“And the car?”
“A late-model black sedan. He laid her down in the backseat. I didn’t register the license number, but I noted it was a current Virginia plate.”
Sean opened his laptop and showed the detective the picture from the florist’s security camera. “Is this the man you saw?”
The detective looked closely. “It could have been. I can’t say definitively, but it’s the same physical build.”
“Is that the stalker?” Dillon asked.
“Yes,” Kate said.
April came over. “Agent Donovan, I’m so sorry. If I had known Lucy was in any danger, I’d never have let her go outside alone. I thought you had Cody’s killer in custody.”
“So did we,” Kate said.
“Detective DeMarco!” An officer stepped in from outside and introduced himself as he approached the group.
Detective DeMarco said, “What did you find?”
The officer held up a string of pearls in a plastic evidence bag. “We found these in the snow at the bottom of the stairs,” he said.
Dillon’s voice was rough when he said, “Those are Lucy’s. They were our mother’s. She gave them to Lucy when she graduated from college.”
“It looks like the clasp broke,” DeMarco said on inspection. “Anything else?”
“Officers Craig Jackson and Lloyd Breck arrived in a taxi at approximately five thirty-five p.m. Both noted the black sedan out front and because it was illegally parked, considered talking to the owner, but a man exited the church and walked to the car. They let it go and came in.”
“Do they have a description?”
“White, five foot nine, wearing a black trench coat.”
“Hat?”
“No, sir. Not that they saw. Hair cut short, brown.”
Dillon said, “He was exiting the church. He would have taken it off inside, or it would have drawn attention.”
“What time did Lucy arrive?”
April said, “Just after the priest stepped behind the altar, when everyone was standing.”
“The processional?” Dillon asked.
“It was at the beginning. I’ve only been to a couple of these things.”
“The processional. So about the same time the man left,” Dillon said. “And Lucy stepped out before communion?”
“Everyone was saying the Lord’s Prayer and she looked sick. I walked her to the bathroom, but she wanted to go outside for fresh air. She seemed better when she opened the door, though she was a little green.”
Sean’s phone vibrated. It was Jayne. He stepped away from the group. “What’s his name?” Sean asked.
“I don’t know,” Jayne said. “I wanted to make sure you know I’m working on it. It would help if I could narrow it down to a state.”
“Start with D.C., then Virginia and Maryland, and work out from there.”
“Okay, give me some time and I’ll—”
“The guy has Lucy. We don’t have time.”
“I’m doing the best I can, Sean, I’m sorry.”
“I’m just worried. Keep me informed.” He dropped the call. “Kate—get Noah on the phone.
“Why? Do you have an ID?”
“No—but I have an idea. Mallory.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s too coincidental that Lucy is kidnapped at the same time the vigilante group is shut down. Cody’s murder, the stalking, Mallory—it has to be connected, and I think he has the answers.”
“Show him the picture,” Dillon interjected.
“Exactly. This guy has to be involved, otherwise why Lucy? Why now?”
Kate nodded and dialed Noah’s number.
Noah wasn’t sitting down when the guard brought Mick Mallory into the interrogation room at the D.C. jail. He slapped the photograph down on the table.
“This man kidnapped Lucy. Who is he?”
Mallory stared at the picture for a long minute. When he realized who it was, his face turned ashen.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, dammit! We have a witness. Who is it? One of your vigilante friends?”
“No. This is Peter Thomas Miller. He was a high school teacher arrested for statutory rape in 2002. He had sex with six of his female students, at least the ones we know about who came forward, but was only convicted for two of them because after making a statement, the other four recanted. He did a number on the girls—psychologically abusing them as well as seducing them. He only raped virgins, but it was never violent—only mentally sadistic.”
“Mentally sadistic?”
“He convinced them they were inferior, but he did it in such a way they didn’t feel threatened—he never yelled and initially didn’t hit, but instead reasoned out why they were weak and useless and how they should live their lives to serve their husband. He was training them for their future husbands, he’d told one of them. He was sentenced ten-to-twenty, and paroled last summer in Delaware. He registered as a sex offender, then disappeared.”
Mallory paused, then stared at Noah. “Lucy found him online. He was trolling for virgins. But he never showed.”
“Never showed? Explain.”
“Two months ago. Lucy set the meeting, and we switched the location because I knew in my gut that this guy was dangerous—that he would escalate. He deserved my brand of justice. He never showed up, and when I went to his house I knew he’d gone to ground. He might have smelled a cop, but there are safeties in place—he couldn’t have known it was Lucy!”
“There’s always a way.” Noah paused. “What kind of teacher was Miller?”
“Computer science.”
Sean drove as fast as he could on the icy roads to RCK East. Noah Armstrong had called Kate and told her about Peter Miller.
Sean would find him. He had to.
Jayne was already working on it, and Noah was pulling all Miller’s criminal records in the effort to find out where he might have taken Lucy. The Delaware FBI was checking his last known residence and Abigail went to comb the WCF files in evidence.
Sean prayed Lucy was alive and unharmed. His gut burned, thinking about Lucy held captive. Miller looked normal, almost pleasant, but he was a sick bastard who had vengeance on his mind. He hated women, and a woman—Lucy—had tried to send him back to prison.
His phone rang as soon as he stepped inside his house. He ran up the stairs to his office as he answered.
“Hello.”
“Sean, it’s Duke. Jayne filled me in. Have you learned anything else?”
“No.”
“I retrieved his employment history. He lists University of Virginia at Richmond as his alma mater.”
“How does that help?”
“He’s not a native of Delaware. His parents were Paul and Christina Miller. They lived in Virginia until 1984, when the father moved to Wilmington after they divorced. Miller was born in 1971, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jayne is searching property records under the father’s name and the mother’s maiden name—Christina Lyons.”
“Where are they now?”
“The father died twelve years ago, and I have no record of the mother after the divorce in Virginia or Delaware, so I’m broadening the search under both her married and maiden names.”
“What is it? I’ll get the FBI on it.”
“The FBI? You think they can find it faster than I can?”
“No, but at this point we need to try everything. I have a bad feeling. From the witness ID, it appeared that Lucy was drunk. I think he drugged her. She wouldn’t have gone willingly. She would have fought back.”
“We’ll find her,” Duke emphasized.
Sean didn’t doubt that. But in what condition? Injured? Dead?
“Call me as soon as you know anything.”
Sean dialed Kate. “I’m sending you information that Duke just found out.”