Authors: Leslie Parrish
the screen, figuring he’d read the report anyway. It was fairly straightforward,
saying this mother had been involved in a bitter custody dispute with her ex-
husband. When the court had sided with the father, citing the mother’s inability
to provide for the child, she’d al egedly grabbed him and taken off, assisted by
one of those secretive groups who helped women hide from their exes.
He tabbed down, continuing to read, checking the updates that had been
added over the years, mainly out of curiosity now. Near the bottom of the
screen, in one of the final updates on the case, he saw a surprising notation.
“Deceased?” he whispered. “She
died
?”
Zachary told Olivia his mother was dead
.
Was this possible? Might he stil be on the right track after al ?
He couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t see how everything fit together, but each
new question only made him more determined to find answers. Truly
fascinated now, he dug some more, fol owing links like a mouse after a trail of
bread crumbs.
Turned out the mother’s body had been found in a wooded area in Virginia
in the summer of 1995. She’d been murdered and had apparently remained a
Jane Doe for several months until she was final y ID’d with dental records. Of
the boy, there was no further mention.
But they couldn’t have found him, dead or alive, or the case would have
been closed. Yet it remained open, active, twenty years after charges had first
been leveled against the mother.
One other case remained open: the mother’s murder. The ex-husband had
been questioned, of course, but then released, as had a suspicious drifter.
But nobody had ever been charged, and the case remained unsolved to this
day.
Everything he read was making him think this might not be a dead end.
With thoughts whirling in his head, Ty dug out another pencil from his desk
drawer and started making notes. A time line seemed a good place to begin.
In 1991, at age three, Zachary had been kidnapped by this mother.
The mother had been murdered five years later.
Her body had remained unidentified for several months.
Being on the run, the woman would have kept a low profile, moving a lot. It
was doubtful Zachary would have stayed in one school for long and probably
didn’t have friends. So nobody had been close enough to report either the
mother or the child missing. Which was why it had been months before
anybody even knew Zachary’s mother was the Virginia Jane Doe.
“Jesus,” he whispered as the whole scenario took shape.
Had their perp kil ed a woman in order to grab her son? And, if so, how
fucking lucky could that bastard have gotten? He’d chosen his prey, probably
not knowing that the mother, herself, had kidnapped him and had been living
in hiding. Nobody to notice, nobody to report the crime, nobody to hunt for the
boy.
Zachary had been the utterly perfect victim.
As if that weren’t bad enough, even the authorities had screwed up, nobody
bothering to go back in and change the designation on Zachary’s case from a
suspected noncustodial kidnapping to a stranger, child-inperil one.
Getting thoroughly disgusted by the whole thing, he went back to his time
line.
“Kidnapped again by an unknown subject at age eight,” he said, tapping the
tip of his pencil on the pad. “And likely kil ed four years later, in 1999, at age
twelve.”
Just like the Bowles and Durkee boys.
Ty waited for the tingle to start, the excitement of knowing he was on to
something big here. He had the feeling he’d solved at least one big mystery
—the identity of their Jimmy Doe.
He didn’t tingle. Yeah, his heart was beating fast, but he wasn’t feeling
triumphant or proud at having put this much together. This whole story was too
damned heartbreaking for that. Instead, he felt a grim determination wash
over him.
Gabe had warned him this case would probably affect him like no other, and
his partner had been right. Ty wanted to solve this mystery more than he’d ever
wanted anything in his life. He was going to see this through, get justice for
that kid—for al those kids—no matter what it took. He might have found a
huge piece of the puzzle, but there was stil a bunch missing.
Who had kidnapped Zachary? Who had kil ed his mother? Who was the
mysterious new “Jack” the sicko had now? And, most important, how long did
that boy have to live?
Going back to the screen, Ty made a few more notes and another list. This
one was of names and contact information. He started with the detective
who’d investigated the Virginia murder, then continued right on down to the
last known whereabouts of the father and the only other living relative named
in the file, the father’s cousin.
Ty didn’t know how he was going to handle those conversations. He sure
wasn’t ready to tel a grieving father or another family member that he might
have discovered the remains of their loved one. But he needed to talk to
them. Stil , he figured it would be safer to start with the detective.
Reaching for the phone, he wondered if this detective would remember the
case and hoped he wouldn’t mind getting a cal about it on a Sunday evening.
One more thing that he hoped: that he’d have very good news to share with his
partner whenever Gabe got back from doing whatever it was he was doing
out in the woods.
Right before he dialed, he made a mental note. He real y needed to cal his
granny and tel her to give his grandpa a big hel o from Ty the next time she
saw him. Because he now knew spirits could reach out from the land of the
dead.
In reaching out to try to help solve his own murder, this lost little boy, Zachary,
had made Ty a believer.
Though tired, Olivia didn’t think about getting ready to go to bed Sunday night.
Instead, she prowled the house, did a load of laundry, scared Poindexter half
to death by deciding to vacuum the den and kept checking the phone to see if
Gabe had cal ed with any further updates.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure what was happening. She only knew Derek and
Julia had found something out in the woods where she’d been held, and Gabe
had been out there with them wel into the night. Olivia had offered to come
out, too, though she’d felt queasy one second after she’d suggested it. Stil , if
she could have been of help, she would have done it, which was exactly what
she’d told Gabe when she’d left her father’s house several hours ago.
Her father. Ouch. He had been angry at Drew. But he’d also been angry at
Olivia and Brooke for keeping him in the dark. While going there in order to
get her sister away from her jerk of a fiancé had been a great idea, it had also
exposed them to their father’s curiosity, not to mention Sunni’s nosiness. It
hadn’t been twenty minutes before Brooke had spil ed the beans about exactly
why she’d been out of touch with Drew for so long, and then the questions had
come hot and heavy. Olivia had felt as if she were being interrogated on a
witness stand.
She’d hated to tel her father that al this had come up again. As soon as
she had, she’d seen tears in his eyes, tears he tried to pretend he wasn’t
shedding. When she’d told him they had found the mysterious Jack and
relayed the poor boy’s fate, her father had simply taken her into his arms and
held her, like he had so many times after the kidnapping when she’d cried out
her memories and her fears. Sunni—always perky and, wel , sunny—had
seemed a little embarrassed by the raw emotions flying around and had made
herself scarce while Brooke and Olivia told him the whole story.
He’d wanted to cal someone. Do something. Get the chief of police on the
phone and the district attorney, and his lawyer, and Richard, and her mother.
Oh, God, her mother. She’d made him promise not to even think of tel ing
her anything yet. One scared parent was bad enough; two was more than she
could deal with right now. Especial y if they started turning on each other,
playing the blame game they’d taken such delight in playing twelve years ago.
If it weren’t for your money and your name, nobody would have come
after our baby.
Well, if you don’t like the money and this life, why did you decide you
wanted this house?
I didn’t want the house. You wanted the damn house.
I bought it for you!
And on and on it had gone until the language of tenderness had been wiped
out and bitterness and rancor had consumed their entire vocabulary. Yet they
stil loved each other, despite Sunni, despite Carl. Of that, she had absolutely
no doubt. Which just made the whole thing so unbearably sad.
Hearing a car, she leapt up, went to the window and peeked through the
blinds. Someone had just parked at the curb. She saw the dome light go on
as the driver’s-side door was opened. Smiling as that light shone on a familiar
head of thick, brown hair, she dropped the blinds and went to let Gabe in.
“Hi,” she said, greeting him before he’d even reached the bottom porch
step.
He looked up at her, his face weary and smudged. “Hi, yourself.”
“You look like you’ve been playing in the dirt.”
Slowly coming up the steps, he replied, “Not playing. Not by a long shot.”
Gesturing him in, she shut the door behind him. “Would you like a beer? Or
coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’m gonna head home and take a shower. I just didn’t want to
leave you hanging. Figured you should know what’s going on.”
Whatever it was, she knew he was dreading tel ing her. “Okay then. What
happened?”
He replied, calmly tel ing her what Morgan, Derek and Julia had discovered
out in the woods this afternoon—ghosts. And graves. Three altogether.
Olivia’s head spun, and she felt a little queasy. She didn’t know those
people, yet they were connected in a deep, primal way, as only those who’d
shared a horrifying experience could be. Like battlefield brothers who could
never forget the scars they’d earned together. She and these three people
—and poor little Zachary—they’d al been murdered by the same man.
“Morgan was able to find the bodies?” she asked when he’d finished.
“He told Julia where they were buried.” He shook his head. “It’s such a
damn mess, Liv. It wasn’t like I could cal in a search team and say a ghost
pointed out their graves. Absolutely the only break we caught today was that
the property had been seized for unpaid taxes years ago and nobody ever
bought it, so it’s owned by the county.”
She assumed that meant the legal issues were a little easier.
“In the end, it was Julia who just used her cel phone, cal ed nine-one-one
and made an anonymous tip about finding some human remains while she’d
been out walking in the woods.”
Simple. Smart. But had it been plausible? Would the authorities, however,
see anything to back up her claim? Treading careful y, not wanting to ask the
man if he’d been playing the role of grave digger today, she asked, “Was her
story believable?”
He nodded once, grimly. “Yeah.”
Which was al she needed to know about that. “So then what happened?”
“A squad car was dispatched. The patrolman actual y did his job and came
deep enough into the woods to find the site. He cal ed for backup, and I made
sure I responded to the cal .” He leaned a shoulder against the wal , then
rubbed his face, fatigue rol ing off him. “They’re going to go over the area
tomorrow and wil find the other two graves. I’l make sure of that.”
Talking more to herself, she said, “If one of them saw
him
, got a better look
. . .”
“Forget it!” Gabe’s voice cut through her musings. “You’re not going near
them.”
Remembering what he’d said last night while he’d held her so tenderly in his
arms, she knew where his vehemence was coming from. “But I can help.”
“I don’t want that kind of help, Liv. It comes at too high a cost.”
“I’m wil ing to pay it.”
“I’m not,” he snapped. “Let’s get one thing clear. I’m putting my foot down on
this. You don’t do any more of your tricks on my watch or on my case. I’ve
gone out as far on this psychic limb as I intend to, and I’m not going an inch
further, not when it comes to you.”
Sure, he wanted her to think that was it. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew he
was worried about her. She also knew something else—that he cared about
her.
“I understand,” she said quietly, knowing she couldn’t argue. This situation
was difficult enough without her being childish and demanding or throwing a fit
because she’d been shut out. He’d already done so much, she could honor
this one request.
Realizing how difficult this whole thing was for him—walking a line between
his job and his oath as a police officer on one side and his wil ingness to work