The Vanished (22 page)

“Hello,” Carol said.

“Hi, this is Vincent. Are you in Houston?”

“Yes.”

“I want to show you something important. Can you come to Sugar Land?”

“Is it about Annie?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. What’s the address?”

Vincent gave Carol the address, and she said, “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“I’ve got to run. Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

Devon terminated the call.

4

The fact that Carol was in Houston was no coincidence. It was a sign. The universe was telling him that he should take care of Vincent and Carol today. And Devon knew exactly how he was going to do it.

“Why do you want my sister to come here?” Tom asked.

“She knows you’re alive. She knows you kidnapped Annie.”

“Do you want to kill her?”

“Didn’t you say she was a traitor? Traitors deserve to die.”

Tom nodded.

“Do you think we should let Carol live?” Devon asked.

“I think she has to pay.”

Devon patted him on the shoulder.

“Can you ask Vincent if David calls him from jail?” Tom said.

“Sure.” Devon turned to the investigator and said, “Vincent, does David Miller call you from jail?”

“Yes.”

“How often?” Tom said to Devon in a low voice.

“How often?” Devon said.

“Once a week.”

“When was the last time he called?” Tom said.

“When was the last time he called?”

“Last Friday.”

Tom went to the master bedroom and came back with a cellphone voice changer.

“Can I have his phone?” he said.

Devon gave him Vincent’s cell, and he plugged the voice changer into it. Devon figured Tom was planning to talk to David Miller if he called the investigator.

“What if I tell David that I’ll kill his daughter unless he commits suicide?” Tom said. “Do you think he’ll do it?”

“I don’t know. It depends on how much he loves her. My guess would be that he won’t kill himself.”

“Because she’s adopted?”

“That’s one of the factors.”

Another factor was that David was selfish. It had become apparent to Devon when David had amended his confession to get a better plea bargain. The fact that David was selfish pleased Devon because it confirmed that there was nothing wrong with looking out for yourself. Devon was selfish, too, and was proud of it.

“Do you want David dead now?” Devon asked.

“No. It’s not time yet.”

Ten minutes later, they moved Vincent to the kitchen, where he couldn’t be seen from the porch (Tom’s front door opened into the living room).

Chapter
28

1

At 3:23 pm, Carol called Vincent’s cellphone. Devon instructed Vincent to ask Carol where she was, and took the call. Tom went to the window facing the street and looked out.

“She’s here,” he whispered.

“I’m here. Where are you?” Carol said.

Tom drew his gun and stood to the left of the front door. Devon muted the phone and told Vincent to ask Carol to come inside. Then he unmuted the cell.

“Come inside,” Vincent said.

Devon walked to the front door, opened it, and waved to Carol, who had started toward the house. “Carol, please come in!”

As soon as Carol entered, Devon shut the door and Tom pointed his pistol at her.

“Tom?” Carol’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re alive.”

“If you scream, I’ll kill you,” Tom said.

The Honorable Curtis Gutterud had had given Tom the maximum sentence because he was what they called “a tough judge.” The first thing Tom said to Gutterud after explaining why they had abducted him was, “You’re not so tough now, are you, tough judge?”

He had come up with this line five months earlier and couldn’t wait to say it to the judge. He had no cool line prepared for Carol.

Devon took the phone from Carol’s hand and then led her to a chair. When she sat down, he cuffed her hands and tied her feet.

“What’s going on?” Carol asked in a trembling voice. “Where’s Vincent?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” Tom said.

“What are you doing here, Tom?”

“I live here.”

“Why did you fake your death?”

“I think you know why.”

“Did you kidnap Annie? Where is she?” Carol’s face was pale with fear.

“Remember what you said to me when you married that cocksucker? You said you were going to make his life hell. Why did you break your promise, Sis?”

“Where’s Annie? What did you do to her?”

Tom wanted to tell Carol everything. Not because he felt the need to confess, but because it was a good story.

Their plan had been first to hypnotize David into believing that he had murdered his daughter and wanting to confess to this crime, and then to kidnap Annie. Devon was going to program David to remember killing Annie ten hours after her disappearance.

Devon only conducted one session with David, which took place in a rented van in the parking lot of Collin Creek Mall in Plano fifteen days before the abduction. Devon intercepted David as he walked toward the mall, and used hypnosis to make him get in their van. Near the end of the session, Devon told David that for the next two months he was going to fall asleep for five minutes every time he heard the word “Limpopo.”

Limpopo was the name of a river in southeast Africa. Devon had chosen it as a trigger word because it sounded good to him and because it was almost never uttered in America. Tom’s trigger word was “oystercatcher;” it had no effect on Tom unless it was said by Devon. When he heard his trigger word, Tom went into a hypnotic trance and became receptive to suggestions from Devon.

After programming David to believe that he had murdered Annie, Devon gave him a knife (which the police would later find in the bushes behind the restrooms in Ardmore Park), so his fingerprints would get on it.

Abducting Annie from the Millers’ house was out of the question because of surveillance cameras (David had to have a lot of them on his property). They decided that a park would be a good place to carry out the kidnapping, so Devon programmed David to take his daughter to Ardmore Park on May 6. They picked Ardmore Park because David said it was Annie’s favorite park.

On May 6, Tom followed David and Annie from their house to Ardmore Park. As a precaution, he had put false number plates on his car and wore sunglasses and a baseball cap. In the parking lot, Tom pulled up behind David’s Porsche Cayenne, waited for David to open his door, and said loudly, “Limpopo.”

David fell asleep instantly.

Annie was standing a few feet from the Porsche, waiting for her father. Tom got out of his car, called the girl’s name, and waved. Then he walked up to her and said that her daddy had asked him to take her home. When Annie looked at David’s car, Tom said, “Your daddy’s taking a nap. Look what I’ve got here.” He extended his right hand, in which he held a small gray kitten. “Do you want to play with it?”

The kitten was Tom’s idea. Children loved kittens.

Annie smiled and nodded. He handed her the kitten, and then she climbed into his car. Two hours later, using a syringe, Tom drew some blood from Annie’s arm and poured it all over the knife that David had held in the van on April 21. Annie had had blood drawn many times before, so she hadn’t complained during the procedure.

“She’s fine,” Tom said.

“Where is she?” Carol asked.

“My friend’s place.”

“Where?”

“Austin.”

Carol looked at Devon and asked, “Who are you?”

“My name’s Bill,” Devon said. “I’m a friend of your brother’s.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Carol asked.

“No,” Devon said.

“Are you going to let me go?”

“Of course.” To Tom, Devon said, “Do you have a video camera?” 

“Yes,” Tom said.

“Can you give it to me? I want to make a video.”

Tom went to the chest of drawers, took a compact camcorder from the bottom drawer, and brought it to Devon. As he studied the camera, Devon asked, “Do you have a tripod?”

“No.”

Devon looked around, then walked over to the table in the dining area, grabbed a wooden chair, and put it on the coffee table in the living room.

“Move your sister to the couch and take off the cuffs,” he said to Tom.

After Tom removed the handcuffs, Devon switched on the camera and placed it on the chair on the coffee table, with its lens facing Tom’s sister.

“I want you to memorize this text.” Devon reached into his pocket, pulled out the sheet of paper with the text he had composed on Tom’s laptop forty minutes ago, and handed it to Carol.

After reading the text, Carol raised her eyes to Devon’s face and said, “What is this?”

“It’s your part. I need you to say it out loud while I film you. Please sound sincere, okay?”

Carol looked at the text and said, “Why do you want me to say all this on camera?”

“It will be our insurance policy. If you talk to the cops, we’ll send them this tape and you’ll go to jail.”

“So you’ll let me go if I say this on camera?”

“Yes, we will. You agree that you’ll go to jail if the cops see this tape, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And the cops won’t be the only ones who’ll see it. This video’s going to be all over the news if you tell the police about me and your brother.”

“I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“You won’t if we have the tape. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

Carol spent ten minutes committing the text to memory, and then announced that she was ready. Devon stood behind the camera, looked into the viewfinder (he made sure the rope tying Carol’s legs wasn’t in the shot), and said, “Okay, I’m going count to three. One, two, three.”

He pressed the Record button.

“My name is Carol Miller,” Carol said. “My husband’s name is David Miller. Right now David’s in prison for killing our adopted daughter, Annie. I want everyone to know that my husband is innocent. He didn’t kill Annie.” Carol paused. “I did it. I killed our daughter. I killed her because I couldn’t deal with her condition. I’m truly sorry for what I did. I hope God will forgive me.”

There were tears welling in her eyes.

Devon pushed the Stop button and said, applauding gently, “Bravo! Great job, Carol. Great job.”

“Is Annie really alive?” Carol asked.

“Yes,” Devon replied.

“Do you give her medication for her epilepsy?”

“Yes. She’s in very good hands, Carol.”

“When are you going to let her go?”

“In six years.”

“Why?”

“Because your brother served six years in prison.”

“You ought to be happy about this situation, Sis,” Tom said. “You get to spend your hubby’s money as you please while he’s in jail.”

Devon grabbed the camcorder and said to Tom, “Can you give me the cable for the camera, please? The one you use to connect the camera to the laptop.”

When Tom brought him the cable, Devon sat down at the desk, connected the camcorder to Tom’s laptop, and moved the recording of Carol’s confession from the camera’s memory card to the laptop’s hard drive.

“Why are you helping my brother?” Carol asked Devon when he closed the laptop.

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“There must be a reason. You could be executed for this.”

“Only if they catch me.” Devon scratched his cheek. “Look, Carol, since God’s allowing me to do that, it must be His plan, right? Everything’s God’s plan.”

Pointing the lens at Carol, Devon placed the camera on the chair that stood on the coffee table, and said, “I want to make another video.”

2

“What’s the point of this video?” Tom asked when Devon stopped filming.

“I’ll explain later.” Devon glanced at his watch. It was half past five. “Cuff her.”

He put the camera on the coffee table and returned the chair to the kitchen.

“What happened to Vincent?” Carol asked. “Is he asleep?”

“Yes.” Tom snapped the cuffs on her wrists.

“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing.”

“Carol, do you love Annie?” Devon asked.

“Yes.”

“You used to have a son, who was your biological child, didn’t you? Do you love Annie as much as you loved your son? I want an honest answer.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Really? You know, I never understood why people love adopted children. They’re not your real children. Why the hell would you love them?”

“Do you have children?”

“No.”

“Are you married?”

“No, and never have been.” Devon clasped his hands over his knee. “If you had to choose between Annie and your biological son, who would you choose?”

“It’s a stupid question.”

“Most questions are stupid.”

“I don’t know how to answer it.”

“I’m sure you know the answer, you’re just ashamed to tell it to me. You’d choose your son, I have no doubt about it.”

“Did your parents abuse you when you were a child?”

“Why do you care?” 

“Just curious.”

“She wants to understand what made you so evil.” Tom chuckled.

Devon smiled, and said, “No, they didn’t abuse me. But I argued with them a lot.”

“When I was a teenager, I argued with my parents almost every day.” Tom said.

“I think arguing is good,” Devon said, “even healthy.”

“What’s healthy about arguing?” Carol asked.

“It’s a great way to release bad energy,” Devon replied. “It helps you relieve stress. If you keep your mouth shut, if you keep your anger bottled up inside, you’re going to damage your sanity. And one day you might snap and go on a killing spree.”

“I think you should respect your parents,” Carol said. “They gave you life.”

“You don’t know my parents.” Devon smiled. “Interestingly, we always found a reason to yell at each other.”

“You argued with Mom and Dad, too, Carol,” Tom said.

“But not every day,” Carol paused. “I’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars if you let Annie go.”

“Just a hundred grand?” Devon said.

“How much do you want? Five hundred? A million?”

“You think money can buy everything,” Tom said. “And you’re right. But not in this case.”

“Your brother doesn’t want your money, Carol. He wants justice.”

“Are you going to let Vincent go?” Carol asked.

“Yes,” Devon said.

“Can I…”

Vincent’s phone rang, interrupting Carol in mid-sentence. Devon looked at the screen. The caller ID read: “David Miller Jail.”

“It’s David,” Devon said.

Tom snatched the phone from his hand, plugged in the voice changer, which Devon had detached earlier, and took the call.

“Hello, David.” Tom turned to Carol and pressed his index finger to his lips.

“Hi, can I talk to Vincent?” David said.

Tom realized he had to be careful what he said because calls from jail were monitored.

“How’s jail treating you, David?” 

“Who is it?”

“Your friend Ben. Do you remember me?”

There was a long silence. Then David said, “Yes, I remember you.”

“Do you like it there? Do they beat you up?”

“No, they don’t. Is Annie alive?”