Vendetta Page 6

  Sarah’s abductor was back.

  6

  “Nikki?”

  Nikki heard Tyler’s voice and realized he was standing beside her.

  “What’s going on? You froze back there.”

  She looked up and caught his gaze, battling to come up with an explanation she could give him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I don’t know of many officers who don’t get at least somewhat personally involved in their cases, and for you, this hits even closer to home. Tell me what’s going on.”

  She shook her head, not knowing where to begin.

  Not knowing how to process what she’d just seen. Because what she held in her hands had to be nothing more than a coincidence. Or at least that was what she wanted to believe. The alternative was too frightening.

  “Remember what they taught you at the academy.” He braced his hands against her shoulders. “Take deep, slow breaths. Count to four. Hold it—”

  “I’m trying.”

  She was trying, but her mind couldn’t focus. For ten years she’d looked for the man who’d taken her sister, and somehow she’d stumbled upon him in the middle of the Smoky Mountains on a random case. How was that possible?

  “Why did that photo spook you?”

  “It proves Bridget was here,” she said finally. “And that she was abducted by a predator.”

  “Okay, but that’s not all, is it?”

  “No.” She drew in another slow breath, waiting for her mind to clear. “I know who has Bridget.”

  “How can you know that, Nikki?”

  “There hasn’t been any sign of him for years, but he’s back, Tyler.” She took another deep breath, still trying desperately to control the panic mushrooming inside her. “The man who kidnapped Sarah.”

  “Whoa . . .” Tyler took a step back and dropped his hands to his sides. “Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions?”

  Nikki shook her head.

  “Then tell me how that photo links this case to your sister’s case,” he said.

  “He left Polaroid photos of the girls at his crime scenes. Six times. Six girls from 2002 to 2006. Sarah was the fifth girl he took.”

  “Does anything else about this case seem familiar?”

  “He stalked them before he took them, which was why the police believe they weren’t just random abductions of opportunity. In four out of the six disappearances, people gave similar descriptions of a man who became known as the Angel Abductor.”

  She kneaded the back of her neck with her fingertips, her temples pounding as she spoke.

  “Headache back?”

  She nodded.

  “Give me a second.” He returned with a bottle of water and a couple of pain relievers. “I know the basic facts about your sister’s disappearance, but you’ve never shared with me what happened that afternoon.”

  Her hand shook as she took the bottle of water Tyler handed her and nodded her thanks. She’d met Tyler on a double date with Katie eighteen months after Sarah vanished. After weeks of immersing herself in every lead the police turned up, she’d learned to keep what she discovered to herself. Her parents, especially her mother, couldn’t handle the emotional roller coaster. Most of it, she’d never even shared with Katie, let alone Tyler.

  He leaned his shoulder against the stone wall beside her. “Tell me what happened the day Sarah disappeared, Nikki.”

  The minutes and hours clicked automatically through her mind, frame by frame. Detail by detail. As many times as she’d wanted to, she’d never been able to erase them. “I was supposed to pick her up after school. I’d promised to take her out for ice cream to celebrate a good grade on an algebra test. She hated math and was determined to do everything possible to avoid going to summer school.

  “I’d just gotten off work. It was my first year teaching at Oak School Elementary. On my way to pick her up, I decided to stop at the mall to buy some shoes I’d had my eye on. The store was having a sale, and I figured I’d have plenty of time to grab them on my way and pick her up on time.”

  Days later, she’d found the shoes in the trunk of her car, still in the box with their tags and the receipt. She’d tossed them in the trash.

  “I ended up getting to the school fifteen minutes late. I couldn’t find her. I didn’t think much about it at first. I thought she might have caught a ride home with a friend. But when I got to my parents’ house, she wasn’t there.”

  It was at that point she’d begun to realize something was wrong. Sarah would never have gone anywhere without telling someone.

  “The police canvassed the neighborhoods, and we spoke to everyone at the school. Door-to-door in the surrounding neighborhoods, a grid search of the area. The police set up roadblocks, put out an AMBER Alert. The only clue we had was the Polaroid photo of Sarah found outside the school, left presumably by her abductor. No one we spoke to saw her get into a car. None of her friends or friends’ parents. She’d just . . . vanished.”

  Tyler stood quietly beside her while she worked to settle her emotions. “We finally got an eyewitness statement from a student who remembered seeing her get into a car with a man. The description matched a serial killer the police and FBI had been looking for over the past few years.”

  “The Angel Abductor.”

  Nikki nodded. Even ten years later, the media’s name for the man still managed to send chills through her. “After that day, I spent weeks poring over every phone call and lead the police received.

  “I was the one who ended up working with law enforcement to make a long-term plan. My parents paid for a private investigator to look into the case, but I still went over Sarah’s file dozens of times, memorizing every detail, looking for anything crucial that might have been overlooked. I kept meticulous notes, studied serial abductor and killer cases, and made sure the media was kept involved. I was completely focused on finding that one clue that would lead us to Sarah.”

  The missing persons file on Sarah had become extensive. Pages and pages of information containing medical information, personal descriptions, and coded dental characteristics, along with the initial entry report and categories and leads. She’d memorized them all, along with every fact they knew about the abductor.

  “It didn’t take long for me to realize that I—along with my entire family—had changed. My parents considered closing their restaurant, and at one point considered divorce. Thankfully, they had a lot of support in their church and eventually managed to slowly find their way out of the darkness. But I couldn’t give up on the possibility that Sarah was still out there.”

  Alive.

  Nikki paused while Tyler gave her the space she needed to continue.

  “I finished up my first year of teaching, turned in my resignation, and applied to the police academy. I figured it would not only help me continue searching for my sister, but maybe I could help someone else who was going through what our family had suffered. Not knowing what happened to someone you love is like not being able to wake up from some horrid nightmare. I wanted—needed—answers, and decided that the best way for me to find them was to be on the inside.”

  “And all these years later you’ve continued to blame yourself for being late that day.”

  Nikki nodded. “I should have been there. I could have stopped what happened to her if I’d been on time.”

  Tyler’s expression clouded. “Like I should have been there for Katie when she died?”

  She stiffened at the question. “That’s different.”

  “Different? Not to me. Three tours of duty in special ops, and I couldn’t save my own wife.”

  Nikki looked up at him and caught the loss simmering in his eyes. Fifteen months ago, he’d returned from the Middle East with a bullet in his leg, a Purple Heart in his backpack, and six months of physical therapy ahead of him. Katie had begged him not to reenlist. What neither of them knew at the time was that three months later, she’d be the one lying in the morgue.

  �
�Katie’s death wasn’t your fault,” she argued.

  “Just like what happened to Sarah wasn’t your fault.”

  A stocky black starling landed on the pavement a few feet from them and grabbed the crust of a sandwich some tourist had dropped. She wanted to believe him, but after all these years, the numbing grief and guilt had yet to dissipate. She should have been there. Should have saved Sarah. But she hadn’t. And that knowledge would haunt her until the day she died.

  “And while you might not have been able to find Sarah, we can still find Bridget,” he continued.

  She wanted so badly to believe him. Just like she wanted to believe that saving others might begin to redeem herself, but today she was drowning in a familiar tidal wave of emotion. Because today had hit way too close to home.

  She pressed her back against the wall. “What if I can’t? It’s been ten years since he surfaced. I have no idea how to find this guy.”

  “You can’t do what? Save Bridget like you couldn’t save Sarah?” Concern creased his forehead. “Isn’t that what this is all about?”

  “Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.”

  He took her hand, rubbed his thumb across the back of it. “What happened to your sister changed your life. Your entire family’s lives. Just like losing Katie has changed mine.”

  “But you still feel guilty too.”

  Tyler’s frown deepened. “Yes, and trust me, it’s easier for me to dole out advice than take it myself.”

  “I think it’s the not knowing that hurts the most. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. Was she sold into sex trafficking? There’s nothing I can do to help her. That moment when the unsolved case goes cold and is no longer active, your hope begins to strip away.”

  “It’s called complicated grief,” Tyler said. “Because added to the loss is the fact that there isn’t any resolution to deal with when one goes through the grieving process.”

  Complicated grief.

  No resolution.

  The words fit. Her grief hadn’t ended, because the story hadn’t ended. Nikki glanced back at the glass entrance to the visitor center. Officers were talking to tourists. Jack and Gwen would be here any moment, but all she could think about was Sarah and that photo. And the possibility that he was out there.

  “I think it was hardest—and still is—on my mom.” Her mind was lost in the past. “I know she thinks about Sarah every single day. I just want so badly to be able to find her and bring her home. To make everything right again.”

  “Except there’s no turning back time when it comes to tragedy. I still wake up sometimes, convinced Katie’s in the other room taking a shower or fixing me breakfast, and then reality hits and I remember that’s not going to happen.” He paused, still holding her hand. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why didn’t you ever share any of this with me before?”

  “I don’t know.” Nikki searched for an explanation. “We lost Sarah before I met you, and afterward . . . you and Katie were in love, you got married, then you went off to war. It never was the right time.”

  And now all she could think of was that she had to be wrong. That the photo they’d brought to her was just some crazy coincidence. Or a copycat. Or maybe Jack was wrong about Sean Logan, and he and Bridget were just having fun. Taking innocent photos . . .

  But she’d seen the fear in Bridget’s eyes as she stared into the camera. That wasn’t a photo of a girl taking a selfie. Or of a friend snapping a photo for fun. She’d been terrified. Betrayed.

  Tyler took a step forward and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry you and your family have had to go through this. As much as I miss Katie, and as difficult as the last year has been, at least I know what happened to her.”

  Nikki relaxed for a moment in his embrace, needing to feel safe, and allowed herself to feel the warmth of his breath against her neck and the pulsing of his heart against hers. But Bridget was out there somewhere, and every second counted.

  She pulled back and caught Tyler’s gaze. “I need to find her.”

  “That photo doesn’t change anything, Nikki. You can’t be responsible for every young girl that disappears. Your team can handle this one without you.”

  “But everything has changed. If this is him, I know every detail of the case, every file on this man. If my team has to stop to go over the files, how much time will be wasted that could be spent looking for her?”

  “What about Matt and Jamie?”

  “I can’t be in both places, but the photo . . . Tyler.” She tried to blink back the tears. “If there is any chance at all that this is somehow connected to Sarah’s abductor, I need to stay.”

  He ran his thumb across her cheek, wiping away a tear. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.” Nikki nodded. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  She had to do this—for Bridget and for Sarah—and for herself.

  7

  Five minutes later, Nikki headed to the visitor center’s parking lot where Jack and Gwen had parked the team’s twenty-foot mobile command post. She’d resolved to stay for now, at least until she could determine what was going on.

  Jack stepped out of the passenger side of the newly purchased vehicle that had given them the ability to be at the location of an incident while providing them with state-of-the-art, on-site communications, a conference room, and a place to mobilize volunteers.

  Jack sneezed as he walked toward her.

  “You okay, Jack?” Nikki stopped short of the vehicle. “You look—”

  “It’s just hemlock.” He tried to wave her concern away, eyes watering, nose as red as Rudolph’s.

  “Hemlock? You look awful.” Nikki frowned. “Your eyes are bloodshot, your nose is red, and that . . . what’s that on your neck?”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” Jack shot her one of his familiar goofy smiles. “This is the primary reason I try never to venture into the great outdoors.”

  Nikki’s eyes widened. “No camping or hiking?”

  “Summer camp when I was eleven.” Jack sneezed again. “My mom dropped me off and promised me it would be a week I’d never forget. And believe me, I still haven’t forgotten. Hay fever . . . poison ivy . . . swollen mosquito bites. The next year my mom listened to me and sent me to computer camp, where I finally found my calling.”

  “You’re in the parking lot of the visitor center.” Nikki laughed, shaking her head. “You’re not exactly roughing it yet, Jack.”

  “He’s just allergic to the great outdoors,” Gwen said, coming around the front of the vehicle. “That, and he got stung by a yellow jacket at the last rest stop.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with preferring a good sci-fi movie over a day in the pollen-filled, polluted air,” Jack countered, pulling down the foldout steps beneath the side door of the command post. “Especially considering I’m like a magnet to anything that stings, bites, or hisses.”

  “Do you need to take some kind of allergy pill?” Nikki’s amusement was quickly changing to concern.

  “Nurse Gwen here has already doped me up with enough Benadryl and Tylenol for a dozen bee stings. And no, you don’t have to worry about me going into anaphylactic shock.” Jack sneezed. “You’ll just have to listen to that all day.”

  “You’re lucky,” Gwen said. “My brother has to carry an EpiPen with him everywhere he goes.”

  “Lucky? Yeah, I’m really feeling lucky today,” he said as they started setting up the command center.

  Ten minutes later, they were ready to brief everyone involved. Nikki made the introductions between the different agencies beneath the vehicle’s rolled-out roof awning. For the moment, they were looking at a joint search between the local park rangers and the Gatlinburg Police Department, with their task force leading the investigation.

  Nikki shoved aside the personal memories and held up the photo that had been bagged into evidence. “We’ve got a possible new lead on our abductor. This Polaroid is
the same MO as that of the Angel Abductor, who terrorized East Tennessee in the early 2000s.”

  “Wait a minute. Your sister’s case?” Gwen’s gaze narrowed.

  Nikki nodded.

  “Couldn’t it just be a coincidence?” Jack asked. “I thought he hadn’t struck for at least a decade.”

  “He hasn’t and, yes, it’s possible that this is just a copycat. But if it’s not . . .” Nikki ran her fingers across the photo. Part of her wanted to believe that this was simply a coincidence. That whoever had taken Bridget was simply playing the role of a copycat. But the other part of her longed for a chance to bring her sister’s abductor to justice. Whatever that took.

  “Care to fill the rest of us in?” Anderson clutched the brim of his ranger hat between his fingers.

  “Of course.” Nikki ignored the knot in her stomach as she attached the photo to the dry-erase cabinet front on the outside of the truck. “Ten years ago, my sister went missing after school in a Nashville suburb. The police tied her disappearance to a serial abductor in East Tennessee who took at least six girls between 2002 and 2005. The media named him the Angel Abductor.”

  “I remember reading about that case.” Anderson stepped in front of the photo. “What do you know about him?”

  “Pretty much anything you want to know.” She drew in a short breath. “I’ve memorized case files and spent the past ten years trying to track this man down.”

  “Well then, it’s a good thing the boss put you in as the lead in this case,” Jack said.

  Simpson, another park ranger, held up his pen. “Why did they call him the Angel Abductor?”

  “His victims were all young girls with blond hair.” Nikki spit out the details matter-of-factly. All she had to do was keep to the facts and leave her personal connection aside. “He left Polaroids of them—like this one—at the crime scenes. So while Jack might be right that we’re only looking at a simple coincidence, or even a copycat, we can’t ignore the similarities in the cases.”