Abduction (5 page)

Right. And
pigs fly with yellow wings.

Since the boss
ordered it, he didn’t have any choice but to let her do her hocus-pocus routine.
Then he’d get back to what he did best. Good old-fashioned detective work. He
didn’t need tarot cards, crystal balls, and magic wands. His tools were
ballistics, forensics, and DNA.

JJ’s partner, Matt Casto, stuck his head in the
office. “You call her?”

Matt was
probably the closest thing to a best friend that JJ had. He had gone through
the academy with JJ, and although they were never partners on patrol, they
remained close friends. JJ made detective first. Matt followed a year later.
Now they were both assigned to the same task force.

Tall with
blond hair and gray eyes, Matt was a dedicated flirt. There wasn’t a female
officer worth her badge who hadn’t been hit on by Matt Casto. But he was a good
officer, a good friend, and a great detective. JJ was glad Harris assigned him,
although JJ would never let Matt know that.

JJ nodded as
he closed one of the case files. “I called her. She’ll be over in a couple of
hours. Anything on the fingerprints yet?”

“Nope. Walt says another couple of hours at
least.” Matt stepped
in, closing the door behind him. He glanced around
the room, frowning. “Why do you always keep this place so dark?” He strode
purposefully across the room and flipped open the blinds.

“I like it dark. Helps me think.” JJ exaggerated
his response to the light pouring into the room, blinking furiously at Matt and
shielding his eyes with his hand. “Do you have to open them all the way?”

Matt shook his
head and closed them a little, subduing the light. “You are a sad man, JJ.” His
gaze flickered over the photos tacked on the wall but didn’t linger. They
narrowed in on JJ. “You think the parents killed the Matthews kid, don’t you?”

JJ leaned
back, making the old metal chair squeak in protest. “I just don’t know. At
times when I listened to Karen Matthews, I could believe everything she was
saying, and other times. . .well, my instincts were screaming that they know
where that kid is.”

“Harris isn’t
buying that.”

“Nope. He
thinks it’s related to the other kidnapping.”

“We have no
sign of forced entry.” Matt straddled a chair and stretched out his long legs.
“No muddy tracks on the nursery carpet, and the parents swear they never heard
a thing.”

JJ scratched
the side of his head. “But there
are
tracks in the backyard going right
up to the nursery window. It was raining, and there was mud under that window.
If the perp had come through that window, why aren’t there any tracks on the
carpet?”

Matt shrugged.
“Unless he took his shoes off.”

JJ tilted his
head, pondering. “Maybe, but it doesn’t feel right. You’re about to break into
a house and steal a baby—are you going to take the time to take off your shoes
and then have to struggle to get back into them with a baby in your arms? What
if the child wakes up and starts to cry? Are you going to risk running and leaving
your shoes for the police? I don’t think so.”

Matt played
out the scenario in his mind.

When JJ looked
over at Matt, Matt was peering through the door of the office.

“Isn’t that
Mrs. Sarentino?” he asked.

JJ nodded. “Sure is.” He eyed the petite twenty-five-year-old
woman with a heavy heart. Her brown hair was barely combed and pulled back in a
clip. Her light brown eyes were red-rimmed and
her cheeks splotchy. Her
shoulders were slumped, and it wasn’t because of the chubby little cherub
perched on her hip. This woman was suffering, and there was little JJ could do
about it.

Opening the
door, JJ filled the doorway. She caught sight of him. “Detective?”

He backed up,
swinging his hand in a wide sweeping motion to invite her in. Matt stood up and
perched on the corner of JJ’s desk so that Annamarie Sarentino could use the
chair.

JJ shut the
door behind them. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Sarentino?”

She gazed up
at him, hopeful. “I was. . .have you heard anything at all?”

“I’m sorry,
no. We’re doing everything we can, but we have nothing to tell you yet.” JJ
wished he could give her a different answer. “Have you talked to your
ex-husband?”

She nodded
slowly as the tears streaked down her cheeks, and she shifted the baby in her
lap. “He called me last night.”

“Is he coming
out here to help you?”

“He’s been
here. He flew in with his new wife the day after Gina. . .” She stifled a sob.
“He said he’s been in touch with the mayor, who assured him that you’re doing
everything you can. But I needed to come ask you myself.” She lifted her face
to his. “I’m sorry if I’m bothering you.”

“You’re not,
Mrs. Sarentino. I’m just concerned about you. Isn’t there anyone who can be
with you right now? You shouldn’t be going through this alone.” JJ slowly eased
down into his chair.

Annamarie
shook her head. “I don’t have any family close, and they can’t afford to take
off from work and fly out here or anything. I’ll be okay.”

The tears
started flowing again. She sniffled and pressed a tissue to her nose while she
looked around. When she spotted Jessica’s picture on the wall, she stiffened.

“Is she. .
.the other one?”

JJ glanced up.
“The other missing child? Yes.”

“Such a
sweet-looking baby. The parents must be devastated.”

He didn’t bother to comment. What could he say?
This woman was as different from Karen Matthews as beef was from chicken. Karen
Matthews wasn’t devastated. She was only pretending to be. Mrs. Sarentino, on
the other hand, was struggling to cope with a recent divorce from her childhood
sweetheart, a toddler, and now the disappearance of her six-year-old daughter.
This woman broke his heart.

“I’m going to
do everything I can, Mrs. Sarentino. I promise you that.”

She nodded
slowly and wearily climbed to her feet. “I know, Detective. And I appreciate
everything you’ve done. I just miss my little girl, and I can’t help wondering
what. . .”

“Don’t,” JJ
interjected quickly. “Don’t give up hope yet.”

“It’s been
nine days. And each day that goes by. . .”

“I know. But we’ll find her. We won’t leave a
single stone unturned.”

“I just never
should have let her go out to play. I just didn’t think something could happen
right there on our own street.” The baby whimpered and she tucked his head
under her chin, reassuring him. “You’ll call me if you find out anything?”

“I will. Immediately.”

#

Stunned and
dazed, Karen wandered from room to room picking up one thing and placing it
somewhere else, oblivious to what she was doing. Her mind wouldn’t stop
spinning. She couldn’t hold a coherent thought for more than a few seconds
before it was gone. Maybe Ted was right. Maybe she was on the verge of a
nervous breakdown. Maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe she had. . .

No. She couldn’t have hurt Jess. Surely she’d
remember that if she had. She couldn’t be capable of such a thing. She just
couldn’t
be. She loved her baby.

But Detective
Johnson had made it perfectly clear that he had two suspects. She and Ted. That
was it. He wasn’t even considering the possibility that someone else had done
this. He was going to be watching their every move. And in the meantime, the
real culprit was taking Jessie farther and farther away.

Why me,
God? What did I do to deserve this?

Choking back a
sob, Karen made her way across the kitchen, her hand clutching at the counter.
That simple act kept her from falling flat across the sun-washed floor in
hysteria.

She felt invisible. Except for the eyes of
Detective Johnson boring down the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure she would
ever feel free of his anger and his conviction. And he had convicted her. She’d
been weighed and judged, declared guilty. End of story. Case closed.

Suddenly a
familiar sound penetrated the misery. The phone was ringing. She nearly ran to
it. Hoping. Maybe.

“Hello?”

“Karen? Why
didn’t you call me? I just heard the news!”

“Ray.” Karen
didn’t know whether or not she was glad to hear her brother’s voice. They had
never been particularly close, and the rift between them had only widened after
she married Ted.

“Are you
okay?”

“No. My
daughter is missing, Ray, and the police think I did it. I don’t know what to
do.”

“Call a
lawyer! Hasn’t Ted done that already, or is he still running around believing
he can handle everything by himself?”

Karen flinched
at the sarcasm—and the truth buried in the midst of it. “No, he hasn’t hired a
lawyer. I don’t think he realizes that the police suspect us.”

“Look, Karen.
It’s common police procedure to look at the parents first. They’ll clear you.
And in the meantime, they’ll still be looking for other suspects. They’ll find
Jessica.”

Karen swiped
at the tears that were marring her vision again.

“Karen?”

“I’m here.”
She could hear a faint clicking in the background and could almost see her
older brother tapping his desk with his pen, a habit he’d never lost. He was
always tapping. The table, his books, countertops, steering wheels. It had
driven their father nuts. One of her strongest childhood memories was of him
yelling at Ray to “stop that infernal tapping.”

A faint smile
curled at her pale lips as she pulled out a kitchen chair and dropped into it.
“Stop that infernal tapping.”

There was a quick burst of laughter from Ray.
“You never change.”

Karen’s smile
faded quickly. That was something her father said about her. And it wasn’t a
compliment. “No. I guess I don’t.”

“Hey, Karen.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way the old man does. I like you the way you
are.”

“Naive and
helpless?”

“Naive, maybe.
Helpless? Only because Ted makes you think you are.”

The tapping
started again and she realized he was getting upset thinking about Ted. “Will
you come, Ray?”

The pause. The
silence. It told her the truth before his words did. “You know I can’t, Karen.
I’d more than likely punch the guy in the mouth before I was there five
minutes. I’m here for you. You need to talk, call me. But don’t ask me to
come.”

The disappointment was keen but manageable. It
wasn’t as if he’d ever said yes when she’d asked for his help. He’d never been
there for her, and it was time for her to stop asking him to be or expecting
him to be. He had his own life in Richmond. A good job with a software firm. A
pretty, intelligent wife who was a professor at the university. Two perfect
little girls who were in ballet and took piano lessons.

The tapping
stopped. “Karen, I have to go. Keep me informed, please? I do care.”

Right.
“Okay, Ray. Tell the family I said hello.”

“I will. We’ll
be praying for you.”

Praying? She
hung up the phone. Since when? Her brother had never been one for church and
all its rules and regulations. Forced to attend church from the time they were
born, Ray had rebelled as soon as he could and never looked back. Only Karen
had maintained the tradition of church every Sunday morning.

Karen leaned
back against the counter and slowly collapsed to the floor. She didn’t know how
to handle this. She needed someone to tell her what to do.

She needed
someone to tell her that God intended to bring her baby back to her.

#

“There is a
God in heaven.” Matt whistled softly. “Tell me she’s guilty of something. Puh.
. .leez, let me interrogate her.”

JJ looked up and out the small window of his office
to see what it was that had Matt primping like a schoolboy just before the
prom.

She was tall and slim, with a willowy softness
that seemed to make her float as she wove her way through the desks in the
bullpen. Her hair was long, blond, curly—a wild halo of gold. JJ came to his
feet as he realized that she was heading straight for his office. He combed his
fingers through his hair and then straightened his tie. “Matt, don’t you have
something you need to be doing?”

“Not a chance,” Matt replied, never taking his
eyes off the golden image that stopped outside the office door and lifted a
delicate
hand to knock. He stepped over and pulled open the door.
“Detective Matt Casto. May I help you?”

The smile that
crossed her face was soft, whispery, fleeting. “I’m looking for Detective
Johnson.”

“My loss.”
Matt’s voice was husky with regret.

“I’m Detective
Johnson.” JJ stepped out from behind the desk and extended his hand. “What can
I do for you?”

She turned
dark green eyes on him—studying him. He could feel her probing into places he
didn’t want anyone to go. It sent a shiver up his spine, and the fires of
latent anticipation cooled. And then he knew.

He dropped his
hand before she could take it and stepped back. “You must be Zoe Shefford.”

The smile on
her face was filled with amusement. And approval. He wasn’t sure which pleased
him more, and it aggravated him that it mattered.

She wasn’t at
all what he’d expected. There was no flash; just fluid motion. No bangles and
beads and dark whispers; just long, lean lines of gold and green, pink and
yellow. And that aggravated him as well.

She flipped
back her gold hair and flashed those green eyes in a move that was as artless
as it was enticing. “I know I’m a little early. I hope you don’t mind.”

Matt stepped
over in the range of sight, pulling her attention away from JJ. “It’s quite all
right. Please, have a seat.”