Chapter 24
McKenzie stood at the front of the briefing room with a map of Adirondack County tacked to the whiteboard behind him. Red circles marked locations they'd already searched. There were a lot of red circles.
The room was full. Callie in the second row. Noah against the back wall with his arms crossed. A dozen officers and deputies filling the chairs between them.
"It's just a matter of time before one of them is seen," McKenzie continued.
" Hollis knows we're looking for him, which means he's either hiding or he's moved out of the area.
Hailey left on foot with no phone and no money.
Someone is going to spot one of them. In the meantime, we keep the net tight and we keep looking. "
Noah felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned. A young officer, one of the newer ones whose name he kept forgetting, leaned in.
"Hailey Benton's father is in the lobby. Says he needs to speak with you."
Noah excused himself and slipped out through the side door.
The lobby was busier than usual, a couple of people waiting at the front desk, a woman filling out a form on a clipboard, the phones ringing in overlapping cycles.
Mr. Benton stood near the entrance, still wearing the same dress shirt from two days ago, now wrinkled, his tie absent, his face showing he hadn’t slept.
"How can I help you, Mr. Benton?"
"Hi." He glanced around the lobby, then stepped closer.
"A woman was near our mailbox last night.
Late. I turned the porch light on and she hurried away.
In the dark I thought it was Hailey." He swallowed.
"I caught up with her on the sidewalk. She looked scared.
I asked her what she was doing. At first she said she had the wrong address.
But I noticed she had a letter in her hand.
I saw our name on it before she shoved it in her pocket. "
"Go on."
"That's when she changed her mind and handed it to me. I asked her what it was. She told me it was best I just read it. She said she was sorry about Hailey and that she would have come forward sooner but she was scared."
"Did you get a name?"
"No. But she sounded Mexican. Dark hair with a streak of red in it. Brown eyes."
"Marisol Delgado?"
Mr. Benton frowned. "You know her?"
"I think I've seen her before. Not too many Mexicans around here." Noah held out his hand. "The letter?"
Mr. Benton reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Noah opened it. The handwriting was small and careful, pressed hard into the page. A single line.
Samuel Bridger is not who he says he is and he is a dangerous man.
Noah read it twice.
"She told me not to tell anyone," Mr. Benton said. "Said she was risking her life. She was going to place the letter in our mailbox but got scared when I came out."
"She didn't want to be seen."
"And she might not have been if we weren't already looking outside.
" His voice cracked slightly. "My wife keeps checking.
She sits by the window expecting Hailey to walk in any minute.
" He steadied himself. "Anyway, I wanted to know what she meant by the letter, but she said she'd already said too much. She ran off."
Noah folded the letter and slipped it into his jacket. "I'll look into it. Thank you for bringing this in."
Mr. Benton nodded. He looked like he wanted to say something else but couldn't find it.
Callie was in the vehicle before Noah finished explaining. They hit the road heading south toward Elizabethtown, Noah pushing the Bronco harder than he usually did on these roads, the morning light slanting through the trees and striping the windshield.
The Strutz Agency was closed. The brass number on the door between the storefronts caught the light but the windows above were dark. Noah tried the handle. Locked. He stepped back onto the sidewalk and looked up at the apartments on the second and third floors.
A man came out of the hardware store next door. Mid-sixties, apron, reading glasses around his neck.
"Help you?"
"Does a Marisol Delgado live here?" Noah asked, gesturing up at the apartments.
"She did. Cleared out her things this morning. Saw her heading out with a bag."
"Do you know where she was going?"
"Said she was heading home. Catching a bus."
"When was that?"
"Quarter of an hour ago."
"Thanks," Noah said, already moving. He was in the Bronco with the engine running before the man had finished pulling his glasses on. Callie jumped in and they tore out of the space and through the streets of Elizabethtown toward the bus station.
The Greyhound stop was in a strip mall off Hadjis Way, tucked between a laundromat and a tax preparation office that was only open three months a year.
As they swung into the lot, a Greyhound bus was pulling away from the curb, its diesel engine growling, its turn signal blinking as it angled toward the road.
Noah cut the wheel hard and brought the Bronco across the bus's path. He was out of the vehicle with his badge raised before the bus had finished braking. The driver's face went white behind the windshield. The doors hissed open.
Noah climbed the steps. "State Police. I need a moment."
The driver nodded, his hands still on the wheel.
Noah turned and looked down the aisle. The bus was full.
Twenty-five, thirty passengers staring at him with the wide-eyed confusion of people whose Tuesday morning commute had just become something else.
He walked down the aisle, scanning faces.
An elderly couple. A college kid with headphones. A woman with a toddler on her lap.
Then he saw her. Near the back, head down, hoodie pulled up, a duffel bag on the seat beside her. The streak of red in her dark hair was visible even under the hood.
"Marisol?"
She glanced up. Her eyes were puffy and her face was bare of makeup, which for a woman who spent her days applying it to others told its own story. She looked at Noah, then at Callie standing at the front of the bus, and her shoulders dropped.
A moment later the Greyhound pulled away without her. Marisol stood on the curb with her duffel bag at her feet and the diesel fumes dissipating around them.
"There isn't going to be another bus for a few hours," she said.
"You quit your job?" Noah asked.
"Didn't want to work there anymore."
"Would that have anything to do with your visit to the Benton family last night?" He held up the folded letter. "What did you mean when you said Samuel Bridger is not who he says he is and is dangerous?"
Marisol looked at the letter in his hand. Then she looked off into the distance, past the strip mall, past the road, toward something only she could see. The morning was bright and the parking lot was empty except for the three of them and the sound of traffic from the main road.
"I had an apartment above the Strutz Agency," she said. "Samuel let me stay there in exchange for doing makeup for the girls that came through. That's my background. Cosmetology. It was money under the table."
"You're not here legally?"
She shook her head.
"How long have you been in the country?"
"Three years."
"How did you meet Samuel?"
"Through the Three Pillar Community. I needed a place to crash. Food. They took me in. I gave them some sob story about running away from my parents."
"But you hadn't?" Callie said.
Marisol glanced at her. "No. Anyway, that's where I saw the flyer for the agency.
A lot of the girls knew about the place.
I figured I could offer my services. Make some good money.
Get out from the community. They were a little heavy-handed, if you know what I mean.
" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the way someone does before they say something they've been holding for too long.
"I saw all manner of girls come through that place.
My apartment was right above Strutz. It was usually quiet at night.
The agency would be empty. But one night I heard a commotion below. And a girl crying."
She pulled the hood down off her head and ran both hands through her hair. The streak of red caught the morning light.
"I was meant to be away that weekend. I figure that's why he didn't think anyone could hear him.
But I came back early. After I heard the crying, I went down to see.
I have keys to the agency." She stared at the ground.
"I entered and saw a girl lying on the couch.
Partially nude. She was out of it. Really out of it.
Like she'd been given something. A drug, or.
.." She trailed off. "She was groaning. Crying.
She saw me and tried to get up but she couldn't. She looked like she'd had too much to drink.
There were bottles of beer on the side. She wanted help and I would have, but. .."
"What girl?" Noah said.
"Hailey Benton. I'd done her makeup before."
"What night was this?"
Marisol gave the date. Noah looked at Callie. The night Hailey disappeared.
"I heard someone in the bathroom," Marisol continued. "His voice. Samuel Bridger. Telling her to shut up. I heard the toilet flush and so I got out." She put her head in her hands. Her fingers pressed into her temples. "I went back to my apartment. I didn't know what to do. If I said anything..."
"You'd be deported," Noah said.
She nodded.
"About ten minutes later I heard another commotion.
A door slammed. I heard him calling her name and I looked out my window and saw the girl stagger out of the main doors below.
" Marisol lifted her head. "She ran off into the night.
Samuel appeared right after her, holding his head.
Under the streetlight I could tell he was bleeding.
There was blood on the ground the next morning.
Droplets. He cursed a couple of times, called out to her, and then charged after her. "
"Do you know what time this was?"
"I don't know. Late."
"And before this. Was he always like that with the girls?"