“For Mommy,” he said and pressed the little red car into her hand.
The Child Services lady came back and crouched next to him. “But Tyler, that’s your very favorite car. Are you sure you want to give it away?”
Again, Tyler pushed the car at Stacy, a little more firmly this time. “For Mommy.”
Stacy’s heart just about melted. She enclosed his hand with the car in both of hers and kissed it. “I’ll keep it safe, baby. I promise,” she’d told him. “When you come home to live with me again, it’ll be waiting for you.”
That was the last time she’d seen him. After that he’d changed foster homes, changed Child Services case workers, and for a whole bunch of reasons the visits had petered out to nothing.
The memory of his small hand in hers, that stern look in his eye as he gave her his most prized possession brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed against it, pulled herself back to the present, and peeped out from behind the rear bumper. The street was clear. She checked each way, just to be sure, then got to her feet.
The lady from Child Services, the kid on the street had said. If the lady really was from Child Services, Tyler was safe for the moment, but the chances of Stacy finding him had just grown infinitely smaller. So that took away one problem and added another.
But what if Wayne had arranged to have him picked up? She’d written to him, telling him that the second Stacy was out, Tyler’s life was in danger. She’d given him a brief outline of her plan—to pick Tyler up after school, then hand him off to Wayne to take somewhere safe, somewhere no one would ever find him. Didn’t matter what happened to Stacy after that. Long as her son was safe. It meant Wayne would also be laying his life on the line. But what father wouldn’t do that to protect his son? So maybe, just maybe, he’d gotten someone to pose as a lady from Child Services to come pick Tyler up.
But why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he pick him up himself? Maybe he had another plan. Maybe there was a reason he couldn’t do it.
There was only one way to find out. She got in the car, did a U-turn, and headed for Walton Street.
CHAPTER FIVE
DAY ONE: 3:45 PM—ELIZABETH
Elizabeth walked straight into her office and placed her briefcase next to her desk.
“Where the hell do we start?” she said and fell into her chair, swiveling it to lean both elbows on the desk, forehead cradled in her hands while she went over her calendar.
Before Penny could reply, the phone in the outer office rang. She went back to the reception area and looked at the screen of her phone.
“Thirty-seven missed calls,” she announced.
Elizabeth switched on her computer, let out an exasperated sigh, and sat back. “Pick up the messages. Just give me the important ones. Delete the rest.”
The calls had begun on Elizabeth’s cell phone almost the second her call with Walt Straussman had ended—newspaper reporters from all over the country, TV networks, women’s magazines—all one after the other until she’d switched her phone off. How they’d gotten her private cell phone number was anybody’s guess. Now she’d have to change it again. The curse of social media. And not the only curse, considering the excruciatingly short time the uploaded video had taken to go viral on Twitter.
Elizabeth was sitting at her desk massaging her temples while she waited for her email to download, when Penny knocked and came in, shuffling through a stack of While You Were Out notes.
“A Detective Delaney asked if you could give him a call. ‘As soon as you can,’ he said. And Mr. McClaine wants to speak to you—Mr. Charles, that is,” she said, identifying him as her father-in-law, rather than Elizabeth’s ex-husband, Richard. “Four calls from Walt Straussman,” she added with an ominous flick of the eyebrows.
Elizabeth extended her hand and Penny passed the messages to her.
“Thanks, I’ll call him right away.” Elizabeth stacked the messages neatly, then set them to one side while she placed both hands on the desktop and breathed out slowly, taking a second to gather herself. From almost the moment Stacy went missing, the barrage of media attention had put a light to a fuse, and the political backlash had started. Until then, Elizabeth hadn’t really considered just how many state departments, how many state services, individuals, and organizations Stacy’s disappearance would affect. Not to mention her father-in-law’s credibility. She didn’t want to speak to him, much less see him. As for the governor, even thinking about how this would affect him brought the taste of bile to her throat. She blew out a slow breath.
“Are you okay?” Penny asked in genuine concern as she collected up a stack of faxed documents from Elizabeth’s fax machine. “You look pale.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together momentarily before reaching for the phone and hitting “2,” the governor’s private speed-dial. Then she sat back, composing herself while she waited for the call to connect. “Just give me a second. I’ll be fine.”
First things first: she needed to speak to Walt Straussman again, start ironing things out with him. It was the last call she wanted to make right now, but it was imperative she put a plan of damage control into place. The line opened and the phone had rung twice when the little buzzer on her desk sounded, signaling her that someone had entered the outer office.
“Whoever it is, throw them out and lock it,” she told Penny as the call clicked through and Walt’s messaging kicked in.
Penny exited to the front office while Elizabeth waited for Walt Straussman’s recorded voice message to finish, but Penny returned almost at once, saying, “I’m sorry, Mrs. McClaine, it’s Detective Delaney. He’d like to speak to you immediately.”
Elizabeth let out a weary sigh and her shoulders sank. She hung up and leaned back in her chair, head high, arms laid gently along the armrests of the chair, with her legs crossed, attempting to look unruffled, despite feeling ten years older than she did this morning. “Show him in.”
Apart from an extra sprinkling of gray around the temples, Detective Lance Delaney looked no different than when Elizabeth first met him five years ago when he’d been the lead detective in the case to find her missing daughter. He was tall and thin, with a shading of stubble across his hollowed-out cheeks, and still looked as if an unseen burden weighed him down. There had been times in the past when Elizabeth had wondered what that burden was; others when she thought she was better off not knowing.
He nodded in greeting, saying, “Mrs. McClaine,” and closed the door behind him.
Elizabeth reached across and closed her calendar. “Detective Delaney.”
“You mind?” he said, indicating the chair on the other side of her desk.
She opened one hand in invitation.“Of course.”
He took a seat, hands on his knees as though exhausted, and looked around her office before speaking. “I don’t suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”
Elizabeth dropped both forearms on the desk and gave him a deadpan look. “I wouldn’t exactly need second sight to figure it out, would I?”
A brief head-dip in acknowledgment. He gave her a second, then looked up. “I don’t envy your position right now.”
“No kidding.”
“The media’s gearing up for a field day on this. They’re knocking down our doors already, wanting statements. Do you think you’re up to all this?”
She leaned back in her chair. “No. But if you’re asking me if this’ll drive me back to the bottle, save it until tomorrow. I have a horrible feeling there’s worse to come.”
“I don’t suppose you have any idea where Stacy may have gone?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I had to ask.” He gave it a beat, then said, “Any ideas or theories about why she might have run? Any threats you were aware of? Maybe trouble she’d gotten in?”
“Not a thing.”
“No indication she was planning anything?”
“Oh, please. You can rephrase the question a hundred different ways, the answer’s sti
ll the same.” Elizabeth swallowed back the bile she felt rising in her throat. She felt sick.
Perhaps picking up on it, Delaney said, “We’ll find her, Elizabeth. Just be patient.”
“Patient, he says. Lance, this isn’t about my reputation. There’s a little boy out there who’s waiting for his mother to come home to him. I’ll be the first to admit that Stacy didn’t always make the best choices. Good grief, she had a child at fifteen. And yes, she was stupid enough to write a bad check. But it was for groceries. So they could eat. C’mon. She had a child with a lot of challenges to take care of.”
“Elizabeth, Stacy May Charms didn’t go to prison for writing a bad check. She assaulted a Child Welfare worker.”
“Who came to take her son away from her.”
Delaney said nothing, just held her gaze.
When she realized there was no point in attacking him, she shook her head and waved it away. “I know, I know. It’s not your fault. You’re just doing your job.”
“Then we’d better get some details down, shall we?” He took a tablet from his pocket and consulted the screen, swiping it from side to side. “You good to go?”
She nodded.
“Then let me just confirm: You picked up Stacy May Charms from the prison at 11:45 this morning. Is that correct?”
Oddly wounded by how readily his demeanor switched from sympathetic acquaintance to public official, she gave it a moment before answering.
“It was supposed to be 11:45. That was the time we had scheduled, but her mother wasn’t picking up the phone to confirm she was home. I have no idea what the woman was doing, but we had to wait another twenty minutes before we could get through. We didn’t leave until after the release procedures had been completed and that took until 12:15.”
He paused with his pen over the tablet screen. “At exactly 12:15?”
“You want the time to the second?”
He looked up.
“Yes, 12:15.”
He nodded and tapped it into the screen. “And her parole officer is Nancy Pattrenko, correct?”
“That’s correct,” Elizabeth said, wondering why it mattered. Stacy would hardly have fled to go to her parole officer. “I’d like to make it clear that I intend to make my own inquiries into Stacy’s disappearance. I have an awful lot riding on this program—not least of which is my position with the Charles McClaine Foundation.” She looked away towards the windows and winced at the thought. What damage this could wreak on the foundation’s name didn’t even bear thinking about.
Delaney never looked up, just kept making notes in his tablet.
“Understood. And you’re welcome to carry out your own inquiries. However,” he said and paused to catch her eye, “any information or evidence you obtain in regard to this case must be passed along to my office. Are we clear?”
Elizabeth picked up a pen, rolled it in her fingers. She felt like a recalcitrant student at the principal’s office. “Yes, we’re clear.”
He waited a beat, then nodded. “I believe Tyler Charms was picked up from his school by Child Services.”
“That’s correct. Kay Heathers was on her way to meet us when she got the news. According to the message we got from the department, she went straight to Tyler’s school and collected him.”
“And took him back to his foster home.” A statement, not a question, so he obviously already knew.
“I believe so.” Elizabeth leaned forward to catch his eye. “Lance, I interviewed twenty-four women in Carringway. Right from the first meeting, I was in awe of Stacy May. I mean, really in awe. Tyler has brain damage. He has learning difficulties, developmental delays, coordination problems. There’s no saying where the problems will end. That’s a tough outlook. I should know, I’ve been there. And yet, Stacy loved that child unconditionally from the word go. Every time I spoke to her, I sat there thinking, ‘Why couldn’t I have…?’” She dropped her gaze, felt her lip tremble while the memories of her own failures as a mother threatened to rise up. Determined not to let herself go down that track, she swallowed hard and gathered herself. “Anyway, I thought this program was the perfect opportunity for her to turn her life around. Which is why she was the successful applicant.”
When he simply nodded and kept tapping, she lifted her head but couldn’t see the screen.
Eventually, his eyes came up to meet hers. “This isn’t about you and Holly, Elizabeth. This is about someone else’s choices. And you can’t change them.”
Elizabeth felt her heart drop. If only he could have seen Stacy May the way she did—how strong she was. If only Elizabeth had always had that strength.
Ignoring her silence, he went on, saying, “Do you remember her mentioning anyone she might contact when she got out? Anyone she might trust enough to go to?”
Elizabeth kept her eyes fixed on the pen she’d found herself repositioning on her leather-bound blotter. “From memory, I don’t think she had any friends at all. Certainly no one on the inside from what I could see. I heard some of the inmates turned on her when she applied for the program. Jealousy, I suppose.”
Delaney gave her a wan smile. “You wave a free pass for release at a prison full of desperate people, you’re bound to create resentments.”
She lifted a look on him but said nothing. She knew the Department of Corrections and the police deemed the program “politicking where politicians and do-gooders had no right to tread.”
Delaney checked through the details he had and nodded once. “I think that’s everything for now.” He leaned to one side, tucking the tablet into his jacket pocket, eyes on Elizabeth. She was waiting for him to abruptly get up and leave the way he always did, but instead he said, “How’s Holly? She must be, what, eleven now?”
Elizabeth felt her mood lighten at the thought of her daughter, how Delaney had worked night and day to find her when she was kidnapped.
“She’s fine. And yes, eleven years old already. I don’t know where the time went. One day all she talks about is Sesame Street, next thing I know it’s all about clothes and shoes and makeup. Just like any little girl, I guess.” She smiled at the memory of finding her daughter clomping through the house in a pair of Elizabeth’s spike heel shoes, bright red lipstick smeared across her round, flat face, her favorite toy tucked under her arm. “And then there’s Arthur, her teddy bear. She takes him everywhere with her.” Her smile faded as the reality hit home. “To think I almost lost her.”
They sat in silence for a moment, eyes downcast. That dreadful time five years ago was Elizabeth’s worst nightmare. Any mother’s worst nightmare.
“I don’t know…” she began and cut herself off while she groped for the words. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you.”
Another sad smile turned one corner of his mouth up. “It’s my job.”
“You did more than your job.”
He nodded once. “And yes, you did thank me.”
An awkward silence spooled out. Then Delaney got up, adjusting his jacket. “Well, I think that’s all for now. There’s bound to be a lot of media attention on this.”
“As if there hasn’t been already,” she said and made a face.
“Oh, and I’ll ask you to refrain from speaking to the press.” He lifted his eyebrows and added, his tone firm: “And this time, I mean it.”
She flicked a glance up, then shifted her attention to align the message pad on her desk with the blotter. “Understood.”
“And if I need to get in contact with you?”
“Penny will give you my new cell phone number.”
He turned for the door, but Elizabeth stopped him, saying, “Lance, if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that Stacy is devoted to that child. She won’t go anywhere without him. Wherever she is, she’ll be searching for him.”
“Then after three years in prison, and with so little contact with him over the last one, I’d say she’s either a very devoted mother, or an exceptional actress. Thank you, I’ll see myself out.”
“Jennifer, it’s Elizabeth McClaine.”
“How are you, Mrs. McClaine?”
Mrs. McClaine, not Elizabeth. Plus her tone was on the frosty side of cool. Elizabeth dropped her head onto one hand.
“I’m guessing you’ve heard,” she asked.
A chilly beat before answering. “About Stacy? Oh yes, I certainly have.”
“I’m convinced there was something going on behind the scenes—something we didn’t know about that made her run.”
“Well, that’s become very … apparent. Although in light of what’s happened, perhaps she’d been planning this all along. We’ll be sure to ask her when the monitoring company tracks her down and brings her back and the whole program is scrapped.”
Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut. That barbed comment had hit the mark. But bickering over the whys and hows wasn’t going to get them anywhere.
“Jennifer, I know you’ve been one of the greatest advocates for this program. I know you saw the benefits. You see how many young women whose lives could be turned around. You were one of the biggest supporters right from the start, long before anybody else. We would never have made it this far if it wasn’t for you. And I know Stacy wasn’t your choice of representative for this program.”
The Elizabeth McClaine Thriller Boxed Set Page 33