Page 4 of Good Girls Don't Cry

“She has no idea where we are.” Chloe shook the bars. “There’s no escape from this place, is there? Have you noticed there’s a toilet and a sink in one of the corners? I’ve been feeling all around. There is a shelf above the mattress. I found two blankets up there. They’re filthy but it’s better than freezing to death.”

Olivia reached out, searching the damp, moss-covered walls. She found the toilet and sink and crawled across the filthy floor to the mattress, stood and found the shelf. Dust and animal droppings fell all over her as she pulled down the blankets. The cold had seeped into her bones and even a filthy blanket would keep her warm. Ignoring the smell of urine and rats, she draped it around her and went back to the door. “I found the blankets. They stink.”

“I figure they’re all the same.” Chloe’s head popped up at her window. “How can we get out of here?”

Olivia stared out at her friends. “I don’t know, but I figure no matter what, if anyone gets a chance to escape, run and get help. It might be our only chance.”

“I don’t think we have a chance.” Chloe peered back at her, only her large round eyes in view. “If he plans on killing us too, I’m not going without a fight.”

In the cell beside Olivia, Samantha Haimes burst into tears and started to wail. “Sam, keep it together. We don’t need to antagonize him.”

“He killed Liam.” Sam wailed and punched the door. “I loved him. We’d gotten into the same college. Can you imagine what it was like for them, tied up and unable to get out of the limo? It would be a terrible death.” She sobbed and shook the bars. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t care what happens to me. I want to die.”

Footsteps sounded along the passageway, slow and deliberate. Tall shadows followed a flashlight beam and then the man appeared. Shocked at the sight of his blood-soaked coveralls, Olivia gaped at him. He stood staring at her and then smiled. His teeth white in the gloom. More lights came on and the extent of the blood spatter became evident. Shaking with fear, Olivia lifted her chin. “Where’s Madison? What have you done with her?”

“I released her in the forest.” The man shrugged and peeled off wet gloves. “I need to take a shower and head into work. I guess I’d better feed you first.” He went to a closet and collected armfuls of silver packages. “These are Army surplus rations. You get three each and a few bottles of water. Make them last all day. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” The man swept his gaze along the cells as he dropped in the supplies, followed by blood-smeared bottled water. “Which one of you wants to die? Was it you, Sam? Ah, yes, I can see it in your eyes. You hate me for killing Liam. He was weak. He didn’t even try to protect you, did he?” He looked at her. “Still want to die?”

“I don’t care what you do to me.” Sam sobbed. “I don’t want to live without him.”

“I’ve never had requests before.” The man chuckled. “This will be interesting.”

Five

Jenna stared out of the window and drummed her fingers on the counter. The mist had lifted from the mountains over an hour ago, and before her the forest stretched out in various shades of green against an endless blue sky. She turned to look at Kane working at his desk. They had spent all morning organizing search parties and anyone with a helicopter was in the air, including the medical examiner, Dr. Shane Wolfe. “How could we possibly lose a white stretch limo? It would be one of the hardest things possible to hide and the fact that it’s filled with ten high school kids makes it even more impossible.”

“I called Bobby Kalo.” Kane stretched out his long legs and leaned back in his chair. “Now everyone is saving their CCTV footage to the cloud, he can gain access to everything that’s happening around town.”

Jenna pushed away from the counter and sat down slowly in her chair. Her back ached constantly and the weight of the baby was starting to become uncomfortable. She couldn’t wait for it all to be over but having a case to solve made the wait easier. “So what did our FBI computer whiz kid discover? Did he actually find them on the footage or has someone gone and mysteriously managed to change everything? With the AI capabilities at the moment, I’m not discounting any possibility.”

“He has footage of them leaving town, but nothing outside the range of the cameras.” Kane twirled a pen in his fingers. “Rio just issued a media report to ask anyone with dash cam or any visual sightings of the limo last night to call. Many people were heading toward the prom around the same time. As the limo service is new in town, its car gets a lot of attention, so we’re hoping someone noticed it, especially if it left the route it was supposed to be heading.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked at her. “I hope we find it soon or it will become another legend of Black Rock Falls and people will start seeing ghostly white limos traveling through town every prom night.” He shook his head. “Honestly, I’ve never lived anywhere with so many weird stories. The people who live here just live for this stuff. I hope the limo going missing isn’t a prank. Kids are doing weird stuff these days and posting it online. If it is, when we find them I’ll mention that I don’t appreciate being woken up at three in the morning, especially on my day off.”

Jenna turned to him. “I’m sure they wouldn’t put their parents through the torture of believing they’d been abducted.”

“I guess not.” Kane rubbed his chin. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, right now.”

Concerned for the young people, Jenna checked her phone for messages again. “There are many aspects of this case that don’t make sense. The main one is that kids of that age always have their heads in their phones. If something was going down, why didn’t they contact their parents? Even if they couldn’t call them because they had no bars, they could have sent texts. They would know that once the phones came back into range, they would send the texts. There were ten kids in the back of that limo, you would have thought one of them would have tried to make contact or called 911.”

“Which makes me wonder if it’s a prank.” Kane tossed the pen into a mug on his desk with aunt betty’s café written on the side. “Although I don’t believe kids would give up their prom for a joke, especially when Olivia and Evan were nominated for prom king and queen. It’s a big deal, isn’t it? I recall my prom. I even made it to a couple of reunions, but being in the service I didn’t get much downtime.” He smiled at her. “I bet you were prom queen.”

Jenna shook her head. “Nope I wasn’t. At that age, I was tiny and very scrawny. My natural color is blonde, as you know, but at that time it was a dirty blonde. I went to the prom with a nerd called Nigel. He was a very nice boy. What about you?”

“Well.” Kane ran a hand down his face. “Although bringing up past girlfriends is something I never want to do with you, we did promise to tell each other the truth. My date was a cheerleader by the name of Mia. We were prom king and queen.” He held up a hand to prevent Jenna from asking questions. “I left for college just after. I wanted to enter the Marines with a degree.”

Intrigued, Jenna leaned back in her chair. Talking about Kane’s real life was fraught with danger. Like her, he had a new name and face after terrorists placed a bounty on his head. She knew very little of his past life and he’d never revealed his true name. As far as anyone was concerned, that person died in a car bombing that took him and his pregnant wife, Annie. Kane was left with a metal plate in his head, which still troubled him in winter. “I won’t ask any more questions, but I’m intrigued to know what subject you studied. You seem to have so many skills, especially speaking nine languages.”

“Criminal justice.” He grinned at her. “Maybe someone up there”—he pointed to the ceiling—“knew I’d need it one day.”

Jenna’s phone chimed. She stared at the caller ID and then placed the phone on speaker. “Hi, Shane. Any news?”

“Yeah, it’s bad news I’m afraid. We spotted the limo at the bottom of the river near Bear Peak.” Wolfe’s footsteps could be heard as he walked through the morgue to his office. “I need a team to get out there and recover the bodies. Do you have anyone on your team who are divers? Only one of the search-and-rescue team is qualified. I’ll need Kane and I’ve called in Carter and he’s on his way. As luck would have it, he was in the air over Blackwater when I contacted him. He’ll be landing here in about ten minutes.”

Jenna nodded. Agents Ty Carter and Jo Wells worked out of the Snakeskin Gully FBI field office. Carter was a Navy SEAL before joining the FBI and came with a K-9 Doberman explosives-detection dog by the name of Zorro. His partner, Jo, was a world-renowned behavioral scientist.

“I’m here, Shane.” Kane stood and walked to Jenna’s desk. “I’ll go and check my diving gear. It’s stored here at the office.”

“I have extra gear and spare tanks, but I need people who will cope with dead bodies.” Wolfe sighed. “One of the search-and-rescue guys went in for a look and confirmed the fatalities. He won’t be going back down. There’s no way I can see of retrieving the limo.”

Shocked and desperately sad, Jenna forced her mind to stay focused. She needed to lead her team and not allow her pregnancy hormones to take over. “How did this happen? Any signs of it being an accident?”

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