Known (34 page)

The pages were packed with her father’s writing. Gianna knelt beside the detective and tried to read the cramped handwriting. The date at the top of the page was from three months ago. Her father had listed what he’d eaten that day, that he’d gone to the drugstore, and an account of everything he’d seen. Physical descriptions of people, clothing, cars, weather. The page blurred and Gianna wiped her eyes. Farther down the page he’d made a to-do list that included getting a haircut and researching the benefits of eating kale.

Looking closer, she realized there were stacks of notebooks mixed in with the newspapers and magazines. “Did he write in all of those?”

“Yep,” said Becker. “I looked. They’re like diaries. I noticed one is about four years old. I wonder if he has older ones stored somewhere.”

“So he’s probably written a description or names of who he thinks was following him. It looks like he wrote down
everything
,” said Gianna.

“That’s what Becker and I were thinking,” admitted Hawes.

“Then what are you waiting for? Someone should be going through these!” Gianna grabbed the closest notebook.
Fuck fingerprints.
She opened it to the first page and squinted. Computer stuff. A technical language that made no sense to her and made her eyes hurt. She tried to scan a few pages, searching for something—anything—that seemed related to her father’s fears for his safety. She couldn’t do it. The cramped and messy handwriting had to be read word by word. “This will take forever.”

“I agree,” said Hawes, studying the pages. “Let’s try to find the most recent notebooks and focus on those. We can take them with us. I’m not going to sit in this dark room and try to make out the words.”

“What about collecting evidence?”

“No crime has happened here. I think anything of use will be in these journals, and the more eyes we have on them the better.”

“Gianna,” Chris said.

She looked up from her place on the floor. Chris was standing by the closet, studying some of the sketches on the wall. He’d lifted the edge of one to expose another beneath it.

“Is this you?” he asked.

Her gaze locked on the drawing; she stood; her flesh seemed to grow heavy. As she drew closer, she saw a drawing of a little girl’s face. It was her. She was still a toddler.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Here’s another.” Chris lifted another odd sketch to show a drawing of an older child. She figured she was about eight. “He had some memories,” Chris said. “He didn’t forget you completely.” Becker and Hawes started lifting other sketches, searching for more images of a young Gianna.

“How old were you when that car accident happened?” Becker asked.

“Eight.”

“Then how did he do this one?” Becker moved aside to display an image near a pillow on the bed.

Gianna caught her breath at the sight of the teenage face. “That’s not me. That’s Violet.” Her heart seized at the image of her daughter. Tears flowed.

Hang on, honey.

Hawes frowned. “She looks exactly like you. How can you be sure?”

“The collar of the shirt. It’s hanging in Violet’s closet right now.”

Hawes smiled. “He’s been watching you guys.”

Gianna moved closer, staring at her daughter, aching to touch her hair and her face again.

Her father had perfectly captured Violet, although she’d understood how Becker had believed it was Gianna. The sketch made her chest burst with love and pain at the same time.

He knew us.

And we never knew him.
“Violet will never know my father.”

“Clearly he had a soft spot for her. There’s four more of her wearing the same shirt right here.” Becker shuffled through a stack of papers next to the mattress.

“That’s lovely,” said Hawes.

Gianna felt like she was shrinking, becoming a fraction of her former self. She’d been unaware that her father had hovered outside her and Violet’s life. But he’d been there. Now her guilt filled the room, berating her for giving up on him. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “If I’d known he was still alive, I would have tried.”

“He set the boundaries,” Chris said. “It’s no fault of your own. Saul and your father thought it was best this way. For all we know, someone would have attacked you much earlier. You might not have seen your tenth birthday if your father had come forward.”

“He could have reached out later!”
Gianna wanted to punch someone.
“I would have understood!”

“You have every right to be angry,” Hawes started.

“Damn right I do!”

Detective Hawes closed her mouth, smartly recognizing that Gianna was in no mood for platitudes.

“Let’s get the notebooks packed up so we can start going through them,” said Becker. “We can come back for the personal drawings.” He scooped a stack into his arms and disappeared out the door.

Hawes and Chris started to assemble more stacks to carry out.

Gianna watched them for a second, feeling helpless and completely disconnected from the man who’d lived in this apartment. Her gaze traveled the room, searching for something to connect to the father she remembered. She couldn’t leave without
something
. She grabbed one of the Darth Vader PEZ dispensers and ripped a sketch of Violet off the wall. She folded it carefully and slid both items into a pocket. Hawes wisely said nothing.

Two painfully small mementos.

Gianna grabbed a stack of notebooks and followed Becker.

“They found Jamie’s car,” Becker reported, stepping into the small police station conference room where they’d gathered to look through Gianna’s father’s notebooks. Chris’s chest contracted at his words; then he remembered that Jamie was already safe. Michael had recently reported that she’d woken from surgery. Her first question had been about Violet.

Michael had told her the truth.

Next to him Gianna sucked in her breath. “Violet?”

“No one’s there. The car was abandoned in the rear parking lot of a furniture store only a few minutes away from where it was taken.” Becker paused. “The car’s clean inside.”

No blood.

“But the police have been searching for that make of vehicle,” Chris said. “He swapped it for something else or someone was waiting for him. We’ve been looking for the wrong vehicle for hours.
Goddamn it!
” He swung out of his seat and paced around the table. “Hours! It’s been hours!”

Gianna covered her eyes, her arms propped up on the table. Her stillness alarmed him.

“The store owner reported that he noticed a strange vehicle parked behind the dumpsters earlier in the day. He didn’t think much of it, assuming one of his employees had borrowed the vehicle. But now the police have checked with all the employees and it didn’t belong to any of them.”

“What was it?” asked Hawes.

“A newer Escalade. Black with blacked-out windows. Flashy rims,” said Becker.

“Easier to spot than Jamie’s sedan,” Hawes pointed out, looking at Chris.

“They could be halfway through Washington State by now.” Chris clenched his teeth, attempting to keep his emotions in check. Every minute counted in an abduction. The more time went by, the less likely they were to find Violet.

Don’t let her vanish.

Hawes glanced briefly at Gianna’s covered face and then gave him a death stare. “We’ll find them. He’s driving a pimp-mobile. That vehicle will catch the eye of every cop it passes. They’ll remember it if they’ve seen it, and the best news is that the security camera behind the store caught an image of someone who could be the driver.”

“Could be?” asked Chris.

“The camera’s view catches just a glimpse of a bumper, but you can see a vehicle shadow cross the screen and then moments later a man walks through the frame.”

“You’ve watched it?” Gianna asked. “Does it show when they return with Jamie’s car?”

“I’ll show you what we have.” Becker opened a laptop and tapped on the keyboard. Chris and Gianna moved to look over the detective’s shoulders as Hawes stepped back. Her face gave nothing away. If Hawes was excited about this new lead, she was keeping it to herself. Or she knew that the video clip was a disappointment. He envied her control. His gut was a swirling mess of emotion and acid. Violet’s abduction was resurrecting memories he’d fought long and hard to bury.

We have to get her back.

Becker opened an attachment and a grainy black-and-white image of a parking lot filled the screen. The camera was positioned to cover the rear entrance to the store. Two small sedans and a covered dumpster area were close to the door. As Chris watched, a flash of black tire and bumper and then a long shadow crossed the upper third of the screen behind the two cars. He held his breath. Ten seconds later a man strolled across the screen, his head up. He swaggered, confidence rolling off him. Becker pressed the touch pad and froze the screen.

“Know him?” He enlarged the image, increasing the graininess.

Gianna leaned closer. “He’s huge.”

She was right. Even if there hadn’t been any cars in the image to compare the man to, Chris would have picked up on his wide chest and large upper arms through his coat. But as he passed by the cars, it became apparent that he was large everywhere.

“I don’t recognize him,” said Chris. “I think I’d remember this guy.” The thought of Violet in the large man’s hands made his heart crack. He battled against a surge of memories.

Underground. Children. Pain.

Gianna stared a little longer. “I haven’t seen him before.”

“You sure?” Becker asked.

“Yes,” she snapped, dark eyes flashing at him. “He might have my daughter. You better believe I’d tell you if I thought I knew him.”

“Is there another image when he returns?” asked Chris.

“No,” said Hawes. “The vehicle swap takes place off camera. We don’t see Jamie’s car at all, and there’s a shadow as the Escalade leaves, but it’s even smaller than before.”

“What if this guy was just a customer?” Chris asked, striving to keep his voice even.

“The manager and employees were shown this clip. None of them had seen him. Like you said, he’s huge. He’d be memorable.”

“He’s got to be pushing six foot five,” said Gianna. “And maybe two eighty.”

Becker raised a brow at her.

“I guess at the height and weight of people on my table all the time before weighing and measuring. I’m pretty accurate.”

“Well, at least we have a possible description of the driver to add to the vehicle. Everyone will be looking for him.”

“They fucking better,” Chris muttered. He was ready to burst out of his skin. He knew the statistics. Every hour Violet was gone, her chances of survival dropped. He flopped back into his chair next to Gianna, exhausted from the deluge of flashbacks. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

This isn’t about me.

He slid an arm around her shoulders and leaned his head against hers. She shuddered and relaxed into him. He inhaled her stillness, knowing it was odd that for once she was the one who was calm while he was ready to climb the walls. “Calm” wasn’t the right word. He suspected she was simply too drained to vocalize.

She needed someone to lead.

He kissed her forehead and straightened up, pulling the closest notebook of Richard’s in front of him. “Okay, Richard. Give us a clue about that huge beast who took Violet.” He flipped it open and started to read. Next to him Gianna took a deep breath and opened another.

Somewhere in these notebooks was an answer.

The jumbled notes made Gianna want to scream. Her father had been focused on minutiae from everyday life. The detail part of his brain that had once made him a brilliant developer had taken over his life; unable to find focus, it had focused on
everything
. Had he vocalized the constant thoughts? Had he used the notebooks as therapy so he could function in the world? What kind of woman had been able to live with her father, whose brain constantly vibrated and expanded with useless details?

I hope she loved him. And that he was happy.

Her own brain constantly accelerated in a million directions. She couldn’t stop thinking about Violet. Tension and anxiety sped along her nerves, making her skin feel like it’d been stretched rigidly over her bones.