They moved down the hall to the first bedroom and entered. It was austere—the walls unadorned apart from a wooden crucifix that hung above a simple twin bed with navy-blue duvet cover and pillows. Bare wood floors. No drapes.
That dark sense of foreboding sank deeper as Angie followed Maddocks into the second bedroom.
This one was bigger—frilly and flowery. A queen-size bed was covered in pillows and pink floral linens. A crocheted throw had been neatly folded and placed near the footboard. A framed Emily Carr print of an old church hung on the wall. A mirrored dresser—dark wood and shaped like a kidney—was positioned under a window that was covered by scalloped sheers. On the dresser a rosary curled among framed photos and a jumble of lipstick tubes, a blush compact, blue eye makeup, face powder, and a half-eaten bag of Hattie’s Candies from the Olde Sweet Shoppe. The sales slip indicated that the candies had been bought five days ago. Angie picked up one of the frames and studied the photo. It showed a cute-looking kid around ten years of age, tousled blond hair, an urchin smile. Bright-blue eyes. Skinny little legs with knobby knees stuck out of baggy shorts. The woman with him was somewhat pinch-faced. Cat’s-eye glasses.
“This could be Spencer when he was a boy, with his mother,” she said, replacing the frame.
There was no sign of a male in this room, nor in the en suite bathroom.
Passing the crime scene techs entering the house, she and Maddocks quickly made their way down into the basement. A swinging lightbulb above wooden stairs lit their way.
Both stilled at the bottom of the stairs. The basement ran the entire length of the house. At the far end was a makeshift gym complete with bench press, barbells, exercise bike, and treadmill.
They entered slowly, a cold sensation pressing low into Angie’s stomach. It was as if she couldfeelhim in here, his shed skin cells still hanging in the air, getting into her mouth, into her nasal passages and bronchia.
A laundry and bathroom led off the gym area. Inside the laundry was a stainless steel trough large enough to have pushed Gracie Drummond’s head under water. At the other end of the basement was a fridge and a large chest freezer. In the center of the room a simple metal chair had been positioned. It faced a more comfortable-looking, padded wingback. Ropes strung from a support beam along the roof hung down to the floor around the wingback—reminiscent of the rope structure in the root cellar on Thetisby Island. Beside the wingback was a television screen and video equipment. Maddocks switched it on.
The screen made a soft static crackle as the image came to life. Angie stared. Gracie Drummond. Bound. Her mouth duct-taped. A blond, well-honed, naked male forcing himself into her. Angie looked away, sweat breaking out over her skin as Alex Strauss’s words hammered through her.
It’s rough, that kind of thing. On anybody ... acknowledge it. In movies, sure, fictional cops are immune. Viewers are inured to violence. But this is real life. Real people. We’re not built to deal with an incessant onslaught of the kinds of things you deal with in sex crimes...
She moved away from the screen toward the counter that ran the length of the wall between the fridge and the freezer. On it was a large concertina sewing box. She lifted the lid and was greeted by a bright array of spools of colored thread. Opening it wider, the top compartment slid back to expose the bottom layer. She stilled.
“Maddocks.”
He came to her side. “Trophies,” she said, staring at the locks of hair—all lacquered together at the top of each lock and tied with different colors of thread. “There have to be more than twenty different strands in here. And they have names, dates, places tagged to them.” She leaned closer, not wanting to touch or mess with this evidence. She tried to read the tiny hand-printed text on one of the minute tags. “It says ‘Malaga,’” she said. “And one that says ... ‘Toulon,’ and that one says ‘Nice.’” She looked up at Maddocks. “Places along the Cote D’Azur and the French Riviera? He’s been at this, collecting, for years.”
The sound of people coming down the stairs reached them. Angie moved quickly to open the fridge. It was filled with bottled sparkling water, vitamin water, sports drinks. She closed it. As she moved to open the freezer, Maddocks’s cell rang. He stepped aside to answer it as the crime scene techs and a photographer entered the basement. Angie lifted the freezer lid.
“Fuck!” she gasped, pulling back and almost dropping the lid closed. Her stomach contracted violently.
The blue, frosted face of a woman stared up at her with sightless, frozen eyes. Her lips were painted in the same bright-red lipstick that stained the cigarette butts and the mirror upstairs. The head was attached to the naked torso of a senior. But her legs and arms were stashed separately alongside her.
“His mother?” she whispered, horror rising up into her throat. “Beulah Addams? Jesus. How long has she been in here?” Her gaze shot toward Maddocks as the techs came up to the freezer.
His face had gone bloodless. He wasn’t looking at the freezer. He was clutching his phone.
“It’s Ginny,” he said, voice rough. “She needs my help.”
“What?”
“She ... says she went out with friends, had too much to drink, and she thinks her drink was spiked.”
Angie motioned quickly to the techs to take over the freezer, and she went over to Maddocks. He looked ill.
“She’s frightened ... she sounds in a bad way, Angie. She needs me. Now. She asked me to come.” His eyes glittered. “I’ve neglected her—I thought I’d just give her time and that she’d come back to me. But ... not in this way.”
Urgency and conflict crackled through them both.
“It’s your biggest case, Maddocks,” she said quietly.
“And it’s my daughter. It’s why I’m here. I came to be here for her. This is my world, Angie. I came to be a better dad, to make up for all the lost time.” His gaze went to the freezer, to the crime scene photographer now taking photos of the body inside. “Can you handle it from here? Can you get a unit to pick up Lara Pennington, take her in before this monster gets to her, if he hasn’t already? Find out who else might be in jeopardy?”
Her mouth tightened. She regarded her partner, her boss. Her lover. This beautiful man. He was a rescuer. And she believed she loved him. And she hurt at the pain she saw in his features. Emotion burned into her eyes, and she nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got it. Go. Go look after her.”
And he was gone, up the stairs, the flip of his black coat hem the last thing she saw.
CHAPTER 72
