“Elizabeth Jennings.”

The name was familiar. Livia had searched during the last weeks for other missing girls in the area, and she vaguely remembered coming across this girl’s story. She remembered, too, this girl’s profile in Nate’s black binder. She was another girl from a bordering state.

“Okay, Elizabeth. I have to go out to the car to—”

“No! Don’t leave me.”

“Elizabeth,” Livia said in the darkened basement. “I have to get a tire iron so we can pry this chain loose. There is no other way. We’ll be right back, I promise you.”

The girl began to shake and cry.

“We are not leaving you. We’ll be back. One or two minutes, I promise.”

“No!” the girl cried.

“I’ll stay,” Megan said.

Livia paused. She knew what it would take for Megan to remain here on her own.

“Are you sure?”

“Go,” Megan said. “But leave the flashlight.”

Livia handed Megan the light and ran up the steps. Outside, she bolted for her car, which sat two houses away, parked at the end of the winding road that led nowhere and everywhere. She reached into her pocket as she ran, fished her phone out, and dialed.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” the female voice said.

“My name is Dr. Livia Cutty,” she said, trying to control her voice as she ran. “I’m in an abandoned subdivision in West Emerson Bay. In one of the houses I found Elizabeth Jennings, a missing girl I believe from Tennessee. I need help right away.”

“You are in a subdivision in Emerson Bay, is that correct?” the calm voice asked.

“Yes. In West Bay. Stellar Heights. Off Euclid and Mangroven. I found a missing girl. Elizabeth Jennings.”

There was a short pause as the woman tapped a keyboard. “Elizabeth Jennings has been missing for two years. Is this who you’re referring to?”

“Yes. I need an ambulance right away. And police.”

“Officers are being dispatched now, ma’am. Would you like me to stay on the line with you?”

“No.” Livia shoved the phone in her pocket and raced to her car.

*

The girl sat quiet and still on the bed. Megan stared at her in the shadow of the flashlight. She shuffled around the cellar in a way she was never able to do during her two weeks of captivity. There was nothing restraining her. She shined the light onto the painted wall.

“Three exes means he’d kill me,” Elizabeth Jennings said.

Megan’s eyes darted up and down the wall. Ever since her rogue therapy session things had been falling into place for her. With the lure of discovering the next bit of the mystery, she’d never stopped to piece it all together. Until now. Until she stood in the cellar with another girl her father had taken. A numbing sense came over her, and all the facts she had built up in her mind collided with the ache in her heart. She shined the light onto the thick bolt socketed to the base of the wall, and followed the chain to the girl’s ankle. Could her father really be responsible for such a thing? Megan remembered Nancy Dee. She’d read the articles that chronicled her parents’ desperate search. The shallow grave where her body was found. And just recently, she’d seen the leaked photos online that captured Paula D’Amato’s body lying abandoned in the woods next to an empty hole that waited for her. Could the man who raised her have done those things?

“Will you hold my hand?” the girl asked.

Megan looked up from the girl’s ankle, where her mind had wandered.

“Until the doctor comes back?”

Megan nodded. “Of course.”

CHAPTER 60

Since the tragedy last year—when he made the horrible discovery after walking down those stairs to adore his new Love and found his daughter instead—everything had fallen apart. He could still feel the humidity of that warm summer night when he thought back. He had believed, for the short while as he sped back to Stellar Heights, that he could make things work....

“Do you know,” the girl asked from the backseat, “about what happened? I didn’t mean to hit him. There’s a girl, too. We need to help her.”

Terry glanced down at the long fork on the passenger seat. It would solve his problem. He didn’t know exactly what waited for him back at Stellar Heights, or how difficult it would be to finish the man whom he’d left lying in the street. Discharging his firearm was out of the question. It would require paperwork and explanation. Strangulation carried the risk of bruising or scratching his hands should the man still have the strength to resist. The fork was morbid, but the night was getting away from him and time was his greatest enemy. He could hardly control his longings to see the new arrival. He’d waited so patiently for her, and tonight’s rendezvous was an untimely annoyance. But now, from potential disaster came opportunity. He had just settled another girl into the backseat. She was exquisite. The night was turning out pleasantly well.

“Do you know about the girl?”

Terry was finished talking to this one. There would be time to discuss the rules later, but he needed to stay focused for the moment. He slowed his patrol car as he came to the entrance of Stellar Heights, waited for an oncoming car to pass and disappear in his rearview mirror before he turned into the dark subdivision. He stopped the car and exited, closing and locking the tall, cast-iron gates behind him. When he shifted the car into drive and continued along the dark road, the girl went frantic.

“Why did you close those gates?”

Terry blocked her out, compartmentalized her pleas. The Buick Regal came into view as he sped along the winding road.

“Good,” he said when he saw the man still lying in the street.

His first order of business from a long list in his head was to check his new arrival, make sure she was secure. He pulled the keys from the ignition and locked the doors. The girl in the back tried the handle but he knew she could go nowhere. He walked past the man in the road; he was still moaning but clearly unconscious from his deformed leg. Terry stepped over him.

He walked through the threshold of the home, number sixty-seven, and felt the familiar coital urge within him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to act on those desires tonight. It was a shame, but this evening called for diligence and efficiency. He took the stairs quickly and turned the corner at the bottom, redirected his flashlight to the girl who waited. But something was wrong.

The hair and headband. The slope of her neck and angle of her jaw. The freckles and eyelashes. It was not possible. His urgings suddenly made him ill. She stirred on the bed, and he went for her before stopping himself. He couldn’t. If she saw him, there would be no way to fix tonight. There was not enough time in a single night to hide his years of presence in the homes of Stellar Heights. And no matter how much he wanted to go to his daughter now and help her, he knew it was not possible.

From urgings to nausea, his emotions finally funneled to rage. He was a wild animal as he bounded up the steps and into the night, ripping open the front door of his cruiser and grabbing the long fork that was there. There was no thought as he approached the man lying in the road.

“Help,” the man whispered.

“My daughter!” he said as her brought the fork down. He repeated his motion five times with his teeth gritted and eyes possessed.

“My daughter!” he repeated constantly until a noise brought him back. He looked around, panicked suddenly since there were never any sounds at Stellar Heights. The girl was screaming from the back of the squad car, staring at him through the window. He stood from his knees and kicked the front door closed to quiet her.

The man’s shirt balled in his fist as he pulled his lifeless body behind one of the houses where the rubble was cleared and soft clay waited. Retrieving a shovel from the garage of one of the homes, he dug a hole. He sweated through his uniform until the grave was large enough, then kicked the man in and threw dirt over him until he was no more....