“I’ll send Vaughan a picture of the bust so he can cross-check it against any pictures he has on file,” she said. “His department’s public information officer is arranging a news release. If we can publicize her face, we might get an identification.”

“Good.”

“Ms. McDonald has called my office several times,” she said. “I haven’t taken her call, but her voicemail messages make it very clear she wants access to the case. Kind of a finder’s fee.”

“She’ll get the news along with everyone else.” His mouth bunched in curiosity as he regarded the still face. “I understand the apartment building where the skull was found is a half mile from I-95.” The north-south interstate’s twelve hundred miles of roadway ran through a dozen states and was a main artery for running drugs and weapons and human trafficking.

“Correct. Jane Doe could be from anywhere.”

Ramsey stood back from the bust, folding his arms over his chest. “Her face is familiar.”

Zoe looked again at the bust. “You’ve seen her before?”

He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “Ever had a name on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t quite grasp it?”

Instead of pressing him for the name, she took a different tactic. “You’ve worked hundreds of cases.”

His gaze cut back to Zoe. “Yes. And I’ve seen the faces of a thousand victims.”

“Given she was in the basement for up to twenty years, you could have been a new agent when you saw her.”

“Early 2000s.”

“Remember, she’d have been a girl of means and likely missed when she vanished.”

He flexed his fingers and then suddenly straightened, snapping his fingers. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it right away. This is Marsha Prince.”

“Prince?” Zoe said. “Why is that name familiar?”

“She was a rising sophomore at Georgetown University and was in Alexandria working in her father’s business. She was days away from returning to school in August 2001 when she vanished.”

Tumblers clicked into place, and the memory unlocked. The case had been profiled at the academy. “She was living at home with her parents, who lived in Alexandria. She literally vanished, and the cops never figured out what happened to her.”

“That’s the one,” Ramsey said.

There had been search crews scouring the region. Cadaver dogs had canvassed the parks, fields, and riverbeds, dry from drought that summer. As Zoe studied the face, more fragments of the forgotten case slid together into a cohesive picture.

Young, blond, smart. With the world before Marsha Prince, her disappearance had set off a firestorm that had rippled through all levels of law enforcement, local politics, and television news shows. Her name had been kept alive for a few years until finally time had cast Marsha into the sea of lost souls.

“Should we notify her family that we may have found her?” Zoe asked.

“Mom and Dad are both deceased,” he said. “She does have a sister, Hadley Prince, but last I heard, she’d moved away.”

“Without DNA, we’ll need a visual identification from family.”

“Turn it over to Detective Vaughan. The ball’s in his court now.”

 

I rocked the finals! This is going to be an epic summer.

Marsha Prince, May 2001

CHAPTER THREE

Monday, August 12, 1:30 p.m.

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

One Day Before

A homicide detective’s case rarely fell into place easily and quickly. Solving it required legwork, poking and prodding of countless witnesses, sifting through hours of surveillance tapes, and the ability to study a murder scene until the critical details presented themselves.

A cop needed patience. Lots of it.

And so did the father of a teenage son.

The past year had been a study in tolerance and persistence as Alexandria homicide detective William Vaughan had shepherded his son through his final year of high school. Teenage hormones, brooding silences, and a couple of broken curfews had dominated their spring. The kid chomped at the bit and thought he knew better than anyone, especially his old man. Many a night, Vaughan had stood on the back porch of their home, drunk a beer, and counted the seconds to this moment.

“Do you have everything?” Vaughan asked his son.

Nate opened a careworn dresser in his dorm room and shoved in a handful of T-shirts. “I’m good.”

Vaughan looked at the small cinder block room sporting two twin beds, identical desks, and a long dresser with enough drawer space for two boys. Nate’s roommate, Sam from Roanoke, who had red hair, glasses, and a lean frame, stacked a handful of books on his desk.

Nate had been Vaughan’s to raise since his divorce. Connie had remarried and had decided a seven-year-old boy did not fit into her new life. She had loved the boy. Wanted to be a part of his life. But she just had not wanted to be hampered with the day-to-day grind.

Single fatherhood had scared the shit out of Vaughan, but he had figured out a way to make it work. To say this was a case of “father knows best” would be a gross overstatement, but he and Nate had done pretty well together. He was damn proud of the young man Nate was becoming.

Faced with the freedom that had tantalized Vaughan for the last couple of years, he suddenly did not want it. “How about I buy you boys a pizza in the dining hall? I hear it’s good.”

Nate shrugged. “I could eat.”

The kid could always eat. “Sam, join us? Might as well send you two off with full bellies.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” Sam said.

The three made their way across the campus to the dining hall fashioned out of glass and metal. A modern marvel that looked more like a fancy resort than a dining hall. The kid was going to have the best time of his life, and Vaughan was envious. His college and graduate school days had been parceled around part-time jobs that supported him and his then new wife.

Vaughan told the boys to get a table in the crowded room filled with students and parents while he scored a couple of pizzas. Fifteen minutes later, he spotted the boys sitting at a corner table.

As he approached, he caught the tail end of a conversation centered around a hot girl living on the fifth floor of their dorm. Rebecca.

Vaughan set the pizzas and sodas on their table.

He sat and flipped open the lids. The boys dug in immediately. This was his last moment with Nate for a while, and he wanted to savor every bit of it.

Vaughan reached for a slice and had it inches from his lips when his phone chimed with a text. It was from his commander, Captain Kevin Preston.

Homicide. Motel off S. Bragg Street. How soon can you be back?

He turned the phone facedown, determined to enjoy these last moments. But try as he might, the text chewed on him.

Nate bit into a slice. The kid knew the phone rarely brought good news. “You got to go?”

Vaughan took a bite and then accepted the inevitable. “Sorry, pal.”

“Murder calls.” Nate looked at Sam. “Dad’s a homicide detective.”

Vaughan wiped the grease from his fingers on a napkin and tucked his phone in his pocket. “Never a dull moment.”

Nate rose with him and almost leaned in for a quick hug before he seemed to remember they were not at home but in front of his new roommate and the entire freshman class.