Vanished. Elizabeth Heiter
of risking the rocks, they’d come through the dunes. To a twelve-year-old, they’d seemed to go on forever, but then they’d arrived at this little stretch of beach, and it had been like their own private world.
She’d thought about it for the first time earlier today, and realized it had only been a month before Cassie’s abduction that they’d come here. Maybe he’d followed them. Maybe he’d made it his private world, too.
A shiver raced through her, as hard as the wind ripping strands of hair from her bun.
“Hey!”
The unexpected voice made Evelyn’s head snap up. Emerging from the dunes was Darnell Conway.
She felt a new sense of unease. Had he followed her out here?
Evelyn’s hand grazed her hip, where her SIG Sauer rested reassuringly. Her holster had rubbed the skin underneath it raw in the South Carolina sun, but she never went anywhere without it.
After leaving Darnell’s house yesterday, she’d done some more digging and learned he’d kicked his girlfriend, Kiki, out of his house two years ago. It was possible he’d stopped the abductions after Cassie eighteen years ago because Kiki had started to suspect. Now, if he had decided to go back to his old ways, there’d be no one around to notice anything.
As Darnell walked toward her, an almost lazy swagger to his stride, Evelyn watched his hands for any sign of a weapon. But they swung loosely at his sides, empty.
“It’s Evelyn Baine, from the FBI, right?” Darnell asked, an artfully blank expression on his face.
“What are you doing here?”
A hint of a smile curved one corner of his mouth, and a predatory gleam flickered in his eyes. “Well, after you and that officer told me about the missing girl, how could I not help with the search?”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“I’m sure you know I work in sales. From home. I can set my own schedule.”
He stepped closer and Evelyn continued walking, careful to keep him in her line of sight. “Why here?”
“The dunes?”
“Yeah. The cops were assigning searchers to groups.”
“You’re not in a group,” Darnell said, lengthening his stride and moving close enough to give her a whiff of his aftershave. “Should you be out here all alone?”
His tone was neutral, but his words were calculated, intended to intimidate.
Evelyn felt her jaw tighten as she strode up the first sand dune instead of heading back toward the rocks. She’d need both hands for that climb, and with Darnell next to her, she was keeping her gun hand free.
Either he wanted to flaunt his guilt, thinking he’d never be caught, or he was just one of those guys who got off on being aggressive, got power out of trying to bully others.
“Should you?” she tossed back, wanting him to know he didn’t scare her.
Darnell kept pace with her, his expression shifting in a way that told her he liked the challenge. “What’s the point of searching with the group? The more area we cover, the more likely someone is to find this little girl, right?”
Or the easier it would be to hide a body, with the convenient excuse of being out searching. Some killers liked to be the ones to “discover” their victims. And if Darnell had, in fact, killed his girlfriend’s daughter twenty years ago, he was one of them.
A sick feeling roiled in her stomach. Was she going to find Brittany in these dunes? Was Cassie here somewhere, too?
She clenched her fists and intentionally slowed, so Darnell could pick the route. If he wanted to lead her to the bodies, pretend to find them, she’d go along with it.
His eyes narrowed slightly as she allowed him to get in front of her. It was as though he could read her. As though he knew exactly what she was doing.
She half expected him to call her on it, but instead he suggested, “Let’s go this way,” and led her deeper into the dunes.
Almost immediately, he started moving faster. He probably had ten inches on her, so his strides were much longer.
Was he trying to wear her out, make her easier to overpower once he got her deep into the dunes?
She kept a careful distance between them as they crested one dune after the next. Darnell was breathing heavily, his T-shirt soaked through and stuck to him, outlining biceps bigger than her thighs.
“Kinda sick, isn’t it?” Darnell wheezed after ten minutes of silence.
“What?” Evelyn asked. She was sweating and thirsty, and the sun was beating down, no cloud cover in sight. The salty, humid air felt thick in her lungs. And the thought that Cassie could be buried under one of the dunes she was trudging over made chills dance across her sweat-drenched skin.
Because if Darnell was the Nursery Rhyme Killer, maybe she was right and he wanted to “discover” the bodies. Or maybe he was simply getting a thrill out of having her—an intended victim who was now investigating him—walk over them.
Of course, if he was worried that after eighteen years someone suspected him again, he could also be desperate. And desperate meant dangerous.
Darnell slowed down, eased in next to her. “Well, come on. No one wants to say it, but everyone knows. None of those girls were found eighteen years ago. The same guy is back now.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
When she didn’t respond, he pressed, “They lure you into these search parties with the idea that you could help rescue this poor little girl. But let’s be honest. We’re looking for her body.”
An image flashed through Evelyn’s mind, and the shock made her slide partway down the dune. An image of a girl with blond ringlets bouncing in pigtails, sky-blue eyes dancing with happiness, a quick smile for everyone she met. Cassie.
The last time Evelyn had seen her, they’d played hide-and-seek in Cassie’s backyard. Evelyn had felt so free, felt she’d finally fit in somewhere, like she had a real home, a friendship that would last a lifetime. Instead, that day marked the last time she’d really been a child.
Anger swelled in her. Had this man taken that away from her? Taken Cassie?
The glare of the sun over the crystal-brown sand dimmed as Evelyn’s hand instinctively jerked toward her weapon.
When she spun around, Darnell was right there, so close that if she breathed too deeply they’d be touching. She recognized the look in his eyes because she’d seen it before, usually in interrogation rooms. His words were meant to get a reaction.
His lips twitched, something wanting to break free. A snarl? A smile? But he held it back, staring her down, triumph in his eyes.
And she realized what she’d done. She’d gotten distracted, thinking of Cassie. She’d let him get too close.
She was armed, yes, but in the time it took to clear her weapon from its holster, he could take her down with sheer bulk. She could run, but which way? She was at the base of two dunes, with no idea how to get out.
Triumph showed on Darnell’s face, telling her he could sense her fear.
And damn it, that infuriated her. It ignited all the anger she’d buried under mountains of survivor’s guilt and mourning.
So, he had a hundred pounds on her, all of it muscle. She had hand-to-hand training from the FBI. And she wasn’t going down without a fight.
She leaned her head back so he could see it in her eyes.
He was taken aback, like most bullies, when he realized sheer intimidation wouldn’t do it. A flash of surprise, of panic, appeared in Darnell’s eyes. He hid it fast and lifted his hand.
Evelyn instinctively