Abby heard a short sigh as she turned away from the mirror and headed back into the bedroom to find her shoes.
“Nothing, kiddo. She took a shower. Had some food. Now she’s resting until we can get there.”
“A shower? How did that happen?”
“It was her mother. She wasn’t thinking. She almost started the wash—”
“With Cass’s clothes? Before forensics? Christ!”
“I know … just get moving. Call me from the car.”
The phone went quiet again, but this time he was gone.
Shit! Heart racing now, she pulled on a pair of boots, called out to the dog, who followed her through the small ranch house to the kitchen. She poured some food into a bowl. Rubbed his neck. Opened the back door so he could go out.
“Keys, keys…” she said out loud, back in the living room, searching. She was frantic to get to the door. To get to her car. To get to Cassandra Tanner.
Her head felt light, her vision starting to blur. Chronic sleep deprivation had its side effects. She stopped and braced herself on the back of a chair.
No one had believed her theory three years ago, not even Leo, and he had been like a father to her. It was one thing to have a cold case. It was another thing to leave stones unturned.
The company shrink listened, but she did not hear. She said things like “I can understand how you feel that way.” Classic feeling validation. They taught that in undergraduate psych classes. She would ask what had not been done. She would let Abby ramble on and on about the family, the mother, Judy Martin, the divorce, the new father, Jonathan Martin. And the stepbrother, Hunter. Together, they had deconstructed every piece of the investigation and in a way that was meant to lead Abby to a place of comfort.
The shrink—“You did everything you could.”
Abby could still hear the conviction in her voice. She could see the sincerity on her face, even now as Abby closed her eyes to stop the spinning in her head. She took a long breath and exhaled hard, her hand clenched on the wood back of the chair.
Their analysis of the investigation had become Abby’s Bible, the verses giving her rambling, desperate thoughts a path to salvation.
Verse number one. The normalcy reported by the outsiders—friends, teachers, the school counselor. Cass envied her older sister. Emma was annoyed by Cass. Cass was quiet but determined. Emma was more free-spirited. Some used the word “undisciplined.” But she had been looking at colleges, filling out applications. Everything indicated that she was just biding her time until she could get out of that house.
The shrink—“All of that sounds pretty normal, Abby. They were on time for school. A very prestigious private school. The Soundview Academy. They spent summers at expensive camps, some in Europe. They did sports. Had friends…”
Abby had grown impatient with her.
Verse number two. Abby explained that whatever happened to them, they had been vulnerable to it. And that vulnerability had started at home. It always did. In spite of how these stories were depicted in the news, it was not a mystery what lured teenagers from their homes. An acute traumatic event. Chronic neglect, abuse, instability, dysfunction. The dark void of unfulfilled need. The vulnerability to sexual predators, terrorist groups, religious fanatics, antigovernment extremists. The perpetrator found a way to satisfy that need, to give it what it craved. The predator became a drug. The teenager, an addict.
So when the initial frenzy died down, when they realized the girls were long gone and that finding them would require a slow and methodical unraveling of their lives, Abby had turned back to the family.
When she opened her eyes, the room was still. Her keys were there, on the table next to the chair, and she took them in her hand. She walked to the door and let in the harsh sunlight and a burst of hot, oppressive air from the outside.
No one had objected then. In fact, the entire investigation turned inward, on the family, and on the Martin home in particular. Physical forensics were done at the house. Bank accounts, credit cards, phone records were collected and analyzed. Friends and neighbors were interviewed.
Abby could recall the conversations then, at the start of the investigation. “Yes, yes, this is all good information. All good.” Teenage girls had gone missing. Where there’s smoke, there must be fire—so they looked for the embers close to home.
The girls’ father, Owen Tanner, had been happily married to his first wife before they were born. He and his wife had a little boy, Witt. They had a nice house, family money. Owen worked in New York City at an import firm his family owned. They specialized in gourmet foods, which were his passion. He had a healthy trust and didn’t need the income, but his wife thought it was good for him to work. Ironically, that’s where he’d met Judy York, the sexy brunette with large breasts and a magnetic personality. Owen had hired her to manage the office.
After the affair, his divorce and the new marriage, Judy and Owen had the two girls in four years. According to Owen, Judy had not been an ideal caregiver to her young daughters. She was capable, he’d insisted. But she was not willing. Owen said that she slept twelve hours every night, then watched reality television and shopped for clothes all day. She would open a bottle of wine at five o’clock and finish it by ten when she went to bed, words slurring, that magnetic personality suddenly repulsive. She told him, allegedly, that she had done her part by giving birth.
This had been the first alarm bell.
With her Bible now open, the verses spilling out, Abby bounded to her car as if she could somehow outrun them. None of this would matter now. Because Cassandra Tanner was home. Because soon she would know the truth and whether she’d been right or wrong. Because soon she would know if she could have saved them from whatever it was that had happened.
Agent Leo Strauss had been the lead on the investigation. It had not been their first time working together, so there had been a rapport. He had been her mentor, in work and in life. His family had included her in holiday dinners. His wife, Susan, baked her cakes on her birthday. There had been a bond between them that made it difficult for Abby to hide what she was thinking. How Judy had seduced Owen Tanner. Neglected her children. Had an affair with a man from the country club. About the bitter custody fight. And about the toxic home Judy made for her daughters with Jonathan Martin and his son, Hunter.