by Tami Hoag
This was why he was a celebrity, Ellen decided, instead of just a name on a dust jacket. The very air around him vibrated with sex appeal.
“I don't think so, Mr. Brooks. It would be too much like fraternizing with the enemy,” she said, stepping away from him, slipping her glasses on—shielding herself against his charm.
“I'm not the enemy. I'm just an observer.”
“You may not be the enemy, but you're an enemy just the same. I can't differentiate between who you are and what you are, Mr. Brooks.” She stared him straight in the face. “Maybe your conscience will let you exploit what's happened in this town—or maybe you don't have a conscience. Either way, I won't condone it and I don't want to be a part of it.”
With that she walked out on him for the second time that day.
Jay sat back against the judge's desk and gave a low whistle. He had had doors slammed in his face before. That was nothing new. It went with the territory. Sometimes people were willing to work on a story with him and sometimes they weren't. If he wanted the story badly enough and the front door closed, he went to the back. If the back door closed, he went in a window. If he couldn't get in through a window, he went in through the basement. If he wanted the story bad enough, he would get it. He didn't need Ellen North's cooperation. He could write this story from a dozen different angles.
But he wanted Ellen North's cooperation. Hell, he wanted Ellen North.
He knew better than to get involved with a source. Crossing that line was like walking into a nest of vipers—an invitation for disaster. He would compromise his credibility, color his perception of the story.
As tough as he played this game, he played it by rules. He had already broken one—getting involved with a live case. That was just asking for trouble. Of course, as Uncle Hooter always said, he may not have looked for trouble, but when it came calling, he was never out of earshot.
This case had grabbed him and hung on. He wanted inside of it, wanted to know why it had happened and what it had done to the people whose lives it had touched. He wanted to watch it all unfold—the trial, the strategy behind prosecution and defense, the reactions of the public as sides were taken. Something important was happening here. This wasn't just another crime; it was a crossroads, a crisis point for small-town America. He felt a need to capture that.
And to distance himself from another crisis, he admitted in a shadowed corner of his mind—one he had turned away from before it could suck him in. This case was his focus. The trick was to get inside and yet maintain emotional distance. A tough call when a part of him wanted no distance at all between himself and the prosecuting attorney.
But then, it appeared Ellen North would maintain that distance for him. She was as unimpressed with his bag of tricks as a skeptic who had caught sight of the mirrors in a magic show. She didn't give a damn about the bankability of his name, would not have cared a lick that his latest work had been at the top of every best-seller list in the country for three solid months or that Tom Cruise had signed on for the lead in the movie version of Justice for None. She didn't care who he was, she cared what he was, and she had made up her mind on that score right out of the box.
The hell of it was, she was probably right.
The hell of it was, he wanted her anyway.
CHAPTER 8
Mitch slid in behind the wheel of his Explorer, bone-weary. The better part of the day had been spent overseeing the search for the missing gloves Garrett Wright had cast off during the chase the night of his arrest. Mitch's men and the evidence techs from the BCA had spent two days combing the ground the chase had covered through the woods of Quarry Hills Park, along the cross-country ski trail that ran the rim of the park behind the Lakeside neighborhood, and into the yards of the homes that backed onto the park.
Seven inches of fresh snow had fallen to cover the tracks from the chase, and every step taken by an officer or agent had the potential to further bury evidence that would not be seen again until April. They had gone over the ground with shovels and rakes, dug with garden tools in the areas too small for anything else. And still, in the end, it was dumb luck that did the trick. Lonnie Dietz had plunked down on a fallen log, tired and frustrated, and while he'd stared down at a crevice in the dead tree, something had caught his eye. A small slip of white—the size tag sewn inside the cuff of a black leather glove.
The gloves had been sent to the BCA lab in St. Paul. Then there had been the ever-present press to deal with, the mob of reporters already in a frenzy from the bond hearing. And constantly in the back of Mitch's mind were thoughts of Megan.
She had been transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis that morning and had gone into surgery for her hand at three. He wanted to be there with her, but the case took precedence. Megan knew that. She had been the first to say it. She was a cop, she understood the priorities. She was a victim as well, which gave her an added motivation to want to see the investigation completed.
She was also alone and afraid. The prognosis for her regaining full use of her hand was not good. If she couldn't use her right hand, she couldn't handle a gun, she couldn't defend herself, she couldn't return to the kind of duty that had been her whole life. All she had ever wanted was to be a good cop.
And all Mitch wanted at the moment was to be able to hold her. He didn't relish the thought of an hour's drive to the Cities, and guilt nipped him at the thought of leaving his daughter with her grandparents for yet another evening, but he started the engine and focused on Megan. The last thing he had expected to find in this nightmare of Josh Kirkwood's abduction was love, and he would never have expected love to come packaged in a tough Irish cop with a chip on her shoulder the size of Gibraltar, but there it was.
He eased the truck out of his parking spot, fighting the urge to gun the engine and send the reporters who had followed him out scrambling for their lives. He waved them off when he would rather have given them the finger, and pulled out onto Oslo Street. He was half a block from the interstate when his cellular phone trilled in his coat pocket.
“Jesus, now what?” he muttered, pulling up to the curb.
Leaving the engine running, he dug the phone out and unfolded it, telling himself it might be Megan or it might be Jessie calling to see where her daddy was.
“Mitch Holt.”
The silence made him think the caller had given up while he had fumbled with his gloves and the pocket flap trying to get to the damn phone, but he hung on, an eerie sensation scratching through him.
“Hello? Who's there?”
The truck engine grumbled to itself. Outside, the shabby little neighborhood that backed onto the interstate was quiet in the twilight. People were in their homes having supper and watching the news as night began to settle down around them. It was the time of night Josh had disappeared.
As the thought shot a chill through him, the voice came over the phone. A whisper.
“Ignorance is not innocence but sin. Ignorance is not innocence but sin. Ignorance is not innocence but sin.”
The line went dead.
Mitch sat perfectly still, his heart banging like a fist against his ribs. Ignorance is not innocence but sin. The message in the note that had been left behind at the scene of Josh's abduction. Common knowledge, he told himself. The press had splashed it all over. And yet he couldn't shake the sick sensation of dread. His muscles quivered with it. It steamed from his pores even though the temperature in the cab of the truck was below freezing. The number of his cellular phone was not common knowledge.
A minute passed. Then five. The phone rang again and the uneasiness pressed down on him like an anvil.
“Mitch Holt.”
“Chief, it's Natalie. We just got a call from the sheriff. He's in Campion. They've got a child missing . . . and a note.”
Josh sat on the family-room floor, cross-legged, staring at the flames in the fireplace. A giant sketch pad and a new box of markers lay on the floor beside him, untouched. Aladdin was run
ning in the VCR, but the cartoon didn't interest him. His baby sister, Lily, however, was delighted and toddled around the room, singing along, dancing with a stuffed Barney the Dinosaur.
Josh didn't care about cartoons anymore. He didn't want to play. He didn't want to talk. He stared at the fire and imagined he was a fireman on Mars, where it was hot all the time and there were no kids.
Hannah stepped down into the family room from the kitchen, rubbing lotion into her hands. The supper dishes were done, such as they were—glasses for soda and plates for pizza from the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Josh's favorite. Nutrition be damned tonight. She had called out for a medium pepperoni and mushroom and offered brownies for dessert. She hadn't made them, either, selecting instead the best from the pans friends and neighbors and absolute strangers had sent over during the course of Josh's absence.
She had brought her son home today. Against Bob Ulrich's wishes. Against the advice of the advocate from Park County Social Services. They had wanted to continue observation, as if Josh were a freak in a sideshow. But he had checked out all right physically, and Hannah had argued that his unwillingness to talk to anyone was no reason to keep him in a hospital bed. It was time to go home, where things were familiar and safe. She was a doctor herself; if Josh exhibited signs of physical problems, she would be the first to notice.
And so they had come home, where reporters blocked the driveway and well-meaning friends crowded the house. Home, where everything looked familiar but nothing would ever be the same again.
Hannah put the thought out of her head. She had sent the friends home, and the police had chased the reporters off the lawn. She had ordered pizza and built a fire and put one of Josh's favorite movies in the VCR. She had made things as normal as she could, considering the circumstances.
Lily danced up to her, all smiles and rosy cheeks, and offered her Barney. Hannah scooped up her daughter instead and hugged her close.
“Mama, Josh!” Lily announced, pointing at her brother.
“Yep, Josh is home. We missed him, didn't we, Lilybug?”
“Josh! Josh! Josh!” Lily sang, euphoric over her brother's return. At eighteen months, she worshiped Josh. He had always been wonderful with her, sweet, gentle, loving. He read her bedtime stories and played with her.
He hadn't spoken a word to her since coming home. He ignored her efforts to engage him in play. He looked through her as if she weren't there. Fortunately, Lily was too excited to notice her brother wasn't returning her affections. It would have broken Hannah's heart if there had been any pieces left intact.
She settled on the couch with the baby in her lap as the movie rolled to a close. Lily twisted around, blond curls bouncing. “More!”
“Let's ask Josh,” Hannah said, her eyes on her son. “Josh, honey, do you want to run the movie again?”
He didn't answer, didn't look at her. He sat as he had for the last hour, staring into the fire. He hadn't touched the sketch pad or markers.
The advocate had said to keep them handy, to encourage Josh to draw in the hopes that he would vent his experiences with his kidnappers through his artwork. So far, the only mark on the pad was the one the advocate herself had made, trying to draw Josh into a game of tic-tac-toe. Josh was keeping his experiences locked up tight, and his emotions along with them. Aside from his violent reaction to his father, he had reacted to nothing and no one.
“More, more, Mama!” Lily insisted.
“Not tonight, sweetheart,” Hannah murmured. “It's time to watch something quiet so we can all settle down for bedtime.”
Lily protested by taking Barney and moving to the love seat. “Where Daddy?”
“Daddy's staying somewhere else tonight,” Hannah answered, watching Josh for a reaction at mention of his father. There was none.
She was angry with Paul for not being there, even though she really didn't want him. He had upset Josh before; she didn't want a repeat performance. Nor did she want the tensions between her and Paul to be telegraphed to the children.
Still, a foolish part of her wanted Paul to assert his rights as a father, to make some kind of stand to keep their marriage from disintegrating. She wanted to see the man she had married, the man she had loved, but he was lost. It seemed he had been an aberration, that for the first part of their marriage Paul had been at his peak and for reasons she couldn't understand had slowly fallen backward until she could no longer reach him, could hardly recognize who he was. It frightened her that she had thought she had known him so well, but now she didn't seem to know him at all.
Sighing, she flipped through the television channels, looking for something without sex, violence, or reality involved, settling on an independent station out of Minneapolis that was running The Parent Trap for the millionth time. Hayley Mills in a madcap adventure as twin sisters. Classic fluff from the sixties, when the world had still clung to its last shreds of innocence.
The nineties intruded immediately in the form of a news bulletin. A grim-faced anchorwoman with a helmet of spray-starched red hair filled half the screen while the photograph of a little boy popped up in one corner under a red banner that proclaimed him missing.
“Oh, my God,” Hannah murmured.
“Authorities in the small Park County town of Campion tonight are launching a massive search for eight-year-old Dustin Holloman, abducted from a city park where he was playing with friends after school this afternoon. The abduction bears marked similarities to the case of Josh Kirkwood of Deer Lake, also in Park County. Josh, abducted January twelfth, was returned to his family unharmed late last night. The family of Dustin Holloman can only hope for a similar outcome.
“Dustin is eight years old with blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a black-and-yellow ski jacket with an orange stocking cap. Anyone who thinks they may have information about Dustin is asked to immediately call the Park County sheriff's office.”
Josh turned slowly and looked at the television screen as it filled with the smiling, slightly blurry image of Dustin Holloman and the hot-line phone numbers. He rose and moved to stand directly in front of the set in the cherry entertainment center, staring without expression at the boy who had been proclaimed missing.
“Josh,” Hannah murmured, coming out of her seat, reaching for him. She dropped to her knees on the floor beside him.
He stared at the little boy's photograph and lifted a finger to point at him.
“Uh-oh,” he said softly. “He's a Goner.”
CHAPTER 9
Will you disclose the contents of the note?”
“How does this affect the case against Dr. Wright?”
“Do you believe this is the work of the same kidnapper?”
“Do you still believe Wright had an accomplice, or do you think you've got the wrong man sitting in jail?”
“When will you release the contents of the note?”
“How does this change your strategy?”
The questions echoed through Ellen's head, swam through it, whirled around it. The faces of the reporters did the same. Some were familiar, some famous, many obscure. All of them wanted the same thing. The scoop, the hot quote, the exclusive tidbit. After two weeks of covering Josh Kirkwood's abduction, they came to Dustin Holloman's as ravenous as ever, driven by ambition to grab whatever details they could.
“I'm ambitious,” Adam Slater had proclaimed yesterday outside the hospital. She had spotted him in the sea of faces, out on the edge, on the fringe of the mob, his young eyes bright as he soaked it all in.
Ambitious. Or maybe “desperate” was the word. Desperate for answers. Desperate for some clue as to why the fabric of this quiet rural county was unraveling. That was what Ellen felt—a sharp, choking sense of desperation, the kind of panic that threatened to swell up and swallow her whole. It was just as strong now, as she pulled into her driveway, as it had been when she had driven away from the reporters in Campion.
Campion was a farming community of two thousand. A simple, qu
iet place that made Deer Lake, a half-hour drive away, seem like a teeming metropolis. A town too small and too dull to need its own police department, it contracted with the county for the use of deputies to keep things in order. The people of Campion had watched the evening news when Josh Kirkwood had been taken and reflected that the world beyond them was an increasingly dangerous place. Thank God they lived in Campion, where everyone was safe. Until tonight.
News that a child had been taken had the town reeling, stunned and confused. It was déjà vu for the volunteers who flocked over from Deer Lake. Having been through it all before, they organized search teams quickly and set up a command post in the Sons of Norway hall because it was the only place in town big enough. But, as had been the case two weeks before, there was little for the investigation to go on.
“Witnesses?” Ellen hurried toward Mitch, turning her coat collar up against the bite of the wind.
“None,” he answered, half shouting to be heard above the pounding of helicopter blades.
State patrol choppers had already begun their search, sweeping back and forth over the town in an ever-widening grid while helicopters from the Twin Cities television stations hovered over the crime scene like vultures. Campion Civic Park had been turned into a surrealistic circus ground, the barren trees and deep snow cover illuminated by portable floodlights and the colored beacons of police vehicles. Yellow crime-scene tape had been wound around saplings and fluttered in the sharp wind like banners around a used-car lot.
“The boy's older brother was supposed to be watching him,” Mitch said as Ellen fell in step beside him. “They were all skating on the outdoor rink over there. The older boys got a hockey game going and the younger kids got pushed out. Apparently Dustin wandered away.”