The other man scratched his two-day-old whiskers and shook his head. “Can’t be allowing underage drinkers in here or we’ll get shut down. I appreciate you pointing them out.” His eyes went over Zachary’s coffee mugs, one full and one empty, and the half-eaten brownie. “Please don’t worry about the bill, we’ll pick it up.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.” Zachary would bill it to the client anyway. “They left without paying theirs, didn’t they?”
“Yep.”
“Then let me pay mine and tip the waitress.”
The cowboy shrugged at him. “If you insist. Again, thanks for helping us out.”
After the manager had again withdrawn, the waitress came back to see if Zachary needed anything. “I guess they couldn’t prove she was of age,” she observed.
“No, I guess not. She didn’t bother trying to show a fake ID, at least.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Just the bill, if you could.”
“Sure.” Her eyes went to the remains of his dessert. “Your friend never showed up?”
“She had an emergency.” Zachary gave an exaggerated shrug. “What can you do?”
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. Next time.”
“Okay. I’ll bring you your bill.”
After he had settled up, Zachary went out to his car. He sat there with his guts in a knot, trying to decide what to do. He pulled up his tracker to see where Principal Montgomery had gone after leaving the bar. Her phone showed her at a shopping center, which eased his anxiety. Maybe they were going to look at clothes. Try on shoes.
Still, he went to the police station and approached the duty officer. He was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Joshua Campbell, who was normally too high-ranking to do desk duty, but must have had to fill in for a sick officer until they could find someone else to do the job. That meant that Zachary at least didn’t have to introduce himself and explain why he would be following someone around and taking pictures.
Joshua finished dealing with the gray-haired lady in front of Zachary. It was a quiet night. Still early, the crazies not yet out. Joshua motioned Zachary forward, giving him a big grin.
“Zach, my friend! What brings you by today? Somebody key your car? Run you off the road?”
He hadn’t been run off the road before, but he’d certainly been keyed or had a window smashed. People tended not to like it when he pried into their private lives.
“No, not this time,” he said. He hesitated about how to approach the issue.
Joshua raised an eyebrow and waited.
“Normally when misbehavior comes across my radar, it just gets reported to the client, and then it’s up to them whether they are going to report a crime or not.”
“Yeah. Normally.”
“But in cases that involve minors…”
Joshua’s smile quickly disappeared. “You got an abuse or neglect case to report?”
“Something like that.” Zachary placed his phone on the counter between them and opened his photo app. He swiped through a few pictures and found the one that showed the minor’s face most clearly. “This girl. They were at Rancheros. I had management card them, and she wouldn’t show any ID. The two of them took off in a huff.”
“Could be something. Do you know the identity of either one?”
“The older woman is Principal Dana Montgomery.”
Joshua’s eyes snapped up to Zachary’s face. “Principal?”
“She’s a high school principal.”
Joshua swore. “Tell me they just like the food at Rancheros.”
Zachary flipped to further photos. Joshua looked ready to leap over the desk and go after the woman on foot all by himself.
“You didn’t follow them when they left the bar? Any way of knowing where they went?”
“They did go over to the shopping center.” Zachary picked up his phone and held it so that Joshua could no longer see the screen. “You won’t ask how I know, right?”
“No. You tell me where they are and I’ll send someone over there to have a word.”
Zachary looked down at the map to make sure they were still at the shopping center, looking at shoes or lip gloss. But the pin had moved in the time that it had taken him to get to the police station and to make his report. He swore and looked at Joshua, feeling sick.
“Motel.”
Joshua echoed his sentiment. He clicked on a handheld radio and started giving directions. When he paused for the name and address of the motel, Zachary turned the phone around for him to see.
“I’ll get a picture of the two of them to your phone,” Joshua told the officer who had answered his call.
He looked at Zachary after clicking off. “Email all the pictures to me,” he instructed. He gave the duty officer email address, and Zachary got to work on it.
“I’ll have to batch them; it won’t send that many at once. And there are two videos.”
“Great. Get me the best facial pictures first so that I can distribute them, and then send me the rest.”
Zachary nodded.
Joshua was going through the forms under his counter, rattling papers. “I’ll need to get your signed statement on what went on over at the bar. Did you get any other names? The manager’s?”
“No… some guy dressed as a cowboy.”
“Don’t they all dress as cowboys over there?”
“I imagine so.”
Joshua rolled his eyes. “Then that’s not exactly helpful, is it? I’ll send some officers over there to find out what they can before anyone finishes their shifts.”
He shoved a stack of forms at Zachary. “If you want to move down the counter here while you fill those out, I’d better deal with some of these people waiting behind you. Okay?”
Zachary did as he was told, filling the forms out in his neatest printing, trying to make sure that he got all the pertinent details. It took a good length of time to go through all of them. He sidled closer to Joshua as he finished up with another citizen.
“Done?”
“Here you go.”
“Everything signed?” Joshua thumbed through them to make sure that Zachary had signed in all of the appropriate places. He picked up his radio again and made an inquiry. Zachary couldn’t make out the staticky response and code talk and waited for Joshua to fill him in.
“They got her,” Joshua said with a satisfied nod. “The two of them together in the hotel room, just getting friendly.”
Zachary sighed. Things didn’t usually move so quickly. He felt like he had run a race when all he’d done was stand at the counter.
“And she is one of the students at Montgomery’s school,” Joshua informed him.
“I can’t believe it. How did she think she was going to get away with it?”
“In my experience, we never catch them the first time. They’ve always gotten away with it before. Sometimes dozens of times. Predators don’t just hunt once.”
“Well… thank you for getting right on it. I feel like I did something good today.”
Joshua offered a handshake, and they clasped tightly. “You did do something good today. That girl’s parents are going to be indebted to you.” He released Zachary’s hand. “Who was your client? Montgomery’s husband?”
“I can’t discuss private client matters with you… but that would be a good guess.”
“Take care, my friend. You should sleep well tonight. The sleep of the just.”
Zachary could only wish.
His eyes were puffy and bloodshot in the morning, and it wasn’t because of a couple of beers with Kenzie. Far from being able to sleep soundly because he had done something good, Zachary hadn’t even been able to lie down to try to sleep. He was too wired. His head whirled with anxiety over how many other students Montgomery had preyed upon, what he was going to tell Mr. Montgomery about his wife’s activities, and how he was going to explain going to the police with the information.
But
he’d had to. He couldn’t stand by while a minor was in danger. He might not be a mandatory reporter, but he couldn’t ignore it and leave it up to the client, who might be too embarrassed to do anything.
In the small hours of the morning, he had gone through as much of his busy work as he could, preparing final reports and invoices, finalizing the Senatorial background checks, and for a while just browsing through the various Facebook accounts he was keeping track of. Socially acceptable cyberstalking.
He was just trying to rev his engine with a second cup of coffee when the phone rang. Looking at the screen, Zachary saw that it was Isabella. The idea that she would have any reason to call him made him feel unaccountably worried. She hadn’t exactly approved of Molly hiring him in the first place. She had answered questions but hadn’t been particularly cooperative. Had something happened? Maybe to Molly or Spencer? He was pretty sure she wouldn’t be calling him to tell him she had remembered something new from Declan’s last day. Or maybe that she’d found the box of cold pills so he could see what their active ingredients were.
Zachary swallowed hard and answered the call. “Goldman Investigations.”
“Is this Zachary?”
“Yes. Isabella. Hi. What can I help you with?”
“It’s nothing, really. Nothing that will be of any help to your case. I just thought… I wanted someone to share it with.”
Zachary breathed slowly and evenly, wishing it would calm the wild pounding of his heart.
“Sure. What is it?”
“Mittens. He came back.”
“What?” Zachary couldn’t find the words.
“Mittens. My cat. Remember I told you about him? Well, the cat came back.”
“Your cat… that disappeared eight years ago.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“He came back.”
“Yes.” She sounded pleased; happy and relaxed like she hadn’t ever sounded before. “The cat came back.”
“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” Zachary demanded, unable to wrap his mind around it. A cat disappears for eight years and then comes back? Was she imagining that a stray she saw was her old cat, Mittens? Maybe she’d even tempted one into the house with a bowl of kibble?
“Of course, do you think I wouldn’t know my own cat? He came to the door. He was yowling and scratching to get in. When I let him in, he went straight for his bowl.” For eight years, she had emptied and refilled that bowl, and she sounded triumphant. Nobody had believed the cat would ever return, but she had continued to feed it, and she had been right.
“That’s pretty amazing. What did… what did your husband have to say about it? He saw the cat?”
“What, do you think it’s my imagination? Am I that deranged?”
She could be. Zachary didn’t know. Maybe she had finally snapped and gone over the edge. Having lost too much, she had decided to resurrect her old pet. She did sound manic.
“Of course, Spencer saw it. He was surprised. But it’s Mittens. He knows it’s Mittens.” Isabella’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. “Spencer doesn’t exactly like cats. They shed, you know, and their litter tracks. It’s just so amazing. I’m so happy. And I think… it must be a good omen for the case. I think that since Mittens came back, that must mean… that you are going to find something in Declan’s case. You’re going to figure it all out.”
“Yes,” Zachary agreed. “Maybe I will.”
Zachary had called Kenzie several times, but she wasn’t returning his calls. He took a quick look at her social networks to confirm that she was not sick or out of town, but she was posting the same type of stuff as usual. He gave her a couple of days. If she had been put off by Bridget’s call, she would need a couple of days to cool off. She’d found out a lot about him all at once, and she was apparently the type who needed to think about it for a while before she felt comfortable talking to him again.
It was a painful couple of days. He also called Molly and told her that he would be preparing his final report shortly, wishing that he could have uncovered something new like Isabella had suggested.
“What did you find?” Molly demanded.
“That will all be in my report.”
“But you can tell me what you found. Tell me whether you found anything to indicate that it wasn’t just an accident. I’ll wait for your report, but you can tell me that, can’t you?”
“I… I really can’t. My investigation was… inconclusive. I didn’t uncover anything that the police didn’t already know, but there were a few facts that… I think could lead in other directions.”
“So, there was someone else involved? Someone took him?”
Zachary didn’t like being forced into a corner, especially before he had a chance to write his report. Once he laid it all out in a report, he could just reference the appropriate paragraphs and say, ‘it’s all there.’ He didn’t ad lib well.
“It’s possible, but I didn’t find anything that could be used to persuade the police to look into it further. I don’t know what help that is.”
“But at least… we would know. Maybe something would come up later on down the line that would let us pursue it. For now… at least we’d know that it wasn’t just… negligence.”
The way that she said the word made Zachary flash back to his own childhood. Missed meals, ratty clothes that didn’t fit, absent caregivers, institutions with thin, hard mattresses and exploitative staff. He held tightly to his phone, and breathed in the smell of stale coffee, trying to ground himself in the present. Declan hadn’t been neglected. He’d had two parents who loved and cared for him. He’d been well-fed and clothed. They might not have been perfect, but they were there for him.
The way Molly said it made him wonder what had happened in her past. Had she been the neglected child? Or was she the negligent parent? Or both? Did she hire Zachary because she wanted to assuage her own guilt rather than Isabella’s? Maybe she needed to believe that she had raised Isabella to be a good, caring mother, not an emotional wreck who couldn’t care for herself, let alone a child. Or a cat.
“I’ll write up my report,” Zachary promised. He looked at the calendar. “I’ll try to get it to you by Friday.”
“That’s Christmas Eve.”
It was, but Zachary didn’t understand why that made it a bad day for him to finish his report. Wasn’t it good to have it settled before Christmas so that they could be at peace during the season of peace and goodwill blah, blah, blah?
“Right. Christmas Eve,” he agreed. “I’ll have it to you by then.”
But Zachary hadn’t written it yet. He had scribbled down some notes. He had made an outline. He had tried to summarize his thoughts, but he couldn’t do it without putting down the words of the report first, to get everything laid out and itemized.
He found himself avoiding his computer, knowing that the work was waiting for him there.
Instead, he decided to go to the medical examiner’s office to see if Kenzie were around. If she weren’t busy, they could chat for a few minutes. Hopefully, things would be pretty quiet with the Christmas season approaching. People would be going on vacation. Just a skeleton staff at the police station.
Down in the basement, a few red garlands had been strung along the top of the wall, but it didn’t make it look festive. It just made it look like a bare, clinical hallway with a tattered red garland running along the top. Like when Zachary had pulled discarded garlands from his neighbor’s garbage and tied them to his tricycle. In his mind, he was going to make it into something fabulous, like Santa’s sleigh; but it had just been a beat-up old tricycle with streamers tied to the handlebars. He’d gotten in big trouble for stealing from the neighbor’s garbage.
Kenzie was at her desk. She hadn’t gone on vacation. She had reports stacked up, but it didn’t look like she was so busy she couldn’t even return a phone call. She looked up at him with an expectant smile, and then some of it dribbled away, leaving her looking serious and questioning. Like h
e wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Happy holidays,” Zachary told her. He hadn’t brought her a gift. It hadn’t occurred to him until then that he might need a little something to break the ice. She was looking awfully cold.
“Merry Christmas, Zachary,” she returned, face like stone.
“You decorated. It’s very pretty.”
“It wasn’t me. I think it looks pathetic.”
“Yeah… it does.”
“Then why did you tell me it was pretty? I don’t want you telling me stuff that’s not true, just because you think it sounds good or is what I want to hear. I can’t stand you lying to me.”
Zachary licked his lips. “I’m not lying.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“I don’t think you’re very good at telling the truth, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. You haven’t had much practice with it. You’d rather tell stories than actually figure out the truth and say that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t lie to you.”
“I don’t think you even know what the truth is.”
Zachary shifted his feet anxiously. “Who told you I lied? I can’t think of anyone who would tell you that, except Bridget. Why would you talk to Bridget?”
She just looked at him, and Zachary knew he’d hit the nail on the head. She had been talking to Bridget. Why, he didn’t know. Had she approached Bridget? Had Bridget approached Kenzie? He couldn’t understand why either one of them would want to talk to the other.
“She said she told you right from the beginning that she didn’t want kids. It shouldn’t have been any great shock that she wanted to terminate an unplanned, unexpected pregnancy.”
“I… didn’t say it was a surprise… but I was still hurt. Do you know how it hurts, to have someone tell you they don’t want your baby? A part of you? A child would have really made us into a family.”
“She says that you were always pushing having children, right from the start, even though she said she wasn’t ready. When she felt like you were forcing a pregnancy on her…”
Zachary winced. It was a slap in the face. She made it sound like he had assaulted Bridget. That he had impregnated her against her will. They had always used birth control. He had been willing to wait until she was ready.
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