Abduction (13 page)

Hiring Frank
to take care of her yard had not been her idea. It had been her father’s. She
frowned, remembering how Frank had shown up one morning with a copy of his
contract.

“Your
father hired me to take care of your lawn this summer. He tells me you travel a
bit. It’s all paid for, Miss. No need to worry about it.”

As much as she wanted to call her father and tell
him once again that she didn’t want any favors from him, she just hadn’t been
able to resist Frank’s forlorn expression when she said she didn’t want the
service.
Five years later, he was still taking care of her yard. Besides, the
man did a great job, even if he had remained
aloof and cool toward her. He mowed the lawn, weeded the flowerbeds, and even
planted flowers if she didn’t get to it. He wasn’t being paid to be friendly.

The engine on
the mower suddenly died, and Zoe looked up to see Frank take a pair of pruning
sheers out of his back pocket.

“Morning,
Frank.”

Frank tipped
his head. “Morning.”

“How’s your
wife, Frank? She feeling better?”

Frank frowned
as he shook his head. “Chemo’s taking its toll.”

“I’m so sorry,
Frank. You’ll give her my best, won’t you?”

The man nodded
and went back to his pruning, and Zoe went back inside to make breakfast. The
whip-whir
of the weed whacker kept her company through a light breakfast of coffee and
toast. Her thoughts kept pulling back to Gina Sarentino. It was a vague pull
she knew well. As soon as she finished breakfast, Zoe called Mrs. Sarentino.

“Would you
mind if I came by? I have a feeling I might be able to find Gina.”

#

Gerry Otis
scratched at the beard he was growing, now nearly two weeks old, and squinted
at the fax he’d just picked up. A detective for nearly thirty years, he had
been passed over for one promotion after another, but unlike most men, Gerry
didn’t take such things to heart. He was content exactly where he was. The way
he figured, the more responsibility he took on at the station, the less time he
had for his wife and four children, and he was nothing if not devoted to his
family.

He’d let the
younger, more ambitious men, like Johnson and Casto, burn out trying to make it
to the top. They didn’t have wives waiting for them at home or children who
needed a father to guide them. He worked his forty to fifty hours at the
station—except when it came to cases like these kidnappings—and gave one night
a week to the church youth, but that was only because his four boys were all
involved in the youth group.

“Anything?
You’re staring at that thing like it has four heads and a forked tail.” Matt
Casto walked up, coffee in hand.

“Close
enough.” Gerry handed the report to Matt. “Check this out. Our Mr. Ted Matthews
seems to have no history before he turned twenty-one.”

Matt glanced
up at him and then down at the report, his lips moving silently as he read.
“Strange. How do you figure this?”

“First guess?
People change their names for a variety of reasons. Bad credit. . .”

“He was only
twenty-one.”

Gerry ignored
the interruption. “. . .don’t like the name they were born with, juvie
problems. . .”

“We need to find out exactly who Matthews was
before he became Edward Matthews.” Matt handed the report back to Gerry.

“I’m on it.”

#

Zoe pulled her
car up to the curb in front of the Sarentino home and stopped. She stared with
admiration at the rambling two-story brick home, the ivy winding its way up one
side of the house, the neat flowerbeds, and the sweeping lawn. It was a
beautiful home. Unfortunately, evil didn’t care what kind of house you lived
in.

At five
minutes until one, Zoe walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The dark
mists of knowing were already swirling through her mind, wrapping themselves
around her senses. She stepped into the Sarentino house and felt the whispers
of death.

#

JJ was pondering lunch prospects—call out for a
sub or head across the street to the diner—when the door to his office suddenly
swung open. Marsha Olsen stuck her head in the door. “You might want to check
out channel five. Seems Mrs. Matthews is on the rampage.”

While Marsha
ducked back out, JJ flipped on the little TV set sitting on a file cabinet.

“. . .and
while Detective Johnson is trying to find some way to point the finger at us,
no one is looking for my baby! And now a third child is missing. How many more
little girls will be taken before Detective Johnson realizes we have a serial
killer out there stalking our children! Please, if any of you have any
information about my Jessica, please contact us.”

Jessica’s picture flashed on the screen along with
head shots of Gina and Emily and a number scrolling below for people to call.
JJ slammed his fist down on the desk. “What is that woman thinking?”

Matt lifted
his coffee cup in a silent salute to Karen Matthews. “That the best way to get
us off her back is to get the press on ours.”

The office
door swung open again. “JJ? Harris wants you in his office.” Marsha rolled her
eyes playfully. “Pronto,” Marsha added in a fair imitation of Harris in full
temper.

“And it
worked,” JJ grumbled under his breath.

JJ had barely
walked through the door of Harris’s office when the tirade started. For five
minutes he sat and listened, gnawing on his impatience like a wolf on a deer
bone.

Harris slammed
his fist down on the desk, sending a pencil flying. No one paid it any
attention. “And now I have the press breathing down my back! What have you been
doing? Playing cards? We have three little girls missing, and you don’t have
one single lead! I want results, not excuses! Matthews doesn’t like psychics?
Tough! Find some way of getting the Shefford woman what she needs! I want those
children found, do you hear me?”

“But we’re
doing. . .”

“I don’t want
to hear it! Just find those little girls!”

JJ stood up,
knowing the tirade had run its course and he had been dismissed. But he knew if
he didn’t come up with something solid soon, he might find himself dismissed
all the way back down to a patrol car on third watch.

Coming out of
the men’s room, Matt fell into step with JJ but didn’t say a word as he
followed him back to his office. What was there to say?

JJ had his
hand on the doorknob when Marsha looked up from her desk. “Phone message, JJ.
The Shefford woman. Says she has to talk to you. It’s important.”

JJ took the pink slip of paper from Marsha. The
last person in the world he wanted to talk to at that moment was Zoe Shefford.
And she probably knew it. Which is why, he surmised, she was calling.

JJ sat down at
his desk and counted to ten before dialing.

“Miss
Shefford. Detective Johnson.” He kept his voice cool and distant. “You called?”

“Yes. I went
by the Sarentino home. I talked to her mother and she allowed me access to
Gina’s room. I think I know where she. . . where she is.”

And pigs
fly with blue wings.
JJ ignored the emotional hitch in Zoe’s voice as he
counted to ten again. “I see. And just where would that be, Miss Shefford?”

There was a
long moment of silence, long enough for JJ to start to wonder if she was still
on the line. Or if she had suddenly disappeared in a mist of shadowy magic.

Rubbing his
eyes, he wondered if he was losing his mind. “Miss Shefford?”

“I’m here. I
think it would be best if you sent a detective over and I showed him.”

JJ sighed
impatiently. Then he saw Harris standing in the doorway, looking as curious as
he was furious. “Fine, Miss Shefford. I’ll be there at once.”

He set the
phone down and stood up, reaching for his jacket. “Miss Shefford thinks she may
have a lead on the Sarentino child.”

Harris
grinned. “About time. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

That somewhere
was ankle-deep in mud as JJ followed Zoe through the woods thirty miles east of
Monroe, ten miles from the Taylor town limits. Two days of rain had brought the
creeks to their limits. Some had overflowed their banks. The saturated ground
sank beneath JJ’s shoes as he and Zoe trudged up a slippery slope and into a
grove of firs.

Dressed in
jeans and boots, Zoe had obviously known what they were about to get into. She
might have warned him—given him a little heads-up that his loafers were going
to be ruined tracking in mud.

Zoe stopped
and started to look around. She was silent.

JJ started to
open his mouth, but Zoe lifted her hand to ask for his silence. He complied.
Not that he had anything to say to her anyway. The last thing he wanted was to
be on some wild-goose chase with this woman. They’d managed to maintain a tense
silence throughout the drive and most of the trek across the mucky terrain.

Zoe slowly
turned in a circle, stopping every few steps, as if waiting for something to
speak to her. Or whatever it was that directed her to do whatever it was she
was doing. JJ shoved his hands in his pockets and waited. Impatiently.

Finally, Zoe
started moving again. A few steps to the left. Stopping again. A few more
steps. Then a few more. Then every drop of color in her face disappeared in a
flash, startling JJ.

“What?”

“She’s here.”
Tears started streaming down Zoe’s face. Slowly she knelt down, oblivious to
the wet ground. She began to brush away the wet leaves and sticks.

JJ joined her.
“What are you doing?”

She shook her
head, frantic now, ignoring the tears as she tore at the ground. “Gina. Gina!”

JJ didn’t know whether the woman had lost her mind
or whether he had. He could only watch as she crawled around on the ground, her
clothes getting muddy and wet, her hands covered in dirt.

Then she
rocked back on her heels and lifted a tattered shirt. Closing her eyes, she
bowed her head, handing the shirt to JJ.

JJ didn’t need
to see it twice. He grabbed his radio.

chapter
11

Monday, April 17

T
he
area had a circus-like atmosphere within half an hour of JJ’s call. Clowns with
cameras and microphones ran around trying to get everyone’s attention.
Ringleaders shouted orders. Jugglers tried to do three things at once. Lions
roared if something wasn’t done fast enough to suit them.

And high above
it all, JJ walked that tightrope—trying to keep order, get things done, and
keep the crime scene clean and the press out of it.

Zoe and JJ had
barely spoken since he’d called for additional detectives and the medical
examiner. She’d followed him silently back to the car and gladly obeyed when he
told her to stay put.

Zoe stood by JJ’s car, her arms wrapped around her
waist as she watched the body bag being carried out of the woods. There wasn’t
much to carry. One man had it cradled in his arms. What had once been a
delightful little girl was now little more than forensic evidence.

It broke Zoe’s
heart.

And it reminded her of another. Another little
girl who had once
laughed and skipped and played. Another little girl
who had woven dreams—dreams that would remain unfulfilled.

Oh, Amy. I will bring you home, sweet sister. I
promise. Somehow I
will bring you home.

Wiping at her
tears, Zoe turned her head and stared over the top of the car, watching a maple
tree swaying in the breeze.
Did you see it happen? Did you stand there,
moving in the breeze when he took her out there into the woods? Did you wish
you could talk or scream or stop him? Did it frustrate you to just stand there,
leaves hanging as you watched? Did you feel helpless? Like I do?

Feeling his
presence, she turned and looked at JJ. She couldn’t speak. Not yet. Closing her
eyes, she swayed.
Here it comes,
she thought.

As it
always does.

A second
later, she collapsed in JJ’s arms.

#

After passing
Zoe off to another officer with instructions to take her home, JJ sat on the
hood of his cruiser waiting for the crime scene investigators to arrive.

He turned his
head as another cruiser pulled up, lights flashing. Groaning, JJ slid off the
hood of the car and prepared himself for the worst.

“Heard you
found one of the girls.”

JJ took a deep
breath. “Yes. The Sarentino girl.”

The man rocked
back on his heels, his hands resting on the belt weighed down by his gun,
radio, handcuffs, and cell phone. “Heard they brought in a psychic.”

There it was.
Just what he’d been waiting for. Delivered on a silver platter with all the
trimmings. “Wasn’t my idea, Dad.”

“Don’t know
what it is with detectives today. Used to be we relied on good old-fashioned
hard work, skill, and determination. Now, it’s computers and psychics.” He
shook his head in disgust.

JJ wanted to
remind his father that he’d never been a detective, but he knew such a remark
would only make things worse. Or could they get worse? “Well, thank the mayor.
He’s the one who called this lady in.”

“Just wanted
to stop by and see what’s what. Don’t guess you need me though.”

JJ shoved his
hands in his pocket and bit down a nasty remark. “Nothing left to do now but
wait for the CSIs.”

“Nasty piece
of work, this is.” Josiah Johnson Sr.—Joe as he was called—took one last look
around. “Well, it’s best I get back to work. Crime isn’t going to take a
vacation while we stand here and do nothing.”