Cal leaned one hand against the window frame in his office, looking out over the green expanse below, at the people scurrying to and fro, or basking in the sun on the quad. A couple of guys were throwing a Frisbee.
Standing there in his olive slacks, white shirt and striped tie, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d been that carefree.
“Even if it kills an innocent sixty-two-year-old man?” Cal’s voice was no less steely for the drop in volume. “My father was a respected educator. A man with a whole list of kids he saved from making poor choices. A list that would have been much longer if your people hadn’t branded him so completely that you made it impossible for him to get work. You had nothing to charge him with, but the Comfort Cove police made certain that every time he tried to get a job, someone just happened to get a phone call and somehow the hiring boards would know to look at the missing-child case in Comfort Cove.
“The only job he was ever able to take was his current job as a janitor in an Alzheimer’s unit. And now you’re poking around there.
“My father holds a double doctorate degree from Harvard, Detective,” Cal continued without taking a breath, saying the things he’d said in his mind a million times over the years.
“He has degrees in both psychology and education. He had so much to offer this world and he’s been relegated to hiding out in a rental home and cleaning toilets for a living. And relationships?”
The man hadn’t interrupted and so Cal just kept right on. “How could my father even hope to have one of those? What woman is going to tie herself to a man who is not in jail, who has no sentence he can finish serving, but who will never be free? A man with no credit, who has to live his whole life under the radar? One whose life can be cast with suspicion anytime, anyplace? He’s a good, giving, honest man who has become a recluse because of you people supposedly doing your job.”
He paused, and turned around. Took a deep breath.
“I grieve for Claire Sanderson every single day, Miller. You didn’t know her. I did. I knew her sister, Emma, too. I loved them both. I thought we were a family. Claire’s abduction is an abomination. But killing an innocent man is one also. Taking my father’s life does not give Claire hers back.”
When Miller remained silent, Cal finished on a softer note. “You all have had twenty-five years to find something on my father. You haven’t done it. Look someplace else. Please.”
“We are not focusing solely on your father.” Miller’s tone was softer, too. “But we need to know where that box of evidence is and why it was taken. I am not at liberty to discuss the details of our investigation, but rest assured, Professor, I come to work every day because of the children in this country who are missing, and to hopefully protect those who are not from becoming another statistic. I am not out to get you or your father.”
“So you’ve had your look at us. Now leave us alone.”
“I don’t have my answers yet.”
Cal identified with the frustration he heard in Miller’s voice. He’d matured over the years. And had learned that putting out fires benefited himself and his father more than fueling them did.
Back at the window, he said, “I might be able to help.”
“Help how?” The detective asked with silk in his voice, reminding Cal of a feline ready to pounce on its prey.
If the man thought he was going to deliver his father up, he had another think coming.
“Not like you’re thinking,” he bit out. And then found the control he needed to soften his tone. “I’ve written a book. It’s not done, but it documents what I know about the case. Every memory I have of Claire, of our family, of that day…it’s all there. And everything I’ve found out since is there, too. While working on this journal over the years, I’ve gathered information, not just about Claire Sanderson, but about every single child abduction I could find that took place that year and the following couple of years.
“I’ve been scouring the internet for years—reading old newspaper articles as they’re added to internet archives. Each abduction is filed according to the place the child went missing, but I have charts that also file them according to the type of abduction, age of child, sex of child, number of parents in the home, number and age of siblings, nationality, even date and place of birth. I’ve grouped them in any and every way I could think of to look for similarities.”
He didn’t mention the teddy bear that rested on top of those files.
“I take it, since you’re telling me about these files, that you’re willing to share them with me?”
Everything inside of him said no. Out loud he said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
MORGAN MADE IT to lunch with five minutes to spare. Because she’d planned on meeting her father, she’d worn a pair of beige pants, a matching silk blouse and pumps that her mother had purchased for her. Her blond hair was up in the chignon her father liked, though she’d just pulled it up in the parking lot.
“Hi, Glen, is my father here yet?”
“Yes, right this way, Miss Lowen.” The maître d’ had been with the family since George Lowen had decided that the only way to be assured the best seat in the house of his favorite fine dining restaurant was to buy the place. Morgan had been ten at the time. Glen had just graduated high school and had been a host, seating guests.
George, dressed in a gray suit with a red silk tie, was already seated with a two-inch-thick T-bone steak and stuffed baked potato in front of him. His highball was half-empty.
The table was set with only two places. The second place had an entrée-size salad and a bottle of sparkling water waiting.
And bread. At least he’d remembered that she liked the sourdough bread, Morgan told herself as she took her seat, the petit filet she’d been envisioning fading from her mind.
“Hi, Daddy, thank you for meeting me,” she said, leaning over to kiss the air by his cheek as though they met for lunch every week instead of once every five years.
“I know you like ranch dressing but I ordered honey mustard for you,” he said as she sat down. “It’s homemade and quite good.”
She wanted ranch dressing. And she wanted this meeting to go well. “Thank you,” she said, spreading her napkin in her lap before Glen had a chance to do so.
George took another big bite of steak. In lieu of saying anything to Glen, he dismissed the man with a nod and a full mouth.
The restaurant was perched above one of Tennessee’s many lakes, and while the place was full, their table was in a private alcove that George had had erected just for him and his family. They had a perfect view of the lake and no one had a view of them.
Morgan did what she knew her father expected and ate the salad she didn’t want with the dressing she didn’t care for before speaking. George detested discussing anything of importance over his meal, saying it gave him indigestion.
Pushing his empty plate away, he motioned for a second highball—one was usually his norm—wiped his mouth on the linen napkin and turned his piercing gaze on her. “I assume you’re here to discuss Samuel’s custody agreement. Do you want to talk about the visitation schedule?”
She couldn’t let him get to her. They’d just end up fighting and nothing would be accomplished.
“I want you to drop your suit, Daddy,” she said as quietly as she could. He wouldn’t yell at her. Not here. But the sudden redness in his face was about as bad. She could hear the words without his having to actually speak them. She’d heard them often
enough.
“Surely you have not just wasted my time.”
“Sammie and I have been meeting the friend of the court that was assigned to us after you filed for custody.” She chose her words carefully so as not to sound insubordinate. “She agreed with you that Sammie needs male companionship.”
“Of course she does. It’s obvious what the boy is lacking.”
“But she also seemed to think that, at least for now, Sammie needs me, too.”
“Did she say that outright?”
She would not be distracted. She had to think of Sammie.
“The thing is, Daddy, Professor Whittier, my English professor who stayed at the house with us the night that Sammie was missing, has been spending time with Sammie. And Sammie’s responding. The change in him, in just a few days, is remarkable.”
“How many times has he seen this man?”
George’s highball appeared on the table. Morgan barely saw the waiter who delivered it.
“Cal is picking Sammie up after school every Tuesday and Thursday and watching him until I get off work so Sammie doesn’t have to hang out at the day care as much anymore.”
“It’s about time. A day care is no place for a boy to grow into a man.”
Sammie was learning responsibility at the day care. He was learning how to care for others. He was great with the little kids. But now wasn’t the time to argue with George Lowen.
“All I’m asking, Daddy, is that you give us a chance. Sammie really likes spending time with Cal.” Seeing the frown taking over her father’s face, she hurriedly added, “He likes spending time with you and Mom, as well, of course, and if you’ll drop this case we can set up a more regular schedule where Sammie sleeps over at your house several times a month.”
George emptied half of his glass in one sip and Morgan’s stomach sank.
“Did Leslie Dinsmore tell you outright that she thought Sammie needed to live with you?” he asked in that voice that always made her feel sick.
And that’s when she knew that he was getting reports from every single meeting she and Sammie had with the “friend” of the court. More like “friend of her father,” Morgan realized, hating herself for having thought for one second that Leslie Dinsmore had been an impartial party who would be fair to her.
“No, Daddy, she did not.”
George stood. “Do not waste my time again, daughter.” He turned away and then turned back and said, “A word of warning. If you want me to trust you with unsupervised visitations once the boy is settled in where he belongs, then you’d better not try to go against my wishes again. Do not resist me, Morgan. You will lose.”
Morgan cried all the way back to the day care, but she made it in time to greet the dance instructor with a smile and introduce her to the children in her care.
* * *
PLAYING A HUNCH, Cal didn’t stay outside for basketball practice. He shot hoops with Sammie until his father came out to join them, and then, as soon as Frank appeared, he remembered a phone call he had to make and excused himself to his home office.
When Morgan arrived to collect her son, Frank was on the driveway next to Sammie, helping the boy with ball handling and foot positioning. Cal headed out to greet his student, but by the time he made it outside she was already pulling away.
“I told her you were on a business call,” Frank said when Cal appeared.
In spite of spending the past hour and a half in the Tennessee heat dribbling a basketball, his father wasn’t even sweating.
And if the old man knew that Cal had made up the excuse of the call—what call would a college professor need to take that lasted an hour and a half?—he was playing a game of tit for tat. Or calling Cal’s bluff.
Either way, Cal didn’t like it. So he pretended not to notice. If he gave his father that satisfaction, there was no telling what conclusions the man would draw. And no telling what hell Cal would pay for them.
“I made spaghetti,” he said instead, and followed Frank into the house.
“That call you got at work,” Cal said lightly, while the two of them sat watching a rerun of a college basketball scrimmage on a satellite sports channel, eating the supper Cal had prepared. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all taken care of.”
Fork resting on his plate, Frank didn’t look up, didn’t move except to say, “You talked to Ramsey Miller?”
“Yep. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”
With a slight nod, Frank took another bite of dinner. And a couple of seconds later, his gaze rose to the game once more. His father didn’t ask how he’d found Miller. Or what was said.
Cal wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. But because he wanted his father to let it go, he did, too.
“The boy has a problem,” Frank said, halfway through his plate of food.
“Sammie? What problem?” Cal asked, juggling his plate with the remote as he muted their regular dinner companion.
“Seems he got invited to try out for the junior high basketball team.”
“Junior high? Sammie’s ten.”
“Going into the fifth grade.” Frank nodded. “Junior high is sixth through ninth here. He’d be playing one year early.”
“Who invited him?”
“The coach came by his school. Knows someone named Julie.”
“And does Julie know about the invitation?”
“Not as far as Sammie knows. He asked the coach not to say anything to anyone.”
Cal didn’t like the sound of this. Sammie’s face had been planted all over the news the week before. Every creep in the city would know who he was.
And who his grandfather was.
“How do we know this guy’s really a coach of anything?”
“Sammie knows who he is. He meets with boys in gym class starting in the fourth grade.”
“So why not tell anyone?”
“The school district is pay-to-play and he knows his mom can’t afford it. And practices are after school every day at the junior high. He’d need a ride and his mom has to work.”
Cal was beginning to see the problem. He just wasn’t sure what the solution would be. Was the boy angling to live with his grandfather so he could play basketball?
“What was he hoping to accomplish by telling you?” he asked, no longer hungry.
Frank, for once, didn’t seem to have any lack of appetite.
“Truth is, I think he was trying to impress me with the idea that the coach thought he was good enough.”
“Did he say anything to you about living with his grandfather?”
Frank frowned. “Not a word. But I got the feeling that if I offered to take him to practice, he’d be willing to work off the pay-to-play fee just like he’s going to work off those new shoes of his. He asked if we needed the fence painted before winter. And wondered if we ever cleaned our windows, too.”
Relaxing, Cal’s mind raced with jobs, with solutions, with ways he could continue to help Morgan.
And then he stopped and stared.
His father, eyes trained on the television set in front of them, was grinning.
* * *
MORGAN WAS NOT WATCHING the clock. She just happened to notice when it was eight o’clock because that meant Sammie had an hour before his nine o’clock school-night bedtime. Eight-thirty was a checkpoint because that meant if Sammie was going to have a bedtime snack he had to be eating it. And eight forty-five was time to brush teeth, wash and change into
pajamas. Nine o’clock was a given. Prayers and kisses good-night.
Nine-fifteen. She noticed just so she could check that Sammie had turned off his light as promised. Nine-thirty, make sure her son was asleep. Nine thirty-five was to check on the battery in the clock on the living room wall. It seemed to be running a minute or two slow. Ditto, nine forty-five and she was happy to note that the clock was keeping time just fine.
By nine-fifty she told herself to find something to do. There was no point in having a jittery stomach. She should make a cup of chamomile tea and take a hot bath.
At ten o’clock she poured the tea. And ran the bath.
At five minutes past ten she swallowed disappointment and started to undress.
Just because he’d been on the phone when she’d picked up Sammie that evening was no reason for Cal to make one of his ten o’clock calls. They had nothing to discuss. Nothing that needed to be said to each other, which was the usual point in a phone call.
He probably had a date with Kelsey tonight. Maybe at her place. Another dinner. Italian. With wine and…maybe even a bedcap.
Stripped to her panties, Morgan glanced at herself in the mirror. Her breasts weren’t overly large, but they were sizable enough to get noticed. And give her some cleavage.
There’d been a day, before Sammie came along, that she’d despaired over ever having cleavage. In those days she’d been certain that if cleavage ever arrived, she’d live happily ever after.
Tonight she was just glad that her breasts weren’t sagging yet.
She touched her nipples. They were okay. They hardened under her touch and she let them go. It had been so long…
And it would be longer, she admonished herself, slipping her panties down her thighs. She’d get in the bath. Drink her tea. And when she was relaxed enough to sleep she’d…
Her cell phone rang. She’d turned the volume down so it wouldn’t wake Sammie and she’d brought it into the bathroom with her.
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