The Fourth Victim Read online

  An oasis. He made his way past the caution tape, up the walk and through the front door.

  From the soft peach-colored leather furniture in the living room, to the beige-and-white solid wood table in the large kitchen eating area, the home welcomed him with a sense of peace and beauty. There were pine cabinets above and below the granite countertops that framed the oversize sink.

  The kitchen island, with its handwoven mats, had two bar stools and a perpetual watering bowl for pets tucked beneath it.

  The floor in the kitchen was ceramic tile so a guy wouldn’t have to worry about dropping an egg, while the rest of the home had a mixture of hardwood floors and plush beige carpet.

  “We’ve been over everything, sir,” Beth Lacrosse, the agent in charge of the forensics team, said, joining him in the kitchen. “We’ll look at her computer files, of course, and do some more in-depth checking, but at first glance this looks like a nice home belonging to a nice woman who has a nice, undisturbed life. There wasn’t even so much as a prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet.” Medication use sometimes elicited unpredictable behavior, even if taken properly. “A bottle of acetaminophen, some partially used cold medications, some bandages and antibiotic ointment and that’s it.”

  Clay made notes as he walked slowly through the rest of the house. The room that obviously belonged to Maggie, based on the butterflies on the wall, the clothes in the closet and the books on the shelf, had been painted not long ago. There wasn’t a single nail hole or smudge on the off-white and butterscotch-colored walls. He looked at the drawers, pulled out a couple.

  “Check these,” he said to Beth. “Get fingerprints and read everything you find.” Kelly Chapman had just recently gained custody of the teenager, he’d been told. He needed to know more about that situation.

  Wearing white gloves and carrying a department-issue plastic evidence bag, Beth nodded and called out to a member of her team.

  “Look carefully for any hint of gang affiliation, drug use or anything else that could be a problem,” Clay said. “Got it.”

  Clay moved on to the second bedroom—an office with an antique white desk and mauve microfiber couch and armchairs, arranged to face an antique white coffee table. The wood floors from the hall continued into this room, broken up by a large off-white throw rug with mauve flowers.

  Beth’s team was already in the office, going through files and disconnecting the computer to take it into the office where they could use state-of-the-art software to examine the hard drive.

  If Maggie Winston had a computer, he needed to get hold of that, too.

  And then came the master bedroom suite. Clay almost stopped in his tracks as he walked into the room. From the plush off-white carpet to the porcelain tile on the bathroom floor, every step he took felt as if he was trespassing on something so personal that he—

  He was being ridiculous, he told himself. He was working. Looking for a possible kidnap victim who could very well be dead. He’d been through people’s dirty underwear more times than he could count.

  And still, being in Kelly Chapman’s bedroom felt like an invasion to him. The woman’s home depicted her taste, her love of beauty. But it also represented success. And a sense of certainty, of strength, that was calling out to him.

  Shaking his head, Clay moved over to the French doors on the bedroom’s far wall. Opening them, he stepped out onto a deck that overlooked a large backyard filled with trees, a little pond with a waterfall landscaped into one corner and flanked by the woods behind it. On one corner of the porch itself was a covered hot tub.

  When he started to visualize the woman in the tub, Clay quickly left.

  The bedroom. And the house.

  He drove straight to the farm outside town where Samantha Jones lived with her husband, Kyle Evans. Clay was as interested in speaking with the foster kid, Maggie, as he was with the deputy, recently promoted to detective, and her new husband.

  As he drove, his victim’s house played through his mind’s eye. Until he realized something. With all the beauty, the artwork, the decorating—even the personal items in her bedroom and office—there hadn’t been a lot that spoke of Kelly Chapman’s personal life. No pictures of family. Or friends. No personal photos at all. And no obvious vacation mementos.

  He knew, from examining her kitchen, that she liked Diet Coke and ate frozen dinners. He knew she used high-end makeup, though not a lot of it, and took rose-scented bubble baths, but he knew nothing about any relationships or memories she had.

  It took him ten minutes to reach the Evans farm.

  The fact that it was Friday night, that Samantha and Kyle might have dinner plans, or that Barry and JoAnne had loved ones waiting for them, didn’t factor into Clay’s decisions. A woman was missing and, if there’d been foul play, every second counted. Statistically, the chances of finding Kelly Chapman alive lessened with every hour that passed.

  His phone rang just as he was driving by land that showed the remains of harvested corn. He turned onto the drive that led up to the farmhouse.

  “This is Clay,” he said, recognizing JoAnne’s number.

  “I did some checking, on a hunch, before heading out to Chandler. The farm you’re going to, Kyle Evans’s place—now Samantha’s, too—it’s the one that was involved in that methamphetamine superlab bust a couple of months ago.”

  Chemicals from the farm had been used to make the meth. And the toxic waste landfill had been found at the back of the property.

  “If I remember correctly, the farmer was cleared of any wrongdoing.”

  “Right.”

  Which didn’t mean that he was innocent, only that he hadn’t been charged. “Maybe sleeping with a cop has its advantages,” he said, thinking out loud as he did with the few agents with whom he worked most closely—and most often. The agents he’d trust with his life.

  “Maybe,” JoAnne said, then added, “Maggie Winston, the girl in this Chapman woman’s custody, was one of the drugrunners.”

  Similar to Dickens’s Fagin, the slimeball drug lords, aka a Fort County deputy and possibly some Chandler city officials, had used kids to do their dirty work.

  “So you figure Kelly Chapman’s disappearance has something to do with the drugs.”

  “I don’t like coincidences.”

  “I’m with you there. Check the status of everyone known to be involved.”

  “I’ve got Greg doing that.”

  Greg Gilmore, college student, part-timer and researcher extraordinaire.

  “Ms. Chapman recently worked on another local case, too, but I haven’t been able to track down specifics yet. I’m sure it’ll be in her files.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that this case is going to have more suspects than we have time to investigate?”

  In missing persons cases, time often meant the difference between life and death.

  Sometime later

  They were there. Shivering, I slowly came to. My eyes were closed. More time gone. How much more?

  Cold.

  Too cold.

  Dangerously cold.

  Was it dark out there, too?

  Was someone sitting there? Watching me?

  Was I dying?

  Going to die?

  Maggie.

  Opening one eye just a crack, very slowly, I let it fall shut again. Nothing. Except darkness.

  You have nothing to fear but fear itself. A client of mine had used FDR’s words as her mantra. I tried to listen to them now. To understand. To do what they wanted me to do. I wasn’t sure what that was.

  Clearly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had never been an abducted female held captive in a dark place.

  Whoa. I’d had a lucid thought. Hadn’t I?

  Sort of. Roosevelt had been president during the Great Depression and World War II. He’d introduced the New Deal.

  Assorted facts ran through my mind. They seemed important….

  Except I was too cold to concentrate. Was I going to freeze to death?
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  I ached everywhere. The pounding in my head drowned out coherent thought. I’d never been in so much pain. Didn’t know the body could hurt so badly and still be alive.

  Tears squeezed through my closed eyelids when I tried to move my hand. It hit against something and I froze, afraid the noise would reverberate in the silence around me.

  Alert my captor.

  I was still alive for some reason.

  Was someone watching me? More than one someone? I stayed completely silent. I didn’t want them to know I was awake.

  Why was it so quiet? Shouldn’t there be outside noise?

  The blockade behind me seemed like a wall of some sort. With excruciating effort I moved my hand along the ground. An inch. Maybe two.

  Solid rock. Smooth rock.

  And I was exhausted. Just wanted to sleep. Sleep.

  If you sleep you’ll die.

  Had Roosevelt said that, too?

  No. That couldn’t be.

  Think, Kel. Think of Maggie. That girl needs you. More than she knows. She’s starting to trust you. She can’t afford to be let down again.

  Maggie. A child with so much promise. So much life ahead of her.

  I opened my eyes. Both of them.

  And waited for them to adjust to the blackness. My face felt swollen. I couldn’t tell if I was bloody or not.

  I was still bound. Still wearing my skates.

  And as I lay there, powerless and terrified, I wet my pants.

  “Look, I’ve told you everything I know. Please, go out and find her….”

  Samantha Jones’s statement was just short of an order. With a raised eyebrow, Clay sat across from the couch the detective shared with her husband, Kyle Evans. Maggie was sitting on the edge of a recliner on the other side, holding a small poodle.

  “We’re doing all we can, Detective,” he assured Samantha. “Forgive me for saying so, but you’re too closely associated with the situation for me to be sure you’ve told me everything you know. I might find something pertinent, the one clue I need, in some little fact you consider irrelevant.” Clay glanced at the fourteen-year-old blonde in jeans, a T-shirt and tennis shoes who had, as yet, to say a word. Even to ask a question.

  Kyle Evans took Samantha’s hand. Clay wasn’t writing that guy off as easily as his wife and the townsfolk appeared to have done. The guy was too quiet. In Clay’s experience, the so-called strong, silent type usually had something to hide.

  Still, dogs were good judges of people and Kyle had a large one lying at his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Detective Jones said, bowing her head and then raising it to look him in the eye. “This is just so hard. Kelly, she’s…she’s the one who takes care of everyone else. Anything I can do to help, I will. Anything.” Dressed in jeans and a button-down oxford shirt, the woman looked more like a teenager than the thirty-one-year-old he knew her to be.

  Clay, who more times than not was spot-on with his assessment of people, accepted her at face value.

  “Tell me about this lawyer, David Abrams.”

  Maggie stiffened.

  “You want facts or personal opinion?”

  “Facts first. And then opinion.”

  “He grew up here. Graduated a few years ahead of Kelly and Kyle and me. He’s always been involved with the town. Has a reputation for being generous. And a sweet wife and four kids with another on the way. He seems to dote on them.”

  The teenager, staring at the floor, wrapped her arms around the small dog on her lap.

  “The superlab bust was yours, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What part did this Abrams guy play?”

  “We have no proof of anything….”

  “I was kidnapped by the deputy who was running things.” Kyle Evans spoke up, looking him straight in the eye. “He told me Abrams was his partner. He also gave me details on the running of the operation. They’d stolen chemicals from my farm. And were running the lab on the farm of a family friend who’d just died of an overdose. Sam was getting close to finding them out and the deputy lured her to the farm where he was holding me hostage. His plans were to kill Sam and then me.”

  “Except that when I arrived, Kyle tackled the man. The deputy’s bullet went astray and I managed to get a round off before he could take a second shot. Unfortunately, my shot killed him so we had no firsthand testimony. But every single detail of what Kyle said checked out,” Samantha added. “Other than Kyle’s hearsay testimony, though, there was nothing to tie Abrams to any of it.”

  “And your opinion of the man?”

  “He’s the kind of criminal you most dread. Highly intelligent. Educated. Well liked and well respected. And completely without conscience. I believe the man is a serious danger to this town.”

  Maggie moaned, seemingly unaware that she’d done so, her fingers working back and forth, back and forth, in the little dog’s fur. Clay raised his eyebrows, glancing from her to Samantha. The detective shook her head and he knew there was more.

  And that he’d have to wait for answers.

  “Have you vouched for Abrams’s presence today?” he asked over the teenager’s bent head.

  “Yeah. He was in court all day.”

  Maggie rocked forward, over the dog in her lap.

  “Odd, isn’t it? To have an attorney in court, pleading cases, when you know he’s guilty of a heinous crime?” Clay watched the girl as he spoke.

  She didn’t seem to have heard him. No one else responded to his comment.

  “Maggie?”

  The girl’s gaze was wary as she looked up. He had to get past that wariness. Earn her trust. He had a feeling he was going to need her. “What can you tell me about Kelly? Anything that strikes you?”

  Her fingers still busy along the dog’s back, she mumbled, “Kelly’s addicted to pens and pencils.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true.” Sam nodded, her pretty face pinched-looking. “Kel takes notes a lot. And when she’s not writing, she’s usually chewing on a pen or a pencil. It’s just…I don’t know. It’s just Kelly.”

  “What else? Who does she spend her free time with? Has she been seeing anyone?”

  “She spends her time helping other people,” Maggie explained earnestly. The girl rattled off the volunteer work and other activities Scott Levin had already told him about.

  “And as far as I know, she hasn’t had a real date in years,” Samantha said.

  “Either of you know of anyone in town who had a problem with her? Any quarrels? A neighbor, maybe?”

  “With Kelly?” Samantha asked. “Not unless it has something to do with one of her cases, and I don’t know much about them. Although there was one that was a big deal about six months ago. I already told Agent Levin about it. The guy was a bigamist….”

  “Right.” Clay referred back to his notes. “James Todd. He was recently sentenced to prison on domestic abuse charges.”

  “Yeah, but he’d been charged with murder. Of his second wife. The defense convinced the jury it was a suicide.”

  “Is that what Kelly thought?”

  “I have no idea. We rarely discuss her cases. I’m not even sure what part she played in it. I just know she testified in court.”

  “But you’re sure this Todd guy is still locked up?”

  “Positive,” Samantha said. “I checked myself. This afternoon.”

  Clay wasn’t surprised. The woman was thorough. The kind of agent he liked to have on his team.

  “There’s been no report of any ransom call. Have you checked her home phone?” he asked.

  “Yes, and we had it forwarded over here.”

  “I’ll get someone to put a tap on the line, just in case.” Sam nodded.

  “What about her mood?” He looked over at Maggie. “Did she seem upset about anything?”

  “No. Just…maybe…” The child looked down.

  “Maybe what?”

  “I think she worries about me.” The girl looked up at him. “But I
swear I’m not doing anything wrong. I had nothing to do with this.”

  Until that second Clay hadn’t thought she had.

  “Anyone else you can think of who’d want Ms. Chapman out of the way?” he asked the two adults sitting across from him, anxious to get back to JoAnne. To find out what was in the Chapman files.

  Maggie Winston’s in particular.

  “No.” Samantha shook her head. “Like I told you, she’s the one everyone goes to for help.”

  Great. He had a possible missing saint who ate pencils.

  And pissed off criminals for a living.

  Clay got a call from Barry before he’d even started his department-issue black sedan. “We’ve got something,” the agent said, his voice terse.

  “What?” Sitting on the drive on the Evans farm, Clay stared at barns and fields, but imagined a path paved with black asphalt, preparing for the worst.

  “Willie caught her scent at the parking lot Detective Jones reported as the one Dr. Chapman used most frequently. He followed it a good ways up the path—maybe a ten-minute skate depending on how fast she was going.” Willie had been with the agency a couple of years. He was the best. “And?”

  “Then nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “She just disappeared, boss. One minute Willie’s on her and then he loses the scent.”

  “Chapman turned around and went back to her car.”

  “Maybe, but why go all the way out there and just skate for a few minutes?”

  She could have remembered something she had to do. Or found the day too cold for skating. The could-haves were innumerable. But the fact that she was missing made the short skating time suspect.

  “I assume Willie checked the path going from the car in the opposite direction?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t find anything.”

  They had to come up with that car. Period.

  Without putting down his cell after disconnecting with Barry, Clay speed-dialed JoAnne.

  “Did you get anything out of the receptionist?”

  “Besides the fact that our missing person can’t be without a pen or pencil?”