Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

my mother, so furious that my father had butchered her child. The family sided with Vivien and Mama broke relations. She and I moved to Riverdale and Mama got a job cleaning hotel rooms. She got a divorce a few years later. In absentia, of course, because he never came back.’
    ‘Did you ever tell your mother about Beckett?’ Joseph asked.
    ‘Yes and no. When I finally started talking again I went to her and said, “It wasn’t Daddy.” I needed her to know that much. But I was afraid to tell her who it was. The morning after I told her that, I woke up to find my new cat dead. Mama had been on the phone with Vivien the night before, telling her what I’d said. It hadn’t made a difference to Vivien, but I knew she must have told Beckett. After I found my cat, I knew I could never tell my mother Beckett’s name. I knew he’d kill her, just like he promised.’
    ‘Did you ever see Beckett again after you moved?’ McManus asked.
    ‘He’d pop up from time to time.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Novak asked.
    ‘He’d . . . pop up. I’d turn around in the grocery store or the library and he was there, whispering in my ear or slicing his finger over his throat. That didn’t stop until I moved in with the Elkharts. Their security kept me safe from him, but Mama was still living in Riverdale and still vulnerable.’
    ‘When did you check him out and hear he was dead?’ Agent Kerr asked.
    Joseph still hadn’t said a word. He looked tortured. Furious. Deadly. She wanted to beg him not to do anything crazy for her, but she kept those words to herself.
    ‘When I was fifteen. I was pregnant.’ She looked at Ford, remembering the exact moment she’d decided to act. ‘I’d just felt you move and you were suddenly so very real.’ She smiled at him sadly. ‘I remember thinking that now I had another life to consider. I couldn’t risk him trying to hurt you, too. I knew I needed to tell, but I had a lot of questions – like could he even be prosecuted? What if the statute of limitations on his crime had run out and I accused him and the cops couldn’t even arrest him? I’d be putting my mother in even bigger trouble. So I wrote a letter to the FBI asking about statutes of limitations and whether a parent could be placed in witness protection.’
    Detective McManus’s brows rose. ‘You wrote to the FBI? What happened?’
    ‘I got a visit from an Agent Baker. Claudia Baker was her name. We met a couple more times and then she told me Beckett was dead. She even got me a copy of his death certificate.’
    ‘Did you tell your mother then?’ Hector asked.
    ‘No. Beckett was no longer a threat. She believed me about my father, but there was no way I could prove any of it to anyone else. There didn’t seem to be a point. I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me.’ She sighed. ‘I never dreamed he was still kidnapping girls. When I saw him tonight it was fast and I wasn’t paying attention to his face, just to his hands and the pillow he had over Ford’s face. I had this . . . déjà vu, you know? But I thought it was just being here.’
    ‘But none of this tells us why he’s doing this now,’ Novak said. ‘Why draw you here? And how does Doug and his black van connect with Beckett and his white truck?’
    ‘It was a van that stopped for me last night,’ Ford said. ‘Could have been black. He shone headlights in my eyes so I couldn’t see.’ He frowned. ‘Beckett said that he and Doug’s granddad were Army buddies in ’Nam. That that’s how he knew him.’
    Daphne sighed again. Joseph and Novak both swore.
    ‘What?’ Ford asked, concerned.
    ‘That’s how he got into Bill Millhouse’s trusted circle,’ Daphne said. ‘Told him that their fathers had served together in the Gulf War. We’ve had the Army searching for troops who went on to have sons named Doug. If it’s just a ploy, we wasted our time.’
    ‘Now we’re back to Kim as our key connection to Doug,’ Novak said.
    Ford went still. ‘Excuse me? What are you talking about? Kim isn’t connected to this guy. She’s a victim .’
    Daphne’s heart sank. ‘Ford, there are some things you need to know.’

Chapter Twenty-One
    Wheeling, West Virginia, Wednesday, December 4, 11.15 P.M.
    J oseph leaned against the doorframe connecting their rooms, holding onto both ends of the towel he’d hung around his neck, the jeans he’d pulled on clinging to his wet skin. He hadn’t taken time to dry off, worried about