“Why, what’s going on?”
“Gotta track down an address, see who lives there. I’ve got our hacker, Ringo, on it.”
“Ringo?” Janssen snorted.
“Don’t judge, he’s a little on the… eccentric side, but he’s the best.”
“Most hacker types are. What’s he hoping to find?”
“The missing kid would be my guess.”
“Lemme see the address.”
Spencer clicked his phone to open the last message and showed it to him. Janssen whistled low.
“Whew, pretty expensive digs, whoever it is,” he commented.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Alpine is a hoity-toity enclave for the upper echelons.”
“And you know this how?” Spencer raised an eyebrow.
“Long story.”
The former government operative knew better than to pursue his line of questioning at that point. As Janssen was handing his phone back, another text came in. This one was from Ringo, who had already gleaned pages of info from tracing down the address.
Sensitive info, too much to text, too confidential to email. Call when you can. I’m going to bed at 8:00—R.
“Your computer genius goes to bed at eight? What is he, twelve?”
“No, he has an erratic sleep schedule. Sometimes he stays up for days at a time and goes to sleep in his chair at three in the afternoon. He really doesn’t care for rules and societal norms.”
“Sounds like my kind of guy,” half of Janssen’s mouth lifted in an ironic smile.
“You’d strangle him with your bare hands in a matter of minutes,” Spencer chuckled, thinking of an interaction between the take-no-prisoners Janssen and his opposite, the odd and erratic Ringo.
“Might be therapeutic at this point,” Janssen sighed, then the two were silent.
***
“What’d you find out?” Janssen asked, gnawing on a hunk of spicy beef jerky.
“The address belongs to our guy Zach’s parents,” Spencer replied.
“The plot thickens. Covert ops?”
“As soon as the sun goes down,” Spencer nodded grimly.
“You ever miss working for Command?”
“Except for not having taskmaster overlords, most of the time it feels like I never left.”
“Maybe I should come work for you,” Will was only half-joking.
“We don’t have a branch in Illinois,” Spencer gave him a pointed look. “You need to be with your family, man. But it sure would be nice to be able to bring you in if we need you.”
“Something to think about,” Will agreed.
***
The two former government operatives had scoured the residence of Hinman and Mary Alice Boudreaux to no avail. They weren’t there, and looked as though they hadn’t been for quite some time. Their gracious home was well maintained, and nothing was out of place, even in the garage and storage shed.
While they were still on the premises, Ringo texted and let Spencer know that he had discovered travel records for the couple. Apparently they had headed to Alaska more than a month ago, for a holistic retreat.
“Well, that means that they couldn’t have snatched the kid,” Janssen remarked, pulling off his night vision goggles and settling them around his neck.
“No, but this house could have been a safe haven for whoever did,” Spencer slipped his phone back into his pocket.
Another text came in, and Spencer sighed, taking out his phone again. He reread the message twice and looked at Janssen.
“I think we have our perp,” he said quietly.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
*
Rossalyn was more than a bit nervous as she approached the gates in her SUV, with a picnic basket of food in the back seat. She’d meant to come express her concern to the Brigmans sooner, but life had been pretty crazy for her lately. A very nice guard let her into the estate through a set of tall, wide iron gates, and it struck her how much the place looked like a fortress. She pulled into the circular drive in front of the mansion and seriously considered turning around without ever going to the door, but then decided that being neighborly and supportive was a much better idea.
“May I help you?” a fussy little man looked down his nose at her, as though she was a common street urchin.
“Uh, yes, thanks. I’m here to see the Brigmans.”
The man raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you have an appointment?”
Rossie frowned. What kind of people were the Brigmans that a neighbor couldn’t stop by without an appointment.
“Umm… no. I’m Rossalyn Channing, the mother of the boy that Dubya was with before he disappeared.
Jasper’s eyes showed recognition when Rossie gave her name, but the corners of his mouth turned down in disapproval when she used Wentworth’s nickname.
“Wait here, please,” he said, closing the door and leaving her on the doorstep.
While she understood that the Brigmans were most likely concerned about their privacy, she resented being treated like an interloper when she had simply come to make a sympathetic gesture. The longer she stood on the slate-tiled front entryway, the madder she got. She had just turned to head back toward her car when one of the massive front doors opened.
“Hello,” Harry Brigman called out to her.
Chanelle pushed her way past her husband.
“Do you know something? Has your son heard from Wentworth, or remembered something?” she demanded.
“Uh, no,” Rossalyn was taken aback by Dubya’s mother’s aggressive manner. “Not that I’m aware of. I just came to let you know that we’ve been thinking of you. I brought some food from Hawg Heaven because I thought you might not feel like fixing meals, and…” she began to explain, but Chanelle cut her off impatiently.
“I haven’t ‘fixed a meal’ in my entire adult life. Do you mean to tell me that you came all the way out here, getting our hopes up, but you have nothing constructive to say? What were you thinking?” she demanded, stepping way too far into Rossalyn’s comfort zone.
After all of the stress that she had endured during the previous two weeks, something inside Rossie snapped.
“What was I thinking?” she growled in a low voice that made Chanelle pause in her tirade. “I was thinking that, as a mother, I know I’d be going out of my mind at the thought that my child was missing. I wouldn’t feel like cooking, and I’d be looking for all the support that I could get, even if it was just the kind words of a stranger saying that they sympathized. I’d want people to rally around me, and to know that they were as passionate as I was about finding my child. I’d want someone to bring me the best darn barbeque in the town, even if I hated barbeque, just because it was a nice gesture,” she burst into tears, her rage and pain bubbling to the surface. “So, if that offends you, that’s your problem. I hope they find your son, I really do.”
Rossalyn set down the loaded picnic basket and strode quickly to the driver’s side of her SUV. “If you’re too good to eat the food, give it to the servants, maybe they’ll appreciate it,” was her parting shot. She rolled up her window too quickly to hear Harry Brigman call out an apologetic thank you.
CHAPTER TWENTY
*
Two FBI agents approached the cemetery with caution, spotting the subject right where Spencer had told them to look.
“Zachary Boudreaux?” one of the agents called out, hand on his holster.
Zach looked up blankly from where he knelt in front of a grave. The like-new headstone in front of him was covered with teddy bears, faded silk flowers, and what had once been a helium-filled, shiny Mylar balloon.
“I couldn’t save him,” Zach mumbled, tears rolling down his cheeks. “It didn’t matter what I did, I couldn’t save him.”
“Mr. Boudreaux, put your hands behind your head,” the other agent commanded calmly.
Zach behaved as though he hadn’t heard either agent, nor even noticed their presence. “How can he be gone?” a cry of anguish ripp
ed from his chest and he fell prostrate on the relatively fresh grave. “How can he be gone?”
The agents exchanged a look, drew their guns, and moved closer. When they were within feet of the grieving man, the agent on the left dropped down suddenly, securing Zach’s hands behind his back. Too stunned to react, Zach’s eyes still focused on the grave, even as the agents led him away and secured him in an unmarked car.
***
Spencer and Janssen made their way through the woods in upstate New York, to a cabin owned by Hinman and Mary Alice Boudreaux. The sound of muffled gunfire startled the former operatives, and Janssen immediately took point, bursting in on a very startled young man.
“Oh geez! Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!!” the young man pleaded, dropping his video game controller and throwing his hands into the air. “You can have everything in here, just don’t kill me, please! I won’t tell anyone.”
“Wentworth?” Spencer asked, noting the loud, combative sounds coming from the wide screen on which the kid had been playing video games.
“Yes, who are you?” he frowned and lowered his hands slowly.
“Friend of the family,” Janssen replied.
“If you’re a friend of the family, why did you just break down the door?” he frowned.
“Because you’re being held against your will,” Spencer stared at him. Something was very strange about the kid’s manner, he didn’t act traumatized at all.
Wentworth looked confused. “No, I’m not. I’m on vacation with my dad.”
“Your dad is in Illinois, worried sick about you,” Spencer challenged.
“No, he’s not. I’m with my real dad, and he told me that my parents said it was okay for him to keep me for a while this summer, since they’re gone all the time anyway. My grandparents are coming to visit tomorrow, which is really cool, because I didn’t know that I had grandparents.”
“How did you meet your biological father?”
“He got a job at the estate. He worked as a gardener so that he could save enough money to go on vacation with me. I got to know him on his breaks and stuff. He said not to mention it to my parents because he didn’t want them to feel bad that he got to see me more than they did.”
“Your blood was found in the garden shack.”
“Yeah, I get nose bleeds all the time. Dry sinuses.”
“Did you have a nosebleed after you were in the woods with Ryan Channing?” Spencer asked, and Will winced a little at hearing his son’s name.
“Yeah, a bad one. My allergies were going crazy after being around all of those trees,” he nodded.
“And your biological father met you in the woods to take you on vacation?”
“Yep, said he’d been looking all over the estate for me and had been worried sick. He’s really nice. I started writing to him a few weeks ago. Anna mailed the letters for me. Did you know his other son just died a couple of weeks ago? It was really sad. He was sick. I never got to meet my half-brother. He has another kid though, who is only two. He’s going to be coming up here when my grandparents do.”
“Didn’t you think that it was a little bit strange that he wanted to take you on vacation with no luggage, and without saying goodbye to your parents?”
Dubya shook his head. “No. He said he had everything that I would need at his cabin, and my parents were out of state on business, so I couldn’t say goodbye. Who are you guys anyway?”
“We’re the guys who are going to take you home.”
“But I can’t go. My dad wouldn’t know where I went, and I haven’t met my grandparents yet,” the boy protested.
“Your parents have been worried about you, and your biological father will know where you are soon enough. Get some shoes on, we have a long hike out of here,” Spencer directed.
“I’m not supposed to go anywhere with strangers,” Dubya eyed them warily.
“I’m Spencer, that’s Will. We work for your parents, let’s go.”
***
There was no trial. Zach Boudreaux and his parents pled guilty to the charges leveled against them, and because leukemia had claimed the life of Zach’s seven-year-old son, Harry Brigman asked the judge for leniency in their sentences. Zach was able to kiss his wife and toddler goodbye before being led to jail, and embraced his newly discovered son for a long time. Chanelle Brigman had gone on holiday in the Caribbean to recover from the stress, but Harry had been by Wentworth’s side the entire time. Anna and Jasper were both relieved of their posts, and the week after sentencing, Harry was planning to take Wentworth to meet Joanna Bingham, his birth mother.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
*
“Hey big man, I need to talk to you,” Will called out to Ryan, who was sitting on the porch with his hound dog, Barney.
“Hey dad,” Ryan’s face lit up.
Will sat next to him on the steps.
“You know your mom and I have been working some things out since I came back…” he began, scratching Barney’s ears.
“Yeah. I don’t get what’s so hard about it, but, yeah.”
“It’s adult stuff, kiddo. Relationships just aren’t that simple when you’re older,” he ruffled his son’s hair.
“Then I’m glad I’m not an adult yet,” Ryan grumbled.
“It’ll happen soon enough,” Will looked out into the distance, as though seeing the future. “Listen, I want you to know something…” he swallowed hard. “I’m gonna be going away for a little while.”
“But, Dad!” Ryan protested, and Will put a finger on his lips to silence him.
He looked into the pained and trusting eyes of his son and his heart shattered. He didn’t know what was going to happen. When he walked away from his son today, there was a chance that it would be the last time. Rossalyn might give up on him entirely, and if she did, it would probably be better all the way around for him to just disappear again, but he couldn’t bring himself to crush the hope… the yearning in Ryan’s eyes.
“Your mom and I need some time to figure some things out, so I’m going to give her enough space so that she can do some thinking,” he said truthfully.
“Where are you gonna go?” Ryan was on the verge of panic. “Last time you left, they told us you were dead,” his voice cracked on the last word, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
Will reached out and brushed it away, taking Ryan into his strong embrace.
“It’s okay, buddy,” he whispered into his son’s hair and kissing the top of his head, feeling like a wretched liar. “I’m just going to Florida. I’m gonna work with my buddy Spencer for a while, that’s all.”
This was also true, but he’d have assignments that could get him killed, just like the good old days.
“Can I come with you?” he murmured, his tears soaking through Will’s shirt.
“No. Your mom needs you here. You’ve been the man of the house for a while now, and she’s depending on you to keep that up.”
Ryan pulled back slowly, swiping at his eyes. “I know she loves you, she said so all the time. She’ll figure it out,” he nodded, holding on to hope.
“I hope so, buddy,” Will swallowed hard and stood.
Ryan jumped up and threw his arms around his dad, holding on for dear life. “Don’t go, Dad. Not again. Please,” he pleaded, sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Rye. I have to,” Will held him tight.
Inside the house, from behind double layers of sheer curtains, Rossalyn held her arms around her midsection, sobbing silently as she watched her husband and son embrace.
In the distance, another observer kicked the engine of his motorcycle into life, needing desperately to leave, without caring where he was going.
Copyright 2017 Summer Prescott
All Rights Reserved.
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Entitled to Murder (Hawg Heaven Cozy Mysteries Book 6) Page 7