Free Faceless by Dawn Kopman Whidden Page A

getting darker with each passing minute.
     
    Kathy came out of another room, followed by the third girl, Lisa Padilla, and an older couple that I also recognized from St Mary’s Church. They appeared to be a little bit too old to be her parents, and I faintly remembered hearing that the couple had taken in their three grandchildren recently. The grandchildren had been removed from their parents’ home after an investigation by the Department of Children and Families found them to be neglected and abused.
     
    Rumor had it that a family friend had sexually abused the oldest two female children, who at the time were twelve and fifteen. The story I had heard was that the children’s parents were crack addicts and were convicted of actually selling their daughters in return for drugs.
     
    The third child, a six-year-old boy, had been neglected and beaten so badly that he had been hospitalized for two weeks before he was able to join his older sisters in his grandparents’ home.
     
    The older woman hovered over Lisa, who appeared to be in some sort of respiratory distress. Her grandmother was holding an inhaler and Lisa took a long and intense drag on the portable device, her eyes focused on her grandmother in what looked like real panic.
     
    Kathy walked over to me.
     
    “Asthma attack. I asked them if they wanted me to call an ambulance, but they said no, they had it under control. My kid brother’s son has asthma and it’s frightening to watch.”
     
    “She didn’t happen to confess to killing her friend, did she?” I asked, in a futile attempt to be funny.
     
    “Nope, just that she was a fan of Jeff Dahmner and wanted to be just like him.”
     
    Her attempt at humor was just as poor as mine.
     
    “No,” Kathy said, and then added, “she’s standing by her story. They all went up there together, they realized Jamie was missing, and they went looking for her.”
     
    “Mysterious driver picked them up, no distinguishing features… just a man?” I asked as I watched the threesome walk down the stairwell and exit the building.
     
    “Yeah, but that’s when she had the asthma attack. The minute I brought up the driver, she started to wheeze. Thought it was a little obvious. She might be the most vulnerable, Jean—I would lean on her.”
     
    I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven a.m. and I had been at it since three this morning. Nothing more was going to be accomplished today, since it was still too early to get back the autopsy report from the ME and I was worried about my own daughter at home.
     
    I looked around to see if I could spot Marty. He was nowhere in sight.
     
    “I’m going to call it a day, Kathy. Can you tell Marty I will speak to him later?”
     
    I didn’t even wait for her to give me an answer. I grabbed my purse hanging on the chair of my desk and headed for home.
     

Chapter Six
     
    Thursday Afternoon
     
    By the time Marty walked out of the building, the pain in his head had become a constant throb. As soon as he got into his car, he reached into his console and grabbed a bottle of generic painkillers. Popping into his mouth two red and white capsules, he took a slug of what remained of his cold coffee.
     
    He had had every intention last night of waking up this morning and sneaking into the kitchen to fix Hope his version of a gourmet breakfast. He had gone shopping before she had gotten home and had hidden the ingredients in the back of the refrigerator, hoping to surprise her with a Keal omelet when she woke up.
     
    It would have been the start of a special day that he had planned for them both. He leaned over in the bucket seat a few inches in order to maneuver the small navy blue velvet-covered box from his pocket. Opening it up with the thumb of his right hand, he sat and stared at the Princess cut diamond engagement ring that Hope’s friend Diane had helped him pick out just two days earlier.
     
    Hoping the pain in his head would subside, he stared blankly at