Page 27 of All the Missing Pieces

I grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m hitting the lake with my paddleboard again tomorrow morning.”

“Glad to hear it. Be safe,” Sully called, reaching for the end button.

“You too.”

The video call ended, and I was left to look at the background of my desktop. It was a photo of Avery and me. We were thirteen and in our backyard in Ohio. We’d been having a summer picnic,and my mom had taken the photo without us knowing it. Our heads were tipped back, and we were laughing full-out.

Avery had always been shyer than me. She didn’t laugh like that with just anyone. Only the people she trusted most. And that laughter was a gift, a gift I got because I was in that inner circle.

I couldn’t remember what we’d been talking about at the picnic. What had spawned that sort of cackle. And that killed. It felt like I lost more and more pieces as time passed. I’d replay old voicemails and videos just to remember what Avery’s voice sounded like. But I didn’t have her laugh. Didn’t have that full-out, uninhibited cackle that she only shared with me and a couple of others.

Pain—the kind that made it hard to breathe—washed through me, digging in and pressing against my chest. It wasn’t constant anymore, the way it had been in the beginning. But that just meant, when it sidelined me out of nowhere, it stole my breath.

Only it wasn’t out of nowhere. Not really.

I tugged the keys from my pocket and found the tiniest one, the one that resembled a mailbox key. It wasn’t as if I had visitors to my van, but still I kept one drawer on my desk locked. It wasn’t the one that held my recording equipment, even though that would’ve fetched more than a decent price if sold. This drawer housed something much more important.

Sliding the key into the lock on the bottom-left drawer, I twisted it, feeling the lock give way. Countless file folders peeked out. Names and locations. All the details I could find. But I went for the first file, the one where I housed my overview.

Sometimes, I’d deep-dive into one specific case; for others, I needed the big picture. Today it was the overview. I needed to see how all those pieces connected and remind myself why whatlay in front of me was so important. It wasn’t just Emerson’s story. It was twenty-three other women's too.

I laid the file on my desk, making Tater jump down and move to her cat tree in the corner, and steeled myself before opening it. I always did. Because what lay inside suggested that the monster who’d taken Emerson was still out there and he’d only grown crueler.

Flipping open the file, I stared down at the first sheet of paper. As I’d pulled the strands together, I’d put them in chronological order. And as I’d done that, I’d seen how the monster had developed. How he’d twisted further and further.

It started with Emerson. A thwarted abduction. I hadn’t found a single case that fit the parameters before her.

And after her, he’d gotten smarter, learned from his mistakes. The next girl he’d taken, he’d used chloroform, knocking her out for longer, so when she woke on the side of a road, everything had been hazy. That may have been his only gift, that she didn’t remember the assault that had occurred.

The next five victims he’d left alive, but with growing expressions of violence. Until number seven hadn’t survived at all.

That was his turning point. When evil truly took hold.

No one survived after that as far as I could tell. And as time passed, the bodies that were found showed increasing evidence of torture from their time in captivity.

The pressure was back in my chest, the burning pain. I just kept breathing. I focused on the ties between the women. The ties that no law enforcement thought were enough to pursue, not even the FBI when I’d brought the new information to their attention.

All blonds ages sixteen to twenty-four. Athletes who excelled at their chosen sport. It wasn’t always the same one, everything from tennis to soccer to gymnastics. They were state champions,medal winners, scholarship recipients. All were high-achieving students as well, and when I’d done a deeper dive there, I’d found out they had all been members of the National Honor Society.

I’d gone down a rabbit hole with that, searching every employee of the organization I could find. But there wasn’t a single one I could prove had been away from home all the times girls had gone missing.

Because not all the women I’d identified as his victims had been found. In fact, only about two-thirds had. Survivors or bodies that families had been forced to lay to rest across the country. But I knew the torture of not having bones to put in the ground, a framework to say last goodbyes within as I hoped they’d find peace. It was a special kind of torture, the type that occasionally slid the tiniest flicker of hope into that black night. The taunting voice that said,Maybe she’s still alive.

I flipped to the next page, my finger following down the list of names. Some missing persons cases. Some open murder cases. That finger stopped on the name that burned.

Avery Bennett.

Victim number ten. Lacrosse player. Arizona State Champion. National Honor Society. National Merit Scholar. Recipient of the Hayes Fellowship for sports medicine. Daughter. Sister.

Gone.

As if she’d disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again.

“I’m going to find you, Avs. I promise.”

No matter how many interfering sheriffs got in my way. No matter what accusations they threw at me. I would find my sister, my twin.

Whatever it took.

---