I finished the text exchange by asking her to send pictures.
Stan was first on the scene, followed soon thereafter by a parade of ten more government vehicles, including one ambulance. Detectives insisted that the paramedics check Billy out, and I understood why. I overheard the medics asking him if he’d been touched in an inappropriate place. Billy simply said, “Heck no,” and then proceeded to inspect a ten-dollar bill that he’d taken from the car, at the same time downing a bottle of cold water in about ten seconds.
“This is Alexander Hamilton,” Billy said, holding both ends of the bill in front of the medic’s face.
“I’m sure it is,” the young medic said. He didn’t seem very interested in the revelation and began to load his equipment into his truck.
I took Billy’s hand and walked him over to Stan and a statuesque woman with red hair and a badge affixed to her belt loop. She crouched to her knees and said, “Hi, Billy. My name is Brook. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
Billy stared at his ten-dollar bill, then looked away. I followed his eyes to his grandfather, who was in his own Q&A session with an officer closer to the lake. “I guess so,” he said with little enthusiasm.
Stan gave me the signal, and I followed him off to the side, giving Brook some space to talk to Billy. A cotton-ball cloud appeared in the sky and slid in front of the sun. I could hear a collective sigh of relief from everyone milling about the crime scene.
“Don’t go,” Billy said from behind me. I flipped around and saw him talking to Brook while pointing at me. “I don’t want to be alone. Can she stay with me?”
Brook did an impatient eye roll behind Billy’s back. Then she said, “Sure. Let’s get you another water and then we can get into my SUV with the air conditioning on full blast and have a little discussion.”
“I want to stay out here near Gramps.”
“Okay. That works.”
Stan said, “I’ll be the water boy.”
I meandered over to Billy, hands in my pockets, a little weary of Brook’s looming presence. This was her crime scene, her world. I looked up, thankful to see the large cloud still providing enough coverage so breathing didn’t require an oxygen mask. Stan arrived with waters for everyone and then stayed close by as Brook started with her questions, initially focusing on Billy’s life at his foster home. The questions were innocuous, talking about what he did for fun, who he hung out with, what his favorite meal was. Billy initially provided one-word answers, but quickly relaxed, offering more elaborate responses with each question. It was obvious that Brook knew what she was doing.
“Were you looking forward to going to Target?”
“Kind of. Mom—my foster mom makes me call her that—said we could look at fishing gear, and if I found something really cool, I could add it to my Christmas list for Santa.” He chugged a bunch of water.
“I understand you and your Gramps love to fish together.”
“Yeah. We talk a lot. But I like to catch fish too, even if it doesn’t happen very often.” He giggled, and we all joined in, including Stan.
“What do you and Gramps talk about?” Brook asked.
I quickly studied Billy’s face, wondering where she was going with this.
The boy shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know…just stuff.”
“Stuff about fishing, stuff about the Spurs basketball team, or maybe other stuff?”
He tapped his forefinger into his opposite hand. “Yes, yes and… What do you mean by other stuff? I can’t really read your mind, you know.”
I quickly brought a hand to my face to stifle my laughter. Brook’s round eyes glanced in my direction, but she maintained her composure and her pleasant tone. “Oh, I don’t know. Other stuff might be talking about family and spending the holidays together, things like that.”
He raised an eyebrow, looking away for second.
“Is that a tough question for you?”
“I get confused between my foster family and my real family. Gramps always helps me remember about my real family.”
A slow nod. “Does he talk about everyone getting back together in the same family?”
“Uh, I don’t remember.” For the first time, Billy looked to the ground as he ran his shoe across loose dirt.
Was there more to that answer? Brook looked at me once again, and I could see she was wondering the same thing.
Billy drank the rest of his water, then began to inspect the ten-dollar bill again. “Did you know that Alexander Hamilton is the only person to face left on any of the American bills? See?” He turned it so that the adults could see it.
When I noticed Brook get distracted by looking at her phone, I jumped in and said, “Wow, Billy, you’re a smart guy.” He smiled so wide I could see a big gap up front.
“You missing a tooth?” I asked as Brook put away her phone and tried to catch up to the conversation.
“Yeah, I got two bucks for it.” He sounded disappointed.
“Two dollars is a lot for a ten-year-old,” Brook said.
“Not really. It’s not like it’s the olden days anymore,” he said.
Brook wiped a forearm across her forehead. Even in the temporary shade, she was sweating bullets. We all were. Only Billy seemed fairly comfortable. That was about to change.
Resting a caring hand on Billy’s shoulder, Brook said, “We need to talk about yesterday, when you were taken out of the Target.”
He nodded, but his eyes fixated on her hand touching his shoulder. She picked up on his unease and quickly removed it. “You want to tell us about it?”
A gust of wind dropped his dark hair across his forehead. He shuffled his shoes in the dirt. Then he lifted his arms to the side and let them fall until they smacked his legs. “What’s there to know, anyway? I already told…” He glanced my way. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Ivy.”
“Right. She knows. Why don’t you just ask Ivy? I’m tired. I want to go… I want to go with Gramps now.”
“I understand, Billy, but if we want to find this person who took you, then—”
“I don’t care about that stuff.”
“Billy, son,” Brook said, “we need to learn more about what happened so that—”
“This is stupid,” he exclaimed, balling his hand up into a fist. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to be in that stinky shack anymore. It made me sick to my stomach to be near that dead animal. Do you hear me?” The chords of his neck were strained as air pumped out of his nostrils.
“It’s okay, Billy,” I said, drawing an instant glare from Brook. “What happened to you sucks…big time.”
His breathing slowed, and he blinked a few times.
“One time in my life, someone took me,” I said. I could feel Stan’s hand on my back, his way of urging me not to go there. But I wanted Billy to know he wasn’t a freak for being a victim of something he couldn’t control.
Billy looked off into the weeds. The cadence of his breathing slowly dissipated. Then he found my eyes. “Did you have to stay in a stinky house with a dead animal and flies?”
I shook my head. “No, but he hurt me. I’m only telling you this because you’re not the only one to go through something like this. You can talk to me or other kids who have experienced this. It’s okay to feel sad or angry.”
“I am angry. And I guess I’m a little sad too.” He stuck out his bottom lip, and I wondered if we might see tears. But none materialized.
I wanted to take him in my arms, but given his reaction to Brook touching him, I kept my distance. “Can you tell me why you’re angry?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because of that mean lady with the creepy mole and the hair growing out of it. She started off being real nice, and then she got mean.”
“Where was that mole?”
“Right here,” he said, pointing at his chin.
I quick glanced at Brook, and she nodded. Sh
e wanted me to continue.
“How was she mean to you, Billy?”
A part of his lip edged upward, as if he’d just been forced to eat asparagus. Every kid hated asparagus. “She just yelled at me and stuff. Told me to shut up, stop asking questions.”
“But you’re a smart boy. And it only makes sense for you to ask a lot of questions…because you want to learn more.”
“I know, right?”
“What kind of questions were you asking?”
“Normal stuff, I guess. At least normal for a kid who was fooled into getting into a stranger’s car. That’s one of the reasons I’m mad.”
“Because you went with a stranger.”
He nodded. “Mom—my real mom—always said to never go with strangers. I only did it because she had black licorice.”
“Black licorice rocks.” I winked at him; he gave me a straight-lipped smile. “Where were you when this woman yelled at you?”
“Gas station. She smelled,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face. “But not as bad as that shack with the skunk in it.”
“Do you remember the colors on the signs at the gas station?”
“Red and green. It was a 7-Eleven.”
“That’s great help. Thank you, Billy. You might have a future as a police detective. Would you like to do that?”
“Is that what you do?” he asked me in a curious tone.
“Not really. That’s what Detective Pressler and Detective Radowski do.”
He checked them out, then turned to me. “She said I was a little shit.”
“The woman who took you?”
He released a shaky breath. “Yep,” he said at a barely audible level.
“It’s all right, Billy. The woman who took you is not a good person. You’re safe now. And all of us will make sure that you stay safe.”
Billy looked over at his grandfather, who waved at him. He smiled and waved back.
“Your grandfather has a lot of great memories with you.”
“I know, and I’m only ten. He’s almost a hundred.”
A snort from Stan behind me. I said, “I think he’s close to eighty-four, but he cares about you.”
“Yeah, we have fun.”
“Billy, you’ve been very brave throughout this whole incident. Can you tell me how you got away from the mean lady?”
He looked in the direction of his grandfather, then opened his hand and stared at the ten-dollar bill. “She was on the phone, talking a lot. She sounded like a grizzly bear.”
A thought hit me. “Did it smell in her car?”
“Sure did. Like smoke.”
Brook and I traded a quick glance.
“So you were saying how you got away…”
“Right, well, I told her that her voice was making my head hurt. It was,” he said, looking into my eyes. “She told me to shut up and other mean things. So, I said I would if I had more candy.”
“Did you really want more candy?”
He shook his head. “I lied. Am I going to get into trouble?”
“Nope. You lied on purpose so that she would get you more candy, didn’t you?”
He smiled, nodding quickly. “I watched her through the window of the 7-Eleven, and when she went to the back of the store, I opened the car door and ran as fast as I could.”
“You are such a smart and brave kid.”
“Thank you, Ivy. Hey, that’s kind of a strange name.”
“I’ve been told that my whole life. But I kind of like the name. It’s unique.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
Brook jumped in. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the woman who took you?”
“Eh…” He twisted his lips. “She wore these huge, purple sunglasses. Made her look like a purple fly.”
“I love your imagination, Billy,” I said.
He didn’t look at me. He just stared at Brook. Or was he staring at something on Brook?
“Tell me I don’t have a cricket or a creepy bug in my hair,” she said, raking her fingers through her red locks.
“I don’t see anything,” Stan said.
Billy hadn’t blinked.
“Do you remember something else?” I prompted.
“Yeah, the mean lady…when she got out of the car, her brown hair moved on her head, and I saw red hair sticking out.”
“A regular junior detective,” Stan muttered.
We all chuckled. Except Billy.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Stan asked.
Billy went from a straight face to bubbling tears in no time. “I just miss my brothers, Drew, Ricky, and Claude.”
“I—” Before I could say another word, he leaned into my chest and hugged me.
Through his sobs, he said, “Gramps said we could all be together again. Is that going to happen?”
With two hands at her waist, Brook looked at me and shook her head. She knew, as I did, that the likelihood of CPS and the courts reversing their decision and moving all the kids back in with William was highly unlikely. While an argument could be made for the foster mom showing negligence in allowing Billy to wander off, my experience had also shown that attorneys could easily counter by saying this type of unfortunate incident happened to families every day. And it wasn’t as if the foster mom had met her meth dealer and was found by the dumpster behind the store, completely whacked out.
But Billy didn’t want to hear that. He only wanted to hear that what was left of his family—he, his brothers, his grandfather—would be reunited. I’d never had any siblings, but I’d seen the anguish when families had been torn apart. It didn’t seem fair to anyone. The kids, even if they were lucky enough to find a decent foster home, seemed forever damaged. And in many cases, the parents were a hot mess. But all too often the alternative wasn’t much better—keeping siblings together, but in living conditions that could cause them harm. The system was broken. Just like Billy’s heart.
I swallowed back some emotion and hugged Billy back. He didn’t know it, but I was crying on the inside for this kid who’d experienced more than any kid should in just ten years of life.
After Billy settled down, CPS arrived on the scene and confirmed that Billy would be going back to his foster family. William would continue to have occasional visitation rights. The little boy and grandfather hugged for a good five minutes. As Billy sat in the back of the CPS agent’s car, he placed his hand on the window, tears streaming down his face. I heard sniffles from those who stood near me. It was all sadly ironic. Everyone had been elated to find Billy alive and safe. It was nothing short of a miracle, considering the number of kids who were kidnapped every day in this twisted world, never to be seen again.
But now, sorrow filled the air as we watched the car carrying Billy drive away, leaving a plume of dust and a lot of heavy hearts. The system had shredded another family.
As the sun emerged from behind the cloud, choking the oxygen out of the air, one thought permeated my mind: Billy had survived. And after everything I’d experienced, everything I’d witnessed, I knew that survival was our most primal instinct. There would be a tomorrow for Billy Cooper. And that part gave me hope.
10
A purple glow hung at the lip of the horizon, and a cascade of stars sprinkled across the darkening sky. Temperatures still hovered just above ninety degrees, but a gentle breeze, sans a life-sucking sun, provided some relief. From my vantage point, leaning on the chrome railing of the outdoor Air Bar high atop the downtown Fairmont, it seemed like I’d been transported to a new world. The world of child kidnapping, dead skunks, searing heat, and heart-wrenching goodbyes still idled in the back of my mind—those thoughts stayed with me like the stench of the dead skunk. But as I turned to see groups of friends, loving couples sharing stories or special moments, I was reminded that life, even in such a fantasy-like setting, never stopped.
The demographics of the crowd skewed younger, most folks under the age of forty, although I could see a number of men with silver-tipped ha
irlines sidled up next to much younger women. Most of those men oozed money. You could see it in their watches, even their sandals. And I was betting that the young ladies saw it just as clearly as I did.
Zahera swooped into the open space. With her silky hair flowing behind her and legs that went on forever—she wore a silver mini-skirt with purple heels—every head in the bar turned in her direction, men, women, employees. But that was the norm. She’d been the one who’d set up this little night out, and for once, I hadn’t pushed back. It was supposed to be a double date. Her date, Zeke, was a James Bond look-alike who ran a security firm. My date, Saul, didn’t own anything other than a crappy old Mazda RX-7. But that didn’t matter to me. We’d spent the last several weeks connecting on a level that I didn’t think was possible.
Zahera saw me and held up a hand, then stopped at a corner table. She was talking to a man whose dark hair didn’t match his waxy complexion. A gold-tipped cane leaned against his table as he smiled at my friend, nodding occasionally. His face and gestures were calm, but from my vantage point, he seemed aloof. I couldn’t figure out why, but it was a different vibe than I felt from the other men in the bar. Not necessarily worse, just different.
My neck felt a puff of warm air, and then a firm hand took hold of my hip. I shuddered, quickly turning to see Saul’s warm smile.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he said, taking my hand in his.
“I just…” He had scared me, but I wasn’t big on admitting weakness, even to a guy I’d grown fond of. I released a breath and let the tension drain out of me. “You just surprised me. Did you know we’re four hundred feet off the ground?” I tipped my head back, looking beyond his shoulder at the skyline.
He planted a kiss on my cheek, and I felt a tingle inside. I touched the side of his face, looked into his eyes.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 4