“That was pretty much true. We dug into every aspect of Rich Causey’s life. No one knew—or no one would tell us—where he might have gone with Jade. I spent months on this case. I couldn’t find anything.” Cate picked up the box and looked closely inside. “I’ve often wondered if both Rich and Jade were dead. This jawbone is a pretty firm sign that Jade didn’t survive . . . along with that notation on the article.”
“What notation?” asked Tessa, sliding the newspaper closer.
Henry flipped it over. Someone had printed in pencil along the top. Tessa read out loud, “‘Jade didn’t make it, and now I’m worried he’ll do the same to my baby. Please help me.’”
The room was quiet for a long second.
“What the hell?” asked Bruce. The young deputy crossed his arms and glowered. “It sounds like Rich Causey is still causing problems with women and their children.”
“What if the penciled message is old?” asked Tessa. “The newspaper is seven years old—we don’t know that the message is new.”
“Maybe it’s not,” said Cate. “But the FBI needs to know about this immediately.”
“I agree,” said Tessa. “I’ll see that my office provides whatever support they need.” She tilted her head as she studied Cate. “You okay?”
Cate met her gaze, and Henry saw the pain in her eyes. “This was a tough case for me. Kori and I connected on a personal level. I lived in her house for two weeks, never letting her out of my sight while a team worked the case. She treated me like a sister. Now I feel horrible that I haven’t been in touch with her in over two years. I used to call or email her every few months and let her know that we hadn’t forgotten her daughter and were still looking for new leads.” She grimaced. “I haven’t done it since . . .”
Since I was shot.
“I hope the case hasn’t been overlooked by the bureau since then,” Henry said.
“I assume someone else is handling it and keeping in touch with her. It will never close until her daughter turns up. She told me several times how thankful she was that we were trying to find her daughter. She knew we were investigating every single lead.”
“Cate, is there any chance that Kori was involved in her daughter’s disappearance?” Tessa asked slowly. “And her husband’s?”
Henry swallowed. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him.
“Of course there’s a chance,” Cate answered with a shrug. “The team discussed it several times, but other than Rich’s friends telling us that Kori and Rich argued a lot, we never found any evidence to support that.”
“My question is, Who wrote this?” said Henry, tapping a finger on the table next to the handwritten sentence on the newspaper. “And how current is it?” He’d felt disgust for Rich Causey while reading the article. The written plea for help had cemented it.
“The FBI will look into it,” said Cate. “But no trace of Rich has ever shown up since he disappeared seven years ago. He’ll be hard to find.” She reached for the newspaper but pulled her hand back at the last moment. “I wish I hadn’t handled the paper. Hopefully I didn’t ruin any evidence.”
Henry looked from the newspaper to the tiny bone on the box. “No one expects to be handed murder evidence on the street.”
“It’s not murder yet,” said Bruce. “Right now, it’s still a kidnapping.”
Henry exchanged a look with Cate.
She thinks it’s murder too.
2
Cate’s mind had been a whirlwind ever since she had seen the small mandible, details of the old case flooding her thoughts. She’d gone to work at the bakery, only to have her grandmother, Jane, kick her out after she messed up an order of brownies.
“Your mind is somewhere else. Shoo,” Jane had said, flicking her hands at Cate. “I don’t need you here making more work for me.”
Everyone did what Jane ordered.
Her grandmother had that way about her. A natural manager. She knew how to get shit done and make the workers happy while doing it. She’d been a force on the island for decades.
So Cate had retreated to the bookstore and unpacked new inventory, offering the boxes with crinkly packing paper to Ghost, the bookstore cat. The cat alternated between leaping into boxes and thrashing around as noisily as possible to abruptly going motionless under the brown paper, hiding and waiting for prey—which was Cate’s wiggling hand. She received a few scratches, but Ghost’s enjoyment and the sight of his huge hunter-mode pupils made them worth it.
Cate’s phone rang, and the cat lived up to his name, vanishing like a ghost under a shelf. The name of Cate’s ex-boss, Phillip, appeared on her screen.
Finally.
“Phillip?”
“Good to hear your voice, Cate. I knew you wouldn’t stay away from the FBI for long. I’m starting to think you have something internal that attracts our cases. They can’t resist the pull. And you can’t either.”
“I admit this case has stirred up some old feelings. It was always personal to me,” Cate said.
“That’s what made you a good agent,” Phillip said. “You had the right amount of heart. And this case definitely made a lasting impression on everyone who worked it.”
Images of Jade had been running through Cate’s mind. The three-year-old had wispy pale-red hair and startling blue eyes. Most of the case photos had shown her in perky high pigtails, flashing the widest grin that showed the tiny silver crowns. Cate had wanted more than anything to bring the child home to her mother.
Would Jade’s father have simply let her die?
“What’s the latest activity on her case?” Cate asked.
“There’s been one review since you left,” said Phillip. “During the review, several database searches were updated, looking for any sign of Rich Causey. A half dozen phone calls were made to people involved in the case to see if any new evidence had turned up or if there had been sightings of Rich or Jade Causey. A phone call was also made to Kori Causey, who refused to speak to the agent. There’s a notation here that she was upset that you weren’t the one calling.”
“Did a male agent call her?”
“Yes.”
“Kori doesn’t trust men and especially those in law enforcement. Please make a note that she needs to be contacted by a woman in the future. She was very angry that the county deputies didn’t take her seriously about Jade’s disappearance. And remember how controlling Rich Causey was? Even years after he vanished, she struggled to believe that not all men were like that.”
“I remember now,” said Phillip. “Didn’t he keep Kori from getting a driver’s license?”
“Yes, and wouldn’t let her have anything else in her name. He made her completely reliant on him. At the time, she didn’t understand that it wasn’t right. It took a few months after Jade’s disappearance before it sank in that she could go anywhere and do what she wanted.”
“I remember being stunned that it was that bad,” said Phillip. “I didn’t understand how someone could be so out of touch with how the world works. TV and the internet bring the world into the home—most people have that window, but I guess Rich controlled those too. He essentially kept Kori and Jade in a bubble.”