The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [59]
Burrell left before I could thank her. I went to the window and looked out on the vast parking lot. It occurred to me that I hadn’t told Burrell what I was searching for. Nor had I mentioned that I had proof that Sara Long and Naomi Dunn’s abductions were linked. Burrell needed to know these things, and soon. Otherwise, our friendship would take another major hit.
A noise turned my head. My old unit had silently entered the War Room and lined up behind me. Their names were Tom Manning, Jillian Webster, Rich Dugger, Shane James, and Roy Wadding. I had trained each one of them to find missing people, and it made me proud to know they were still at it.
“You’re back,” Manning said.
“Just for a little while,” I replied. “I don’t know how much Burrell told you. I need for you to make phone calls to police departments around the state.”
“What are we looking for?” Webster asked.
“Missing young women who were nursing students,” I said.
“Over what period of time?” Manning asked.
“The past eighteen years. So far, we have two victims, both of whom were tall and athletic. I’m guessing this will hold true for the others.”
“How do you know there are more victims?” Webster asked.
I hesitated. Experience came from practice, and practice made perfect. Mouse and the giant had done this many times before—that was why I was having such a hard time catching them. There were more victims, and they were hiding in musty police files across Florida.
“Trust me,” I said. “There are more.”
The War Room was outfitted with sixteen phone lines, and my old unit was soon talking to their brothers-in-arms around the state. They didn’t need me looking over their shoulders while they worked, and I crossed the room and stood at the windows.
I stared at the mind-boggling sprawl, the cookie-cutter developments and cloned shopping centers stretching as far as my eyes could see. Growing up, two hundred thousand people had lived in the county; now it was almost two million. The past was gone, and I could not look at what had replaced it without feeling regret.
“I’ve got a hit,” Manning called out ten minutes later.
I went to Manning’s desk. The detective sat with his necktie undone and a phone pressed to his ear. He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece before speaking.
“I’m talking to a detective in Alachua County,” Manning said. “Guy’s going to retire in two weeks, so he pulled out a stack of cold case files to give to the guy replacing him. He was reading them the other day, and found a case from twelve years ago where a college girl disappeared. She’d been in the nursing program at the University of Florida in Alachua.”
My hands gripped the back of Manning’s chair. “Can you get this guy to e-mail you the file?”
“He doesn’t know how to operate a scanner, so he’s going to fax the report to me.”
I went to where the fax machine sat and made sure there was paper in the tray. Sixty seconds later I grabbed the sheets as they were printed. The typeface was faint, and I held them up to the light as I read. The missing girl’s name was Cindee Hartman, and she’d been twenty when she’d vanished. Cindee hailed from Orlando, was tall and comely, and played on the women’s field hockey team. Cindee’s apartment had been ransacked during her abduction, the furniture all but destroyed. The abduction had taken place over a holiday weekend, and there had been no witnesses. The report referenced the fact that Cindee’s complex was where Danny “The Gainesville Ripper” Rolling had butchered three students in 1990. Although the complex’s security had been updated since the killings, Cindee’s abductor had still managed to avoid detection.
My hands started to tremble. Two similar abductions could be written off as a coincidence, but not three. Cindee Hartman had proven my case.
“Find what you were looking for?” Manning called out from across the room.
“Yeah,” I said.
I ran down the police station stairs and outside to my car. Buster danced on the upholstery as I hopped in and grabbed the Naomi Dunn file from where I’d stuck it between the seats. I