Missing Child (13 page)

‘Not right this minute,’ he said.

‘Noah will be disappointed,’ Caitlin said.

‘Your husband understands legal procedure,’ said Sam.

‘Seen enough?’

‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll leave the closer look to forensics.’

He led the way out of the garage and Caitlin snapped off the light behind him.

Out in the driveway, Sam made a phone call while Caitlin shivered in the chilly evening. She felt better somehow, just knowing that this truck would be hauled away from here. That she would not have to constantly be reminded of all that had happened. All the mistakes she had made.

Sam ended his call and turned back to her. They stood in the silvery circle that the outdoor halogen lights threw on the driveway.

‘I heard you had a tough time at the search today,’ he said.

‘Once I got there, I understood why you didn’t want me to go. I shouldn’t have insisted.’

‘Some things you have to leave to other people,’ he said.

‘When those dogs started to bark . . .’ Her eyes filled with tears at the memory of her fear. She shuddered and shook her head.

‘You should go inside,’ he said.

Caitlin nodded. ‘I think I will.’

‘They’ll be around for the truck in the morning. I told them there was no need to come get it tonight. I trust that you will not tamper with it.’

‘Why would I tamper with it now?’ she asked.

‘I’ll let you know what we find out.’

‘I’d appreciate it.’

‘Now that you and Noah are living in separate spaces, I’ve had to arrange for an officer to come by here. A squad car should be arriving shortly.’

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘For what?’

Caitlin hesitated. ‘I’m glad to have it off my chest.’

Sam looked at her with a hint of kindness in his eyes. ‘Try and get some rest.’

Caitlin raised a hand in farewell and started up the walk to the house.

She went inside, locked the door behind her, and sank down on the sofa, still wearing her coat. She felt as if she might never be able to move again. She thought about what Sam Mathis had said. An attorney. She and Noah used David Alvarez, a partner in Noah’s office, as their attorney. Obviously, she could not call on him. There was the attorney who had handled her parents’ estate. He was an older guy who probably didn’t handle criminal matters. She could call him. But that implied that she was going to try to evade some responsibility and that was not her aim.

She heard the crunch of Sam’s tires on the gravel driveway and then the sound of his car’s engine faded away. She was all alone in the silence. Caitlin closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the sofa, her hands still in the pockets of her coat. She heard her cell phone ringing in her bag which she had left on the coffee table. Her first thought was reporters. Could they know already? No, it was too soon. Sam wouldn’t say anything to the press until the truck was known to be the vehicle which killed Emily. She had not given any thought to the publicity that would ensue when the truth came out. That would be another nightmare. She would probably lose her job at the college.

The phone kept ringing. She hoped for a moment that it might be Noah, but she knew better. Still, it could be news of Geordie. For that alone, she had to answer it. She rummaged for her phone and looked at the caller ID. Unknown name. She didn’t recognize the number or the area code. A bad sign, she thought.

‘Hello?’ she said.

She heard a tiny, distant voice speaking hesitantly into the phone. ‘Mom?’ he said.

TWELVE

I
f she had been zapped with a taser, she could not have been more shocked. ‘Geordie,’ she whispered. ‘Oh my God. Is that you?’

‘Hi, Mom.’

Caitlin clutched phone, as if she could reach through it and seize him. ‘Geordie,’ she cried. ‘Sweetheart, where are you? Are you all right?’

‘Where’s Dad?’ he asked.

‘He’s . . . not here. Honey, talk to me. Where are you? Are you OK? Has . . . anyone hurt you?’

‘I’m OK. But I can’t tell where I am,’ he said plaintively.

Before she could answer, or ask why, the call was ended. ‘Geordie!’ she cried into the dead line. ‘Geordie.’ She stared at the phone as if she could see his face in it. She pushed the caller ID number again. It was nothing she recognized. Her heart was thundering. Instantly, she pressed the button to return the call. The phone rang and rang. Nothing.

Despair rose in her like a tidal wave. He was gone. He had slipped away, and was once again out of reach. And she still knew nothing. Not where he was, or how he was. Nothing. But then she corrected herself. You know the most important thing. He’s alive. He is alive!

A blast of the doorbell made her jump. She rushed to the door and jerked it open.

‘Mrs Eckhart?’ said the uniformed officer on the front step. ‘I’m Officer Wheatley. Detective Mathis sent me.’ He suddenly seemed to notice the agitated expression on her face. The visible whites of her eyes ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ she cried. ‘Yes. Call him. Detective Mathis. Call him right now. Tell him my son just called me. Geordie called me!’ She brandished the cell phone in her hand, as if the device itself were somehow proof.

‘The missing boy?’ the officer asked.

Caitlin nodded.

‘Is he all right?’

‘Yes. Well, I don’t know. He wasn’t allowed to talk. Look, I need your help. Please. I can’t drive. My hands are shaking too hard. I need to tell my husband. Can we go to the house?’

‘You want to go to your husband’s house now?’

‘I have to tell him. Please?’ Caitlin begged him.

The young officer considered this request, which required a deviation from his orders. ‘Let me call Detective Mathis.’ The officer made a hurried call and spoke in a low, urgent voice. Then he turned to Caitlin. ‘All right, come along,’ he said. ‘Detective Mathis and your husband are going to meet us at the station.’

‘The police station?’ said Caitlin, dismayed. ‘Why there?’

‘That’s what I was told. To bring you down to the station.’

Caitlin hesitated in the doorway.

‘We should hurry,’ said Officer Wheatley.

Caitlin stepped out of the house and pulled the door shut behind her.

‘I’ll need to confiscate that phone,’ the officer said.

Caitlin clutched the cell phone to her heart, as if it were Geordie himself. ‘No. I need to keep it.’

‘Detective Mathis was very clear about this. That phone may contain information which is key to your son’s whereabouts. You need to hand it over,’ said Officer Wheatley.

Caitlin looked at him ruefully.

‘You’ll get it back,’ he assured her.

Caitlin sighed. It wasn’t the phone that mattered. It was that letting go of it felt like letting go of Geordie. She knew that it made no sense. She closed her eyes, and handed it over.

The trip downtown was fast. They traveled with red lights flashing and the siren blaring. Caitlin sat in the back seat, while Officer Wheatley talked on the radio in the front, and his partner drove.

A man walking his dog stared at the squad car as they reached the station, trying to peer in at the criminal who was being brought in. He walked away, disappointed, when Officer Wheatley opened the car door for Caitlin politely.

Escorted by the two officers, Caitlin went up the steps and into the old sandstone police station. They hurried her past the evening’s crew of officers on duty and miscreants who looked at her curiously. They arrived at Chief Burns’s office and knocked on the door. They were told to enter.

Chief Burns sat behind his desk, and Sam Mathis stood beside him. Noah was seated in a chair in front of the desk. He looked at her as she walked in, his gaze wary but hopeful. A young man in street clothes stood by the American flag in the corner, his arms folded across his chest.

Caitlin spoke directly to her husband. ‘Noah,’ she cried. ‘He called me. Not half an hour ago.’

Chief Burns held up a hand to silence her. ‘Where is the phone?’ he said.

Officer Wheatley held up a plastic bag with the phone in it.

‘Give it to Detective Thurman there.’ He pointed to the young man by the flag. Officer Wheatley handed the detective the phone. Thurman took it and left the room.

‘Thank you, officers. Wait outside, please. Close the door.’

Caitlin sensed the negative current in the room. No one offered her a seat. She looked at Noah. He looked away from her.

‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

‘Tell us what happened,’ said Chief Burns. Caitlin noted the lack of pleasantries, the chill in his voice.

‘My phone rang. I answered it. And I heard Geordie’s voice.’

‘What did he say?’ Sam asked.

‘He said, “Hi, Mom,” she recounted, and then, almost to her embarrassment, she started to weep. Noah was leaning forward, gripping the arms of his chair as if he was going to stand up, but he remained seated.

Caitlin wiped her eyes and tried to compose herself. ‘He asked where his father was. I said he wasn’t with me at the moment. I asked him where he was, and if he was all right. He said he couldn’t talk. That was it. That was all.’

‘Did you look at the number he was calling from?’ Sam asked.

‘Of course,’ said Caitlin. ‘I didn’t recognize it.’

‘Area code?’

‘It wasn’t local. I tried to call him back. The phone rang and rang.’

‘Detective Thurman is our electronics expert. He’s going to determine exactly where the last call on your phone originated,’ said Sam, who spoke in a kinder tone than the chief.

‘Can he do that?’ Caitlin asked.

‘If there was such a call,’ said Chief Burns.

Caitlin looked at the chief, startled. ‘Excuse me?’ she said.

The chief did not reply.

‘Do you think I would lie about this?’ She turned and looked at her husband. ‘Do you? Noah?’

Noah did not meet her gaze.

‘Geordie called me, goddammit. I heard his voice.’

‘It could have been a prank,’ said Sam, with a hint of apology in his tone. ‘People do some really rotten things around a crime like this.’

‘No,’ she insisted. ‘It was Geordie.’

‘I sincerely hope so,’ said Chief Burns.

‘I know so,’ Caitlin cried. ‘I know my own . . . boy.’

‘I keep asking myself, why would he call you and not his father?’ said the chief.

Caitlin stuck out her chin. ‘Meaning, because I’m not his “real” parent?’

‘Yes, frankly,’ said the chief.

‘Sometimes his father is in court, or can’t be reached. He knows that he can call me if he needs me for any reason. He has my number memorized. For emergencies,’ said Caitlin evenly.

Chief Burns sat back in his chair, his hands folded over the belt buckle of his uniform. ‘Kind of makes you a hero, doesn’t it? Being the one to hear from the victim. The one chosen to receive that call which, by your own admission, gave us virtually no information about his condition or his whereabouts.’

‘I asked him those things. We were cut off immediately. As if someone were right there with him, monitoring what he said.’

The chief frowned. ‘So, why would the captor allow him to make such a call at all? Just to let you know he was doing OK?’

‘I don’t know,’ Caitlin protested. ‘I have no idea how someone like that would think. I’m just telling you what happened.’

‘I learned today,’ said Chief Burns, ‘that you have already thwarted one police investigation, Mrs Eckhart. Naturally, as a result, I am somewhat skeptical . . .’

Caitlin looked at him defiantly. ‘I’m telling the truth.’

The phone rang on Burns’s desk and he picked it up. ‘That was quick,’ he said to the caller. He listened quietly to what his caller was saying. ‘All right. Keep after it.’

Burns hung up the phone. ‘That was Detective Thurman. The call was made from a tracfone purchased in Chicago.’

‘Chicago,’ Caitlin groaned.

‘So we know he is in Chicago?’ Noah exclaimed.

‘We know the phone was purchased there,’ Chief Burns said cautiously. ‘We’ll contact the Chicago police and put them on high alert. In the meantime, we’ll attempt to trace the phone to the store where it was purchased.’

‘A tracfone,’ said Noah. ‘People buy those things and throw them away.’

‘That’s correct,’ said Burns.

‘Is it possible to trace the place where it was purchased?’ Noah asked.

‘It is possible,’ said Burns. ‘But with a throwaway phone, that information can be misleading. For example, a person could use a tracfone to call their own cell phone.’ The chief turned back to Caitlin. ‘Is that what you did, Mrs Eckhart? Did you buy a phone and call your own number?’

Caitlin’s mouth fell open. ‘I can’t believe . . . Why would I do such a thing?’

‘I’m just asking,’ he said. ‘Because there’s a level at which this doesn’t make any sense. The only way the boy could have a tracfone is if his captor bought it and let him use it. And why would he do that? Why would he want us to know that Geordie is alive? There’s been no ransom demand. What else could a call like that serve?’

Caitlin did not want him to see how bitterly painful his words were to her. ‘I understand what you’re saying. I understand that it sounds bizarre. But the answer to your question is “no.” I did not buy a tracfone and call my own phone. I have never even been in Chicago,’ she said evenly.

Chief Burns regarded her coolly. ‘An associate, perhaps . . .’

She reached out and put a hand on Noah’s shoulder He flinched, as if he had been burned. He looked up at her.

She met his agitated gaze. ‘I don’t care what they think. But I do care if you believe me. Listen to me, Noah. No matter how angry you might be at me, you know I wouldn’t lie about this. You know that. And I’m telling you. He’s alive. Geordie is alive.’

Tears rushed to his eyes and he blinked them back, looking both skeptical and wildly hopeful.

Chief Burns cleared his throat. ‘Sam, escort Mrs Eckhart out of my office. Tell Officer Wheatley to drive her back to her house.’

Caitlin let go of Noah’s shoulder and let herself be led out into the waiting area. Sam Mathis spoke to Officer Wheatley, who approached her.

‘I’ll take you home now,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ said Caitlin. She went out to the patrol car and got back inside. All the way back to her parents’ house she kept thinking about Geordie’s voice on the phone, and the look in Noah’s eyes at the station.