Stalked. Elizabeth Heiter

ago. Unless she’d never come out because she’d been killed there. But if that was true, surely they’d have found a body by now.

      The case was bizarre. Although the BAU specialized in bizarre, this one had given Evelyn a bad feeling from the moment she’d seen the case file. A beautiful young teenage girl goes missing without a trace. The ending wasn’t usually positive.

      From the limited information in the case file a month ago, there’d been no way to give a solid profile, but her gut had screamed “stranger abduction.” Since Haley had predicted her own death, though, it seemed her gut had been wrong.

      “Here,” Sophia said, and Evelyn turned to find the detective holding out a flimsy cup. The smell of overcooked coffee filled the small room.

      Instead of telling Sophia she didn’t drink coffee, Evelyn smiled her thanks and took the scalding-hot cup. “Why don’t you give me the highlights? And let’s look at the note the mother found. Can we confirm Haley wrote it?”

      “Haley’s mom says it’s her daughter’s handwriting.” Sophia perched on top of the folding table, making it creak loudly underneath her. “Most of what we know you’ve probably already seen on the news. It’s as though someone plucked her out of thin air. Poof. Gone. Forensics is giving us nothing at the scene.”

      “Who else was around?”

      “Her boyfriend drove away after he dropped her off, and the cheerleaders on the field saw him leave. Otherwise, there was a coach on the field, and some students in the library with a teacher. None of them saw her inside, and no one saw her leave the school, but when her friends went inside, they couldn’t find her.”

      “What about other exits?”

      “Yeah, there are others, but the way the school is situated, it’s not likely she could have left without being seen. You’ve basically got the front entrance—where Haley was dropped off—near the main road. On the right side, you’ve got the field where the cheerleaders were practicing. They can see the front entrance from there. Then, on the left, you’ve got another open field the school uses for soccer and other sports. That one butts up against a neighborhood. Some wooded area in between, but not much. Then the back—faculty parking, service entrance. Probably the least visible, but that leads out to a side street. No one saw Haley leave that way, either, though they might not have. Still, it happened fast for an abduction.”

      When Sophia took a breath, Evelyn cut in. “How far were the locker rooms where she was supposed to be from the back entrance?”

      “Not close. Someone would have had to know exactly where she was, gone in and grabbed her and then subdued her fast, without making noise. The library is fairly close to the locker rooms, at least close enough that they surely would have heard if Haley screamed. Then...this person would have needed to carry Haley out without anyone seeing. Doable? Maybe. But unlikely.”

      “Either someone was prepared to take that kind of risk, or Haley went willingly, at least at first,” Evelyn said. “What do you make of the note?”

      “Ah, the note.” Sophia swiveled on the table and pulled the evidence list out of the box. “One sentence.”

      Evelyn took the list and looked at the description for the last item, the notebook. The matter-of-fact words sent pinpricks down her spine. “‘If you’re reading this, I’m already dead.’”

      “Yeah. Ominous.”

      “And there was nothing else in the notebook? No other information?”

      “None. We even checked for indentations in case she’d written more and then torn the pages out, but there’s no indication of that.”

      “Did you run the note for prints?”

      “Yep. We found Haley’s prints. And Linda’s—Haley’s mom. That’s it.”

      “And the mom just found it today?”

      “Yes. Between the box spring and the bed frame.”

      “So, you guys missed it when you checked the room?”

      Sophia frowned.

      “What I’m asking,” Evelyn clarified, “is could it have been put there after Haley went missing? Could it have been planted?” For a case this high profile, a month was a long time for such a key piece of evidence to go unnoticed.

      “I don’t know. We checked under the mattress. Could we have missed it? Yes. I mean, it was jammed in an odd location. And we were there to learn more about Haley. We were looking for any hints of what could have happened, get a sense of her personality, her secrets. We weren’t taking everything apart—we were trying to be sensitive to the family. Could the note have been put there after we searched the room? That’s also possible. But if someone planted the note, then why?”

      “Attention,” Evelyn suggested. She’d seen it before, sometimes a misguided attempt to get more manpower on a case, and sometimes just to get the victim’s family back in the limelight. “The girl’s mom has been on the news—”

      “Exactly,” Sophia agreed. “Linda Varner doesn’t need a stunt to get more attention for her daughter’s case. The woman quit her job. She does nothing but try to get resources for this. But it’s all about finding Haley. She wouldn’t plant evidence that might lead us in the wrong direction.”

      “You sure?”

      “You’re the profiler,” Sophia said. “But speaking as a cop—and a mother myself? Linda Varner appears to be the devastated mother of a missing child. Do they sometimes do things they shouldn’t, trying to make sense of what they’re going through? Sure. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Linda knows I’m working the case. I talk to her every day.”

      “Every day?” Evelyn interrupted.

      “Yep. Every single day, she shows up here, regardless of how many times I tell her I’ll call if I have anything new. We might as well have a standing appointment. And anyway, Linda confirmed the note was written in the daughter’s handwriting.”

      “The mom—”

      “It’s not Linda’s writing,” Sophia broke in. “Could she have gotten someone else to write it? I guess so, but then we’re looking at a conspiracy.”

      Evelyn nodded. Conspiracies were relatively rare. The simplest explanations were most often the real ones.

      “So, even if we think someone else put it there, Haley still wrote it.”

      “Which leaves us at the same place.”

      “Right.” Sophia’s shoulders slumped, and Evelyn suddenly saw the dark circles underneath the detective’s heavy-handed concealer.

      The dark circles weren’t all from this case, either, and Evelyn realized Sophia was older than she’d initially thought—probably nearing forty.

      “She was into something she shouldn’t have been,” Sophia said, ticking off possibilities on her fingers. “Or she knew something she shouldn’t have known, saw something she shouldn’t have seen. Or she was a victim who’d decided to finally tell, and someone wanted to shut her up.” Sophia shrugged. “Whatever it is...”

      “She almost certainly knew who grabbed her,” Evelyn finished.

      “And if Haley’s note is right,” Sophia said softly, “that person has already killed her.”

       2

      Early the next morning, the door to the broom-closet-cum-office burst open, and Evelyn looked up from the Haley Cooke case file. She’d left late last night and returned early enough that she might as well have just slept at the station. She’d barely had time to swing by the BAU office first, squeezing in a quick chat with Kyle on her hands-free while she drove to the station