CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ella sped through the streets, a renewed sense of urgency in her veins. Paige sat beside her, hand clutched around the armrest in fright. Their destination was the last known location of Bret Styles, currently registered as a missing person.
According to what little information police had on their database, Bret Styles was 21 years old, unemployed, and living with his parents at the time of his disappearance. By some coincidence, or perhaps not, Bret had vanished the day following the chainsaw incident at the college. According to his parents, who had supplied his life story to the police after reporting him missing, Bret had been dishonorably discharged from the military at age 20.
“Why would he go missing?” Paige asked.
“To hide from the police. This guy might be losing his grip on reality but he’s still smart. Smart enough to stalk women and kill them without leaving a trace behind.”
“So why would he suddenly show up again after a few months? Wouldn’t he lay low a lot longer? Or move far away? Why would he come back to his home town and start killing women?”
“No. If he’s predisposed to violence, he wouldn’t be able to stay away from it.” Ella thought of some past cases for anecdotal evidence. “Look at the case of Daniel LaPlante in Massachusetts in the eighties. The teenager stalked a family, watched them for years, then got caught and sent to a psychiatric ward. The same month he got released, he killed a family in the same town. There was a large-scale manhunt for him, but he stayed in his hometown the whole time. People like this don’t know any better. Something compels them to oppose everything they know is good for them.”
“It’s up here,” Paige said, fiddling with the GPS. “23 Elm Street.”
Ella swung the car into a commodious street boasting only a handful of dwellings. Despite their spacious appearance, they didn’t look like the most well-kept houses in the world. They found house number 23, a beaten-old property that looked like it had been through the wars. The agents walked up the rickety porch and knocked on the door. Two dogs began to yap on the other side.
Bret Styles was probably not here, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t find out something useful about him.
A haggard woman opened the door, looking about thirty pounds past the point of concern. She had razor-thin gray hair and enough wrinkles to hold a day’s rain. She had that how-dare-you-disturb-me look on her face.
“Yeah? What you want?” she moaned.
“Hi, are you Bret Styles’s mother?” said Ella.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m Agent Dark and this is Agent Ellis. We’re with the FBI. We need to speak with your son. Is he home?”
The woman peered out from the door and checked left and right. “Well, he ain’t here. You don’t read the news so much, huh?”
“We’re aware he’s missing, but we were wondering if you might have any idea why he disappeared, or where he might have gone. This is very important.”
“You don’t think I’d have checked for my own kid?” the woman asked.
Fair point, Ella thought. “We have more resources available than you do. Do you know why Bret disappeared? Did he have a history of running away?”
“Yup. He ran off to join the forces at 19. Came back with his tail between his legs a few months later. Then he would come and go all the time. I ain’t got a clue where he is and that’s the God’s honest truth. That boy’s old enough to know better.”
The woman’s body language and tone of voice betrayed her words. There were some classic defense mechanisms on display, from her foot positioning to her tense shoulders. The feet were always the first point of call. If the feet could talk, they’d blurt the truth out every single time.
However, Ella wasn’t about to push it. She didn’t anticipate this woman would give in, not without the necessary force.
“Mrs. Styles, are you aware your son attacked someone at a local college recently?”
“No. That sounds like bullcrap.”
“It’s not, and something tells me you know about it.”
The woman began waving her hands around. “Some girls, coming to my house and accusing my son of attacking some teacher? Get the hell out of here.”
“We never said it was a teacher,” Ella said, but found herself staring at the door again. She turned to Paige, not sure where to go next.
“Hiding something?” Paige asked.
“No doubt about it.”
“What now?”