“It was really the dog,” Gideon said.
Zandra’s eyes lit up. “Abercrombie. That’s the name he had when he was Janice Fiddler’s. Her family wants me to keep him. He’s going home with me tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” Gideon said. “I’ll let Agent Hunter know. He was worried.”
“Tell him that the dog will be treated like a king,” Mr. Jones said.
Zandra nodded, then sobered. “I wanted to tell Daisy something I remembered, but I’m not sure this is the time.” She quickly looked over her shoulder to where Daisy was still greeting people up front, before leaning in to whisper. “He was muttering about Trish one of the times he . . .” She made a vague motion at her midsection, then patted her mother’s arm when the older lady made a pained noise. “Anyway, he kept saying I was stubborn like Trish. If she’d just told him where Daisy lived she could have made her punishment easier. I got the impression that he tortured Trish, but she kept saying she didn’t know where Daisy lived. She died protecting Daisy. I don’t know if that will make Daisy feel better or not. I mean, he obviously figured out where she lived somehow, but not from Trish.”
Gideon expelled his breath in a rush. The guilt that would heap on Daisy’s head was too huge to fathom. “God, I don’t think she needs to know that right now. But thank you for telling me. We’ll play it by ear.”
Zandra nodded. “That’s what I figured. Well, thank you again.”
When the Jones family was gone, Frederick shuddered. “Don’t tell her. Ever.”
“I won’t. At least not until she’s ready to hear it. Which might be never.”
Daisy approached then, arm-in-arm with the older woman she’d been talking to. Both had red noses and puffy eyes, having shed their share of tears. “Dad, Gideon, this is Rosemary, my sponsor.”
“You’re her dad,” Rosemary said to Frederick, then turned to Gideon, her brows hiked to the top of her forehead. “And I’ve heard all about you, Gideon.”
Gideon felt his cheeks heat, but Daisy chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you,” he managed.
“Likewise,” Rosemary said with a hint of a smile. “We’re just so proud of Daisy, Mr. Dawson. She’s quite the hero. All the things she’s done this week. I wouldn’t have been so brave or kept my wits together.”
Frederick tilted Daisy’s chin so that she looked at him. “Not just this week. She’s been brave for the past eight years, staying sober while enduring hardships that would have broken someone weaker. I’m very proud of her, too. I know when I go home that I have nothing to worry about here.”
Daisy’s eyes grew wide, then bright with tears. “Darn it, Dad. I can’t cry anymore.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. That was exactly what I needed to hear.”
Gideon felt his heart settle, just a little. Daisy and her dad would be okay, too. He held his hand out to Daisy. “Are you about ready to go? We need to be meeting Molina in an hour and we’re going to hit traffic.”
Frederick looked surprised. “I thought you were on suspension.”
Gideon shrugged. Molina had ultimately been glad that he’d been at the abandoned mine that night, but he had disobeyed her orders. Multiple times. “I got a week’s suspension without pay to be served concurrent with my paid medical leave for the arm. So I have a mark on my record, but it won’t affect my salary. It was the best my boss could do.”
Daisy frowned. “No, she could and should have given you a raise and a plaque for your wall and a better parking place.”
He laughed. “I’ll let you ask her for those things. I think she likes you best.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 3:35 P.M.
Traffic was heavy so Daisy and Gideon arrived a few minutes late. Gideon’s boss sat behind her desk, the curtains drawn to reveal the Sierra Nevada in the distance.
“Please, come in and sit down,” Agent Molina said. “I thought you’d want some of the blanks in the Carson Garvey case to be filled in. First of all, we’ve begun retrieving the remains from the burial ground in Placerville.” Her expression softened. “The first body we encountered was Eileen’s.”
Swallowing hard, Gideon nodded. “You’ve positively identified her?”
“Yes. Gale Danton up in Macdoel provided us with items she’d used while staying with them—a hairbrush, toothbrush. We were able to confirm with DNA.”
“That was fast,” Gideon said, his voice a little hoarse.
“We’ve made the identification of Garvey’s victims our highest priority. I assumed you’d want to receive her remains,” Molina added gently.
Gideon jerked another nod. “I’ll take her ashes, thank you.”
“I’ll complete the paperwork for you. You should receive her ashes by the middle of next week. Now, on to the debrief. When we searched Carson’s house, we found a treasure trove. So thank you, Agent Reynolds, for saving the house. We found piles of photos under the bed. Carson had apparently been gathering blackmail material on his father, Paul Garvey, for some time. There were photos of his father with mistresses with varying degrees of sexual content. There were also photos of his father with known Mexican cartel members.”
“He was running drugs in his planes,” Gideon murmured.
“Exactly. This enabled us to get a warrant for Paul Garvey’s home and office. We’ll be going through those financials for a long time.” She hesitated. “We also found his wife’s collection of videos. They were . . . difficult to view.”
“Carson and Sydney?” Daisy asked.
Molina nodded. “Starting when he was twelve years old. I won’t go into detail, but the recording dates are significant. We’ve matched his flight itineraries with the places and times that each of his thirty-one victims disappeared. Not every video resulted in a disappearance, but before every disappearance there was a video.”
Daisy’s stomach turned over. “So sex with Sydney was his trigger.”
“Essentially yes. There was a six-month gap in the videos when Carson was eighteen. That matches the time frame that his father took Sydney on a six-month European trip. Sydney made a video within three days of her return home. The first of Carson’s victims was found the next day. After that, he averaged two victims a year for the first seven years. Last year he killed six.”
Daisy did the math. “He killed eleven women in the last year?”
“Yes. And that doesn’t include the truck owner in Macdoel or the nurse.”
“Or Sydney,” Gideon muttered.
“Or Sydney,” Molina agreed.
“What changed?” Daisy asked.
“Paul Garvey started traveling more. He was gone for long periods of time.” She lifted a shoulder. “Sydney was bored.”
“I’m so glad she’s dead,” Daisy said. “Didn’t the father suspect anything?”
“About the abuse? I talked to him this morning and I don’t think so. He says he knew Sydney had affairs. He vociferously denied knowing she’d abused his son. He seemed surprised to learn that his son was planning to blackmail him. He didn’t know that Carson possessed the initiative to amass so much information.”
“Why was his son planning to blackmail him?” Gideon asked.
“One of the reasons that Paul Garvey traveled so much this year was that he was setting up the sale of his charter service,” Molina said. “His employees—including Carson—were understandably upset by this. He thinks Carson may have been planning to use his material to keep him from selling.”
“Carson used the planes to transport his victims,” Daisy said. “He didn’t want to lose his access to that freedom.”
Molina nodded. “I agree. But what Carson didn’t know was that the sale was going through, regardless. The other reason Paul was traveling was that he was seeing an oncologist in San Francisco. He has stage four colon cancer. He sold the company because he knew his son or wife would destroy it. The sale of the company is important, again, because of the date. The word came down last Thursday.”
“The day he attacked Trish and me,” Daisy said.
“Yes. It was the first time there was a victim abducted locally—or in this case attempted abduction, because you got away, Miss Dawson. We think it was the only time he used the stocking mask. He was so worked up about the sale of the company and he’d received a number of provocative messages from Sydney. When he didn’t respond the way she wanted, she sent him stills from the videos she’d taken. In every case she hammered him until he apologized.”