The Girl Who Couldn't Forget. Cassie Miles
a man had been following her. Another reported personal items that had gone missing from her house, but she wasn’t sure if she’d just misplaced them. The one who had left Denver and moved to Las Vegas mentioned that she was contacted three times by a documentary filmmaker.
He glanced at his list. “Have you had other threats?”
“Not recently. People have always wanted to get close to us, and they act like we’re some kind of notorious celebrities.” Anger wove through her voice. “In the early days after we escaped, there was a great deal of unwanted attention. For some reason, folks thought it was all right to call or write letters or walk up to us on the street as though we were old friends. Not exactly threatening, but I considered their behavior to be intrusive. I hated it.”
“Gimbel said he put you in touch with a lawyer.”
“Tom Lancaster,” she said. “It was handy to have his card to warn people away. And he was useful in other practical ways. He set up a fund for us to handle various donations. There was enough money to fund private school for Franny and the twins.”
“What about you? You didn’t return to high school.”
“There was no way I’d go back and be gawked at. I got my GED and enrolled in community college. Layla did the same, and she continued to law school. She recently graduated and has been studying for the bar exam.”
According to Gimbel, Brooke breezed through college, earning scholarships and completing her course work for a business degree before she was twenty. After an internship with an IT firm, she set up a home-based business doing medical and legal transcriptions. “You and Layla have much in common. Both intelligent. Both ambitious and successful.”
She pushed a wing of black hair away from her face and gave him a smile. “You’re a profiler, aren’t you?”
“Not yet. But I’ve had psychological training.”
“Well, you hit the jackpot with this case. Me and my friends are every shade of crazy.”
Though he didn’t approve of labels, he appreciated her relaxed attitude. Yesterday she’d been as prickly as a cactus. “Do you know how to reach Layla?”
“I tried. Yesterday Franny and I stopped by her apartment, and I tried to contact her on a computer link. I tried the link again, about three hours ago. No Layla.”
“Would you give it another try?”
“Sure, come with me to my office.” She gave him a more genuine smile, and her dimples appeared. “I’ll send out the bat signal.”
Sloan followed her down a corridor into a large room with a wall of file cabinets and three distinct workstations, each equipped with computers and ergonomic chairs. A wide window, covered with wrought iron grillwork, showed a shaded, verdant backyard with two peach trees and a vegetable garden.
He went to the window. “You grow your own food.”
“Gimbel accused me of planting a garden so I wouldn’t ever have to leave my house.” She slid into place behind a computer. “He might be right. I love being able to step outside and pick a salad. My tomatoes this year have been brilliant.”
He stood behind her so he could see the screen as her slender fingers danced across the keyboard, clicking icons and tapping in passcodes. “I’m not very computer savvy,” he said.
“I guessed.”
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
“This program activates a camera that provides a live feed from a one-room mountain cabin that Layla and I share. We’re both reclusive. Sometimes we need a hideout where we can be completely alone.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Layla uses the cabin when she’s studying. After a big work project, I like to go there to decompress.”
“But you don’t want to be completely out of touch,” he said. “That’s why you set up this system. What did you call it? The bat signal?”
“It’s a safety concern,” she said, “only to be used in urgent circumstances. Though I’m not sure this investigation rises to the level of emergency, I’ll feel better after we’ve checked in with her.”
When she tapped the final key, a picture appeared on the screen. He saw a wood-paneled room with a desk, a fireplace and a bed. The only light came from a window.
“There she is,” Brooke said as she pointed to the bed.
He needed confirmation on where Layla had been and if she’d been threatened. “Can you talk to her through the live feed?”
“Sure.” Loudly, she said, “Layla, it’s me. Get up.”
“Zoom in closer?”
“Come on, sleepyhead.” Brooke tapped a few keys.
The screen filled with a close-up of Layla’s image. Though her nightgown reached up to her chin, Sloan noticed the discoloration at her throat. Layla’s face was drained of color. Her cheeks were hollow. She lay unnaturally still.
He’d witnessed enough autopsies to know that this woman would never respond to Brooke’s calls for her to wake up.
Riveted, Brooke stared at the screen, unwilling to believe what she was seeing. Layla, beautiful Layla, was carefully posed on the bed in the one-room cabin. Her head tilted to the right, toward the door and the kitchenette. Her shiny black hair fanned out on the pillowcase. Her pink gown was buttoned all the way up to her chin. The flowered peach comforter tucked under her arms had been smoothed to perfection, and her long fingers laced together below her breasts. Brooke stared at the plain gold band that gleamed from Layla’s left hand—stared so hard that her eyes strained and began to water. Not again.
Twelve years ago, Layla was forced to be Hardy’s bride. That had been her role in the sick little family he had created. Night after night, he’d come to her, demanding his rights as her husband. At first, Layla had screamed. And she must have struggled, because Brooke had heard the crashing around and had treated Layla’s wounds the following day. Her blood had been literally on Brooke’s hands.
After a while, Layla had given up and quit fighting. Her desperate cries had faded into quiet sobs. At the end of the seven months they were held captive, Layla’s voice had been silent in the night.
Brooke buried her face in her hands. Layla didn’t deserve an early death, not after what she’d survived. She’d worked so hard to get through law school. Her dream had been to defend other victims who had given up hope and had nowhere else to turn. Why had she been taken? Why? Brooke dropped her hands. There was no answer. Sometimes, life didn’t make sense.
In a flat voice, she said, “Layla’s dead.”
“We don’t know for sure.”
Sloan didn’t make the mistake of trying to comfort her with a touch or a pat on the shoulder or a hug. He kept his distance. Smart man. She could already feel her grief transforming into anger, and she might lash out at whatever or whoever was in her path. “I should call the sheriff.”
“I’ll handle it,” he said. “Give me directions to the cabin or an address so I can contact the authorities and the ambulance.”
She wrote the information on a sticky note. Her fingers trembled, but she took care to make her penmanship legible. “We don’t have a spare key hidden at the cabin, and the windows are secure. Still, I’d appreciate if they don’t break down the door.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
He stepped away from the desk but didn’t leave the office. Hovering in the doorway, he kept an eye on her. His voice was a smooth murmur as he made phone calls. She overheard him tell someone to treat