Andrea Kane - The Stranger You Know

Casey couldn’t ignore that. She’d made a commitment to this poor dying man. She intended to fulfill it.

She couldn’t just rely on Claire’s vision of seeing Jan racing terrified through a park, glancing fearfully over her shoulder. That was like looking for a needle in a haystack. There were countless parks in New York City, and that was assuming the attack had taken place here.

Holed up in one of the smaller conference rooms, Casey went through everything they had. She followed up on Brenda’s list, contacting as many people who’d known Jan as possible, particularly her boyfriend, Chris Towers, who now lived in Colorado with his wife and two kids. He was completely taken aback by the subject of Casey’s phone call, but he answered every one of her questions, and his take on Jan was similar to Brenda’s, only from a boyfriend’s point of view. He confirmed that he and Jan were pretty much inseparable, but not sexually active, so pregnancy was out. And he agreed with Brenda that, in the week leading up to her disappearance, Jan had been acting unusually jumpy and nervous. She’d assured him it was just academic stress. But when she’d vanished without a trace, he couldn’t help believing the two were related. He and Brenda had contacted the police, but no sign of Jan materialized. Eventually, they were forced to accept the fact that she’d taken off on her own. Any other theory was too horrific to live with.

“When was the last time you remember seeing Jan alive?” Casey concluded, asking it as a routine question. Frankly, she didn’t count on his answer to shed any light on things. If he and Jan were as inseparable as it seemed, he’d doubtless seen her on the day she’d vanished.

Sure enough, Chris replied, “The afternoon she disappeared. I walked her to work. We made plans to meet up in her dorm room around eleven o’clock that night. She never came back.”

Work.

Abruptly, something clicked in Casey’s mind. Jan had been a waitress at the Lakeside Restaurant at the Boathouse in Central Park. If you coupled that with Claire’s vision—a park with a backdrop of water—you got a strong potential scenario for the scene of the crime.

That was solid enough to act on.

Casey walked through the brownstone and found Claire in the main conference room finishing up a phone call with the police.

“Anything?” she asked.

Disconnecting the call, Claire shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

“Then that frees you up to go with me.”

“Go where?”

“To Central Park. To the restaurant Jan Olson worked in. We’ve been so wrapped up, we didn’t get around to going there and questioning the staff.”

Claire rose slowly from her chair, her mouth set in a firm line. “Number one, you’re not going to Central Park—that’s an open arena for people. Number two, Jan worked there fifteen years ago. Even if we find someone who’s still around from back then, I doubt anyone would remember a college girl who waitressed there that long ago.”

“I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.” Casey wasn’t letting this one go. “Take something of Jan’s, something you feel connected to. I’ll announce our outing to the team. I don’t care if they barricade the door. We’re going.”

A half hour and a huge shouting match later, Casey and Claire, together with Dave Brinkman—one of Patrick’s bodyguards—made their trip to Central Park. They walked all over the grounds, Claire tightly clasping Jan’s calendar in the hope of picking up some of her energy and connecting it to their location.

Casey scanned the various areas of the park—the wide-open grassy spaces and the darker wooded sections.

“Could this have been the park you were visualizing when you saw Jan running away?” she prompted Claire, having purposely omitted any mention of the connection between Claire’s vision and their trip to the Boathouse. She wanted anything that came from Claire to be spontaneous.

But now was the time to push it.

“Think,” Casey urged. “Could Jan maybe have left her job and been tracked down and chased through Central Park?”

Claire started. Then awareness dawned in her eyes. She thought for a moment, turning up her palm in an uncertain gesture. “It’s possible. I’m not sensing anything yet.” She continued to walk, her forehead creased in concentration. Casey followed, noticing that, without realizing it, Claire was heading toward the lakeside approach to the Boathouse.

Abruptly, Claire stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the rowboats and gondolas moving across the lake. “The water,” she murmured. “It was in the background when Jan was running. I’d forgotten. And there were butterflies. And birds. Those images are strong now—stronger than they originally were.”

“The area around the Boathouse is known for its bird-watching,” Dave commented. “There’s even a bird registry to record observations.” A corner of his mouth lifted when Casey turned to gaze at him, her brows arched in surprise. “I’m a trivia buff,” he explained. “In fact, I can also verify the butterfly part. The last I recall, twenty-six species of butterflies have been spotted here.”

“Wow.” Casey sent him an admiring look. “And all Patrick mentioned was that you’re a terrific bodyguard.”

He shrugged. “I’m multitalented.”

Claire was lost in her own world. “I’m starting to pick up on the sheer panic I sensed the other day. It’s getting stronger. But it’s still veiled—like there’s a layer of gauze over it. I can’t see through it.”

“Maybe the attack happened farther away,” Casey suggested. “Central Park is huge.”

“True.” Claire pressed her lips together. “I still need more.”

“Then let’s go inside and see if any of the staff remembers her.”

“It’s been fifteen years, Casey.” Claire reiterated her earlier point. “Isn’t that unrealistic?”

“Without a doubt,” Casey concurred. “But that’s why we’re here. And we have to try, especially given the connection you’re sensing.”

Claire couldn’t dispute that one. So she joined Casey and Dave as they went inside the restaurant.

But she was right. Interviewing people, seeking out information from fifteen years ago—it was like operating in a vacuum. Managers had changed, staff had come and gone and the clientele wasn’t even the same as last year, much less fifteen years ago.

The best that Casey, Claire and Dave could do was leave with a printout of longstanding employees. It was a stretch to think that any of those people would remember Jan, much less who she’d been afraid of. But Casey was confident of one thing—that whatever had happened to Jan Olson, it had happened in Central Park.

A very weak lead, but a lead nonetheless—one that required Forensic Instincts’ investigation.

The team wasn’t going to be happy.

Despite their professionalism, their loyalty to Casey superseded all else. And right now, Ryan was scrutinizing the video footage from the vigil, Patrick was grilling everyone at Columbia that Ryan’s research had spit out on the printer and Marc was poring over the two lists Casey had compiled.

The situation was lousy.

And Casey’s nightmares were filled with fear.

* * *

Hutch threw the last of his clothes into an overnight bag, gulped down the rest of his coffee and glanced at his watch.

It was eight-fifteen, pretty late at night to begin a five-hour drive. He didn’t give a damn. If he got on the road in the next few minutes, he’d be in Manhattan a little after one. He’d been working fourteen-hour days since the night Casey had called to say she needed him, just so he could get his piles of work done and get the hell out of Quantico. Yeah, it had been an exhausting stint, but he’d survived on next to no sleep before, and for less important reasons than this.