Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (9 page)

So she studiedly ignored him until Travis finally paused. “These three rooms have been set aside for your use,” he informed them. “We’re around the corner and down the hall.”

Macy eyed the closed doors of each. Two on one side and one on the other. No way did she want to sleep with Burke next to her. “I’ll take the one over here.”

Travis shrugged. “Better check which one has your stuff in it. How about we meet at seven A.M. in the front foyer?”

“Sounds good.” Burke opened the door closest to him and looked at her. “Your things are in here.”

With a feeling of trepidation, she watched as he swung open the next door. “And here’s mine.” The smart-ass grin on his face told her better than words that he’d figured she wanted to put as much distance as possible between them. “But maybe Raiker wouldn’t mind if you wanted to ask him to switch.”

“This is fine,” she said stiffly. Whatever excuse she was able to fashion for changing rooms, her boss would recognize her true motive. He had an uncanny gift for spotting disonesty, sort of like a human lie detector. Of course, she wasn’t particularly adept in the art of prevarication. Burke didn’t need to know how uneasy she was in his presence. She knew him well enough to realize he’d exploit even the smallest show of weakness.

Travis had already disappeared around the corner, so she stepped inside the first room and snapped on the light. The space was roomy, with a king-sized bed and excellent replicas of eighteenth-century antique furniture. She deposited her coat on a chaise lounge and turned back to head across the mansion again.

And tried to ignore, as best she could, Burke dogging her steps the entire way.

“Macy Reid,” she said crisply to the one of the men blocking her entrance into the girl’s room. She held up her Raiker Forensics identification badge, which hung from a lanyard around her neck.

The CBI agent, identified as Agent Dirk Pelton by the ID clipped to his lapel, looked past her to Kell. “Is that Burke?”

She slipped by him into the room. “I have no idea who that is.”

“I’m Burke. She’s kidding. Macy, tell them you’re kidding.”

“Let’s see some ID,” she heard one of the agents say, and allowed herself a small smile as she moved to the center of the room. The space seemed decorated for a younger child. That was the first thought to strike her. As if it was held in suspended animation since the girl had been six or seven.

And since Ellie had been seven when Art Cooper had snatched her, perhaps it had. Macy’s gaze traveled over the dolls and stuffed animals peering down from a shelf running the length of one wall. There were Barbies and other toys neatly stacked on a bookcase next to the bed alongside picture books much too young for an eleven-year-old. The bedspread and curtains featured scenes of horses. Girls loved horses, didn’t they? That, the computer, and aquarium were the only things that seemed to be even remotely of interest to a girl Ellie’s age.

Tuning out the sounds of the argument behind her, she pulled on a pair of plastic gloves she’d brought with her and strolled through the room, steeping herself in impressions. Two bedside tables sat on either side of the denuded mattress. Which had held the scissors? Until they got updated reports of all the case details, she only knew answers to the questions she’d had a chance to ask. Or the information she discovered herself.

Macy measured the distance between the bed and desk visually. Too far to get out of bed to go in search of paper if the child couldn’t sleep. She went to the drawer of one table and pulled it out. A tidy stack of construction paper sat inside. Something to calm the girl’s nerves if sleep proved elusive.

Or a reason for her to keep a pair of sharp scissors at her bedside.

“Thanks. You were very helpful.”

Burke’s voice brought a small smile to her face for once. “Oh, were you behind me?” She turned, shot him an innocent look. “I didn’t notice.”

“Right. Whatever else I could say about you, there’s not much that gets by you.” Shoving a hand in his jeans pocket, he withdrew a pair of gloves and drew them on. “So what are you thinking?”

Her gaze went past him to the light switch. Although off, the room was still suffused with a soft glow. “It’s never really dark in here. Even at night.” She pointed from the computer to the aquarium. “Better than a night light, especially if you don’t want anyone to realize you’re still scared of the dark.” That observation arrowed a little too deep, so she hurried past it. “He left himself a narrow window for getting in the house and back out with the girl, but he’d need a place to duck into, wouldn’t he? Just to be sure everything was quiet in this wing and that the parents were in their beds?”

“The room next door is another bedroom, although it’s been empty since the family moved here.” She turned at Pelton’s voice. The man switched on the light and moved just inside the doorway. “We searched it as thoroughly as we did this one.”

Macy went to the closet and opened the door then, flicking on the light. Rows and rows of clothes hung neatly from the endless racks. The space, like the bedroom, was eerily neat. Did the help pick up daily? Where was the jumble of clothes, worn for an hour or so and then discarded?

Shoes and boots were lined up on shelves that lined one end of the space. Another set of shelves held folded jeans, khakis, shirts, and sweaters. The four of them could hide inside it and be undetectable from a cursory observer.

“Plenty of room in here, but he likely hid next door.”

“According to the mother’s statement, the girl would have been in bed long before the unknown subject entered the home,” Kell agreed. “Probably slipped into the next room and got his bearings, made sure all in the wing was quiet before he headed in here.”

“Whoever this guy is, he took precautions.” Pelton’s voice was disgusted. “There’s a ton of prints, of course. State lab will go through them, matching them to the people living or working in the house to see if there’s any that don’t belong here. Same thing with the hairs and fibers they found.”

“Where was the bloodstain found?”

The agent came in to stand beside the stripped bed. “Right about here”—he pointed midway down the bed—“below a jumble of covers. Actually pretty cool, thinking to grab up the scissors and take them along. Probably never noticed the stain. It’s still pretty dark in here, even with the glow from the computer sleep screen and the aquarium light. Or maybe it’s the kid’s blood, in which case it didn’t matter that it was left behind.”

Macy’s stomach did a quick twist, and she ordered her emotions under control. They had two possible places where Ellie’s blood may have been spilled, including Hubbard’s house. Tiny amounts, in the grand scheme of things.

Unless they found her quickly, there was likely to be a great deal more bloodshed.

“It seems so empty. Almost like she was never returned to us at all. Like the last two years never really happened.”

The whispered words had Macy jerking around to see the woman standing in the doorway. Under different circumstances, the slim blonde would have fit in with the sophisticated crowd that used to attend her stepfather’s parties, with her elegant well-cut clothes and air of breeding. But Althea Mulder’s patrician face was drawn, and her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. Her lips quivered as she stared in the direction of the bed.

With a stab of remorse, Macy wondered if the woman had overheard the last part of the exchange between her and the CBI agent. After studying the woman carefully, she revised her opinion. Ellie’s mother wasn’t focused on the scene before her. She’d been sucked in by the past. Back to the first time her daughter disappeared.

Compassion propelled Macy across the room, tugging off her gloves as she moved. “Mrs. Mulder,” she said softly, extending her hand. “I’m Macy Reid. My associate and I are with Raiker Forensics.”

The woman blinked once as Macy took her hand. “Adam Raiker brought our baby home once.” Her hand was cold as ice in Macy’s. “When everyone else had given up hope, he brought our Ellie home.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Gently, Macy took the woman’s arm and steered her toward the hallway. CBI wouldn’t want Ellie’s parents in the room, even if it had been cleared by the crime scene unit. Not until Whitman had cleared
them
. “And we’re going to do our best to make sure that happens again.”

She was unsure whether the woman had heard her. Her gaze had turned inward. “We could never have any more children. We’d thought about adoption, but after Ellie was taken, we couldn’t bear the thought. Adam Raiker was the answer to our prayers.” She seemed to subtly shift then, as if moving back to the present. “She was happy again. Ellie. She was finally starting to smile more. To laugh. How could this . . .” She fought a short battle against tears, before succumbing. “We took every precaution. How could this happen
again
?”

“Let me take you back to your room, Mrs. Mulder.” Chest tight, Macy walked the woman down the hallway to the master suite. “Rest will help you keep up your strength. And you’ll need that in the next few days. For Ellie.”

Stephen Mulder appeared around the corner then, and his step faltered for a moment when he took in the scene before him. Then he strode swiftly in their direction. “Althea.”

Macy moved away as the man drew closer. He slipped his arm around his wife’s narrow waist, and she seemed to collapse against him, sobs racking her body. “Are we being punished, Stephen? Is this God’s way of balancing the scales because we have so much?”

“Come to bed now.” The man’s voice was soothing. The raw emotion evident in the scene had Macy turning away. “I want you to take one of the sedatives the doctor left.” The low murmur of his tone was lost as they turned the corner.

Macy drew in a breath to still the racing of her heart. The past never seemed so vivid as when she was dealing with the family of a crime victim. But it wasn’t the past that was important here. Not hers. Not the girl’s.

It was the future. Ellie Mulder’s future.

Ellie shivered uncontrollably. It was cold wherever he’d brought her, but they were inside some sort of building. If she bent her knees a tiny bit more, they hit something solid. A wall. And she was lying on a hard, cold floor.

For a long time she’d been sort of floating in and out of awareness. He’d stuck her with a needle before he’d taken her. She hadn’t fought the darkness whenever it pulled her under again. It’d be better if she could stay out of it and be unaware the whole time. Because she already knew what he wanted.

Her stomach cramped then, and she felt like she’d puke inside the hood still covering her head. Maybe she was sick from the drugs, or maybe it was the waiting for what she already knew was going to happen. The thought of it made her want to scream. To scream and cry and beg.

But that had never helped before.

To take her mind off the roiling of her stomach, she strained to hear . . . anything. She knew she wasn’t alone in the place. There had been footsteps earlier. Some banging and then swearing in a voice she didn’t recognize.

At least she hoped she didn’t.

But no matter how hard she tried, Ellie couldn’t hear anything now other than the wind. Was it still blizzarding? Would that make it harder for anyone to find her?

The thought brought her up short. She couldn’t expect someone to come after her. She’d learned that from before. And she wasn’t a kid anymore, expecting tears and prayers to rescue her. She might be just eleven, but it was an older eleven than any of her friends back in DC. She was different in a way they couldn’t understand.

Different enough to know that she only had herself to rely on.

The despair that swept over her at the thought was almost comforting in its familiarity. It was hope that was the enemy. Knowing the worst—expecting it—at least meant she was prepared.

But she wasn’t a baby anymore, to lie there and take it either. She’d hurt him—whoever he was—with the scissors in her room. She could hurt him again.

Trying to move her fingers, she almost cried out at the needlelike pain of feeling returning to them. Her hands were tied. Tight. In back of her. Her feet, too. Gritting her teeth, she kept moving them. Tiny little wiggles that shot pain up her arms and legs. But whatever he’d tied her with held fast. She wouldn’t be slipping out of the binds.