by Robin Perini
“Sorry, ma’am. But I can do better than just a photo. The Center for Missing and Exploited Children has his original photo and an age-progressed image. Thayne, do you want me to put out an APB on the kid?”
Thayne looked over at her. “He’s our insider.”
“If we put out an APB, we’ve put a target on his back, and maybe Cheyenne’s, too.” Riley squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Don’t do it. Not yet.”
“You heard her, Pendergrass. Hold off on the APB, but send the photos to my phone and Riley’s.” Thayne rattled off her number. “And let the sheriff know as soon as he finishes the press conference.”
“Don’t tell him before it’s over, Deputy,” Riley added. “We can’t risk the press getting a whisper of any leads. It could put the boy in danger.”
“You got it, ma’am. I never liked the vultures anyway.”
“Keep the information close,” Thayne warned. “Someone tipped off the press about the fingerprint. Until we find the leak, I want a tight lid on every aspect of this investigation.”
He ended the call. A few seconds later, a tone sounded on Riley’s phone. An image appeared on her screen.
First an auburn-haired little boy of six. Very familiar. She compared it to the sketch. “It could be him.” She tilted the phone so Thayne could see it, too.
When the next image flashed on the screen, he sucked in a breath. “Gram could have drawn that age-progressed picture. They’re nearly identical. It’s a match. Brian Anderson was here.”
Riley gripped the sketch pad and stared hard, back and forth, between the images on her phone and the drawing.
“Riley?”
“He looks so familiar,” she muttered. The image staring back at her sent chills skittering through her entire body. She shivered, and the hairs on her neck stood at attention.
“Because of Gram’s drawing.”
“Something else . . .” Riley gasped. “Oh my God.”
“What is it?” Thayne asked.
“Give me a second.” Riley handed him the sketch pad and ran to the SUV, grabbing her satchel. She clutched it to her chest, her heart pounding so hard she knew he could hear every beat.
She sat down next to him. “I’m probably imagining things,” she said under her breath, pulling a thick manila expandable file from her bag, bulging with red folders.
Thayne’s leg rested next to hers, the heat from his body warming her frozen soul. Was she right? She pulled out the first record.
Her hands shook. She riffled through page after page, her face growing paler with each item she touched until she reached the photo she’d been looking for.
“This can’t be happening.”
“Who is it? Another suspect?”
She shook her head, fighting the confusion washing through her mind. “This can’t be right. It just can’t be.”
Thayne gripped her hand to stop her shuffling. “Talk to me.”
She handed him a photo. “Look at this girl.” She pulled out another folder and went directly to a picture. Something in her heart squeezed tight. “And this one.”
One by one, she handed him more. “Look at them.” Her voice trembled. “Nine photos. Nine redheaded girls.”
“Who are they?” he asked.
“Wait. There’s more.” She swiped her phone. “This is the age-progression drawing of Brian Anderson. He’s sixteen.”
She placed a series of photos on the floor in front of them. “These are age-progressed photos of the girls. Aged sixteen. What do you see?”
Thayne’s entire body went numb. “Similar face shapes, similar hair color. All with blue eyes. They look alike. Those girls and Brian Anderson.”
“Exactly.”
“Who are they?” he repeated.
“Let me show you two more.” Riley’s hand trembled. She removed the last two red folders. She hadn’t been wrong. She couldn’t believe it.
When she removed the photographs, Thayne gasped. “Is that Gina Wallace?”
“Yes. And here’s her at sixteen.”
Thayne sank back in his chair and stared at her, his expression as stunned as she felt. “Brian Anderson, our prime suspect in Cheyenne’s kidnapping, looks like a male version of Gina. That’s impossible.”
Riley’s eyes burned and her head spun. “And then, there’s this.”
She set down the last photo gently and swallowed deeply.
Thayne picked up the picture. Something different about this one. Bright blue eyes and smiling mouth. Wearing a half-heart bracelet on her arm.
Just like Riley’s.
The truth slammed into him like the butt of a rifle to the solar plexus.
“Is this your sister?” he asked.
She swallowed deeply and nodded. “That’s Madison.” She ran a trembling hand across the photograph of her sister’s familiar face. She could see her now, the night she had disappeared. The night of that terrible fight.
The day she’d told Madison she wished she didn’t have a sister.
I’m sorry, Maddy.
She dropped her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes with a force that should have hurt. She could barely process the reality of the stack of photos in front of them.
“Riley?” Thayne’s voice was gentle but urgent.
She blinked and looked at him. “Brian Anderson, the boy who kidnapped Cheyenne. He looks like Gina. And my sister.”
Cheyenne couldn’t leave Bethany’s side. She’d failed to convince Ian and Adelaide to help. They were too frightened of Father. How could she blame them? For someone who appeared so urbane, he scared the hell out of her.
A cloak of foreboding had settled around her, pressing down, making it hard to breathe. Bethany’s fever had finally begun to break. The angry red of the wound had diminished. She still wasn’t out of danger, but her recovery looked more promising.
Cheyenne had to wonder how long Father would keep her alive once he noticed the improvement.
She wasn’t about to sit and wait for fate to step in. Blackwoods never went down without a fight.
Footsteps raced past the outside door. “Come here, Micah!” a girl’s voice shouted.
“No! I want my mommy!”
“Don’t you get it? She doesn’t love you. She made your daddy go away.”
“That’s not what she said.” Micah sobbed.
“She lied. They all lie. Only Father tells the truth.”
The sobs didn’t lessen. Finally, the girl let out a curse. “I can’t do it, Father. I failed you.”
“Have patience, Delilah.” Father’s calm and oddly unemotional voice made Cheyenne shiver. “He’ll understand soon enough. Take him. He can have Hannah’s room.”
“Yes, Father.”
A set of footsteps disappeared, and then a loud door slammed shut.
“Oh God. That poor boy.”
After a moment of quiet, sobs filtered into Cheyenne’s room. What had happened? After seeing Ian’s bruises, she couldn’t imagine any sort of punishment in this place was easy.
“Don’t cry, Dee,” Micah said. “I’m sorry I got you in trouble, but they won’t listen. My name isn’t Micah.”
“Oh, Micah.” A few sniffles sounded. “Please. You can’t fight anymore. It’s dangerous. Something bad could happen to you.”
“I won’t give up. My mommy never gives up. Neither will I.”
“You have to,” Delilah said. “Come sit in my lap. I know what will make you feel better.” She began to hum.
A tune that Cheyenne hadn’t heard in years, not since she was a child. But with made-up words.
Delilah’s voice was clear and pure. Another voice, a tenor, joined in, in perfect harmony to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
When things go bad, and life seems so unfair,
Just hold on tight with all your might, and I’ll always be there.
Bethany stirred. “Always be there,” she whispered in a singsong voice from across the prison room.
The tenor went silent
.
Delilah’s voice paused, then started singing again, trembling but louder.
“Sing, Micah,” she said softly. “Please.”
The little boy stumbled over the words, but he sang.
A violin played from somewhere in the distance as a key clattered in the lock. Ian stuck his head through the door. He blinked and stared at Bethany. Shadows bruised the pale skin below his eyes. With a furtive look, he closed the door behind him and brought in a tray of food.
“I stole it from the dinner table. None of us is sick,” he said as he set it down on the small dresser. He joined Bethany and sat beside her before taking her hand in his.
“How is she?” he asked softly.
“Better.”
Ian gnawed on his lip and raised his gaze to hers. “I was happy until Bethany got sick. Until you and Micah came.”
A kindle of hope burned inside Cheyenne. “Can you help us?”
“We’re watched. All the time. Hannah was stupid. She thought she could get away with it.”
“Who is Hannah?”
“She was my friend. She was supposed to wash your clothes, but she stole them and tried to make herself beautiful. She was caught. And punished. She’s not coming back.”
Cheyenne was afraid to ask, but she had to be sure. “What do you mean?”
“She’s dead. She’s not the first to be punished.”
“H-how many?”
“I don’t know. I try not to remember the ones who just went away. It’s easier that way.” His eyes glimmered with sadness, his face vulnerable. He stared into Bethany’s closed eyes. “She’s so brave. She stands up for us.” He lowered his voice. “I’m going for help. I’m taking Micah with me. He won’t ever fit in. We shouldn’t have taken him. He’s too little.”
Where excitement and hope should have rushed through her, Cheyenne could barely breathe in fear. She grabbed his arm. “You have so much courage. Take Micah to Singing River. Find Deputy Thayne Blackwood. He and my father will help you.”
The door slammed open. Father stood, framed by the door, Adelaide a pale, weak shadow behind him.
“Ian, what are you doing here?” Father’s voice was low and threatening. “You’re supposed to be with Micah.”
“I b-brought broth for Bethany,” Ian said, his voice shaky. “She hasn’t eaten in days.”
Father frowned and shook his head sadly. “Adelaide, escort Ian to the punishment room,” Father said. “We must reinforce our lessons.”
Adelaide’s face went white. “Please, Father, don’t make me—”
“Silence.” He glared at Adelaide.
Ian stood with a stiff back. He raised his chin and faced Father. “I’m ready.”
Without a word, Father took him away.
Several minutes later, a cry of pain pierced through the air.
Then the world went silent.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The sheriff’s department buzzed with activity. Thayne could almost feel the anticipation from the investigation team on the other side of his father’s office door while he stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Riley paced the floor, every so often stopping at the shuttered window to peer through the blinds at the sun disappearing below the horizon. Only a small line of bright orange kept the night at bay.
She couldn’t seem to settle anywhere. Thayne’s father had decided to make coffee for the third time since they’d raced into the building with Gram’s sketch pad, Riley’s files, and an unproven theory.
His father opened the door. “Did he call?”
Thayne shook his head. “Not yet.”
“You think there will be a match, though?”
Riley sat on the hard wooden chair across from his father’s desk, her leg bouncing with nerves.
“I always believed the man who took Gina, Madison, and the others fit the profile of a sexual predator. Textbook. They have a type. They abduct, abuse, then murder their victims when they no longer satisfy the urges.” She rubbed her temple. “Now I don’t know what to think.”
Thayne held up the phone with Brian’s photo. “Brian Anderson has a similar look as the girls. He fits.”
She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. Sexual predators don’t cross genders with their victims. Not ever.”
“I hate to suggest it, but maybe he’s the exception.” Either way, Thayne would love to get the bastard who’d abducted these children alone in a room . . . not for a minute, or even an hour, but long enough so the SOB felt just enough pain he’d regret what he’d done to those kids for the rest of a very short life.
“Maybe,” Riley conceded. “But if Tom gets a hit, it means I’ve been wrong in my profile this entire time.” She gripped Thayne’s arm, her fingernails digging into his flesh. “I’ve been working under a false premise, searching for the wrong guy for years, and these kids paid for it.”
His father, in full sheriff mode, took a seat in the leather chair behind his desk. “How does Cheyenne’s disappearance fit in? Not to mention Brett Riverton?”
The look of distaste on his father’s face at the Riverton name made Thayne grimace. When they found Cheyenne, she had some explaining to do.
“All we’re certain of is that Brian Anderson is the key,” Riley said. “He tried to reach out to us, and we have to be ready when he tries again. Whoever leaked the information about the fingerprint put Brian in real danger, and he may not even know it.”
“So, if your theory is right, somehow we have to find the person who abducted Gina, your sister, and Brian, and then we’ll find Cheyenne?” The sheriff took a long sip of coffee. “I could use a shot of whiskey in this. That guy has been avoiding law enforcement for fifteen years.”
In other words, how the hell were they going to find him now? “But this time, we have an informant,” Thayne said. “This is the first chink in the guy’s armor.”
“Which makes me wonder why,” Riley said softly. “What’s different now?”
The phone’s ringing exploded like a hand grenade on his father’s desk. Thayne punched the speakerphone.
“Deputy Blackwood,” he said, his voice clipped.
“This is SSA Tom Hickok. You requested a search on boys kidnapped matching the general physical description and MO of Madison Lambert?”
“That’s right. Did you find anything?”
“Is Special Agent Lambert with you, Deputy Blackwood?”
“I’m here, Tom,” Riley answered, kneading her pants in a show of nerves.
“I don’t know what made you ask this question, Riley, but I pulled six files. And damn. You’re on to something.”
Riley met Thayne’s gaze and nodded. “We have a thumbprint at a robbery and murder scene belonging to a missing child, Brian Anderson. Is he on your—”
Tom let out a low whistle. “He’s on my list.”
“We also have a witness who placed Brian at the scene of my sister’s abduction,” Thayne added.
“Then why are we just now learning this? Riley, we could’ve run a sketch comparison and probably hit on the identity already. What have you been doing out there, Lambert?”
“Back off, Hickok,” Thayne snapped. He’d had enough of this guy attacking Riley, even if he was her boss. “The witness is my grandmother. She has Alzheimer’s.”
There was silence over the phone.
“Could your grandmother have seen the image somewhere else? A milk carton maybe? Brian’s photo was rotated about a month ago.”
“We have the fingerprint, Tom,” Riley countered. “Brian is AB positive, which matches what was found at the crime scene. And my boss taught me never to believe in coincidences.”
And Riley Lambert for a touchdown.
“I’m not reinstating you,” Tom said, “but you have the support of the unit. We’re on the next plane out if you need us.”
OK, so maybe her boss wasn’t all bad.
“SSA Hickok, this is Sheriff Blackwood. We’d appreciate all the help we can get. And you can consider this an o
fficial request.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Tom said. “And Riley, good job.”
Thayne ended the call. Riley stood up. “I guess we have work to do.”
Clutching the thick evidence folder, she strode out of the office, but before Thayne could join her, his father delayed him.
“If we solve this, she may finally learn what happened to her sister, and Carol may finally have closure on Gina,” his father said. “That’s a lot for anyone to handle. Her emotions could get the better of her. Can she do it?”
“She’s stronger than anyone I know,” Thayne said. “She won’t let us down. Besides, we all know failure isn’t an option.”
Riley opened the conference room door and strode in, her mind whirling with terrifying possibilities. Not only for Cheyenne, but for everyone on a list that had nearly doubled from Tom’s phone call.
Deputy Pendergrass acknowledged her with a nod of his head. “We’ve added a panel to the investigation board as requested.”
The door opened, and Thayne walked in with his father.
The room went silent. “We just received word from Special Agent Lambert’s colleagues at the FBI that my daughter’s disappearance is almost certainly connected to a series of abductions going back fifteen years. Including Gina Wallace’s.”
All the local deputies gasped. “Special Agent Lambert and Deputy Blackwood will take point. Riley?”
She opened the file and tacked up a ten-year-old boy’s face along with the official age-progressed rendering. Carefully, Thayne pulled the sketch of Cheyenne’s abduction and Brian from his grandmother’s book. “Gram drew this,” he said.
A low whistle escaped Pendergrass’s lips. “Uncanny. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. No offense, Sheriff.”
“We all forget how much she remembers,” Thayne said.
“Who’s the girl?” Underhill asked.
“We think she may be the young woman found on the Rivertons’ property, but we can’t be sure. If you’ll wait a few minutes, I think you’ll understand why,” Thayne said.