Allison Brennan - Stalked

Noah typed. “We have a file. Give me a minute to access it. What did you think of the sketch Sean sent? Did you recognize her?”

“Sketch? I didn’t get anything from Sean.” She looked at her phone. No service.

On Tony’s computer she logged in to her personal e-mail account. Sean had sent a picture he’d taken with his phone.

She stared at the image. If she’d seen it on its own, it might look familiar, but because she had just been reading Alexis’s file she knew it was Alexis Todd Sanchez. There were some differences-the nose in the picture was larger and the hair was completely different-but it was her eyes that gave her away.

“This is Alexis Sanchez. She’s in my new-agent class.”

Noah picked up his phone. “Chief?… We have a suspect. Alexis Sanchez. I’ll meet you in your office.”

He turned to Lucy. “You’re certain.”

“Yes. She lived in Newark, where Weber lived. Her sister was abducted and murdered at the same time as Rachel McMahon. Her brother was Weber’s research assistant.”

“There’s no proof that she killed anyone. Where was she Saturday night?”

“In her room. But there are ways of getting around that.” She thought of all the times her group had entered the building together. Only one person needed to use their passkey. “I think I can prove she left.”

“Why would she?”

Lucy walked over behind Noah’s desk and took the keyboard from him. She scrolled through Camille Todd’s file and stopped on the autopsy report. “I have an idea. Camille Todd went missing before Rachel McMahon. Bob Stokes was the responding officer. Because it was a suspected abduction of a child under fourteen, the FBI was called. Tony Presidio was the case agent. One week later, Rachel McMahon goes missing and all resources move to her disappearance.”

“That’s a thin motive.”

“It’s in the autopsy report. Camille was alive for nearly a year after her abduction. When she was found, the coroner determined that she’d been dead for two weeks. Her killer was never found. Rachel died in less than twelve hours, yet the FBI and Newark police focused on finding her. It makes sense-most kidnapped children are killed within seventy-two hours. The more time that passes, the colder the trail gets.”

Noah scanned the report. “They didn’t think there was a connection.”

“Two completely separate cases. But the McMahons had all the attention. The lies, the sex parties, the media-Rosemary Weber-was all over it, relegating Camille Todd to one sentence.”

“I want you in the interrogation.”

She nodded. She could do this.

“I’ll call Suzanne Madeaux and tell her to pick up Kip Todd. Let’s get them both in custody and then piece together the rest of the case. There are some holes.”

“Not as many as you think.”

Noah’s phone rang. “Armstrong.” He listened. “I’ll go. I’m taking Kincaid with me.” He hung up. “Alexis signed out at the gate. O’Neal went to her room and her personal effects are all gone.”

Lucy’s face fell in shock. They were so close to answers! “How did I tip her off?”

“I don’t think you did.”

Five Days Ago

I don’t read the newspaper or watch the news, but some events are impossible to miss. For example, I pass by the newsstand on 94th twice every day on my way to and from the subway station. I can’t avoid the over-sized headlines. Things like “President Visits Egypt,” and “NYPD Officer Killed in Gang Shoot-out,” and “Lindsay Lohan Back in Rehab.”

Sometimes I’m amused by what people find important or interesting. But mostly I’m sad.

Wednesday evening a headline made me stop for the first time in the three years I’d been living in Brooklyn.

REPORTER AND AUTHOR ROSEMARY WEBER MURDERED

I stared for a long minute, long enough for the cashier to get antsy and tell me how much the paper cost.

I handed him the money and took the paper. I didn’t read it on the subway-I wanted to read it in private.

I teach third grade at one of those schools people want to forget exist. Schools where kids don’t have enough to eat, where parents forget they have responsibilities, where most of the kids only have one parent, or grandparent, to care. Schools where survival is as important as breathing. But the eight-and nine-year-olds I teach still had hope. And my job, as much as making sure they could read and had basic math skills, was to maintain their hope for one more year. Maybe I could do it so well because I remembered third grade better than any other year in school. While some kids forgot the time evil touched them, I lived with it every day. Vibrant and alive.

I knew when one of my students was being abused.

I knew when one of my students didn’t have dinner or breakfast.

I knew when one of my students had seen darkness like I had.

And even amidst all that, I gave them hope. Like Grams saved me, I tried to save them.

In my three years, I’ve had ninety-eight students. I remember all their names, from Abraham to Zachary, Anne to Zoey. Nine of them are dead. Six dropped out of school before sixth grade. Twelve moved on to other schools, most because they were removed from violent homes and put in the system. And one is in juvenile hall for murder. He was eleven when he killed his neighbor for no reason he ever shared with me.

But I knew the reason. He’d lost all hope.

I took the Times home with me, to my small one-bedroom in a pre-war Bay Ridge building. I’d lived in the apartment since moving to New York, and I didn’t plan on moving anytime soon. I was close to the water and even had a view of the bridge from one window. Bay Ridge was quiet and a good place to relax after spending the day teaching in East Brooklyn.

Somehow, bringing the paper across my threshold saddened me. As if I’d lost something or violated the sanctity of my home. My appetite was gone as well. I opened a can of diet soda and laid the paper on the table.

I stared at it for several minutes while sipping my drink until, resigned, I sat down and read the story.

I read the article, penned by a reporter named Robert Banker, twice. I might have memorized it, because some sentences kept repeating in my head.

Former Newark reporter and true crime author Rosemary Weber was stabbed to death Tuesday night at Citi Field while the Mets played to victory.

The police had no clues, no leads, and were investigating her murder with the FBI.

Ms. Weber is the author of three true crime books but is best known for her number one bestseller, Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets, which detailed the tragic rape, kidnapping, and murder of eleven-year-old Rachel McMahon and exposed her parents to charges of emotional abuse and neglect.

And because no newspaper could refrain from repeating the drama that had been my life for the first nine years, Banker brought up my parents’ lifestyle:

Aaron and Pilar McMahon had been swingers, putting on elaborate sex parties for friends and neighbors while their two children played upstairs. It was one of their “friends” who killed their daughter, but their lies to police stymied the investigation for days.

I often wondered what would have happened differently had my parents told the truth that morning.

I often wondered if I could have saved Rachel if I’d called 911 at three in the morning when I found she wasn’t in her bed. Intellectually, I knew she died early that morning and even if I had called and if my parents hadn’t lied Rachel would have still died before Benjamin John Kreig was found.

I had to believe that, or I would have killed myself.

Grams told me, before she died, that Rachel had been killed shortly after her abduction and nothing I could have done would have changed that outcome. She knew I harbored deep guilt and anger over what had happened that night and the subsequent days. I believed Grams, because I had to or go insane.