“She’s technically a missing person—”
“There’s no ‘technically’ about it. There’s no body.”
“If you’ll let me finish?”
“Sorry.” As the light turned green, she hit the gas. “But I have a feeling where this is going, and you’re not getting anywhere near the Kroner case.”
We’ll see about that, he thought. “I got a call from one of the FBI field officers this morning. He’s been working on the case of this missing girl, and he wanted to know if there was any new information. I told him I’d be happy to go back through what we’ve got—”
“The FBI can do its own—”
“No reason not to be collegial. Or to assume that there’s a tie with Kroner.”
She frowned. “What’s the FBI’s angle?”
“I didn’t ask. Maybe it’s interstate.” Because maaaaybe it was part of the Kroner investigation—which was why he didn’t ask.
“Just so we’re clear, if there’s a nexus with Kroner, we’re out.”
“Got it.” He reached into his breast pocket and took out a three-page disposition form. “Cecilia Barten, age nineteen, missing for just over three weeks. Last seen leaving her home to go to the Hannaford supermarket on Union Avenue. Surveillance cameras picked up nothing, thanks to a power surge that knocked out the feed from the lot and from the exit of the store.”
“And we’re starting where?”
“Her parents’ house. I just want to see if there’s anything that was missed. Her mother is expecting us—hang a right here.”
Reilly hit the directional signal and followed through on the turn, heading into a neighborhood that was a good click or two above where Veck lived. Here, the houses were a little bigger and better planted. No cars parked on the street, and he imagined that there were newer sedans and station wagons in all those attached garages. Probably not as many minivans—although this was the land of the soccer mom, so maybe he was wrong.
“Okay,” he murmured, looking at the colonials. “Four ninety-one. Ninety-three. Five . . . here it is.”
Reilly pulled over to the curb in front of 497. After canning the engine, they got out into the sunshine and—
The car that pulled up behind them was a gold SUV with blackened windows, and what got out of it was a whole lot of federal agent: The three men were in plain clothes, and as they came up, the one in the lead, with the dark blond hair, flashed his credentials.
“Jim Heron. We spoke on the phone. These are my partners, Blackhawk and Vogel.”
“Thomas DelVecchio.”
As they shook, Veck felt a strange kind of charge, and he stepped back. “This is Officer Reilly. You want to come in with us?”
The agent narrowed his eyes on the house. “Yeah. Thanks. My partners will wait out here.”
Good idea. It would be hard to fit the three of those boys in a front hall smaller than a football stadium.
As they went up the brick walk to the front door, one of those seasonal flags waved casually in the spring breeze. The thing was pastel and had an egg on it that was half lavender and half pink with a bright yellow band around the middle.
Easter had come at the end of March this year. Right around the time the daughter had gone missing. No doubt the flag had been forgotten . . . or perhaps they were praying for a resurrection of their own. Either way, ruination had come to this house, even though it still had fr walls and a roof: This girl was dead. Veck knew it in his bones, even though he wasn’t one for prescient shit.
Doorbell.
Wait.
Wait.
He glanced back at Reilly. She seemed sad as she leaned back and scanned the windows on the second floor—and he wondered whether she was trying to imagine which one had been Cecilia Barten’s. Behind her, Heron was doing an excellent impression of a statue: towering and unmoving, his eyes were focused on the front door as if he were seeing through it into the house.
Veck frowned. There was something off about the guy. Clearly not competence, however; the agent radiated a militaristic precision about everything from the way he flashed his creds to his walk to how his body settled at rest. Still . . . what the fuck was it—
The door opened with a soft creak and the woman on the other side looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten well in a long time.
“Good morning, ma’am, I’m Detective DelVecchio. This is Officer Reilly and Agent Heron.”
Everyone flashed their credentials.
“Please come in.” She stepped back and motioned with her arm. “May I get you anything?”
“No, thank you, ma’am. We appreciate your taking the time to speak with us.”
The house was beyond spotless and smelled of Pine-Sol and Pledge. Which suggested Mrs. Barten cleaned when she was stressed.
“I thought maybe we could talk in the living room?” she said.
“Please.”
The room was done in keepsake and heirloom, with wallpaper that had flowers on it, and two couches that did not. As Mrs. Barten sat in an armchair, and everybody else took a sofa cushion, Veck got a good look at the woman. She was in her late forties, with a lot of blond hair that was pulled back and twisted around a scrunchie, and a long, thin body that had needed the weight she’d recently lost. No makeup, and she was still pretty. Stare was empty, however.
Shit, where did he start.
“Mrs. Barten,” Reilly cut in, “can you tell us about your daughter. Things she liked to do or was good at. Memories?”
Glancing over at his new partner, he wanted to mouth a thank-you.
Especially as some of the tension left the woman’s shoulders and the hint of a smile appeared. “Sissy was—is . . .” She collected herself. “Please forgive me. This is hard.”
Reilly moved closer to the armchair. “Take your time. I know this is a lot to ask of you.”
“Actually, it helps to talk about her. It takes me out of where we all are now.”
In a halting voice that gradually gained momentum, stories started to roll out, painting a picture of a highly intelligent, slightly shy good girl who would never have walked into trouble if she’d seen it coming.
Yup, Cecilia Barten had most definitely been murdered, Veck thought to himself. This was not one of those drug-related runaways, or an abusive-boyfriend-gone-haywire nightmare. Stable family. Happy young woman. Bright future. Until destiny’s equivalent of a car crash had slammed into her life and wiped it out.
“Mind if I look at the pictures over there?” Veck said when thee was a pause in the narrative.
“Please.”
He stood up and went across to the built-in bookcases on either side of the bowed windows that faced the street. Two kids. The other was a younger sister. And there were shots from graduations and birthday parties and track meets and field hockey games . . . family reunions and weddings . . . Christmases.
He was curiously in awe at the display. Man, this was the very best that “normal” had to offer, and for no particular reason, he thought of how, growing up, his house had had none of this stuff—the happy times or the photographs to show it off. The moments that he and his mom had had to share were nothing you wanted other people to see. Nothing you wanted to remember, either, for that matter.
He reached out and picked up one of the five-by-sevens. Cecilia was standing next to her father, her arm through his, her hand resting on the back of his.
She was mostly like her mom, only a little like her dad. But the lineage was clear.
“. . . called home?” Reilly said.
Veck retuned in to the conversation.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Barten said. “She left around nine. I’d just had my foot operated on—hammertoes. . . .” For a moment, the woman appeared to ruminate, and he was willing to bet that she was thinking about how much she wanted to go back to the time where all she had to do was worry about the way her shoes fit.
And maybe she was blaming herself, too.
She shook her head and refocused. “I was pretty immobile. I’d given her the shopping list and . . . she called from the store. She didn’t know whether I wanted green or red peppers. I wanted the red ones. I was making . . .” The tears came and were blinked away sharply. “Anyway, that was the last time anyone heard from her.”