Page 6

Chapter 5

MERCY

Two weeks earlier

FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick paused on the front walkway of the Holcrofts’ huge Oregon house, scanning for security cameras. She spotted two. One covered the entrance, and another pointed at the wide driveway, where three Deschutes County Sheriff patrol vehicles, a black Ford Explorer, and her Tahoe were parked.

The entrance camera was at least twelve feet off the ground. She stepped directly underneath it and squinted.

Is that tape?

Black electrical tape covered the lens.

“Shit.”

Seventeen-year-old Paige Holcroft, the daughter of Senator Adam Holcroft, had been missing for twenty-four hours. The tape was an ominous sign.

A kidnapping?

The daughter of a US senator would be a valuable victim.

“Mercy.” Deschutes County Sheriff detective Evan Bolton had opened the front door and stood watching her. “You got here fast.” The detective followed her gaze. “Yeah. I don’t like the tape either,” he said. “The senator didn’t have it placed there. And the camera covering the driveway is blacked out, but none of the other ones are.”

“Good to see you, Evan.”

The detective was a close friend, and she was pleased he’d caught the case. Evan was smart and committed. She’d worked a number of cases with him in the past and was confident in his skills.

Mercy took a few steps back to study the house, a sprawling new home that sat on a two-acre lot at the top of an exclusive subdivision. The home was a twist on the Craftsman style, adding modern and high-desert influences. The result was simultaneously representative of the forested Pacific Northwest mountains and the rugged, dry Central Oregon vistas. Stacked-rock columns, massive windows, a variety of different shades of wood. It harmonized with the landscape.

The architect nailed it.

The only things out of place were the two deputies walking the property and another standing behind Evan in the doorway.

And black electrical tape.

She turned around and was gifted with a perfect view of the Cascade mountain range. The snowy areas on the peaks were few and far between, but that was normal for the middle of the hot, dry summer. Winter snow would soon blanket the mountains.

“Anything new?” she asked the detective as she entered the home, nodding at the silent deputy as he stepped outside. Mercy froze. “Wow,” she mumbled, staring at the soaring high crossbeams and two-story walls of windows. The sight was magazine perfection.

“I know.” Evan clearly enjoyed her reaction. “I felt the same when I stepped in. And to answer your question, I’ve only been here a few minutes, so I don’t know much more than you. I spoke a bit with the parents. The senator is trying to calm his wife, who is understandably completely rattled. Their son, Finn, was dropped off twenty minutes ago. He spent the night at a friend’s house.”

“You’d said Paige’s phone and laptop are in her room?” Mercy asked.

“Yes. I found them hidden under her pillows. Her parents assumed she had them even though she wasn’t showing up on their family location app. I powered on both devices, and they appear to have been wiped and reset to factory settings.”

“That has to be deliberate.” Mercy reevaluated her kidnapping theory. “Let’s send them to the RFCL lab immediately. You’d be surprised what the technicians can find. Wiped devices are never as clean as people think,” she said, referring to the FBI’s computer forensics lab in Portland. “Does Paige have a car?”

“It’s in the garage. I went over it briefly—same as I did with her bedroom—but both need a deep search.”

“Let’s see if the parents are ready to talk yet. Lead the way.” She gestured at Evan, who strode through the great room and past a custom kitchen—that Mercy tried not to ogle—to tall glass doors that had been slid aside, opening an entire wall to the outdoors. The parents, Adam and Denise, sat at a table on the large patio, protected from the hot sun by a gabled roof that blurred the line between indoors and outdoors. Fans spun overhead. Mercy noted the outdoor kitchen, complete with a high-end grill and mini fridge. The covered patio was the size of her living room and kitchen combined.

The senator stood and held his hand out to Mercy. “Adam Holcroft. Thank you so much for coming quickly.”

“Special Agent Kilpatrick,” she answered. She recognized the man from news coverage. He’d been a state senator for two years before jumping successfully into the race for the US Senate. She was slightly startled to discover that he was shorter than her—many people considered her tall, but Adam Holcroft had come across much taller on TV. He was forty-five and bald with a graying goatee. He had a powerful, kind, and intelligent presence. She’d noticed it on TV, and it carried over to meeting him in person, explaining why he had swept up Oregon’s votes.

His eyes were bloodshot.

“Do you have any news?” he asked Mercy. Still seated, his wife leaned forward at the question.

“I’m sorry, I do not.” She’d barely dipped a toe into the case. “But things have been put in motion. We should know something soon.”

“I’ve filed a request for Paige’s cell phone records,” said Evan. “And a forensics team is on its way to collect evidence from her bedroom and car.”

“What kind of evidence? Did you find blood somewhere?” Denise Holcroft asked abruptly. A Kleenex box sat on the table in front of her, several crumpled tissues next to it.

“I haven’t seen blood anywhere,” Evan said firmly but kindly to the woman. “They’ll collect prints, hair, and anything else they see fit to check.” He gestured for Mercy and Adam to sit and pulled out a chair for himself. “Like I told you earlier, since there is no obvious crime scene, the most important thing to do this early is talk to family and friends.”

“You should be out looking for her!” Denise wiped her nose, her eyes angry. She was petite, but Mercy sensed her strength and fire. Her brunette hair was slicked tight in a high ponytail, and she wore a red sleeveless top. Denise Holcroft was tan, fit, and polished—she looked like a senator’s wife. The photos of Paige that Mercy had reviewed showed a younger version of her mother. The resemblance was striking. Both were petite with long dark hair. But all Paige’s photos showed a wide, genuine smile—unlike her mother at the moment.

“I’ve issued a BOLO with Paige’s description,” said Evan. “And we kept her name out of it as requested.”

On a phone call during Mercy’s drive to the home, she and Evan had discussed releasing Paige’s name. They didn’t want news media to swarm the family after learning the senator’s daughter was missing. Not yet. The deputies on the scene had been ordered not to mention the family’s or victim’s name.

But someone always talked.

Their window of anonymity would be short. The news of a senator’s missing daughter would bring the nuts out of the woodwork and trigger a rash of false leads. They had to move fast before being hindered by the media and a curious public.

And before something horrible happened to Paige.

Assuming she isn’t holed up in a motel with a boyfriend.

But she’d left her phone behind. That fact alone raised Mercy’s concern.

Teenagers were rarely separated from their phones.

“Where is your son?” asked Mercy. “I’d like to talk with him too.”

“He’s in his room. I’ll get him,” said Denise. She picked up her phone and sent a text.

It’s a big house.

“Let’s start with when you last saw Paige,” said Evan. He had a small notebook and pen in hand, ready to take notes. Mercy opened her bag and pulled out the same.

“Around noon yesterday,” said Adam. “She was here when Denise and I left for a fundraising event. She was eating lunch.” He looked at his wife for confirmation, and she nodded. “Neither of us checked in with her after that. It was a whirlwind of a day, which included a late dinner and then cocktails with supporters. We didn’t get home until almost midnight. I saw her car was in the garage and her bedroom door was closed—which is normal at night.”

“The cat bothers her if she leaves the door open,” Denise cut in. She blotted her nose. “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”

“And your son, Finn, was at a friend’s?” asked Mercy.

“Yes, he’s been there the last two nights.”

As if on cue, french doors opened and a lanky teenager stepped outside at least fifty feet away from where they sat. His dark hair was shaggy and he slouched as he walked, his hands shoved in his shorts’ pockets. Mercy watched him approach, noting his worried eyes, but his strides and posture stayed casual. Finn sat down in the chair next to his mother, who put an arm around him, briefly pulling him to her side and pressing a kiss to his temple. He didn’t seem bothered by the kiss or that his mother held his hand after the hug.

Mercy’s gaze went to the senator. His hands were clasped before him on the table, watching his son. The two feet of space between him and his wife suddenly seemed like yards.

I haven’t seen them touch each other.

“How did you discover she was missing this morning?” Mercy asked.

Denise gave an embarrassed half shrug. “I didn’t check on her until eleven. It’s the weekend,” she explained, her eyes begging Mercy to understand. “Sometimes both kids sleep until noon. I’ve often done my workout, gone for a run, eaten breakfast, and showered before they appear.”

“And you, Senator?” Evan asked.

“Adam, please. I had an early tee time. Denise called me after she couldn’t find Paige.”

“I checked our app for her location and couldn’t find it,” added Denise. “I texted Finn but he didn’t know where she was.”

“Boyfriend?” asked Evan.

“She hasn’t dated anyone in at least six months,” said Denise. “Right now she takes summer classes at the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend and just hangs out with her friends. No job at the moment.”

“Did you call her friends?” asked Mercy.

“She has two very close friends, but Finn had to contact them for me,” said Denise. “I didn’t have their numbers.”

“You have your sister’s friends’ phone numbers?” Mercy asked the teen, thinking that was odd.

“I don’t know their numbers,” he said, briefly meeting Mercy’s gaze. “I messaged them on Snapchat. Both said that they hadn’t seen her or heard from her since yesterday morning. Paige didn’t show up on Snapchat’s locator either. They’re worried.”

Mercy knew from her niece, Kaylie, that Snapchat allowed users to share their location with trusted people. “I’d like to talk to both friends,” said Mercy, glancing at Evan, who nodded. “Can you ask them to come to the house?”

Finn focused on his phone and started tapping.

“Tell them not to talk to anyone about this,” Adam told Finn. “I don’t want it spread around yet.”

Mercy eyed the senator. “I agree with you, Adam. But this will eventually get out. People talk. For all we know, Paige’s friends have already told their parents and other friends that she’s missing. You need to be prepared.”

“Telling the public could help us locate her quicker,” added Evan.

“I want this kept quiet for now,” Adam said firmly, meeting their gazes. “I don’t want a public uproar and then discover my daughter is out hiking with a friend.”

That’s the strong senator I’ve seen on TV.

Denise said nothing, her focus on the tissue she was systematically tearing.

“You said you’d checked the camera feeds and saw when they went dark, correct?” Evan asked the senator.

Adam pulled out his phone and touched the screen. “I have ten cameras covering the property and house. Only the entrance and driveway cameras were blacked out. Both views show tape being applied around one p.m., but the person doing it is out of sight. I’ve sped through the footage before that. No one but Paige was in the house all morning.” He slid his phone over to Evan and Mercy, who watched as the home entrance view was suddenly cut in half by a strip of tape. Another strip was applied a few seconds later, obliterating the scene. The driveway camera showed the same. Whoever applied the tape had known exactly where to approach and stand to avoid being seen on camera.

“Have you ever used security guards on the property?” asked Mercy.

“No, I’ve never felt the need. We’ve never had a problem in the past with trespassers or protesters. My home security system sends alerts to our phones,” he said, gesturing to himself and his wife. “We don’t use an outside service to monitor it. Protecting our privacy is important.”

“I assume you can also view the camera feeds on a computer,” said Mercy.

Adam nodded.

“Can we review them that way, please?” The images on Adam’s phone were crystal clear but small.

“I’ll be right back.” Adam strode into the home.

“Paige’s friends will be here in a half hour,” said Finn, staring at his phone. “Sophie’s picking up Jordyn.” He looked up, distress in his eyes. “Neither have told anyone.”

“They’re good kids,” added Denise. “I guess they’re not kids anymore ... but they’ve been friends with Paige since middle school. Nice girls.”

Adam reappeared; an open laptop balanced on his forearm as he typed with the other hand. He paused at the table for a moment to finish typing and then set the computer down where everyone could see the screen.

“Much better,” said Evan, watching the tape be applied to the entrance camera again.

The view from the driveway camera wobbled just before the black strip appeared.

“Wait!” Denise leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Back it up. Slowly go ahead.”

Mercy studied the video as it moved in slow motion, wondering what Denise had seen.

“There!” Denise pointed at the corner of the screen as the first piece of tape was applied. Adam paused the recording and backed up. A tiny pink blur appeared and quickly vanished. “That’s Paige’s nail polish,” she exclaimed. “I’m positive! I was with her when she bought it, and I didn’t like the color—it looks like Pepto-Bismol. She’s been wearing it for a few days.”

Mercy exchanged a look with Evan.

Why did Paige cover the cameras?