Blood Runs Cold

63

Bob Gage, Mike Delaney and a team of detectives from the Sheriff’s Office were waiting at the trailhead to take the Wardwells into custody.

Ren Bryce and Paul Louderback stood by their Jeeps in the deserted parking lot of the Brockton Filly. There were no lights on in the building.

‘See how I parked beside yours?’ said Paul.

They both tried to smile.

He unlocked his Jeep. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There is a chill in the air.’

They got in. Ren studied Paul’s face as he opened the glove box. He had private-school bone structure. He was a refined kind of handsome. He turned to talk to her and smiled when he saw she was already looking at him. She smiled back.

‘In another lifetime …’ he said.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Ren. ‘We were in the situation enough times that we could have done something about it, and we didn’t. Like now, for example.’

Paul nodded. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘Maybe I am.’

‘But you know I care about you so much.’

‘Me too.’

‘I should have met you when I was in my twenties.’

‘Think about that for a second,’ said Ren.

‘Oh. Yes. OK – we should have met while I was in my thirties and you were in your twenties. You would have loosened me up, we could have done loads of crazy things, we would have had some great photos I could still sneak a look at …’

‘No – you should have just been a girl,’ said Ren. ‘That would have been less complicated.’

‘Knowing us,’ said Paul, ‘that probably wouldn’t have made a difference.’

‘It’s weird, but you’re one of my best friends, but it’s kind of secret. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’re both in the Bureau, we wouldn’t even be at each other’s funerals.’

Paul laughed. ‘What the –? Only you would say something as screwed up as that –’

‘You know what I mean, though. We have this intense friendship that we can’t even tell people about. But it’s not an affair.’

‘Your Safe Streets buddies might think differently.’

‘That’s their problem,’ said Ren. ‘Projection. We know what we know.’

Paul nodded.

‘So …’ said Ren. ‘Jean Transom. Tell me …’

Paul let out a breath. ‘OK …’ He paused. ‘When Jean was in the academy, I called her in to my office. Her grades were off the charts, but I had some concerns about her … psychological wellbeing. She wouldn’t tell me what was going on.’ He shrugged. ‘I gave her the chance to take care of it on her own. She didn’t. I told her she would have to leave the academy. So she had no choice. She told me everything. She was the little girl that for three weeks in 1979 the whole country worried about. Three weeks – it seems weird now. It was like a condensed version of the Elizabeth Smart case.

‘What went on during that time was never spoken about outside their families. They had denied there had been any abuse, but it was clear that no one was going to believe that.

‘The Mayers were wealthier than the Sleights. They moved to Northern California and changed their names. You know how it works – a Ramsay from Boulder is always going to spark an association, a Mayer or a Sleight from Frisco, the same deal. And, of course, Jennifer Mayer was pregnant.’

‘I cannot imagine what that must have been like,’ said Ren.

‘And that is part of the strength people always saw in Jean,’ said Paul. ‘The source of it was intangible, but it was there.

‘So, the Sleights couldn’t afford the luxury of moving across the country and changing their entire lives,’ said Paul. ‘And it wasn’t like they were in Witness Protection so the FBI would cover it. Ruth Sleight had to live in Frisco in the same neighborhood she was abducted from, on the same street her friend had left, going to the same school as the kids who whispered about her behind her back.’

‘That must have been a nightmare for her.’

Paul nodded. ‘Oh, yes. She went completely off the rails. She was an alcoholic by the time she was twenty-two. She was in very bad shape. She had a really tragic existence.

‘And about a year ago, Jean Transom was traced by the daughter she had given up for adoption – Caroline Quaintance. And it made her want to get back in touch with Ruth Sleight. They had never spoken since their families had torn them apart. Their parents had always felt that the girls would never get over their trauma if they had to keep seeing each other.

‘So, Jean tracks Ruth down – obviously that wasn’t difficult: Ruth still lived in Frisco. Jean was devastated when she saw what Ruth had become. She called me that night, terribly distressed. Not only because of that, but because they’d discussed, between themselves, what had happened, for the first time ever. And what was worse was that Ruth was devastated at what Jean had become. She looked at the kind of future she could have had. She saw the polar opposite of what she was. Two days later, she killed herself. Her suicide note was addressed to Jean. Jean had asked her, the day they met, did she remember the floor of the place they were held. Ruth had said no. But she had – she had drawn a diagram of it when she was a child. And that was her suicide note, signed Ruth XX.

‘Oh God,’ said Ren. ‘That poor woman. And after what Jason Wardwell said tonight, it looks like he didn’t sexually abuse her. Do you believe him?’

‘I do,’ said Paul.

‘So Ruth Sleight had to see Jean Transom, apparently solid and successful. And revisit, through this alcoholic haze, the trauma of having to hear her best friend go through what she went through, the guilt of not having been sexually abused herself, the shock of hearing Jean had gotten pregnant, and the guilt at having lied to her about her own abuse …’ Ren shook her head. ‘That woman never stood a chance, did she?’

Paul shook his head. ‘I guess not. Which is what made me so mad back there, Ren. I was so fond of Jean and so impressed by her. She had wanted to be an FBI agent from when she was six years old. It had nothing to do with what she had been through at eleven. And then you had Ruth Sleight, destroyed from the moment that sick fuck put her in the trunk of that car.’

‘Jean Transom is abducted, completely traumatized, gives birth aged twelve. And still, she follows her dream job,’ said Ren. ‘Even though she knows it will bring her in touch with the kind of fucked-up people she could have spent her life trying to avoid. Jean Transom really was something else.’

‘Which is why I put someone on the case who I knew could follow whatever trail Jean had embarked on. I had told her specifically never to pursue this. Ever. But I knew when her body was found that she had. So, Agent Bryce – a shoe analogy for you –’

Ren held up a hand. ‘Don’t say anything about filling shoes.’

‘Let me finish,’ said Paul. ‘No, you could not fill Jean Transom’s shoes. But that is because no one can ever fill anyone else’s shoes. It’s an expression that drives me crazy.’

‘Me too,’ said Ren. ‘That was my point.’

‘So,’ said Paul. ‘I knew you couldn’t fill her shoes, but … you could follow her footprints in the snow.’