Page 109 of Glimmer in the Darkness

“I was on the force back when he was a kid. We always suspected abuse, but we could never confirm it. Vince never admitted to anything, and nobody witnessed her hurting him.” Cote looked away, frowning. “Even as an adult, he would never talk about it, but she was a nightmare.”

“So what? Lots of people have bad childhoods.” He took Cassy’s hand. “They don’t turn out to be murderers. What does his mother have to do with him kidnapping my sister?”

“He had a sister. She wandered off one night and drowned when she was five.”

“Did the mother—?”

“It was ruled an accident,” Cote said. “Kid just wandered off and drowned. Vince was eight when it happened. Had to be traumatic for him. Add that to having an abusive mother…”

“His taking Hallie,” Cassidy said, “it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Aside from the ski mask, which he’d probably just rolled up and used as a skull cap before he saw her, he wasn’t prepared. He hadn’t planned it. And I think… he treated her like a sister. I think that’s what he wanted—a sister.”

Vince had spoken to James about his mother only once. They’d been at Teresa’s, and Vince had had a couple of drinks. “He told me once his mother never wanted a boy. Didn’t say anything about a sister, though.”

“Far as I know,” Cote said, “he never talked about her. It probably terrified him when you”—he nodded to Cassidy—“disappeared with Hallie, and then she died. It’s possible that he was scared enough that he vowed never to do anything like that again.”

“And then his mother died,” James said. “And, for whatever reason, that pushed him over the edge.”

“The idea tracks with what Ella told us,” Cote said. “She said he kept calling her his little sister and promising that he was going to take her somewhere far away, and they were going to swim in the ocean and build sand castles. At his house, we discovered that he owns property in Honduras. The flight he bought would have taken them as far as Cancun. From there, we figured he would have driven over the border.”

“And disappeared,” Cassidy said. “Would they ever have been found?”

“I don’t know.” Cote shook his head. “Vince is smart. With his law enforcement background… He knew what he was doing.”

“How could he be so smart and so… crazy?” James rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t understand how I could have missed it all these years.”

“We all did, son.”

Cassidy squeezed James’s hand and spoke to the detective. “What happened with Addison? If Vince wanted a sister, how did she end up dead?”

“We don’t know.” Cote opened the shoebox again. “We know he had her because”—he lifted out another plastic bag for them to see—“we found a barrette that belonged to her. We think she made him mad and he killed her. We’re hoping Ella will eventually give us more information about what happened when he held her. That should help us piece it together. The manner of death, though…” His glance bounced off James, landed on Cassidy. “It’s possible she escaped and tried to climb down the same cliff. More likely, though, he dropped her down that cliff so the injuries would be consistent with Hallie’s. He was trying to make it look like the same person.”

How awful. Poor, sweet little girl. What must her last moments have been like?

They let the questions settle a moment, questions they’d never have answered. Then Cote glanced at his watch and pushed back in his chair. “Mayor’s probably here. We ought to get out there.”

James leaned away. “Out where, for what?”

“Oh.” Cote ran his hand over his thinning hair. “I should’ve warned you. We’re having a press conference. Want you two up there with us. You won’t be expected to answer questions, but we want to make it official that Vince is our suspect and that Cassidy is off the hook.”

Cassidy glanced at James, eyes wide. She looked terrified.

“You don’t have to,” Cote said, focusing on Cassidy. “But we’d sure like it if you’d stand up there with us. Mayor hopes it’ll show there’re no hard feelings and all that.”

James’s heart thumped, and he stood to face the older man. “No hard feelings? You accused her of kidnapping and murder and sent her on the run for a decade. I think she’s entitled to hard feelings.”

“We didn’t force her to run. That was her choice.” Cote turned his attention to Cassidy. “What do you think?”

James turned to her as well.

She looked from one to the other, then stood and slid her hand into James’s. “They got the guy. That’s all that matters.”

“No, it’s not,” James said. “You matter. Your life matters.”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for saying that. Right now, what matters more is that Ella is home with her father, the killer is in custody, and I’m free to be myself again.”

She was free. That was what mattered. And if she could forgive, so could James.

Chapter Forty-One