We spent the next fifteen minutes in strained silence carefully sifting through Justin’s workstation. Nothing related to Kailey. Or any kids, for that matter. A couple of pictures of himself and Todd when they were younger. One of his dad. None of Martha. I assumed they were all on the wall.
Most of the newspaper clippings were about Justin’s crime and eventual release, save one. I held the yellowed paper underneath the desk lamp I’d turned on. My throat went dry. “The Lancaster Kidnappings.”
Across the room, Chris dropped the box he’d been looking through. He knelt down and started throwing old clothes back in the box. “What did you say?”
“He’s got an article on the 1991 Lancaster Kidnappings.”
Chris strode across the room and snatched the paper. Anger resonated off him in hot waves. The silence felt heavy and dangerous, and I started to babble.
“I remember watching it on the news when I was a kid. It was the start of fifth grade.” I’d gotten my period the same day, and my mother had been running around like a squawking chicken, upset that her baby was now a woman, and what did it mean for her?
“At least they’ve got the story right,” Chris gritted out. In the yellow light of the unit, his blue eyes glowed almost feral. “My father was a mean bastard who abused his wife. The wife stopped taking it when she discovered a teenage girl in the barn. John Weston kidnapped and killed at least four girls over the years.”
“You were too young to know what was going on.” The words sounded small and stupid.
“My mother wasn’t.”
“But she was abused and never allowed in the barn. She had a victim’s mindset, Chris.”
“By all rights and your logic,” Chris said, “I should be another predator roaming the streets.”
I didn’t know what to say, because I was afraid of exactly that. So I ignored the comment. “Why would Justin have information on this? It happened years before he was born.”
“Because he’s got problems. Maybe he likes researching cases where kids’ parents royally screwed them up.” He shoved the dilapidated box out of his way and opened a plastic storage bin, tossing the lid out of the way. It landed on the concrete floor with a loud clatter.
“Well that’s interesting.” Chris held up a file, but before he could say anything more, the unit’s door began to rise. I ducked behind the desk, but Chris didn’t move. Face frozen in panic, he looked like he didn’t know whether to duck or attack.
My ass he’d done any of the shit he’d claimed.
I crouched, thinking fast. No spray, but I knew some self-defense moves. As long as Justin was alone and Chris got over his apparent stage fright, the two of us could take the scrawny kid. My pulse raced. What if he was bringing Kailey here? Maybe he’d moved her from some other location. I could save her, bring Justin in, show everyone I’d been right.
Carefully, I peeked around the desk.
It wasn’t Justin who stood in the open doorway.
T
odd Beckett reminded
me of Yosemite Sam when he’d been outsmarted by Bugs Bunny yet again. Between the red face and pulsing vein in his forehead, I thought his head might burst. He pointed his gun at Chris. “Hands in the air, Mr. Hale, isn’t it?”
Oh shit. I hadn’t even considered Todd knowing about the unit. Damn, damn, damn.
“Call me Chris.” He obeyed.
“You want to tell me why you’re in my brother’s storage unit?”
“Looking to see if he took that little girl.”
“Or maybe you’re planting evidence to keep us off your tail.”
“You think I took her?” Chris laughed. “Jesus. Kid doesn’t have a chance in hell.”
“Why are you so interested in my brother?”
“I just told you.”
“See, here’s the thing. He mentioned the car that’s been following him had black rims. And when I got here, I noticed a fancy Audi with nice-looking, black rims. Ran the plates. Guess who the Audi belongs to?”
“Fine. You got me. I’ve been keeping an eye on him for a while. Looks like I did a shitty job.”
“So I’ll ask you again, why have you been following Justin the past few weeks? Did someone put you up to it? A pushy redhead, maybe? Her car’s in the parking lot too, so she might as well come out.”
Chris didn’t say anything.
So much for deception. “Don’t shoot.” I stood up slowly, keeping my hands above my head. “Justin was in here, and I thought he might have Kailey. I didn’t know if you knew about this place or not.”
“You have my phone number.” Todd’s voice sounded dangerous.
“I didn’t know how soon you’d get the message.”
“Unbelievable. You leave me a message you’re concerned about this guy, and then you break in here with him?”
I glanced at Chris, inwardly cringing at having to play both sides of the fence. Made me feel too much like my mother, and I’d be damned if I wanted to turn into her.
Chris met my gaze, raising an eyebrow in challenge, reminding me exactly what he could tell Todd about me. “It was my idea. I wanted to keep him close, and I wanted to get in here.”
Chris glared at me, but if he was going to start telling Todd stories about me, I’d have to be ready to play ball.
Self-preservation.
“You’re both coming to the station.”
“Are we under arrest?” Chris said.
“I haven’t decided,” Todd shot back. “You both ride with me, we have a chat downtown. Then we’ll see if I book your meddling asses for trespassing.” He glared at me. “Or worse.”
Todd stuck Chris
in a holding cell while he hauled me into an interview room.
“Will you please take these off?” I held up my cuffed hands. “Unless I’m being charged.”
“I’m sure Justin will be happy to press charges.”
Todd leaned against the wall. “Not up to him. I own the storage unit.”
I couldn’t stop the shock from playing out on my face. “Do you know about his obsession with his mother?”
“That’s none of your business. And I don’t have time for this.” He sighed, looking even more exhausted than the last time I’d seen him. “I’m supposed to be looking for a missing child.”
Me too, but reminding him probably wasn’t in my best interests right now. “Still nothing?”
“We have a few leads of registered offenders in the area. We’re following those up. Thanks for the lead on Brian Harrison. Where did that come from, by the way?”
The ball of nerves in my stomach leeched into the rest of my body. I curled my toes to keep my legs from jerking. “I can’t reveal my sources. Anything pan out with him?”
Todd didn’t answer for a second, and that small blip in time felt like hours. “He’s called in sick at school and isn’t answering my calls. Hasn’t been at home, either. Given his priors, he might be on a bender. Still worth looking into.”
A blissful if temporary reprieve. Todd would talk to Harrison soon enough, unless I got to him first. I focused on the task at hand. “I needed to see what Justin was hiding in that storage unit.”
“Why?” Todd brought his hands down on the table. “You know we’re treating Justin like any other suspect. We’ve turned up nothing. And yet you assume we’re missing something.”
“Because he spent an hour in there today and came out with nothing. I needed to be sure. And because if he did this, I’m responsible. I should have done something different all those years ago.”
Todd tossed his badge onto the table. “Stop trying to be a martyr. You’re not infallible. Bad shit happens. You weren’t the victim. Not even collateral damage. But you’ve twisted it around and made it about you at the expense of other people.”
I knew he was right, knew it as much as I knew my own fears. I just didn’t know if I could walk away. I sank into the seat, shame burrowing right through my skin and into my bones. “You’re right. But I want to help find Kailey.”
Todd pulled a set of keys from his pocket, motioning for my wrists. He removed the cuffs, his calloused fingers lingering on my hand. “That’s the shittiest part of all this. However misguided you are, I know you believe you’re doing what’s right.” He pulled his hand away. “Now, to Chris Hale. You left me a message about the black rims after you talked to my brother.” He paused, letting me know he didn’t appreciate that fact. “I checked with Justin, and Hale’s Audi matches his description. How long have you two been dating?”
I shifted in the hard chair, choosing my words carefully. “We’re not dating. He introduced himself to me the night before Kailey disappeared.”
“What has he told you about himself?”
“He’s a paramedic. He’s complex.” I couldn’t very well tell him Chris believed he was a sociopath. I decided to hold the information on Chris’s true identity until Todd showed his hand. “I may be wrong, but when I realized he was the one following Justin and hadn’t said a thing, I got worried. I just thought you should know.”
“Yet you went inside that unit with him. He could have attacked you.”
I really wished he’d keep to the hardline cop routine. He was easier to deal with when he wasn’t being nice. “A decision based on what I thought was a necessity.”
“We’ve been sniffing around his firehouse. He did work the night Kailey disappeared, but there’s a window of time unaccounted for. Trouble is, guy’s got connections.”
“Who?”
“Frank Hale. Assistant District Attorney.”
I should have known. He’d said his uncle was a lawyer. Why didn’t Kelly’s search turn that up?
Because you didn’t have her look into family connections. You were too busy chasing Justin.
“Tonight’s stunt gives me a chance to grill his ass. At least until he calls his uncle. Which brings me to the next point. This is something you really need to know. Frank and Elizabeth Hale raised him as their own.” Todd took a document out of the folder he was holding. “This is Chris Hale’s birth certificate.” He slid it across the table.
I read the certificate trying to decide how to answer. “Christopher Alan Weston. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1982.”
“He was four years old when his mother discovered the girl in the barn and fled,” Todd said. “According to the police reports, Chris heard crying, and insisted it wasn’t the horses. Chris is the one who opened the barn door, running ahead of his mother. John Weston strictly forbade them from entering, and she was terrified they’d both get a beating. He saw the teenage victim, still alive, tied up and naked in an empty horse stall. She’d been beaten and sexually abused. His mother grabbed him up and ran down the road nearly a mile to a neighbor.”
I sat speechless even as realizations I should have clued into days ago began to click. At the age of four, Chris had witnessed a heinous crime. And who knows how many beatings he’d been subjected to–or watched his mother receive.
He said he was a sociopath. Maybe he really is the very best of them.
I wanted to see how much more Todd knew. “You said he was raised by his aunt and uncle? What about his mother?”
“Details are thin, but it says she gave up custody of him in 1993 due to inability to care for him because of the trauma caused by her husband.”
“Makes sense.”
“I don’t have to tell you what kind of damage kids like him have.” Todd took another photo out of the file. “This is the girl Mary Weston discovered. She was only fourteen. Look at her school photo.”
I stared at the photo, my senses blasted again with shock. “This could be Kailey in five years.” It was like looking at a disproportionate version of Kailey, as though the older features weren’t quite as symmetrical. Her eyes were wider apart, the eyebrows more arched. This girl had lost her baby cheeks, and her lips glistened with lip gloss, making the beauty mark to the right of her upper lip stand out. Kailey had a similar mark.
“Oh my God.” I dropped the picture and stared at Todd, who nodded grimly.
“That’s Jenna Richardson. She was John Weston’s last victim, and she barely survived.”
“I
shouldn’t be
sharing this information with you,” Todd said. “Legally, my ass is on the line, but since you insist on butting into the case and you’re caught up with Chris Hale, I’m telling you for your own safety.”
“I really need a drink.” I tried to reconcile everything I’d just learned. Did Chris know Jenna was the last victim? “Preferably strong.”
“Old coffee’s all we’ve got.”
“I don’t know how you do this job without a supply of bourbon.”
“You see the worst of people too.” Too bad I couldn’t share my coping mechanism with Todd.
“I’ve talked to Jenna about her time with Weston,” Todd said. “She doesn’t remember the little boy who found her, and there’s isn’t much she can tell us. She was kept blindfolded.”
“So … you think…” My voice trailed off, my brain refusing to allow me to put everything into a cohesive sentence. It seemed I’d been on the right track but missing a wheel, and I was too dumbfounded to put it all together. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s very possible Chris somehow found out where Jenna lived. He didn’t take her but her daughter instead.”
“Why? Just because he saw Jenna tied up all those years ago doesn’t mean he’d act out now. He was a kid.”
Todd barked a laugh. “What a hypocrite you are.”
I jerked, the words stinging more than they should have. “Your brother’s different. He actually acted out his rage once already, at a young age.”
“Yeah, well. It’s a big freaking coincidence that Chris introduces himself to you right before the daughter of his father’s last victim is kidnapped. And he’s been following my brother for at least two weeks. And for all we know, Chris could have been acting out for a long time, building up to this.”
He told you what he was. Why didn’t you listen?
I still couldn’t quite reconcile the idea of Chris being disturbed enough to fool me so thoroughly. “But why bring me into it?”
“Inserts himself into the investigation,” Todd shrugged.
“Before I even got involved?”
“I think he knew my brother lived near Jenna Richardson. Justin’s case was pretty big news a few months ago, and even though he’s not a registered offender, his address had to be public. Part of the terms of his release. Negotiated by me. Chris finds out about you and your very vocal stance since you spoke at Justin’s hearing. So he buddies up to you, knowing full well that you’d find out a kid in Justin’s neighborhood went missing. And he’d have access to inside information. It’s just a bonus that you’re now a PI and you’ve asked him to help stalk Justin. Why did you do that, anyway?”