“Sadie takes our mission work to the streets, literally. She’s out there almost nightly making sure the girls are eating and getting medical attention if they need it. She was out there the night Melina was attacked.”
Steps echoed in the hallway moments before a short, heavyset woman with short-cropped hair appeared. The woman appeared to be in her midthirties. She had blotchy skin, and discolored teeth indicated a prior meth habit. Her eyes were clear, but Ramsey had no way of knowing if she was totally clean or for how long.
As if reading his thoughts, Reverend Beckett said, “You can’t work in my shop if you’re using. I have mandatory random drug tests for everyone. If you pull a positive, then you have to leave until you can prove you’ve been clean for ninety days.”
Sadie tipped her chin up as she reached for a rumpled packet of cigarettes in her back pocket. “I’ve been clean for five years, two months, and seven days.”
“We’re very proud of her,” Reverend Beckett said.
“Why were you on the street with Agent Shepard?” Ramsey asked.
“My friend Fiona and me used to work the streets with the missing girls, and because we still know all the players well, we offered to stand on the street corner with Melina.”
“Did you see the van?” he asked.
“No, we left right before he approached her.”
“You left Agent Shepard alone.” An intended accusation rumbled under the statement.
Sadie shot Shepard a hard look that looked more sad than angry. “She said she had it under control.”
“I told them to leave,” Shepard said. “I just wanted a few more minutes out there. Like I said before, I had a feeling.”
“Describe it,” Ramsey said.
“There are nights when the vibe feels off. Like when the air shifts before a storm comes.”
“Not very scientific,” he said.
“You’ve never operated on a hunch?” Shepard asked.
Ramsey didn’t respond. “Facts, Agent Shepard.”
“Turns out I was right,” she said. “Only the storm wasn’t the one I was expecting.”
“What were you expecting?”
“To see Joy or Delia, I guess. Maybe their pimp.”
“Reverend Beckett, did you see the van?” he asked.
“All I saw was the man trying to pull Melina into the van,” Reverend Beckett said. “I was too busy freaking out and blaring on the horn to get a good look at him.”
“Was this your first time out there alone, Agent Shepard?” Ramsey asked.
She shifted. Took a sip of coffee. “No, it was my third. I’d met up with the gals twice the week before, but we never saw the van.”
“Does Agent Jackson know this?”
“No,” she said.
Whether it was that last night or the week before, the killer had noticed Shepard. And Ramsey could see why she would be noticed. Despite her edgy street vibe, there was something about her that was hard to ignore.
“Have you seen any signs of a man loitering around since that time? Anything that felt off?” he asked.
“Not around here,” Sadie said. “Rev, what about you?”
Reverend Beckett’s brow furrowed. “I’ve seen no odd men, at least no more odd than usual.”
It had been seven days since the van driver had made his move. He was injured and without his van. He was likely feeling angry and frustrated over the failure.
All the prep in the van’s interior told Ramsey he had been challenged by women before. But instead of giving up, he had adapted and changed strategies—the handcuffs, the drugs he had ready for Shepard, and the bleach.
This killer would not let a setback stop him. He was modifying his tactics. He was always looking for an advantage while also being careful. The chances of finding usable evidence were slim.
Until his aborted abduction of Shepard, this killer had played his cards perfectly. Now that he had failed and been injured, he was not likely to forget the woman who had caused both.
CHAPTER SIX
Monday, August 24, 4:30 p.m.
Melina was back in her office, free to return phone calls, while Ramsey did the same from the conference room. She was grateful to have some distance from him. He was intense and not easily approached, and small talk was not her friend. Ultimately, he would evaluate her work on this case and report back to Jackson.
She scrolled through the messages and returned her mother’s call first. “Mom,” she said, trying not to sound impatient.
“A little bird told me you’ve been on desk duty.”
“Who?” She rose and looked around the office. No one was watching, but she did not doubt her mother had connections.
“Like you, I don’t rat out my confidential informants.”
Melina heard the smile in her mother’s voice and decided to dial back the tension in her own tone or her mother would lock in like a guided missile. “How’s Dad?”
“On the mend.”
“Did you throw away the old ladder?” Her newly retired father had decided he was perfectly capable of putting siding on their thirty-year-old house regardless of his seventy years. He had fallen off the rickety ladder two weeks ago and broken his foot. His doctor had said he would fully recover unless he pestered his wife too much and she killed him.
“I tossed it in the garbage the day after the fall. I wanted to set it on fire, but we’re in a drought.”
“Good call. Can I do anything?”
“Nothing time and a little bourbon for me won’t fix.”
Quirky inside jokes brought down Melina’s blood pressure because they reminded her that she had family behind her. Despite a couple of moody teenage years, she had always cherished her place in the Shepard clan. Her mother understood all this, and clearly suspected that desk duty meant something had gone down.
“I’ll be by on Sunday,” Melina said.
“If you can manage it. I know work gets busy.”
“Never that busy.”
“Bring a few good war stories home to your dad. You know how much he enjoys them.”
This current case was right up his alley. Well, except for the small part that included the near murder of his only child. “Will do, Mom.”
“Love ya, kid.”
“Love you.” She hung up, knowing she had hit the jackpot when Molly and Hank Shepard had adopted her.
Twenty-eight years ago, when Hank Shepard had been a uniformed officer for the state police, he had received a call that a little girl had been spotted on the side of the northbound lane of Route 25. He had been five minutes out and had responded.
He said he had almost not seen her the first time because she was huddled by the guardrail. In fact, it was her yellow jacket flickering in his rearview mirror that made him turn around.
He found her dressed in shorts, a white T-shirt, red boots, and the yellow raincoat. Most of her thick black hair had escaped her ponytail, and her eyes were red from crying. Her hands had been trembling, and when he had gotten out of the car, she had taken several steps back.
“It’s okay. I’m here to help. My friends call me Shep,” her father said.
To this day, Melina barely remembered the moment. She recalled his bright headlights shining on his frame, blinding her to only the outline of a giant. But she also recollected a soft, soothing voice that chased away some of the fear.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Too rattled to lie or give the other name she was told to use, she spoke the truth. “Melina.”
“That’s a pretty name. Melina, are you hungry?”
She nodded.
“I thought so. I can take you back into town, and we can get something to eat and maybe find your mom and dad.”
“They’re dead,” she said.
“Your mom and dad are dead?”
She nodded.
His smile only hardened for a split second. “Who left you out here?”
She had never told him the woman’s name. She was not sure if she had not recalled it or was too afraid to say. And when she was old enough and no longer afraid, the name had already faded from her consciousness.
She wished now she had spoken to the big man as his rough hands had wrapped gently around her own fingers. If she had not been so afraid to talk, she could have told him about the person who had left her, and he could have dug deeper into her past. But she had remained silent, even when he had called his wife, Molly, who had come to the station armed with blankets and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The opportunity to find her biological family was gone.
The Shepards had pulled strings and gotten social services to release her into their custody. There had been an exhaustive search for her birth family, but no information had materialized. Some surmised that, given her dark hair and olive skin, she had come from Mexico or Central America. She did not speak Spanish, so if she had been brought over the border legally or illegally, there was no way of determining her nationality. Her past had simply vanished.
A knock on her door had her looking up. Jackson stood in her doorway. “I have a case for you.”
“I thought I was working one.”
“This one’s more up your alley. Missing persons case.”