Noah's Rainy Day (28 page)

“Did Santa Claus come?”

The smile on the cherub’s face was everything he hoped for. Santa had most certainly paid a visit.

He nodded. “Santa left a surprise for Papa’s little Sammy. Do you want to see?”

The boy rubbed the sleep from his wide, green eyes as he ducked around the stairs to peer into the living room and kitchen. “Where?”

“In the basement.”

I WAS SURPRISED BY
how quickly we arrived at the Federal Building on Stout Street downtown. Must be because no one in his right mind would be out at 8:30 in the morning on Christmas. Not even in Denver. Streeter punched in his security code and held open the door marked “FBI—Investigative Control Operations” on the seventeenth floor, directly below our offices.

“Thanks for waiting for me. And thanks for letting me take Beulah home.”

“No problem. You could have grabbed some shut-eye and a shower before coming back.”

“And miss all the excitement? Never.” I wondered aloud, “By the way, have we found Judy Manning?”

Streeter raised an eyebrow. “No, the New York Bureau is on it. They haven’t found her.”

“Didn’t Max say she went to Manchester, England, for the holidays?”

“Supposedly. But her family said she didn’t come home for the holidays. She wasn’t at her NYC apartment either. I know Jerome Schuffler at the NYC Bureau and he’ll find her. He said once he does, we can video conference with him, if we’d prefer.”

“Can we do that?”

“We can do whatever we want. Chandler’s cleared the way for us.” The derisive tone suggested Streeter wasn’t at all grateful for the extra “help.” Couldn’t say that I blamed him.

The Investigative Control Operations was a maze of laboratories, computers, research units, and study cubicles. Jack Linwood’s office was directly below Streeter’s. When we entered, Jack surfaced from the ocean of files splayed on his desk and floor.

“Linwood,” Streeter greeted.

“Streeter, Liv,” Jack said, his eyes lingering on me. “Either of you get any sleep yet?”

I shook my head. Streeter did the same.

“Me neither. No time even for catnaps at this point.”

Even without sleep, Jack possessed the striking good looks of an exotic prince—standing tall and lean with dark skin and hair, with powerful hands, shoulders, and eyes. He looked like he belonged on a lacrosse field, not in a research lab. I was glad we had cleared the air last night. There was no reason for me to be jealous and every reason to open my heart to this man.

“Thanks for bringing burgers and sandwiches for everyone. Thoughtful of you,” Streeter said. “And most necessary, since everything was closed at DIA.”

“Anytime.”

“The best part about DIA between midnight and five in the morning is that there are fewer people to negotiate through and around. I worked the heck out of Beulah, validated all her findings, and searched the parking structures.” I realized I was still dressed like a vagabond and I’d also worked up a sweat trotting through the miles of parking structures with Beulah, and I smelled even more frightful than I looked. I wished I had taken a shower while I was at Frances’s house, but I was afraid I’d wake everyone.

“No body?” Linwood asked me.

I shook my head. The relief on his face was evident. I enjoyed the intoxication of Jack’s attractiveness, could see what Bessie and the other ladies in the Bureau were talking about. How his rare expressions of contrition were even more alluring than his occasional smiles. Mostly he showed no emotion.

“But Beulah did indicate some kind of confusion or hesitancy in the short-term parking area. She may or may not have picked up little Max’s scent there. Probably faint, but overpowered by the shoe polish.”

“Which would make sense. Where?”

“In fairly close proximity to the exits near the Buckhorn Bar and Grill.” I pointed the area out to Jack on the map.

“That helps,” Jack said. “What Liv just told me confirms what we’re thinking about how the boy left DIA. Which is why I called you down here.”

Jack cued up several screens of airport videos captured on Christmas Eve, showing us what his team had found so far. The images were mostly in grayscale, which meant it was difficult to determine faces, since the pictures weren’t really clear.

“We know the boy didn’t leave the airport through the garbage. Nothing there.”

“I heard you made sure of that. Personally,” Streeter said.

Jack shot a look at me. I quickly confessed, “I told him you found the shoe polish.”

I didn’t blame him for being angry with me for ratting him out, but I wanted Jack to get credit for discovering the black dye, especially if it turned out Jack’s speculation that it was used to disguise the boy turned out to be fact.

I wasn’t happy that Streeter was making me regret my choice to tell him about Jack’s find, until Streeter added, “Good call. We wouldn’t have gotten the possible lead that we’re looking for little Max with black hair if you hadn’t stayed to pick.”

It was as if Streeter read my mind. Jack and I both let out a breath, neither realizing how tense we’d been about Streeter’s reaction.

Jack continued, “We’ve completed our airline record search of all listed passengers aboard connecting flights between 12:45 p.m. and 5:45 p.m., when the child was officially reported missing to the police. I added an hour to that timeframe in case the airport security or airline employees missed the APB. All passengers and their flights were confirmed as legitimate. I am comfortable ruling out that the boy left DIA via a connecting flight, unless he was checked through as baggage,” Jack said unceremoniously.

I cringed at this thought, hoping Jack couldn’t possibly be serious. But of course, he was. That was his job.

Streeter said, “And we have thoroughly searched the airport several times using Denver PD, focusing on potential hiding places like closets, doors, cupboards, compartments, every tiny space. Plus, we had Liv work the airport using Beulah and she’s gone through every square inch, including the parking garages, using the beret as the scent target.” Streeter tossed the evidence bag with the child’s cap on Jack’s desk. “It’s all yours, depending on where you’re going with all this.”

“So you’d both agree there’s no evidence to indicate little Max was left behind in the airport, either intentionally or accidentally?” Jack asked.

We both nodded.

“And he didn’t walk. DIA covers more than fifty square miles and temperatures were near zero to subzero. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that if he did leave on foot, he wouldn’t live to talk about it,” Jack said.

“Unless little Max took off earlier in the day and someone picked him up, which means we’re still dealing with an abduction since DPD received no calls that a five-year-old boy was found along the road or in a barren field around the airport,” Streeter said.

“That’s what we came up with,” Jack said. “So it’s improbable the boy left by plane, through the garbage, by foot, or is still in the airport. That leaves escape by car, by public transportation, or in service vehicles. Our team has completely exhausted all service vans and units that departed from the airport within fifteen minutes of the boy’s arrival from LaGuardia to several hours following. Every vehicle and company checks out.”

A gorgeous, tall woman in a tight skirt and thin blouse—too thin for a winter morning in the Rocky Mountains, by the looks of it—strode efficiently into Jack’s office and interrupted them. “Excuse me, Jack? You said you wanted to see this right away?”

“Yes, thanks Noreen,” Jack replied, reading the file as he dismissed her.

I noticed Jack had barely noticed the vixen, fixated instead on the documents she was delivering. Good to know, since it would be easy to feel insecure. Again, I took inventory of my stench, my scuzzy jeans and T-shirt beneath the oversized sweatshirt and winter jacket I had wrapped tightly around me, which caused me to sink further into my chair.

“Is she Cathy’s new replacement?” Streeter asked, watching Noreen walk out of the office and back to her cubicle.

Jack nodded while he read.

I adjusted my baseball cap and grinned at Streeter’s blatant wolfishness. How could people around here in good conscience spread the rumor I’d heard about Streeter Pierce my first day in the office? If the expert way he kissed me wasn’t proof enough, how about the fact that he had been married before? Or the way he appreciated beautiful women like Noreen and Jenna Tate? He definitely preferred women. And how much more blatant could he be about it?

He must have noticed me watching him or heard me snicker because Streeter cleared his throat and held a finger up to his lips, hushing me as Jack read. The impish spark in his eye made it harder for me to stay quiet.

Jack dropped the file on his desk. “That’s what I was afraid of. Not enough of the partial print from the beret to make a match. We’ll keep trying. With the hair dye, I’m focusing my team’s efforts on the belief that the boy is still alive, at least for now, and that the perp and/or the boy left DIA by car or by public transportation. Because if he’s not, we have all the time in the world to find his body.”

I couldn’t help but notice how easily Jack distanced himself from the subjects: the perp, the boy. No names. Cold. Everyone coped in a different way. Jack coped clinically. Maybe he had to, given his history with losing a son.

“We need an image from the surveillance videos to narrow our search. I was thinking that we know the path Kevin Benson took from gate B31, down the escalators to the underground trains, coming up to the main terminal and to the Buckhorn Bar and Grill. But we’ve found scant video evidence of his movements, even knowing the time and path. And nothing after the bar.”

He played four short clips of videos, first with untouched footage, then enhanced footage where the subject—Kevin Benson carrying little Max—was highlighted, the rest shadowed to help focus our eye.

“That’s it. These four clips from the numerous cameras mounted in the airport.”

“Someone can easily avoid detection if they know what they’re doing,” Streeter concluded.

“See? Benson carrying the boy. Clearly the child has blond hair, even though this is grayscale video. Our team’s still looking. Focusing on all children in his age range.”

I wouldn’t have recognized Benson if Jack hadn’t pointed him out. Or little Max. The video’s vantage point was from above and the images were of low quality. With the enhanced, highlighted version, it was clear that Benson was carrying little Max, but I marveled at how keen their eyes were to pinpoint them in the first place amid all the distracting images.

Jack continued, “This is tedious. And we haven’t gone through each video as thoroughly as I’d like. But we don’t have time for thorough. We need a break. We’re keying in on the exits closest to the Buckhorn Bar and Grill and watching those videos first. If we exhaust all our options with those videos but find nothing, then it becomes a bit more problematic.”

“Disguise is the most successful technique used in abductions. You’ve been watching for black-haired boys, but make sure you watch for other changes,” Streeter suggested.

“So much time between when it happened and when we found out makes the Amber Alert nearly impossible to be effective. Especially given that witnesses have traveled to other places and maybe don’t even know about the missing boy. No wonder we’ve gotten nothing.” I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I was tired.

“You need some kind of physical description of the abductor or you can’t narrow down the car and the license plate identifying him on the videos above the tolls,” Streeter said.

“Right,” Jack said.

“Or we need a witness,” I said. “Beyond the man at the bar who saw Benson with little Max.”

“Which is unlikely, given the first twenty-four hours in any abduction are critical,” Streeter said, looking at the clock. “And we’re at twenty hours since the alleged abduction now. We haven’t had any credible information coming through our tip lines yet.”

Jack said, “Our guys are documenting every car that went through the tolls for future reference. They’re designing a special database to link with the National Automotive Altered Numbers File so we can refer to it if we need to. The information will help if we can narrow down the perp’s license plate.”

“Good plan,” Streeter said.

“Although I think it’s a waste of time, they’ll also be looking at the video glimpses the cameras catch of the people in the front seat of the car as they drive through the gates.”

Streeter said, “Whoever did this would more likely have thrown the child in the trunk or backseat. Probably bound and gagged him to be safe. Maybe even drugged him at some point.”

“An airport camera image of who had the boy last would make it quicker for us to correlate to a license plate.”

I asked, “What about public transportation? What do we have there?”

“Nothing.” Jack frowned. “Except on the service vehicle end of things. The exit system for the taxicabs, hotel shuttles, and buses is totally independent from the tollgates. The public transportation goes through special automated departure lanes requiring a specially issued identification card. They do not monitor those lanes of traffic.”

“And if the abductor was organized enough to have shoe polish, it is unlikely he’d risk taking public transportation. And somebody or several people would have seen the boy with his abductor. We should be able to rely on the Amber Alert to flush that out,” Streeter said.

“I agree,” Jack said. “And ironically, with Melissa being an international supermodel from LA and Max being the highest-profile tycoon and developer in Manhattan, they will undoubtedly grab headlines for days. The boy’s picture will be all over the news. We might get lucky if someone saw something and lets us know about it, or if the kidnapper makes a ransom call soon. It’s a waiting game from here on those developments. And it may be all luck.”

I stared at the screen, watching different videos from airport cameras streaming on several monitors. “But we’re not going to wait, are we?” I said, frustrated by the thought of doing nothing. “We can’t just sit around. We have to do something.”