Profile (Page 18)

I knew he taped me. I knew this.

But for some reason I had forgotten it.

Jesus.

What else have I forgotten?

Chapter Thirteen

“SHE’S not close. This feels wrong.”

“Well, Vaughn, we have to start somewhere. There’s a reason they never caught the guy, OK? He’s smart. He’s calculating. He’s a planner. But everyone makes mistakes. Everyone leaves a trail. He had to have contact with Grace at some point. So someone saw him. Maybe not with her, but someone knows this man. And it’s our job to whittle away at the clues until we find that someone.”

I look down at Felicity and realize she’s in charge here. Not me. Not Conner, who is back in California sifting through records trying to make the connection Felicity is referring to.

“So come on. This is the current 4-H office. We should be able to get the names of past leaders from them.”

We enter the nondescript cinderblock building on the county fairgrounds and Felicity takes over. She talks in hushed tones about Grace, only she calls her Daisy. The women in the office nod solemnly and even though they should put up a fight about handing over information, they don’t. Small towns make regulations up as they go when circumstances are extraordinary.

This situation is certainly that.

We leave thirty minutes later with one name. There’s only been two 4-H leaders in this county for the past twenty years, and one died last fall. So… one name to go on.

“It’s better than no names, Vaughn.”

I say nothing.

It takes us another thirty minutes to drive to the farm where this woman lives, and by that time my body is pumped with adrenaline and my leg is bouncing.

Felicity knocks on the door alone. My movie-star status is not helpful. It’s a distraction. So I wait in the car and watch Felicity pantomime her request. I can see her in profile, so I imagine her questions as her lips move.

Can you think of anyone suspicious? Can you remember anyone taking an interest in Grace… only I’m sure Felicity calls her Daisy since that’s what these people know her by.

I imagine all the ways in which this woman say no, and then Felicity is walking back towards the car.

My eyebrows go up in hope.

“Some guy in Alliance, Nebraska.”

“Tell me exactly what she said.”

“Well, she said no to the suspicious people and all that. She said yeah, she remembers that camp trip because all the leaders that year were women and Grace was the only girl in archery. There was a rift in a group of friends who all hung out together and five of them took swimming instead of archery. Grace was a good archer, she won prizes at the fair every year. So she split up from them and went to the camp.”

“What else? That can’t be it, that’s not enough.”

“Well, that’s it for camp. But then I asked her about the special effects stuff. Did she know anyone who was into that sort of thing. And she said yeah. A 4-H club up in Alliance, Nebraska had an excellent theatre arts program in the high school for almost a dozen years. Some stage manager from Hollywood was from there when he came home after his father died, he stayed and taught theatre in school. She said he was gifted in that sort of thing.”

“Bingo. That’s our guy.”

“I don’t think so. He’s too old, V. That’s not him. But we can see him. Maybe he knows someone else who fits the profile?”

Fuck. “Fuck!” I say it out loud. “It’s gonna be dark soon and I swear, I just have this really bad feeling, Felicity. If it gets dark and we don’t find her, she might be gone forever.”

“We’ll just keep moving forward then, V. That’s all we can do.” Felicity picks up her cell phone and calls Conner to tell him what we found, but has to leave a message.

We ride in silence back to the airport and that lingers for the hour ride up to Alliance. Conner calls back and we check our name with his list, but this old ex-theater person is not on the Invisible Man roster.

Felicity is right. He’s probably not our guy. We can only hope that he gives us another clue once we talk to him.

Chapter Fourteen

AS soon as the video begins playing on the TV, I know I can’t watch it. I spring up off the couch, catching my captor off-guard, and lunge for the camcorder that’s plugged into the TV by a cable. My hand clenches around the cord just as he grabs my hair and flings me backwards. I crash into the coffee table and a sharp pain shoots up my spine.

The Invisible Man leans down into my face, spittle shooting out the hole he’s using as a mouth, and he seethes. “You. Will. Pay. For that.”

I spit in his face and he slaps me. Once to get my attention and again to make it hurt. My lip is split open in three places now.

He yanks me to my feet by my hair and pushes me face forward into the couch, straddling my waist.

“Get off me!”

“Listen to me, Daisy. You have forgotten the rules, but I understand. It’s been a long time. So I’m going to be very patient with you. I’m going to be very patient and start your training all over again. Tell me,” he whispers in my ear. Chills run up my spine and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “Tell me the first lesson you learned.”

“You need to be trained,” the man tells me from behind the mask of Danny. “So you know how to behave. So you know what’s acceptable and what’s not.”