by Gayle Wilson
Part of that acquired knowledge was how unprepared she’d been to accept the responsibility that had been handed to her. Something that had only made her more determined to eventually become worthy of it.
“I don’t know about that,” Dean said. “I can’t think of a single case where a parent’s tearful plea has made a hill of beans worth of difference in the outcome.”
“You got an opinion about who did this? Other than you don’t think the mother was involved?”
“I don’t get paid to have opinions. Not at this stage. ’Course, so far, we ain’t got much fact to go on, either.”
Almost all they knew right now was that Raine Nolan was missing. Like Dean, Eden found it hard to believe Margo was involved. Her grief and innocent hopefulness had felt too genuine.
“What’d you think about the father?” she asked.
“If Ray Nolan’s faking, he should be making movies instead of selling insurance. I’ve seen men with that kind of burden of guilt on ’em, and that isn’t what’s in his eyes this morning.”
“What is?” Eden needed him to put it into words, maybe just to reinforce what her own instincts were telling her.
“Disbelief. Fear. Fury. Somebody stole his baby. Somebody who didn’t have any right to be inside his house, much less take a child out of it.”
“You know that the parents’ involvement is the first thing the FBI is going to suggest, especially in a case like this. Somebody comes in and snatches a little girl out of the same room where her sister’s sleeping.”
“Just because that’s the most common scenario doesn’t make it the explanation for this.”
“So who do you think took her? And why? They’re going to ask, and right now…” Eden shook her head.
“Nobody’s asked for ransom. Not yet, anyways. And despite that big ole house, Ray hasn’t got much money. None he could get to real quick. The other possibilities are a whole lot less appealing.”
“You think she’s dead,” Eden said flatly.
“I think there’s a real good chance. My worse fear is the kid’ll be alive and we’ll walk right by her. Or we don’t search the house she’s in. Do something stupid when, if we’d been quicker or smarter, we could have found her.”
That was something Eden didn’t want to think about. The fact that a little girl’s life rested in her hands. That if she forgot something, missed the obvious or was just unlucky, Raine Nolan might die.
“We’ll need to have them add a plea that anyone who’s noticed anything unusual, anything at all, should call the hotline,” she said.
People in the South were sometimes hesitant to report what their neighbors were doing, even if they thought it was strange. They could only hope sympathy for the mother’s desperation would overcome the public’s tendency to mind their own business.
“Have ’em keep that number up while Margo talks,” Dean suggested.
Eden nodded, adding to her notes. “Maybe you’re wrong, Dean. Maybe somebody looked at the Nolans from the outside and thought they have money.”
“I hope so. For all our sakes.”
Eden glanced up, meeting his eyes. “You don’t think anybody’s going to call.”
Dean hesitated before he shook his head. “That same instinct that’s telling me Ray and Margo don’t have anything to do with this is telling me that whoever forced open their patio door and took that baby didn’t do it for money.”
Chapter Two
“Can you think of anything we haven’t done?”
Eden’s question was as much to herself as to Dean. As hard as it was to believe, they were now approaching the infamous forty-eight-hour mark on Raine Nolan’s kidnapping. And despite doing everything she could think of, they were no closer to finding her than they had been when the call had come in yesterday morning.
“Pray?” Dean looked up as he took a bite out of one of the sandwiches someone had brought into Eden’s office hours ago.
The take-out iced teas that had accompanied them had formed puddles of condensation on the glass cover of her desk. The possibility of food poisoning crossed her mind, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from biting into her own sandwich.
“I expect folks who are more adept at praying than either of us have that covered. What’d the lab tell you?”
“That they’re six months behind, but that since it concerns a child, they’ll do the best they can.”
Chronically underfunded, the state forensics lab was their only option. The county didn’t handle enough crime to justify having one of their own.
Not that the guys who had gathered the evidence had been all that optimistic that there was anything in the girls’ room that would point a finger in the perpetrator’s direction. The best they could hope for was something that might be useful at the trial.
If there ever was a trial…
“The Bureau’s questioning the Nolans again.” Dean shrugged as he added the information.
“You think they got their minds made up?”
“Looks that way. I’m not sure it matters, though. Long as you don’t.”
It would be easier, God knows, to think that whatever had happened to Raine was over and done. An out-of-control moment by an exhausted parent that ended in tragedy.
That image, disturbing as it was, was more palatable than those that had played in Eden’s head the past two days. The only way she’d found to defeat them was to keep herself mentally occupied by making sure the department was covering every possible angle.
“They say a camera doesn’t lie,” she said. “I don’t see how anybody who watched Margo yesterday morning could doubt she doesn’t have a clue what happened to her daughter.”
“So…you like Ray for this?”
“I didn’t say that. You don’t, and I trust your instincts. I just haven’t watched him get emotional like I’ve watched Margo.”
That was one thing she’d have to give the national media credit for. They’d given the mother’s plea to bring her daughter home endless airtime. The fact that they’d apparently had a couple of slow news days had played into that, of course, but the story itself was compelling enough to demand attention.
Where would you think a child would be safer than in her own bed?
Banishing the memory of her mother’s voice, Eden took another bite of her sandwich. The silence that fell as they ate was companionable. And she had leaned heavily on Dean’s experience and his knowledge of the region and its people through these endless hours.
“Anything new from the hotline?”
Dean laughed. “Last I heard, a boatload of garbage. That’s better than nothing, I guess. Better than folks not calling. You just got to weed through it all to find something that might be helpful.”
“And have they found that?”
“Not that I heard.”
Eden let it drop, concentrating on finishing her supper. More an act of refueling than anything else. After the long hours between this and breakfast, she’d needed it.
The knock on the glass top half of her office door disturbed the silence. She motioned with one hand, giving Winton Grimes permission to enter. As it had half a dozen times today, her heart began to race a bit in anticipation of what he might have come to tell them.
“Got something?” she asked as he opened the door and stuck his head in.
“You said you wanted to hear anything we thought might be…significant.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, okay, this is a little bit… Hell,” Winton said with an embarrassed grin, “it’s a whole lot off the beaten path, but I thought since we ain’t got much of nothing else, you all might want to hear it.”
“So tell us.” Dean’s tone suggested he’d listened to enough hemming and hawing.
“If this wasn’t who it is, I might have just let it go, but…”
“Damn it, Winton,” Dean exploded, “spit it out. Nobody’s got time for your pussyfooting. Not today.”
“It’s okay, Winton,” Eden soothed.
“We want to hear. Whatever it is.”
“Jake Underwood.”
Eden couldn’t quite identify the sound Dean made in response to the name. Laughter? An expression of disbelief? Whatever it had been, Winton stopped again, his thin lips flattening.
“Who’s Jake Underwood?”
Her question brought the young deputy’s eyes back to her, but it was Dean who answered.
“His grandmother was Miz Etta Wells. The Wells that was one of the founding families. Jake spent summers here when he was a kid.”
Eden waited, but neither man seemed inclined to go on. Finally she prodded, “And you’ve got some reason to believe he may have had something to do with the Nolan girl’s disappearance.”
“It’s not that,” Winton said. “At least…not exactly.”
The sound Dean made this time was clearly one of contempt. Eden couldn’t be sure, however, whether that had been directed at Jake Underwood or the deputy. “Then exactly what is it?” She tried to imbue her voice with the same authority her father’s seemed to command naturally. Apparently, it was effective.
With another glance at the older man, Grimes began to talk. “Underwood says she’s in a cave or something underground. Says somebody’s keeping her down there. He says it’s wet and dark, and all you can hear is water dripping.”
There was a long silence. Since she’d asked the question, Eden felt it was up to her to break it. “Is that it?”
“Yeah. Except he said she’s scared. Terrified is the word he used.”
Despite the fact that she had no basis for believing the validity of any of that description, it had chilled Eden. A four-year-old child kept in the dark would be terrified. Anyone would know that. How Mr. Underwood could know the Nolan child was there was another question.
“And he knows all this how?”
There was another hesitation, and another glance at Dean, before Grimes answered. “Says he saw it in a flashback.”
Flashback. The term produced images of 9/11. Or of soldiers from her father’s generation who’d come back damaged mentally from a jungle hell. How the word could possibly apply to a child who’d been kidnapped this morning… “Flashback? You sure that’s what he said?”
“Yes, ma’am. Look, I told you this is out there. And if it was anybody but him, I wouldn’t have told you.”
“You believe him?” Dean’s tone expressed the same contempt as his earlier snort.
The kid stood his ground. “Like I said, if this was anybody else…”
“You keep saying that,” Eden tried to clarify. “What does it mean?”
“It means he thinks Underwood’s a hero,” Dean answered, “and therefore exempt from the same commonsense scrutiny he’d give anybody else coming in here with that cock-and-bull story.”
“That’s not—”
Dean didn’t allow the deputy to finish. “God knows, I don’t want to speak ill of somebody who’s served their country. But the truth is Jake came back from his last tour a little less put together than when he left.”
“From his last tour” and “who’s served his country” were obviously references to the military. What Eden didn’t understand was the cryptic finish. “‘Less put together’?”
“Head injury. Along with some other stuff. It’s the brain damage, though, that would put thoughts of seeing that little girl into Jake’s head. And that’s all this is, you hear me.” The last was clearly directed at Grimes. “You go spouting this story around town, and you’re liable to get somebody hurt. Somebody who sure as hell doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”
“Then…you don’t think this man might have had something to do with the kidnapping?” Eden asked. “I mean, someone who’s brain-damaged and having visions of a missing child… Seems to me that makes him a prime candidate.”
It didn’t make sense for Dean to dismiss the idea out of hand, although she couldn’t argue with the warning he’d just issued. If the people of this town thought one of their own had been involved in Raine’s kidnapping, emotions would definitely run high. That was something the department, its resources stretched to the limits, shouldn’t have to deal with.
“You talk to him, Chief,” Grimes said. “See what you think. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Oh, trust me,” Eden assured him, getting up, “I’m going to talk to him. Just forgive me if I’m a little less receptive to his story than you seem to be.”
Her heart was actually pounding, blood rushing through her veins like thunder. Since the call had come in about the kidnapping, this seemed to be the first potentially important piece of the puzzle they were trying to solve.
Of course, it was always possible the brain damage Dean referred to had caused this guy to hallucinate about the crime, given the second-by-second media coverage that had been going on all day. But it was equally possible, she decided, that a man deranged by the horrors of war and by injury had seen an attractive child around town—
Eden broke the thought, determined not to speculate about this guy’s motives, or his guilt or innocence, until she had more information. “Where is he?”
“I put him in the conference room. I thought that might offer more privacy.”
“For him or the department?” Eden asked, as she made her way across the office.
Winton didn’t answer. She was aware that the two men trailed her as she walked down the hall to the room they used for department meetings.
Operating under the influence of the adrenaline flooding her system, Eden opened the door and then realized she hadn’t even stopped to think about the best way to question someone who might be classified as a prime suspect.
The man who’d been seated at the long conference table stood up, his back suddenly ramrod straight. And for his next trick, Eden thought cynically, he’ll snap off a salute.
“Mr. Underwood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His posture was the only thing remotely military about the man standing before her. Dark stubble covered his lean cheeks. His hair, blue-black under the fluorescents, was badly in need of a trim.
She also noted, her survey automatic, that his clothing, although nondescript, appeared to be clean. The threadbare jeans, white T-shirt and boots were practically de rigueur for a certain type of Southern male, though she’d met enough bright, hardworking “good old boys” not to characterize anyone strictly by his dress.
Still, she acknowledged as she walked across to the table, her reaction was not the same as it would have been had Underwood been wearing a suit. Or a uniform.
“I understand you told Deputy Grimes that you’ve seen the Nolan girl.”
The steel-gray eyes shifted to the doorway. Eden didn’t turn, understanding that the ex-soldier was silently chastising Grimes for not making the situation clear. Neither she nor the deputy bothered to disabuse him of that notion.
“If he told you that, ma’am, he was mistaken. I haven’t seen her. Not physically.”
“Then how?” The question sounded confrontational, which wasn’t the tack she should be taking.
The thought that this man might have harmed a little girl infuriated her. Even if Dean was right, and he hadn’t been responsible, the idea that he could be in any way, shape or form pulling their chain about this—
“I have flashbacks. Yesterday morning…” The soft words halted as Underwood took a breath, one deep enough to move the strongly defined pectoral muscles underneath the thin T-shirt. “A child—a little girl—was in the one that morning.”
“In a flashback about Iraq?”
“This one wasn’t. I don’t know where it was. I was in a place that was wet and dark and cold. Then, just before it all disappeared…there was a child in there, too.”
“Raine Nolan,” Eden suggested flatly.
“I don’t know. The image lasted only a second. It was…almost an impression, rather than an actual sighting. I told him that.” Underwood indicated the young deputy with a lift of his chin. “But after I heard about the
kidnapping, I wondered if maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Dean’s question brought the ex-soldier’s head up.
“If maybe I was somehow connected to her.”
“And how would that happen? That ‘connection,’ I mean.” You son of a bitch, Eden thought as she asked her question. If you did something to that little girl…
“I don’t know. It just… The longer this went on, the more I wondered if somehow, in her terror…”
“You told Deputy Grimes she was terrified. If you didn’t even get a good look at her, how could you tell what she was feeling?”
Underwood took another breath, his lips tightening briefly before he spoke. “Because I was feeling it, too.”
“Terrified?”
She was blowing this, Eden realized, her skepticism too obvious. A good interrogator would be more sympathetic. Less hostile. She knew that, but she couldn’t get the images of what a man this size and this muscular could do to a four-year-old out of her head.
“Look, I don’t blame you for not believing me. I just thought I needed to let someone know. Just in case, as insane as it sounds, that there might be some connection between what I saw and the Nolan girl.”
There might be some connection, all right. But not the one you’re trying to sell.
“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Underwood, and tell us everything.”
“That is everything. I realize you think I’m crazy. Believe me, you aren’t the first.” There was a bitter amusement underlying the comment. “In this case, you’re probably right. As I said, I just thought, if there was the remotest possibility something helpful might come of what I saw…” He hesitated, clearly waiting for their response. When no one said anything, he turned and took a step, obviously heading for the door.
“Where were you Tuesday night?”
It took a second before he reacted, but whatever damage Jake Underwood’s brain had suffered didn’t keep him from figuring out where she was going.
“I was home. In bed. Asleep. And whatever you’re thinking, you can think again. I didn’t have anything to do with that child’s disappearance. I came here because I was trying to help.”