Every Crooked Path Page 13

  cus it maee me feel safe

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:54:32 PM):

  good.

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:54:38 PM):

  btw u should prolly delete this chat

  yngnrdyblond (11:54:41 PM):

  y?

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:54:45 PM):

  case someone sees it

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:54:50 PM):

  i don want u to get in troubel

  yngnrdyblond (11:54:56 PM):

  o

  yngnrdyblond (11:54:59 PM):

  y wod i get in trouble?

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:55:05 PM):

  cus i’m older ya kno

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:55:09 PM):

  some places its illegal

  yngnrdyblond (11:55:12 PM):

  y?

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:55:19 PM):

  i don kno maybe they don trust odler guys

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:55:26 PM):

  but im not like that.

  The grooming techniques were clear in his responses threading their way all through these chats—enticing her to trust him, promising that he would never harm her, vowing to protect her, and assuring her that he would only go as far as she was comfortable with.

  I wished more kids knew the approaches these guys used so they’d be able to identify when they were being targeted. And I wished more parents were aware of what’s really going on in some of these chat rooms and with their kids’ online activity so they could put a stop to this stuff before it was too late.

  The chat continued rather innocently for a few minutes, then cycled back to the age issue one last time.

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:58:44 PM):

  i could get in trouble for this.

  yngnrdyblond (11:58:51 PM):

  why?

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:58:55 PM):

  cus your age. ur not a cop r u?

  yngnrdyblond (11:58:58 PM):

  lol no!!

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:59:07 PM):

  cool. just wanted to make sure

  yngnrdyblond (11:59:12 PM):

  r u a cop?

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:59:17 PM):

  no way

  yngnrdyblond (11:59:25 PM):

  didn’t think so

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:59:30 PM):

  so il be there around 7

  yngnrdyblond (11:59:34 PM):

  cant wait 2 c u

  yngnrdyblond (11:59:38 PM):

  and for my chocolate

  mrplesuregiver56ga (11:59:44 PM):

  me too c u soon

  From looking over the next few chats and reviewing Wooford’s file, I discovered that he had indeed driven to her house that night, but had changed his mind at the last minute and gone past it without stopping to go in.

  Later, when the girl’s mom found this chat on her daughter’s computer, she reported it to the police.

  So that brought up the obvious question: why didn’t they just arrest Wooford then?

  And the answer: because there was no proof that he was the one who’d been sitting at the keyboard at the time when the chats were taking place. He could have (and would’ve almost certainly been advised to do so by his lawyer) argued that it wasn’t him, even though the chats were occurring at his IP address. To get a conviction, we have to place the person alone at home when illegal material is being downloaded or transmitted.

  Timing and location.

  It’s always about timing and location.

  So instead, the police had put together a sting operation that ended up nabbing Wooford when he set up a meeting with another “thirteen-year-old girl,” who was really an undercover officer.

  Still, I hated to think what would have happened if there really was a young teen girl home alone when he showed up with his condoms and candy.

  At first he argued entrapment, but that would never have stood up in court. He would’ve had to demonstrate that there was a pattern of law enforcement coming after him for a long time without any evidence. These chats were evidence, they were not entrapment.

  Then he told them about the Final Territory and tried to cut his deal.

  But before anything could be finalized, he was killed—either by himself or, possibly, by someone else.

  Harrington also sent me a link to the security camera footage of the inside of the detention facility where Wooford had been held when he died, and now I reviewed the video.

  There was a convenient eight-minute gap in the footage that occurred about an hour before the rounds when they found him dead in his cell.

  It was ruled a suicide and no relatives came forward to dispute the medical examiner’s finding. Case closed.

  I was sorting through all that when Jodie came in through the door.

  Glancing at my computer, I saw that it was almost nine o’clock.

  She looked like she’d barely slept at all, but before I could say anything, she held up a hand. “I know, I know. I look like crap.”

  “Crap wasn’t exactly the word I was thinking of,” I said lightly, “but that’ll work.”

  She gave me a faint smile.

  “Jodie, like I mentioned, my apartment is available—but I’m not going to keep bringing it up. You do what you have to do, just know that you have a place if you need one.”

  I expected her to decline the offer again, but instead she said, “I think I could use it, actually. I was hoping to stay with a friend for a couple days, but that fell through. So, if I’m not imposing . . .”

  “Not at all. I cleared everything with Christie. Come over after work tonight. I’ll give you a key, get you settled.”

  “Dell told me she wants my stuff out of her apartment by the end of the weekend—this is all happening way too fast.” She shook her head in exasperation. “I just can’t believe how quickly things can fall apart.”

  Yes.

  All in the blink of an eye.

  She turned her head to the side, but not before I noticed the tear she was trying to hide.

  “I’ll be right back.” She edged into the hallway again. “My contact’s coming out.”

  “Sure.”

  Then she slipped off to compose herself and I texted Christie to give her a call to encourage her.

  +++

  When Jodie returned, we consigned personal matters to the backseat and worked for an hour searching again for Randy Quentin McReynolds’s electronic trail since January.

  When he’d confronted me in that Brilington Towers apartment, he didn’t dress or smell like someone who’d been living on the streets for six months.

  In our world, it’s pretty tough to drop off the grid for that long unless you’re homeless, so I assumed there would be traces of his movement—credit card usage, traffic violations, online activity, cell phone records, something—but we kept coming up short, even though we had his full name and Social Security and driver’s license numbers.

  “And,” Jodie said reflecti
vely, “there’s an even bigger question than how he managed to slip off everyone’s radar screen.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why he did.”

  “Ah, now it sounds like you’re plumbing for motives, Agent Fleming. That’s not my wheelhouse. I’ll leave those up to you.”

  “Come on, Pat. Don’t you ever ask why?”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Ha.” She leaned back and folded her arms. “So, what’s next?”

  “Well, if we don’t have a record of McReynolds’s travel patterns, maybe we can look into those of Stewart and Wooford. There’s obviously some sort of link between the three men, so if we can’t discover what McReynolds was doing since he left West Virginia, maybe we can see if either of the other two guys ever visited him there.”

  She guessed where I was going with this: “Gas and meal receipts in Beckley, West Virginia, or anywhere nearby.”

  “Yes. And phone records, GPS data from their cars, if it’s available.”

  My cell vibrated: a text from Tobin that a family emergency had come up and he wasn’t going to be able to come in this morning: “It has to do with my mother. I’ll call later to explain. Also, Francis Edlemore found something he wants to show us.” He ended the message by leaving me the ICSC’s number.

  I phoned Edlemore to set up a meeting. Eleven forty-five worked for him and gave me just enough time to get over there.

  “Okay,” I said to Jodie. “I’ll swing by the ICSC while you keep things rolling here.”

  After replying to Tobin that I hoped his family situation got resolved and to take whatever time he needed to deal with it—that Jodie and I had things under control here—I wrapped some things up with her and then left for the International Child Safety Consortium offices.

  23

  Lily woke up unfocused, bleary, confused.

  She rubbed her eyes and looked around, trying to emerge from the fuzzy, half-sleep world that was tempting her to just retreat into it and dream some more, dream her way into forever.

  A narrow window that was formed with thick frosted blocks of glass let in enough diffuse light for her to see. About twenty feet away, wooden steps led up to a door that she could just barely make out from where she was.

  Beneath her, a thin, tattered mattress on a dirt floor.

  Cement block walls.

  Cool, stale, dusty air.

  A cellar.

  She was in a cellar.

  There were gardening tools, piles of boxes, old toys, and discarded chairs in the middle of the room.

  She was still dressed in the cheerleader outfit, but her purse was gone. So was her phone. Her money. Everything.

  Lily pushed herself to her feet, rubbed her throbbing head, and started toward the stairs, but a sturdy chain that was padlocked around her left ankle stopped her abruptly.

  The other end of it was bolted to the wall.

  No, no, no, this was not happening.

  She tugged desperately at the chain, but there was no way it was coming off her leg or off the cement blocks it was fastened to. The padlock had a keyhole, and even though she knew the key couldn’t possibly be there nearby, she scoured the ground and the mattress searching for it.

  Nothing.

  “Hey!” she screamed. “Let me out of here!”

  Her cries were met with a coarse echo, and then a thick, spreading silence.

  What happened last night? How did you end up here?

  “Shane!”

  She remembered having a drink, changing clothes, finding him seated on the bed, hearing him say that she looked “serviceable.”

  A word that had seemed like both an insult and a threat.

  Serviceable for what?

  Then he’d put on that white mask and come at her.

  He filmed you.

  Yes.

  She remembered that.

  The camera.

  The tripod.

  But how did you get here?

  Did you pass out? Did he drug you?

  She yanked futilely at the chain. “I swear to God you better let me out of here!”

  Yes, he must have. He must have drugged you.

  She tried her best to remember what happened after he approached her, but her memories were fragmented, like glass shards, like the ones in the kaleidoscope she’d found in her grandfather’s basement when she was a kid—you stared into a tube, then turned it. There were mirrors in there and when you spun it, the crystalline pieces of glass tipped around them, reflecting ever-changing, unique symmetrical shapes.

  She thought of that now, her memory hopscotching back through time.

  Fragments of glass.

  Her memories.

  Shifting, changing, and now reflecting back to her images that were both real and not quite real at the same time: being in the apartment, riding in that Benz again . . . For how long? An hour? All night? She had no idea.

  Then descending those steps . . .

  No one knows you’re missing. No one will be looking for you.

  Some of the working girls had people who would check in with them each day, just a text or a quick call, just to confirm that they were alright.

  The program had been started by an inner-city ministry that handed out free prepaid cell phone cards to prostitutes in an effort to help cut down on violence, since women in that profession were over a hundred times more likely to be murdered than other women were—the people from the ministry had told them that statistic, had made a lot out of it.

  But Lily had never looked at this as her profession. No. She wasn’t a prostitute, she was an actress, and since she wasn’t going to be doing this for the long term or anything, she hadn’t been worried.

  She’d thought the cell program was overkill and unnecessary, and she hadn’t gotten involved.

  And now here you are. What is wrong with you! It’s your fault. You should have been more careful. No one will know you’re missing.

  Her pulse raced and her breath came in quick, shallow gasps.

  Over a hundred times more likely.

  Over a hundred times.

  Gasping, gasping breaths.

  The doorman at the condo had seen her enter. Yes, he could identify her, he could place her there with the guy who called himself Shane.

  Maybe the cops will talk to him?

  But why would they? Why would anyone be looking for you at all?

  What about her two roommates? No. Their schedules didn’t mesh with hers and she was gone so much that they barely saw each other anyway. And they weren’t the kind of people to get involved with anything dealing with the police, even if it was out of concern for someone else. Yeah, that was probably not going to happen, at least not for a while.

  As hard as Lily tried, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten back to the coupe.

  She jerked at the chain until the skin on her palms and around her ankle was raw.

  She called out for help until she started to lose her voice.

  The echo and the subsequent silence were all she heard in reply. There wasn’t even the sound of movement in the house above her.

  You knew something wasn’t right, remember? You were nervous about things last night. You had that feeling, that intuition. Why didn’t you listen? You should have listened. Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you use the pepper spray!

  She squeezed her eyes shut and let out the loudest scream she had so far.

  The sound echoed hollow and stiff around her like a living thing that was looking for a place to go, and then finally settled resignedly into the dirt at her feet.

  +++

  Francis felt guilty about his recent chats with graciousgirl4. Last night after his walk he’d almost asked her if she would be willing to meet him, but he’d been terrified of doing so and had si
gned off before working up the nerve.

  To get ready for his meeting with the FBI agent, he followed up by searching for more files that had masks in them. He found none, but he was distracted and kept eyeing the clock, not just to be ready for the agent when he arrived, but also to count down the hours until his afternoon coffee break when he could see if that red-haired woman was at the Mystorium waiting for him.

  Maybe at least there would be one good thing about today.

  Maybe, if nothing else, there would be that.

  24

  As I parked beside the International Child Safety Consortium building, I received a text from Jodie that the courier from D.C. had delivered Wooford’s key to the NYPD’s forensics techs. They confirmed that it was indeed identical to the ones found on Stewart and McReynolds.

  So those folds of the case lined up, but the bigger question still loomed: what did those keys open?

  The obvious answer was a door to an apartment, a house, a condo, or maybe a business establishment, but I tried thinking outside the box. Though certain types of keys would normally look different, what about a suitcase? A bank deposit box? A gym locker? A post office box? Maybe a storage unit somewhere? All legitimate possibilities.

  Jodie also mentioned that she was able to track down Randy’s landlord in Beckley. He told her that Randy had indeed lived there but had left no forwarding address or contact information when he moved out. He had no idea where Randy might have gone.

  I entered the ICSC lobby, and after I’d identified myself, a friendly receptionist with a frizzy 1980s haircut pointed me in the direction of Francis Edlemore’s cubicle.

  He was a demure, somewhat frail-looking man in his late twenties.

  “Mr. Edlemore, I’m Agent Bowers. We spoke on the phone. Detective Cavanaugh told me that you had some information to share that might be beneficial to our investigation.”

  “Yes. Thank you. It’s good to meet you. I hope this is helpful.”