The Children's Cop

by Sherry Lewis

  “Jackson?” Lucy’s voice sounded close behind him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He stopped walking and turned to face her. “I talked to a kid in there who thinks Angel is looking for Holden. Says she was going to ask Wayne Fitzgerald to take her to him when she found him.”

  Lucy’s eyes opened wide. “Is he sure?”

  “It’s a possibility, that’s all I know.” He glanced around at the groups of kids visible from where he stood. “He said Wayne’s little brother, Toby, is probably out here somewhere. It might be worth a try to see if Toby can tell us where to look.”

  “Absolutely.” She started to turn away but caught herself and ran an assessing glance over him from head to toe. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s just do this.” He was used to handling family crises on his own. He wasn’t used to having someone else around to shoulder half the burden, someone to care about him, even for a second or two. It would be easy to get used to this. Too easy.

  “Come on,” he said, embarrassed to discover that his voice had grown gruff with longing. “We need to get Angel back before she finds herself in real trouble.”

  Lucy moved closer, touched his arm gently and set the dry kindling inside him aflame. “What if she’s with Holden already?”

  Jackson reached for her hand, needing the connection with her, wanting to believe it could last. “If she’s with Holden, she’ll probably be safe for a little while. But it won’t last for long. He’s too much like my old man. The first time Angel stands up to him, crosses him, argues with him…” He shuddered, reliving the memories. “We just need to find her, that’s all.”

  Instead of getting back to business, Lucy twined her fingers through his and looked into his eyes. “We’re going to find her.”

  “Better late than never, huh?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Quit blaming yourself for this, Jackson. You’re not doing yourself or Angel any good.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and gave in to his anger. It was a whole lot more comfortable than this weakness and vulnerability that kept winding around him, threatening to knock him off balance. “Who else is there to blame?” he demanded. “I was just a kid when she was born, but even then I knew she was going to need me. Holden was too young and screwed up to be a decent father. I knew it. She knew it. Even as a baby. She took to me the first time I held her. She was only a day or two old, but she reached right up and touched my cheek, just like she was trying to tell me something.”

  He laughed in a vain attempt to hide the catch in his voice. “I know. I know. Babies so small can’t do that. But she did. I knew right then and there that she and I had something special, but I let her down.”

  “What choice did you have?”

  “I had a choice.”

  “Really?” Lucy planted herself in front of him. “Why don’t you tell me what that choice was? What did you not do that you should have done?”

  “I should have found her all those years ago.”

  “You were nineteen when she disappeared. Just how in charge of the world do you think you were? How in charge do you expect yourself to be now?”

  He couldn’t answer that, so he didn’t bother to try. “All I know is, Angel wouldn’t be out there right now if I’d done what I should have back then.”

  Lucy laughed harshly. “You don’t know that for sure. There aren’t any guarantees in this world.”

  “If she’d had the support of family—”

  “Then maybe she’d still be home. And maybe not. Problems like this aren’t confined to one type of family or one economic bracket, Jackson. Sometimes kids run away from good parents who do everything right. No matter what you and Wiley did, Angel might still have been curious about her dad. She might have run off even if you had been there.”

  He recoiled sharply. “We could have given her some roots so she wouldn’t have to.”

  “You don’t know if that would have made a difference.”

  “I do know. Angelina isn’t like Holden.”

  A sad knowing filled Lucy’s eyes. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

  Jackson shook his head and looked away without answering.

  “You’re afraid she’ll disappoint you?”

  He clenched his jaw tightly enough to make something pop. “That’s not it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s not it,” he said again, but he wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to convince. “Even if it is, can you blame me for wondering? I’ve had this image of her since the day she was born. I’ve carried it with me for fourteen years. I’ve let that be what got me through the rough times. What if I—” He broke off, too disgusted with himself to say the words aloud. But Lucy didn’t move and she didn’t back away. She waited, eyes locked on his, until he made himself finish. “What if, when we find her, she’s not…not what I’ve been making her up to be in my mind all these years? What if I don’t love her? What kind of person will that make me? What will that do to her?” The idea hurt so much, he could barely force out the words.

  “Do you really think that might happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He pushed away from the truck, needing that space he’d come outside to find.

  “Are you telling me you don’t love your brother?” Lucy called after him.

  He whipped back around to face her. “Don’t judge me, Lucy. You don’t know what he’s put the family through.”

  “I’m not the one who’s judging you,” she said gently. “There’s a big difference between unconditional love and unconditional approval. Just because you don’t condone everything Holden does, that doesn’t mean you don’t love him.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  She smiled and moved close again. “Sure it is. You either love him or you don’t. You either love Angel or you don’t. From what I’ve seen of you the past few days, I don’t think you’re the kind of man to withdraw your love just because you don’t like somebody’s actions.”

  But that’s exactly what he had done, over and over again since Holden began getting in trouble. “Holden wouldn’t agree with you.”

  “Holden isn’t in any position to judge.” To his surprise, she leaned up and kissed him softly. Before he even had time to react, she’d stepped back and moved past him, as if she’d settled the matter once and for all. More than anything, Jackson wanted to believe that the solution could be that simple.

  “GOT SOME BAD NEWS FOR YOU,” Plumber Dave said the next morning about three minutes before roll call. “The support beams in your place are in bad shape. Worse even than I first told ya.”

  Groaning aloud, Lucy watched Orry Keenan and Darren Brady leave their desks and head toward the briefing room. Orry motioned for her to join them, but she held up a finger to indicate she’d be there in a minute. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying it might take me even longer than I first thought. And I’m gonna hafta work up a new estimate. I can’t do the job for what I first told ya.”

  “That first quote was a minor fortune,” Lucy argued. “Now it’s going to be more?”

  “Yeah, well, that’s the joy of owning your own home. You want it safe, don’tcha?”

  “Of course I do.” But it would take her forever to pay off what he’d originally quoted. The thought of going even deeper into debt made her more than a little nervous.

  “Hey, Lucy.” Phil Babcock, returned at last from his mother’s funeral, called out to her from across the bull pen. “Call for you on line one. I think it’s your mother.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Phil headed for the door, leaving her alone—and late.

  “I’m going to have to get back to you,” she told the plumber. “Don’t do anything until I talk to you again.” Without waiting for a response, she punched the blinking light to connect herself to the second call. “Montalvo.”

  “Lucy, darling, I know you’re busy, but I’ve talked with Marlene and Scott again. They
can bring Janelle for dinner this Saturday. I’m calling to make sure that will work for you. Isn’t that your day off?”

  Still rattled from her conversation with the plumber, Lucy was defenseless against the sudden, senseless panic that hit her. She did her best to keep it from showing, but she knew her voice came out sounding almost strangled. “I can’t do that, Mom.”

  “Oh, but I was so sure that’s what I saw on your schedule.”

  “My schedule doesn’t mean much right now. I’m in the middle of a case.”

  “You’re not the only officer on the police force.”

  “No, but I’m the only one assigned to this case.” The unnatural silence in the room made the panic surge higher. “I have to go, Mom. I’m late for morning briefing.”

  “Lucy—”

  She hung up before her mother could prod further, and guilt only made the panic worse. She’d never hung up on her mother before, and the emotions warring inside made her feel fractured and unfamiliar, even to herself. Snagging a notebook from her desk, she raced into the briefing room and let out a sigh of relief when she realized Nick hadn’t arrived yet.

  Orry motioned for her to join him, and she made her way to his table gratefully.

  “Hey, sunshine,” he said with a grin. “I’ve got a present for you.”

  Smiling in spite of her frustrations, she sank into the chair beside his. “I hope it’s a good one. I need something positive.”

  “What happened at the skating rink last night?”

  She told him briefly about what Jackson had learned, and ended with “We spent another hour trying to find Toby Fitzgerald—no luck.”

  Orry wagged a thick file folder in front of her. “I’ll make you a deal. You buy me lunch today. I’ll give you this. A steak at Friar’s sounds good, don’t you think?”

  “I’d say yes if my plumber hadn’t just decided to finance his European vacation out of my bank account.” She snatched the folder away from him. “What is it?”

  A pleased smile curved his lips and he folded his arms across his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “Wayne Richard Fitzgerald. Twenty-one years old. In and out of trouble for the past eight, nine years. Started off shoplifting when he was twelve and moved right on up the ladder to driving under the influence, possession and distributing controlled substances. Went to jail about six months ago and did ninety days. Got out the end of June.”

  Lucy had known some of that already, but she was stunned by the wealth of information Orry had found for her. A slow smile spread across her face. “If you weren’t married, I’d kiss you for this.”

  Orry laughed and held up both hands with a teasing shudder. “Please! Don’t threaten me.”

  Still grinning, Lucy leafed through more of the file. It was exactly as Orry had said—trouble from childhood right on to the present day. “Did you find any violence on his rap sheet?”

  “A couple of domestic disturbances while he was living with his parents. His sister didn’t like being pushed around and took matters into her own hands. Mommy bailed him out and sister dropped the charges. There’s also an aggravated-assault charge two years ago. Got fired from a convenience store and went after his paycheck with a knife.”

  Everything inside grew cold at that. “And where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. He was living with his parents before he went to jail. Had an address near the docks after his release, but he’s missed a couple of meetings with his probation officer and nobody knows where he is.”

  Lucy wondered what Jackson would think when he saw this. “If Angel’s with him, do you think she’s in danger?”

  Orry shrugged. “The guy’s bad news. No doubt about that. But there’s no reason to believe he’s going to deliberately hurt her—unless you count the possibility of getting her hooked on drugs or seducing her.”

  Lucy nodded slowly. “If all he did was deliver her to her father, she might still be all right.”

  “You think that’s what happened?”

  “That’s what we’re thinking at the moment,” she said, closing the file. “But give us five minutes, and that could change.”

  Orry chuckled low in his throat. “Well, would you listen to that. You made a joke.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  He leaned close and put a hand on her forehead. “Yep. The fever’s broken. I think you’re going to live, Montalvo.”

  She grinned in spite of her own doubts. “How do you know?”

  “We’ve all been there,” he said as Nick barged into the room and took control.

  Lucy didn’t have time to respond, but as Nick started the barrage of information, she wondered if Orry meant what he said. Had he been through therapy on the job? If so, she might have to rethink a few things. Because there was no one on the force she trusted more than Orry, and she’d fight anyone who tried to claim that he wasn’t capable of doing the job.

  ANGEL HAD BEEN MISSING for ten days when Jackson and Lucy finally got another break. After running headfirst into one brick wall after another, they found one guy on the docks who thought he remembered hearing that Wayne Fitzgerald had a job with a shipping warehouse on the other side of town. It was hardly a solid lead, but for the first time in days, Jackson felt his hopes come to life again.

  They pulled into the warehouse parking lot a few minutes past seven o’clock on a Wednesday evening, and he realized, a little late, that Lucy was waiting for him to say something. He just didn’t have a clue what it was. His mind had been wandering while she talked. “I’m sorry. What?”

  She turned off the ignition and slipped the keys into her pocket. “Are you ready?”

  “More than ready. Let’s just find out if the dirtbag is actually here.” He opened the door and had every intention of getting out, but she put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Even if he is, he might not know anything. Just remember that we are closing in. Now is not the time to lose hope.”

  Persistence, determination and optimism. A combination that was hard to beat and even harder to resist. He put his hand on top of hers. “I’m okay. You don’t have to worry that I’m going to give up or grow discouraged.” Grinning, he added, “Much. I just want to find the guy and hear what he has to say.”

  “There’s no proof that he—”

  “That he knows anything about her disappearance?” That ever-present knot in his stomach turned and Jackson managed a harsh laugh. “Believe me, that’s one thing you don’t need to keep reminding me of. There’s no proof of anything. That’s the hell of it.”

  He expected her to pull away and get on with business, but she let her hand linger, and though he was champing at the bit to find Fitzgerald and get some answers, he couldn’t make himself move first.

  “If he’s in there,” she said, “I want you to let me ask the questions.” When he would have argued, she cut him off. “I know all the things you want to ask him, but if he knows anything about Angel’s disappearance, I want to make sure we do everything by the book. We don’t want a judge throwing the case out of court based on some stupid technicality if we can avoid it.” She looked him in the eye. “Right?”

  Jackson hadn’t spent much time thinking about court. The only thing he wanted was to pin Fitzgerald against the wall and convince him to start talking. But Lucy would never let him set foot inside that warehouse if she knew that, so he nodded and did his best to seem reasonable. “Right.”

  Still looking skeptical, she finally pulled her hand away. “Okay, then. Let’s go see what we can find.”

  Jackson forced himself to follow her as she walked from their parking space to the open door of a cavernous building. All around them activity hummed as forklifts sped back and forth from the warehouse into the backs of several large trucks. Men shouted directions, but the heavy metallic clanging coming from inside the building made it difficult to hear what anyone said.

  Before they’d gone more than a few feet inside, a large man wearing a hard hat, a sweat-stained T-shirt and j
eans that hugged his hips but didn’t have a prayer of actually spanning his waist planted himself in their path. “Whoa there, folks. You can’t go in there.”

  He was at least twice as big as Lucy, but she lifted her chin and raised her voice to match his. “Where’s the manager?”

  The man jerked his head toward the inside. “Back there somewhere, but he’s busy. What do you folks need, anyway?”

  Lucy lifted the edge of her jacket to show her badge and identified them, just as she had a hundred times in the past ten days. “We’re looking for someone we’ve been told may be employed here—a young man by the name of Wayne Fitzgerald.”

  The man’s gaze flickered in the opposite direction toward a small group of employees who were loading boxes into a truck by hand. The glance was so quick Jackson might have missed it if he hadn’t been watching closely. His pulse jumped in response and he could feel the quickening of anticipation in his veins.

  The man blocking their way apparently thought he’d been subtle enough to fool them. He hooked his thumbs in his waistband and rocked up on the balls of his feet. “Fitzgerald,” he said, shaking his head as if he’d never heard the name before. “And it’s Wayne, you say? The name’s not familiar, but that don’t mean he’s not here. What do you want with him?”

  Lucy gave no indication that she’d noticed anything amiss. “We just need to ask a few questions.”

  “He in some kind of trouble?”

  “Not that I know of,” Lucy said, turning one of her most winning smiles on him. “But why don’t you call your supervisor over and let us talk to him? Either that, or tell me which one of those guys is Wayne Fitzgerald and save us all some time.”

  The big man grinned like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Gave it away, did I?”

  “Just a little.” Lucy took a few steps toward the crew, forcing their host to follow or let her go alone. Without a moment’s hesitation he fell into step beside her, leaving Jackson to bring up the rear.