by J. J. Cagney
Danielle’s chin trembled. Her mother had died yesterday.
Danielle wasted so many years wishing Nancy had been different, and now . . . her mother was dead.
“Dani,” Garrett began, pushing himself from the counter. He walked over and lifted her chin, searching her face before cupping her cheek. “I didn’t hate your mom. I just . . . she was hard to know.”
“I feel like I lost my last link to the past. The only person who knew me before I did. The only one who would have ever told me the truth about my brother.”
Garrett threw his hands up in frustration. “It wasn’t your past. Jonathan’s death, it took something from all of you, from you most of all. I just . . . don’t get sucked into this. Please. From what Hardesty said, it’s unsolved for a reason, and I . . .”
She drew a deep breath as Garrett spoke and she cut him off mid-sentence—not her typical style when communicating with her husband but she didn’t want to hear his reasoning. Not now.
“I’m not sure where Chief Hardesty’s investigation will lead. But he asked me to open the house to him and I need to honor that—as my mother’s request. Her last one.” She lifted her face, beseeching him to understand.
Garrett stepped away, both his shoulders and face were rigid; Danielle’s stomach muscles clenched in response. “I can’t protect you from this. From the past.”
She studied him, that face that was developing some interesting creases where it had once been smooth and baby soft. Nearly fifteen years together now. She’d watched that face mature, develop more texture and character over the years. They’d done that together, learned and loved and learned to love together.
“I’m not asking you to,” Danielle murmured. “Just . . . I’m going to need you. My mom’s death hasn’t hit me yet. But I . . . I think it’s going to be hard.” She swallowed, trying to get some moisture back into her dry throat.
She walked to him and Garrett once again wrapped her in those strong, warm arms. She rested her cheek against his chest, surprised by how much she needed the comfort. She turned and kissed the throbbing point just above the collar of his crisp, blue dress shirt. He tightened his arms around her and the embrace soothed her—as Garrett often did.
“She told me she didn’t want you to know the details,” Garrett said after a time.
He must have felt Danielle stiffen, but before she could say anything, Kevin walked into the kitchen, yawning. His curly hair, his father’s hair, was standing up all over his head. He looked so much like Garrett, her knees weakened. His father’s face, if less wise and more animated, stamped permanently within his own.
Looking into her son’s face, Danielle couldn’t see anything of herself, of her parents even. Who knew if Kevin shared any of Jonathan’s characteristics? Not in the face itself, but in the mannerisms, speech. She would never be certain. That’s why she wasn’t sure she should have more kids. What if something happened to one? What if that child was like her mother?
She shuddered, unable to stomach the thought.
It had been eight and a half years since Kevin had been inside her, a part of her, this child of fierce independence. The rip of separation was fresh, delightful, and hideous. Terrifying when seen through her mother’s—even Chief Hardesty’s—lens.
Danielle pulled away from Garrett as she popped the waffles out of the toaster oven. She used the moment to try to get some control over her tumultuous emotions.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Danielle said as she kissed the soft, tickly hair, trying to smooth it down a little. It just sprang back into total unruliness. She dropped another kiss on Kevin’s head, making him squirm.
“Thanks, Mom,” Kevin said as he slid into his chair, attacking the waffles before his butt even hit the wooden seat. If experience was anything to go by, he was in the process of bulking up before the next shot skyward. With this growth spurt, or perhaps the next one as he neared his teen years, he was going to reach her height. Why was it so amazing and frightening to watch one’s child grow?
“I’ll get you some milk.”
“What’s for breakfast?” Reid asked, rubbing his eyes. His green T-shirt was on inside out and backward, the tag tickling his chin. Kevin smirked and nearly lost the enormous bite he only just shoveled in.
Danielle felt her lips twitch in response. She jerked Reid’s shirt up, which got stuck on his forehead, much to his brother’s delight. At least this time Kevin’s mouth was empty. As Reid struggled to get his thin arms through the shirtsleeves and she yanked ever harder, Kevin screamed with laughter.
“You did this. Somehow you set this up,” Danielle breathed to Garrett. He continued to lean against the counter, grinning through her cool stare.
“Ain’t it grand?” he said with a smirk.
Then the dog ran in, circling through Danielle’s legs, yipping and wagging her tail. Weaving in and out, in and out, then another tour between Danielle, Reid, and Garrett, who was just watching the whole scene with shining eyes.
“You could help here,” Danielle panted at Garrett just before Reid started yelling, though his words were muffled by his shirt that pulled back down over his whole face when he’d tried to get his elbows out. She slid her feet out farther to allow Shiloh, their mutt-stray they’d picked up from the pound last year, to circle her faster. Planting her legs, she used her newfound leverage to yank the shirt off.
Garrett stepped forward, his eyes widenings as the dog ran back under Danielle’s legs again, this time whacking her just behind the knees, causing her to fall backward. Reid’s shirt popped off as he tumbled forward, landing on top of Danielle, even as she tried to get off the now-whining dog.
“Okay, now try again,” Danielle wheezed, handing him the offending garment. She patted the dog, who licked her hand before skulking under the table, looking for possible crumbs. Not likely. The boys ate with an intensity of soldiers on a forced march.
“Jeez, Mom, you nearly took my head off,” Reid said as he stood, holding his shirt as he stared sourly at his brother. He rubbed a red line around his mouth as he glared at his mother then at his shirt.
“Luckily for you, it’s still attached,” Danielle said, having made it to her hands and knees. Garrett bent down to hoist her up. His lingering grin pulled an answering one to her lips.
“You looked like a trout, just like that fish I reeled in at the lake, except Mom was doing it,” Kevin wheezed, gasping for air. The three of them dissolved into a fit of hysterics.
Danielle shook her head with a chuckle. “Yes, we all know how well I fish.”
That sent them into another paroxysm of delight and, despite herself, Danielle was laughing, too.
She placed Reid’s plate down and tried to kiss his reddened cheek, though it was more of a moving target than she’d anticipated. She pulled back quickly to avoid a bumped nose.
Glancing over at Kevin, she couldn’t help but laugh again as he slid lower in his chair, eyes glazed with tears. He continued to hoot for another couple of minutes between making fish faces before subsiding enough to finish his remaining waffle, dipping his finger onto the plate to get every drop of syrup.
“Kevin, you have ten minutes before we’re out the door,” Garrett said. He ruffled both boys’ hair before turning to Danielle.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Garrett said, bending down slightly for their ritual goodbye kiss.
“’Kay, tonight,” Danielle said.
He brushed his lips across hers quickly before searching her eyes. “Call me if you need to talk. Or my mom. Or one of your girlfriends. That’ll take up half the day.”
She gave him a little push. “Oh, please. I’m not that bad.” She totally could be, which is why he teased her about the time she spent with her friends.
Garrett didn’t mind—in fact, he seemed relieved she’d built up a group of confidants here in their neighborhood. At his serious look, Danielle placed her palms on his chest. “I’m coping,” she said, her voice soft. “Really.”
He
studied her for a long moment before he nodded.
“Remember to meet us at the field,” Danielle said.
“Got it. I’ll be there by six fifteen,” Garrett said, studying the calendar with its red-permanent-markered times for Reid’s games. Kevin’s were all in blue. “Are you leading off, Reid?”
Reid nodded, his face beaming, syrup lining his mouth.
“That’s my man. You’ll set the tone for the rest of the team. No pitcher can take you on.” Garrett picked up his briefcase. “Grab your homework and backpacks and meet me in the car, guys.”
After throwing on some jeans and a blouse, she herded the boys—they only returned once for Kevin’s history homework, still on his desk—to Garrett’s Camry hybrid. Both boys wrapped their arms tight around her, grappling her into their exuberant, if brief, embrace.
Trying not to think about how her boys were so close in age to Jonathan, Danielle headed toward the minivan as she considered her sons. Baseball was such an integral part of their young lives, just as it had been for Jonathan’s.
No, not much of substance had changed about little boys in thirty years. Danielle turned the heater on full blast and rubbed her arms as she stared after Garrett’s taillights.
She started the car and drove toward her mother’s house, unease building with each mile.
She flipped on the radio, hoping to alleviate some of the tension in her chest. Instead, she was greeted with the piercing noise of the warning system.
She flicked to another station and it had the same. She tried another as the tension crawled up her neck.
The words on this station were worse than the warning signal.
“Amber Alert. Amber Alert. Police are requesting you to be on the lookout for Christian Rodriguez, age nine. He was taken from the local playground in Ovilla, Texas. He is wearing a blue T-shirt and faded jeans with a hole beneath the right knee. He has on white Nikes and was last seen wearing a Texas Rangers ball cap.
“Police are looking for a brown sedan with a license plate that contains a six and a G. There is no current description of the driver.”
Danielle fumbled with her phone, managing to pull up the number Arlen Hardesty had given her the night before.
“Chief Hardesty,” his deep voice boomed into the phone.
“Hello. This is Danielle. Danielle Patterson. I just heard . . . there’s an Amber Alert out for a little boy.”
Hardesty’s sigh held so many emotions. “I know. Got the alert just before you called.”
Tears pricked Danielle’s eyes as she clutched the steering wheel with her free hand. “This isn’t . . . this isn’t going to end, is it? I mean the guy you’re looking for. The one who killed Jonathan.” She didn’t say the words, but they sat there, between the two phones: The man who kidnapped this child today might kill him just as Jonathan was murdered.
“No.” The chief of police sighed one of those bone-deep breaths. “I can’t tell you if this is the same man who kidnapped and murdered your brother, but until we catch him, boys will keep dying, Mrs. Patterson.”
10 Nancy
30 years earlier
“Hank. Thirteen hours. At dawn, Jonathan, gone for thirteen hours.”
Hank turned toward Nancy, his look hollow. Nothing moved across his face, through his eyes. He tilted his head, marginally interested as she swallowed then gasped for air. Hank closed his eyes. “I can’t see any better in the dark than they can,” he said. “You heard the detective say they brought in the dogs. A helicopter from Fort Worth. It’s a full-scale search, almost everyone in town was out looking till it got too dark.”
A faint hum. Louder, a thwap, thwap overhead, a blinding spotlight. Again.
“They could miss him from up there.”
“We’ve already missed him,” Hank shot back, eyes glinting in the semi-darkness.
Nancy shrank back, away from him.
He lowered his head nearly to his knees. Inhaled, exhaled. “My son.”
Cicadas hummed, pressing their bodies against the house. Nothing could hold them together. Not with Jonny missing.
A whippoorwill called. Hank stood there, between the foyer and the living room where Nancy huddled.
“What are we going to do?” she asked him.
Another pass from the helicopter. A dog barking.
Hank hesitated again before seeming to consciously lift his leg to step into the room.
He lay his hand on her shoulder, fingers against her collarbone, his face telling Nancy he was too used up to do more as darkness crowded out the faint porch light.
11 Arlen
Much as Arlen hated telling Danielle Patterson the truth, she needed to hear it. Still, he hesitated before he knocked on the door to Nancy Foster’s house promptly at eight-thirty. He’d had to leave Mansfield just after six to make it back north to this posh area of town. No one answered. He tried the knob. Locked. He nodded his head. Good. He strolled around to the back of the house, noting the overgrown, weedy path.
That door, too, remained locked. No lights shone through the windows. He frowned, unhappy with the morning gloom—and the potential to move through it undetected.
A car engine rattling up the drive drew his attention. Hardesty placed his hand on his weapon as the gray minivan pulled to a stop in front of the garage.
“So sorry!” Danielle gasped as she stepped from the car. “Traffic on the Tollway was brutal. I should have told you I was running a bit late when I spoke with you earlier.”
Arlen nodded. Traffic always was lately.
“Any word on that little boy?” she asked, her eyes hopeful.
“No.” The word sat heavy, distasteful, in his mouth. “Mind if we go in?” Hardesty asked. The pile of paperwork he’d left on his desk last night would be much higher by the time he made it into the office this afternoon. They might all live in the Metroplex, but the driving time from one side to the other was a damn nightmare.
“Sure.” Danielle fumbled for the right key, fitting it into the lock. She opened the door and led him into the kitchen, which, though dated, remained surprisingly clean.
“There’s a cleaning crew,” Danielle said in answer to Arlen’s unspoken question. “They were here a couple of days ago. Each Friday at eleven.”
Arlen nodded, eyes sweeping the space. “Who else has a key? Besides the cleaning crew?”
“Sunny, my mother’s nurse and me.”
Arlen turned back toward Danielle. “Your father?”
Danielle shook her head. “My mother changed the locks on the house when I was . . .” She paused, her gaze thoughtful as it turned toward the ceiling. “I guess I was sixteen.”
“All right.” He walked into the living space and glanced up the stairs. “She said the box was in the attic. Mind if we head up thataway?”
“Sure,” Danielle said, but her voice held a tinge of anxiety.
“Not a fan?”
Danielle bypassed him and moved toward the stairs. “Not since my mother found me up there, going through boxes. She never actually yelled or anything. Just got really sad for weeks afterward.”
“Why?” Arlen asked. He didn’t understand major depressive disorder, had little personal knowledge outside of what he’d heard on television or in his staff’s ongoing training. He knew about triggers and that the emotions could dysregulate, but that didn’t explain how a daughter’s jaunt to the attic would set Nancy on an emotional implosion.
“I found a picture,” Danielle said. Her shoulders rounded in. “Of the four of us. In a box. Mom couldn’t even look at it.”
She released a soft breath at the top of the stairs, squaring her shoulders to grab the dingy cord that led to the space above. She glanced back over her shoulder. “It’s the only picture of us all as a family that I know of.”
Her gaze and eyes held a wistful quality that made Arlen want to pat her shoulder. Instead, he maneuvered around her and tugged down the slightly warped wooden stairs. A dry, musty smell and a wall of dank air hit h
is face as he started up.
“You don’t have to come up here, you know.”
“No,” Danielle said, her voice determined. “I want that picture. And Mom wanted you to have those journals.”
“Any idea why?” Arlen asked, fishing for the information he wanted—Nancy’s thought process, or at least her motivations.
Danielle made a noncommittal sound as she stepped over the lip into the dim light. She wrinkled her nose, distaste for the space or maybe dismay at the number of boxes, evident.
“She didn’t talk about Jonathan.” Arlen squatted in front of a box near the edge, hoping to get lucky. He didn’t—the box overflowed with school-related stuff. Danielle’s report cards and faded construction-paper projects. Arlen smiled a little. “Ever?”
At Danielle’s silence, he glanced up to see her shaking her head.
“What do you think led to her calling me?” Arlen asked.
She moved in the opposite direction, unerringly toward a box. Must be the one with the picture.
“I don’t know,” she said, glancing back up at Arlen. “She journaled for years. Never let me look at them—guarded those suckers pretty close.” Danielle inhaled for a long moment. Held it as if the next words needed more oxygen to get out. “I’m going to guess she found out something. Something that scared her.”
12 Danielle
“Huh,” he said. His sun-browned fingers were covered in dark hair with a smattering of gray that made them look like fat caterpillars crawling to the nail beds.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Danielle rushed to say.
“I have less than five weeks until I retire,” Chief Hardesty said. He closed the box and shuffled it aside, reaching for another. “I’d like to finish up this case myself.”
Danielle bit her lip as she opened the heat-softened cardboard. Because he wanted the glory of closing the case? Or because he didn’t trust anyone else to complete it?