Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
By the time Kaely and Noah got back to the house, Kaely was a little concerned. She’d tried calling Erin several times, but her phone had gone straight to voicemail. She assumed it was the storm that was causing the problem. Still, she’d feel better once she could check on her.
“I still don’t understand what happened to the car,” Noah said as they pulled into the garage. “We just got it back from the shop. I guess the mechanic missed something. He’s usually so good. It’s weird.”
His concern over the car added to Kaely’s unease. “It will be in the shop again by tomorrow,” Kaely said. “We’ll find out what’s wrong.” She shrugged. “Sometimes car engines mess up. Maybe it flooded?”
“Initially the water on the road wasn’t deep enough to flood the engine.” He shook his head. “Like you said, we’ll know more tomorrow.”
They headed into the house, and Kaely called Erin’s name. Chester sat in the kitchen and got up when they came in. Mr. Hoover was a few feet away, watching them. As soon as he saw them, Chester started to whine.
“Where’s Erin, boy?” Kaely asked.
He whined again and began to pace back and forth.
Kaely noticed his leash on the floor. “Noah, I think he needs to go out. Why don’t you take care of him?
I’m going to check Erin’s room. Maybe she’s lying down.
It’s late, and I know she was exhausted after spending so long at the command center.
” Even as Kaely voiced the possibility, she knew that couldn’t be right.
If Erin was in bed, Chester would be with her.
And she would never forget to take Chester out.
Her heart began to beat faster, and she gulped in air.
“Sure.” Noah grabbed the leash and attached it to Chester’s collar. The dog pulled on the leash as if he didn’t want to go out. “Must be the rain,” Noah said. Chester had never had any problems with weather when Kaely stayed with Erin a few months ago. Something was wrong.
Kaely turned and hurried toward the guest room while Noah urged the reluctant dog to go outside.
When she opened the door, Kaely found Erin’s purse on the floor; the contents, including her phone, lay scattered nearby.
No wonder she hadn’t been able to get through to her.
Kaely ran upstairs to check, even though she knew in her heart that Erin was gone, and she hadn’t left under her own steam.
“He did his duty,” Noah said as Kaely came back into the living room. They were both wet. “But he didn’t want to. Whatever’s bothering him has nothing to do with needing to go to outside.” He frowned when he saw Kaely. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Didn’t you find her?”
“No,” Kaely said, her voice shaking. “She’s not here, Noah. The alarm wasn’t on when we came into the house. Someone took her. Erin’s in trouble.”
Noah pulled out his phone. “I’m calling Nick. We need his help.”
Kaely hurried over to the front door and checked out the alarm again.
If someone had come into the house who didn’t belong, the alarm company should have been notified.
They would have sent help. She stood there, staring at the keypad for several seconds.
She’d told Erin to turn it on before she left. Had she just forgotten?
“Nick’s on the way over,” Noah said. “He happened to be close by.”
“Oh, Noah, what are we going to do?” Kaely said, fighting to remain calm. “I’m afraid she’s in danger. I think the UNSUB has her.”
Before Noah could respond, the doorbell rang.
While Noah answered the door, Kaely went back to the bedroom.
She looked around, hoping to find some kind of clue that would show her where Erin was.
She couldn’t find anything helpful. “She’s just found You,” Kaely prayed, softly, unable to keep tears from dripping down her face.
“Show her who You are. That You’re her protector.
Her defender. Please, Heavenly Father, keep her safe, and show us how to find her. ”
She searched the room one more time, mostly because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Was it true? Had the UNSUB abducted her the way he’d taken Patricia Long? They still hadn’t found her or her body. Was Erin going to disappear too?
“Kaely.”
She turned around and found Noah and Nick standing in the doorway. “We need to check our outside cameras,” Noah said. “That will tell us who took her.”
Kaely felt stupid. She should have thought of that right away. The fact was, they rarely looked at them. There just wasn’t much of a reason to do so—until now. “My phone’s in my purse. I need to get it.”
Noah could have pulled up the images on his phone, but Kaely felt she needed to do it. She had to do something that would make her feel she was helping to find her friend.
Noah and Nick followed her into the living room, where she grabbed her purse. It only took her a moment to pull up the images. The first one was from the doorbell camera. But what she saw left her speechless.
“I can’t . . . Wait a minute,” she finally said.
She advanced the images until she saw the person who was holding onto Erin, supporting her since she was clearly impaired.
She could barely walk and the look on her face showed confusion.
Was she drugged? She watched as Erin was loaded into a car and driven away from the house.
She switched to the camera that was mounted on the house.
Before the car drove out of sight, she paused the image.
“You can make out the license plate,” she said to Nick. “Can you put out a BOLO?”
“Yes,” Nick said, “but I also want to see if we can track the car. There are traffic cameras around town. Let’s see if we can figure out where they went.
” He shook his head. “I know Shannon. I . . . thought we were friends. We just had coffee this morning.” He suddenly went pale.
“She asked questions about . . . about Erin. I thought . . . I thought it was because she was famous. I hope I didn’t say the wrong thing. ”
“There’s nothing you could have said to make this happen,” Noah said. “Unless you gave her our alarm code or told her when Erin would be alone.”
Nick shook his head. “Of course not.” He ran his hand across his jaw. “I just don’t understand . . .”
“You don’t understand,” Kaely said. “Shannon’s been my friend ever since she moved here. Why would she do this? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Didn’t she move here not long before the murders started?” Noah asked.
“A few months before the first one.” Kaely suddenly felt dizzy and sat down on the couch.
They’d been looking for a man. There weren’t many women serial killers, although it had happened.
One of the most famous was Aileen Wuornos, but her victims were all men.
A woman who killed women? It was so rare that it had never occurred to her that Shannon could be the perpetrator.
If only she hadn’t been so focused on men.
She looked at Noah. “How could I have missed this?”
“Honey, I’ve been working on a profile with others from the BAU.
We didn’t seriously consider that the UNSUB might be a woman.
The murders weren’t . . .” He paused for a moment.
“She really was using those novels as a guide. She never developed her own MO. That’s how she was able to hide.
Shannon is young and strong. And if she’s drugging her victims .
. .” He frowned. “Nothing ever showed up in the tox screens, but I’m certain only the basic tests were done.
As you know, there are drugs that don’t show up unless more in-depth tox screens are done. ”
“But why? Why would she do this? And why Erin?”
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Listen,” Nick said. “She might think she’s a step ahead of us, but I know something she doesn’t. We’ve been installing a new security system in Virginia. It looks for certain license plates.” He quickly wrote down the license plate number showing on the image from the camera.
“You can track her car with it?” Kaely asked.
“I’ve heard about this,” Noah said, “but it’s only in spots, right?”
Nick nodded. “That’s true, but I can also pull up traffic light cameras. Between those two, we may be able to track the car close to its final destination.”
“How long will it take?” Kaely asked.
“Let me grab my laptop from my car,” Nick said.
He hurried toward the front door. Once he went outside, Kaely turned to Noah. “Do you really think this will work?”
“Yeah, I do. If the traffic light cameras don’t give us the information we need, this new system can. Those cameras are set up in various places. Like Nick said, they look for the license plate as well as the car. It’s not hard to use. In fact, I think almost anyone can do it.”
Nick came back inside and put his laptop on the coffee table.
He sat down and opened it. Then he brought up a website and entered the license plate number.
Kaely waited, holding her breath and praying this would work.
She couldn’t think of any other way to find Erin in time.
Kaely had to believe that she was still alive.
“I found them,” Nick said suddenly. He clicked some keys and then said, “After she left here, they traveled west toward the highway.” Kaely could see the images Nick was able to pull from the various cameras.
He paused for a moment and then clicked the keys again.
“Then they drove a few more miles.” He shook his head.
“I lost them. Just a moment.” He stared at the screen for several seconds.
“The car doesn’t show up again, and there aren’t any traffic lights in that area.
That means Shannon must have turned off.
” He frowned. “They may be in an area with a few houses and a couple of warehouses. If I remember right, they might be abandoned. The only other thing near the spot where we lost them is an old cemetery. My money’s on one of those warehouses. ”
Kaely looked at the area he was referring to. “That’s still a rather large area. We need to find her before it’s too late.”
“Shannon would have turned off onto one of these three streets.” He pointed them out.
“She would want to reach her destination quickly because she knows that by now, you’ve contacted the authorities.
She’ll want to hide her car so we can’t find her.
I’m calling the police and some of my deputies.
I’ll send them over there right away. Hopefully, we can locate them quickly.
” He sighed. “This rain certainly doesn’t help anything. ”
As Kaely waited for Nick to make his phone calls, she prayed once again that God would keep Erin safe. She glanced at the clock on the wall. How much time did they have? Would it be enough?