Rachel cupped her hand over her mouth.
“We didn’t find your son, Mrs. Meier.”
“Rachel.”
“Okay. Rachel. But he might be hiding, afraid he’s in trouble with the police. I’d like to do another walk through, but this time have you come with us.”
“You didn’t see anyone else?”
“No. The building appears to be vacant.”
Could her attackers have taken Josh? Or was Nate right, and the whole thing had been a hallucination? And if that was the case, then where was her son?
“Rachel?” The chief prompted.
Rachel stepped forward.
Nate matched her. “Uh, I’ll go too. More eyes couldn’t hurt.”
“I’m sorry, Nate. I’d like you to remain here with Sergeant Olson, so he can take your statement.”
Rachel had seen enough cop shows on TV to realize the chief wanted to question Nate and her separately. She gave Nate an apologetic glance.
“That would be fine, Chief,” Nate said. “As long as you do me two favors.”
“And what would those favors be?”
“The three of you stay together. And don’t let Rachel out of your sight.”
Chief Ryker raised an eyebrow then nodded to her second-in-command. “Ready Rachel?” she asked.
A tremor seized Rachel’s stomach and bled through her limbs. But as nervous as she was about the strange things that had happened in the school, it was nothing compared to the thought of Josh trapped in there alone. “Of course.”
“Ginny, you want to lead the way?” The chief asked.
The cop gave a nod and pushed through the glass doors. Rachel fell in behind her, the chief bringing up the rear. The chief called out Josh’s name, and Rachel followed suit, her voice echoing off the walls.
“Josh? Are you here, honey? You’re not in trouble or anything. We’re just looking for you. Gertie was worried you got lost.”
The sun had slipped in the sky since Rachel had first entered the school, and the only light came from the end-of-hall glass doors and the occasional emergency light deeper inside the building, the light switches again non-functional. The lockers were back to being wooden shelves and coat hooks, the steel variety with doors now nowhere to be seen. They passed under the inspirational placards and passed the water fountains, this time without incident.
“There.” Rachel pointed to Josh’s second grade classroom. “That was his room last year.”
They went inside. Where Rachel remembered the room under Ms. Edwards’s care—festooned with posters, bulletin boards built by Mr. Edwards, and a jelly bean jar promising fun rewards for good behavior—this classroom looked nothing like that. The walls were stripped of personality, the tables and chairs stacked against one wall unused. Something moved under a table, and Rachel gasped.
Officer Jones directed her flashlight to the spot, illuminating the scurry of a mouse. An albino instead of the usual gray field mouse, it reminded Rachel of the rodents in her high school biology class. “An albino. That’s strange.”
“What?” Officer Jones asked.
“The mouse. It was all white. Like the kind they sell in pet shops.”
“Oh, must have missed it.”
Rachel nearly pointed to the creature before stopping herself. Now she was seeing random mice that no one else did? She glanced at the officer. “They’re pretty quick.”
“No one here,” Chief Ryker said.
They moved on down the hall, calling for Josh and sweeping the darkness with their flashlight beams, before coming upon another set of inspirational banners.
ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING.
TODAY I WILL MAKE MAGIC HAPPEN.
They searched the gym, the lunch room and kitchen, even the bathrooms, although the lights refused to work this time. And although nothing seemed out of the ordinary—no growing halls or steel lockers—a weight bore down on Rachel’s shoulders, increasing with every step.
If her son wasn’t here…
They had just turned a corner when one of the flashlights illuminated another abandoned sign.
AFTER SCHOOL LIBRARY SIGN UP.
Hadn’t Gertie told her Josh was looking for the faery book? Had the toilet incident washed everything from her mind? “That’s where he’d go. Josh has to be in the library.”
They pulled open the door, and Officer Jones tried the light switch, but like the classrooms and bathrooms during this trip into the school, the room remained dark. Unlike the classrooms, the library looked as it had a few months ago when the school was in use. Tables scattered the open area, chairs arranged around them as if waiting for the children. Books crowded the shelves. Even the tech station appeared untouched, the outdated monitors still in place, all the computers plugged in.
“Josh Meier?” Chief Ryker called. “Are you in here?”
Rachel joined her. “Josh? Come on out, honey. It’s time to go home.”
Shadows danced over book spines then disappeared, chased away by police Maglites.
Rachel held up her cell phone, activating the flashlight app. Her light splashed across the last table in the row. Something glinted.
She made her way to the table. A book splayed open on the surface, tooled leather, the edges of the pages adorned with gold. An elaborate drawing jumped off the page.
Faeries and elves. Leprechauns and trolls. All cavorting among arching flowers and springing leaves. Beautiful. Fanciful. And for a fraction of a second, Rachel saw someone else romping with the fay folk, the grin on his face wider than she’d seen in two years.
Then she blinked her eyes, and Josh was gone.
Chapter Five
When Rachel woke, she was outside the school. Cool wind fanned her cheeks and teased the wisps of her hair. She was lying flat, strapped to a gurney, the red lights of the ambulance swirling red in the dark.
“What happened?”
Chief Ryker leaned over her. “Welcome back.”
“What happened?” she repeated.
“You passed out. Fainted. Except we had a hell of a time reviving you.”
“I fainted?”
“Dead away.”
Rachel turned her head, afraid of the pain the movement might inspire, but she had no headache, no neck ache. In fact, she felt just fine. She’d gone to school with a girl in the high school marching band who had fainted once while standing on the football field in hot weather. Rachel had always thought it was a ploy for sympathy. “People really faint?”
“Occasionally.”
Rachel had a feeling it wasn’t as simple as that. She wasn’t overheated. She wasn’t locking her knees. She wasn’t traumatized. A memory niggled at the back of her mind, and she tried to sit up, pulling against the restraints.
The book.
Josh.
On second thought, maybe she had been through a bit of trauma, even if it was merely a hallucination. “Was there a book lying open on one of the tables?”
“A book?”
“Yeah. A big, leather-bound book. The Complete Guide to Faery Lore by Maximillian Midnight.”
Chief Ryker released the straps, letting Rachel sit up, then reached into her car and pulled out the book. “Thought you might like this. After you fainted, I looked at it a little closer and noticed the name written inside. Joshua Meier.”
“Thank you.” Rachel took the book and clutched it tight to her chest. Tears welled in her eyes, turning the world to a smeared mess of light and shadow. “Where is Nate?”
“Is he someone special to you?” Chief Ryker asked.
Rachel wasn’t sure how to answer that. She saw Nate nearly every day and looked forward to the next day in the rare cases she didn’t. But special? That implied more. She’d had more once, with Steven, and she’d lost it. She wasn’t sure she was up to reaching for something so fragile again. “He’s my neighbor.”
“Well, Sergeant Olson had a few follow up questions for him. I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to speak to him later. Rig
ht now, I need you to help me. It’s time to move to the next stage, Rachel. I want to get an Amber Alert out for Josh.”
It took Rachel several seconds before she could squeak out her question. “You think someone took him?”
“I don’t know,” the chief said. “But we’re going to cover all the bases, okay?”
Rachel hugged the old book. She would help the police cover all the bases they wanted, but she would also cover some bases of her own. “Anything. What do you want me to do?”
Chapter Six
Police Chief Val Ryker lowered herself into her office chair and arranged the notes in front of her. The search for Josh Meier was fully underway now. The Lake Loyal PD dispatcher, receptionist and all-around superwoman, Oneida Perkins, had already issued the Amber Alert, using a recent photo and description provided by Rachel, and the county had sent deputies to help finish canvassing the neighborhood surrounding the closed elementary school.
Every missing child case was treated seriously, even though every one of the handful Val had encountered since moving to Lake Loyal had been a false alarm. Kids running away from home only to return hours later. Kids who forgot to ask for permission to visit a friend’s house. Kids who lost track of time while out playing. Val didn’t know which group Josh fit into yet, but there was one giant element that was nagging at her.
The thing that disturbed her most was this happened to be the second incident involving the old school in as many weeks. Two Fridays ago, the Buchner kid was pulled out of the old school in a state of shock. He hadn’t spoken since, and no one knew what had happened to him. Val had personally made sure the school was locked tight with security chains. But today the chains were gone, and the door facing the playground was open.
She looked down at the description of what Josh Meier was wearing. Gray sweatpants with a white stripe. Red t-shirt, dark gray hoodie, socks, and Crocs. She also had a list of the names and addresses of everyone who came into contact with the boy over the past few months, and the computer Josh used. Rachel Meier had been very cooperative. She’d even eschewed a trip to the hospital to check out her fainting spell in order to provide every bit of information she could.
But still, there was something…
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. “I have coffee for you,” a voice called in a sing-song cadence.
“Come in, Oneida,” Val said.
The dispatcher burst through the door. Big in every sense of the word, Oneida was as passionate as a mother bear, as efficient as an Aaron Rodgers touchdown drive, and as demanding as a diva. She set a steaming paper cup on Val’s desk. “I’ll bet you could use this.”
Val loved coffee. The good, dark-roasted kind. Hot and black. Unfortunately as much as she loved good brew, and as much as she loved the Lake Loyal PD’s dispatcher and overall woman-in-charge, Oneida Perkins did not make good coffee.
Keeping her reaction to the burned bitterness out of her expression, Val set her cup on her desk and smiled at the big, brash blonde. “Thanks, Oneida. You don’t have to bring me coffee.”
“I was walking in here anyway to tell you what I found on Nate Welks.”
Nate Welks. Another player in this case who didn’t add up. “I was just thinking about him.”
“Well, let me illuminate you. At first I couldn’t find a thing. It was as if the guy never existed. But then…”
“Yes?”
“With brilliant sleuthing work, even if I do say so myself, I discovered a federal ID issued to one Nathan Wells, with no k.”
Val let that gel in her mind for a second. “So his real name is Wells, and he changed it to Welks?”
“Looks like it. Brilliant, really. It’s an easy change to falsify, and yet the one letter difference would keep it from showing up in simple database searches.”
“And you have proof this is the same guy?”
“The picture matched the one Pete Olson texted me earlier.”
“So he doesn’t want to make it easy for people to find him, and he works for the government.”
“At least he did. An agency called IPPO.”
“IPPO?”
“Apparently it’s a branch of the FBI. Investigations of Paranormal Phenomena and the Occult.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no such agency.”
“There is. Trust me. They operate under the radar.”
“Whatever you say, Oneida.”
“Glad I finally have you trained, chief.”
Val smiled. “Phone number? I think I’d like to make this call myself.”
Oneida handed her a memo sheet with a flourish then left the office.
Val set the number aside then booted up her computer to do a little pre-call research. Investigations of Paranormal Phenomena and the Occult. She’d visited her share of dairy farms since moving to rural Wisconsin, but this had to be the biggest pile of bullshit she’d encountered to date.
A Google search for IPPO turned up nothing but a series of Japanese boxing manga, so she picked up the phone. Cold call, it was.
It took over fifteen minutes to negotiate the layers of the FBI until she finally found a person who seemed to recognize the agency. Massaging a twinge of stiffness in her neck, she waited for the call to transfer.
When the music stopped and the line picked up, a male voice answered. “IPPO. How may I direct your call?”
Val explained who she was. “I’d like to find out some background on a former employee by the name of Nathan Wells.”
“I’m sorry. No one with that name has ever worked for this agency.”
“Are you sure? My source is over two years old, but I would think your records would extend back that far.”
“I wish I could help. Good luck.” The line went dead.
Val stared down at Rachel Meier’s list, focusing on the name Nate Welks, aka Nathan Wells. She didn’t believe him, she didn’t believe Rachel Meier, and more than anything, she didn’t believe the IPPO.
What Val did believe in was justice. And she wouldn’t quit until she found out what happened to that little boy.
Chapter Seven
By the time police officers left Rachel’s townhouse, the evening had disappeared and night had claimed Lake Loyal. Josh’s eight o’clock bedtime had come and gone, and the thought of him out there alone chilled Rachel more than the dropping temperature. Shrugging on a heavier coat, she slipped out the front door and walked to the next townhouse.
Oberon’s wide, yellow eyes followed her through the bay window, watching her extend a trembling finger and push Nate’s doorbell. The chime echoed brittle in the night’s chill, followed by the creak of footsteps.
The door swung open, and Nate peered out. “I thought you might stop over,” he said, scanning the parking lot beyond as he gestured her inside and closed the door behind her.
“I need to know what’s going on, Nate.” Miraculously, her voice sounded stronger than she felt, grounded, resolute. “The whole truth.”
He nodded. “You might want to sit down.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Then I might want to sit down,” he said, but he didn’t move to a chair, just shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if not sure how to begin.
“What’s inside the school? What caused my hallucinations?”
“You had more when you were inside with police?”
She told him about the mouse that no one else seemed to spot. Then bracing herself, she described her shock at seeing Josh’s face in the faery book’s illustration.
“A faery book?”
“It was Steven’s. We lent it to the library late last year. The kids were fascinated by it.” She paused. She hadn’t come here to spill her guts. She’d intended for this to be the other way around. “What’s happening, Nate?”
“The book, is it The Complete Guide to Faery Lore?”
“Yes.”
“Written by Maximillian Midnight?”
“Yes.”
“We have
to get that book, Rachel.”
For a moment, she almost told him she had the book safe on her kitchen counter. Again offering up all she knew without getting any information in return. Catching the words before they could leave her lips, she folded her arms across her chest. “Why is that book important?”
Nate looked away then paced across the room.
“Please, Nate.”
He stopped at the front window, staring outside over Oberon’s head. “The night Steven died I swore I’d protect you from all this.”
Rachel lowered herself to the leather couch. Nate hadn’t moved next door to her until after Steven’s funeral. She remembered the day. So how could he…
She gripped her thighs with strong fingers. “You knew Steven?”
“He and I worked together.”
“Worked together?” she echoed. Steven was an engineer who designed mining equipment. Nate taught in the University Outreach program. At least that’s what he’d told her. “Doing what?”
“You have to understand, we signed confidentiality agreements. We couldn’t talk about our work with anyone. Even family.”
The tremor that had afflicted Rachel’s hands and knees now moved into her stomach. In the past there had been times she’d sensed Nate knew a lot more than he let on. Like last fall when he’d commented on Steven being a closet Viking fan. Like his talent for always remembering Josh’s birthday. Like the night three weeks ago when he’d shown up on her doorstep with apple-cranberry pie, smiling as if he already knew it was her favorite.
More than once, she’d wondered if he was attracted to her, and that was the reason he’d picked up on things she hadn’t remembered telling him. She’d liked that theory, more than she’d wanted to admit, and as a result, she’d never questioned it further.
Obviously she’d better start asking some questions now. “Who did you and Steven work for?”
“The U.S. government. More specifically for an organization called IPPO.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Investigations of Paranormal Phenomena and the Occult.”
The School: A Supernatural Thriller (Val Ryker Series) Page 3