by Herron, Rita
The baby finished eating and she adjusted her blouse, then patted his back. “No, he just showed up one day, said he worked with the school.”
“Slaughter Creek Elementary?”
“Yeah.” One of the other kids stumbled, scraped his knee, and began to cry.
She stood to go to him at the same time Coulter walked out with the photograph.
“I promise we’ll do everything we can to find Danny,” John said.
She murmured okay, but had her hands full with the crying toddler, whose ear-piercing wails had started the baby crying as well. A metal can rattled as he stepped outside, and he looked over and saw a scraggly dog scrounging through the woman’s garbage.
John and Coulter walked back to their vehicles. “I’ll get this into the system, issue an Amber Alert, and verify the story about the father.”
John pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’m going to call the school and set up a meeting with the social worker, then drop by the clinic.”
John climbed in his SUV and cranked the engine and heater as he pressed the number for Slaughter Creek Elementary. Seconds later, a female voice answered.
He identified himself and explained he was looking into Danny’s disappearance.
“Oh my goodness, we heard about that. What happened?”
“He was last seen at the free dental clinic. That’s the reason I’m calling,” John said. “I need contact information for Sonny Jones, the social worker who arranged for him to attend the clinic.”
“Agent Strong, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is no one named Sonny Jones working with the school system.”
John pulled onto the road, bouncing over the ruts. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. The only social worker we work with is a woman by the name of Helen Gray.”
Dammit. This man who called himself Sonny Jones must have made up his story to get close to the Kritz family.
He’d been watching Danny for a reason.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mrs. Kritz would be overwhelmed with guilt when she realized she’d been duped by this man who called himself Sonny Jones.
John wanted more information before he dropped that bombshell on her.
He punched the number for the lab as he parked in front of the dental clinic.
“This is Agent Strong. Do you have the DNA results on those samples I dropped off?”
Lieutenant Maddison cleared his throat. “Not yet, the lab is backed up.”
“Call me when you get something,” John said. If one of them matched Amelia’s DNA, he could close that case, and Amelia would have her answer.
It would be up to her what she did with that information.
“We did pull two calls off Deanna Jayne’s phone,” Maddison said. “Both traced back to burner phones, so it was a dead end.”
“Probably victims covering their tracks,” John muttered, frustrated. He understood the need for the underground organization and their tactics, but when one of their own was killed, it made it damn near impossible to find the killer.
Unless someone else came forward. Which had yet to happen.
He thanked Maddison, then on a whim called Brenda Banks and filled her in. “I respect what this woman did, Ms. Banks, but maybe if you ran a piece on her death, it might prompt someone to phone in a tip.”
“I doubt it,” Brenda said. “These women survive because they remain in the dark.”
“I understand that. But even an anonymous tip would help.”
Of course they’d have to weed out the pranks and crazies.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Brenda agreed. “I know Sheriff Blackwood is looking for her killer.”
“Good. Keep me posted.” John ended the call, rubbing his gloved hands together as he strode up the path to the dental clinic. The building was weathered and old, the threadbare carpet musty smelling. Faded paint was chipping off the walls, and a waiting room filled with what looked like hand-me-down toys sat to the right. Three children were playing with blocks on the floor, while two women in chairs thumbed through magazines.
He approached the receptionist window and identified himself.
The gray-haired woman fluttered her fingers through her short curls. “Oh my, you’re here about poor little Danny.”
“Yes, ma’am,” John said. “I spoke with his mother, and she said a social worker named Sonny Jones arranged for Danny to receive treatment here.”
A frown puckered between her eyes. “Usually that’s the way it works.”
“But the school said they had no record of Mr. Jones working with them.”
Another frown accentuated the fine lines around her mouth, and she clicked a few keys on the computer, then looked back up at him, a perplexed look on her face. “That’s odd. There’s no mention of Sonny Jones in the file, and no referral letter.”
“So you never met this man?”
She shook her head. “No, usually the school-assigned social worker, or sometimes the counselor, brings the children in. Danny came with a group from Slaughter Creek Elementary, but yesterday we received a call saying his mother was picking him up.”
“Mrs. Kritz said she thought he was riding the bus home,” John said.
“I know, I don’t understand what happened. We did check. The school counselor said she received the same call. So we didn’t think anything of it.”
“But you realize now you were tricked,” John said.
Regret flickered on the woman’s face. “Apparently so. I’ve been worried sick about that boy.”
She should be worried. “I need copies of your phone records,” John told her.
She folded her hands on the desk. “We have rules. I’ll have to talk to someone—”
“Forget your rules, a child’s life is on the line. Besides, I’ll have a warrant in an hour.”
He didn’t bother to wait for a response. He dialed the judge to request a warrant for both the school and clinic’s phone records, then phoned their computer analyst to get him on the job.
She was checking in another patient when he hung up.
“Do you have security cameras outside the building?”
“Yes. We installed them last year because we had a theft. Some teenagers stealing drugs.”
“Can I see the tapes from when Danny was here?”
She nodded, rose, and waved him through the door to the back. She showed him into an office and set up the camera feed, then left to tend to the front desk.
He heard a child crying in the back, then the sound of a drill.
The camera feed came on, drawing his attention to the screen. For a few minutes, he watched as patients arrived on a small school bus. Danny was one of them. He recognized him from the photograph. He was quiet and kept to himself.
Another group climbed the same bus to go back to school. A little girl of about five clung to a woman’s hand as they entered.
He searched the street for someone watching the children, for the white van, scrutinizing the cars that passed, but the angle of the camera focused on the door, limiting his visibility.
Eventually Danny moped out the door and slumped down on the bench in front of the clinic. The kid was wearing a thin jacket two sizes too small and looked cold and miserable.
Then a shadow appeared beside Danny, a thick bulky coat camouflaging his body. But he could tell he was tall, slightly hunched. A man’s build. John strained to see his face, but the figure remained just on the edge of the camera as if he knew it was there.
Then the man leaned closer and said something to Danny, and the boy stood. Danny’s expression looked troubled, his eyes big in his narrow face. But he gave a nod, then followed the shadow, quickly disappearing out of sight.
The
child’s voice wouldn’t stop.
“Help me, Mommy. Help . . . ”
Ting. Ting. Ting. There went the wind chimes again.
Amelia covered her ears with her hands as she combed the rooms of the guesthouse, searching for a radio or a recorder, something that would explain the child’s cries.
Were they in her head?
God knows, she’d heard voices before.
She checked the medicine cabinet and found the bottle of Lithium the doctors had given her. She’d stopped taking it long ago.
Although the bottle was nearly empty . . .
Had she taken some and forgotten? But the Lithium was supposed to control her psychosis, not make her hear voices . . .
A cold sweat broke out on her brow. Had she backtracked with her treatment and allowed another alter to emerge?
Terrified, she hurried to her phone to call her therapist, but her cell buzzed before she reached it. She snagged the phone, frightened it was the man who’d called Viola.
But Helen Gray’s number showed on the caller ID.
“Hello.”
“Amelia, I convinced two of the families to come in and meet you. The other family refused.”
“What time?”
“They’re on their way now.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Amelia grabbed her keys and purse, tugged on her coat and gloves, and raced outside to her car. The mountain roads were treacherous, desperately in need of snowplows as cars crawled along.
Fifteen minutes later, she was seated in Helen’s office.
A heavyset man and his plump wife sat across from her, both looking nervous, while a couple around her age held hands, their faces wary.
Helen introduced the first couple as the Harolds, the second as the Irwins.
“I don’t understand why we’re here,” Mr. Harold said in a terse voice.
“There’s nothing wrong with our adoptions, is there?” Mrs. Irwin said in a tiny voice.
“We went through proper legal channels,” Mr. Irwin said before she or Helen could respond.
Helen held up her hand to quiet them. “As I explained on the phone, I simply needed to ask you some questions about The Gateway House and the Ellingtons.”
“Why?” Mr. Harold asked abruptly.
Amelia spoke up. “Because of me. Six years ago I gave birth to a baby boy, but he was taken from me against my will. I need to know what happened to him.”
“We adopted a girl,” Mr. and Mrs. Harold said at once.
“So did we,” the Irwins said, voices filled with relief.
“We understand that,” Helen interjected. “But you adopted children around the same time Amelia’s son was adopted.”
“When a TBI agent and I went to The Gateway House to talk to the Ellingtons,” Amelia explained, “The Gateway House had burned down and the Ellingtons were gone.”
“What about the children?” Mrs. Irwin asked.
“They were gone, too,” Amelia replied. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Have you heard from the Ellingtons?”
Mr. Harold pulled at his mustache. “We haven’t talked to them in years.”
Mrs. Irwin rubbed at a stain on her slacks. “Not since the adoption was final.”
“Did you notice anything strange about the couple when you worked with them?” Amelia asked.
“What do you mean, strange?” Mrs. Harold asked.
Amelia hesitated. She didn’t really know what to ask. “Like they were hiding something? Were they upfront about the details of the children you adopted?”
Mrs. Harold stood. “I knew you were getting at something. You want to try to take our kids away from us.”
Mrs. Irwin jumped up and grabbed her husband’s arm, her expression panicked. “Oh no, Stanley, don’t let her do that. She can’t take Marie from us.”
“That’s not the reason I’m here,” Amelia said.
“We need a lawyer before we answer any more questions.” Mr. Harold took his wife’s hand and rushed toward the door.
The Irwins followed, the couples speaking in harsh tones as they exited. Helen hurried after them trying to calm them down.
The fact that the couples had bolted suggested they suspected something shady about the Ellingtons and The Gateway House.
But they weren’t talking.
Amelia twisted her hands together, antsy to know more about the couple who hadn’t shown. She glanced through the door and saw Helen talking in low voices to the couples, so she tiptoed around to Helen’s desk and checked her computer.
The other couple’s name was Bayler. She scribbled their address on a sticky note, then jammed it in her pocket, and waited until Helen wasn’t looking and snuck out.
She’d talk to this other couple herself.
They hadn’t shown for a reason, and she wanted to know what it was.
John’s fingers tightened around his phone as he left the lab. He hoped to hell the tech could isolate an image and give him a description of the man who’d abducted Danny.
“We’ve got another bomb,” Agent Nick Blackwood said over the line.
Good God. Another kidnapping, and now another bomb? “Where?”
“A social-work conference in Nashville.”
Jesus. He’d missed the news this morning. “Number dead?”
“Thirteen, but it could have been more.”
“This group is escalating. Tell me about the bomb.”
“Another suicide bomber, boy, age twelve.”
“Twelve. God.”
“These have got to be connected,” Nick said. “Since the bombers all came from different areas, we’re searching their computers to see if they connected online.”
“Good point,” John said.
“Could be these are practice, test rounds, and the group is gearing up for something bigger.”
John scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Did you locate the group Roper pointed you to?”
“The map led to an empty campsite. Someone may have warned them we were coming,” Nick said. “I’ll continue looking and keep you posted.”
“Send me a list of the bombers’ identities and backgrounds.”
“I’ll send you what I’ve got so far.” John waited on the info to come through, then phoned the tech department. He spoke with Arianna, one of their best techs, and explained his theory. “Run an analysis on children who disappeared in the state of Tennessee and surrounding states, specifically boys who disappeared between the ages of five and nine.” He contemplated the age of the bombers. “Go back about fifteen years.”
“I’m on it,” Arianna said.
Dread balled in his gut as he hung up. If what he suspected was true, if these teen bombers were kidnap victims, the unsub had been abducting children for over a decade.
Which meant he’d already escaped detection for years and knew how to cover his tracks.
And John wouldn’t stop until they caught him.
Amelia studied the house where the Baylers lived. It was a well-kept gray Victorian set on an acre of land with a pond and dozens of live oaks to the right. The snowy ground made it look like a postcard, yet something about the sharp turrets and angles and the tiny attic window reminded her of a horror movie.
For a brief second, she thought she saw a little boy’s face pressed to the glass. His hands pounded the glass in a silent scream as if he were trapped.
According to the file Helen had found, the couple was in their midthirties. They had tried for two years to have a baby before finally turning to adoption.
They had a six-year-old son named Mark.
When no one answered her knock, she rang the doorbell. Wind battered her with ice pellets as she waited in the eerie quiet.
Finally she stepped to the side and peered into the garag
e. A black sedan was parked inside, although there was a second space that was empty.
She moved to the right and peeked through the front window, but the lights were off. Still, she could see that the house looked as if it had been ransacked.
A lamp was overturned, magazines were strewn on the floor, and the desk drawer stood askew. Deciding no one was at home, she descended the porch steps and walked around to the back of the house, her teeth chattering. A small stoop led to the back door, snow piled a foot high.
She looked inside and noticed dishes piled in the sink. A pantry was open, and it appeared that the items inside had been rummaged through.
Had someone broken inside? Were the Baylers all right?
Nerves on edge, she jiggled the door. It was locked, but she pulled a hairpin from her hair and picked it, a skill she’d picked up from Skid. The floor squeaked as she stepped into the kitchen. The rooms were drafty, ice cold.
Slowly, she moved past the kitchen table, then through the hall, pausing to note the photographs of the family on the wall. An attractive blond woman, a handsome dark-haired man, a small boy with big brown eyes and brown hair. They looked like a happy family.
Amelia’s heart tugged. If this boy was her son, his adopted parents obviously adored him.
She climbed the steps, found the little boy’s room first, and quickly assessed the contents.
A set of bunk beds. Toy dinosaurs, a football, action figures, books, and a child’s table loaded down with Legos. A photograph of the boy in a soccer uniform hung on the wall, making her heart swell with longing.
Judging from the posters on the wall and the books, he liked fantasy stories and supernatural creatures.
Slightly unsettling for a six-year-old.
She checked the closet and noticed the drawers to his dresser were opened. It looked as if clothes had been removed.
Frowning, she hurried to the next bedroom. The parents’ room. Nicely decorated, but just like the boy’s room, the dresser drawers stood open and so did the closet door. There was a space on the floor that was empty but held the imprint of a suitcase.
The truth hit her—after Helen had called the couple, they decided to take the little boy and run.