surprise in her voice. “I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“We have something the news hasn’t reported yet, but will soon. Suze, it’s the pictures.”
He heard her exhale. “The pictures.”
“Yes. We’ve identified all the girls.”
“Really?” She sounded truly shocked. “How?”
Daniel drew a breath. “Alicia Tremaine was one of them. She was the girl murdered thirteen years ago, the one all these new murders are copying. Sheila Cunningham was another. She died in what we’re supposed to think was a robbery of Presto’s Pizza two nights ago. Some of the others Alicia’s sister has identified.” He’d tell her about Alex a different time. This call would not be one either he or Susannah would want to remember. “We’ve started interviewing them. They’re all around thirty years old now.” Same as you, he wanted to say, but didn’t. “They’re all telling the same story. They fell asleep in their cars. When they woke they were fully clothed, and-”
“And holding a whiskey bottle,” she finished woodenly.
His throat closed. “Oh, Suze. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were gone,” she said, her voice suddenly angry and harsh. “You were gone, Daniel, and Simon wasn’t.”
“You knew it was Simon?”
When she spoke again, she was back in control. “Oh, yes. He made sure of it.” Then she sighed. “You don’t have all the pictures, Daniel.”
“I don’t understand.” But he was very afraid he did. “Are you saying there was one of you?” She said nothing and he had his answer. “What happened to it?” he asked.
“Simon showed it to me. He told me to stay out of his affairs. He told me I had to go to sleep sometime.”
Daniel closed his eyes. Tried to speak past the constriction in his chest. “Suze.”
“I was afraid,” she said, speaking now in a logical, cool voice, and he thought of Alex. “So I stayed out of his way.”
“What affairs of his had you been in before?”
She hesitated. “I really need to go now. I’m late for court. Bye, Daniel.”
Daniel carefully hung up the phone, wiped the moisture from his eyes, then got up and prepared his mind to talk to Jim and Marianne Woolf. Jim would be grieving his sister, but grief or no grief, Daniel was going to get some answers.
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 1:30 p.m.
Alex stood at the glass, Meredith beside her. On the other side of the glass, Mary McCrady had relaxed Hope so that she was actually speaking in full sentences.
“Maybe she was finally ready to talk,” Alex said.
Beside her, Meredith nodded. “You helped.”
“I could have made things worse.”
“But you didn’t. Every child is different. I’m sure Hope would have been ready to talk soon either way. But she needed to feel safe and loved and you did that.”
“I should have made her feel safe and loved before.”
“Maybe you weren’t ready before.”
Alex turned her head to study Meredith’s profile. “Am I now?”
“Only you can answer that, but if the look on your face was any indication… I’d say yes.” She chuckled softly. “Heck, if he hadn’t looked back at you the same way, I might have wrestled you for him.”
“It was that obvious?”
Meredith met her eyes. “In the dark wearing a blindfold. You got it bad, girl.” She turned back to the glass. “At least Hope’s talking to the artist this time. Between her description and the pictures Mary got from that guy who works with Daniel, we might at least get a lead on who did this.”
Alex drew a breath. “Even if we never get Bailey back.”
“We may not, Alex. You need to start coming to grips with that.”
“I am. I have to. For Hope.” Her cell phone jingled in her purse and Alex grabbed it, frowning at the caller ID. It was an Atlanta number, but no one she knew. “Hello?”
“Alex, this is Sissy, Bailey’s friend. I couldn’t talk to you before. Not on my phone. I had to wait until I could use a pay phone. Bailey told me that if anything happened to her that I should talk to you.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Alex asked, more sharply than she’d intended.
“Because I have a daughter,” Sissy hissed. “And I’m scared.”
“Has someone threatened you?”
Her laugh was bitter. “Does a letter under my front door saying ‘Don’t say a word or we’ll kill you and your daughter’ count?”