Andrea Kane - The Girl Who Disappeared Twice

This time a cat meowed from somewhere inside.

“Did you hear that?” Casey asked flatly, knowing full well that Claudia owned two yellow tabbies.

“Yeah.” Marc’s response was equally bland. “I wonder what it was.”

“I couldn’t tell if it was a cat or a child. Could you?”

“Nope. But if it’s a kid, he or she can’t be left alone in the house.”

“Definitely not. And he or she sounds like they’re in some kind of distress.”

A second meow.

“That’s it.” Casey reached for the doorknob. “We can’t risk it. We have to go in.”

Marc grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Don’t bother. I think it’s unlocked. Let me check.” He pulled out a torque wrench and pick. Inserting the flat end of the wrench, he exerted just enough pressure to the L-shaped top of the tool, which served as a lever. He then inserted the pick and carefully tapped each pin out of the way. There was a slight click and a subtle movement of the cylinder as the torque wrench acted as a substitute key, turning the entire cylinder and disengaging the lock.

With a slight push, Marc opened the door. “I was right. Unlocked. Let’s check on that sound.”

They crossed the threshold in a heartbeat.

“Start with the basement,” Casey instructed, all sarcasm having been abandoned. “That’s the room where Claire kept visualizing Krissy.”

They found their way to the stairs leading down to the basement. All Casey was hoping to see was a room transformed to a bedroom, much the way Claire had described.

All she found was a bare-bones basement. Drywalled partitions. Indoor-outdoor carpet. Two pull-string fluorescent fixtures. An Alienware gaming laptop sitting on top of a small desk. The only upgrade to the decor was a leather gaming chair facing a large flat-screen TV, along with video game consoles, controllers, various accessories and all the games to go with them.

But no sign of a child.

“Dammit,” Casey muttered. She flicked on one of the overhead fixtures and scanned the room.

Nothing.

“You take care of the computer,” she told Marc. “I’ll keep searching.”

In response, Marc walked over to the laptop, which was currently turned off. He popped open the DVD drive with a paper clip and inserted the disk Ryan had given him. Closing the drive, he turned on the computer and watched as it booted from Ryan’s disk. In an instant, the laptop’s hard disk indicator began flashing furiously, as the program hacked into the password security tables, inserting a seemingly innocuous system account with full administrative rights and an undetectable spyware program that tracked everything. It also enabled the microphone and effectively turned the laptop into a one-way intercom, with Ryan able to listen to everything that transpired in the room.

When the program finished, it shut down the laptop as if nothing had happened.

Marc removed the disk, sliding it into his jacket pocket, and closed the drive.

While Marc was occupied, Casey walked over to the gaming setup and thumbed through the extensive selection of games. BioShock 2: Limited Edition. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Batman: Arkham Asylum. Left 4 Dead 2. Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition .

“Terrific,” Casey commented in a grim tone. “Isn’t BioShock the game where you can decide to kill little girls?”

“Sadly, yes. But it’s also superpopular among normal people. The fact that Claudia’s fiancé enjoys shooter games doesn’t prove anything.”

“Maybe not. But this guy is obviously a hard-core gamer. When Grace described the offender, she said he’d be into hobbies like model airplanes or video games. Claudia’s fiancé certainly fits the bill.” Another somber look. “But there’s no sign of Krissy.”

“They could be holding her elsewhere in the house,” Marc noted, using his heavy-duty flashlight to peer around.

“Or in a different location entirely.” Casey took a few photos with her cell phone, then headed for the stairs. “Let’s search the rest of the place.”

They were thorough, although neither of them expected to find Krissy on the main floor of the ranch-style house. It was too open, with no private areas or secluded rooms. The basement had been their best bet. And it had come up empty.

The house’s decor was country style, and decidedly feminine. No surprise, given that Joe had just moved back in. Still, it was odd that there was virtually nothing personal of Joe’s to be found, other than a broken-down chest of drawers in a corner of the bedroom.

“Let’s take a look inside,” Casey said to Marc. “We need to get a handle on this guy. Is he just an obnoxious boyfriend and an odd duck, or is he capable of kidnapping a little girl?”

Marc was already pulling on a pair of gloves. He waited while Casey did the same. There was a big difference between responding to an alleged cry for help and ransacking a man’s drawers. They had to tread very carefully.

The top three drawers held the usual: T-shirts and jeans, underwear, some construction gear. Again, no surprise. Ryan had noted that Joe worked for Bennato Construction Company, doing mostly road paving projects.

The bottom drawer had his pay stubs from work, all rubber-banded together. The amounts were consistent, and everything looked to be in order. There was a stack of papers-software receipts, game magazines, a couple of credit card slips from a local pub.

A folded diagram was sticking out from underneath the stack of papers.

“What’s this?” Casey murmured. She pulled out the sheet and smoothed it out.

It was an architectural layout of Armonk’s elementary school parking lot- Krissy’s elementary school parking lot. It included the exterior of the rear side of the building, the outside lights, the surveillance cameras-everything.

“What the hell…?” Marc breathed, squatting down and shining his flashlight directly on the plans. “This is literally a map of the kidnapping scene.”

“It’s also probably one of Joe’s workplaces,” Casey mused aloud. “I remember that the parking lot at Krissy’s school was newly paved, as was the playground. We should find out if Joe was on that job.”

“Yeah, along with why he would have kept this layout, even after the construction work was completed.”

“Right.” Casey took out her phone again, and shot a couple of pictures. “Okay, let’s put everything back exactly as we found it and get out of here.”

Ten minutes later, they left the house, locked the door and headed back for the car.

“Ryan’s turn?” Marc asked once Casey was driving, heading back to Tribeca.

“Yup.” Casey gripped the steering wheel. “We sure as hell aren’t leaving this one alone. A map of the crime scene, a mother-lode gaming center, and the very real possibility that they could have stashed Krissy anywhere. Besides the hack job, we need to have Ryan get a GPS tracking device on Joe’s car and, hopefully, on Joe himself.” She turned onto the highway. “Let’s get to the office. I want to see what Ryan found on Sidney Akerman, anyway.”

Before Marc could respond, Casey’s cell phone rang. She punched the receive button on the steering wheel. “Casey Woods.”

“So, did you get lucky?” an older masculine voice inquired through the speakerphone. “Or did you walk away frustrated and with nothing? I agree with you that you’ve got a strong suspect in Claudia Mitchell. She worships that boyfriend of hers, and he’s a real wack job. Still, I can’t get past the feeling that there’s a connection between the past and the present.”

“Patrick,” Casey said, after a quick glance in the rearview mirror. “Are you tailing us?”

“Don’t have to. I knew what you had on your agenda. What I don’t know-and I don’t want to know-is how you got in.”