Their Only Child

by Carla Cassidy

  “That’s true, but he might know something. He has a brother on the outside to carry out his threats. Oh, Sully, don’t you see? We have to check it out. We have to.”

  Sully looked at her and recognized the tight leash she held on her self-control. A nerve ticked at the corner of one of her eyes, and her lower lip quivered, making her look more vulnerable than Sully had ever seen. “Okay, let’s go talk to Donny.”

  Not long after, Sully, Theresa and Donny were in Donny’s unmarked car, heading for the county jail. Donny had tried to insist that Sully and Theresa remain at the house while he went to the jail and questioned Roger, but Theresa would have none of that. She’d insisted she be the one to question Roger, and finally Donny had agreed.

  When they left, an officer had been working on the phone line, setting up a tracer and recording equipment. Kip had offered to take phone duty until they returned. Sully knew Donny had pulled some strings in order to get the phones tapped so quickly. Without a ransom note, without a definite finger pointing to a kidnapping, such action would normally take longer than a mere ten or twelve hours.

  The ride was accomplished in silence. Theresa stared intently out the window, as if by sheer willpower she might be able to conjure Eric out of the darkness of the night.

  Sully wanted to take her hand, assure her everything would be all right, but he knew better than to offer Theresa meaningless platitudes. And in any case, he’d lost the right to hold her hand a year before, when he walked out of her life.

  He leaned his head back against the seat, exhaustion tugging at him, but too emotionally strung to even consider sleep. He thought about Donny’s suggestion earlier, that he think of anyone who might want to harm him.

  Rubbing his chest, through his shirt he felt the puckered scar that was a physical reminder of the night he’d almost died. A day hadn’t gone by since the shooting eighteen months ago that he didn’t consider who might want to harm him.

  He closed his eyes, thinking of that night. It was a night much like this one…dark, the moon and stars obscured by thick clouds. Although, on that night, it had been hot, a June night, unnaturally humid and stifling.

  Sully had gotten word that one of his street snitches wanted to talk to him. Even though Donny had gone home sick with the flu and Sully knew that it was unwise to set up a meet without backup, he’d done just that.

  The snitch, Louie Albright, was a street punk who’d come up with valuable information from time to time. Sully was working a difficult burglary case and hoped Louie might have some information that would break that case wide open.

  They met in their usual place…in a narrow alley on the wrong side of the city. Sully distinctly remembered the scent of overripe trash rotting in the heat as he got out of his car and made his way toward the back of the alley. The moment he started walking toward the alley, a strange disquiet swept through him.

  Louie was already there, pacing back and forth in characteristic nervous, jerky movements. Most snitches, in Sully’s experience, were neurotic, paranoid worms, but they were useful to law enforcement

  As Sully made his way to the punk, he had a sudden feeling of suffocation, of the tall old brick buildings on either side of the alley pressing in on him. The stench of the garbage was overpowering and for a single moment, Sully had the impulse to turn and run. He had an odd premonition, a feeling of dread and impending doom.

  He swallowed down the impulse to leave and continued until he reached Louie. “You got something for me?” he’d asked.

  “You got something for me?” Louie scratched the side of his face, his eyes darting from building to building, as if he were afraid somebody might see him here with Sully.

  “You know the way this works, Louie,” Sully replied tersely, the feeling of something not right still whirling inside him. “You give me the information and I decide what it’s worth.”

  “Maybe this time I want the bread first,” Louie said with a touch of defiance. “And I’m not talking peanuts here. What I’ve got is worth big bucks to you, especially to you.”

  Sully never got the chance to find out what information Louie had. In the second of silence that followed Louie’s statement, Sully heard a faint metallic click.

  He froze.

  The first bullet caught Louie in the forehead, and flung his body backward to crash into a pile of trashcans. The second shot caught Sully in the shoulder, spinning him around so that the third bullet could catch him dead center in the chest.

  Sully’s last thought before he lost consciousness was that maybe if he hadn’t frozen when he heard that telltale sound, he might have been able to save Louie. He might have been able to save himself.

  “Sully.”

  He jerked at the sound of his name, drawn from the past nightmare by Theresa’s light touch on his arm. He opened his eyes and realized they were at the county jail.

  Rubbing a hand down his face, he shoved his painful memories aside and focused on the particular pain at hand. Eric. If it was correct that some bad guy had taken him to hurt Theresa and Sully, then they were in big trouble, because Sully had long ago lost the ability to discern who were the good guys and who were the bad.

  THERESA FOLLOWED Sully and Donny into the jail, where the sheriff awaited them. She knew that Roger Neiman knowing something, anything, about Eric’s disappearance was a long shot, but it was the only shot they had. She’d never forgive herself if they didn’t follow each and every lead, no matter how crazy each might initially appear.

  She already knew Eric hadn’t been hit by a car on his way to school, hadn’t broken his leg or fallen unconscious. If that had been the case, the police scouring the area would have found him.

  “I’ve got Neiman in a conference room for you all to talk to,” the sheriff explained as he led them down a hall.

  “Has he had any visitors in the last day or two?” Donny asked.

  “His mother came the day after his conviction, but she hasn’t been back. His brother’s been here to see him every day ‘cept today.”

  Theresa saw the look that passed between Sully and Donny, and she knew they both were thinking the same thoughts that swirled in her head. Maybe his brother hadn’t been to see him today because he couldn’t leave wherever he was holding Eric. Maybe they’d spent the past couple of days plotting and planning their revenge against the lady prosecutor who had relentlessly pursued justice.

  She almost hoped Roger was behind Eric’s disappearance. Then at least they’d have a place to begin to search, a reason for this happening.

  Sometimes parents were left with no answers, no reasons and no final closure, a little voice whispered inside her head. The thought of never knowing what had happened to Eric, never getting to see his little face again, hold him in her arms, created a yawning chasm of blackness inside her heart, a blackness too profound to even consider.

  Tears once again threatened, but she swallowed against them. Now was not the time to cry. She had to hang on to her hope, her belief that if something horrible had happened to Eric, she would know it deep in her heart. And right now, all her heart felt was worry and bewilderment, not aching, soulwithering grief.

  It wasn’t until the sheriff unlocked and opened the door to the conference room and Theresa saw Roger Neiman’s narrow pale face, with its foxlike features, that the first stirring of anger coursed through her. Damn him. Damn him to hell if he was responsible for anything happening to Eric.

  “These people got some questions for you, Neiman,” the sheriff said.

  Roger nodded and crossed his arms on the top of the table where he sat. A sly grin crossed his lips as his eyes locked with Theresa’s. “Come to wish me happy holidays, Counselor?”

  “Shut up, Neiman,” Donny exclaimed, before Theresa could form any sort of a reply. Theresa was vaguely aware of Sully moving closer to her, as if in some way to show Roger Neiman she was not alone.

  In some distant part of her mind, she found Sully’s concern for her ironic. After all, it was
he who had insisted she’d be better off alone, and there were days when she was grateful he had…and days when she hated him for abandoning her.

  “We’ve got some questions to ask you, Neiman, and you’d better be straight with us,” Donny said.

  “Or what? You’ll put me in jail?” Roger chortled, as if delighted by his own sense of humor.

  Sully tensed, his hands balling into fists. Theresa placed a hand on his arm, needing him to control his anger, knowing they’d get nowhere if Sully lost his cool.

  “Roger, my son is missing.” Theresa stared at the young man, watching for any sign of guilt…a slight narrowing of his eyes, a little catch in his breathing pattern.

  “Yeah…so? What’s that got to do with me?” He looked first at Theresa, then at the other two men. His face paled and his eyes widened as he once again gazed at Theresa. “Hey, you don’t think I had something to do with that? That’s crazy!”

  “Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly studying for brain surgery in here,” Donny replied. “Where’s your brother today? Why didn’t he come to see you?”

  “I don’t know…. He’s out of town.”

  “Which is it? You don’t know or he’s out of town?” Donny snapped.

  Theresa felt her tension swelling inside her. She saw defiance shining in Roger’s eyes, and knew that if Donny pushed too hard, Roger would clam up. He had nothing to lose by keeping his mouth shut, and nothing to gain by talking.

  She sat down in the chair next to him. “Roger, I did my job in prosecuting you. It was nothing personal, just my job. When you left the courtroom after your conviction, you yelled that I’d be sorry, that this would be a Christmas I’d never forget.”

  Roger flushed. “I was angry. I also told the judge I hoped his hair would all fall out. I said a lot of stupid things.” He had eyes the color of caramels, surprisingly warm and beautiful. “Look, Mrs. Mathews, I’m no fool. I’ve got a good lawyer working on an appeal. Even if we lose an appeal, with good time served, I’ll be out of jail in no time. Why would I risk that to do something stupid with your kid?”

  A wave of utter helplessness swept through Theresa. Again she studied his features, stared into his eyes, looking for signs of guilt, of subterfuge. There was nothing there.

  She believed him. Despite the fact that he had motive, and she knew he’d wanted to get to her, make her pay, she believed he’d had nothing to do with Eric’s disappearance.

  She stood and gestured toward the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She and Donny started for the door, but paused when Sully didn’t follow. Theresa turned to see Sully slap his hands down on the table and lean across into Roger’s face. “If we leave here and later I discover you knew something…anything…about Eric, I’ll come back here and kill you.”

  Roger’s eyes grew huge, and he scooted his chair back, as if to gain some distance from Sully’s threat. “I swear, man. I don’t know anything. I didn’t even know she had a kid.”

  “Sully.” Theresa spoke his name gently, knowing the raging emotion that filled him, the tight control he was fighting to maintain. He turned to face her, the gray of his eyes nearly black with torment. “Let’s go home,” she said softly.

  He nodded and stalked out of the room. Theresa followed, a sense of dread crawling up her spine. With the strain of Eric being missing, how long would it be before Sully once again plunged into the self-destruction he’d only recently pulled himself out of? And what if this time he wouldn’t find the strength or the reason to crawl out?

  She couldn’t go through it again. She couldn’t stand to watch him drink himself to death, hate himself to death. She hadn’t understood it the first time, and she had a feeling that if it happened again, she’d be the one who went mad.

  The ride back to the house seemed interminably long, the car filled with a tense silence. Theresa looked at her watch. It was almost ten o’clock. After Eric’s bedtime.

  She leaned her head back, wondering when she would tuck Eric in bed again, when would she sing the silly song he always demanded she sing to lull him into sleep?

  With her eyes closed, she could conjure up a picture of him beneath his navy sheets, his hair softly tousled, the scent of his bath still clinging to his sweet skin.

  “I’m still going to get some men to check up on Neiman’s brother.” Donny’s voice dispelled the vision in her head. “What’s his name?”

  “Burt,” she answered. “Burt Neiman.”

  “I think it’s damned suspicious that he’s been to see his brother in jail every day but today.”

  As they turned the corner of her block, Theresa stared out the window. As she caught sight of her house, her heart thundered. The Christmas lights that outlined the house had been turned off. Only the pale illumination from the front window glowed in the night.

  “Who turned out the lights?” she muttered angrily as Donny parked the car amid the other patrol vehicles. The minute the car came to a halt, she flew out the door and raced to the side of the house, where the lights should have been plugged into the outside electrical socket. “Who unplugged the lights?” she screamed as she plugged them back in. The multicolored lights came on, a merry burst of color cascading across the brown lawn.

  Donny and Sully stared at her, as if she’d lost her mind. And someplace in the back of her head, she knew she had, knew she was overreacting, and couldn’t stop.

  Kip stepped out on the porch, a sheepish expression on his face. “Uh…I turned them out…I didn’t think you’d want them on….” he explained.

  “Dammit, these lights don’t go off again until Eric is home.” She glared at Kip, then turned to Donny. “You tell them. You tell all those men in there. Nobody touches these lights. Nobody shuts them off.”

  “Come on, Theresa. Let’s go inside.” Sully took her arm gently.

  “It’s Eric’s job to turn them off. I turn them on in the evenings, and he unplugs them before he goes to bed. It’s our deal.” She looked at Sully, needing him to understand just how important Eric was to her.

  “I know, and I’ll make certain nobody touches those lights but Eric,” Sully replied. “Now come on, let’s go inside where it’s warm.”

  Theresa bit back tears. “I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again,” she said as Sully led her into the house.

  Chapter Four

  “Is she asleep?” Donny asked when Sully joined him in the kitchen sometime later.

  “For the moment,” Sully replied as he poured himself a cup of coffee, then sank down at the table. He raked a hand across his face, fighting exhaustion, battling despair.

  “Everything that can be done is being done,” Donny said, as if reading his mind. “I’ve got men checking out everything we can think of, all the people on the list Theresa made.”

  Sully nodded. He knew Donny and the team of officers would do whatever they could to find Eric. The problem was, so far they were banging their heads against dead ends. There were no clues, no discernible motives, no substantial leads to follow. Right now, they were merely spitting in the wind, hoping to get lucky. And Sully knew that with every minute that passed, the odds of finding Eric unharmed decreased.

  “I guess the best we can hope for at this time is that it is a kidnapping and whoever has Eric will make contact,” he said.

  “We’ve got wires on the phones. All incoming calls will be recorded and traced. I’m still hoping when we hear from the officers checking out Burt Neiman we’ll have some answers.”

  Three days before Christmas, and he had no son, and wires on the phones. How had this happened? Why had this happened? Eric should be safe in bed, dreaming of sugarplums and candy canes, of Santa Claus and gaily wrapped presents.

  Sully tightened his hand around the coffee mug. Dammit, he should be doing something, moving mountains, to find his son. But he didn’t know which mountains to move.

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to get at you?” Donny asked. “Somebody from that bar where you work?”r />
  Sully thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nobody I can think of. As a bouncer, the hardest work I do is escort drunks to waiting taxis and only occasionally break up a brawl. The patrons are usually too drunk to remember what I look like, let alone put something like this together.”

  For a few moments, the two men sat silent. Sully could hear the low murmur of the policemen in the living room, the sudden whoosh of heated air through pipes as the furnace came on. Beyond these noises, both intrusive and normal, was the yawning silence of Eric’s absence. There was no silence as profound as that left behind by a child missing.

  “Ever think of coming back to the department?” Donny asked after a few minutes of silence. “You know the chief would love to have you back on the roster.”

  “Nope, never think about it.” It was a lie. Sully thought about going back to the department every morning after a night’s work at the bar, just before he closed his eyes to sleep. He’d loved being a cop, and he’d been a damned good one, too. But those days were over. “I like what I’m doing now.” Sully sipped his coffee and forced himself to relax. “I hear this is Chief Lewis’s last year, that he’s retiring.”

  Donny laughed. “You know the chief. Every year he says it’s his last. We’ll see what he decides when the time comes.”

  “You looking to fill his shoes?”

  Donny blinked in surprise.

  Sully laughed dryly. “Oh, come on, Donny. You’re more ambitious than most. You play the political games well.”

  Donny grinned and shook his head. “I forgot how well you know me.” He shrugged. “We’ll see what happens when the time comes. Sure, I’d like to one day be chief.” He studied Sully. “You would have been a logical candidate if…”

  “If I hadn’t believed my own press? The invincible Sullivan.” Sully laughed without humor. “Or maybe I might have eventually made chief if I hadn’t become a drunk?” He realized he was making Donny uncomfortable. “Sorry,” he said as he pulled himself out of his chair and went to the window to peer outside.