Page 60 of To Have and to Hold

I mumbled over the facts, scrolling up, back down, and concluding that I had to talk to one of these women myself. Knox had written that he wanted to contact them, but from everything I’d gleaned, hadn’t yet done so. The women were named—confidentially—in Knox’s notes, but I’d already broken all kinds of protocol as well as the law. I might as well make it a trifecta.

I chose the woman who seemed the most detailed in her complaint, Abigail Danner. Her information was likely way out of date, but as a prosecutor, I had perks. I logged onto the database that allowed me to search people in secret ways that regular search engines couldn’t do, and was able to locate her through her driver’s license. She lived in TriBeCa and was a simple phone call away.

It was late, but not too late for a thirty-year-old. I pulled out the flip phone, then swore at the grey screen. Turned out, cheap pay-as-you-go phones had trouble handling multiple phone calls and texts, and died after two hours. I threw it onto my desk and moved to my next option.

I dialed Abigail’s number before thinking twice, holding my landline to my ear and becoming mesmerized by the dangling cord. I’d only gotten the landline because it was cheaper to do a triple deal with my cable company than just purchasing cable and internet, but now I congratulated my frugal self, because I was down a cell phone and up a telephone that plugged into my wall.

“Hello?”

A harried voice picked up on the other side, a screaming child not far from her.

“Ah…” I straightened out of my seat, conscious of the disruption. “Sorry to bother you, is this Abigail Danner?”

“Mike, put down the—no! Milk is not for your dragon, put it down. It’s for your belly. Sorry, what? Oh, yes. I’m Abbi. Johnson, now. Abigail Johnson.”

“I apologize for calling kind of late, but—”

“Is this a sales call?” The cries faded as she likely walked into another room.

“Not at all. I’m an alumnus from the same college as you—” I realized my mistake. “But not to ask for a donation. I actually wanted to inquire about an incident you had there back in two thousand nine. With Ed Carver? Do you remember him?”

There was no answer. I held the phone away from my face to check for a connection, then cursed. Landline. I put it back to my ear. “Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here,” she said. “Thinking. Who is this?”

“Sp…Adam Levi.” Yep, I was going to Hell. “I’m a detective with the NYPD. You can verify my badge number if you like. I apologize for the intrusion.”

“He’s done something, hasn’t he?” Abigail said. “I knew it. Such a goddamned creep.”

“I’m attempting to get a little background on him, for reasons I unfortunately can’t disclose. Do you mind giving me a bit of insight on what he was like? What happened between you two?”

“Happily,” Abigail said. Her candor was unexpected, but I made myself comfortable, pen ready.

She outlined exactly what was written in Knox’s summary, adding a few more details but nothing lightbulb inducing. She first caught Ed’s attentions in her philosophy class. He sat next to her and she noticed that during the lecture he wouldn’t be attentively eyeing the professor, but instead was staring at her. Ed tried conversation with her, but it was so stilted and strange, asking her things like her favorite type of octopus in the ocean and why she wore eyeliner, that in three lectures she was at the opposite side of the room. It was a small number of students for such a large lecture hall, so by the next class, he was beside her again. Then, he was at the same parties she was. And lingering in her residence common rooms before eventually traipsing through her hallway. And once—the inciting incident—Ed was caught in her dorm room by her roommate, going through her underwear. When searched by campus security, they’d found thongs from her laundry basket stored in his khakis. He’d only taken the ones with blue on them because that was his favorite color.

“This might sound strange, but could you describe your reaction to him upon your first meet? Gut instinct is often more accurate than afterthought,” I said.

“Okay, well, it’s a fair ways back, but I’ll try to remember. He was fairly normal looking. Tall, you know, longish limbs, wide shoulders. Dark hair, dark eyes. He had this intense way about him, though, like when you talked to him, he’d never look away. And he’d smile inappropriately. It’s hard to describe but…but you could be discussing how your dog was hit by a car and he’d just grin, and you’d have to take a step back it was so abrupt. And—it’s weird but, since you’re asking me and I want to be as detailed as I can, when he smiled, his teeth were…off.”

My pen stilled. “What do you mean by ‘off’?”

“Like super white. And straight, no gaps or anything. They were basically these manmade, pristine squares—oh, you know what they were? Veneers! That’s it. He’s this guy with pimples and craters all over his face, and he goes and gets himself veneers.”

I set my pen across my lecture pad. “Thank you, Abigail, you’ve been incredibly helpful.”

“Not a problem. Let me know if I can be of any more help to put that guy away.”

I hung up—missed the handle and had to do it again, slamming the phone down—and propelled out of my seat. Not after transcribing Abigail’s description, though that had a lightning rod shooting up my ass, but when I comprehended the last sentence in Knox’s typed notes.

Ed’s current place of residence was less than one mile away from where Emme was abducted.

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