Once Gone

Riley’s own doubts kicked in again.

“What is he telling you?” she asked.

“Mostly, he just keeps asking for his dolls,” Bill said. “He’s worried about them, like they’re children or pets that he shouldn’t leave at home alone. He keeps saying they can’t do without him. He’s completely docile, not the least bit belligerent. But he’s not giving us any information. He’s not saying anything about the women, or whether he’s holding one right now.”

Riley turned Bill’s words over in her mind for a moment.

“So what do you think?” she finally asked. “Is he the one?”

Riley detected growing frustration in Bill’s voice.

“How could he not be? I mean, everything points to him and nobody else. The dolls, the criminal record, everything. He was in the store the same time as her. What more could you ask for? How could we have got it wrong?”

Riley said nothing. She couldn’t argue. But she could tell that Bill was struggling with his own instincts.

Then she asked: “Did somebody run a search on Madeline’s past employees?”

“Yeah,” Bill said. “But that didn’t lead anywhere. Madeline always hires high school girls to work the register. She’s been doing it pretty much since she’s been in business.”

Riley groaned with discouragement. When were they going to get a break in this case?

“Anyway,” Bill said, “a bureau psychologist will interview Cosgrove today. Maybe he can get some insights, tell us where we stand.”

“Okay,” Riley said. “Keep me in the loop.”

She ended the phone call. Her car engine was running, but she still hadn’t driven away from the school. Where was she going to go? If Newbrough really was trying to get her reinstated, he hadn’t gotten it done yet. She still didn’t have a badge – or a job.

I might as well go home, she thought.

But as soon as she started driving, her father’s words came rushing back again.

You just keep following that gut of yours.

Right now, her gut was telling her loud and clear that she needed to get back to Shellysford. She didn’t know exactly why, but she just had to.

* * *

The bell above the fashion store door rang as Riley walked inside. She saw no customers. Madeline looked up from her work at the front desk and frowned. Riley could see that the shop owner was not at all happy to see her again.

“Madeline, I’m sorry about yesterday,” Riley said, walking to the desk. “I was so clumsy, and I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t actually break anything.”

Madeline folded her arms and glared at Riley.

“What do you want this time?” she asked.

“I’m still struggling with this case,” Riley said. “I need your help.”

Madeline didn’t reply for a few seconds.

“I still don’t know who you are, or even if you’re FBI,” she said.

“I know, and I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” Riley pleaded. “But I did have Reba Frye’s receipt, remember? I could only have gotten it from her father. He really did send me here. You know that much is true.”

Madeline shook her head warily.

“Well, I guess that must mean something. What do you want?”

“Just let me look at the doll collection again,” Riley said. “I promise not to make a mess this time.”

“All right,” Madeline said. “But I’m not leaving you alone.”

“That’s fair,” Riley said.

Madeline went to the back of the store and opened the folding doors. As Riley moved in among the dolls and accessories, Madeline stood in the doorway watching her like a hawk. Riley understood the woman’s misgivings, but this scrutiny wasn’t good for her concentration – especially since she really didn’t know what she ought to be looking for.

Just then the bell above the front door rang. Three rather boisterous customers burst into the store.

“Oh, brother,” Madeline said. She hurried back into the dress store to tend to her customers. Riley had the dolls all to herself, at least for the moment.

She studied them closely. Some were standing, but others were seated. All of the dolls were decked out in dresses and gowns. But even though they were clothed, the seated dolls were in exactly the same pose as the naked murder victims, their legs splayed stiffly. The killer had obviously taken his inspiration from this kind of doll.

But that wasn’t enough for Riley to go on. There had to be some other clue lurking here.

Riley’s eyes fell on a row of picture books on a lower shelf. She stooped down and began to pull them off the shelf one by one. The books were beautifully illustrated adventure stories about little girls who looked exactly like the dolls. The dolls and the girls on the covers even wore the same dresses. Riley realized the books and the dolls were originally meant to be sold together as a set.

Riley froze at the sight of one book cover. The girl had long blond hair and wide-open bright blue eyes. Her pink and white ball gown had a spray of roses draped across the skirt. She had a pink ribbon in her hair. The book was titled A Grand Ball for a Southern Belle.

Riley’s skin crawled as she looked more closely at the girl’s face. Her eyes were bright blue, opened extremely wide, with enormous black lashes. Her lips, shaped into an exaggerated smile, were thick and bright pink. There was no doubt about it. Riley knew for certain that the killer was fixated on this very image.

At that moment, the bell rang again as the three customers left the store. Madeline trotted to the back room, visibly relieved that Riley hadn’t caused any damage. Riley showed her the book.

“Madeline, do you have the doll that goes with this book?” she asked.

Madeline looked at the cover, then scanned the shelves.

“Well, I must have had several of them at one time or another,” she said. “I don’t see any of them right now.” She thought for a moment, then added, “Now that I think of it, I sold the last of those a long time ago.”

Riley could barely keep her voice from shaking.

“Madeline, I know you don’t want to do this. But you’ve got to help me look for names of people who might have bought this doll. I can’t begin to tell you how important this is.”

Madeline now seemed to sympathize with Riley’s agitation.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but I can’t. It’s been ten or fifteen years now. Even my ledger doesn’t go back that far.”

Riley’s spirits fell. Another dead end. She had taken it as far as she could possibly take it. Coming here had been a waste of time.

Riley turned to go. She crossed the store and opened the door, and as the fresh air hit her, something struck her. The smell. The fresh air outside made her realize how stale the air was in here. Not stale, but…pungent. It seemed out of place in a frilly, feminine store like this. What was it?

Then Riley realized. Ammonia. But what did that mean?

Follow your gut, Riley.

Halfway out the door, she stopped and turned, looking back at Madeline.

“Did you mop the floors today?” she asked.

Madeline shook her head, puzzled.

“I use a temp agency,” she said. “They send over a janitor.”

Riley’s heart pounded faster.

“A janitor?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Madeline nodded.

“He comes in during our morning hours. Not every day. Dirk is his name.”

Dirk. Riley’s heart pounded and her skin grew cold.

“Dirk what?” she asked.

Madeline shrugged.

“I’m afraid I don’t know his last name,” she replied. “I don’t write his checks. The temp agency might, but it’s a rather slipshod outfit, really. Dirk’s not very reliable, if you want to know the truth. ”

Riley took long slow breaths to steady her nerves.

“Was he here this morning?” she asked.

Madeline nodded mutely.

Riley approached her, and summoned all her intensity.

“Madeline,” she urged, “whatever you do, do not let that man back in your store. Ever again.”

Madeline staggered back with shock.

“Do you mean he’s—?”

“He’s dangerous. Extremely dangerous. And I’ve got to find him right away. Do you have his phone number? Do you have any idea where he lives?”

“No, you’d have to ask the temp agency,” Madeline said in a fearful voice. “They’ll have all his information. Here, I’ll give you their business card.”

Madeline rummaged around on her desk and found a card for the Miller Staffing Agency. She handed it to Riley.

“Thank you,” Riley said with a gasp. “Thank you so much.”

Without another word, Riley rushed out of the store and got in the car and tried calling the temp office. The phone rang and rang. There was no voicemail.

She made a mental note of the address and started to drive.

* * *

The Miller Staffing Agency was a mile away on the other side of Shellysford. Housed in a brick storefront building, it looked like it had been in business for many years.

As Riley went inside, she saw that it was a decidedly low-tech operation that hadn’t kept up with the times. There was only one nearly obsolete computer in sight. The place was pretty crowded, with several would-be workers filling out application forms at a long table.

Three other people – clients, apparently – were crowded around the front desk. They were complaining loudly and all at once about problems they were having with the agency’s employees.

Two longhaired men worked at the desk, fending off complainers and trying to keep up with phone calls. They looked like twenty-something slackers, and they didn’t appear to be managing things at all well.

Riley managed to push her way to the front, where she caught one of the young men between phone calls. His nametag said “Melvin.”

“I’m Agent Riley Paige, FBI,” she announced, hoping that in the confusion, Melvin wouldn’t ask to see her badge. “I’m here on a murder investigation. Are you the manager?”

Melvin shrugged. “I guess.”

From his vacant expression, Riley guessed that he was either stoned or not very bright, or possibly both. At least he didn’t seem to be worried about seeing any ID.

“I’m looking for the man you’ve got working at Madeline’s,” she said. “A janitor. His first name is Dirk. Madeline doesn’t seem to know his last name.”

Melvin muttered to himself, “Dirk, Dirk, Dirk… Oh, yeah. I remember him. ‘Dirk the Dick,’ we used to call him.” Calling out to the other young man, he asked, “Hey, Randy, whatever happened to Dirk the Dick?”

“We fired him,” Randy replied. “He kept showing up late for jobs, when he bothered to show up at all. A real pain in the ass.”

“That can’t be right,” Riley said. “Madeline says he’s still working for her. He was just there this morning.”

Melvin looked puzzled now.

“I’m sure we fired him,” he said. He sat down at the old computer and began some kind of a search. “Yeah, we sure did fire him, about three weeks ago.”

Melvin squinted at the screen, more puzzled than before.

“Hey, this is weird,” he said. “Madeline keeps sending us checks, even though he’s not working anymore. Somebody should tell her to stop doing that. She’s blowing a lot of money.”

The situation was becoming clearer to Riley. Despite being fired and no longer getting paid, Dirk still kept going to work at Madeline’s. He had his own reasons for wanting to work there – sinister reasons.

“What’s his last name?” Riley asked.

Melvin’s eyes roamed about the computer screen. He was apparently looking at Dirk’s defunct employee records.

“It’s Monroe,” Melvin said. “What else do you want to know?”

Riley was relieved that Melvin wasn’t being too scrupulous about sharing what ought to be confidential information.

“I need his address and phone number,” Riley said.

“He didn’t give us a phone number,” Melvin said, still looking at the screen. “I’ve got an address, though. Fifteen-twenty Lynn Street.”

By now, Randy had taken interest in the conversation. He was looking over Melvin’s shoulder at the computer screen.

“Hold it,” Randy said. “That address is completely bogus. The house numbers on Lynn Street don’t go anywhere near that high.”

Riley wasn’t surprised. Dirk Monroe obviously didn’t want anyone to know where he lived.

“What about a Social Security number?” she asked.

“I’ve got it,” Melvin said. He wrote the number down on a piece of paper and handed it to Riley.

“Thanks,” Riley said. She took the paper and walked away. As soon as she set foot outside, she called Bill.

“Hey, Riley,” Bill said when he answered. “I wish I could give you some good news But our psychologist interviewed Cosgrove, and he’s convinced that the man is not capable of killing anyone, let alone four women. He said – ”

“Bill,” she interrupted. “I’ve got a name – Dirk Monroe. He’s our guy, I’m sure of it. I don’t know where he lives. Can you run his Social? Now?”

Bill took the number and put Riley on hold. Riley paced up and down the sidewalk anxiously as she waited. Finally Bill came back on the line.

“I’ve got the address. It’s a farm about thirty miles west of Shellysford. A rural road.”

Bill read her the address.

“I’m going,” Riley said.

Bill sputtered.

“Riley, what are you talking about? Let me get some backup there. This guy’s dangerous.”

Riley felt her whole body tingle with an adrenaline rush.

“Don’t argue with me, Bill,” she said. “You ought to know better by now.”

Riley ended the call without saying goodbye. Already, she was driving.

Chapter 34

When the farmhouse came into view, Riley felt jarred in a way that she hadn’t expected. It was as if she’d driven into an oil painting of an ideal rural America. The white wood-frame house was nestled cozily in a small valley. The house was old, but obviously kept in decent condition.

A few outbuildings were scattered on the nearby grounds. They were not in as good repair as the house. Neither was a large barn that looked ready to collapse. But those structures looked all the more charming because of their dilapidation.

Riley parked a short distance from the house. She checked the gun in her holster and got out of the car. She breathed in the clear, clean country air.

It shouldn’t be this lovely here, Riley thought. And yet she knew that it made perfect sense. Ever since she’d talked to her father, she’d dimly realized that the killer’s lair might well be a place of beauty.

Still, there was a kind of danger here that she hadn’t prepared herself for. It was the danger of being lulled by the sheer charm of her surroundings, of letting down her guard. She had to remind herself that a hideous evil coexisted with this beauty. She knew she was about to find herself face to face with the true horror of the place. But she had no idea just where she’d find it.

She turned and looked all around. She didn’t see any truck on the grounds. Either Dirk was out driving somewhere, or the truck was inside one of the outbuildings or the barn. The man himself could be anywhere, of course – in one of the outbuildings, possibly. But she decided to check the house first.

A noise startled her, and her peripheral vision caught a flurry of rapid movement. But it was only a handful of loose chickens. Several hens were pecking the ground nearby. Nothing else moved except tall blades of grass and leaves on the trees as a gentle breeze blew through them. She felt utterly alone.

Riley approached the farmhouse. When she arrived at the steps, she drew her gun, then walked up on the porch. She knocked on the front door. There was no response. She knocked again.

“I’ve got a delivery for Dirk Monroe,” she called out. “I need a signature to leave it.”

Still no response.

Riley stepped off the porch and began to circle the house. The windows were too high to see into, and she found that the back door was also locked.

She returned to the front door and knocked again. There was still only silence. The door lock was a simple, old-fashioned type for a skeleton key. She carried a little lock-picking set in her handbag for just such situations. She knew that the hook of a small flat tension wrench would do the trick.

She slipped her gun back into its holster and found the wrench. She inserted it into the lock, then groped and twisted it until the lock rotated. When she turned the doorknob the door swung open. Drawing her gun again, she walked inside.

The interior had much the same picturesque quality as the landscape outside. It was a perfect little country home, remarkably neat and clean. There were two big soft chairs in the living room with white crocheted pieces on the arms and back.

The room made her feel as though friendly family members might step out at any second to welcome her, to invite her to make herself at home. But as Riley studied her surroundings, that feeling waned. This house actually did not look as if it were lived in at all. Everything was just too neat.

She remembered her father’s words.

He wants to start all over again. He wants to go all the way back to the beginning.

That’s exactly what Dirk was trying to do right here. But he was failing, because his life had somehow been hopelessly flawed from the start. Surely he knew that and was tormented by it.

Instead of finding his way back into a happier childhood, he’d trapped himself in an unreal world – a display that might be in some historical museum. A framed cross-stitch embroidery even hung on the living room wall. Riley stepped closer to look at it.

The little stitched x’s made up the image of a woman in a long gown and holding a parasol. Beneath her were embroidered words…

A Southern Belle is always

gracious

courteous

genteel…

The list went on, but Riley didn’t bother to read the rest. She got the message that mattered to her. The stitchery was nothing more wishful thinking. Obviously, this farm had never been a plantation. No so-called Southern belle had ever lived here, sipping sweet tea and ordering servants about.

Still, the fantasy must be dear to someone who lived here – or had lived here in the past. Maybe that someone had once bought a doll – a doll that represented a Southern belle in a storybook.

Listening for any sound, Riley moved quietly into the hallway. On one side, an arched doorway opened into a dining room. Her sense of being in a past time grew even stronger. Sunlight streamed in through lace curtains hanging over the windows. A table and chairs were positioned perfectly, as if awaiting a family dinner. But like everything else, the dining room looked as though it hadn’t been used for a long time.

A large old-fashioned kitchen was on the other side of the hallway. There, too, everything was in its proper place, and there was no sign of recent use.

Ahead of her, at the end of the hall, was a closed door. As Riley moved in that direction, a cluster of framed photographs on the wall drew her attention. She examined them as she edged by. They appeared to be ordinary family photos, some black and white, some in color. They reached far back in time – perhaps as long as a century.

They were just the sort of pictures one might find in any home – parents, elderly grandparents, children, and the dining room table laden with feasts of celebration. Many of the images were faded.

A picture that didn’t look more than a couple of decades old appeared to be a boy’s school picture – a cleaned-up student with a new haircut and a stiff, unfelt smile. The picture to the right of it was a woman hugging a girl in a frilly dress.

Then, with a slight shock, Riley noticed that the girl and the boy had exactly the same face. They were actually the same child. The girl with the woman wasn’t a girl at all, but the schoolboy wearing a dress and a wig. Riley shuddered. The expression on the costumed boy’s face told her that this was not a case of a harmless dress-up or comfortable cross-dressing. In this photograph, the child’s smile was anguished, wretched – even angry and hateful.

The final snapshot showed the boy at about age ten. He was holding a doll. The woman stood behind the boy, smiling a smile that glowed with entirely misplaced, uncomprehending joy. Riley leaned closer to view the doll and gasped.

There it was – a doll that matched the picture on the book in the store. It was exactly the same, with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, roses, and pink ribbons. Years ago, the woman had given the boy this doll. She must have forced it upon him, expecting him to cherish and love it.

The tortured expression on the boy’s face told the real story. He couldn’t fake a smile this time. His face was knotted with disgust and self-loathing. This picture captured the moment when something broke apart in him, never to be made whole again. Right then and there, the image of the doll fastened itself onto his unhappy young imagination. He couldn’t shake it off, not ever. It was an image that he was recreating with dead women.

Riley turned away from the pictures. She moved toward the closed door at the end of the hall. She swallowed hard.

There it is, she thought.

She was sure of it. That door was the barrier between the dead, artificial, unreal beauty of this country home and the hideously ugly reality that crept behind it. That room was where the false mask of blissful normalcy fell away once and for all.

Holding her gun in her right hand, she opened the door with her left hand. The room was dark, but even in the dim light from the hall, she could see that it was completely unlike the rest of the house. The floor was littered with debris.

She found a light switch to the side of the door and flicked in on. A single overhead bulb revealed a nightmare spread out before her. The first thing that registered on her mind was a metal pipe standing in the middle of the space, bolted to the floor and to the ceilings. Bloodstains on the floor marked what happened there. The unheeded screams of women echoed through her mind, nearly overwhelming her.

No one was inside the room. Riley steadied herself and stepped forward. The windows were boarded up, and no sunlight entered. The walls were pink, with storybook images painted on them. But they were defaced by ugly smears.

Pieces of a child’s furniture – frilly chairs and stools really meant for a little girl – were overturned and broken. Scraps of dolls had been thrown everywhere – amputated limbs and heads and snatches of hair. Small doll wigs were nailed to the walls.

Heart pounding with fear, with rage, remembering her own captivity too well, Riley stepped deeper into the room, mesmerized by the scene, by the fury, by the agony that she sensed here.

There came a sudden rustle behind her, and suddenly, the lights went out.

Riley, panic-stricken, spun around to fire her gun but missed her chance. Something heavy and hard struck her arm an agonizing blow. Her weapon went skittering into the darkness.

Riley tried to dodge the next blow, but a rigid, weighty, object glanced across her head, cracking noisily against her skull. She fell and scrambled toward a dark corner of the room.

The blow kept echoing between her ears. Concussive sparkles flickered in the darkness of her mind. She’d been hurt and she knew it. She struggled to hold onto consciousness, but it felt like sand slipping between her fingers.

There it was again – that hissing white flame cutting through the darkness. Little by little, the shimmering light revealed who was carrying it.

This time it was Riley’s mother. She was standing right in front of Riley, the fatal bullet wound bleeding in the middle of her chest, her face pale and dead-looking. But when her mother spoke, it was with Riley’s father’s voice.

“Girl, you’re doing this all wrong.”

Riley was seized by nauseating dizziness. Everything kept spinning. Her world made no sense at all. What was her mother doing, holding this awful instrument of torture? Why was she speaking with her father’s voice?

Riley cried out, “Why aren’t you Peterson?”

Suddenly, the flame was extinguished, leaving only lingering traces of phantom light.

Again, she heard her father’s voice growling in pitch-blackness.

“That’s your trouble. You want to take on all the evil in the world – all at the same time. You’ve got to make your choice. One monster at a time.”

Her head still swimming, Riley tried to grasp that message.

“One monster at a time,” she murmured.