Pretty Girls: A Novel Read online

  “Captain Mayhew.”

  The name elicited an immediate frown. “He’s busy, ma’am.”

  Claire hadn’t expected this. “I need to leave this for him.” She pointed to the hard drive, wondering if it looked like a bomb. It sure as hell felt like one. “Maybe I can write a note explaining—”

  “Lee, I got this.” Captain Mayhew was standing behind the glass. He waved for Claire to go to a side door. There was a buzzing sound, then the door opened. Instead of seeing just Mayhew, she found Mayhew and Adam Quinn.

  “Claire.” Adam seemed tense. “I didn’t get that email.”

  “I’m sorry.” Claire had no idea what he was talking about. “What email?”

  “The work-in-progress file from Paul’s laptop.”

  Paul’s laptop. God only knew what he had on the MacBook. “I don’t—”

  “Just get it to me.” Adam walked past her and out the door.

  She stared at his back long after he’d gone. She didn’t understand why he seemed so angry.

  Mayhew told Claire, “Guy does not like being in a police station.”

  Claire suppressed the first response that came to mind: Who the hell does?

  Mayhew said, “We’re talking to everybody who has a key to your house.”

  Claire had forgotten Adam was on the list. He and his wife Sheila lived five streets over. He checked on the house when Claire and Paul were out of the country.

  Mayhew asked, “What can I do you for, Mrs. Scott?”

  “I have something you need to see.” She started to lift the hard drive.

  “I got that.” Obviously, he wasn’t expecting the box to be so heavy. He almost dropped it. “Whoa. What is this thing?”

  “It’s a hard drive.” Claire felt herself getting flustered. “It was my husband’s. I mean, my husband—”

  “Let’s go back to my office.”

  Claire tried to pull herself together as she followed him down a long corridor with closed doors on each side. She recognized the open area for processing prisoners. Then there was another long corridor, then they were in an open office space. There were no cubicles, just five desks with five men all hunched over their computers. Two rolling whiteboards were at the front of the room. All were filled with photographs and scribbled notes that were too far away to make out.

  Mayhew stopped outside his office door. “After you.”

  Claire sat down. Mayhew put the drive on his desk, then took a seat.

  She stared at him. More to the point, she stared at his mustache so that she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

  He asked, “Do you want something to drink? Water? Coke?”

  “No, thank you.” Claire couldn’t drag this out any longer. “There are movies on that drive of women being tortured and murdered.”

  Mayhew paused for a moment. Slowly, he sat back in his chair. He rested his elbows on the arms, folded his hands together in front of his stomach. “Okay.”

  “I found them on my husband’s computer. Well, hooked up to my husband’s computer. An external hard drive that I found—” She stopped to catch her breath. He didn’t need to know the lengths Paul had gone to in order to hide the movies. He just needed to know that they were there. Claire pointed to the hard drive. “That has movies that my husband watched of two different women being tortured and killed.”

  The words hung between them. Claire could hear how awful they sounded.

  She said, “I’m sorry. I just found them. I’m still …” She didn’t know what she still was. Shaken? Grieving? Furious? Terrified? Alone?

  “Just a sec.” Mayhew picked up the phone and punched in an extension. “Harve, I need you in here.”

  Before Claire could open her mouth again, another man came into the room. He was a shorter, wider version of Mayhew but with the same type of shaggy mustache.

  Mayhew said, “Detective Harvey Falke, this is Mrs. Claire Scott.”

  Harvey gave Claire a nod.

  Mayhew said, “Hook this up for me, will ya?”

  Harvey looked at the back of the drive, then he looked at the back of Mayhew’s computer. He opened one of the desk drawers. There was a tangle of cables inside. He fished out the one he needed.

  Mayhew asked Claire, “Sure you don’t want some water? Coffee?”

  Claire shook her head. She was scared that he wasn’t taking her seriously. She was also scared that he was. They were down the rabbit hole now. There was no turning back.

  Harvey made quick work of the connections. He leaned past Mayhew and started typing on the keyboard.

  Claire looked around the room. Mayhew posed in the requisite framed photos of him shaking hands with city officials. A golfing trophy for the police league. Numbers from various marathons. She looked at the plaque on his desk. His first name was Jacob. Captain Jacob Mayhew.

  Harvey said, “There ya go.”

  “Thanks.” Mayhew turned the keyboard back around as Harvey left the room. He straightened the mouse, then clicked on one of the files. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  Claire knew what he had. She looked away while he clicked open a handful of movies and watched them. The sound on his computer was turned off. All she could hear was Mayhew’s steady breathing. She supposed you didn’t get to the rank of captain by being surprised by what humanity could throw at you.

  Several minutes passed. Finally, Mayhew let go of the mouse. He settled back in his chair again. He pulled at his mustache. “Well, I wish I could tell you I haven’t seen stuff like this before. Much worse, being honest.”

  “I can’t believe …” Claire could not articulate the things she could not believe.

  “Listen, ma’am, I know it’s shocking. Trust me. The first time I saw this kind of stuff, I couldn’t sleep for weeks, even though I knew it was fake.”

  Claire felt her heart leap. “It’s fake?”

  “Well, yeah.” He stopped mid-chuckle. “It’s called snuff porn. It’s not real.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He turned the monitor so she could see for herself. One of the movies was frozen on-screen. He pointed out, “See this shadow here? That’s the connection for the squib. Do you know what a squib is?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “It’s a Hollywood thing, like a little plastic bladder filled with fake blood. They hide it under clothes or stick it on your back. The bad guy comes along and supposedly shoots you, or in this case machetes you, and then another guy off-camera presses a button and the squib explodes and the blood pours out.” He traced his finger along a shadow at the woman’s side. “This dark line here is the wire that connects to the squib. They got remote-controlled ones now, so I guess this was low budget, but—”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s fake. Not even good fake.”

  “But, the girl—”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. She looks just like Anna Kilpatrick.”

  Claire hadn’t been thinking that at all, but now that he’d said it, the resemblance was uncanny.

  “Lookit,” Mayhew said, “I know about your past. Your sister.”

  Claire felt a warm sensation rush through her body.

  “If I had a sister who disappeared like that, I’d probably be quick to make these kinds of connections, too.”

  “That’s not what I—” Claire stopped herself. She had to appear calm. “This has nothing to do with my sister.”

  “You look at this girl in the movie, and you think, Brown hair, brown eyes, young, pretty. It’s Anna Kilpatrick.”

  Claire’s eyes went to the frozen image on-screen. How had she not noticed before? Every time he said the girl’s name, the resemblance became more obvious.

  “Mrs. Scott, I’m gonna be honest because I feel for you.” He patted his hand on the desk. “I really feel for you.”

  Claire nodded for him to continue.

  “This has to stay between us, all right? You can’t tell nobody else.”

  S
he nodded again.

  “The Kilpatrick girl.” He slowly shook his head side to side. “They found blood in her car. A lot of blood. You know what I mean? The kind of blood that you need inside your body if you’re going to stay alive.”

  “She’s dead?” Claire felt a weight crushing her chest. She realized that somewhere, somehow, she had been hoping the girl was alive.

  “Mrs. Scott, I really am sorry about your loss. And I’m sorry that you had to see this side of your husband. Men are pigs, all right? Take it from a pig who knows.” He tried to smile. “Guys can look at some hard-core shit, excuse my language, but that doesn’t mean they’re into it or even want to do it. This kind of stuff is all over the Internet. And as long as it’s not kids, it’s legal. And it’s disgusting. But that’s kind of what the Internet is for, right?”

  “But …” Claire grasped for words. The more she thought about it, the more the girl looked like Anna Kilpatrick. “Don’t you think it’s an odd coincidence?”

  “No such thing,” Mayhew said. “There’s something called the Law of Truly Large Numbers. Get a big enough sample size, outrageous things are bound to happen.”

  Claire felt her eyes widen, her lips part, in a textbook example of shock.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She worked to return her expression to some semblance of normal. He might as well be quoting Paul, which begged the question, had he ever met Paul?

  “Mrs. Scott?”

  “I’m sorry.” Claire forced some calm into her voice. “It’s just—the way you said it. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but now that I hear it, it makes sense.” She had to clear her throat before she could continue. “Where did you hear that phrase, the Law of Truly Large Numbers?”

  He smiled again. “I dunno. Probably a fortune cookie.”

  She tried to steady herself. Every ounce of her being was telling her something was wrong. Was Mayhew lying? Or was he trying to protect her from something more dangerous at play?

  She asked, “Can you tell me why Agent Nolan was at my house yesterday?”

  Mayhew huffed out some air. “Being honest with you again? I got no idea. Those FBI guys are like flies around our cases. The minute it looks like we’ve got something good, they snatch it away so they can get all the credit.”

  “They can take a case away from you? They don’t have to be asked?”

  “Nope. They just walk in and take over.” He unplugged the hard drive. “Thanks for bringing this in. Of course I’m gonna have my people look at it, but like I said, I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

  Claire realized he was dismissing her. She stood up. “Thank you.”

  Mayhew stood up, too. “The best thing you can do for yourself is forget about this, all right? Your husband was a good guy. You had a solid marriage. Almost twenty years and you still loved each other. That’s something to hold on to.”

  Claire nodded. She was feeling sick again.

  Mayhew placed his hand on the hard drive. “Looks like you took this right from his computer.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The drive. It was connected directly to his computer, right?”

  Claire didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Good.” Mayhew put his hand to her back and led her out of the office. “We wouldn’t want any copies floating around. Like on a back-up? Or another computer?”

  “I checked. It was only on the hard drive.”

  “What about his laptop? Didn’t Quinn say something about Paul’s laptop?”

  “I already checked it.” She had no idea where the damn thing even was. “There’s nothing else.”

  “All right.” His fingers curved around her waist as he steered her toward the last corridor. “You let me know if anything else comes up. Just give me a call and I’ll head right over and take it off your hands.”

  Claire nodded. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Any time.” He walked her across the small lobby and held open the glass door.

  Claire held on to the railing as she navigated her way down the stairs. The overhead lights sent a glimmer through the rain as she crossed the parking lot. The entire time, she felt Mayhew’s eyes on her. She didn’t turn until she had reached the Tesla.

  The doorway was empty. Mayhew was gone.

  Was she being paranoid? Claire wasn’t sure about anything anymore. She opened the car door. She was about to get in when she saw the note on the windshield.

  She recognized Adam Quinn’s handwriting.

  I really need those files. Please don’t make me do this the hard way. AQ

  SIX

  Lydia lay on the couch with her head on Rick’s lap. Two dogs were on the floor in front of her, a cat was curled into her side, and the hamster was either running a marathon on its wheel or the parakeet in Dee’s room was scraping its beak on the side of the cage. The fish in the fifty-gallon tank were blissfully quiet.

  Rick absently ran his fingers through her hair. They were watching the ten o’clock news because they were both too pathetic to stay up until eleven. The police had released a composite drawing of a man seen in the vicinity of Anna Kilpatrick’s disabled car. The drawing was almost laughably vague. The guy was either tall or medium height. His eyes were blue or green. His hair was black or brown. There were no tattoos or identifying marks. His own mother probably wouldn’t recognize him.

  The report cut to a taped interview with Congressman Johnny Jackson. The Kilpatrick family was from his district, so by law, he had to milk their personal tragedy for every political ounce possible. He droned on about law and order for a few seconds, but when the reporter tried to pull Jackson into speculation about the girl’s well-being, the man fell uncharacteristically silent. Anyone who’d ever read an airport paperback knew that the chances of finding the missing girl alive dwindled with each passing hour.

  Lydia closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see images of the Kilpatrick family. Their haggard expressions had become painfully familiar. She could tell they were slowly coming to accept that their little girl would not be coming home. Pretty soon, a year would pass, then another year, then the family would quietly mark the decade anniversary, then two decades, then more. Children would be born. Grandchildren. Marriage vows would be made and broken. And behind every single event would lurk the shadow of this missing sixteen-year-old girl.

  Every once in a while, a Google alert on Lydia’s computer found a story that mentioned Julia’s name. Usually it was because a body had been found in the Athens area and the reporter had reached into the archives to find past open cases that might be relevant. Of course, the body was never identified as Julia Carroll. Or Abigail Ellis. Or Samantha Findlay. Or any of the dozens of women who had gone missing since then. There was a depressingly large number of hits for “missing girl + University of Georgia.” Add in “rape” and the tally climbed into the millions.

  Had Claire performed these same types of searches? Did she feel the same kind of nausea when an alert came up that a body had been found?

  Lydia had never checked the Internet for information on her baby sister. If Claire had a Facebook page or Instagram account, she did not want to see it. Everything that had to do with Claire had to do with Paul. The association was too painful to invite onto her computer screen. And honestly, the anguish of losing Claire was almost more overwhelming than losing Julia. Whatever had happened to her older sister had been a tragedy. Her rift with Claire had been a choice.

  Claire’s choice.

  And Helen’s, too. The last time Lydia had talked to her mother, Helen had said, “Don’t make me choose between you and your sister.”

  To which Lydia had responded, “I think you already have.”

  Though Lydia hadn’t spoken to her mother since, she still kept tabs on her. The last time she’d checked the Athens-Clarke County tax records, Helen still lived in their old house on Boulevard, just west of campus. The Banner-Herald ran a nice story when Helen retired from the library after forty years of se
rvice. Her colleagues had said that their grammar would never be the same. The obituary for Helen’s second husband mentioned that she had three daughters, which Lydia thought was nice until she realized that someone else had probably written it. Dee hadn’t made the list because they didn’t know she existed. Lydia would likely never remedy the situation. She could not bear the humiliation of having her daughter meet people who held her mother in such low regard.

  Lydia often wondered if her family ever looked online for her. She doubted Helen used Google. She had always been a strictly Dewey Decimal kind of gal. There were so many different sides of Helen that Lydia had known. The young, fun-loving mother who organized dance contests and Sweet Valley High sleepovers. The much-feared, cerebral librarian who humiliated the school board when they tried to ban Go Ask Alice from the library. The devastated, paralyzed woman who drank herself to sleep in the middle of the day after her oldest daughter went missing.

  And then there was the Helen who warned, “Don’t make me choose,” when she had clearly already made her choice.

  Could Lydia blame them for not believing her about Paul? What Claire had said at the cemetery today was mostly true. Lydia had stolen from them. She had lied. She had cheated. She had exploited their emotions. She had banked on their fear of losing another child and basically extorted them for drug money. But that was the thing. Lydia had been a junkie. All of her crimes had been in the service of getting high. Which begged the obvious question that Helen and Claire had apparently never bothered to ask: What could Lydia possibly gain from lying about Paul?

  They hadn’t even let her tell the story. Separately, she had tried to tell each of them about riding with Paul in the Miata, the song on the radio, the way Paul had touched her knee, what had happened next, and they had each had the same response: I don’t want to hear it.

  “Time to wake up.” Rick muted the TV when a commercial came on. He slipped on his reading glasses and asked, “What is the groundnut better known as?”

  Lydia carefully rolled onto her back so the cat wouldn’t be disturbed. “The peanut.”

  “Correct.” He shuffled through the Trivial Pursuit cards. They were cramming for the Westerly PTO Parent/Teacher Trivia Night. Lydia barely had two years of college. Rick had three. They took a perverse pleasure in beating the doctors and lawyers of the Westerly Chosen.