Page 43 of The Girl Who Was Taken

Seated across from each other a few minutes later, Livia pulled out a yellow legal pad. She observed DianaWells. An overweight girl, one side of her head was shaved nearly bald, with a sudden part that gave way to a wave of purple hair combed to the side. A nose ring and a lip ring and too much makeup begged for discovery and attention.

“I don’t want to waste your time, Diana, so I’ll get right to the point. How did you know Casey Delevan?”

“I didn’t really know him. I mean, I didn’t even know his last name until I saw him on the news as the guy who jumped from Points Bridge. I just met him once.” There was a short pause. “You really pulled him out of the bay?”

“Not exactly. I did the autopsy on him. How did you meet him?” Livia asked, trying to find a way to elicit information from this girl without mentioning that Diana was profiled in Casey Delevan’s drawer along with two other girls—one dead, the other missing—and not daring to discuss her suspicion that Diana Wells was next on his list.

“At a bar,” Diana said.

Livia waited.

“Look, I talked to the police about this already.”

“About Casey Delevan?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“That summer,” Diana said. “The summer I tried to join the club.”

Livia cocked her head to the side. “What club?”

Diana looked at Livia with another puzzled expression. “The Capture Club. I thought that’s what you were calling about.”

Livia contemplated the best approach to handle Diana Wells and decided honesty was easiest.

“There were some confusing findings in the postmortem exam. I’m trying to get some more information about Casey Delevan from people who knew him.”

“Confusing, like, he didn’t jump from the bridge?”

Livia opened her palms and shook her head. “We’re not sure. Tell me about this club.”

“He called it the Capture Club.”

“Casey?”

“Yeah. It was a bunch of people who talked about missing persons cases.”

“Talked about them, how?”

“I don’t know, just, discussed them. All the details, what the cops knew, and their own theories.”

“Cases from around here?”

“From everywhere. Around the country. Around the world, really. I found out about it after I started talking with Casey in online chat rooms.”

“So you met him online?”

“Yeah. No, not really. I mean, I didn’t know his name when I was talking to him online. In the chat rooms he just told me about the club and that he was into missing persons cases just like I was, and that if I was interested in joining the club I could become a member.”

“And were you interested?”

“Yeah,” Diana said, shrugging as if others’ judgment meant nothing to her. “I was into that stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Kidnappings.”

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