The epidermis on a patch of Audrey’s forearm had been scraped away, but the dermis underneath remained intact, and there were no lacerations that would require stitches.
Still, though there wasn’t much blood, the suddenly exposed nerve endings made Audrey flinch at every touch. With patients, I easily distanced myself, knowing any short-term pain I was causing was in pursuit of long-term healing. But this was Audrey.
Cradling my daughter’s arm over the sink, I irrigated the wound with a syringe until it was free of dirt and the bits of asphalt. Every time she winced or cried out, her pain may as well have been mine. I gritted my teeth and applied an antiseptic wash to my daughter’s forearm, careful not to damage the skin further.
“Almost done?” Audrey asked, biting her lip.
My brave girl. “Almost done,” I confirmed. I slathered the wound with an antibiotic ointment and used adhesive tape to secure a dry dressing to Audrey’s arm.
I looked up at the clock. The distance between me and Leo had grown another six minutes. In the heat of the chase, if I hadn’t left my phone behind, I would’ve called 911. But that was before the note planted on my daughter: Talk to the police and Leo dies.
The text, too, had warned me against calling the police. Would the person who pushed Audrey from that car even know if I made that call? Was there surveillance here that Perla had missed? The texts I’d received the day before had mentioned my interaction with Officer Torres, and I’d assumed my phone had been compromised. But what if I’d blamed technology for what had been human treachery?
Who could I trust with Leo’s life?
I returned my attention to my daughter. There wasn’t time for questions, but I asked the one that mattered, “What happened?”
“I think I fell.”
“No, not your arm. Back at Daryl’s,” I said. It hit me then: I had no idea what had happened to Daryl, or to my father. The last I had seen of Daryl, he had been unconscious in the texted picture. And my father . . .
“I played with Lester,” Audrey said.
“When I saw you in that car, I couldn’t see who was with you.”
“Was it Daryl?”
“I don’t know. Was it?”
Audrey thought about it. “I don’t think so. He took a nap.”
“Did you take a nap too?” When Audrey nodded, I asked, “Were you tired?”
Audrey shrugged. My mind raced through the options. A paralytic would incapacitate Daryl and the kids, but it would also prevent them from breathing. And how would the assailant get it anyway?
A sedative like flunitrazepam was easier to come by, but Audrey didn’t seem to have any withdrawal symptoms. Headache. Disorientation. Seizures. She likely would have experienced some of this had she been given a dose large enough to knock her out.
Then there was the matter of time. If hidden in food or drink, a sedative could take hours to work to full effect.
An injection? It certainly would act more quickly, but again, there was the question of access.
It wasn’t an easy thing to knock out three people simultaneously, or four if I counted my father, even if two of them were children.
“When I was in the car, the man mentioned ghosts.”
My daughter’s words caught me off guard. “What?”
“He was talking to someone, and he mentioned whining ghosts.”
I knew Audrey was getting her words mixed up, probably because of the sedative, but I pushed. “He was talking to someone on the phone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did he say a name?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Just the ghosts. Mommy, where’s Leo?”
My head swam with questions and with thoughts so dark that, for a moment, I could see nothing else. But I forced myself back into the moment and to the question I had asked myself moments earlier: Who could I trust with Leo’s life?
I picked up the handset of the clinic’s landline and dialed Detective Rico, but the call was interrupted by the jingle of the bell attached to the front door. Though the clinic was closed, someone had just entered the building.
41
I squeezed my daughter’s shoulder with a hand gone suddenly clammy. “Stay behind me, okay?”
I grabbed a pair of bandage scissors and moved into the lobby, where I found Detective Rico standing near the pet food display. He was back to wearing a tie, this one covered in rubber ducks. He tried out a smile, but it strained his cheeks, adding tension to his face.
“I was just calling you,” I said.
“Were you?” He gestured toward the scissors I held in my fist. “What are those for?”
“To stab someone in the neck, but apparently I won’t be needing them.” I slipped the scissors in my pocket. “Why’re you here?”
“You weren’t hard to find. Your name’s on the door.” He motioned toward the broken window. “Plus, there’s the alarm you triggered.”
I leaned against the wall to steady myself. “How are they?” I asked, my voice weary.
Rico stared at me, unblinking, eyes no longer hooded. “Your father and Daryl? They’re okay.”
So my father had been drugged too.
I hesitated, uncertain how much to tell him.
Talk to the police and Leo dies.
“What’s going on here, Cassie?”
I wanted to trust him, needed to trust somebody, but I knew that a missing adult and an abducted child were two very different police matters. The moment I told Rico that Leo had been taken, the case would get loud, quickly: An Amber Alert would be issued; details about that white sedan carrying my son would be flashed across digital billboards and cell phone screens. The Feds would be called in, and all available law enforcement would be alerted to my son’s disappearance. Rico would probably request the records of the number that had texted me, even if it was likely a fruitless search.
Then there was Audrey, who would become a witness. Would Rico be the one to interview her? A child psychologist? I didn’t know.
But I did know that even if every law enforcement official between here and Canada mobilized, even if the whir of a thousand helicopter rotors lent the sky the appearance of Armageddon, and, hell, even if the goddess of luck herself materialized in my lobby with a satchel of rabbits’ feet and four-leaf clovers and promises of good fortune, it wouldn’t be enough. This was Leo. My son. He had been taken, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to get him back—and that included trusting Rico.
Aware that the note I had been given warned against it, I nevertheless took a breath and said, “Leo’s been taken.”
Though Detective Rico didn’t move, not at first, the pulse of the room quickened.
“I figured it was something like that,” he said, his voice as weary as mine had been moments earlier. At my look of surprise, Rico’s lids lowered again until only small wedges of his eyes were visible as he laid it out for me. “You got to Daryl’s ahead of us. You were in his Honda, found disabled at the scene, and now you’re driving his truck. I ran the plates. You wouldn’t have walked away from Daryl and your dad, unconscious like that . . . unless someone took your children,” he said, looking at my daughter, “and then pushed one of them out of the car.”
In my mind, I saw it again: Audrey tumbling onto the road, discarded from the moving car like a fast-food wrapper or the butt of a cigarette. I assumed the driver would just as quickly dispose of my son if he no longer served a purpose.
“I guess this means Leo’s no longer a suspect?” My voice cracked on the question.
“I had to consider all the angles.” A hint of an apology. He tightened his rubber-duck tie and started in on the questions:
What happened?
What did you see?
What direction was the white sedan headed?
Can you describe the driver?
Then he excused himself to make some calls. I used the break to place my own call, to my father.
Wh
en Rico returned, I knew that in telling him, everything had changed. What little control I’d had I had just yielded to the Santa Rosa Police Department. I didn’t know how I felt about that.
The detective’s gaze dropped to my daughter, pinned to my side.
“Audrey, right?” He didn’t lean down or soften his gaze when addressing her, as other adults might have done.
She tucked herself mostly behind my back, only her head and one shoulder visible to the detective. He motioned to her hidden arm. “With all that gauze, that must be a terrible injury.”
“I fell,” Audrey said. Exhaustion made the simple explanation sound like deceit, even to me.
“Oh?”
“I think I was pushed from a car.”
Rico’s jaw clenched, but he kept his tone neutral. “Who pushed you?”
I was as interested as the detective in my daughter’s answer, but she just shrugged with her uninjured arm.
Rico’s eyes narrowed, an expression I had come to recognize: he was preparing to ask a question I wouldn’t like. I braced myself, but instead of asking his question, he looked down at Audrey. I knew what his silence implied.
“Why don’t you draw a picture?”
I ushered my daughter to Zoe’s desk, tucking her into a chair with a fistful of pens and a notepad.
With Audrey out of earshot, Rico continued, his voice quiet. “No chance Sam did this?”
It was a challenge to keep my own voice from rising. “Of course not.”
“You sure?” When I remained silent, he said, “I once arrested a guy who tried to smother his toddler because his ex-wife got custody. She thought her husband was a bastard, but she never imagined he’d do anything like that.”
“Sam’s not a bastard.”
“He might not be, but do you know what makes a good cop? A good cop doesn’t assume. You see a guy pushing a car down the street, you don’t assume he ran out of gas. Maybe he stole the car. You stop that guy pushing the car, and you ask him what’s up. So I’m asking. Could this be a custody thing?”
I glanced at the exit. A thickening gloom had settled against the glass, the tall hedge outside the door blocking all light, erasing all that had existed beyond the clinic lobby. A cold wind breached the shattered window, but I fought back the shiver.
“If Sam were involved, he wouldn’t have pushed Audrey from a moving car,” I said.
“If your husband’s working with someone, it might’ve been that person who pushed her, or maybe Sam figured one kid was better than none.”
“Leo’s fifteen. It’s hard enough getting him to do his laundry. There’s no way he’d go along with being yanked out of his life like that.”
Rico shrugged. “Like I said, just asking the questions.”
I glanced at the clock again. In a blink, the minute hand had jumped from one number to the next. Five more minutes gone.
“We’ll need to talk to Audrey more, find out as much as we can about what happened.”
“Of course.”
“You available to go to the station now?”
Another request that wasn’t one.
Studying Rico’s face, I was reminded of the day Leo had started day care. I had been terrified. Sam had done hours of research finding our provider, and the woman had come with triple-checked reviews. Under her nurturing hand, Leo had developed a love of storybooks and lingonberry pancakes, and she had a saintly patience for his tantrums. But the truth of it was if we had been unable to meet her weekly fee, the relationship would have ended. She had cared for Leo, but no stranger, no matter how carefully picked, could be expected to love with the same abandon and sacrifice as a parent.
I suddenly doubted my decision to involve the detective. Even if he was the best in his department, even if he had citations and awards enough to fill a swimming pool, there were still rules he needed to follow. There were reports to file, and interdepartmental cooperation to arrange. Leo didn’t have that kind of time. The last note had said “today,” and there weren’t that many hours left before today became tomorrow.
“Of course I’ll come to the station,” I lied.
He touched my arm briefly, and I met his gaze, the intensity of his compassion making my eyes water.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a sigh rattling his chest. “I’ve been watching my salt for a week, but right now I’d kill for a bag of Doritos.” He pulled a folded square of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, then showed it to me. “Do you recognize this guy?”
As I studied the photo, my heart thundered. The man was bald like Carver, but that was where the similarities ended. Carver was older, all angles and scars, while the man in the photo had a long face—softer in the cheeks, thinner in the lips.
It was the man who had answered Helen’s door. Was it also the driver of the white sedan?
“I saw him at Helen’s house. Who is he?”
“Damon Kripke.”
I swallowed around the knot in my throat. “What’s his connection?”
“Haven’t worked out motive yet, but he’s got a record more extensive than my collection of novelty ties, and some of the evidence is starting to point in his direction.”
“What evidence?”
“Helen for one. Hannah Zimmerman too. Both of them ID’d Kripke as the guy who paid them. And there’s the video you forwarded to me. It’s hard to say, but he looks to be the guy who was following your husband and Brooklyn.”
He paused, in that way that told me he was holding something back.
“What else?”
“I followed up on that name you mentioned—Megan. As far as I can tell, Delphine didn’t have any other children.”
I heard the hesitation in his statement. “But?”
“It’s probably a coincidence, but the timeline’s right.” Rico spoke slowly, as if measuring each word. “In the late seventies, a three-month-old girl with that name was abducted from a grocery store in Fresno.”
Before I could push for details, Audrey rushed over to show us what she had drawn. I thought it might be a cat.
“Cool elephant,” Rico said, and she beamed.
“It’s eating peanuts.”
He noticed my look of surprise and shrugged. “My youngest is an artist too. Who do you think picks my ties?”
Audrey stood on her toes so she could see the paper Rico had shown me of Damon Kripke. She tugged on the sleeve of my sweatshirt and pointed. “That’s him, Mommy,” she said. “That’s the guy who left the note about Daddy being a pedophile. Did I say that right?”
Rico’s eyebrows knitted together. That was one part of the story I hadn’t shared with him.
“You and your mom are going to come to the station with me. You okay with that?”
As Audrey nodded, I glanced away, guilt drawing my eyes to the window I’d broken to gain access to the clinic. Glass fragments glinted on the tile beneath the window. On another day, the shards would’ve sent me on an immediate search for a broom and dustpan, worried a patient might injure a paw. Now, the glass seemed no more a threat than the sand from which it had been made.
I was in no hurry to fix it, because what could a thief steal that I would miss? What I valued most had already been taken. “My dad and Audrey can ride with you, if that’s okay. I’ll follow in Daryl’s truck.”
“You sure you’re fine to drive?”
My heart went from a careful plodding to a full-out sprint. “I’m not okay, but I’m capable of driving,” I said.
I pushed open the door, leaving to greet my father before the detective recognized the deception on my face.
42
The patrol car carrying my father pulled alongside the curb in front of the clinic. My father climbed out, but instead of heading toward me as I expected, he lingered at the curb, his back to me, his hands in his pockets. Even after the patrol car drove away and my father turned, he avoided my eyes.
Maybe I had been wrong to call my father. I worried that whatever drug had knocked out my family had
taken a greater toll on him than Audrey. Should he even be here? Finally, my father looked up.
“You okay?” I asked.
He gnawed on his bottom lip, which was pressed into a thin, bloodless line, and his eyes jerked away the moment they connected with mine. There was something there he didn’t want me to see.
At first, I blamed the ashen cast of his skin and clouded eyes on the last of the sedative he’d been given at Daryl’s. I took a step forward, my hand landing on his arm, but he moved away, rejecting my comfort.
“What happened at Daryl’s?”
His chin dropped toward his chest, his gaze with it. “I don’t remember much,” he said. “Any word on Leo?”
Audrey came out the door then, and my father raised an eyebrow at her bandaged arm.
“You’re my grandpa,” she said.
“I am.” He attempted a smile, but it faded before it reached his eyes. I watched my father for several seconds before steering my daughter back toward the door.
“Let’s get you back inside, okay? It’s much too cold out here.”
After settling Audrey back behind the reception desk, I returned to my father to find him pacing. He returned his hands to his pockets and inhaled deeply. The breath escaped but carried no revelation with it.
“I was hoping you could go with Audrey and Detective Rico to the station,” I said.
“Happy to, but where will you be?”
“Right behind you.”
“Let’s not lie to each other anymore.”
I hesitated, then said, voice low, “I need to find Leo. At the station, I’d be useless, and if something happened to him while I was off somewhere sipping coffee from a cardboard cup . . .” I paused, studying him. “Is that what this is?”
“This?”
I gestured in a circular motion near his face. “This. You won’t meet my eyes, you look like crap. You shouldn’t feel guilty about Leo—”
“Of course I should, and I do, but this isn’t about that.”
I’d heard once that you can feel a person’s negative energy from several feet away. The waves coming off my father could’ve been felt on the next block.
No Bad Deed Page 23