Pretty Girls Read online

  Claire looked up at the police station, which resembled a 1950s office supply store. Fred Nolan was probably the person she should be giving this to, but yesterday, Nolan had been an asshole to Claire, and Mayhew had basically told him to shut the fuck up, so she was going to give it to Captain Mayhew.

  Did she trust him to take this seriously? Unlike Fred Nolan, Claire had not gotten a clear vibe off of Captain Mayhew, other than to think that he looked like a cop out of central casting. His mustache had thrown her off because Sheriff Carl Huckabee, the original Huckleberry, had sported an impotent-­looking mustache that he kept trimmed in a straight line rather than grooming it to follow the natural curve of his upper lip. Claire had been thirteen the first time she’d met the man. She could still recall looking up at the strange push broom over his lip and wondering if it was fake.

  Which mattered not one bit in her current situation, because facial hair was not a universal indicator of incompetency.

  She looked down at the hard drive in the seat beside her.

  Red pill/blue pill.

  Mayhew wasn’t the concern here. It was Claire. It was Paul’s reputation. There was no such thing as anonymity anymore. This would get out. ­People would know what her husband was into. Maybe ­people already did.

  And maybe the movies were real, which meant that the second girl might still be alive.

  Claire forced herself to get out of the car. The hard drive felt heavier than before. Night was falling fast. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The overhead lights came on as Claire walked across the parking lot. Her funeral dress had dried, but it was stiff and chafing. Her jaw hurt from grinding her teeth. The last time she was at the Dunwoody police station, she was in a tennis dress and being escorted in through the back doors.

  This time she found herself in an extremely narrow front lobby with a large piece of bulletproof glass separating visitors from the office area. The receptionist was a burly man in uniform who didn’t look up when Claire entered.

  She put the hard drive down on an empty chair. She stood in front of the window.

  The burly officer reluctantly looked up from his computer. “Who’re you here to see?”

  “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 belie
ve.

  “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 midchuckle. “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.”

  She 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 backup? 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

  CHAPTER 6

  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.