The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

frozen potpie, distracting Nadine from the replay. She thanked Rosie and tucked into the cookie, closing her eyes at the taste of chocolate chips and brown sugar.

“There,” he pointed. “Headband just fell.”

Nadine’s eyes snapped open. There lay the headband on the floor of the hallway directly between the two opposite doors.

“Here’s the interesting part,” said Demko. “The door opens again. But you can’t see this guest. Now watch this.”

The guard slowed the recording. Nadine watched her door close and something extend from the opposite door.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Golf umbrella,” said the head of security. “We lend them to the guests. One in every closet.”

The occupant used the umbrella to drag her headband into his room. Then the door closed.

Nadine placed a hand over her pounding heart. He’d taken it.

“Avoiding the cameras,” said Demko.

“Who stayed in that room?” she asked.

“That’s the trouble,” said Demko.

“The room was vacant. No guest stayed there,” said the guard. “I’ve got to call my boss.”

“We checked the footage all the way to Sunday. No one came out of that room,” said Demko.

“We walked the exterior,” said the guard. “The window is missing and repaired with a sheet of Plexiglas and electrical tape. Whoever it was, went in and out through the second-floor window.”

“How?” she asked.

“Ladder or from the roof with a pulley,” said Demko.

“You have this recorded?” she asked.

“No cameras facing the building,” he said. “They only show the lot. The approach must have been along the grass under the window. Outside the camera’s view.”

“It’s him,” she said.

Special Agent Jack Skogen arrived in the hotel security office with his digital forensics expert where she, Demko and the hotel’s head of security waited. Demko filled them in on the headband and what they had found on the security footage.

“We think it would be wise to move you and your people to a new location. As a precaution,” said Skogen. “In the meantime I’ve tightened security. Added undercover agents on-site and we have you and the hotel under surveillance.”

“He won’t be back. He got what he came for.”

“Still.”

She suffered through the long silence.

“The sketch artist will come by tomorrow at the field office to see you. Let me know when you two come up with a rendering.”

“I will.”

“We need a sample of hair to compare with the one found on the headband,” said Skogen, evidence bag open.

Nadine ran her fingers through her hair, coming away with several strands, dropping them into the bag.

He sealed the bag. “I’ll rush it.”

She left the men and joined Tina and Juliette in the hotel restaurant, explaining what Demko had found over their meal.

Afterward, the three took Molly out for a short walk and then escorted Nadine to her room.

She did not sleep well.

THURSDAY

Back at the office the following day, Nadine did her best with the sketch artist. She wished she had not seen Linda Tolan’s version, as it had crept into her mind and influenced her memories.

Afterward, Tina stopped in.

“They found Santander! She’s in the Glades County Detention Center.”

“Finally, some good news.”

They shared a smile before Tina bombarded her with messages. The press mainly, requesting a quote responding to Dr. Crean’s new release and her comments about Nadine’s “deeper issues,” plus a few important questions from the psychologist who had filled her position in Sarasota.

Before lunch she took a call from Juliette.

“I wanted to alert you.”

Something in the tone of her voice triggered all Nadine’s anxieties. She shot to her feet.

“I got a call from Dr. Kline. She received a possible drowning victim from up in Putnam County.”

Her hammering heart made it difficult to hear and she wrapped her free arm around herself to stem the shivering.

“Where?”

“Recovered in Grass Lake outside Fort McCoy.”

“We don’t have any missing persons,” she said, as if saying so out loud might make this death unconnected. Her voice held an unwelcome hysterical edge.

“Calm down, Nadine. It might be a simple drowning.”

Don’t jump to conclusions, she thought. But her mouth had turned to cotton, and the cold sweat increased her trembling.

“Yes. All right.”

“We don’t know much yet. There’s significant decomposition, apparently.”

“Age?”

“Under twenty-five is the ME’s best guess.”

“When is the autopsy?”

“Today or tomorrow.”

“Let me know when you have more details.”

“Yes. Will do.”

Demko made a rare visit to Nadine’s office at midday on Thursday and she filled him in on Juliette’s news on the body recovery.

“ID?”

“No,” she said.

“I’ll go see what I can find.”

“Sounds good.”

“Listen, I heard back from Willie Druckman,” he said, after Tina had left them.

“Who?”

“He’s the trooper in Putnam County. The one I asked to look into that red-tagged vehicle for you and Arlo.”

“Anything?”

“Yes. Druckman came up with several F150 pickup trucks, tagged that way during that year.”

He offered her a photocopy.

“You going to contact Sean?” asked Demko.

Sean Torrin was the FBI’s lead investigator on the Copycat Killer case who was now exploring several missing persons as potential victims of her mother. Unfortunately, Arleen had been uncooperative. But if Arleen had murdered their father, Nadine was ready and willing to get involved.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Why not?”

“If I tell about the tag, I remove the usefulness of the information Arlo wants to barter for parole.”

She pondered her dilemma. The morally right thing to do was to give this intel to Arlo’s attorneys and help him get out early, as any sister should. But she could withhold it, destroying his chance of early release, because she feared he might present a threat to others. She was his sister. But also a trained psychologist. Either course held minefields.

“What’s wrong?”

“I want to find my dad. I’m just not sure releasing Arlo is a good idea.”

“You wouldn’t be the one making that decision.”

“I’d be the one aiding him.”

“Nadine. He’s your brother.”

“You don’t know him. He’s got that darkness inside him.”

“But keeping him in prison because of possibilities is wrong,” said Demko.

For him, family came before society. But he didn’t go to bed thinking of the lives his mother destroyed. Or did he?

When would Juliette have their DNA tests back? Knowing Arlo’s results, and if he had the genes that predisposed a