Chapter 35

THIRTY-FIVE

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Monday, September 23

1:17 p.m.

The Fuentes home looked a little worse for wear.

More dishes in the sink, on the table, uneaten food clinging to the plates. Takeout containers. Laundry unfolded and scattered across the back of the couch. As though Annalea Fuentes had frozen in the middle of putting away her youngest's clothes. Evidence of a trauma rippling through the family home over the past two days.

Except Saige Fuentes was now sitting in the middle of it.

Detective Moore took the lead, notebook in hand. "Saige, can you tell us where you've been for the past two days?"

"I'm not exactly sure where. It was dark. Hot." The perfectly plucked and shaped eyebrows Leigh had coveted from recent photos around the house weren't so perfect anymore. A laceration cut through the left. The right no longer held down by styling product and left to fan out. Textured hair frizzed from the crown of her head to the ends. More wavy now than curly. There was an exhaustion Leigh couldn't even begin to sympathize with in the girl's eyes. Like she'd witnessed an entire lifetime of bad things that couldn't be taken back. "I remember before."

"Are all these questions really necessary?" Annalea Fuentes kept a tight hold on her daughter, obviously afraid for her fifteen-year-old to be taken from her again. "Look at her. Saige needs to see a doctor. She's been through enough."

"We have one en route. We thought Saige would be more comfortable here for the vaginal exam than in the hospital emergency room." Leigh had insisted. To ensure the evidence wasn't washed away this time, though she couldn't fault Ava for wanting to forget the nightmare she'd survived. Ever. But more than 60 percent of the sexual assaults in the United States went unreported. Leading to guilt, worthlessness, depression. Suicide. She didn't want that for Saige.

"Vaginal exam?" Annalea Fuentes's gaze ping-ponged between Leigh and Detective Moore. Her half-hearted laugh didn't reach her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Annalea, you're aware both Poppy Slater and Ruby Davis were abducted and murdered. We've recently learned their killer also sexually assaulted them before their deaths." Detective Moore's voice indicated she'd reached a point in this investigation where she couldn't get the puzzle together fast enough. For relief. For justice. For something real to hold on to. But in Leigh's experience that kind of dissociative behavior would only lead to more mistakes. "In addition to another girl in their friend group."

"Ava?" Saige's spine stiffened straight. A sense of panic overwhelmed her expression, eyes wide, dry lips painfully cracked at the edges. "Wait. Is she okay?"

"My daughter wasn't raped, Detective." Annalea Fuentes framed both hands on Saige's arms from behind, almost sitting her daughter taller in the process. Like a puppet who'd forgotten they were attached to a series of overhead strings. "She would've told me."

"Saige?" Leigh watched for any change in the girl's expression. For the shame or guilt or fear that'd plagued Ava on the bus. "Is that true?"

"Of course it's true. She doesn't lie to me," Annalea Fuentes said.

Frustration slid past Leigh's control. "Mrs. Fuentes, I'm sorry, but we're going to need Saige to answer for herself."

"I… don't remember." Saige swiped her palms down dirt-stained jeans with what looked like a new hole in one of the knees. Then again, holes were a hallmark of the current generation. The bigger and more widespread, the better. "My head is so fuzzy."

Detective Moore shoved to her feet, tapping the end of her pen against her notebook. "Annalea, could I trouble you for a glass of lemonade in the kitchen? It would really help."

"Right now?" Annalea Fuentes clutched on to her daughter even tighter.

"Yes, please." The detective was biting her tongue. Or grinding her teeth. Leigh couldn't tell save for the small muscles flexing and releasing in her jaw. "I'm feeling a little lightheaded is all."

"Of course." The mother patted Saige's arm. "I'll be right back. Okay?"

Leigh kept her next question to herself until Mrs. Fuentes was out of hearing range. "She loves you."

"Too much sometimes, but after she left my dad, I think me and my sister are all she has." Saige suddenly looked like her younger sister, the one who'd been spying through the doorway the last time Leigh sat here. Younger. Innocent. She didn't see the youngest today, though. Most likely at school. "Did he… Did he take Ava too?"

"No," she said. "She's staying somewhere safe. It'll take some time and a lot of effort, but she's going to be okay."

Tears glimmered in Saige's eyes. "I was the one who introduced them. Ruby and Poppy and Ava. None of them knew him before."

"Are you talking about Samuel Thornton?" Leigh asked.

"Yes." The fight Saige had shown her mother drained in an instant, and the scared fifteen-year-old girl Leigh expected looked as though she wanted to sink into the couch cushions and never surface again. "If I hadn't, maybe none of this would've happened. Maybe they would still be alive."

"Samuel Thornton got to Ava through social media. We're still sifting through Ruby's messages, but it looks as though that was how he contacted Poppy too." Leigh knew all too well what the weight of responsibility—of not seeing Chris Ellingson for who he was sooner, for not telling her parents about her fears—could do to a teenager. "It wasn't your fault, Saige. He was smart. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he used you to do it. He was the adult in every encounter. You four are minors. According to federal law, there is no way for any of you to consent."

Saige seemed to take her words to heart. For just a moment.

Leigh leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "You didn't get a chance to answer my question from before."

"Everything hurts." Saige rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down. Trying to hold back the tears. "I told you the truth. I don't remember drinking anything except some water that was in the room with me. My mom said I've been gone for three days, but to me it just feels like a few hours. How is that possible?"

"You look like you're suffering from a headache." Leigh pointed at the girl's temple. "What about your stomach? Any nausea? Throwing up?"

"Nausea." Saige grabbed her stomach. "But I haven't eaten in a while. At least, I don't think I have. I'm sorry. I can't really remember a whole lot."

"You don't need to apologize to me. You've been through something terrible and scary, and I understand it's going to take some time to untangle," Leigh said. "You're sure it was Samuel Thornton who abducted you?"

"Yes. He's been trying to message me, but I blocked him after the night we all had some drinks last summer." Saige pinched her eyes closed, trying to remember every detail right. "But he showed up outside my school before lunch. Said he could help me find Ruby."

The son of a bitch had played on Saige's emotions. Within less than two weeks, he'd discarded Ruby Davis on the beach and gone for another victim? And, again, a week before, had assaulted Ava? Not to mention hair recovered from Samuel Thornton's home possibly identified him as Poppy Slater's killer, only for him to wait an entire year before abducting Ruby? Only Ava had survived. Saige too. Why the inconsistency? What was different about them? Serial offenders found a unique satisfaction in hurting others. A high that couldn't be achieved anywhere else. But they also had strict personal rules on when to seek out that pleasure again, to avoid getting caught or drawing too much attention. Despite needs or compulsions as they claimed in court, most criminals had the ability to deny themselves from acting out. And the tendency to go longer between highs. But she'd never seen a cooling-off period as short as this.

Leigh forced the questions to settle at the back of her mind. For now. "Did you get in his vehicle then?"

"I wanted to find Poppy." The tears poured out then. Saige wiped at her face, but they came too fast. Her gasp was soaked with a tightness Leigh couldn't see.

"That's understandable. You were worried about your friend." She tried to keep her voice even, soft, to trigger the same kind of neutrality in her witness. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it took longer periods of time together. "Where did he take you, Saige?"

"I don't know. I woke up in a dark room." Saige shook her head, but despite Leigh's several attempts to reverse time with the same action, seconds still ticked by out of their control. "I called for help, but no one came. I screamed until my throat hurt."

Leigh fought the urge to cross the living room and put her arms around this girl. To comfort her the same way she'd comforted Ava after they'd gotten off the bus together. But she would have to let this play out. Emotion triggered memories, sensory experiences. Saige would have to stay scared just a little bit longer.

"But then there was someone else." Two divots furrowed between Saige's eyebrows. The tears stilled, her face smooth but for the patches of dry skin on her chin. "She told me she was going to help get me home. But… he was there."

Tightness intensified its hold in Leigh's arms. Her heart rate surged at the potential of a new lead. Of knowing whether or not Elyse was alive. "Who was it? Who was there to help you? Did you know them?"

"I'm trying to picture her face. I think I knew her." Saige pressed her palm into one eye. "She broke the lock on the door. She tried to help me stand, but?—"

"That's enough, Saige. You need your rest." Annalea Fuentes charged from the kitchen and crossed the living room, helping her daughter to her feet. Turning that disapproving face to Leigh, Saige's mother looked as though she intended to cut glass with her gaze alone. "You should be ashamed of yourself. Both of you. My daughter has been through enough. We just want to forget about this whole thing and move on. As a family."

Detective Moore set down a fresh glass of lemonade on the coffee table. "Annalea, the more Saige can tell us, the sooner we can get answers about who took her. We need her to tell us what happened and who else might've been there. To keep it from happening again and to protect more victims."

"I need you both to leave," Annalea Fuentes said.

Leigh leaned forward. "The physician?—"

"No. No physician." Annalea Fuentes shook her head. "I'll take her to our family doctor on the way to pick up my youngest from school."

Saige tried to leave her mother's protective embrace. In vain. "Mom, I want to help."

"You don't know what you want," Annalea Fuentes said. "For all we know you sustained brain damage and talking is making it worse. Now, please leave so I can take care of my family."

Neither Leigh nor Detective Moore could argue when asked to leave.

"Thanks for the lemonade." The detective excavated a business card from her slacks and handed it off to Saige, which her mother took on her behalf. "If you remember anything, please, don't hesitate to give us a call."

Leigh took the lead in heading outside to the porch. Looking out over the grass, she realized the property hadn't been as picture perfect as she'd first estimated. The unfinished home projects inside, dead garden attempts outside. Thinning of dead grass, straight down to dirt. The newly reorganized Fuentes family wasn't as stable as Mrs. Fuentes had wanted them to believe. "The mother's afraid if Saige talks, it'll only bring more misery. She's not wrong. They're never going to be the same after this."

"No, they won't." Detective Moore checked her phone then pocketed it without much of a glance. "I've got a lead on Samuel Thornton's sister. I requested a warrant for her financials when we were looking into family and friends he might go to for help. Turns out, she's been staying in town at one of the hotels for the past week. I'm going to see if she can give us any answers, then I want to go back to the Portman house."

"Let me know what you find out. I've got to check in on Ava. Make sure she's doing okay." Leigh crossed the expansive grass, phone in hand. "I'm going to request a ride-share to the hotel. Call me when you're ready to go back to the Portmans'."

"Will do." The detective rounded into her own vehicle and collapsed inside.

On the curb, she gauged the closest ride-share as the sun beat down.

"Agent Brody," a voice called from the front porch of the house. Leigh turned to catch Saige Fuentes coming across the yard. "There's something I didn't get the chance to say inside."

"Something you didn't feel comfortable saying in front of your mom?" Leigh cut her attention to the porch then back to the girl in front of her. "What is it?"

"She took me to a hotel after we escaped. The woman who was with me," Saige said. "I'm not sure which hotel. I don't remember a whole lot, but she told me to rest and made sure I wasn't hurt. Checked me out. Like she was a nurse or something. I think she… saved my life."

"Do you remember what she looked like?" It would be easy enough to corroborate Saige's statement with a few calls to nearby hotels. Leigh turned fully, no longer on the watch for Annalea Fuentes. "Or her name?"

"No, but she asked me to do something for her when I got home. She told me to give you a message." Saige extended her hand, fingers clenched in a fist. And handed off a gold disk necklace. Engraved with the letter P . "She said you would know what to do with it."