“Why did you quit a couple of weeks before Marsha Prince vanished?”
“I quit because he was cutting back my hours. I couldn’t make my rent, so I headed to Florida to work for a friend.”
“And ended up doing time in prison.”
He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. “Shit happens.”
“Did you kill Marsha Prince?”
“Cops were here earlier asking me the same question. The answer is the same. No, I did not.”
“Were you sleeping with her?”
He reached for the drill, and its whir-whir silenced her questions for a moment. “She was of age, and the sex was consensual. I’ve always liked the ladies, and the good Lord has seen to it that they like me back.”
“Who do you think killed her?”
“I always thought Hadley did. She was always jealous of her sister, and they fought a lot that last summer.” He set the drill down and turned the tire. Satisfied, he lowered the lift.
“What did they fight about?”
“Anything that was bugging Hadley at the time. She was a manipulator. Face of an angel. Heart of the devil. Someone you wanted to tread softly around.”
“Could Mark have killed Marsha?”
“I don’t think he had the stones.”
“Could Mark have killed Hadley?”
Jason paused, staring at the tire. “Like I said, I don’t think he had the stones, but if there was a woman who could tune a man up and piss him off to the point of murder, it was Hadley.”
“What about Skylar?”
The humor in his eyes dimmed. “That kid is a survivor. She’s alive and well.”
“That sounds like wishful thinking.”
“It’s not. It’s fact.”
“I did a little research on the woman who owned the storage unit. She has no idea how the trunk got there.”
“That so?”
“It really was a perfect hiding place. She’s eighty-eight, and it’s not likely she keeps up with her unit or visits very often.”
He stared at her with an intensity that made her feel as if they were the only two people in the world. “That’s fascinating.”
“Someone wanted me to find Marsha. But what keeps chewing on me is why now? Why after all this time?”
“I’m not the kind of guy to ask a complicated question like that. I’m a simple man at heart.” He rested his hands on his hips. “How about you and I get a drink tonight after I get off work? I might have all kinds of good things to tell you.”
She smiled. “How about I take a rain check on the invitation?”
“I’m always here, sugar.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Wednesday, August 14, 4:30 p.m.
Alexandria, Virginia
Thirty-Three Hours after the 911 Call
When Vaughan and Spencer arrived at the police station, they went directly to Captain Preston’s office. The captain, in his midforties, was tall, with a naturally dark complexion, and wore a perpetually skeptical glare. Vaughan knocked, and the captain waved them in as he rose and said, “That’s right. Do what you can. Now I got to call you back.”
Preston’s phone’s receiver landed in the cradle with a firm click as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Foster showed up thirty minutes ago. He said he wants to confess to his wife’s and daughter’s murders. But I’ll warn you, he seems like he’s high on pain medications.”
“So we can’t use anything he says in court,” Vaughan said.
Spencer shook her head. “Has he said where he stashed Skylar’s body?” she pressed.
Preston pursed his lips, as if pausing to control anger. “He said it doesn’t matter where his daughter’s body is now. She’s with the angels.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” Vaughan growled. “I want to know what happened to that kid.”
“That’s what I thought.” Preston nodded in the direction of the interview rooms. “He’s all yours.”
“I’m on it.” Vaughan stopped in the doorway, his mind already turning with questions. “Does Foster drink coffee or soda?”
“Coffee,” Preston said. “One sugar.”
“Thanks.”
Vaughan paused at the break room and made a fresh pot of coffee. He offered a cup to Spencer, but she declined, and he then poured one for Foster and the other one for himself. A packet of sugar and a stir stick, and he was ready to go. He had learned a long time ago that if you wanted a man to talk about his crimes, he had to believe you were his friend.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Spencer said. “It’s too easy. All of a sudden, he wants to talk? What about his lawyer? He can’t be happy about this.”
His eyebrows knitted. “Sometimes it simply is. Let me talk to him alone. I don’t want this to seem like an interrogation.”
“I’ll be across the hall, watching on closed-circuit television.”
“Perfect.”
Legal pad tucked under his arm, he entered the small interview room, where Mark Foster sat at the table. Foster cradled an empty foam cup marred by small divots dug out by his thumbnail.
Vaughan set the fresh cup of coffee, sugar, and stir stick in front of him and then sat kitty-corner to him. “Thought you could use this,” he said.
Foster blinked slowly and nodded. “Thanks.”
Vaughan sat back in his seat and casually sipped coffee he really did not want. There was an art to looking calm and friendly when all he wanted to do was reach across the table and grab him by the collar.
“Can I get you anything else?” Vaughan asked. “Are you hungry? I could get us a pizza or burgers.”
Foster let a breath trickle out over clenched teeth. He swayed slightly. “No. I don’t need anything else.”
Vaughan carefully sipped the coffee, categorizing the dozens of questions that demanded to be asked. Instead of firing the first, he paused, knowing if he built a rapport, Foster might believe they were on the same side. The goal now was not to get a pound of flesh but to find the girl.
“I know you’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress,” he said. “I can’t imagine how difficult the last few days have been.”
“It’s been the worst time in my life,” Foster said, dropping his gaze to his cup. “Never did I think I’d be here.”
“I believe you.” Vaughan set his cup down and reached for a pen in his breast pocket. He clicked the end of it and let the silence settle between them, knowing it could coax some kind of conversation.
Foster reached for the sugar packet and carefully tore off the top, poured it into the cup, and stirred. “Hadley hated it when I used sugar. She said it was poison for the body.”
“You’ve got to live a little,” he said, forcing a smile.
Images of Hadley Foster’s mutilated body, as well as the dead bodies of Galina Grant and Veronica Manchester, crowded around him. He took a mental step back from the memories as he added sugar to his coffee.
“That’s exactly what I used to tell her.” Foster took a sip and set the cup down carefully.
“Was she always so set in her ways? Disciplined, I guess?”
“Not when we first met.” His mind seemed to drift. “She was carefree and so much fun. In those days, I woke up and fell asleep thinking about her.”
“When a woman gets in your blood, it’s hard to shake,” Vaughan said truthfully.
Foster looked up. “A teenage boy never had a chance against Hadley Prince. She blew into my life like a hurricane, and I was never the same.”
He leaned back, shifting tactics again. “How did you meet Hadley?”
“She was running a register at her father’s shop. Once I saw her, I applied for a job.”
“You worked there for a summer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Marsha also worked there.”
“Yes.”
“Before we talk about Hadley, I’d like to talk about Marsha Prince.” Vaughan would work the conversation around to Hadley in a minute. “Were she and Hadley close?”
“On the surface, but Hadley resented Marsha because their dad’s business had been profitable enough to send her to Georgetown. The tables turned when it was Hadley’s time to go. Marsha was still going back to Georgetown, and Hadley was headed to community college, if she was lucky.”
“Did they fight?”
“Sure. Sisters fight. But Marsha didn’t instigate the trouble. Hadley did.”
“I have three sisters. My sister Kendra was always the one stirring the pot.” He sipped his coffee. “But Kendra would never kill any of our other sisters.”
Foster’s brow tightened with a frown as he stared into his cup. “And Hadley wouldn’t have killed Marsha. I always believed that deep down she loved Marsha. Hadley was never the same after Marsha vanished. She carried tremendous guilt over all the fights she picked with her sister.”
“It must have thrown her off after our visit,” Vaughan said.
“She was a mess. I couldn’t get her to calm down. I was supposed to go back to the office and offered to stay home, but she insisted I go. She wanted to be alone.”
“But she wasn’t alone that night, was she?”