Maybe she should have given Hadley more time to process, but she wanted to strike while the iron was hot. As she raised her hand to press the bell, angry voices, full of frustration, echoed from the home.

She rang the bell, and when no one answered, she knocked harder. Finally, the voices silenced, and footsteps hurried toward the door. When it snapped open, she found herself staring at Mark Foster. He was a tall man, but not as fit and lean as she remembered from the days she had covered the Marsha Prince disappearance. He wore suit pants, a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a red tie that he had loosened.

“I’m Nikki McDonald. I’m here to see Hadley and talk to her about her sister, Marsha.”

“No. My wife is not up to giving a quote.”

“Mark, who’s at the door?” The woman’s voice grew louder, along with clipped footsteps.

Nikki recognized the petite blonde, who looked very much like the girl she had tried to interview eighteen years ago. Her body remained trim and fit, though her angled face had lost the softness of youth. “Mrs. Foster.”

“I’ve seen you on television before.”

“Nikki McDonald. I also talked to you years ago.”

“You flew out to Oregon.”

“Yes, I did.” She’d arranged to do a fifth-year anniversary piece, and Hadley had agreed to the interview. But when she had flown out to Portland, Hadley had refused to see her. She had changed her mind.

Instead of wallowing in the failed story, she pressed forward. “I’d still like to sit down with you and talk to you about your sister.”

Hadley’s cheeks flushed. “I have nothing to say.”

“Years ago, I remember you mentioned that you and your sister did not get along.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” Hadley said. “I loved my sister.”

“Some of her friends said that you two were fighting a lot that summer. Your parents had money for her education but not yours.”

“I was immature in those days. I should have been kinder to my sister,” Hadley said. “Ms. McDonald, our family has been through a terrible ordeal. We don’t need you digging into old wounds.”

“If not me, then it’ll be the cops. They won’t let this go.”

“Good night.” Mark moved to shut the door.

Nikki stepped forward and put her foot on the threshold so he could not shut it. “No other reporter knows as much about this case as I do. I’m the best person to tell your sister’s story.”

“She would not want her story told,” Hadley said, stepping forward. “She’d have hated the attention.”

Mark stepped between Nikki and Hadley. As he had been back in the day, he was her protector. “This is enough. Leave, or I’m calling the cops.”

“There are going to be other reporters,” she warned. “Talk to me. Tell me your story.”

“We’re going to ignore all the reporters, including you,” he said. “This is a private family matter.”

“There is nothing private about it,” Nikki countered.

“Just like before, the story will die, and it’ll be forgotten,” Hadley said.

“Do you really want Marsha forgotten?” Nikki said.

A girl appeared at the top of the stairs, and she regarded them for a beat before she began to descend. “Mom!”

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my sister and what I could or should have done to save her,” she hissed. “But I can’t change the past.”

Nikki lowered her voice, leaning forward. “What is it about your past with Marsha that you want to change?”

Hadley pressed her fingers to her temples and turned from the door. “Leave me alone.”

Hadley’s last words had barely been spoken when Mark pushed Nikki back and closed the front door in her face.

Nikki stood on the porch, more irritated with herself than put out. As she walked down the steps, she heard shades snap shut behind her in window after window.

Her desperation for a story had gotten the better of her, and she had pushed Hadley too far and too fast. But she would regroup and return. This story was her ticket back, and she was not going to let it go.

 

Minutes before seven, he watched Skylar’s sappy boyfriend, Neil, pick her up, and then almost immediately, Hadley pulled out of the driveway.

He waited for Hadley’s car to go around the corner before he started his engine and followed. Normally, Hadley waited longer to leave and was careful about her speed in the neighborhood, but tonight she appeared in a rush.

He wasn’t worried, because she always went to the upscale hotel in Crystal City where her lover waited in the dimly lit bar. They would meet, flirt, and then find their way separately to his room. She always left by eleven and by midnight was home, showered, and in bed, curled on her side, likely pretending to sleep.

However, this Monday was different. The cops had come to her house. He didn’t need to see badges to know they were the law. The plain suits and the way they had moved had given them away. The camera he had mounted on a neighbor’s tree had alerted him. They were there to inform Hadley about the gift he had given Nikki McDonald.

God, if I could have been a fly on the wall. It would have been priceless to see Hadley’s expression when the cops told her about Marsha’s bones rolling around in that chest.

He tried to imagine Hadley’s reaction. She was always cool and could hide her true feelings. He, better than anyone, knew that. Hadley had spent eighteen years pretending she did not know what had happened to Marsha. Now she had to be wondering if the secrets were finally going to bubble to the surface.

As he followed her through Arlington, he already knew she would not waver from her Monday night dalliance. Her regimented schedule was the only thing keeping her glued together after today’s knock on the door.

CHAPTER SIX

Monday, August 12, 8:30 p.m.

Northern Virginia

One Day Before

Zoe was not surprised that Vaughan’s home was modest. Cops in the Northern Virginia real estate market did not have many options, and she imagined he counted himself lucky that he was inside the beltway.

As he pulled into the driveway, security lights mounted on the side and front of the house clicked on. The one-story brick house was located on a cul-de-sac that was ringed by a half dozen larger homes more recently built.

There was no garage, and the closely cut grass had browned and bristled in the August heat. No flowers in the edged beds or extrafussy accoutrements such as flags or garden statues women tended to like. But there was a wooden fort built in one large tree, and judging by the graying wood and weathered rope ladder, it had been there at least a decade.

As she stepped out of the car, her general assessment of the Vaughan home was that it was normal.

He pressed several buttons on the keypad mounted by the front door, and it opened. A sensor inside the house triggered interior lights, and a security alarm pinged as he punched in the code.

Okay, maybe Vaughan’s emphasis on security was not exactly run of the mill. But once anyone saw what a homicide detective witnessed, they understood monsters did not just inhabit fairy tales.

The interior setup was very masculine. Large overstuffed couch, twin recliners, and a massive television mounted over a fireplace that looked unused. The pictures on the walls were themed around his son or sports. The place was clean and neat, and the only hints of Nate’s major transition were several unfilled boxes.