"Gillian has been abducted."
She pushed herself up in bed, thinking she must have misunderstood. "Say that again."
"Gillian's been abducted." He told her that Holly had spent the night with her sister, and someone had broken into the apartment. "Holly swears it's the same guy who kidnapped her."
"Where are you now?"
"I'm on my way to your sister's. Wakefield's already on the scene."
"Where's Holly?"
"She's been taken down to the station to get her statement."
"I'll be there as quickly as I can."
She hung up.
Shit. Oh, shit.
She opened her mobile phone and punched number one. As soon as Anthony answered, she began blathering, trying to tell him what she knew in one sentence. She stopped and took a breath, realizing she was close to tears, close to flipping out. "I'm not thinking straight," she said, her throat tight. "Christ. This is bad, Anthony. Really bad." The phone call had taken her back to another time when she'd felt hopeless, the time Fiona had been killed. She pressed her lips together, then asked, "Will you come?"
"I'm on my way."
She fought off a fresh wave of tears. "When?"
"Soon. Today. This afternoon, if possible."
"Thanks."
She disconnected, then went to give her mother the news.
Blythe was already standing in the hallway. "I heard," she said before Mary could say anything. "Where? When?"
Blythe followed her back to the bedroom.
"Someone broke into her apartment." Mary began throwing on clothes-a pair of jeans. A shirt. A sweater. "About an hour ago. Holly Lindstrom was there. She thinks it's the same guy who abducted her."
"I don't understand. I thought Gavin Hitchcock did it. Isn't he in custody?" She covered her mouth with one hand, eyes large with shock and disbelief. "What about the photo? What about the girl he tied to his bed?"
"I don't know." Mary strapped on her gun. "Maybe I was too anxious to find Hitchcock guilty," she said miserably.
"Where are you going?"
"Gillian's apartment. After that, I'm going to talk to Holly."
"I'm coming with you."
Mary didn't like the thought of her mother being at the scene of the crime, but she also knew she had every right to be there. "The police will probably want to take our statements."
Mary drove too fast through streets that* were beginning to show signs of life even though the sun wasn't yet up. They rode in silence until Blythe broke down.
"I can't believe this is happening again. What's wrong with this world?" she said, her voice choked with tears. She shook her head. "After Fiona died, I should have moved. I thought about it, but I didn't want to leave here. And the law of averages was on our side. It's like when I know you're going to be flying, and I worry about the plane crashing, then I hear about a crash somewhere else, I think, Okay, there's the one plane crash. Now I can relax because I know your plane isn't going to crash. And then I feel guilty. Because of all the people on the plane, but I can't help feeling a little less worried for you. Oh God. I'm babbling."
"That's okay."
Mary turned down the street that led to Gillian's apartment. As she spotted the crime van, her stomach dropped. Blythe was right. This couldn't be happening.
They had to park two blocks away. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung around the front yard, all the way out past the sidewalk.
"It looks like somebody's been murdered here," Blythe said.
"Nobody's been murdered," Mary reassured her. "They've cordoned everything off so no evidence is destroyed."
A police officer stopped them before they got to the yellow tape. Mary flashed her ID. "We're also the mother and sister of the victim."
They were allowed to pass.
Wakefield met them at the door. The loss of Gillian had left its mark on him too. "He cut the window with a glass cutter, removed the glass, and unlocked the lock."
"Any leads?"
"We're working on fingerprints, but so far the ones we've lifted are all small. Women's, most likely. This asshole's too smart to go without gloves."
"Anybody see or hear anything?"
"We have officers canvassing the neighborhood, but so far nothing. People aren't too cooperative this time of the morning."
"What about Sebastian Tate?"
"His roommates don't know where he is. Say he hasn't been home in two days, but we've got every cop in the state looking for him."
Inside the apartment, technicians were dusting for prints and collecting evidence. A couple of detectives stood with tablets in hand, making notes and taking the statements of the first officers on the scene.
Senatra separated himself long enough to give Mary's arm a comforting squeeze and tell Blythe how sorry he was. Then he got back to work.
"What about Holly?" Mary asked Wakefield. "You said she thinks it's the same guy."
"She seemed sure of it. If it is, it means he followed her here. Then, for some reason he took Gillian instead. Holly claims she ran for help as soon as the kidnapper left with your sister. The first officers on the scene were here within two minutes of the 911 call. At that time, six patrol units surrounded the area, but didn't find anybody."
"Did Holly have a description of the car?"
He shook his head. "Which makes me wonder how quickly she really went for help."
"Is she still at the station?"
"Let me check." He called the police station, then nodded to Mary. "Don't let her go," he said into the phone. "I have an FBI agent here who wants to talk to her."
Leaving Blythe with Wakefield and Senatra, Mary hurried back to her car and headed downtown to City Hall and the police station.
She immetliately found inconsistencies in Holly's story. Sometimes in cases in which somebody was left behind, or someone escaped uninjured, guilt played a part in their account of what happened. Mary suspected that's what was going on with Holly. Mary also suspected that the time between the kidnapper's departure and the time Holly actually went for help was longer than the "minute at the most" Holly was describing.
"Would you mind if I spoke to her alone?" Mary asked Holly's parents.
"Our daughter's been through an awful lot," Mrs. Lindstrom said. "We'd really like to take her home now."
"It's okay," Holly said, looking up. She was dressed in jeans and a yellow sweatshirt. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and there were raw areas on her cheeks where the tape she was bound with had ripped the skin away.
When they were alone, Mary said, "I know this is hard for you, but you need to tell me exactly what happened in just the way you remember. You may have information you think isn't important, but sometimes it's the things that seem unimportant that help solve a case," she added gently. "And sometimes it's the little things that don't seem important-things like time-that can send investigators in the wrong direction. Gillian is my sister. I want her back as quickly as possible."
Mary pulled out a chair and sat down on the same side of the table with Holly. "Do you know that most victims of home invasion don't call the police as soon as their assailant leaves? In most cases, the assailant will tell them not to call-and they don't. They might be in shock, and most of them are afraid he'll come back, or afraid that he hasn't really left. It's impossible to think straight in that kind of situation. You're running strictly on survival mode, and that mode is telling you to lie low and not make a sound. So, Holly… if you didn't go for help right away, nobody will blame you. Nobody will think poorly of you for doing what your natural instincts were telling you to do."
Holly stared at her pop can, turning it in her hands.
"You waited to go for help, didn't you?"
"He told me to wait fifteen minutes."
"I'll bet you waited longer, just to be sure."
Holly continued to stare at the can, as if finding it the most interesting thing in the room. "I think maybe I did."
"How much longer, would you say?"
"Five minutes. Maybe ten."
"Thanks, Holly. I appreciate your honesty." Mary called Wakefield and updated him on the time element.