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“The processional. So about the same time the man left,” Dillon said. “And Lucy stepped out before communion?”
“Everyone was saying the Lord’s Prayer and she looked sick. I walked her to the bathroom, but she wanted to go outside for fresh air. She seemed better when she opened the door, though she was a little green.”
Sean’s phone vibrated. It was Jayne. He stepped away from the group. “What’s his name?” Sean asked.
“I don’t know,” Jayne said. “I wanted to make sure you know I’m working on it. It would help if I could narrow it down to a state.”
“Start with D.C., then Virginia and Maryland, and work out from there.”
“Okay, give me some time and I’ll—”
“The guy has Lucy. We don’t have time.”
“I’m doing the best I can, Sean, I’m sorry.”
“I’m just worried. Keep me informed.” He dropped the call. “Kate—get Noah on the phone.
“Why? Do you have an ID?”
“No—but I have an idea. Mallory.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s too coincidental that Lucy is kidnapped at the same time the vigilante group is shut down. Cody’s murder, the stalking, Mallory—it has to be connected, and I think he has the answers.”
“Show him the picture,” Dillon interjected.
“Exactly. This guy has to be involved, otherwise why Lucy? Why now?”
Kate nodded and dialed Noah’s number.
Noah wasn’t sitting down when the guard brought Mick Mallory into the interrogation room at the D.C. jail. He slapped the photograph down on the table.
“This man kidnapped Lucy. Who is he?”
Mallory stared at the picture for a long minute. When he realized who it was, his face turned ashen.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, dammit! We have a witness. Who is it? One of your vigilante friends?”
“No. This is Peter Thomas Miller. He was a high school teacher arrested for statutory rape in 2002. He had sex with six of his female students, at least the ones we know about who came forward, but was only convicted for two of them because after making a statement, the other four recanted. He did a number on the girls—psychologically abusing them as well as seducing them. He only raped virgins, but it was never violent—only mentally sadistic.”
“Mentally sadistic?”
“He convinced them they were inferior, but he did it in such a way they didn’t feel threatened—he never yelled and initially didn’t hit, but instead reasoned out why they were weak and useless and how they should live their lives to serve their husband. He was training them for their future husbands, he’d told one of them. He was sentenced ten-to-twenty, and paroled last summer in Delaware. He registered as a sex offender, then disappeared.”
Mallory paused, then stared at Noah. “Lucy found him online. He was trolling for virgins. But he never showed.”
“Never showed? Explain.”
“Two months ago. Lucy set the meeting, and we switched the location because I knew in my gut that this guy was dangerous—that he would escalate. He deserved my brand of justice. He never showed up, and when I went to his house I knew he’d gone to ground. He might have smelled a cop, but there are safeties in place—he couldn’t have known it was Lucy!”
“There’s always a way.” Noah paused. “What kind of teacher was Miller?”
“Computer science.”
Sean drove as fast as he could on the icy roads to RCK East. Noah Armstrong had called Kate and told her about Peter Miller.
