The Promise Read online

  Get back to me, Gallagher. Good day.”

  Gallagher heard the click of the phone and a dial tone. He had a missing girl, an angry father and a cast of several suspects who could have taken Allison Taylor.

  What a day for a daydream.

  Chapter Fourteen--Raven

  “Did my brother say anything to you, Bree? I mean, did he come on to you in any way?” asked a concerned Verna Oden.

  Elie, still emotionally recovering from her experience with Dr. Oden, stuttered a bit, “Uh, no. Actually he just wanted to pick up his book, like he told you. He was only here a for a minute or so before you came in.”

  “Oh, okay. I just know my brother. He has a way of engaging my roommates and freaking them out. Thank God he didn’t do that to you. He can be such a jerk sometimes…”

  Elie managed a weak smile. “Come on, let’s go get something to drink. I need some air.”

  Verna smiled, “Sure. Let’s go to Maggie Moo’s. I love their chili fries.”

  With that the two roommates headed out the door to the popular Athens ice cream parlor. Once outside, Elie suddenly felt better, the memory of her deviant encounter with Malcolm Oden fading fast as she breathed in the refreshing breeze cooling the humid, August day.

  The FBI agent was resilient if nothing else, and she was even more determined to overcome this experience and find out what she could about a girl who apparently had a far worse encounter than she had personally faced.

  “It feels great out here, Verna!” she sighed contentedly.

  “Yeah, well wait until you taste the chili fries with a vanilla coke. You’ll crave it every day of your life!”

  As they neared the parlor, Verna was approached by a beautiful girl in a sexy tank top and white shorts. She was strikingly beautiful, blonde and blue-eyed and very friendly,

  “Hey V, what’s going on with you today?”

  Verna turned to face the girl and smiled, “Not much, Sam, what are you up to? Have you met my new roommate, Bree?”

  The girl, Samantha Shields, grinned warmly. “Any friend of V’s is a friend of mine, Bree! Welcome to the Colony. Hope you like our school. Where are you from?”

  Without hesitating, Elie responded right on cue, “Statesboro. Home of the Division II National Football Champions! Heard of it?” Samantha laughed easily, “Sure have. I used to date a boy from Statesboro.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Coby Cook! Know him?”

  “Know him? He is dating my best friend now!” Elie bluffed. At that, all three girls started laughing.

  Sam shrugged, “Well, I hope she has better luck with him than I did! He’s really hard to pin down.”

  Looking past the two girls, Samantha suddenly cut the conversation short, “Oh, there’s Raven, gotta go! Nice meeting you both!”

  With that, she walked towards Maggie Moo’s and greeted the girl. They whispered something, glanced over at the two roommates and walked back over to them.

  “Bree, I want you to meet someone,” said Samantha as she motioned to her black-haired friend. “This is Raven. She graduated from the Colony last year.”

  Elie sized her up and was surprised at what she saw in her. The first thing she noticed was that Raven seemed a lot older than both Samantha and Verna.

  She did not look like a girl who had just graduated from high school. She was elegant, classy and tall. She was clad in black, off color for a warm day.

  Her hair was jet black, long, straight and silky. Elie noticed that she looked and seemed different than the two girls standing next to her.

  She soon found out that Raven talked differently, too.

  “So, you’re Verna’s new roommate.” she said in an articulate voice. It was not a question. It was posed as a dare. “What brings you to Athens?”

  Elie was a little stunned that Raven knew she wasn’t a local girl. “My parents always wanted me to go to a private school. Prep for college.”

  Unflustered, the red beauty responded, “Oh? And, there weren’t any schools like ours in your little town?”

  Elie flashed back, “How do you know I’m from a little town?

  ”

  Raven smirked, “You’ve got that pastoral look about you, country-fed, cow-milking, mulch-packing and boring. Iowa?”

  Elie was now getting angry.

  She had just met this girl and already she didn’t like her.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am from a little town. I’m proud of it, too.”

  Raven smiled, “Well, of course you are. Why so defensive? I never said I didn’t like your little town.”

  Elie retreated verbally, “No, you didn’t, but you, never mind. It’s, uh, nice to meet you, Raven. I’m Bree.”

  Her antagonist just looked at her, almost with disdain, “I know your name. It’s pseudo cute. I’m sure you’re proud of that, too.”

  Elie shook her head and resisted the urge to throw a punch at the haughty tart. “Yeah, I like Bree, even if I don’t have the pedigree of being named for a bird of prey, but I’ll manage!”

  As she smiled, the other girls laughed uneasily with her. Raven just stared at her as she realized she had been verbally one-upped by the new girl.

  “Well, I am sure we’ll be seeing you around, cute named, Bree!” She said sarcastically.

  As she turned to leave, Elie saw the sun reflecting off the metal on Raven’s neck. It was something she had seen before. “Hey!” She blurted out, “Nice locket. Is that a crow?”

  Raven turned and faced her fingering her jewelry. “It’s a raven. Get it?”

  Elie examined it carefully. It was exactly like the design the police had picked up the day Allison Taylor disappeared.

  Calmly, without raising any suspicions, Elie whispered, “Yeah, I get it. A raven and your name. It’s a good thing you weren’t christened, Flipper!”

  With that three of the girls laughed except for the one whose eyes were now boring through Elie’s head. “Hey funny girl, just watch your step around here. We warm up slowly to strangers, if at all.”

  With that, she turned abruptly and headed into the parlor.

  Samantha, feeling embarrassed, looked at Elie and apologized, “I haven’t seen her so angry since her and that Taylor girl got into it last week. Wow, I’m so sorry.”

  As she started to follow Raven into the ice cream parlor, Elie grabbed her arm, “Wait a minute. Did you say that Raven and Allison Taylor had an argument last week?”

  Samantha smiled weakly, “Well, it wasn’t that big a deal, just girl stuff. You know, cat fight.”

  Elie pressed her, “Are you aware that Allison is missing?” Samantha went red in the face, “Uh, yeah. She was like, kidnapped or something?”

  “Yes, something like that. Have you heard anything about it, Sam?” At that point, Samantha noticed that Raven was now walking back towards them, “Uh, no, I haven’t heard anything about it. I have to go.”

  As Raven approached she stared at Samantha and then spoke to Elie, “Did I hear someone mention Allison Taylor?”

  Elie nodded, “Yes. Are you aware she disappeared a week ago?”

  “Of course, I’m not some hick from a small town.”

  Elie clenched her fist, “And, you had a fight with her right before she disappeared?”

  “Nice try, chickie. But, it was just an argument about her dad, the creep.”

  Elie’s could feel her eyebrows shooting skyward, “Her dad?”

  Raven slyly smiled, “Are you deaf? It’s no secret he hits on younger women. And, Allison finally found out about it.”

  “So, because he hits on younger women is that any of your concern?”

  Raven smirked, “Take a wild guess, cute but clueless one.”

  Elie was stunned. “He hit on you?”

  The black-haired beauty rolled her eyes, “Are you always this dumb!”

  “And, that made Allison mad?”

  “Yeah, it made her furious. Then, she blamed me. I told her to get her head out o
f her ass. That’s when she tried to hit me. Big mistake, dumb broad.

  A dumb broad with a split lip.”

  Elie was afraid to pepper Raven with too many more questions so as not to arouse any suspicion. So, she let it go. She had also lost her appetite.

  Elie smiled, “Yeah, some girls are dumb. Just ask Dr. Phil. Well, gotta go. It’s Saturday. That’s bath night in our small town. See ya!”

  As she looked back over her shoulder, she could see Raven talking intensely to Samantha. She appeared to be scolding her.

  Verna sighed, “I’ll meet you back at the dorm. I’m craving those chili cheese fries!”

  “I don’t blame you. I just realized I left my clothes in the washer. See you back at school.”

  As she watched Verna walked away, the young agent could not wait to talk to Mike Gallagher about the new development.

  Chapter Fifteen-A strange Clue

  Chief Parker sat in his office frustrated at the lack of progress in the Allison Taylor case. He somberly intoned to himself, “We need a break here.”

  He was feeling the heat of a billionaire father, a community that was worried about a murderer on the loose, a college campus under heavy guard and his own reputation as a law-enforcement officer.

  He called his lead detective, “Gallagher?”

  Within a minute, his request was honored and the two of them sat down to review what they had discovered up to that point.

  “Let’s see what we know so far, Mike. Maybe we’re missing something here,” mused the Chief.

  “Okay, boss. Here’s what we have. A girl, the daughter of a very rich man, walks around the library in the middle of the day among hundreds of other students and disappears into thin air, like the earth just swallowed her up.

  No one saw anything.

  We have two physical clues from that day, a strand of her hair intertwined with a strand of black hair and an unclasped crow locket lying on the ground.

  We have the testimony of her mother who thinks a group of girls from Allison’s high school, named, “The Promise,” may have had something to do with her disappearance and the rest of what we have is rumor, gossip, hearsay or speculation.

  That’s it.”

  Chief Parker put his head in his hands, “In all my years, I have never seen anything like this. Usually in a case of kidnapping or when someone vanishes there is something to work with in the case, a ransom note, a political agenda, a relative with some key information, physical evidence, something.

  But, in this case, we are grabbing air, like she never even existed that day. I would give anything for someone to call us, Allison, one of her friends who knows what happened, even the kidnapper. This is most frustrating.”

  Gallagher shook his head. “It’s bad, sir. But, I believe something will turn up when we least expect it. We need to keep working hard and when that happens, luck happens.

  Hey, I’m Irish. I get lucky. Besides, I have Mick the Wonder mascot. He’s with us.”

  With that, the detective lifted up a green and white stuffed leprechaun. Gallagher swung him from side to side.

  He began talking to his little friend, “Mick, we need you right now. Can you produce a clue for us to give this investigation some luck of the Irish!”

  His boss smiled. At this point, any humor was appreciated. After all a girl’s life was hanging in the balance. Mick was a welcome relief even if the Chief didn’t take it seriously.

  He quickly returned to the issue at hand.

  “Does this ‘feel’ like a kidnapping or a personally, calculated disappearance?”

  Gallagher smiled wryly and said, “I think we can rule out eloping. She only had one guy she was interested in, Justin Shaw.

  He’s here. She’s not. I don’t think they got married.

  Secondly, I don’t think she is the type who would run away. She loves her dad too much. I don’t think she would disappear to help a friend and not tell her family or Justin.

  This girl is too responsible.

  This doesn’t feel like a ploy, she’s too honest of a person to go this long and put others through this. I don’t think her dad and her are pulling off some scam here, either. He seems genuinely angry.

  So, it appears we have a kidnapping for a myriad of reasons or, worse.”

  Chief Parker nodded his assent, “I agree with you, Mike. With a week gone by, the kidnapping for money theory gets slimmer and slimmer. We would have heard by the perpetrator by now if a ransom was the issue.”

  “That really leaves only one main possibility, Chief.”

  “Yes, it does. Allison Taylor may be the victim of a sex crime. I hate to even think about it.”

  Gallagher put his head down. As a father who had lost his daughter this case was hitting too close to home for him and he was struggling with it.

  “Mike, I have been notified by the FBI they are sending a profiler our way. I’d use Elie but she is up to her neck at the school. I checked with her and she approved of this guy we’re bringing in.. She knows him and speaks highly of him.”

  “Chief, I don’t see why we have to use the feds on this.”

  “We need to use whatever we can to solve this case, Mike. This guy may be able to help us. Trust me on this one.”

  They were interrupted by one of the desk officers, “Hey, Chief! Just got a call from forensics, they may have something on the Taylor girl’s case.”

  Parker immediately faced the officer, “Yes?”

  “Dr. Lowe said they found a saturated piece of paper in the drainage ditch on the curb by the library. Forensics was able to salvage some words from it. We don’t recognize it from any literary piece, but we’re continuing to search it.”

  “What is the sentence, officer?”

  “I am sending a copy of it over to you. But, here’s what it says,”

  Parker pulled out his pen and copied the words over the phone. The sentence was in old English,

  WHETHER TEMPTER SENT OR WHETHER TEMPEST TOSSED THEE HERE ASHORE, DESOLATE YET ALL UNDAUNTED.

  The desk officer concluded, “There appears to be more, Chief, but it’s too smudged.”

  We’re comparing the writing to see if they match any handwriting from sex offenders in the area. You’re big on literature, boss. Does any of this ring a bell, sir?

  Chief Parker thought for a moment. “Actually, I have read that somewhere. I know that phrase. But, why do you think it’s related to Allison’s disappearance?”

  “Because there was a black hair entwined on it containing the same DNA on the black hair that was mixed with Allison’s hair sample.”

  Chief Parker whistled softly, “Great work. I’ll have Gallagher swing by to see Lowe. Thanks, Dietrich.”

  Turning to his detective, Parker smiled, “Your lucky Mick just threw us a cookie. It’s actually a crumb, but it might be something.”

  Chapter Sixteen-connecting the Dots

  Elie sat down with Mike Gallagher in his office. She had a lot to tell him concerning her activities the previous two days.

  Although still shaken by her experience with Dr. Oden, she detailed as much as she could without getting too emotional about it.

  Mike, on the other hand, was furious…

  “That bastard! I would have given my right arm to walk in as he was doing those things to you so I would have thrown the sick pervert against the wall!”

  Elie smiled wanly, “It’s a good thing you’re left-handed, then!”

  “We need to arrest that guy as soon as we pull you out of there.”

  “You have no legal case, Mike? I’m not a high school girl.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t know that. I can assure you, you’re not the first one he has engaged like that, either.”

  “Well, give me a little time to build a real case against him. Hopefully, we will find Allison and put this guy away for a long time. Two birds with one stone.”

  “Speaking of birds, tell me about Raven, Elie.”

  The agent paused to gather her
thoughts. She wanted to be clear on how she described her encounter with Raven the previous day. “Well, she’s an interesting individual. Uppity, somewhat gothic, a little scary and,”