The Keepsake

Clutching the shoe like a talisman, she forced herself to continue the survey of her prison, wondering if the darkness hid other clues to past inmates. She imagined a floor littered with the scattered possessions of dead women. A watch here, a lipstick there. And what will they someday find of mine? she wondered. Will there be any trace of me left, or will I be just another vanished woman, whose last hours will never be known?

The concrete wall abruptly dipped and changed to wood. She halted.

I found the door.

Though the knob turned easily, she could not budge the door itself; it was bolted shut on the other side. She screamed and banged on it with her fists, but it was solid wood and her puny efforts succeeded only in bruising her hands. Exhausted, she slumped back against the door and through the thumping of her own heart, she heard a new sound, one that made her snap taut in fear.

The growl was low-pitched and menacing, and in the darkness she could not locate it. She pictured sharp teeth and claws, imagined the creature advancing toward her even now, poised to spring on her. Then she heard a chain rattle and a scratching sound that came from somewhere overhead.

She looked up. For the first time, she spied a crack of light, so faint that at first she didn’t trust her own eyes. But as she watched, the crack slowly brightened. It was the first light of dawn, shining through a tiny boarded-up ventilation window.

Claws scraped at the boards as the dog outside tried to tear its way in. It was a large animal by the sound of its growl. I know he’s out there, and he knows I’m in here, she thought. He smells my fear and he wants a taste of it as well. She’d never owned a dog, and had imagined one day having a beagle or perhaps a Shetland sheepdog, some sweet and gentle breed. Not the beast that now stood guard outside that window. A beast that, judging by the sound of it, could rip out her throat.

The dog barked. She heard car tires and the sound of an engine shutting off.

She went rigid, her heart slamming against her chest, as the barking grew frenzied. Her gaze shot upward to the ceiling as footsteps creaked overhead.

Dropping the shoe, she retreated as far as she could from the door, until her back pressed up against the concrete wall. She heard a bolt slide. The door squealed open. A flashlight shone in, and as the man approached, she turned away, as blinded as though it were the sun itself burning her retinas.

He merely stood over her, saying nothing. The concrete chamber magnified every sound, and she heard his breathing, slow and steady, as he examined his captive.

“Let me go,” she whispered. “Please.”

He did not say a word, and it was his silence that frightened her the most. Until she saw what he held in his hand, and she knew that there was far worse in store for her than mere silence.

It was a knife.

TWENTY-SIX

“You still have time to find her,” said forensic psychologist Dr. Zucker. “Assuming this killer repeats his past practices, he will do to her what he did to Lorraine Edgerton and to the bog victim. He’s already crippled her, so she can’t easily escape or fight back. The chances are he’ll keep her alive for days, perhaps weeks. Long enough to satisfy whatever rituals he requires, before he moves on to the next phase.”

“The next phase?” said Detective Tripp.

“Preservation.” Zucker pointed to the victims’ photos displayed on the conference table. “I think she’s meant for his collection. As his newest keepsake. The only question is…” He looked up at Jane. “Which method will he use on Ms. Pulcillo?”

Jane looked at the images of the three victims and considered the gruesome options. To be gutted, salted, and wrapped in bandages like Lorraine Edgerton? To be beheaded, your face and scalp peeled from your skull, your features shrunken to the size of a doll’s? Or to be steeped in the black water of a bog, your death agonies preserved for all time in the leathery mask of your face?

Or did the killer have a special plan reserved for Josephine, some new technique that they hadn’t yet encountered?

The conference room had fallen quiet, and as Jane looked around the table at the team of detectives, she saw grim expressions, everyone silently acknowledging the unsettling truth: that this victim’s time was quickly ru

“Finding her may come down to one thing: how deeply we can get into the mind of her abductor,” said Zucker. “We need more information on Bradley Rose.”

Jane nodded. “We’re tracking it down. Trying to find out where he’s worked, where he’s lived, who his friends are. Hell, if he has a pimple on his butt, we’d like to know about it.”

“His parents would be the best source of information.”

“We’ve had no luck with them. The mother’s too sick to talk to us. And as for the father, he’s been stonewalling.”

“Even with a woman’s life in danger? He won’t cooperate?”

“Kimball Rose isn’t your ordinary guy. To start off with, he’s as rich as Midas and he’s protected by an army of lawyers. The rules don’t apply to him. Or to his creep of a son.”

“He needs to be pressed harder.”

“Crowe and Tripp just got back from Texas,” said Jane. “I sent them out there thinking that a little macho intimidation might work.” She glanced at Crowe, who had the bulky shoulders of the college linebacker he’d once been. If anyone could pull off a macho act, it would have been Crowe.

“We couldn’t even get close to him,” said Crowe. “We were stopped at the gate by some asshole attorney and five security guards. Never even got in the door. The Roses have circled the wagons around their son, and we’re not going to get a thing out of them.”

“Well, what do we know about Bradley’s whereabouts?”

Tripp said, “He’s managed to stay under the radar for quite some time. We can’t locate any recent credit card charges, and nothing’s been deposited in his Social Security account for years, so he hasn’t been employed. At least, not a legitimate job.”

“In how long?” asked Zucker.

“Thirteen years. Not that he needs to work when he’s got Daddy Warbucks as a father.”

Zucker thought about this for a moment. “How do you know the man’s even alive?”

“Because his parents told me they get letters and e-mails from him,” Jane said. “According to the father, Bradley’s been living abroad. Which may explain why we’re having so much trouble tracking his movements.”

Zucker frowned. “Would any father go this far? Protecting and financially supporting a dangerously sociopathic son?”

“I think he’s protecting himself, Dr. Zucker. His own name, his own reputation. He doesn’t want the world to know his son is a monster.”

“I still find it hard to believe that any parent would go to such lengths for a child.”

“You never know,” said Tripp. “Maybe he actually loves the creep.”

“I think Kimball is protecting his wife as well,” said Jane. “He told me she has leukemia, and she did look seriously ill. She doesn’t seem to think her son is anything but a sweet little boy.”

Zucker shook his head in disbelief. “This is a deeply pathological family.”

I don’t have a fancy psychology degree, but I could’ve told you that.

“The cash flow may be the key here,” said Zucker. “How is Kimball getting money to his son?”

“Tracking that presents a problem,” said Tripp. “The family has multiple accounts, some of them offshore. And he has all those lawyers protecting him. Even with a friendly judge on our side, it will take us time to sort through it.”

“We’re focused only on New England,” said Jane. “Whether there’ve been financial transactions in the Boston area.”