Текст книги "All The Pretty Girls"

Автор книги: J. T. Ellison

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“Grimes.” He listened, then motioned for a pen and pad to write on. He scribbled furiously, nodding and uhhuhing for a few minutes, then hung up and looked at Baldwin.

“I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

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Grimes’s admission of the mistake was surprising. An undercurrent of animosity had plagued their relationship from the beginning, yet here he was, ready to confess all his sins, to be absolved by the one man he didn’t want in the investigation. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Baldwin couldn’t justify the blunder, but he could understand it.

“Grimes, you’ve been dealing with three separate law enforcement agencies in three states. Countless people, high-stress situations. Anyone could have missed it.”

“But you didn’t,” he said miserably. “See, I haven’t really been on my ‘A’ game with this. I’ve been having some trouble at home, been thinking about retiring. Turn in the badge, get a real life.” The melancholy in his tone was alarming. “I should take myself off the case. I could have blown the whole thing. I might have been able to save one of those girls.”

Baldwin clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Hey, I didn’t find the note in Nashville attached to Shauna Davidson’s murder.” He waited until Grimes met his eyes. “Listen, I need you to keep your head in the game. Yeah, it was a miss. A big miss. But we need to move forward now, okay? I want you on this case. Read me what they found.”

Grimes nodded, swallowing hard.

Jesus, Baldwin thought. Just what I need. Grimes shook his head, cleared his throat, tried to gain an element of dignity and control. “All right. Let’s see how you do with these.”

“More poetry?” Baldwin felt his heart beating just a little harder. His instinct was right.

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“Yep. The notes have been there all along. Each girl had one in their personal effects. According to Petty, Lernier’s and Palmer’s were in their gym bags, Jessica Porter’s was in her date book. We just didn’t see it. God, how could we have missed this? They’ve been collected, they’ve already been printed, but nothing showed. Jesus, I’ve blown the whole case.” Grimes was back off on his

“woe is me” tangent, and Baldwin was getting impatient.

“Grimes. The poems?”

“Yeah, yeah, let me read them off to you. Ready?”

“Okay, shoot.”

“This was in Susan Palmer’s car.” He read the verses aloud.

“A perfect woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of an angelic light.”

Baldwin scribbled and nodded, murmuring to himself. “Wordsworth. Okay, who’s next?”

“Jeanette Lernier. Here we go.

“A creature not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food

For transient sorrows, simple wiles Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”

Baldwin smiled. “Another stanza from the same poem. What was found in Jessica’s dayrunner?”

Grimes flipped the page of his notebook. “Jessica, Jessica… Here.

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“A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.”

“Same poem?” Grimes asked.

“No, that’s one’s Yeats. Excellent poet, Yeats.” He reached for Grimes’s notebook. “Let me see that.”

Grimes handed it over and Baldwin read the lines again.

“Jessica’s, Shauna’s and Marni’s poems are from

‘Leda and the Swan,’ William Butler Yeats. Jeanette’s and Susan’s are from a William Wordsworth poem,

‘She Was a Phantom of Delight.’ Our killer knows some of the classics.”

Grimes scratched his head. “Apparently you do, too. But what does it mean?”

“See, that’s the problem. It means something different to different people. What I’m concerned about is this stanza of Marni’s poem. Being so caught up, so mastered by the brute blood of the air… indifferent beak… When he started, with Susan and Jeanette and Jessica, he worked hard. He stalked them, took his time, seduced them. Now he’s picking up speed, moving too fast to get involved emotionally with his victims. These girls are a means to an end now, not an object worthy of worship and desire.

“And if he’s become indifferent to their plight, then we’re going to see an escalation in violence. ‘Leda and the Swan’ is classically recognized as a rape poem, a violent poem. Marni has drawn the mention of blood, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have some sort of All the Pretty Girls

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brutality done to her that’s more severe than was done to any of the other girls. But I’m just guessing, Jerry.”

Grimes had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head bowed. “I wouldn’t have known all that. Wasn’t much good with that stuff in school.”

Baldwin drew in a breath. “I think we’d better go regroup. Give you some time to get yourself back together. And give me some time to think about this.”

Fifteen

He looked at his watch. It was time. He’d been sitting in silence in the rest stop, waiting for the right moment. The highways had quieted, the light of dawn still two hours away. He’d been driving all night, and had reached his destination right on time. Just enough time to sit back and reflect for a few moments. It was perfect. It was all perfect.

He looked over his shoulder into the back seat of the car. Luminous brown eyes glared back at him. She wasn’t cowed, not this one. She was a fighter. Well, we’ll see how she feels when she’s under me, when she feels the breath leave her. He felt himself harden and licked his lips.

Half an hour later, the defiant eyes no longer burning a hole through his brain, he put the car into drive and slid, silent as a shark, toward the on-ramp. Sixteen

Taylor walked across the steaming parking lot at the Criminal Justice Center in Nashville, mentally planning her day. She shielded her eyes against the sun, gazing at the office building she called home. The CJC was a squat, nondescript building that housed the main units of the Criminal Investigations Division, as well as the administrative headquarters for the Metro Nashville Police Department. In the reorganization, a number of offices moved out of the headquarters building and into various sector offices. The chief had killed the five sector divisions and cut them into three: South, West and North. Detectives that were originally slated to work in departments like Homicide and Robbery were now housed in the sector offices as general detectives. Taylor’s team of homicide detectives had gotten to stay in the old headquarters and worked on homicides that had an element of ambiguity to them. If there wasn’t a suspect, there was no evidence or the job just looked too tough, Taylor’s team got the case. It meant a lot less 118

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busywork for them. The rest of the detectives scattered across the mid-state region pulled up the slack, covering basic plainclothes duties.

The Strangler case was spinning out of control, the media was screaming for answers. Cable news had seized upon the story and was creating a panic, updating every half hour, pointing out the failures on the part of law enforcement in all five states. Jessica Porter was lying in the morgue in Nashville, and Shauna Davidson’s parents were begging for their daughter’s body to be returned to them for burial. That part of the case was out of her hands. The FBI was working with, cooperating fully with, local law enforcement agencies, but in essence, they had taken the case from them. She let Price deal with the politics of the situation, duking out the jurisdictional issues. And no one could deny that the Feebs had access to better labs and more timely results; at least the forensics would be handled quickly and thoroughly.

She made her way up the back steps, stepping around the industrial ashtray that crowded the landing. She felt a brief pang of addiction and desire but soldiered on, slipping her access card through the slot. The door opened with a hiss and she entered the bland linoleum hallway. Following the green-striped arrow, she made her way to the Homicide office.

It was quiet this morning. Granted, most of the weekly departmental meetings were going on, so none of the brass was around. She wondered briefly if anyone had found out about Betsy, but dismissed it. That wasn’t her job right now. Her job was to look over the Rainman case. All the Pretty Girls

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As she passed the Homicide office, she felt a moment of bitterness toward Baldwin. Her most interesting murder in weeks had been slipped right out from under her, another tasty case whisked away into FBI jurisdiction. She understood, but she couldn’t stop the sense of disappointment. Not that a serial rapist was anything to sneeze at. On the contrary, the Rainman had proved so elusive over the past few years that she welcomed the chance to look at the files, see if she could find anything that the other detectives had missed.

But she wished, for a brief moment, that she was out on the road, tracking the Southern Strangler. She walked through the overcrowded Homicide office. Even though a number of detectives from each of the three shifts had been moved to other offices, discarded junk remained. There were still sixteen tiny workstations packed into the room, but carpenters had begun reassembling the cubicles to make the spaces larger and more open. They’d end up with ten or so workstations: a little more private and a lot less cramped. She couldn’t wait for things to be done. With the reorganization, Taylor had moved up in the world. She’d taken over Captain Price’s office when he’d moved to the second floor to be with the rest of the administrative corps. The desk, the chairs and, more important, the door, were now hers. She’d offered to share with Fitz, allowing him some privacy when she wasn’t around, but he’d turned her down. He liked being out with the troops. Though she was a scant few feet away, she understood. The separation was palpable, and was taking some time to get used to. She still started when anyone knocked on the door frame. She rarely shut the 120

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door, it seemed only fair that she have the same lack of privacy that her detectives had.

The normally bustling office was peacefully silent. She knew two of her detectives, Marcus Wade and Lincoln Ross, were in court this morning. She’d sent Fitz home to get some sleep. The rest of the night shifts had gone home. She had the place to herself. She was used to solitary time, almost always welcomed it. With Baldwin around, that was changing. He spent a lot of time working from her home. His technical transfer to Nashville’s field office as the midstate profiler meant he could curtail his travel, make his own hours, participate in cases that interested him. If a major case popped, like the Strangler, he was pulled in to work it. He was still the FBI’s leading behavioralist, albeit one in semiretirement.

They weren’t officially living together, but he’d taken over her home office, and she was secretly pleased with the messy decor. She felt like she belonged to someone for the first time, and if that meant he messed up her office, so be it. He also messed up the kitchen, but she’d forgive him just about anything if he cooked dinner. So many nights she came home tired and unwilling to put out that extra effort.

Since the “incident,” as she liked to call it—it was nicer than blurting out “when I got my throat cut”—she found herself more tired than usual. The doctors said that was normal. The gash in her throat had severed an artery; her blood loss had been exponential. “You nearly died,” they said. “Give yourself a break,” they said.

“The body doesn’t bounce back that easily.” It had taken three months before her voice had returned to normal. All the Pretty Girls

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Always a bit throaty, she was now downright husky, which Baldwin loved. He teased that she would make a great late-night radio announcer, or a phone-sex operator. She ignored his jibes, and worked hard on her rehab. There was a time when they thought she’d never be able to speak again, but she’d astounded them with a croak three days after her last surgery. Through hard work and dedication, she’d gotten herself back in shape and was stronger every day.

Amazing how her near miss with death had cemented their relationship. For the longest time, Taylor worried that he’d stayed out of pity. Now she knew better. Smiling to herself, she went down the hall to the Sex Crimes office. The room wasn’t empty, but all the detectives seemed preoccupied. She knew that Brian Post had told everyone that Betsy had been in a car accident and was in the hospital. This was the most plausible excuse anyone could come up with, and it masked her injuries wonderfully. He’d mentioned that Lieutenant Jackson from Homicide was going to look over the Rainman files while Betsy was laid up, and when she entered, she got a couple of friendly waves. Waving back, she walked over to Betsy’s desk, where some kind soul had already pulled the files and bound them with a rubber band for easy transport.

She grabbed them and scooted out before anyone wanted to get into a big discussion, and went back to her office. The hallways were coming to life, uniforms and plainclothes men and women started drifting by in clumps of two or three. As she walked back to Homicide, the spirit came back into the building. She sighed. It had been nice to have the place so quiet. 122

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She went into her office, switched on the lights and closed the door. She wanted some privacy to go through these reports. Seven women brutalized, not counting Betsy. Regardless of their lack of physical injury, emotionally they’d be scarred for life. She wanted to give them some respect.

She sat at her desk, took a deep breath and opened the casebook. An antiseptic summary greeted her. No conclusions, just the facts. She started to read, and was soon lost in the reports.

Taylor jumped when she heard the knock at her door. She laid a sheet of notebook paper strategically across the open files on the Rainman, just in case it was someone she didn’t trust to know what she was doing, and yelled, “Come on in.”

The door opened and Lincoln Ross stood there, filling up the entrance with his broad shoulders and beautiful Armani suit. Lincoln was a clotheshorse, plain and simple. He was also one of the most talented computer detectives that existed. He could track a fly down if it landed anywhere in cyberspace. He gave her a gap-toothed grin, deep dimples forming in his mocha skin. “Whatcha working on, LT?”

“A new, well, an old case but new to us that’s been dropped in our laps. Where’s Marcus?”

“Getting a soda, he’ll be here in a second. What’s the case?”

“Let’s wait for him, I don’t want to go through it twice. How was court?”

“Excellent. Nailed the bastard. He’s never going to practice again, unless they give out medical licenses in All the Pretty Girls

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jail.” Lincoln and Marcus had been working the alleged accidental death of a Belle Meade matron for a couple of months. Instinct told them it was a homicide, but the scene was set to look like a very convincing suicide. They’d been right. The husband of the victim had slipped a lethal cocktail of cyanide in his wife’s drink before he put the gun in her hand and pulled the trigger. Lincoln had cracked the case before the medical examiner when he found a draft copy of the suicide note that had been deleted from the husband’s computer. Lincoln was still on a high. “Convicted him for first degree. They had that poor jury sequestered out for two weeks, but they came in with the verdict first thing this morning.”

Taylor nodded her thanks. “Good job. Hey, Marcus.”

Marcus Wade strolled into the room looking like the cat that licked the cream off the canary.

“You look quite pleased with yourself.” Taylor couldn’t help but smile. Marcus was young and handsome and got such a charge out of catching the bad guys. So many cops simply didn’t care, they just wanted to close a case. Marcus and Lincoln took a lot of pride in their capabilities, and Taylor was glad for it. It kept them motivated.

“I’m just the greatest homicide detective that ever lived,” he bragged. “Next to you, of course, Loot.” He winked and she blew him a kiss. Lincoln coughed into his hand, the muffled explosion sounded suspiciously like “bullshit.”

“You’re right, you are fantastic. So are you, Linc. Come on in and shut the door.” They looked at her skeptically but did as she asked. They got seated in the 124

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not-so-comfortable chairs across from her desk. Lincoln pushed the door closed with his foot. With the three of them in the room and the door latched, it felt more like being in a cell. Though the office afforded more privacy, the room was tiny. Taylor filled them in.

“We’re going to be working on a new case. You’re both familiar with the Rainman?”

Lincoln’s eyes grew wide. “The rapist? Did he kill someone?”

“No, he didn’t. But he raped Betsy Garrison last night.”

She waited for that news to sink in. Lincoln opened his mouth, then closed it with a brief shake of his head. Marcus spoke first.

“I assume you want this kept quiet?”

“Got it in one, puppy. We need to keep Betsy’s name out of it at all costs. She doesn’t want the people in her unit to know she’s been raped. She got beat up pretty badly, too, and Brian Post’s been informing people she had a car accident. Bless her heart, she’s okay about the rape. I was at the hospital talking to her and she really was holding up well. Better than I would be.”

“Did she have any information that we can go on?”

Marcus had already switched into investigator mode.

“Fitz and I processed the scene, and we got a whole lotta nothing. There was a print on the back door that I lifted, and we need to see if that matches up with the prints on file from his past rapes. There’s good and bad news, too. They have DNA, from all the rapes. They haven’t released it to the public, or any of us for that matter, because TBI can’t get the more recent rapes into CODIS. We’ve got DNA from Betsy, and the spermicide that was found in her PERK matches the All the Pretty Girls

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condom brand he’s been using. We’ve got the rope, but it’s the same generic kind he’s been using all along.

“Here’s what I want. Both of you look at this like it’s never happened before. New rapist on the street. Brandnew case. We have no usable evidence, no leads. Just find out who he is for me. Start here.” She handed them both a copy of the summary sheet.

While identifying information was scarce, the Rainman had an incredibly unique pattern that was baffling the police. He only raped in months that ended in the letter Y—January, February, May and July. He only struck when it was raining, sometimes even in violent thunderstorms. Every attack came on the third Thursday of the month. And he’d only done two rapes a year. He’d struck twice in 2000, 2002 and 2004.

“This is the name and address of his last victim. She thinks she may have an idea of who he is.”

“You’re kidding?” they both chimed.

“No, I’m not. Betsy spoke with her after the latest rape, said she was really reluctant to relive the crime and give decent information. Problem is, she couldn’t identify him. Doesn’t know his name, can’t remember where she knew him from. It’s more like something about him seemed familiar to her. So go talk to her and see if you can jog her memory.”

Marcus was reading the summary sheet. “There are a couple of major discrepancies here. He didn’t hit on a Thursday, for one. We’ll have to wait on the DNA—

Taylor, are you sure we don’t have a copycat?”

“I’m not sure of anything. Betsy seems positive that this was the Rainman. But you’re right to question that. Get the print run. That should tell you pretty quick if 126

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it’s him or not. Criminals break their patterns. Trust the evidence, it won’t lead you astray.”

“Okay, LT. We’ll let you know.” Marcus stood and stretched.

“Yeah, no problem, boss. We’re on it.” Lincoln gave her another crooked smile and they left her office, talking to each other quietly about the next steps they’d take. Okay, she thought, one down. The nice thing about management, she got to give more orders. She smiled to herself. She would be right there with them, she just had one thing she needed to do first.

She picked up the phone and dialed her doctor’s phone number from memory. The constant tests and checkups were past tiresome. Some of the medication she had been taking after the accident had wreaked havoc on her liver, so the doctors had taken her off the medicine but insisted on monthly checks of her liver function. A cheery voice answered the phone. “Dr. Gregory’s office!”

“Shelby, it’s Taylor Jackson. I wanted to get my test results.”

The cheer kicked up a notch. “Oh, Taylor. Hi! Dr. Gregory was just about to call you. Hold on a second while I get him to pick up the phone.”

Taylor stared at the watermark in the corner of the ceiling. She really needed to put a call into maintenance to see if they could replace that tile. It drove her nuts. As she started fiddling with a pencil, Dr. Gregory’s baritone practically forced its way through the phone.

“How’s my favorite cop?”

“I’m fine, Doc. Tell me you have good news and I don’t have to get stuck anymore.”

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The doctor was quiet for a second, then cleared his throat. Taylor’s heart sank. Dammit, she’d done everything they’d told her, and she felt fine. Well, as fine as she could, considering everything she’d been through.

“Please, Dr. Gregory, I thought everything would be okay by now.” She heard the whine in her voice and straightened in her chair. She sounded like a petulant eight-year-old.

“No, no, Taylor, your liver function is completely back to normal. Are you feeling okay otherwise?”

“Well, yeah. A little tired maybe, but that’s nothing new.”

He breathed a slight laugh into the phone. “Well, honey, you’re probably going to feel that way for a while.”

As he continued talking, Taylor felt the world spin. Seventeen

The sun leaked into the room, its wavering light barely brightening the small square space where Whitney Connolly was working furiously at her computer. She’d broken protocol this morning, skimming through her e-mails but not bothering to answer them. The only one that mattered, the only one she opened, was from her mysterious friend with the untraceable Yahoo account. The note was simple:

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

There was no postscript. She didn’t need them now. She appreciated that he recognized that she’d figured it out. How he knew was beyond her, but that didn’t matter.

After seeing that note, knowing what must have All the Pretty Girls

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happened, Whitney got to work. Another girl was dead. So she was doing research. Any good journalist would, right? If she was getting messages from the Southern Strangler, she needed to have background. She needed to build the elements of the case, just like a cop would do. She had to start thinking about her reel, make everything come together so that when she broke the story and had the first interview with this guy, everything was in place. Why else would he be sending her messages, unless he planned on talking to her?

She flew through cyberspace, fingers clicking on the keyboard. She decided on Court TV’s ultrainformative Web site on serial killers. Plugging in the search criteria, she sat back, waiting for the answers to be spit out at her. She wanted to see incidences of killers using poems at crime scenes.

She stopped for a second. There hadn’t been anything on the news about the notes. She was assuming they’d been found at the crime scenes. At least, that’s what her source in Louisiana said. The poem was in Lernier’s gym bag, but no one thought anything about it. She’d heard, through that same source, that the FBI now had the notes, that they saw the significance of them. That just meant she had to work harder and faster. Shauna Davidson had been found in Georgia, but her crime scene was still here in Nashville. Whitney placed a call, just trying to confirm that there was a note in Shauna’s effects, and was shut down entirely. No one was talking to her. That in and of itself confirmed it for her—she was tight with her source in Metro’s police, and if he wouldn’t talk to her, things must really be heating up.

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She went back to the computer. The search results were varied and numerous—apparently lots of serial killers liked to use poetry. Some wrote their own, some copied others. Some sliced famous authors into their own works. She bookmarked an article about the BTK

killer in Wichita, Kansas, for good measure. At the very least, maybe something about Bind Torture and Kill would jump out at her.

She sat back and thought for a minute. At the very least, maybe she could find out if the poems were originals or copies. She bookmarked the site and pulled up Google, typing a line in from Susan Palmer’s poem. A perfect woman, nobly planned, she typed, and hit enter. Bingo.

Apparently, the Southern Strangler wasn’t creative after all. The poem was written by William Wordsworth. 4,950 hits on the search engine. From a poem called “She Was a Phantom of Delight.” Well, how apropos.

Whitney realized she was on the right track. She did the same thing for Jeanette Lernier’s note. For a creature not so bright and good. Whoa, that had 304,000 hits. She pulled up the poem and realized that both notes were simply stanzas from the same poem. She printed it, whipping the paper out of the printer almost before it was through and read aloud.

“She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment’s ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; All the Pretty Girls

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Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay,

To haunt, to startle and waylay.

“I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman, too!

Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A Creature not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food,

For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

“And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A Being breathing thoughtful breath, A Traveller between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.”

She finished and thought hard for a moment. Something wasn’t right. Reading through it again, she realized she wasn’t seeing the lines from the latest poem she’d received. She followed the same process. The 132

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author of the poem fragment in the newest note was William Butler Yeats. She printed it out and read it aloud.

“Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

“How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

How can anybody, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

“A shudder in the loins, engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.

“Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?”

And that poem covered Jessica Porter, Shauna Davidson and the latest missing, yet to be found but in all probability very dead, Marni Fischer. Wow, that was pretty impressive imagery. But Whitney wasn’t the expert in literature.

She walked back to her desk and sat hard in the supple leather, making the chair squeak in protest. No, Whitney was no English major. That was her twin sister, All the Pretty Girls

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Quinn. Her identical twin. Ashleigh Quinn Connolly Buckley, to be exact. Married to Jonathan “Jake”

Buckley III, she was the perfect Belle Meade housewife. A Junior League hostess extraordinaire. Mother to two of the most adorable children on earth, the twins, Jillian and Jake Junior.

Whitney felt a quick stab of regret. She hadn’t called the twins in a couple of weeks. She may try to stay out of her sister’s perfectly groomed hair, but the kids were another matter. Quinn couldn’t be more Whitney’s opposite if she tried. They’d heard the same thing growing up all their lives, especially since their teenage years. That’s when they really came into their identities. Their mother had always used their full names, in conversation, addressing them, discussing them. Sarah Whitney and Ashleigh Quinn went to school today. Sarah Whitney and Ashleigh Quinn are going to camp this summer. Sarah Whitney and Ashleigh Quinn, get down here right now. Finally, Sarah Whitney rebelled, insisting that she be called just plain Whitney. Ashleigh Quinn had concurred, going with her more esoteric moniker, Quinn. It had taken several months of arguments, but the girls had prevailed. They became Whitney and Quinn, and their personalities diverged along with their names.

One thought led to another and Whitney realized she hadn’t heard from her little brother in a while, either. Reese Connolly was so far off her radar most of the time that she forgot he existed. That’s how she always wanted it. Who said families had to be close?

Tamping down a moment of frustration, Whitney 134

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went to her stainless-steel refrigerator and pulled out a can of sugar-free Red Bull. Coffee and more caffeine, the secret to her figure. She jokingly called it the model diet. Cracking open the can, she stood at the sink, staring out the kitchen window at the huge birch tree in her backyard. A male cardinal parked his red feathers on the bird feeder, chirping contently while he ate his breakfast. Two squirrels barked at each other in a game of chase, and the breeze lightly shuffled leaves from the tree onto her deck. The Virginia creeper that was slowly strangling the bark from the tree reminded her of her past. Whitney had never quite recovered after her parents’