Helpless (8 page)

“I get it. And he has a bunch of these pictures?”

“Three hundred twenty-five, by my count. Forty different girls. Each girl is in a different bedroom setting. There is no way these were staged. These pictures are personal. Not forced or faked. Taken willingly by the girls themselves.”

“You think these girls took the shots themselves with their cell phones or something?”

Rainy nodded her head. “Yup. Look at the angles of the shots, too. In each one, the girls have one hand just outside the frame. The hand not visible is the one holding their cell phone, I’m willing to bet.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, I see what you’re talking about. The quality too. Some are really pixelated.”

“Suggesting a low-quality camera. Some phones are better than others at taking pictures. And there’s another thing troubling me. Look at their eyes.” Rainy opened up several similar crime-image pictures. “These girls have a proud look to them, Carter. It’s as if they’re bragging about their bodies.”

“You think they’re being flirtatious?”

“That’s exactly what I think. Girls that age are almost begging for attention. And these pictures scream, ‘Look at me and how sexy I am.’ They don’t say, ‘Help me.’ They don’t say, ‘Get me out of here.’ These girls wanted to be seen.”

“By James Mann?”

“Oh, I doubt any of them thought a creep like James Mann would be looking at their naked selves. I’m betting they sent these pictures to their boyfriends or someone they trusted. Maybe they texted the images to them. A sext, you know? And somehow, Mann got hold of them.”

Rainy studied the crop of images with rapt focus. Some of the girls were partially dressed, but what they wore fit tight, like an extra layer of skin. They were posed. Backs arched. Legs raised. Hips swiveled. Eyes playful—taking (it seemed) much delight in showing the undersides of their thighs. Hands touching their fawnlike bodies in all the wrong places for James Mann to see.

“Well, I’m hoping our forensic analysis will show us how he got the pictures.”

“Sure. But even if you manage to do that, we’re still going to need to get the subpoenas. And that’s going to take a long time.”

“Hail to the Queen of Paperwork!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Rainy sighed. “But I’m thinking, what if we could work from a source?”

“What, like one of the girls themselves? I checked, and there’s no GeoTagging or other metadata information on any of these images. We have no way of knowing who they are,” Carter said. “How do you figure on finding that out?”

Rainy didn’t need to think about her answer. Identifying girls from a bunch of poorly focused digital snapshots required an expert in imaging technology. Somebody who understood everything to do with image verification, enhancement, facial recognition, and analysis.

“Clarence Stern,” she said.

Carter just laughed. “The Bureau’s Rembrandt of imaging? Good luck getting Tomlinson to authorize his time.”

“But you believe he could do it.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Well, I just emailed Tomlinson, and he said he’ll come down and take a look. Let’s see if he’ll throw us a bone.”

“Get ready to lick your chops.”

Chapter 10

T
om didn’t pass a single car in his ten-minute drive to Roland Boyd’s cul-de-sac, which real estate agents had dubbed “desirable south Shilo.”

Jill was seated beside him. She was texting. Thumbs of fury, he called her.

Tom had never been to Roland’s new house, but he knew the area well. The stone and brick mansions, spaced acres apart, belied the town’s rural character and farming heritage. Tom and Roland had once lived in the same neighborhood, in what Shilo youths had always called the tree streets. Oak. Pine. Elm. Maple. If Shilo had a wrong side of the tracks, it was among the tree streets. Tom had hoped to move his family out of the tree streets, but his divorce from Kelly had tapped out the necessary funds to turn that plan into a reality.

Roland had found his way out of the tree streets. Just as he’d always said he would.

“Good thing you caught me on my work-from-home day,” Roland had said on the phone. “I’m tied up in a conference call for a bit, but Adriana’s around. She can keep you company while I finish up.”

Even though Tom worked in the same town where Roland lived, the once close friends hadn’t seen each other since the funeral for Roland’s firstborn child. Divorce had destroyed not only the marriage, but also many of the friendships built around it.

The first time Tom met Roland’s wife, Adriana, the young couple was living together on the Wiesbaden Army Airfield in Germany. Their son, Stephen, was only one at the time, but they were talking about having another. It was a mini high school reunion in Europe, of all places. A week after Tom’s arrival, he and Kelly had rekindled their high school romance, and soon the quartet, comprising three Shilo grads plus Adriana, became fast friends.

Tom was sad when his SEAL training exercises ended and it came time for him to leave Germany, Kelly, Roland, and the new bond he had formed with Adriana. As it turned out, Tom had carried a little part of that German military base back home with him—in something that Kelly had secretly packed inside a crate of gifts and knickknacks she’d given Tom to bring back to Shilo. It was the same part that Tom had hidden and eventually promised Kelly he’d never destroy.

Tom drove his Taurus past a sea of green, well-manicured lawns and down Roland’s long and winding driveway. Judging by the appearance of Boyd’s new house, the largest McMansion in a neighborhood of McMansions, Boyd Capital was doing a spit better than the days when it was a father-and-son operation.

Tom parked, and he and Jill exited the car.

“Do you know Mitchell Boyd well?” Tom asked his daughter.

“I know who he is,” Jill said, “but we don’t hang out, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Tom nodded, but inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief.

Young. Good looking. Rich. Mitchell Boyd, Roland and Adriana’s youngest and now only child, had a reputation around Shilo High School for viewing girls as conquests, not companions. Every teacher, it seemed, held a poor opinion of him. And every teacher with a high-school-aged daughter was glad it wasn’t their kid dating him.

They walked single file along the stone walkway with inground floodlights on either side, and past landscaping with the beauty of a Japanese garden. They came to a large and ornate wood-carved front door. Tom rang the front doorbell and listened to the eight-note chime.

When Adriana Boyd opened the door, she greeted Tom with a sad little smile and a welcoming embrace. She held on to Tom a beat or two longer than felt comfortable.

“Tom ... goodness ... how are you holding up?” Adriana placed a delicate hand on Tom’s shoulder and gave a look as if to say, “Don’t even think about lying to me.”

“I’m doing okay, Adriana,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

Adriana said to Jill, “Honey, I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Jill said.

“Please. Come in. I put out some drinks and food for us in the living room until Roland is through with his call. We’ll chat and play catch-up.”

Adriana took Tom by the hand and led him into the house. She was decked out with plenty of expensive-looking jewelry and wore a slim gray pantsuit, with just the hint of a white silk T-shirt showing. It was impossible to ignore Adriana’s beauty—porcelain skin, with light blond hair, wavy and past her shoulders. She was fit, too: older than Roland by four years, she still looked thirty.

The heels of Adriana’s black shoes clicked loudly on the marble floor of the majestic foyer. Tom thought the living room, with its antiques and oversized oil paintings, could have been cordoned off by ropes like a museum exhibit. Framed pictures stood on tables and shelves throughout, which helped to give the cavernous space a more homey feel. They were simple snapshots of the family’s life together. The pictures were of happy and pleasant times—vacations to the Caribbean, skiing in the White Mountains, graduations, and birthday parties and such. But many of the pictures Tom saw evoked a deep sadness. Those were the pictures of Stephen, who had died of a drug overdose five years earlier.

“What would you like to drink?”

“Just water,” Tom said.

“For you, Jill?”

“Water’s fine.”

A boy entered through the open archway. He had short hair with gelled spikes, a silver cross earring in his right ear, and wore faded jeans that were frayed at the bottom. The tight-fitting blue shirt he wore underneath his light jacket revealed a wiry but muscular frame. Tom had once advised Mitchell about colleges and had talked to him about Stephen after his brother’s death. Other than that, the two didn’t have much interaction around school.

“Mom, I’m going out,” said the boy.

“Mitchell, please. Come here. Mr. Hawkins has come over to see Dad. And I asked you to stay and keep Jill company until they go.”

“It’s okay,” Jill said with a shrug. “I can just wait.”

“Nonsense,” Adriana said. “Mitchell is a wonderful host, and I’m sure he’ll be delighted to delay his plans to be a supportive friend.”

“Come on, Mom. She said she’s fine,” Mitchell said. “I’ll be back later.”

Kid is all heart,
thought Tom.

“Tanner can wait. The Hawkins are going through a difficult period, and they need our support.”

Mitchell’s protest receded like the tide, and his demeanor shifted from emboldened to sheepish. “Sure thing,” he said.

“That’s better. Why don’t you give her a tour of the house? I don’t believe Jill’s ever been over here before.”

“Come on,” Mitchell said to Jill. “I’ll show you around. Then we can chill out in the basement if you want. You play air hockey?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty good at it,” Jill said.

“That’s more like it,” Adriana said.

Mitchell nodded with his head for Jill to follow. Tom watched them leave through the same archway where Mitchell earlier had appeared. He noticed Mitchell had a tattoo on the back of his neck—a yin and yang symbol in the shape of a skull.

Yikes and yikes,
thought Tom, relieved again that Mitchell and Jill ran in different circles.

Adriana went over to the cart with drinks on it. She squeezed Tom’s arm as she passed.

“It’s four o’clock, and I’m going to have a glass of wine. Sure you won’t join me?” she said, pouring herself a near full glass of white wine from a bottle on ice.

“Thanks for the offer, but no. Water’s fine.”

Adriana sat down on the couch and sighed. “Sorry you had to witness that unpleasant exchange. Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems,” she said before taking a healthy sip of her wine.

“He seems like a good kid,” Tom said.

“Trust me, he’s a handful. How are things with Jill?”

“Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems,” Tom repeated.

Adriana nodded knowingly. “It must be hard on you both,” she said. “Any break in the case? I’ve heard that the police think it was a robbery.”

Tom took a seat on the couch beside her, following Adriana’s prompt.

“There were some items missing from the house,” Tom confirmed. “And signs of a struggle. But so far, no suspects. No arrests.”

“I heard about what happened in the woods,” Adriana said, touching the spot on his head where he’d been hit. Tom flinched. Adriana seemed oblivious to his reaction. “Do the police think it’s connected with what happened to Kelly?”

“If they do, they’re not saying.”

Adriana flashed Tom a frown, and though she didn’t say it, Tom could tell there had been some talk about him within her circle of friends.

“I play bridge with Cathleen Wells, and she told me that you’re moving back to Shilo. Is that true?”

Tom nodded. “I need to do it for Jill. She doesn’t want to leave town to come live with me, and I don’t blame her. All her friends are here. Her life is here, and she won’t be able to go to Shilo High School unless she’s living in Shilo. We’re going to try and make it work, but I’m not going to kid myself into thinking it’s going to be easy. We’ve had a pretty tough go of it, even before her mother’s death.”

Adriana gave Tom a knowing glance. “I used to see Kelly occasionally after you two divorced,” she said, “but we did talk from time to time. She took every opportunity to put you down, I’m sorry to say. I’m sure that’s had an effect on Jill.”

“It’s made for an extra big challenge,” said Tom.

A glaze of tears filled Adriana’s eyes, and she dabbed them away with her fingers. She excused herself and returned with a box of Kleenex. She laughed, but in a slightly embarrassed way.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “When I think about children not getting along with their parents, it just breaks my heart. They don’t understand how precious life is, how fragile.”

Tom swallowed hard. He understood Adriana’s pain. “I can’t imagine how hard it is for you, still. I’m sure this is bringing up painful memories.”

Adriana bit her lower lip and nodded. “When your child dies, it leaves a hole that can never be filled,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’ve never forgiven myself for what happened to Stephen.”

Tom’s chest felt heavy with sorrow. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You did everything you could to get Stephen the help that he needed. I remember.”

“I could have done more.”

Tom didn’t know what to say. Stephen Boyd had been a troubled kid early on. He never went to Shilo High School, because either he was in rehab or he was being schooled at home. Even more tragic, Adriana had been the one to find Stephen’s body. He was locked inside her car. He still had a needle sticking out of his arm. Tourniquet tied tight. He’d been dead for more than six hours.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him,” Adriana said. “I can’t help wondering what Stevie would look like today. What would he be doing?”

Tom’s throat went dry just thinking about Adriana’s loss, and he needed a sip of water before he could again speak.

“I’m so very sorry for your loss. Anytime I try to get philosophical with Jill, she just gives me a blank stare,” Tom said. “We haven’t had any real bonding opportunities, so I’m just not sure how I’m going to reach her.”