Chapter Thirty-Five
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Morgan studied the Clarks over the coffee table in their living room. Dressed in a cozy sweater and yoga pants, Chelsea held her baby in her arms. Tim and Bella flanked her on the sofa. Bella curled up into her mother; Tim’s shoulder pressed into his wife’s.
Their connection went beyond physical touch. Morgan could feel their bond, their unity, from across the six feet of space that separated her and Lance from the family.
“Bella, it’s time for your bath,” Chelsea’s mother called from the doorway and held out her hand toward the little girl. Chelsea’s father stood behind his wife, looking lost, as if he didn’t know what to do.
Bella hesitated, looking up at her mother, and Morgan’s heart bumped in her chest. The poor child was confused and vulnerable.
Chelsea gave her daughter a one-armed hug. “Go with Grandma. I’ll read you a story after your bath.”
The little girl obeyed, casting a reluctant glance back at Chelsea as she left the room with her grandmother.
“Dad, would you take William?” Chelsea asked.
“Of course. He’s starting to like me.” Her father seemed relieved to have a task. He took the baby. “We’ll hang out with Bella and Grandma.”
After her father and son had left the room, Chelsea turned back to Lance and Morgan. “We’re taking it one day—sometimes one moment—at a time. I’m grateful to be home.”
The damage to Chelsea’s body was easy to assess. Every inch of exposed skin was mottled with swelling, healing abrasions, and bruises in varying shades of purple and green. But despite her damaged face, behind the fear and anger, determination shone from her eyes.
He’d beaten her body, but not her spirit.
“Reporters were outside when we came home.” Tim reached for his wife’s hand. “The sheriff made them leave.”
For once, Morgan appreciated Sheriff King’s intimidating and unyielding nature.
“I want him caught. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder,” Chelsea said. “I don’t know if I can take that.”
“You should invest in a good security system,” Lance said. “We can give you some recommendations.”
“Please,” Tim said.
“We might want to move.” Chelsea’s gaze wandered to the window. “I don’t know if I can stay here after . . .”
After she’d been abducted from her own driveway.
Chelsea shook her head. “Now what do you need to know? I’ll try to answer the best I can.”
“What do you remember about the man or the place you were held?” Lance asked.
“I was in a storage container.” Chelsea described finding a nail, picking the lock on her chains, and escaping through a rust hole in the roof. “The container was in a clearing, but there were tree branches overhead and a cabin or small house nearby.” Chelsea closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. It was dark. Once I was out, and I heard him coming after me, I just ran.”
“How about sounds?”
“I heard a dog barking.”
“No traffic sounds?” Lance asked.
“No.” Chelsea drew her knees up under her chin. She curled her body into a defensive ball. “I wish I could tell you more. I feel useless.”
“Don’t. You did exactly the right thing. You got away,” Morgan said. “Can you tell us anything about your captor?”
Chelsea stared down at her knees. “He wanted to train me. To teach me to be submissive. If I obeyed, he fed me. If I didn’t, he punished me.”
“What did he look like?” Morgan asked.
“He wore a mask, so I didn’t see his face,” Chelsea’s brows lowered. She gave them a very basic description of an average-size, white male. No distinguishing accent. “He was strong.”
“So probably not too old,” Lance said. “How about visible tattoos or scars?”
Chelsea shook her head.
“Did he wear cologne?” Lance asked.
“I was so scared; I wasn’t paying attention.” Chelsea froze. “Wait. There was a smell. Something . . . sharp. Almost oily.”
“Was it motor oil?” Lance asked.
“No. It wasn’t that strong.” She shuddered. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.” She pressed a fist over her mouth, clearly fighting for control.
Morgan changed the topic. “Your boss said you wanted to talk to him about something. What was it?”
“One of my clients has statements that don’t reconcile.” Chelsea tilted her head. “I can’t give you his name, but he can’t possibly be connected to this. It’s a tax issue, and he would have no way of knowing that I’m aware of it.”
And this was obviously not the crime of a tax evader.
“But it was important enough that you didn’t want to e-mail your boss or explain the problem over the phone?” Lance asked.
“I don’t have a secure server at home, and the baby was always crying. The last time I talked to Curtis over the phone, I could barely hear him,” she explained. “I thought it would be easier to discuss the problem in his office.”
Morgan stood. “If you remember anything else, please call us right away. It doesn’t matter how small of a detail it is. You never know where it might lead.”
“I will.” Chelsea rested her chin on her knees. “Thank you. For everything.”
Tim showed them to the door. “I hope she sleeps tonight. Last night, in the hospital, she was up all night. Every noise . . .”
“It’s going to take time,” Morgan said.
Tim nodded and opened the door for them.
“What does the brand look like?” Lance asked in a low voice.
Tim paled. “It’s an infinity symbol.”
Forever . . .
Morgan and Lance went back to the Jeep and climbed inside.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Lance said. “Though we confirmed that it’s unlikely the kidnapping is related to her client files.”
“He drugged her, so that likely affected her recall.” Morgan couldn’t imagine. Not only did Chelsea have to deal with the horrifying events she remembered, but she would no doubt wonder and fear what she’d forgotten. Would other memories continue to return? And for how long?
Lance started the engine. “This feels like a personal crime. No one tortures and psychologically conditions a woman to avoid being caught cheating on his taxes.”
“No,” Morgan agreed. “This was personal, sick, and twisted. Now what?”
He pulled out of the driveway. “Can you call Sharp and let him know what we found out? He and my mom can stop reviewing financial statements and concentrate on getting background info on Chelsea’s clients. It’s still possible one of them fixated on her.”
“Someone did.” Morgan made the call. Sharp was relieved to give up the financial statement review.
“Where do you want to go? No matter what we do, we need to get some food in you.” Lance declared after she’d put her phone away.
“You’re going to think this is nuts.”
And he wasn’t going to like it one bit.
“What?” His voice turned suspicious as he drove away from the Clarks’ house.
“I want to snoop around Harold Burns’s house.”
Lance frowned. “Not nuts, risky.”
“All our other leads have run dry. Burns is all we have left. And Chelsea mentioned that oily smell, though she said it didn’t smell like motor oil.”
Lance shrugged. “Mechanics use different kinds of oil.”
Morgan stared through the windshield. Despite her exhaustion, seeing what Chelsea had endured made her more determined to catch the man responsible. “What if he has that girl, and no one can save her? What if he wants more time to kill her and dispose of her body?”
“That’s a lot of speculation.”
“It is,” Morgan said. “But hear me out. The police think that the woman found in the state park had been held captive for eight months. She’d have to be kept somewhere that no one would hear her scream. Burns’s house is in the middle of nowhere.”
“So is the auto shop.”
“Yes, but the auto shop has too much foot traffic to hold a woman captive.”
“It’s a big piece of property, and there were outbuildings. It would be a great place to hide a storage container,” Lance said. “The woods behind the junkyard connect to the state park.”
“True,” Morgan agreed. “But the police did a compliance check on Burns’s house three months ago. If he was holding a woman in his house, they would have heard or seen something.”
“Probably. His house is small,” Lance said. “We don’t know that she was kept in the same place for the entire eight months.”
Morgan pictured Harold Burns’s property. “Remember that huge detached garage behind Burns’s house?”
“I do.” Lance turned on the heat. “That was big enough to house all sorts of illegal activity.”
Morgan spread her fingers in front of the vents. “If we find anything, we’ll make an anonymous phone call to the police and report that we heard a woman screaming.”
“We’ll need to wait until later. We want Burns to be asleep.” Lance turned onto the main road. “We’ll need to gear up too. We should call Stella or Brody and let them know what we’re planning.”
“No.” Morgan wouldn’t ruin her sister’s career over a hunch. “That wouldn’t be fair to them. What we’re going to do is completely illegal.”
Not to mention dangerous.