“Daddy?”
His heart never failed to warm at the word. “Yes, my sweet?”
“Is it dangerous here at Ellery’s house?”
Reed halted with his fork in midair. “Why do you ask?”
“Because there’s three locks on the front door.”
At this, his heart sagged. Ellery’s keys resembled an old-time jailor’s, one for each cell, but her home held a single prisoner. “That just means it’s extra safe here, right?” He ruffled Tula’s short, baby-fine hair.
“I guess.” She shoveled in a few bites of fruit. “But we’re sleeping at the hotel tonight, right?”
“That’s the plan.” The clock on the microwave said it was almost eight, and the city lights flicked on outside the windows. He’d spent half his life chasing missing children, and the nights were always sharpest, when time stretched like a blade across his skin. He knew in his gut that Chloe Lockhart’s bed would go empty tonight.
“Daddy?” Tula’s voice jolted him from his dark thoughts.
“Yes?”
“You know how you moved out of our house and got a different apartment near us in Virginia?”
Reed and Sarit had split up two years ago when she’d asked him for a separation and suggested he move out. You’re gone so much as it is, she’d said, and the implication was clear: she and Tula would barely feel the difference. “Yes. I wanted to be close to you.”
“When we move to Houston, will you get an apartment there, too? Or will you move up here and live with Ellery?”
Reed’s stomach seized. “What? Who said anything about moving to Houston?”
“Mama.” Tula popped a raspberry into her mouth. “She was talking about it with Randy because he got a job there.”
“She hasn’t said anything to me about it.”
“That’s ’cause she’s afraid you’ll blow your lid off.” She peered up at him, concerned. “You’re not going to blow your lid, are you?”
Reed’s hand went to his cell phone, tightening his fingers around the hard edges. He had a hundred choice words he’d like to share with Sarit, none of which he could repeat in the company of his daughter. Sarit had primary physical custody, but they shared legal custody fifty-fifty and he didn’t believe she could just up and move to Houston without consulting him. The problem was: he wasn’t sure she couldn’t. “No,” he managed at last. He forced himself to let go of the phone. “I’m not going to blow my lid off. And no one is moving to Houston right now—especially since we have that ice cream waiting in the fridge.”
Tula cheered and hopped down to dance around, causing the hound to run in circles while howling his head off. Reed was happy to give him the bacon leftovers just to stop the noise. Later, Tula fell asleep watching television on one end of Ellery’s couch with Bump curled up snoring at the other. They shared an afghan covering both of them, and it was so damned adorable that Reed snapped a picture on his phone, not even caring that it could be used as evidence that he’d reneged on his promise to Sarit not to bring Tula to Ellery’s house. At least he wasn’t talking about moving her here.
He sat in the armchair next to the sofa, the one that faced the door, so he could watch for the moment Ellery would walk through it. His laptop rested atop his thighs unopened. He knew the horrors that awaited within it, the ugliness of a case that involved a dead boy with a bag over his head. He looked instead to Tula, who slumbered as she had as a baby with one fist tucked beneath her chin. Her face had lost some roundness over the past year. She’d grown two inches and started to ask hard questions, like why people with brown skin had been slaves in America and whether that could happen again to her or her mother. Or whether the monsters Reed hunted could ever come for her. Years ago, Reed had spent one agonizing weekend contorted into different painful positions, screwing on outlet covers and safety latches so that Tula could toddle around the house. These plastic protections had disappeared one by one as she grew and now Reed had no shield against the real threats that awaited them. What an audacious act it is to bring a child into this world, he thought. Babies were born every minute into uncertain futures. Guns and locks and fences failed; monsters could wear a human face. You had to believe somehow that your child would be different, blessed and safe. He looked again to the couch where Tula sighed, content for now with her dreams.
* * *
At quarter to eleven, Reed answered a knock on the door. He flipped the three locks to reveal Ellery, looking drawn and tired, on the other side. Her tight ponytail from this morning was now sloppy and frizzed out and there were shadows under her eyes. He didn’t need to ask if there had been any good news. “Stop looking at me like that,” she said as she dragged herself over the threshold. “I got enough of it from Dorie.”
“When did you last eat?” Reed said as he shut the door behind her. She waited to watch him flip all three locks. “I can make you some pancakes.”
“I’m not hungry.”
This registered in the red zone on the Ellery Alert Scale. “You have to eat something. I have fruit salad if you’d prefer that.”
“I just said I wasn’t hungry.” She went to the refrigerator and got out a can of Coke. The dog’s nails tap-danced across the wood floor as he circled her in greeting. She reached down to rub his ears, and when she rose up she saw Reed still watching her. “Stop it. You’re looking like you expect me to crack up or something. I’m just tired.”
She popped the top on the soda and drained it in one go. Ellery, he knew, had cracked long ago. She’d put herself back together so tightly that you had to be up close to see the damage, which explained why she didn’t usually let anyone get that near. “Let me make you some pancakes,” he repeated as she started picking the grapes out of the leftover fruit salad. “You can tell me how the rest of the day went.”
“If you saw the news at all then you already know,” she said as she took a seat on the stool that Tula had occupied earlier. “It’s all over town now.”
“I heard there was a suspect.”
“For about ten minutes.” She told him about Frank Brimwood, his bloody shirt, and his assessment of the Lockhart house as a virtual prison.
“I imagine having someone come in and murder your first child could make you more cautious with the second. Do you think Mr. Brimwood is on to something? Could Chloe have run away?” He tested the griddle and was satisfied by the sizzle.
“It’s possible.” Ellery stretched across the island to grab another grape. “We have CCTV footage of her from a jewelry store across from the Public Garden. It’s just a glimpse because there were so many people downtown today, but it’s definitely her. She left the grounds on her own and headed west. Conroy is trying to get more video to see if we can pick her up down the road.”
“Can I see it?” Reed asked as he dropped the batter in silver-dollar circles into the hot pan.
“Yeah, sure. Let me get my laptop.” Bump accompanied his mistress on even this short errand, pendulous ears swaying with his waddle. She cued up the video and then scratched the dog’s head while Reed finished cooking her late supper. He studied the black-and-white footage as she picked at his offerings.
The camera was trained to catch people coming into the store, so pedestrians walking past the glass display windows out front were only incidental. They streamed past like salmon, thick and crowded on the summer city street. A slight girl came into view on the right side. She was blond and her T-shirt and shorts matched the description for Chloe Lockhart. “She’s got a cell phone,” Reed remarked, noting the small rectangular object in her hand.
“Yes. Her friend McKenna says someone gave Chloe a second phone, but she swears she doesn’t know who it is. Chloe wouldn’t tell her. The Lockharts had no idea Chloe even had a second phone, and neither did the nanny.”
“This could have been planned in advance, then.”
“That’s Conroy’s current thinking. Chloe’s gone off to meet whoever gave her that phone.”
Reed looked at the
girl on the screen. She walked with purpose, her eyes forward. She definitely had a destination in mind. He set the video in motion again and watched her exit to the left side. Four seconds in total. Not much to go on. He watched it several times more. “Do you have any additional footage from this camera?”
“That’s all you see of her.”
“I know. I mean a longer clip—before and after Chloe shows up.”
Ellery swung the laptop around and called up a different video. “Here’s all we have. It’s a fifteen-minute chunk that chops off just after Chloe goes by.” She scraped most of her supper into the dog’s dish and cleared the counter while Reed studied the video. “I’m going to shower and change,” she said. “Are you taking Tula back to the hotel?”
The late hour and the vulnerable slump of her shoulders bade him to stay. Ellery did not like to admit she needed him, ever, so he tried to glean it from her body language. Only sometimes did he wonder if he was deluding himself. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll bunk here tonight. She’s out cold.”
Ellery played it off with a shrug. “Suit yourself.”
While she showered, he examined the video with repeating viewings, each time focusing on a different quadrant of the screen. Several vignettes caught his attention. He saw a toddler with a poof-ball ponytail on top of her head take a pratfall and skin her knees on the sidewalk before being scooped up into her mother’s arms. Elsewhere, a young couple lingered at the front of the jewelry store, perhaps discussing an engagement ring, since the woman’s left hand currently appeared to be empty. A freckled kid bouncing on and off the curb dropped an ice-cream cone; ten seconds later a passing German shepherd hoovered it up. Reed squinted and leaned in to study a shadowed figure in the upper right corner, just visible across the street. It appeared to be a man of indiscriminate age and race—not a kid, not a senior citizen, but he could be anywhere in between. His skin appeared gray due to the black-and-white video, and the camera was too far to make out any facial features. He wore a dark baseball cap and sunglasses. Reed noticed him because he was the only presence in the video not moving, which gave the impression that he waited for someone or something. Reed had difficulty discerning anything further because of the crowd that amassed in front of him every time the streetlight changed. Indeed, the man disappeared behind a mob as Chloe crossed in front of the camera. By the time she was gone again, so was he.
Ellery returned with her usual sleep attire, a T-shirt and soft cotton shorts, which showed off her bare arms and legs. Normally, he didn’t even notice the scars Coben had left on her body, but tonight they screamed his name. Reed averted his eyes. “Were you able to find out anything on the earlier incident Teresa mentioned?” she asked as she took a seat next to him. “The one involving the death of her son?”
Reed scrubbed his tired eyes with both hands. “I’ve contacted Philly for the details, but there is a lot of information available even via web searches if you know to look for it.” The local papers had carried 72-point headlines:
YOUNG BOY, HOUSEKEEPER SLAIN
NO SUSPECTS IN MURDER OF TREVOR STONE
CHILD KILLER STILL AT LARGE
“It’s late, so let me just tell you the one key fact Teresa didn’t mention,” he said. “The main suspect was Trevor Stone’s half brother, Justin. He’s Ethan Stone’s son from a previous marriage. He was seventeen at the time and apparently had a serious drug habit. The theory was that he wanted his little brother’s birthday money.”
Ellery gave a slow blink. “Then couldn’t he have just … taken it? Murdering your little brother for his birthday money seems like a seriously drastic step.”
“Rumor has it the grandparents forked over five hundred dollars for Trevor’s recent birthday. But yes, I agree, murdering your brother is a big leap from simple theft. I think the Philadelphia investigators were grasping for any kind of motive. In the end, though, no charges were ever filed.”
“Where is Justin Stone now?”
“That will be one of the questions I ask Philly when I talk to them tomorrow.” He shut his laptop and looked at his watch. “Which starts in about half an hour. Maybe we should get some rest, hmm?”
The dog was already snoring at her feet. “Sure. Okay.”
She took her time brushing her teeth, while he idled beneath the sheets. When at last she reappeared in the bedroom, she moved to lock the door as usual. “For Tula, can we leave it open tonight?” he said, rising up from the bed on one arm. “I don’t want her to wake up and not be able to find me.”
Ellery’s capitulation came slower this time. A short nod. Her shoulders tensed, but she slid beneath the sheets without argument. He took off his watch and set it on the nightstand, all the while trying not to notice the way her eyes kept finding the open door. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he would keep her safe, but she believed in doors, not people. I love you, he’d said to her, after his family had exploded and it had been just the two of them standing in the smoking ruins. He’d spoken the words out loud only once. Now he waited for her to catch up.
When he shut off the bedside light, he expected her to turn away from him and lie rigid through the night, but she rolled to face him in the dark. “Tell me about the children who make it back,” she whispered. He took her in his arms, the way he’d longed to do since he’d stepped off the plane with Tula what felt like a million years ago. She had taught him how to hold her—full body, but not too tight. He smoothed his hand over the supple plane of her back and inhaled the fragrant scent of her hair.
“What do you want to know?” he murmured as she worried the hem of his T-shirt between her fingers.
“There are people who take kids because they want to love them, right? They’re just mixed up and they want a kid really bad.”
“It happens.” Mostly to babies, he did not say.
“You’ve seen it?” she asked, raising her head, trying to peer at him to see the truth.
He hedged some more. “Once.”
Ellery settled down uneasily, her cheek to his chest. He could feel the tickle of her eyelashes in her rapid blinking, and he fought the urge to pull her deeper into his arms. She did not cuddle under normal circumstances. He was lucky if she slept an entire night in the same bed with him, so he was not surprised when she shifted away after a few minutes and curled into her usual ball, facing the door. “Good night,” she murmured, signaling that she was done with him till morning.
He stared at the inky shadows on her ceiling and thought about the case he’d mentioned. His team had tracked a nine-year-old girl taken from her large, religious family by another woman who’d left the religion, claiming it was a cult. Both the family and the kidnapper lived off the grid, and the woman had moved around with the child multiple times over a period of several years. The girl was fourteen by the time they found her. Reed got to travel out to the family’s cabin in the woods to share the good news. Her stoic parents had been grateful at last for the law’s intrusion into their lives now that their girl was safe and sound. The trouble was, she no longer wanted to go home.
6
The day Ellery got assigned to train with Doreen Bennett, Dorie had shaken her hand, looked her straight in the eyes, and said, “Captain Conroy said someone has to show you how to do this job without you acting like everyone is out to get you all the time. He asked me if I was up to the task.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I said from what I’d read, everyone is out to get you. Leastways, a piece of you.”
Ellery’s ears had turned hot. People recognized her all the time, but rarely did she ever feel seen. “There’s another movie coming out next month,” she’d admitted. Hollywood liked to remake the Coben story every few years, and now they had a new chapter to add.
“Oh, yeah? Who’s playing you?”
Ellery had feigned indifference. “I don’t know.”
“Ha, that’s bullshit,” Dorie snorted with good humor. “Tell me who it is.”
�
��Sophia Bush,” Ellery muttered to the floor.
Dorie had let out a low whistle and clapped her hands in appreciation. “Damn, she’s fine.” Later, when they drove out with Ellery behind the wheel, Dorie had put on her sunglasses and stared straight ahead. “Listen, Sophia or no Sophia, I won’t be watching that movie. I make up my own mind about people.”
“What about what Conroy said?”
“James Conroy is a good guy and he’s my boss, but I don’t work for him. I work for the citizens of Boston, because their money pays my checks. They’re the ones trusting me with their lives. As long as you do right by them, you’ll be right with me.”
Five months on, Ellery clung hard to her good standing. Dorie was watching her with a new intensity, though, as they worked the Lockhart case. “You get much sleep last night?” she asked when Ellery picked her up.
“Did you?”
They had a twelve-year-old girl missing in the city. No one with a badge slept easy last night. Dorie didn’t press her, and as Ellery rolled up in front of the Lockhart estate in Brookline, Dorie peered over the edges of her shades. “Wowzers. I guess the rich people have to live somewhere, so why not here?”
Ellery took in the wrought-iron fence, the impeccably trimmed landscaping, and the stately white-brick home set well behind it. As Frank Brimwood mentioned, there were bars on the windows—ornate and bronzed, designed to look ornamental but bars nonetheless. Ellery also spotted three different security cameras. “I can’t guess the first numbers in the price, but I guarantee it back-ends with a ton of zeroes.” They were there to view Chloe’s living situation for any clues to her whereabouts, as well as prod the Lockharts for further information. “Wave for the cameras,” Ellery said as they went up the walk.
“Which ones—the news vans outside or the security cameras fixed at the front door?”
Every Waking Hour Page 5