Lisa Gardner - Hide

In short, Umbrio was a murderous, monstrous freak of nature, quite capable of killing six girls and interring their bodies on the grounds of an abandoned mental institute.

Except Umbrio was safe behind bars by the end of 1980. And according to Annabelle Granger, she didn't receive the locket found on Unidentified Mummified Remains #1 until 1982. Which meant…?

Forty-eight hours into a critical investigation, Bobby didn't have any answers, but he was developing a fascinating list of questions.

D.D. finally returned from escorting Annabelle out of the building. She yanked out a chair and plopped down like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. "Jesus fucking Christ," she said.

"Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing."

She ran a hand through her tangled hair. "I gotta get a cup of coffee. No, wait, I drink any more java, I'm gonna start pissing Colombians. I need something to eat. A sandwich. Rare roast beef on rye. With Swiss cheese and one of those really big, no-messing-around dill pickles. And a bag of potato chips."

"You've given this some thought." Bobby set down the diagram. D.D. might look like a supermodel, but she ate like a trucker. When she and Bobby had been dating-back in their rookie days, ten years and God knows how many major career moves ago-Bobby had learned quickly that D.D.'s idea of foreplay generally included an all-you-can-eat buffet.

He felt that little pang again, a longing for good old days that had only become good by virtue of distant memory and encroaching loneliness.

"Lunch is the only thing I have to look forward to today," D.D. said.

"Too bad. Your chance of getting a decent roast beef sandwich around here is about one in ten."

"I know. Even lunch is a goddamn pipe dream."

Her shoulders sagged. Bobby let her have a moment. Truth was, he was reeling a bit himself. As of this morning, he'd managed to convince himself that any resemblance between the mental hospital site and Richard Umbrio's work was mere happenstance. Then Annabelle Granger. In D.D.'s words, Jesus fucking Christ.

"Are you going to make me say it?" she asked at last.

"Yep."

"It doesn't make any sense."

"Yep."

"I mean, okay, there's a resemblance. Lots of people look alike. Don't they say every person in the world has an unknown twin?"

Bobby just stared at her.

She exhaled heavily, then sat herself up, leaning into the table, her favorite thinking pose: "Let's go through it from the top."

"I'm game."

"Richard Umbrio used an underground pit; our subject used an underground pit," D.D. started off.

"Umbrio's pit was four by six, and by all appearances, a manually enlarged sinkhole," Bobby supplied, gesturing to the diagram decorating the top of the table. "Our subject used a six-by-ten chamber, complete with wooden reinforcements."

"So, same but different."

"Same but different," Bobby concurred.

"Except for the 'supplies'-the ladder, plywood cover, plastic five-gallon bucket."

"Exactly the same," Bobby agreed.

She puffed out a breath, swishing up her bangs. "Maybe the logical provisions for an underground chamber?"

"Possible."

"Now, the metal folding chair and shelves…"

"Different."

"More sophisticated," D.D. amended out loud. "Bigger chamber, more furniture."

"Which brings us to the next key difference…"

"Richard Umbrio kidnapped one known victim, twelve-year-old Catherine Gagnon. Our subject kidnapped six victims, all young females."

"Need more information for proper analysis," Bobby said immediately "One, we don't know if the six victims were abducted at once-which is somewhat doubtful-or individually over a span of time. Are the girls related? Family members, religious affiliation, daddies all worked for the Mafia? Did their time in the chamber overlap? Or were they even kept alive down there? That's an assumption we're making based on the Catherine Gagnon case. But maybe the space only operated as a burial chamber. A place where the subject could come… be with them. A viewing gallery We don't know yet what floated this guy's boat. We can guess, but we don't know ."

D.D. nodded slowly. "Except, then you have Annabelle Granger."

"Yeah, well, except."

"My God, she looks exactly like her. I'm not crazy, right? Annabelle could be Catherine Gagnon's twin."

"She could be Catherine's twin."

"And what are the chances of that? Two women who look so much alike, growing up in the same city, both becoming targets of madmen who favor kidnapping young girls and sticking them in underground pits."

"This is where we make the left turn into the Twilight Zone," Bobby agreed.

D.D. sat back. Her stomach growled. She rubbed it absently. "What do you think of her story?"

Bobby sighed, sat back himself, clasping his hands behind his head. His favorite thinking pose. "Can't decide."

"Seems pretty far-fetched."

"But richly detailed."

D.D. snorted. "She flubbed half the details."

"All the more realistic," Bobby countered. "You wouldn't expect a perfect list of dates and names from someone who'd been just a kid."

"Think the father knew something?"

"You mean, did he sense his daughter had been targeted somehow and that's why they fled?" Bobby shrugged. "Don't know, but this is where life gets tricky: If something was going on in Arlington in the fall of '82, it definitely wasn't Richard Umbrio. He was arrested without bail at the end of '80, tried in '81, and began his stint at Walpole by January '82. Meaning the threat would have to be from elsewhere."

"Troubling. Any chance Catherine was wrong about Umbrio? It was someone else who grabbed her? I mean, yeah, she ID'd him, but she was only a twelve-year-old kid."

"Subsequent events would appear to rule that out, let alone the corresponding pile of physical evidence."

"Bummer."

Bobby shook his head, equally frustrated. "It's hard without the father to interview," he said abruptly. "Annabelle just can't-or won't-tell us enough."

"Rather convenient that both parents are dead," D.D. muttered darkly. She slanted him a look. " 'Course, we could ask Umbrio, but conveniently enough, he's dead, too."

Bobby knew better than to take that bait. "I'm sure Annabelle Granger doesn't find it so convenient that her parents are deceased. Sounded to me as if she wouldn't mind questioning her father some more herself."

"You got the list of cities and aliases?" D.D. asked abruptly. "Look ' em up. See what you can find. It's a good detective exercise."

"Gee, thanks, Teach."

D.D. rose out of her chair, their little conference apparently over. At the doorway, however, she paused.

"Have you heard from her yet?"

No need to define who. "No."

"Think she'll call?"

'As long as we keep calling the scene a grave, probably not. But the minute the media finally figures out it was an underground chamber…"

D.D. nodded. "You'll let me know"

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Robert Dodge-"

"You want an official phone call with Catherine Gagnon, you pick up the phone. I'm not your lackey"

His tone was level, but his gaze was hard. D.D. took the rebuke about as gracefully as he'd expected. She stiffened in the doorway, features frosting over.

"I never had a problem with the shooting, Bobby," she said curtly "Myself, a lot of officers out there, we respected that you did your job, and we understood that sometimes this job really sucks. It's not the shooting, Bobby It's your attitude since then."

Her knuckles rapped the doorjamb. "Police work is about trust. You're either in or out. Think about that, Bobby"

She gave him one last pointed look, then she was gone.

I FELL IN love with a coffee mug when I was nine years old. It was sold in the little convenience store next to my elementary school where I sometimes used my milk money to buy candy after class. The mug was pink, hand-painted with flowers, butterflies, and a little orange-striped kitten. It came in a variety of names. I wanted Annabelle.