Blood and Sand Read online

  I thank each of them for what they’re doing to help find Taylor and I am so grateful for the opportunity to do so.

  As Roderick pulls up, I see Charis in the distance heading this way.

  “Give me just a minute,” I say.

  I walk over to meet Charis.

  “I was hoping to see you,” I say. “To check on you and tell you how sorry I am about Magdalene. Sorry I haven’t been able to until now.”

  Her eyes are red and puffy, and it’s obvious she’s been crying.

  “That’s so thoughtful of you,” she says, “but don’t you dare apologize for anything. With what you’re dealing with right now . . . It means all the more that you thought of me.”

  “And thank you so much for searching for Taylor,” I say. “Especially after us finding Magdalene the way we did.”

  Tears crest her swollen eyes and she begins sniffling. “Sorry,” she says.

  “I was just thinking how everyone is expressing condolences to Keith and Christopher,” I say. “Comforting them. You were her mom and—”

  “Am,” she says. “I am her mom. Will always be.”

  I nod. “Of course. I just meant you had her longer than they did and yet I can’t imagine you’re receiving even a small portion of the outpouring they are. They are sitting in the parlor getting to grieve and be cared for while you’re out here searching for Taylor. I just wanted to let you know that I know they weren’t the only ones who lost a child tonight.”

  She steps toward me and hugs me and starts to cry harder.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so much. That means . . . so . . . much. You can’t know what that . . . does for me.”

  We embrace for a long moment.

  As we let go of each other she says, “The only other person to express what you are, to check on me in any way—and it really surprised me that she did—was Brooke Wakefield. I’m sure Demi would if she was here. Derinda, if I saw her, but—”

  “Demi is here,” I say. “She came back to help with the search when she heard what happened.”

  “Really?” she says.

  “Yeah. I just saw her a few minutes ago. Why?”

  “I’m just surprised,” she says. “She was supposed to leave town for a conference earlier tonight. And I’d expect her to call or text me if she was here. You sure it was Demi that you spoke to?”

  I nod. “Positive.”

  “Wow. That’s truly . . . strange. I’ll have to call or text her to see what’s going on. I’m really stunned she hasn’t said anything at all—especially given the fact that she knows we found Magdalene. I just thought she didn’t know yet.”

  “Will you do me a favor?” I ask.

  “Sure.”

  “Will you go inside and find Derinda and the boys and let them know how you’re feeling?” I say. “Will you give them the chance to console and comfort you even as you try to do it for them?”

  She hesitates.

  “I can take you in there and explain it to them if you like.”

  “No, it’s not that. I don’t mind doing it. I know they’ll be great—especially Derinda. She’s such a born caregiver . . . and if anyone knows what a mother would be feeling right now . . . but I’d feel guilty taking that much time away from searching for Taylor.”

  “I understand and appreciate that,” I say. “I do, but as Taylor’s dad I’m the one asking you to.”

  She nods and gives me a little smile as more tears stream down her cheeks. “Thank you. Okay, I will. But just for a few minutes.”

  We begin moving in the direction of the house and Roderick’s unmarked.

  “You said Brooke had been kind to you,” I say. “When and where was that? Do you know where she is now?”

  She shakes her head. “That was much earlier. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  Day 225

  Day 225

  All my days aren’t total and complete and absolute agony, but most of them are. I have far more bad days than good. Far, far more.

  What if I kill myself on one of my particularly bad days, which I have come close to doing many times, and Magdalene comes home a short while later? Right now it’s that thought that’s keeping me from drinking the Drano in my darkest moments.

  41

  “Are you sure she doesn’t have a kid?” Roderick is asking.

  We are standing in what looks like a toddler’s room after having searched the rest of the house.

  “According to all her friends she doesn’t,” I say.

  “Then this may be one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.”

  On the drive over we had discussed the legality and morality of breaking into Brooke Wakefield’s home if no one was there to let us in, which is what we had expected to be the situation.

  After debating whether any judge or jury in the world would consider these exigent circumstances, I concluded that the best thing to do was for me to break in, and, seeing evidence of a break-in, Roderick could enter to investigate.

  “Okay,” he says, “say she really wants to have a baby or adopt a child, do you do all this before you even have the prospect of having or adopting?”

  I think about it.

  “What alarms me more than the fact that she would do all this before having a child is the fact that it looks like a child has stayed in here.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he says. “I couldn’t figure out what else was bothering me about it, but that’s it.”

  As clean and pristine as the room is, the things in it are not brand-new and unused.

  “I suppose it’s possible that she bought everything on eBay or at yard sales,” I say, “but she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would do that, and nothing else in her house seems secondhand.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he says. “She’s always so put together, like she just stepped away from a fashion photoshoot—and her shop and the rest of her house look the same way.”

  “One possible explanation is that she took Magdalene and kept her in here for a while and then killed her or she died somehow and she placed her body in a freezer. That would explain why she has the room and why it is slightly used.”

  “If that’s the case,” he says, “Magdalene’s DNA will be in here.”

  “But if that was the case, Taylor would be in here now,” I say.

  “Unless she’s keeping her somewhere else until the searches are complete.”

  “But I’m not,” Brooke says from the doorway.

  We startle and spin around toward her.

  “I haven’t kidnapped anyone—not Magdalene, not Taylor, no one. I’m not a monster. I’m just a woman without a man who wants a child. Did I jump the gun on creating a nursery? Maybe, but I also use it as my nieces and nephew’s room when I keep them.” Her eyes lock onto mine. “I understand you’re desperate to find your daughter. If I were lucky enough have a child and she went missing I would be too, which is why I’m not going to report you two breaking into my house and violating my privacy and defiling this room that is sacred to me. That is if you leave right now and don’t come back.” She turns to Roderick. “And you. Consider yourself in my debt. Just know that if I never need a law enforcement–related favor in the future, it’s you I’ll be calling.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was wrong to break in. And you’re right it was the act of a desperate person. I’m running out of time and I have no idea where Taylor is. Thanks for being so understanding and please forgive me. But know it’s all on me. I did this. Not him. He just came in to make sure I wasn’t doing anything else stupid and to take me out.”

  “He owes me a favor nonetheless,” she says. “And I will collect on it one day. Now, if you two are serious about finding that poor little girl, you need to look somewhere else. Because she’s not here.”

  Day 232

  Day 232

  How????????????

  How the hell was is done?

  In addition to everything else—like the who and the why—h
ow Magdalene was even taken is driving me mad.

  I can’t figure it out.

  Even if I’m willing to consider it could be one of our close friends, and at this point I am, I still can’t figure out how the hell they did it.

  It’d make far, far more sense if it was me or Keith or us working together like so many suspect, but I can’t see any way in which someone else could even begin to do it.

  It’s definitely something I will sit and babble about in my padded room wearing my straitjacket.

  42

  I’m standing on the empty street in front of Keith and Christopher’s home with Henrique Arango at sunrise.

  I’ve spent the night trying to figure out who has Taylor and searching for her—including Clarence and Sarah Samuelson’s freezers at The Sand Witch after leaving Brooke Wakefield’s house and Wren Melody’s bookstore storage room after that.

  It’s cool and quiet, a slight dampness in the still night air.

  A smudge of pale orangish-pink stretches across the eastern horizon like an artist’s first stroke on an otherwise untouched canvas.

  “Wonder how many more of these I’ll see,” he says.

  That not only makes me mourn for him and for my own mortality, but also question whether Taylor will ever see another one.

  “How long do you have?” I ask.

  “Minutes, hours, days, weeks maybe,” he says. “Probably no longer than that.”

  “I’m very sorry,” I say, and I truly mean it.

  “Don’t be,” he says. “I’ve gotten far more out of this life than I ever put in. Sure, I’d like some more time, but I would if I were eighty-six instead of sixty-eight.”

  I had no idea of his actual age, but even with the ravages of the war he’s been fighting visible on the battlefield of his body, I would’ve said he was younger. He’s got a bit of the eternal boy about him, evident in the gleam in his small eyes and the curiosity of a thirst for knowledge still present in his sharp mind.

  “As I’ve gotten closer and closer to my final deadline,” he says, “do you know what I’ve found more and more appealing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The concept of reincarnation. Do you know how badly I’d like to get another chance at this? I truly believe that given enough attempts, I could finally get this right.”

  I certainly get the appeal of the great wheel of Samsara, of life and death and rebirth that continues until we’ve shaken off all the bad karma we’ve attracted over the years. Who wouldn’t want the chance to do it over, better, best?

  An intensifying yellow and orange glow along the eastern horizon suddenly bursts into a brilliant translucent gold as the head of the newborn day crowns.

  “Welcome,” Henrique whispers. “Glad to get to see you.”

  Nothing in what he’s doing is yoga-like in any way, but his greeting of the day causes the words sun salutation to come to mind.

  He turns toward me suddenly and starts to say something but stops short.

  “What?” I ask. “What is it?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. You didn’t come out here to hear the ramblings of a dying old man.”

  The truth of it is I don’t know why I came out here. Except that I’m lost and didn’t know what else to do. I wandered out here. I didn’t walk out deliberately.

  “I just want to get my daughter back,” I say. “And I’m not sure how to do that.”

  “I wish I could tell you,” he says. “I really do. I can’t imagine the agony you’re in. I wonder what’s worse—what Keith and Christopher are going through now or what you’re going through, what they just went through? Now yours involves most of the agony theirs does, but comes with the added torture of not knowing and the dangerous hope that almost always, inevitably crushes the heart.”

  “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary last night?” I ask. “Did anyone do anything the least bit suspicious? Or even odd?”

  He frowns and shakes his head. “I’m very sorry, but I didn’t notice anything like that. Not at all. But the truth is I was probably dozing some of the time. It’s not enough that my life will be over too soon to suit me, but I have to miss a lot of the little I have left.”

  “What about the night that Magdalene was taken?” I say. “Has anything come to mind about that night?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried and tried to come up with something, but there just isn’t anything else.”

  “What about after that night?” I say. “Did anyone from the group start acting different in the days, weeks, and months following her being taken?”

  He shrugs. “Like I’ve said . . . I just can’t . . . I don’t remember anything being—anyone being different.”

  “But you weren’t here, were you?” I ask.

  “I was here the first few days,” he says. “Even took in Keith and Christopher’s cat for them, but . . . I left shortly after that.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Nearly three months.”

  “Where were you?” I ask. “What were you doing?”

  “I went home,” he says. “To Cuba. I found out I was dying and . . . It was a sort of pilgrimage for me. To the place of my people, of my birth.”

  “For three months?”

  “I also underwent treatment.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, as sort of a last . . . hope. A Hail Mary. It was a new, experimental treatment they were trying. Needless to say . . . the experiment failed . . . In my case at any rate.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  He looks back at the sun, sitting just above the tops of the trees in all its bright orange early morning brilliance.

  “No hay mal que por bien no venga,” he says.

  I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think I get the gist of it, and if I’m right, I wonder what good will come out of his death.

  “I have seen the sunrise,” he says. “Perhaps my last. Now, I must sleep.”

  He stumbles in the direction of his home a street away and I stumble back toward Keith and Christopher’s, far more depleted than I realized.

  Day 237

  Day 237

  Our committee decided to invite a crime-solving prison chaplain to do our lecture series in the fall, and I’m hoping he will take a look at Magdalene’s case for us. Keith has read extensively about him and I heard him interviewed on a few true crime podcasts.

  Maybe he will be the very thing we need to stir things up, get things moving again. That seems to be the way of these things—of cold cases. Renewed and intensified interest and or a new investigator causes the criminal to confess or act out in some way—or someone close to them gives them up.

  Here’s hoping.

  43

  “We gonna sleep in shifts,” Merrill says. “You got the first one. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t.”

  I have just stumbled wearily into the house and found him looking for me. In addition to telling me that our group—me, him, Dad, Jake, and Reggie—are going to sleep in shifts in a couple of rooms Keith and Christopher have provided for us so some of us can be searching for Taylor around the clock, he has informed me that Roderick has gone home for a few hours of sleep and a shower.

  “You can’t fall asleep, you can always get back up,” he says, “but my money’s on the Sand Man.”

  “I can’t stop trying to figure out what happened to Taylor,” I say.

  “We all gonna keep workin’ on that,” he says. “Nothin’ gonna stop while you do for a few.”

  “I just can’t. Time is running out.”

  “We all doin’ all we can to find her,” he says. “We won’t stop what we’re doin’ while you get a little sleep. But unless we just luck up and stumble across her somehow, our best bet of finding her is you figuring out what happened and who did it, and right now the battery in your brain is low. Get a little sleep. Recharge that big brain of yours. It’s the very best thing you
could do for Taylor.”

  “If I’m not looking for Taylor, I need to be at the hospital with Anna,” I say.

  “Anna’s being well taken care of,” he says. “She’d rather you get some sleep and keep working on finding Taylor and you know it.”

  “I—”

  “But all that’s beside the point anyway,” he says. “Sorry if I led you to believe I was asking or that your ass had a choice.”

  “Tell you what,” I say, “if you’ll drive me to the hospital to check on Anna, I’ll sleep in the car on the way there and back.”

  * * *

  But instead of sleeping on the way to the hospital, I open the security footage file on my phone to the exact point I had stopped at the last time I watched it. It’s from December 22, the day of the solstice party, and I scan it as we speed down the mostly empty four-lane back road of Highway 98 toward Sacred Heart Hospital in Miramar Beach.

  At 2:07 p.m. Hal Raphael exits the front door holding a leather laptop satchel. At 3:11 p.m. Jodi North enters the front door. At 3:39 p.m. Jodi North and Demi Gonzalez exit the front door. At 4:34 p.m. Sarah Samuelson exits the front door. At 4:37 p.m. Hal Raphael enters the front door without his satchel. At 4:40 p.m. Brooke Wakefield exits the front door. At 4:42 p.m. Scott Haskew exits the back door. At 5:37 p.m. Hal Raphael exits the front door. At 5:48 p.m. Keith, Christopher, Magdalene, and Rake Sabin exit the front door. At 7:11 p.m. Christopher, Keith, and Magdalene enter the front door. At 7:37 p.m. Hal Raphael enters the front door. At 7:57 p.m. Brooke Wakefield, Rake Sabin, Wren Melody, Jodi North, Scott Haskew, Henrique Arango, Sarah and Clarence Samuelson, and Vic Frankford enter the front door—each carrying a Christmas gift.

  And then nothing. Just hours and hours of both doors—no one coming or going, entering or exiting from the Florida House.