Vendetta Page 14

  Sam met them at the door with a huge grin on his face, not looking a day older than he’d been on the force all those years ago when she first met him.

  “Nikki. It’s about time you came to see me. If I remember correctly, you owe me a visit.”

  “It has been a long time . . . too long.” Nikki gave the man a big hug, then turned to Tyler. “Tyler, I’d like you to meet Sam Bradford. Sam, Tyler’s a longtime friend of mine who’s been volunteering with the case we’re working on.”

  Sam shook Tyler’s hand, then motioned them both into the entryway. “This girl was destined to become a detective. Even a decade ago, she knew more about the details in every missing persons case across the state than I did. She was smart, determined—”

  “But none of that was enough.” Nikki tried to shake the growing frustration seeping through her.

  “You’re right,” Sam said. “Those cases were the toughest part of the job for me.”

  “Sam?” Irene, Sam’s wife, bustled into the entryway. “Are you planning to invite them in, or catch up in the middle of the entryway?”

  “Sorry. Please come in.”

  Even this late, Irene looked like she’d just stepped out of the hair salon with her perfectly styled short hair and a smart navy-blue pantsuit.

  “It’s great to see you, Nikki, though I would have enjoyed seeing you under different circumstances. You don’t make it out this direction near enough.” Irene gave Nikki a hug, then linked arms with her. “Come in. Both of you. Give me your jackets, then I’ll get some coffee going. Weatherman said at eleven that the cold front’s about to hit, and I think he’s right. The temperature’s dropping like an anchor.”

  “And I know how late it is—”

  “Don’t give it another thought.” Irene smiled. “Sam’s work has always come first in our marriage, and after forty years, I finally stopped resenting that fact. You’re both welcome, so make yourselves at home. I’ll go get that pot of coffee going.”

  Nikki stepped into the cozy living room that clearly had Irene’s decorative touch. Sam nodded toward the long tan couch with orange accent pillows, then sat down across from them on a matching recliner.

  Nikki glanced up at the mountain scene hanging above the couch. “Is that one of Irene’s paintings? I remember how much she loved to paint.”

  Sam nodded. “She’s good, isn’t she? That one’s of the Blue Ridge Parkway.”

  “She is good. And what about you? Still working on cold cases?” Nikki asked.

  “Yep. It keeps me out of trouble—or so Irene says.” Sam rested his arms against his thighs. “Let me tell you, though, if you ever decide to retire from the force, I’d hire you in a heartbeat.”

  Nikki laughed. “Who knows? I might just take you up on that offer one day.”

  Sam leaned back. “I’ve always regretted not being able to find your sister. Finding her body would at least bring closure to your family, but I couldn’t even do that.”

  “Neither of us could,” she said.

  Nikki picked at a chipped fingernail. She’d known that seeing Sam would resurrect old memories forever linked to Sarah. He’d been the one who’d sat in the living room with her family on that first day, asking question after question. Then, when the weeks had turned into months, he’d still call every once in a while to update them on the investigation. He’d sat with Nikki for hours, teaching her procedure, sharing with her any new leads they were following, and listening to her ideas.

  “But we still haven’t given up hope,” she said finally. “At least, I haven’t.”

  “You never can. I’ve learned that. And your family? How are they?”

  “My mom still has nightmares occasionally, but she volunteers with a missing persons organization, and that really seems to have given her a sense of purpose. It’s a bit . . . therapeutic, I guess. She still struggles, though, especially at Christmas and Thanksgiving, but all in all they’ve managed to move forward as much as they can. My father pours himself into his restaurant and still enters his sauces every year in the local barbeque festivals and competitions.”

  “What about your brothers?”

  “Luke’s twenty-eight now and still wants to be a professional musician. He works at my dad’s restaurant and entertains the customers a few nights a week. Matt’s married to Jamie and they’re expecting a baby. She’s in the hospital right now, actually, after some complications with her pregnancy.”

  “I’m sorry. I know this is hard on you.”

  “My father warned me when I took this job that it was going to be difficult to separate my emotional self from my professional self. He was right.”

  “You wouldn’t be human if you could separate the two, Nikki. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in someone’s living room during some of the worst moments in their lives. And while I’ve lost track of many of them over the years, I’ll never forget their faces or their names.”

  “I guess I thought if I could help, it might bring some sort of meaning out of what happened to Sarah.”

  “And this case. You really think I can help?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” Nikki said.

  “I have to say, your call intrigued me,” Sam said. “I’ve seen the reports on the news about the missing girl, but you said you believe it’s connected with your sister’s abduction?”

  Nikki glanced at Tyler, then nodded. “How much have you seen on Bridget Ellison’s abduction?”

  “Just what’s been on the local news. I’m guessing by your being here that you haven’t found her yet?”

  “No. And all we’ve got so far is a bunch of dead ends.”

  “I’m still not sure how I can help.”

  Nikki decided to jump straight to the point. “We found a Polaroid photo of Bridget—just like the other girls connected to Sarah’s case.”

  “Whoa . . .” Sam stared at her. “Are you telling me that whoever took this girl is using the same MO as our Angel Abductor?”

  “The Angel Abductor?” Irene walked into the living room and set the tray on the coffee table. “I thought the man behind those abductions died years ago.”

  “That was one conclusion,” Sam said, “but no one knows for sure. For all we know he could still be out there.”

  “I’ve been reading through the files,” Tyler said. “There were specific things that the police kept from the public. The Polaroid, for example, was never released.”

  “That’s true, but after all these years, it’s always possible for something like that to have leaked out.”

  Nikki leaned forward and took the mug of coffee Irene offered her. “Thanks, Irene. We need to determine if this is just a copycat or if our abductor really is back. And we need to find him.”

  “Wow . . . It’s been so long, but I think all of us who worked that case believed he was dead. The authorities have always given us a tremendous amount of cooperation over the years digging up cold cases, but I’ve never stumbled across anything that pointed to him. Of course, we never had more than a rough sketch of what the man looked like.

  “And you know as well as I do that his trail went completely cold after your sister went missing. I’m honestly not sure how I can help. It’s been so many years, I have no doubt that you know more about those cases than even I do.”

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something we’ve both missed. Do you have all of your notes on my sister’s case?”

  “He has case files on every investigation he worked in one of the extra rooms.” Irene laughed. “I don’t even go in there. It’s his private domain.”

  “I need your help to determine who this guy is.”

  “And if he really is the Angel Abductor?” Sam asked.

  “Then it’s up to us to ensure he never strikes again.”

  Two hours later, they were set up at the dining room table, still going through the dozens of files, police reports, lists of evidence, and notes Sam had. Thanks to adrenaline and unlimited refills of
coffee, exhaustion had been shoved to the back burner for the moment.

  “We always thought there might be a connection between all the girls,” Nikki told Tyler, as they continued through the files. “But we never found it.”

  “I cross-checked every connection I could think of, but you’re right,” Sam said. “There was never anything.”

  “After all these years, I’m wondering if it’s even possible to find anything new,” Irene said, topping off her husband’s half-empty mug. “I can’t tell you how many late nights Sam has pored over these files, and I know you’ve done the same thing, Nikki. If there was something to find, don’t you think you would have already found it?”

  “Probably, but we have to be missing something. We never found him.”

  “I know it’s believed he stalked his victims, but is there any evidence that they knew him?” Tyler asked, drumming his fingers against the table.

  “Not that we know of,” Sam said. “But like Nikki said, we never found a common denominator between all the girls.”

  Nikki leaned back in her chair and tried to stretch out the tight muscles in her neck. “Bridget’s abductor contacted her via social media, and she developed an emotional attachment. But we still don’t know if she was just a random victim or if he chose her specifically. If it is the same abductor, he’s changed along with the advances in technology.”

  “How long did he keep the girls alive?” Tyler asked, opening up another file.

  “The longest was . . .” Sam looked to Nikki. “Two days?”

  “Except for Jessica Wright,” Nikki said, wishing sometimes that the details weren’t so readily available. “She went missing after school on June 15 and was found dead five days later. But the autopsy revealed she’d been killed two days before.”

  “In their investigation, the authorities came to the conclusion that the abductor had chosen his victims ahead of time. The problem was that we don’t know what kind of contact—if any—he’d had with the girls ahead of time, because he killed them all.”

  Nikki tapped her fingers against the table. Something niggled in the back of her mind. Cases lined up over the years tried to blur, but she’d kept meticulous notes and files and read every line of every report. She’d also made detailed profiles of abductors and serial killers. Some were able to hide in plain sight with jobs, homes, and sometimes even families. Some fit the profiles; others, not so much. But they weren’t all white males, just like most of them weren’t the insane, evil geniuses Hollywood often portrayed.

  “What if that isn’t true? What if he didn’t kill them all?” she asked finally.

  “What do you mean?” Tyler asked.

  “There was a girl who was kidnapped about six months before Sarah vanished.” Nikki looked up at Sam. “You led the investigation. She managed to escape from her captor.”

  “I remember that case. Her name was Amanda Love. She didn’t speak for days but was finally able to give us a description. It was close to the general description of the Angel Abductor, but we eventually dismissed that theory.”

  “Why?”

  Sam shrugged. “Nothing else about the case fit.”

  Nikki paused as a memory of a conversation came to the surface. “Do you have a copy of Amanda’s file?”

  “Yes.” Sam stood up. “What do you need?”

  “The transcript of her conversation with the police. In it she said that she spoke to her abductor before he took her.”

  Like Bridget.

  Two minutes later, Sam handed her a file.

  Nikki flipped it open and started scanning through the transcript. “Here . . . She told the officer who interviewed her that she was leaving the library after checking out a pile of books for a research paper. She dropped them on the way down the front stairs. A man stopped to help her pick them up. Said he was a teacher who was going to start teaching math at the local middle school. Asked her if she had any advice for a new teacher. Then he left.

  “At the time, Amanda told us she never thought anything about the conversation. But when we followed up on that conversation, there wasn’t a new math teacher starting that year.” She tapped her finger against the paper. “He ended up being her abductor.”

  But Amanda had managed to survive.

  Nikki had followed Amanda’s story during the media storm surrounding her disappearance and more recently when Amanda did an interview with CNN on the ten-year anniversary of the day she’d escaped. She was twenty-six now. A constant reminder to Nikki of what might have been if Sarah had escaped. But while Amanda might have managed to elude her captor, she hadn’t been left without emotional scars. During the interview, she’d talked about her ongoing nightmares. Her fear of strangers and dark places . . .

  “My partner and I followed that lead,” Sam said, “but we never could conclude 100 percent certain he had been the Angel Abductor. And Amanda was blindfolded during her abduction, so we were never able to get a good description beyond the vague sketch of the man who talked with her at the school. She was able to confirm that the voices matched, though. The man at the school and the man who abducted her. But that’s all we were ever able to get.”

  The conversation around Nikki faded . . .

  She and Sarah had been sitting in a booth in the back of their parents’ restaurant a few months before her abduction, eating barbeque sandwiches and French fries and catching up. The room was quiet after the lunchtime rush. Above them the walls were covered with retro signs and vintage guitars.

  Sarah stuck a fry into her mouth. “We’re getting a new biology teacher. I met him after school today. He was lost and looking for the lab.”

  “What about Mr. Philips?” Nikki reached for her chocolate milk shake. “I have a hard time imagining him ever leaving. He’s been around forever.”

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s retiring. He’s got to be close to seventy.”

  “Seventy?” Nikki laughed. “I don’t think he’s that old, but he does have to be close to retirement age. Can you believe he was my biology teacher?”

  “I told you he was old.”

  “Thanks.” Nikki rolled her eyes. “So this new teacher . . . Did he seem nice?”

  “I guess. He didn’t say much. I pointed him in the right direction, and he said thank you.”

  “Now for the next question you know I have to ask,” Nikki said, dipping a French fry into a pile of ketchup. “What about boys? Anyone you like at the moment?”

  Sarah took a sip of her Coke and blushed. “Okay, there is this new guy, though I’m sure he doesn’t even know I exist.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s popular and runs track. But he’s so cute.”

  “You’re popular and run track, so what’s the problem? Have you ever talked to him?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Sarah’s smile had widened as a dreamy look settled in her eyes. “Brice.”

  “Nikki?” Tyler’s hand brushed her arm, pulling her back to the present. “You okay?”

  She glanced up at him. “Yeah, I’m just tired.”

  Emotionally . . . physically. She was fighting an inward battle. Knowing she had to stay focused if they were going to find Bridget. Knowing also that there was no way to avoid those emotions.

  She stared down at the file in front of her, the memory of the conversation still strong. How had she forgotten that conversation? Three years later they’d celebrated Mr. Philips’s retirement in that very restaurant.

  “I just remembered a conversation I had with Sarah a few months before she was abducted.” Nikki stared across the piles of files. “She mentioned speaking briefly to a man at her school who needed directions to the biology lab. Said he was a new teacher.”

  “What if that was a part of his MO?” Sam asked. “What if that’s how he first found his girls?”

  Nikki nodded. “We’re going to have to search the video footage at the school.”

  “You
know that the chances of us finding footage of him, while possible, are slim,” Tyler said. “It could have been months ago.”

  “I know, but it’s worth a shot. All we need is a photo of this guy . . .”

  But he was right. More than likely any footage that had been captured had already been erased.

  “It’s worth looking into, but you can’t do that until tomorrow. Which means if you ask me, you all need to stop for the night. It’s after midnight.” Irene laid her hand on her husband’s arm. “Not getting any sleep and not being able to function won’t help Bridget.”

  “I know, but we’re still not any closer to finding her.” The yellow walls of the dining room began to close in on her. Nikki pushed her chair back. “I’m sorry. I . . . I just need some fresh air.”

  16

  Nikki sat down on the top of Sam’s front porch steps. How was it that between the four of them, they’d spent hours going through every file Sam had collected and still come up with nothing concrete? Because looking for Bridget’s abductor among hours of footage could easily end up being another dead end. He’d know to avoid getting caught on camera. Because whoever this guy was, he knew how to play them. Knew how to get under her skin.

  Like Hansel and Gretel. A trail of bread crumbs. Was that really what this was? A part of some game he was playing?

  She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to untangle some of the knots that had settled in over the past few hours. They needed to catch this guy in a mistake. Which surely was inevitable. Most criminals ended up being caught because of their own carelessness, inexperience, or even arrogance. Other times it was an escaped witness or a fluke, like finding a dead body at a routine traffic stop. Hollywood tended to make their serial killers brilliant, but the reality was they were all fallible.

  She shifted on the step and stared out across the dark clouds covering the night sky. Temperatures had dropped. A light mist had begun to fall. But she didn’t care. Maybe the cold would help numb her heart.

  The front door opened and closed behind her. Tyler handed her a fleece jacket and sat down beside her. “Irene insisted.”