If not for Gunther, Leo would have been here at the resort all day. There would have been another set of eyes to help watch the children.
He went straight to the room number Laurie had given him and found a note on the door. We’re in 236 and have your keys there.
Room 236 was the one next door to his. When Timmy answered the door, he wore a rare frown. “I’m really getting scared for Johnny, Grandpa.”
Timmy allowed his grandfather to pull him into a hug. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”
This can’t happen again, he thought. We can’t suffer another loss. We have to find him.
* * *
Timmy led the way to the large suite at the end of the hallway. He had always been a long, lanky kid—more the shape of his father’s than his mother’s family—but he had filled out over the last year.
A beautiful pink sunset glowed beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean, but the weight of worry in the room was crushing. Laurie managed a small smile and welcomed Leo with a hug. “I’m so glad you finally made it.”
He knew the intention behind the comment, but nevertheless felt a pang of guilt. This might not have happened if I’d been here instead of the DA’s Office.
“I’m so grateful you called the East Hampton police,” Marcy said. “The detective who was here seemed competent, but I just don’t know what to do with myself right now. When I went through my phone to select photographs for Andrew and Alex to use at the print shop, it’s like a switch flipped. This is really happening. Johnny’s one of those kids in a ‘missing child’ poster.”
“Timmy,” Laurie said, “maybe you can go play a game while we talk.”
“I want to be here with you guys,” Timmy said, “trying to figure out where Johnny is. Grandpa said I’m good at police work.”
Timmy waited for Laurie to decide. Her expression made it clear that she wasn’t going to argue with her son about this. He wasn’t a typical ten-year-old. “Any ideas, Dad?” she asked.
“Is Kara still here?”
“In the bedroom with the twins,” Marcy said, nodding toward an adjacent door.
Chapter 12
Father Mike Horrigan lived in a small, brick house set back behind Blessed Sacrament Church, where he’d been assigned for nearly fourteen years. In the back of the house, he enjoyed the privacy of a brick patio and a yard with a lush garden. Out the front door, however, placed him right next to the church parking lot, which this evening was the site of a car-wash fundraiser organized by the high school’s basketball team. Parker Logan, the tallest member of the team, looked like a giant next to the Prius he was sponging down at the edge of the lot.
Father Horrigan noticed Parker’s mother, Betsy, speaking to Cynthia, the parish office manager, at the picnic table that sat between the church and the parking lot. He could still remember Betsy’s glee when she showed off how ten-year-old Parker was already taller than she was. Betsy’s husband had chimed in, “I’ve met Great Danes taller than you, sweetie.”
He noticed that the women quickly lowered their voices when they spotted him.
Betsy threw him a friendly wave. “Hello there, Father Mike.”
“You were gossiping about the Real Housewives again, weren’t you?” he teased.
“Guilty as charged,” Cynthia admitted.
“No confession required,” he said. “Watching a show is one thing, living like that one is quite another.”
Cynthia looked at him with compassion. “Forgive me for asking, Father, but is something on your mind?”
Father Horrigan was only twenty-six years old when he first came to Blessed Sacrament, and Cynthia, nearly twenty years his senior, had always had a maternal disposition toward him. In the years since, she had been the person he spent more time with day to day than anyone else. She knew him well. The phone call from Marcy Buckley was still weighing on him. He knew that Johnny would likely turn up any moment, the way children do, but he had heard the anguish in his mother’s voice. He kept thinking about Marcy saying that she would be relieved to hear that Johnny’s birth mother had taken him. At least he would be safe. He wanted to be able to ease her mind if it was at all possible.
“Betsy, would you mind if I borrowed Cynthia for a moment?” he asked. “It’s about a parishioner matter.”
“Not at all,” Betsy said. “I’ve got some brownies I promised to break out once the kids hit their fundraising goal, so I’ll get to work on that.”
Once Father Horrigan was alone with Cynthia, he asked whether she remembered Sandra Carpenter. “She had a daughter named Michelle,” he said, hoping to jog her memory.
“Yes, of course, but it’s been years since she’s been in contact.”
Sandra had been a regular attendee at Sunday Mass during his early years at the church. Her daughter, Michelle, sixteen years old when he first met her, was one of those teenagers who only came to Mass because of her mother’s pressure, but she was always sweet and polite. Once she graduated from high school, her Sunday appearances grew more sporadic over time, and she eventually stopped attending altogether. Whenever Father Horrigan asked about Michelle, Sandra reported that her daughter was doing well.
Then suddenly one day, Sandra paused before answering, and then broke down into tears. At first, Michelle had been getting good grades as a student at the University of Baltimore, but after two years, she took some time off. Michelle’s plan was to live in a family’s guesthouse in Rehoboth Beach and work full-time as a waitress for a few years. That way she could go back to school and graduate without a load of debt.
“When she first said she wanted to move to Rehoboth, she kept assuring me it was only two and a half hours away, and we could see each other all the time. And for the most part, that has been true. But I haven’t seen her for more than three months. She kept saying she was busy, or sick, or one excuse or another. I could tell she was avoiding me, and last night, she finally told me why. She’s eight months pregnant and has no idea what she’s going to do. I told her I could help her if she wants to raise this child on her own, but the reality has set in. She’s twenty-two years old. If she works fewer hours, she’ll barely be able to support herself, let alone a baby. She knows that she’ll never finish college if she becomes a single mother.”
When he had asked about the father to be, Sandra had shaken her head. “Someone she met at one of the beach bars out there. A onetime thing, she said, and completely out of the ordinary for her. She doesn’t even know the boy’s last name or how to get in touch with him again. I’m still shocked that she did something so stupid and reckless.”
Father Horrigan offered to speak to Michelle if he could be helpful, and he was surprised when she took him up on the offer. When she came to him, her face was of course fuller from her pregnancy, but she was still the same sweet, polite young woman he had met when she was a teenager. He offered the church’s support and assistance if she wanted to raise the baby, but she was adamant that her first choice was to place the child with a family who would love him as if he were their own. A sonogram had confirmed she was expecting a boy.
“I don’t want anything from them,” she had said. “And I don’t even want them to know who I am. But I want to be absolutely positive that they are good people who will give him a good life, and then I could go on with mine. But how can I be sure when so many people are not who they appear to be?”
It was one of those moments that made Father Horrigan believe that sometimes God puts people in the right place at the right time. He knew the perfect couple: Andrew and Marcy Buckley. He could still remember the relief on Michelle’s face when he described the couple who would give her baby a loving home. And, of course, the joy on the adoptive parents’ faces when they picked up Johnny at the hospital. He had taken a photograph so he could show it to Michelle. “I can tell they already love him,” she had said.
He wanted to believe that Michelle had never regretted her decision, but she never came back to church again,
nor did she return his phone calls when he tried to reach out to her a few times. Sandra made the decision to switch to another parish a few months after the adoption. Seeing the Buckleys without having a relationship with her grandchild was simply too much for her to handle, she said.
Of course, Father Horrigan assumed that, as the parish office manager, Cynthia knew none of this.
“It must have been seven years since I saw Sandra last,” Cynthia said. “It’s a shame that she suddenly stopped coming.”
“Is it possible we still have her contact information?” he asked. “I’d like to give her a call.”
Maybe he could put Marcy’s mind at ease without breaking his promise to Michelle.
* * *
A few minutes later, he was back inside his house, dialing Sandra Carpenter’s number. After three rings, a woman answered.
“Hello?”
The voice at the other end of the line sounded weaker and much older than the one he remembered. “This is Father Mike Horrigan from Blessed Sacrament Church. I was looking for Sandra Carpenter.” It had been seven years since he’d spoken to her. She had probably changed her number since then.
“Well, you found me, Father Mike. How nice to hear from you.”
Her voice brightened slightly, but still seemed frail. They spent a couple of minutes chatting about her retirement from her secretarial position with the federal government and a new priest at St. John’s who was creating quite a stir incorporating what she called his “stand-up comedy routine” into his services.
“Well, I’m happy to hear you found a home there. We were sorry to lose you at Blessed Sacrament. I hope you don’t mind, but I was wondering how things worked out for Michelle. Where is she these days? Is she here in D.C.?”
He had decided that there was no need to upset Sandra or Michelle by telling them that Johnny was missing. He hoped that he could get confirmation from Sandra that Michelle was nowhere near Long Island, New York, without causing unnecessary anxiety.
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. “Sandra? Are you there?”
“I guess you didn’t hear the news.”
He could tell from the tone of her voice that the news wasn’t good. “I’m sorry. No, I didn’t.”
“I lost her.”
“Oh, Sandra. I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“I’d say I lost her the first time not long after the baby was born. She became a completely different person. Distracted. Depressed. Defeated. She withdrew from everyone she knew, including me. She lost any desire for happiness. Any thoughts of returning to college were out the window. She moved to Denver for a while, then to Philadelphia. She’d call me on birthdays and Christmas, but otherwise, she was practically a stranger.”
He told her again he was sorry. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No. My daughter died six months ago.”
“Oh, Sandra. No.”
“It was a drug overdose. The police found my number in her cell phone, so at least someone told me. I still can’t believe she’s gone. At least she knew her son has a good life. Despite everything she went through afterward, she told me that she never regretted having him or giving him a chance at a happy life. How is little Johnny, by the way?”
Chapter 13
The humming sound beneath Johnny Buckley suddenly changed. The car was slowing down. His body rocked in the trunk as they drove over a series of bumps. He believed they were pulling off the highway, maybe onto a dirt road.
The car came to a halt. The engine stopped, too. He heard one of the car doors open. Maybe it was two. He couldn’t tell. And then there was silence. Complete and total silence.
He began to take slow breaths—in and out—the way his mom had said they did in her yoga class. She told him doing that would make him calm. It had worked when she took him to the dentist. It was helping, but he was still so afraid.
Please, please don’t leave me here, all alone.
“Hello?” he cried out. “Is anyone there?”
More silence. What if no one ever came for him? What if he was never seen again and died out here by himself?
“Can anyone hear me?” His voice was louder this time, but, still, no one answered.
He pounded his palms against the top of the car trunk. “Help! Help! Someone please help me!” He yelled as loud as he could.
The trunk popped open, and he screamed from fright. A three-inch crack of light appeared between the hood and the trunk. Someone was standing behind the car. A gray T-shirt, untucked except for the spot where it hitched up over the top of a gun tucked inside the man’s waistband. That’s all Johnny could make out other than the treetops and sky around them.
“See, that’s why we needed to pull over in the middle of nowhere.” The man’s voice was deep. He sounded casual, like there was nothing weird about making Johnny ride in the trunk or the weapon only inches away from Johnny’s head. “Had to see whether you were going to act up or not.”
“Please, mister. Don’t hurt me.”
“That’s the last thing I want to do, but I will if I have to. You understand? And I can go back to that hotel and find the rest of that family, too, if you don’t do what I say. I can’t have you yelling and screaming, do you understand?”
Johnny said nothing.
“That’s better. Now… are you hungry?”
He shook his head, but then realized the man couldn’t see him any better than he could see the man. “No, my stomach hurts.”
“That’s probably nausea from the chloroform. I was afraid of that. You didn’t throw up in there, did you?”
Johnny couldn’t tell whether the man was actually worried about him or was angry about the possibility of a mess in his car. “Uh-uh.”
“Don’t say ‘uh-uh.’ It’s not polite. You’re old enough to say yes or no, properly, like a young man.”
“I’m sorry. No, I didn’t get sick.”
“That’s better. Here, you’re probably thirsty, and this will help your stomach.” The man reached in and handed Johnny a can of ginger ale.
“I can’t drink it lying down,” Johnny said.
“Tell you what. I’ll pop the trunk all the way open so you can sit up and get some fresh air for a bit. But you got to promise not to try to run away or yell or any of that nonsense, okay? There’s no one around to hear you, and remember what I said I would do if you act up. Deal?”
“I’ll be good, mister. I promise.”
“Just like I knew you would be. Such a good kid.”
Chapter 14
In the honeymoon suite at the South Shore Resort, Leo had asked the babysitter Kara to recount every single moment of her day on the beach in minute detail. In Leo’s police experience, the exercise might lead to the discovery of an important detail that may otherwise have been overlooked.
Kara was recalling the Buckley kids continuing to practice for Laurie and Alex’s wedding ceremony after Timmy and Ramon had left the hotel to shop for a birthday present for Alex. It broke Laurie’s heart picturing Johnny standing in for Timmy as her best man. As she listened, it was obvious that the boy looked up to his older future cousin.
The chirp of a cell phone interrupted Kara’s narration of the day. Marcy glanced at the screen with a perplexed expression and excused herself from the room.
From his spot on the sofa next to Kara, Timmy brought their attention back to the beach. “The twins were teasing Johnny before we left, saying he wanted to be so much like me that they were going to call him ‘Timmy.’ ”
Something about Timmy’s comment tugged at the back of Laurie’s mind, a thought trying to come to fruition. She was about to get ahold of it, like pulling at a loose thread, but then immediately lost her grasp.
“That’s right,” Kara agreed. “Chloe and Emily continued like that the whole time at the beach, calling him Tim or Timothy more often than his own name. He seemed to enjoy the game. It was all in good fun.”
They had been calling thei
r brother Timmy on the beach. Laurie felt that nagging feeling again, and then pictured little Wyatt, the boy on the beach who had been sharing the skim board with Johnny and Timmy.
“Kara, did you happen to notice anyone else addressing Johnny by that name? Or hear someone calling out the name Tim, or some variant of that?” Wyatt had heard a woman yelling the name Tim, like maybe he was in trouble or not paying attention or something.
Kara shook her head.
“No, not that I heard. It was just the girls playing around.”
Marcy re-entered the living room, her cell phone still in hand. “Do you mind if we take a break for a second? Ramon said the girls are famished. Timmy, maybe you and Kara can meet them downstairs and make a final decision about where to go.”
“They’re going to ask about Johnny,” Timmy muttered.
Laurie could tell that Marcy was trying to get Timmy and Kara out of the room so she could speak alone to Laurie and Leo about whatever phone call she had received. She could also tell that her son did not agree with the decision not to tell the girls directly what was going on, but he was only ten years old. This wasn’t his decision to make.
“No one’s asking you to tell a lie,” Laurie said. “Marcy and Andrew will decide what’s best as far as the twins are concerned.”
He nodded his agreement, and he and Kara went to find Ramon and the girls.
“That was our priest, Father Horrigan,” Marcy said, placing her phone on the coffee table. “He decided to contact Johnny’s biological mother after I called him, just to be absolutely certain she had nothing to do with this.”
“And?” Leo prodded.
“Her mother said she died of a drug overdose six months ago.”
Silence fell over the room.
Piece of My Heart Page 5