The Missing

When Boyle left the army, there was no reason for him to work. He had access to his sizable trust fund. He wandered around the country for a year, doing odd jobs as a carpenter, and then finally returned home in the summer of 1983 to find that his mother’s closets had been cleaned out. Daniel called his grandmother and asked about his mother’s whereabouts. Ophelia Boyle didn’t know. She filed a missing person’s report, but it was later dismissed when police discovered Cassandra Boyle’s passport was missing. The family never heard from Cassandra again.

Ophelia paid for Evan’s private schooling and later, college and Harvard Law School. Ophelia had even purchased the farm and kept it ru

With his grandparents dead and his mother missing, Daniel Boyle became the sole beneficiary of an estate worth more than ten million dollars.

Early this morning, police had unlocked a filing cabinet in Boyle’s basement and discovered pictures of the women who had disappeared in Massachusetts during the summer of 1984, the time period the local media called the Summer of Fear. The pictures indicated that Boyle had kept them in the basement of his home.

Not much was known about the time after Belham, when Boyle traveled the country. At some point, he returned east and, in the basement of his cousin’s farmhouse, constructed a maze of locked rooms that one investigator described as ‘the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my thirty years in law enforcement.’ A specialized unit made up of forensic archeologists had been called in to search for unmarked graves in the extensive woods behind Boyle’s home.

Carol Cranmore was being treated at an undisclosed facility. In a taped interview, Dia

The news reporter mentioned that the mothers of the majority of victims weren’t so lucky. Next they played an interview with Helena Cruz.

‘I’ve been wondering what happened to Melanie my whole life,’ Helena Cruz said. ‘I’ve carried all these questions about what happened to my daughter and now, more than twenty years later, I’ve come to find out that the man responsible for killing her wasn’t Victor Grady but a federal agent. The FBI won’t answer my questions. Someone there knows what happened to my daughter, I’m sure of it.’

Darby was staring at Helena Cruz’s face when the house phone rang. It was Banville.

‘Have you seen the news?’ he asked.

‘I’m watching NECN right now. They’re talking about the co

‘It gets even better. The mother, Cassandra Boyle? Turns out she was Boyle’s sister.’

‘Jesus.’ That certainly explained why the family had shipped her all the way up to the boondocks of New Hampshire. ‘Did Boyle know?’

‘I have no idea. As for the mother packing up and ru

‘And Ma

‘Yes. I also got a look at Ma

‘What’s the status on Boyle’s laptop? You have any luck breaking the passwords?’

‘We did. He did all his banking online. We can’t access a lot of the information – he has a private bank in the Caymans – but what we did manage to find were the pictures. Boyle stored the pictures of his most recent victims on his computer. We also found some maps of his burial locations. They span the country.’

‘What about Melanie Cruz? Did you find anything out about her or the other women who disappeared in eighty-four?’

‘We haven’t found a map for Belham. But I know Melanie Cruz is dead. We found Polaroids in Boyle’s filing cabinet. If you want to see them, swing by the station. I’ll be here all day.’

‘What’s in the pictures?’

‘It’s best if I show them to you in person.’

Chapter 72

Banville was talking on the phone when Darby showed up with Coop. Banville saw them standing outside his doorway, motioned them to come in and pointed to the two chairs set up against the wall, near the coat rack.

Fifteen minutes later, Banville hung up. He rubbed the fatigue out of his face. ‘That was the state’s forensic anthropologist. I sent Carter out to the woods early this morning to take a poke around the area where the feds found the set of remains. There’s nothing else buried out there.’

‘I’m surprised the feds allowed him access to the site,’ Coop said.

‘Oh, they put up a fuss. Problem is the cat’s already out of the bag. Ma

‘Carter found a full set of remains?’

‘A full set,’ Banville said. ‘Definitely a female, buried out there between ten and fifteen years, maybe longer. He wants to carbon-date the bones to establish a timeline.’

Banville leaned back in his chair. ‘I told Carter about the women who disappeared around here during the summer of eighty-four. The remains may belong to one of those women, but, given the height and some bone characteristics, it’s definitely not Melanie Cruz.’

‘I’d like to see the pictures.’

Banville handed her an envelope.

It was difficult to look at the harsh color photographs of Melanie bound and gagged in the wine cellar in Boyle’s basement. The camera had captured the terror in her face. In each photo, Melanie was alone. In each photo, she was crying.

That could have been me.

‘Do we have any idea how she died?’

Banville shook his head. ‘If we find her remains, we might have a shot. You think Ma

Ask… your… mother.

Darby shifted in her chair. ‘I don’t know what to think anymore.’

‘Carter said that unless we come across some specific piece of information or evidence which can pinpoint where Melanie Cruz is buried, then we’ll probably never find her.’

Darby tucked the photos back in the envelope. Melanie fumbled with the charms on her bracelet as she listened to Stacey crying behind the Dumpster. ‘Why can’t we go back to being friends?’ Mel asked later, at school.

If only I had said yes, Darby thought.

It took her a moment to find her voice. ‘What about the other women? Do you know anything?’

‘Boyle brought them all to the basement and did different . .. things to them.’ Banville handed her a larger envelope. Inside were bundles of Polaroids bound together by rubber bands.

Darby immediately recognized some of the faces – Tara Hardy, Samantha Kent, and the faces of the women who disappeared after them. At the bottom of the envelope were pictures of a woman with a thin face and long blond hair. Like Rachel Swanson, she appeared to have been starved.