“It’s okay, Mrs. Bergman. We know you’re not crazy,” Nate said, pasting on the smile he used for most interviews.
The woman gave him a watery smile, and although Nate conducted the entire interview, the couple kept firing their answers at Kellan. He jotted down notes, forming a quick theory in his head.
Leah hadn’t been working alone. She was part of a team of more than two.
Or she hit this house before she hit his parents’ place.
Pulling up Google Maps on his phone, he quickly judged the distance. It was less than a mile, and the kids could have easily hit two houses, but why wasn’t there any other jewelry in her bag? The only thing she’d had in there belonged to his parents. Unless the kid who kneed Blaine had it in his bag.
It was a possibility, but then he had to consider the attack on the station. According to Ollie, two guys came in to get Leah out—the one dressed as a cop and the one in the mask—and then there was the kid who flagged down Higgs. At a minimum, that made it four people working the crimes.
But what if there were more?
Kellan couldn’t shake the question from his mind.
“I spoke to Clancy this morning, before calling the police, and he said he noticed a couple of teens walking along the street yesterday. They should have been in school, but weren’t.” Mrs. Bergman raised her perfectly manicured eyebrows.
“Who’s Clancy?” Nate shifted in his chair, tugging his pant leg at the knee.
“He’s our neighbor,” Mr. Bergman replied, pointing to the right with his thumb. “Clance didn’t see anyone walk onto our property, just noticed two kids walking along the street in the afternoon. It struck him as odd that they weren’t in school, but he figured maybe they were ditching and it wasn’t really his problem.”
“Did he recognize them from the neighborhood?”
“No, but we don’t know every person who lives on this street. There are plenty of families around this area.”
Nate acknowledged his answer with a nod. “About what time was this?”
The couple looked at each other, then agreed that Clancy said it was around midafternoon.
Kellan glanced to Nate and murmured, “Timeline might check out. We’ll need to confirm with the neighbor.”
Nate nodded. “I’ll have a chat with him before we head back to the station.” He glanced back at the couple. “Did your neighbor describe what these kids looked like?”
“Yes.” The woman nodded. “He said it was two boys. They looked to be in their mid-teens. They had backpacks, but most school kids do, I guess.”
Kellan scribbled down the note, his mind trying to find a place for the two boys.
“Were either of them Native American, with shoulder-length hair?” he asked.
The woman looked to her husband, then shook her head. “Clancy didn’t mention that. He said they looked young. He figured they were probably freshmen.”
And Higgs had said the teen he saw was older—maybe eighteen.
There was a strong chance these two boys had nothing to do with the robbery. Or could they be linked to Leah?
After the interview came to a natural conclusion, Nate and Kellan looked around the house, and after strong insistence from the couple, agreed to get the crime techs in to fingerprint and photograph the place.
“They’re not going to find anything,” Kellan muttered as he descended the stairs and headed for his car.
“You really think these thieves are that professional?” Nate frowned. “You caught that kid red-handed. If they’re so damn professional, then why’d she screw up so easily?”
“That’s what I don’t understand.” Kellan shook his head, resting his hand on the roof of the car. “They wore gloves, no doubt had some way of jamming the alarms. Shit, she even had overshoes covering her feet to hide footprints. She knew exactly what she was doing.”
“I guess she wasn’t counting on you coming by.” Nate gazed down the street as he spoke. “After I’ve spoken to this Clancy guy, do you think it’s worth going door to door? Someone else may have been home and spotted something.”
“So, why didn’t they call it in?” Kellan huffed.
“Probably for the same reasons Clancy didn’t. Two teenage kids walking around during school hours isn’t exactly breaking news.” Nate shrugged. “But if I can get a description from him that I can take to other houses, then it might help with forming a specific timeline.”
“Yeah, it’s probably worth it.” Kellan scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “So it can’t just be the four of them, then.”
“What do you mean?” Nate’s eyebrows dipped together as he struggled to flip back through his notes.
Kellan took the notepad off him and found the page he’d started at the hospital.
“We’ve got Leah, the kid who attacked Blaine, the kid who waved down Higgs, the guy dressed in a police uniform, the one in the mask, and now these two boys. If they’re all different people, then that’s a total of seven.”
“That’s a decent crew. You think it might be even bigger than that?”
Kellan shrugged. “Possibly.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed as he looked across the roof of his car and muttered, “A crew…of kids.”
“Is that crazy?”
Nate yanked out his phone. “Maybe not. Let me give Jarrett a call.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got vague memories of him telling me about a story he wished he could have written. It was about a spate of robberies that went down at a campground over the summer. The reporter had a theory that it was a bunch of teenage kids but could never find enough evidence to prove it, and the police gave up the search pretty quickly. I’m just wondering…”
Kellan stood tall and let out a sardonic laugh.
“What?” Nate snickered as he held the phone to his ear.
“Never thought I’d be calling on a reporter for help. Especially one as annoying as Jarrett Pryor.”
Nate’s grin grew as he waited for Jarrett to answer his phone.
“Tell him to meet us at the station in a couple of hours. That’ll give you time to work this street first.”
With a thumbs-up, Nate started talking to his buddy from the Aspen Falls Daily.
Jarrett Pryor.
Kellan shook his head with another snicker as he slipped into his car and headed back to the station.
He usually tried to avoid the guy, finding his tenacity damn irritating, but Kellan knew he was a good reporter—the best, he thought grudgingly—and if he could help them on this case, then Kellan would welcome him into his office.
Shit, he should probably be nicer to the guy if he was thinking about dating his sister.
Which you’re not, he quickly warned.
But who the hell was he kidding?
He huffed out a sigh and focused back on the fact that they could have a possible lead. Well, sort of. More information might be coming their way. That had to be a good thing.
What if Leah was involved in the campground thefts over the summer?
Hopefully Jarrett could give them the name of the reporter who wrote the article in the first place. He wanted to know why the guy thought it was a bunch of kids.
He tried to imagine the scenario. It wasn’t hard to picture Leah’s lithe body jumping in and out of tents and breaking into cars like a stealthy cat. Her movements would have been swift and sure. She was quick and fearless.
But hopefully not too quick to find.
31
Thursday, September 27th
8:45am
Leah jumped and pulled herself onto the wall, racing across the narrow edge before leaping down and rolling onto the padded mat below.
“Come on, Leah! Hustle!” Dee shouted from across the room, her thumb poised on the stopwatch, ready to record Leah’s time.
Leah ignored the ache in her arms and hefted herself across the monkey bars, curling her body around the last one so she could reach the rings. Her muscles were burning, but she could
n’t stop. JJ was just ahead of her, and she’d rather drink blood than have him beat her two training sessions in a row.
Her lack of sleep from the night before was mocking her, making her feel like an eighty-year-old woman.
Come on! She joined in with Dee’s urging, swinging her body back and forth to get enough momentum.
On her third swing, she let go of the rings and captured the edge of the wall, scrambling up and then sliding down the ramp, only to be caught by JJ.
His smirk was punchable as she batted his arms off her and pushed him away.
Dee threw the stopwatch down. “You lost again!” She mumbled the time to Stella, who logged it into the database.
Stella glanced up. Her gaze was cool and assessing, and for a second Leah wondered if the woman knew what she and Cricket had gotten up to the night before.
“You look tired today,” Stella murmured.
The observation didn’t make Leah feel any better. Her body tensed as she waited for Stella to point her finger and shout across the room to Robin.
She was out of bed last night and used my computer!
But Stella did neither of those things.
Instead she softly said, “I know you had a big day yesterday, so I’ll let your slow pace slide. But make sure you get to bed on time tonight, ’kay?”
Leah nodded.
“Go take a seat and recover. I want that water bottle finished.” She used her pen to point to Leah’s bottle, which was on the floor next to JJ’s feet.
Leah gritted her teeth, snatched it up, and then plunked down on the metal bench seat.
JJ chuckled and nudged her. “Don’t be all sad. You’ll beat me next time.”
“Shut your pie hole,” she warned, but couldn’t help a little smile. He was kind of cute when he felt all triumphant, and it would only make beating him that much sweeter.
She drank her water while she watched Dee and Cricket race.
Dee won, which was what everyone expected. Leah shot Cricket a sympathetic smile, one he didn’t return. He’d been kind of standoffish over breakfast, and Leah had to wonder if he was pissed with her about last night. Did he feel like she’d made him look up that stuff?
Maybe she had.
But that wasn’t it.
He was annoyed because she was questioning Robin’s motives.
She glanced at their towering leader and quickly looked away when he started to turn in her direction. She didn’t want to look at his face and see him smile. He was currently laughing with Tyson, who was boasting that he could do more pushups than him. They dropped down to the floor together and started racing.
In moments like that Leah’s doubts began to waver.
Robin could be nice. He was their rescuer.
So why had he stolen Bobby?
Was it all a big misunderstanding?
“Hey, Leah! Look at me!” Bobby’s cry came from the bars, and she glanced across to see the little boy swinging like a monkey. His little legs kicked out and he dove down to the mat, rolling like a secret agent before bouncing up and heading for the climbing wall. He scrambled up with ease before leaping through the air and catching one of the rings.
He laughed with delight as he dangled in the air, his little muscles working hard to pull his body along. He really was incredible. His balance and strength for someone his size was amazing.
At least Leah thought it was amazing. She only really had the kids at the farm to compare him to, and they were all pretty awesome with gymnastics-type stuff.
She gazed around the room, watching the little ones play on the gear while the older ones took a short break. Every person in the room was a capable gymnast, and pretty damn good at parkour as well.
Was everyone in the world like that?
Her mind suddenly flashed with a vivid image that she’d never seen before.
A little girl was swinging from a jungle gym. There were kids all around, screaming and giggling as they raced around a playground. Swings to the left. A teeter-totter to the right. A long metal slide that was too hot to go down.
Wait. What?
Leah frowned as the image kept playing in her mind.
The girl was pulling herself up. It kind of hurt, but she was determined to get to the top of the jungle gym. With a grunt, she wriggled and swung her legs until she was sitting on the top. Then she got to her feet and balanced precariously for a moment until she found her center. She reached her hands in the air and shouted, “I’m the queen of the castle!”
“Hey, be careful. You don’t want to break anything,” a deep voice warned her.
“I’m fine, Daddy. I’m being a monkey.” The girl started making noises like a monkey, and it was only then that Leah realized she was the monkey.
Her insides began to tremble.
She was the monkey.
And some guy wanted her to be careful.
No, not some guy.
Daddy.
But she didn’t have a father. Not one who cared about her anyway.
Her fingers began to shake, and she quickly shoved them under her legs to hide the quivers.
Where the hell had that all come from?
Was it a memory?
She didn’t have those. She didn’t know her life before Robin and the farm.
With her breath on hold, Leah stared at the wall in the distance until everything around her became a fuzzy mess.
A sharp nudge from JJ pulled her back into focus.
“Would you look at that kid?” He pointed to Bobby with a laugh. “He’s a monkey. If he keeps going that way, he’ll end up being better than the both of us.”
Leah couldn’t respond. She was too busy trying to hide her shakes and the thoughts screaming through her brain.
If Bobby was taken, not rescued…
Why?
Why did Robin choose him?
Because he showed promise? Because he had the potential skills that would make him an excellent thief?
Did Robin notice Bobby on some playground and decide to snatch him?
The air in her lungs turned to ice as she wondered something else.
Had he done the same to her?
32
Thursday, September 27th
10:45am
Jarrett called Melina that morning to let her know about his conversation with Nate. Melina immediately decided to join him at the station. She was fascinated by the article he’d mentioned to her and wanted to know more. Having worked with teens and children for a while, she hoped she might be able to help with profiling. She understood the way they thought and could often pinpoint motivators for why children behaved in a way that wasn’t healthy to their mental, emotional or physical well-being.
Stealing for a living wasn’t healthy, and Melina wanted to find these kids and save them.
Sarah greeted Melina and her brother at reception. Her usually cheerful demeanor had taken an obvious hit from the day before, but she was still there. Kellan probably wished he could give everyone involved a few days off to recover, but Aspen Falls didn’t have the staffing for it, so they faithfully returned, shaken but eager to find the guys who had attacked their turf.
Melina waited for the door to buzz, then followed Jarrett through the station to Kellan’s office. She spotted a woman in a dark suit that she didn’t recognize. She’d taken over one of the desks and was working with a serious frown while the rest of the AFPD officers gave her a wide berth.
“FBI is my guess,” Jarrett muttered as they approached Kellan’s office.
They had to wait outside for a few minutes while Kellan finished a meeting with the sheriff and another dark suit. From the head shakes and frowns she spotted through the glass, she could tell it wasn’t good news. The culprits had disappeared, and they were still hunting down leads they could follow. Melina crossed her fingers that the article Jarrett had to share would yield a connection to Leah.
It was only a chance, but that gave Melina hope.
Swift footsteps approached and
she turned to see Nate striding toward them. Jarrett snickered and shook his head. “Can’t believe Sally’s letting you work today.”
Nate shot his friend a droll look before muttering, “She’s working today, and Rusty’s not a very good guard dog.”
Melina let out a surprised cough. “You snuck out of your own house to come to work?”
Nate grinned and shook his head. “She knows I’m here, and I’ve been ordered to keep my phone on me, even when going to the bathroom. She wants to be able to check in whenever she starts to worry.”
Pointing at his friend’s sling, Jarrett asked, “How’s the hand feeling?”
“Hurts more today than it did yesterday. The painkillers make my head a little fuzzy, and I’d rather live with the discomfort than not be able to focus.”
Melina winced, still feeling the sting of guilt at putting him in that room with Leah. Logically she knew she couldn’t have predicted that Leah would react that way, but the pen and paper had been Melina’s idea.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m gonna be just fine.” Nate patted her shoulder with a kind smile, then glanced up as Kellan’s office door opened.
The sheriff gave them a polite nod as he placed the hat back on his head and walked for the exit. The man in the dark suit looked between her and Jarrett, then headed across to his partner without a word.
Melina was desperate to ask how the meeting went, but from the firm set of Kellan’s mouth, she decided to stay quiet as he ushered them into his office.
He didn’t seem surprised, disappointed, or pleased that she was there.
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