Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

“Oh, God,” Lily murmured, a stricken look appearing on her face.

“He wouldn’t leave anything to chance,” Wyatt explained, gentling his tone. “In every previous case, he’s known exactly where and when to strike to minimize the possibility of witnesses. In one case, he shot out surveillance cameras. He doesn’t leave anything-like waiting to choose his prey-until the last minute. I don’t think the unsub would have scheduled the auction if he didn’t have his eye on his next victim.”

The two computer experts remained momentarily silent, acknowledging what he was saying. Then both, as if sharing the same mind, spun in their chairs and went back to work, more determined than ever to find something they could use to stop the nightmare.

Stacey and Dean spent much of the morning in the stifling little house on State Street. They told Lisa’s mother what they could, offering few details, but a lot of comfort and promises of justice.

And they asked questions.

These people knew Lisa the best. If there was a personal connection between her and her killer, here was the best place to start trying to find it. They needed to learn everything they could about the men she’d dated, those she’d fought with, anything that might have been a motive for murder.

So far, they’d learned nothing Stacey hadn’t already known about the young woman.

“I don’t know who her boyfriends were,” Winnie said, probably for the tenth time. “She was a popular girl; she was so pretty. Nobody would want to hurt her.”

Stacey didn’t quite accept prettiness as the reason for Lisa’s popularity. And she knew plenty of people who had reason to dislike the young woman. But she let it go.

Across the kitchen, Stan mumbled something, apparently in response to his wife’s statement. It wasn’t the first time he’d had an under-the-breath comment. So far, nearly all his answers had held a note of belligerence, and more than once he’d made a disparaging remark about his stepdaughter. Prick .

Seeing the way the cowed woman’s eyes constantly shifted toward her husband before she answered anything, Stacey finally had enough. “Winnie, why don’t you and I go into Lisa’s room to talk, while Special Agent Taggert gets a few details from Stan.”

Her husband immediately began to object. Winnie, though, leaped from her chair. “Yes, yes. Her room. It’s exactly the way she left it.”

“Win…” Stan said, his voice holding a note of warning.

“Mr. Freed, if you wouldn’t mind,” Dean said, smoothly distracting the man by stepping between him and his wife. “I really would like to talk to you.”

The older man frowned. “I need to go shower and get ready for work.”

Work. Hours after being informed of his stepdaughter’s murder. That really ought to go on his husband-of-the-year application.

“I’m sure they’ll understand if you’re late, given the circumstances,” Dean said, somehow managing to disguise the disgust she suspected he felt. His quick, unguarded glance in her direction confirmed it.

“I’d appreciate more information about how your stepdaughter got the keys to your car. You said she borrowed it without permission?”

Mr. Freed was well and truly distracted. “More like stole it,” he spat. “And that’s a company car; I don’t own it, and if she had gone out and wrecked it, I could have been fired. After all I did for her, she didn’t even care that we could end up on the streets.”

To Stacey’s knowledge, the house belonged to Winnie. She’d certainly lived here before her first husband had died, and had come into some kind of insurance settlement after that drunk driver had killed him. Where that money might have gone was anyone’s guess.

“All right, then,” Dean said, “let’s go discuss it.”

“Fine. Do you want to go outside and look at the car?”

“That’s an excellent idea.”

Stacey blessed the distraction. Stan had seemed reluctant to get out of earshot from his wife, almost as if he feared what she might say. Now, he seemed focused only on sharing his grievances about his stupid car.

She suddenly wondered if Stan’s employer provided other vehicles for their tech guys. Like pickup trucks… It was worth checking out.

“Come on,” Winnie said, only a small furrow of her brow revealing what she thought of her husband’s actions. Stacey suspected she’d gotten quite adept at hiding her feelings. And her pain.

Following Winnie down the back hallway, Stacey steeled herself for whatever they might find in Lisa’s bedroom. She had no doubt Lisa had been doing drugs and hated the idea of finding paraphernalia in front of her heartsick mother. But when Winnie pushed the door open with a creak, and she stepped inside the immaculately clean room, she sucked in a shocked breath.

Because it wasn’t just in the same condition it had been in on the day Lisa had disappeared. It was the same as it had been when she was a child.

The twin-size bed was made with a frilly pink cover and a profusion of lacy pillows. Wide-eyed, pink-lipped dolls sat on a white wicker rocking chair in the corner. A bookshelf laden with childhood titles stood beside a small dresser sized for a young child’s hands to open. Framed prints of butterflies and puppies hung on every wall.

Stacey’s breath caught in her throat; she could neither inhale nor exhale. She could only stare as the awfulness of it washed over her.

It was as if Lisa had stopped growing-stopped aging-at around the age of twelve.

The only concessions that an adult woman had lived here were the closet, which contained jeans and sheer blouses, spike-heeled boots, and carelessly tossed lingerie. And the faint, lingering scent of cloying perfume emanating from the bottles on the dresser.

“Neat as a pin, my Lisa was,” Winnie mumbled. She stood in the middle of the room, unwrapping her arms from around her body only long enough to gently smooth the soft, fluffy bedspread. A half laugh, half sob burst from her throat. “Except for her closet. Never could get her to keep that closet clean. I think she liked it cluttered and dark because she’d go in there and play cave explorer. I’d find her in there all the time when I’d get home from work, even when she was a teenager.”

Hiding in the closet. God in heaven, was it really possible this woman had had no idea what was happening in her own house, to her own daughter?

Stacey found it hard to speak, but somehow managed to ask, “Did Lisa say anything to you, before she died, about anyone who might have threatened her? Or frightened her?”

And would you have heard her if she did?

“Everybody loved my little Lisa.”

“She was a sweet child.” Knowing she needed to tread a fine line, she still said, “But we both know Lisa had her troubles when she grew up. Those died with her, but they could still mean something. I need you to be honest now, and think about the way things really were right before she disappeared.”

The older woman’s mouth tightened into a tiny, dime-size circle. If Stacey pushed her into thinking about the way her daughter had really been, she might not cooperate at all. So she proceeded very carefully. “Had Lisa been feeling all right?”

“Of course.”

“No illnesses?” She thought of the teenage pregnancy scare, wondering if Lisa’s mother had ever even known about it. “No signs that anyone had hurt her in any way?”

“Hurt her?”

“Yes. She didn’t appear injured-bruised, did she?”

Winnie’s right hand instinctively moved up, rubbing her left arm below the shoulder before flinching in obvious discomfort. If that housecoat was sleeveless, Stacey would lay money a large bruise would be visible on the woman’s parchment-thin skin.