Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

“Like hell you are. You don’t know who took her now any more than you did the day she went missing. You don’t know a thing.”

“We’re on it,” he said.

“The girl up in Tacoma looks just like my Kelsey. The same hair. Same features. A beautiful girl. Maybe the guy who took her is the same one who took my little girl. Will you promise to check it out?”

Jonathan Stevens never failed to check out any lead, no matter how tangential.

“You hang in there, Dennis,” he said.

“You catch who abducted her.”

After the call, Jonathan did a quick computer check and found information about Lisa Lancaster’s disappearance. Lisa did look a lot like Kelsey, that was true. But she was much older. Kelsey Caldwell was seventeen and had been abducted after drama practice-she had been cast as Fiona in Brigadoon. Lisa Lancaster was twenty-four, a college student. He did have to hand it to Dennis Caldwell, drunk or not. He was right. The two girls looked like sisters.

Jonathan Stevens made a call up to Tacoma. It was more due diligence than anything. The chances of the two cases being connected in any way were slim to none. He just didn’t want to be the cop who didn’t act on a desperate father’s request for justice. He couldn’t live with that at all.

Like the others before him, and undoubtedly the many more to follow, he was watching the TV news with a keen interest. His kind liked to be informed. They needed to get the update, the 411. Men like him always needed to know what their work had wrought. It was a thrill to see how someone reacted when his or her little girl was snatched. Most cried. Some like Lisa’s mother, Catherine Lancaster, let tears fall slowly, as they fought for control in front of the camera. Those boohoo-ers, as he called them, were interesting, though kind of predictable.

Of course you are miserable, you idiot. You should have taught your daughter to be careful. Ever heard of stranger danger? Cry me a goddamn river, you idiot mother!

He sucked in everything Lisa Lancaster’s mother had been saying, like he would suck the marrow from Lisa’s bones. Hard. Quick. She was a classic boohoo-er. And a bit of a bore if you asked him. Which no one ever would, because no one would ever know it was he who’d taken her.

The ones who got his adrenaline pumping were those who showed more anger than fear. They were the ones who jabbed at the camera and threatened to come right out of the TV to throttle the perpetrator.

“Bring her back or I’ll make you so damn sorry!”

He smiled. They seemed so angry, so determined. It was almost a joke to him. They’d be the first ones to run from him if they knew he was nearby. All talk. All bravado. He imagined going to a candlelight vigil or a missing persons office to rub shoulders next to the finger-jabber. He’d lean over and whisper.

“She begged for her life, you know.”

And when the person spun around, he’d pretend he’d said something else.

“She’s a survivor, you know.”

The only thing better than the finger-jab threat of some pissed-off dad was the truly inconsolable mother. The ones who could hardly get a word out of their trembling lips.

He liked those kinds of mothers. Their words and palpable fear were like a drug. They sparked. They sent a charge of adrenaline, spasms of excitement, through his body. It was as if their pain, their deepest hurt, brought him the greatest joy that he could imagine. Better than sex.

Almost.

Sometimes he was so drawn to the mother’s pain that he’d drive by their house. It was a risk, a big one. Risks, however, were part of the game. The one he admired over all the other men who were just like him, had taken more risks than anyone. He’d escaped jail twice. He’d killed more girls than any other-though others were pretenders to the crown. He was the best at what he’d sought to do. A legend.

At times, he knew that following in the footsteps of a legend was like walking a tightrope in the dark. Yet he had no choice. He never really had.

Police detective Grace Alexander stood on the front doorstep and let her eyes pierce through the opening in the curtain between the small window and the door frame. The fabric moved and a woman with dark, penciled-on brows and eyes that had obviously cried a thousand tears stood there waiting. The women’s eyes met, and in a flash both knew that what they were about to share was nothing either would have wanted.

Not ever.

“Let me do the talking,” she said to Paul Bateman, who was standing a step behind her.

“You always do the talking,” he said. “But I guess that’s one of the things you’re good at.”

If it was a dig, it was a subtle one. At least for Paul, who’d been anything but subtle. He’d been angry over custody issues concerning his daughter, Elizabeth, a twelve-year-old girl who did what a lot of kids of police officers did-whatever she could think of when it came to torturing her father.

And her mother, too. Paul’s ex, Lynnette Bateman, was the sergeant in the same detectives’ unit-the one who’d insisted her unit “man up” and get the work done with less. For the past few months, Grace and other members of the department had half-enjoyed the drama of two of their own tussling over a kid who it seemed was going to end up on the wrong side of the law.

At that moment, none of that mattered, of course. The woman on the other side of the door twisted the knob and spoke with the kind of anxiousness that was the hallmark of a mother in her position. She couldn’t fathom that the world had conspired to drag her down lower than she’d ever dreamed possible in the beautifully restored turn-of-the-century home in Tacoma’s Proctor district.

“You found her,” she said, stepping backwards as the door widened to let the detectives inside the foyer, a large space of gleaming mahogany trim.

“Ms. Lancaster?” Grace asked.

Catherine Lancaster gave a quick nod. “You found her,” she repeated.

“I’m Detective Alexander,” Grace said. Without allowing her eyes to move from Ms. Lancaster’s, she twisted a little toward her partner. “This is Detective Bateman.”

Paul Bateman nodded but, sticking to his word for a change, said nothing.

“You’ve found Lisa, haven’t you? She’s dead, isn’t she? My baby’s dead!”

“No. No, Ms. Lancaster, we haven’t found her.”

A brief look of relief came over Catherine Lancaster’s face, and she steadied herself. She led the detectives inside and motioned to a pair of chairs across from a sofa draped with an afghan. It was a large room, deceptively so. Most homes of that vintage were warrens, small spaces. This one was spacious.

The detective who had originally had the case had been injured in a car accident the previous evening-the night of the news telecast. Grace and Paul had taken the case-and the urgency that came with it- that morning. They explained the accident and how they’d be taking over.

“I hope you’re better at finding my daughter than he was,” Catherine said. “It has been four days, you know.”

Grace let the cutting remark slide. Detective Roger Goodman was an excellent investigator. His notes indicated that he had been following up the possibility that Lisa had left with a boyfriend.

Catherine offered coffee, but no one wanted any. They sat around the kitchen table, a refrigerator plastered with magnets and postcards was a chronicle of the family’s life-Disney, Grand Canyon, Hawaii. On the counter were shopping bags from Macy’s and Nordstrom and a shoebox. A chalkboard above the wall phone carried a message.

Lisa, let me know about Friday!

“We want to follow up on Marty Keillor, your daughter’s boyfriend. He left town the same day as Lisa.”