Vaughan checked his notebook and nodded. “The place to go next is the gym. Apparently, Hadley spent most of her waking hours there.”
“Agreed.”
The trail of bread crumbs they were following was scattered at best. But it was all they had for now. “Right.”
They drove to the gym located on King Street, parked in a lot behind the building, and pushed through the glass front doors and walked up to the front desk. A young woman wore a T-shirt that read KING STREET GYM. She had blond hair pulled into a perky ponytail and wore almost no makeup on flawless skin.
She looked up at both of them, smiling until she saw Vaughan’s badge. “Is this about Hadley? We all just saw the news.”
“Yes,” Vaughan said. “She worked out here but was also an employee. I would assume she would have some acquaintances.”
“She and Sharon hung out a lot. Sharon’s the fitness director and has her office in the back. I’ll show you.”
“Did you know Hadley well?” Zoe glanced at her name tag. “Misty.”
“I’ve only been here a few weeks. But she was always nice to me. I hope when I get to be her age, I’m in as good a shape.”
When Zoe had been this kid’s age, she’d still been dancing. In those days, she had felt invincible. Her body had responded when she had demanded it, and the aches and pains had been minor annoyances. She had been told she had tremendous potential, and she had begun to look at the more established dancers with a similar kind of awe. Never once had she pictured herself as anything other than a dancer.
They found Sharon sitting behind her desk when Misty knocked on the door. Sharon, like Misty and Hadley, was fit, her arms and legs finely toned. Zoe and Vaughan introduced themselves, and when Misty left, they sat in a pair of wire chairs next to a set of scales.
“I still can’t believe Hadley is missing,” Sharon said. “Who would do that to her?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Zoe said. “What can you tell us about Hadley?”
“She was a hard worker. If she wasn’t training or teaching, she was working out. She never sat still. I asked her once if she ever relaxed, and she laughed and said she couldn’t. I wonder if she knew something like this might happen.”
“Did you know about her affair with Roger Dawson?” Zoe asked.
“Yes. It was hard to miss. Those two could barely keep their hands off of each other.”
“Dawson said Hadley wanted to divorce her husband,” Vaughan said.
Sharon shifted in her seat. “It sounds cheap when I hear you talk about it. But I think she loved Roger.”
“She was going to leave Mark?” Zoe asked.
“Yes. She was only hesitating because of Skylar.”
“Why?” Vaughan asked.
“Sky has been a handful the last ten or eleven months. Hadley caught her sneaking out, and she had grown very secretive. Hadley was getting frustrated with her. Last week, she said life would be easier if she’d never become a mom.”
“Did she have a desk or a locker?” he asked.
“She did. I can show you.” She rose, almost relieved to be getting out of the room. They walked past several doorways before Sharon pulled out a key and unlocked a door. She pushed it open and flipped on the lights.
The office was barely big enough to hold a small desk and two chairs. The desk was clean, except for a picture of Hadley and Skylar and an award. The picture had been taken at the beach and appeared to be as recent as this past summer. Both Hadley and Skylar had broad grins that lit up their faces.
“That was taken on the Eastern Shore,” Sharon said. “She and Skylar went away for the weekend.”
“Mark didn’t go?” Zoe asked.
“She said he had to work.” Sharon folded her arms. “Hadley wanted to be close to Skylar. That’s why she entered them in the spring DC metro area fitness dance competition. They were both great and won first place. It was even in the papers.”
“What was Hadley’s relationship like with Mark?” Vaughan asked.
Sharon hesitated. “You know about his affair, right?”
“Yes,” Zoe said.
“I can tell you that it really irked Hadley that Mark and Veronica still saw each other every day at work. I think that’s what finally drove Hadley to Roger.”
Zoe sat at the desk and opened the center drawer and found basic supplies: pens, pencils, paper clips, and rubber bands. She reached inside the drawer and patted her hand along the back edge but felt nothing. The next drawer contained Hadley’s calendar with workout schedules. A pat down of this drawer also revealed nothing. The third and final drawer was deeper than the first two and contained fitness manuals.
She thumbed through each book and found only random notes that Hadley had made in neat handwriting along the edges that referenced questions about the book’s content.
When she searched the back of the third drawer, her fingers skimmed over the edge of something. She removed a worn envelope and its contents.
The much-older picture featured a family of four, including Dad, Mom, and their two smiling blond daughters. There was no mistaking the girls. They were Hadley and Marsha.
All the Princes were smartly dressed and looked happy. This picture appeared to have been taken shortly before Marsha had vanished. She flipped it over, and written on the back were the words I remember. Do you?
“Remember what?” Vaughan asked.
“Good question. The photo is weathered and bears the photographer’s embossed logo,” Zoe said.
“Why would Hadley hide the picture in the back of an office desk drawer?” he asked. “If it upset her that much, why not just destroy it?”
“My guess is she wanted to, but something held her back,” Zoe said. “Guilt. Remorse. Fear.”
“Have you ever seen this picture?” Vaughan asked Sharon.
“About three weeks ago, I saw it on her desk, but as soon as I came in her office, she put it away.”
“She would have been about seventeen when this was taken.” Zoe showed the picture to Vaughan.
Interest flickered in his gaze, but he said nothing. He snapped a picture of the photo with his phone and removed a plastic evidence bag from his pocket. “Do you mind if I keep this?”
“No. No. If you think it will help find Hadley and Skylar,” Sharon said.
“Thank you, Sharon,” Zoe said. “Detective, are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Neither spoke as the beat of music, the clink of weight machines, and the whoosh of elliptical trainers followed them out through the glass front doors. The parking lot was thinning as the ten o’clock closing time approached.
When they reached his car, she asked, “What did you make of the note?”
“Written by someone who knew Hadley before her sister vanished.”
“What do you think the chances are that we’ll pull a good print from the photo?”
“Slim. But it’s worth a try.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tuesday, August 13, 10:30 p.m.
Alexandria, Virginia
Just over Fifteen Hours after the 911 Call
The police tip line lit up within minutes of the press conference, and as predicted, it was generating dozens of leads. Several callers said they had seen either one or both of the Foster women, but each time a uniformed officer followed up, the lead took them nowhere.
Vaughan was pulling into the police station when his phone rang. “It’s the medical examiner.”
Spencer checked her watch. “They’ve had the Jane Doe from the dumpster for two hours. And Galina Grant for almost two days.”
“Detective Vaughan.” It had been less than two days since he’d dropped Nate off at school, but it felt as if it had been a lifetime ago.
“This is Baldwin.”
Phil Baldwin was the medical examiner, and the two had worked together on many cases. “Phil. Sorry I didn’t get by today for the Grant autopsy.”
“I watched the news and know you have your hands full. I wanted you to know the examination of Galina Grant is complete. As you suspected at the crime scene, it was the knife wound to her neck that killed her. Even if she’d been in an emergency room seconds after it happened, it would have been nearly impossible to save her.”
That gave Vaughan little comfort. “I also sent a Jane Doe your way.”
“After I conducted a preliminary external examination on this victim, I expedited her autopsy.”
“Why?”
“Her wound patterns are almost identical to Galina Grant’s.”
Vaughan was silent for a moment as he weighed this new development. “Special Agent Zoe Spencer and I can be there in half an hour.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The drive west to the Commonwealth of Virginia Medical Examiner’s Northern Virginia office took almost forty minutes. He looped around the I-495 beltway but was quickly brought to a standstill on I-66 thanks to a fender bender. It was past eleven o’clock before he pulled up in front of the modern building outfitted with large windows.
Both showed identification to the night guard, who called down to Baldwin. Minutes passed before the elevator doors opened and Baldwin stepped off. Dressed in scrubs, Baldwin was a tall man in his late thirties with wide-set shoulders and thick dark hair. A five-o’clock shadow blanketed his square jaw.