Cold Touch (34 page)

“Drew, I’m sorry. I was about to cal you,” Brooke said, stepping toward the two men. She was twisting the straps of her

purse in her hands, looking nervous, like a kid caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

“Get in my car, Brooke,” he snapped, not even looking at her.

“Mine’s right . . .”

He wheeled on her, sticking out his index finger. “I said get in the damn car.”

Gabe had grown up in a household where men who turned red in the face and yel ed quickly segued into men who struck.

No way in hel was Olivia’s sister getting in that car with him.

“Brooke,” he said, his voice low yet firm, “why don’t you go with Olivia?”

Liv gave him a grateful look, visibly relieved he’d stepped in. She grabbed her sister’s arm. “Let’s go visit Dad.”

Perfect. He’d caught the vibe off Mr. Wainwright yesterday and knew he didn’t like his future son-in-law. Buckman wouldn’t

get past the man.

“Don’t you walk away from me!” Buckman ordered.

But Brooke did. She and Olivia headed for the entrance to the parking garage. Which meant Gabe and the other three men

would be staying right there, waiting for Liv’s car to pul out and move on down the street. Buckman wasn’t leaving until the

women were wel on their way.

To think he’d considered the man merely an asshole. It was pretty obvious Drew had a temper. While he didn’t imagine

Olivia’s sister had low enough self-esteem to actual y marry a man who’d hit her, he doubted it would take long after the wedding for that hand to fly, and hard.

“Now,” Gabe said, walking over to block Buckman’s retreat to his own vehicle, “let’s stand here and calm down while the

ladies get on their way.”

“Damn it, Cooper, what the hel is going on here? I can’t reach Brooke for almost two days, and now you’re treating me like

I’m some kind of criminal?” Buckman sounded blustery, offended. That didn’t, however, hide the underlying rage that stil seethed deep inside him. He might have calmed his tone down, trying to get himself under control. But Gabe knew bul shit

when he heard it. This man was holding on to his violent anger by a thread.

“And who the hel does this boy think he is?” Drew added, jerking a thumb toward Ty.

Gabe leaned in, grim, that word,
boy
, grating on him like nails on a chalkboard. He couldn’t even imagine how Ty felt about

it. “That
man
is my partner, Detective Tyler Wal ace, to whom you oughta show a little respect, if you can’t manage courtesy.”

Brooke’s fiancé took a smal step back. “I’m sorry. I’m real y worried about Brooke. This is unlike her, not being in touch with

me for days. I thought something had happened to her.”

Days? Christ, was he exaggerating much? They’d al had breakfast together yesterday.

“She talked to you four times yesterday afternoon,” Ty said, not buying that crap either.

Buckman’s jaw fel open. “How would you know that?” He took a threatening step forward, his beefy hands clenching into

fists.

The gleam in Ty’s eye said he’d perhaps expected such a reaction.

Damn it, partner, you don’t go wavin’ a red cape if you’re not a professional matador.

“Olivia’s working on a rough case, and her sister got worried and wanted to spend time with her. That’s it. So how about

taking things down a notch?”

The man sniffed, drew himself upright. “Wel , why didn’t she tel me that?”

Gabe suspected she had tried. This man didn’t seem like his ears were open much of the time. Just his mouth. Wanting to

keep things on a friendly basis, however, he didn’t say that. “I’m sure she intended to fil you in.”

Buckman nodded. “Fine. Whatever. Now, am I free to go,
officers
?”

“Of course,” Gabe said.

His wounded dignity pushing his head high, the man turned and walked to his car without another word.

As Buckman drove away, Ty lifted a hand and waved goodbye. “Gee, what a nice guy.” Raising his voice, he cal ed, “Nice to

have met you. Have fun storming the castle!”

Gabe had to laugh, recognizing the movie reference. He’d been a little unsure about his new partner at first, thinking he was

too young, maybe a bit too lighthearted. Now he found that was one of the things he liked best about the other man. A great

sense of humor was a rare quality in a cop.

Mick, who’d remained silent during the confrontation, cleared his throat. “Okay, so now that Douchey Mc-Doucheface is

gone, somebody want to tel me what the game plan is?”

Ty dug his keys out of his pocket. “I’m outta here. Going back to the station to dig back into those missing persons cases.”

“I’l be right behind you,” Gabe said, knowing his partner had been dying to do that since Olivia had come up with the missing boy’s real name. “I need to see what I can find out about the rest of the people on this list I got from Agent Ames. Mick,

why don’t you wait here and serve as point of contact? I’l cal and let you al know what I find. Then we can regroup.”

Ty had already walked back to his car and gotten in, waving goodbye as he pul ed away from the curb, and Mick turned

toward the entrance of the building. Gabe was about to go to his own car when his cel phone rang. “Cooper,” he answered.

“Detective Cooper? It’s Julia Harrington. Where are you?”

“I’m about to get into my car to go to the station.”

“Wel ,” she said, “I think you’re going to want to take a detour.”

“Why?”

She told him. And Gabe realized she was right.

He was definitely going to be taking a detour.

Working alone at his desk late Sunday afternoon, Ty wondered, not for the first

time, what had drawn his partner out to the woods to meet up with Julia and

Derek. Gabe had been sketchy on the phone, as if he, himself, wasn’t exactly

sure what he would find out there. Ty had offered to go, too, though he hadn’t

wanted to since he’d been itching to get back to the missing persons files.

Gabe, probably realizing that, had told him to just keep doing what he was

doing.

So far, Ty had scoured every possible resource—the FBI’s NCIC database,

NCMEC, al the state records—and he was stil coming up empty. Oh, there

were a few boys in the right age group and time period who’d disappeared

and had never been found. But adding the name Zachary to the search

parameters did nothing but eliminate those who were left. He’d tried mixing

things up, wondering if Zachary was perhaps a middle name the boy had

gone by, and stil got nowhere.

So maybe his name wasn’t really Zachary. You ever think of that?
Yeah.

Maybe Gabe’s new best friend had had a close encounter of the I-should-be-

institutionalized kind.

He couldn’t deny that everything Olivia Wainwright had said seemed

possible, despite the fact that the way she got the information sounded total y

off the wal . Plus he’d seen the stuff Mick could do. And it wasn’t like he didn’t

know anybody else who believed in ghosts. To this day, his grandmother kept

up a running conversation with his grandfather, who’d died when Ty was a

baby. She always said Grandpa was sticking around to make sure she didn’t

marry somebody who’d spend his hardearned money. Now that he was

considering Olivia Wainwright’s story to be a plausible one, he suddenly felt a

little bad for al the times he’d wondered if his dear old granny was

succumbing to Old Timer’s disease.

Stil , to be basing an entire murder/potential missingchild investigation on

the word of a woman who had gotten her information right from a ghost’s

mouth?

“What the hel are we thinking?” he mumbled, pretty sure he knew the

answer. Gabe was thinking about Olivia, and Ty was thinking about Brooke.

And both of them were probably thinking with their Southern brains—the ones

below their belts—rather than their Northern ones.

Brooke sure was a pretty one—sweet and quiet, hair as bright as sunshine

and a smile to match. Damn, did he wish he’d met her before she’d let that

lawyer slide a ring onto her finger.

It isn’t a wedding ring yet.
Which was definitely something to keep in mind.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you off today?” a voice asked.

Looking up and seeing one of the other detectives, Bil Waczinski, he

admitted, “I should be, but I was fol owing up a lead. But it looks like I came in

on a wildgoose chase.” Knowing the older man had been on the job a long

time, and figuring he might have some fresh ideas, he asked, “You got any

experience with kidnapping cases?”

Waczinski lifted a brow. “You catch a kidnapping?”

“I’m working on that cold case, the kid whose bones were found at the Fast

Eddie’s fire.”

“Trying to ID him, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You go through NCIS?”

“Of course. And every other damn database I can think of. Figuring out the

age of the skeleton and the time it was there, I’ve narrowed it down to a

kidnapping in the late nineties, but I haven’t found squat. None of these

stranger-kidnapping records seems to fit.”

“Wel , what about the nonstranger ones?”

Ty’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Hel , you are new to the job, ain’t ya?” Waczinski said, though he did not

sound condescending, merely sad, as if thinking of al the dark, ugly things Ty

could look forward to learning in the next twenty years in law enforcement.

“Think about it: Out of the hundreds of kids that get snatched every year, how

many of them are taken by strangers?”

“Not many,” Ty admitted.

“No shit. So don’t you think it’s time to start with the noncustodials?”

Ty slowly nodded, his mind working frantical y. As soon as he’d begun this

snipe hunt, he’d pretty much discounted cases of familial kidnapping,

because the Bowles and Durkee boys had been taken by strangers—very

likely the same stranger. Besides which, the idea was too disturbing, thinking

Zachary might have been kil ed by someone who’d known or been related to

his family. But Waczinski was right; noncustodial kidnappings, cases where

one biological parent took the child from the other parent who had legal

custody were by far the biggest piece of the pie chart when it came to child

snatching.

“Worth a shot, isn’t it?” the other detective said. Then he headed for the

door. “I’m outta here. See ya tomorrow.”

“Sure,

thanks,”

Ty

replied,

his

mind

already

churning

with

this

new

possibility.

Kicking himself for not broadening his thinking to begin with, he turned to his

computer and began keying in new parameters. This time, he added back al

the kidnapping cases that had been flagged as likely being familial, which

increased the result pool a hundredfold. Then he zoned in on the sex of the

child—a boy. His age in 1999—about twelve. His race—Caucasian.

Description—brown-haired, smal build. And, of course, his name—Zachary.

He pushed “enter” and stared hard at the screen while awaiting the results.

And in seconds, found what he’d been looking for al along.

“Gotcha,” he whispered, a little stunned at how easy it had been once he’d

looked in the right place. Because the picture that popped up on the screen,

of a Georgia boy who’d been kidnapped many years ago, bore a strong

resemblance to the forensic drawing that was, right now, sitting on Ty’s desk.

The child had been younger, but the similarities could not be denied.

His middle name had been Zachary, not his first. But lots of kids went by

their middle names. If Zachary’s what he’d been cal ed throughout his life until

he’d been forced to change it to Jack, that’s what he’d whisper with his last

breath, wouldn’t he?

Ty pushed the image out of his head, not wanting to think about those sad,

final moments Olivia had described. They’d been too real, too vivid. Too damn

awful. Not for the first time since he’d heard the story did he think Olivia

Wainwright must be the unluckiest person in the entire world for God to have

given her an ability like
that
.

“So maybe He’s making up for it by giving her Gabe,” he mumbled under

his breath. Because the two of them did seem to shine with life when they

were together. Maybe they were just what each other needed.

Reaching for a pencil and paper, Ty began to make notes about the case as

he quickly scanned the record. Then he read something that made him want to

howl with frustration. “No way!” he muttered, his theory total y blown to hel with

that one entry. Because in the “suspected kidnapper” section of the report was

a name and picture, not of a man, but of a woman . . . who was identified as

the boy’s own mother.

“Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered, snapping his pencil in half.

It definitely had not been a woman who’d kidnapped Olivia Wainwright al

those years ago. Nor had it been a woman she’d seen in her vision of

Zachary’s death—if such a vision was to be believed. And hel , he was so

deep in this now, he might as wel believe it.

So disappointed he could hardly stand it, he sighed, then leaned close to