“So?”
“Find out as much as you can about it.”
“Why?”
“Lee.” He expelled the name in exasperation.
“Okay,, okay. Anything in particular?”
“Yeah. I want to know about this summer school program. Where do the kids come from? Who picks them? Does he have contact with them outside the program?”
“What has this got to do with Rayback?”
Sam scratched his bristly jaw, wishing he could shave. “Nothing directly. I’m working an angle. I’m sure IA is covering everyone’s finances.”
“Tighter than an IRS audit.”
Something in Lee’s tone alerted him. “You okay, buddy?”
“Yeah. Sure. They’re going to attach my wages. Seems my greedy little ex wants her back alimony in blood. I’m setting a bad example, you know.”
Sam sighed, wishing he could help. Lee’s recent divorce had been a real eye-opener to the few single men in their unit. Greedy was an understatement when used to describe his ex-wife. The best lawyer had won—big-time.
“Sorry, Lee.”
“Yeah. Me too. There goes my vacation in Tahiti,” he said sarcastically.
“It’s probably a tourist trap, anyhow.”
“Yeah. Give me a number where I can reach you.”
“You can’t. I’m on the move.” He didn’t dare put Lee or himself in any more jeopardy than necessary. “I’ll call you back in a day or so.”
“You sure you’re okay? The head?”
“Solid as a rock.”
“Damn good thing, or you’d be dead right now.”
“Tell me about it.”
“The captain’s pretty worried about you, Joe.”
“Are you asking why I called you instead of him?”
“Hell, no. He’d trace the call and turn you in for your own good” There was a strange bitterness underscoring those words. “We all know George is a by-the-book cop.”
“He giving you guys a hard time?”
“Hey, who needs to sleep?”
As captain, George Brent had probably been jumping down everyone’s throats since Sam disappeared, and Lee was right—at this point, George would turn him in. Then he’d continue to bust his ass trying to prove Sam’s innocence.
“Sorry, Lee.”
“Hey, no problem. I’ll do what I can.”
“I know. Thanks.”
Sam replaced the phone and leaned back against the chair in Marly’s den. He stared around the dark room, wanting to turn on a light. You could learn a lot about a person by going through her desk. Still, he was taking enough of a chance as it was.
He was bone-tired and sore all over. Working out didn’t use the same muscles as riding horses and hauling fence posts. He considered spending the rest of the night right here in this chair, instead of expending the effort it would take to get up. A tempting idea, but impossible. There’d be no way to explain his presence in the morning.
Sam struggled to his feet and navigated his way to the room at the top of the stairs. He paused for just a moment to study Marly’s closed door.
What did she dream of? And what did she wear to bed? With a sigh, he opened his door and stepped inside.
His room reminded him of a hotel, with its clean, almost sterile appearance. The sturdy maple furniture was old and obviously used, but buffed to a bright shine. Sam didn’t even mind that the connecting bathroom was shared by two miniature adults. The room contained the one essential ingredient, as far as he was concerned. A full-size bed.
Sam stripped off his jeans and tumbled back onto the freshly scented sheets, pulling the covers over him with a flick of his hand. In moments, he was asleep.
He came fully awake sometime later, alert to every sound, straining to hear whatever it was that had disturbed his sleep. He lay on his side, with his back to the door. It was an effort to keep his breathing slow and even.
He was no longer alone in the room.
With his heart thundering against his chest, his fingers crept toward the pillow beneath his head. A tiny whisper of cloth. Something lightly tapped his bared shoulder. He whipped upward in a flurry of motion, his gun in one hand, even as he swung around toward the intruder.
“Sam?”
He released the bony arm and fistful of cloth he had grabbed and lowered the weapon. His breath came out in a ragged sound as adrenaline sought an outlet. Small, terrified eyes regarded him. Only the whites reflected in the dark room.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” the child whimpered. The boy had taken a defensive crouch, hands raised to ward off the expected blows.
For just a second, Sam thought he would vomit. He flicked the safety on again, and slid the gun out of sight. His hands were shaking badly, he noticed. And so they should be.
“Jerome. It’s okay. I’m sorry.” He forced himself to speak slowly, quietly, while his heart continued to race. “You scared me,” he explained. A horrendous understatement.
The arms dropped timidly from around his face, but Jerome continued to crouch against the nightstand. “I didn’t mean to. Honest.”
“I know, son. It’s okay. Come here.”
With painful slowness, the boy stood erect. There was a tear in the T-shirt he wore. Sam swallowed back bile, along with his self-directed curses and wished he could manage a smile for the boy. It was beyond him at this moment.
“I’m sorry, Jerome. What’s wrong?”
Jerome wouldn’t meet his gaze. Sam reached over to turn on the light, flinching when the boy cringed backward again.
“Are you okay, son?”
The small head bobbed once. Sam reached out and nibbed his kinky hair. It was quarter to five, according to the clock on the nightstand.
“Did you have a bad dream?” If not, Sam had undoubtedly given him a new one.
“No.”
Sam waited. The wariness faded from Jerome’s expression, but not the worry that pinched that small face.
“He’s gone,” Jerome said finally.
Acid mingled with the cold fear in the pit of his stomach. “Who’s gone?”
But Sam knew. His gut knew. It couldn’t be anyone else, and he had no one to blame but himself.
“Chris He’s gone. I think someone took him.”
Chapter Four
“Why do you think someone took Chris?” The cold fear hardened to solid ice. It was all Sam could do to keep his voice low and steady.
“Because it’s dark out,” Jerome told him reasonably. “He wouldn’t go out while it’s dark out.”
Sam expelled a long breath of air. It was okay. Maybe. Please, Lord, it had to be okay. “Jerome, how long has Chris been gone?”
His shoulders heaved in a deep shrug. “I just woke up an’ he was gone.”
Sam tugged on his jeans. “Maybe he went to the bathroom.”
“Nope. I already looked. He ain’t down in the kitchen, neither.”
“Jerome, think about this. Carefully.” He pulled on a shirt, fumbling with the buttons. “Did Chris say anything to you? Anything at all that might give me a clue as to where he’d go?”
“Nope.”
Fear gnawed on his insides. He had to believe the boy was simply hiding, but the alternative lurked in his mind, casting horrible images. “Was he upset tonight? Nervous? Scared?”
Dark eyes stared back at him. Once again the bony shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Okay. It’s okay, kid. We’ll find him.” Sam stood and reached for his gun, positioning his body so that Jerome wouldn’t notice what he was doing. “He can’t have gone far.”
Jerome’s head waggled agreement. “It’s dark out.”
“Yeah. But not for long.” Sam snatched up his denim jacket.
Chris wasn’t afraid of the dark. Sam knew that for a fact. If Chris ran away, where would he go? The nearest housing development was two miles down the road. Town was over eight miles away. This was a city kid. Country roads were a lot darker than city st
reets.
Unless he wasn’t alone.
Sam couldn’t stop thinking about that.
Maybe the barn? It would be an obvious place for a boy to hide until daylight.
He ignored the inner voice that berated him for not pulling Chris aside again tonight. He should have reassured the boy. Or maybe he should have scared the kid into talking to him. But that wasn’t his style. Chris was already scared. Sam had thought there was time to earn the boy’s trust, to get him to talk freely. Later, he could curse himself for not anticipating this. Right now, he had a child to find. One who might be lost, but was definitely scared.
And that was most certainly Sam’s fault.
Sam grabbed his hat. “Come on, kid. We’re going back to your room. It’s too early to get up.”
“What about Chris?”
“I’ll find him.” I have to find him, he admitted to himself.
In the boys’ bedroom, there was no sign that Chris had been taken against his will. As Jerome climbed into bed, Sam checked through the clothing and personal items hanging in the closet. Since he didn’t know what belonged to Chris and he didn’t want to chance upsetting the now calm, sleepy-eyed boy, he couldn’t tell if anything was missing. Knowing he needed to stay calm, Sam restrained his growing fear.
He made a careful, quiet search of the upstairs. All the other boys were accounted for. Downstairs, the first thing he discovered was that the front door was unlocked. Doubts assailed him. There was no sign the lock had been forced. It was a good, solid deadbolt. Maybe Marly hadn’t locked it. For all he knew, Marly never locked her doors. Or maybe Chris had unlocked it when he left. Certainly Porterfield wouldn’t have a key.
Would he?
Sam stepped outside. A three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, shedding enough illumination to see by. Thick beads of dew clung heavily to the blades of grass in the damp, chill air. There was no sign that footprints had disturbed the lawn. Of course, a person could have stayed on the hard-packed earth, or he could have passed over the grass before the dew formed.
How long had Chris been gone?
Sam studied the scene carefully before he began to circle the house, staying on the wide front porch and skirting the rockers, chairs and small tables that invited a person to sit. If only Chris had.
The porch wrapped the left side of the house, culminating at a wide-open deck in the backyard, with two brick barbecue grills built onto one end. Sam’s footsteps showed damply against the wood grain of the decking. No one else had walked across it recently.
The long, low bunkhouse, formerly a stable, stretched behind the house, dark and silent as the night. He sighed and jumped off the deck, heading for the barn. He was glad for his jacket. The air had a decided chill to it.
Was Chris warm enough?
A low nicker greeted him when he pushed his way inside the main barn. The earthy smells of horses and hay brought a surge of memories, but Sam pushed them aside as he moved from stall to stall, stroking a muzzle here, patting a long neck arched in curiosity there.
In a barn this size, there were any number of places a small boy could hide His search was no longer a oneman job. He needed to rouse help. Marly couldn’t be any more upset with him than he already was with himself.
A sound, quickly muffled from overhead, stopped him in his tracks as he was about to turn and leave. Sam eyed the nearest ladder climbing to the loft. Of course. The perfect place. Huge hay bales were stacked to the rafters. There were makeshift aisles between the stacks. Plenty of cubbyholes up there for a boy to hide in. Sam had done it himself when he was a kid.
He climbed quickly. “Chris?”
It was a risk. Chris was more apt to flee than to come at the sound of his voice.
“It’s okay, son. Come on out.”
He heard a rustle of movement off to his left. Sam turned in that direction and brushed against a tower of hay. A sneeze began to build in his chest. Hay dust. He’d forgotten his allergy to the substance. It had grown worse over the years. Now he suppressed a sneeze and strode along the wall of hay.
“No one’s going to hurt you, Chris. I promise. We need to talk about—”
Sam bowed his head under the force of the sneeze. The gesture saved his life. With a whistle of displaced air, the huge metal hook used to raise and lower the bales swung over the top of the pile, into the path where he would have been walking if he hadn’t stopped. It was so close, the metal hook pulled the hat from his head.
Instantly Sam went into a defensive crouch as the hook swung like a pendulum, back the way it had come. There was a series of rapid noises. Footsteps, other sounds. Noises not made by an eleven-year-old kid, but maybe made by someone intent on harming that same kid?
He reached for the gun tucked in the back of his jeans. Without warning, the pile of hay alongside him tumbled down. There was no chance to get out of its path. With his hand caught reaching behind him, Sam was off balance. He sprawled against the wood planks, pinned under the weight of several bales.
He was saved from serious injury by the narrowness of the aisle. Sneezing violently, he struggled to free himself, even as he listened to the sound of his attacker escaping down the other ladder. There was a whinny of protest from below as horses objected to being disturbed.
Sam rubbed at his eyes. They were itchy and burning. Another sneeze just about doubled him over. He needed to get out of here. His hand landed on his crushed Stetson. He worked to free it from the hay that pinned it to the floor. It took several more minutes to locate his gun, which had fallen from his fingers.
A small scuffling sound caught his attention.
“Chris?”
There was no response to his shout, but the noise came again. He had to check the other side of this wall of hay. Chris might be there. Something was still there.
Was Chris tied up?
Or injured?
Sam pulled at the bales of hay before he realized he’d have to backtrack to find another path. His eyes watered, but the skittering noise drew him on. There was a soft bleat.
Sam rounded a corner, ready for anything. Anything except the sight of a tiny baby goat, penned in by a circle of hay bales. The animal made a pitiful sound of distress. Someone had wrapped the beast in a harness. There was a metal ring on the top of the wrapping. It took Sam a moment to understand what he was seeing.
That same someone had planned to suspend the young goat in the center of the barn using the hook. His stomach clenched. The implied threat was obvious.
“Chris!” He couldn’t keep the demand from his voice. Was the boy up here? Had he seen the person with the goat? If so, he could be in danger from this new source as well.
“Chris, answer me. Make a noise if you’re up here.”
Nothing. He sneezed again, unable to hear another thing beyond the restless sounds of the horses below and the goat in front of him. A sheet of paper caught his eyes. It was clear across the makeshift goat pen, but even from his angle he could see the cutout letters pasted to the paper.
Sam uttered an expletive and sneezed violently. His skin was beginning to itch. He had to get out of here, but first he needed to see what the paper said. Was the warning intended for him, for Chris, or for Marly?
The goat bleated. At a guess, the animal was only a few weeks old. Sam swung over the barrier and into the small clearing. The goat butted forlornly against his leg as he bent to read the paper.
Next time it will be another kind of kid
Sam uttered a curse and wiped at his eyes. The threat being aimed at Marly didn’t make him feel the least bit better. Where was Chris? Had he seen the perpetrator getting ready to hang the goat? Was he hiding from Sam, or was he in trouble?
A sneeze hurt his chest, which was tightening alarmingly. He really had to get out of here. He patted the tiny animal even as he stepped over the bale of hay.
“Sorry, guy. I’ll send someone to set you free in a minute.”
Outside, he paused in an effort to fill his lungs with th
e clean night air, while trying to stop the sneezes that gripped him. Through itchy, runny eyes, he peered around at the silent yard. The perp was long gone, but Sam was in no position to give chase—at the moment, anyhow. His allergy was worse than he remembered, but fear overrode that consideration.
He had to find Chris. There was danger out here. Maybe a murderer, as well.
“MARLY. Wake up.”
She rolled instinctively to face those husky words, a smile of welcome on her lips.
“Marly!”
Marly blinked her eyes open as the light alongside her bed winked on. A violent sneeze wiped away the last vestiges of sleep. Sam towered over her, but this was not the Sam of her erotic dreams. This Sam was abrupt and angry and covered in bits of hay. Even as she tried to assimilate this, he began to sneeze again.
“Good Lord, what happened to you?” She slid off the far side of the bed, pulling on her robe, without waiting for a response. His face was blotchy. His eyes were puffy and red. Tears streamed down his cheeks, unchecked.
“Get those clothes off,” she ordered.
“Thanks, boss, another time,” he managed to get out between sneezes. She could hear a slight wheezing in his chest that scared the heck out of her.
“Chris is missing,” he continued.
“What?” Her heart fluttered in fear. Sam sneezed again.
One emergency at a time. Being allergic to bee stings herself, Marly knew the importance of prompt treatment for allergic reactions. She kept an injection kit for just such emergencies.
“I’ll get the epinephrine.”
He stopped her with a hand. “Antihistamine. I can breathe.”
“Yeah, but for how long?”
“Antihistamine.”
She came around the bed. “Are you sure?”
“We have to find Chris.”
Marly nodded. She opened the drawer in her bedroom dresser and pushed aside underwear, searching for the packet of antihistamines she had stuffed in there one day when she was in a hurry. Her hands moved rapidly as her mind raced. Chris was missing.
“You ought to change clothes. What were you doing, rolling in the hay?”
Man Without A Badge Page 6