Deceived (Private Justice Book #3): A Novel (4 page)

“No slouches in that family.” Dev picked up his stollen again.

“True. Kate got a counseling position at a women’s shelter in Rochester, and she continued to work part-time once her son was born. She took a year off after the accident, then accepted a job here at New Start.”

Cal tipped his head. “Isn’t that some kind of job service organization for women?”

“How’d you know that?” Dev squinted at him.

“Moira mentioned it in that investigative series she did a while back about battered wives. I think it was one of the resources available to them.”

“That’s right.” Connor consulted a sheet of paper in the file. “It’s a vocational guidance center for women who are entering the workforce after an extended absence and who need help polishing their interviewing skills, making contacts, and gaining confidence. According to the background Nikki dug up on it, a lot of the clients are newly divorced or coming out of an abusive relationship. Kate started there two years ago as a counselor and was promoted to director of the center last year. She’s also active in her church and delivers for their meals-on-wheels type program every Sunday.”

Cal sipped his coffee. “Credible job, credible background, credible lifestyle.”

“But incredible story.” Dev took another bite of his coffee cake and spoke as he chewed. “So what’s she want us to do?”

“Identify the boy she saw at the mall. Otherwise, she’s not sure she’ll be able to let this go.” Connor closed the file.

“Seems like a reasonable request in light of all the facts—and her concerns about some of the aspects of the original investigation.” Cal swiped a smear of caramel off the side of his mug with his thumb.

“Any idea what the security camera situation is at the mall?” Connor leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers.

“I used to, when I worked at County. We investigated a few cases that took us there. But that was six years ago. However, one of my detective colleagues is the head of security there now. I could give him a call, get you an entrée. Since we have a time and location on the sighting, it shouldn’t be difficult to isolate the relevant feeds. Reviewing them will eat up some hours, though. Does your client have a budget for that kind of thing?”

“She included a note with her questionnaire assuring us cost wasn’t an issue. Apparently she received a large insurance settlement after her husband’s death.”

Dev finished off his stollen and licked his fingers. “Even if you spot this kid, the odds of figuring out who he is are minuscule. And despite the coincidences she mentioned, the chances are microscopic that he’s her son. Seems to me the lady’s wasting her money.”

“She doesn’t feel that way. The incident last Friday really got under her skin.”

Dev wadded up his napkin. “Speaking of getting under the skin . . .”

As Connor’s neck warmed, Cal stepped in. “I say go for it—in terms of viewing the surveillance video, that is. If you can’t spot the boy, end of story. Let’s defer any further discussion until after that.”

“Fine by me.” Dev grabbed the plate of coffee cake and stood.

“Hey!” Connor surged forward and snatched a piece. “This might be your favorite, but it’s for all of us.”

“I was just going to put it in the kitchen.”

“After pilfering several more pieces to stockpile in your desk.” Cal rose and followed Dev out. “I’ll make the call to mall security and pass on the contact information once I get the green light. Keep us in the loop.”

“I will.”

As they disappeared down the hall, Connor opened the file, located Kate’s cell number, and reached for his phone. She’d be happy to hear they were going to do some initial investigating, but he didn’t want to build false expectations. Dev was right. There wasn’t much chance he’d turn up anything useful. The little boy’s identity would, in all likelihood, remain a mystery. But perhaps knowing everything possible had been done might give her some small measure of peace.

And considering all she’d been through in the past three years, that was the least he could do.

Thank you, God.

Cell phone pressed to her ear, Kate swiveled away from her desk, toward the window that gave her a view of the world through slanted privacy blinds. Connor Sullivan had come through for her—and her spirits were now as bright as the sunshine outside. “I have to admit, I was preparing myself for a letdown.”

“That may yet be coming.” She didn’t miss the distinct note of caution in his baritone voice. “The mall’s surveillance camera coverage may not be sufficient for our purposes. And even if we do spot the boy, identifying him is still going to be a challenge.”

“I know—but at least you’re willing to try. That means a
lot.” The last couple of words rasped, and she swallowed past the sudden pressure in her throat.

If Connor picked up her momentary lapse in control, he let it pass. “Do you have a few minutes now? I’d like to get some specifics on time and location.”

“Yes. My first appointment isn’t until nine. I saw the boy about one-fifteen, on the escalator at the south end of the mall outside the Penney’s store.”

“What was he wearing?”

She closed her eyes and tried to visualize his clothing. Came up blank. “I’m sorry. All I remember is his face.”

“What about the guy he was with? Can you give me a description of him?”

“I only saw him from the back. But he was wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap.”

“Did you notice the colors?”

She concentrated, trying to re-create the man’s image in her mind. “The cap was red . . . but I can’t remember the T-shirt.”

“Any guesses on his age?”

“No, although he had broad shoulders and seemed muscular.” She sighed. “That isn’t much to go on, is it?”

“The red cap helps. So does the specific time and place. What about the boy? Hair color, build, any other identifying marks?”

“His hair was the same color as mine, and he was on the slight side. But he was too far away to see much detail.” She turned her back on the window and rested her elbow on her desk, dropping her head into her hand as her mood took a nosedive. “I bet your colleagues think this is nuts, don’t they?”

His momentary hesitation gave her the answer, though he couched it in more diplomatic terms.

“They’re cautious. We try very hard to satisfy our clients, and the chances of doing that are lower in a case where the odds are stacked against us.”

“Then you should know that you’ve already satisfied me by agreeing to look into my story—no matter the outcome.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. However, I’m still going to explore every avenue I find that might give us a clue to his identity—starting with a visit to the mall this afternoon. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have anything to report.”

“Thank you—for everything.”

“My pleasure.”

The line went dead, and Kate stared at her phone. Had there been a slight note of husky intimacy in his final comment? A suggestion that this case was more special to him than most? That
she
was more special than his typical client?

Shoving her hair behind her ear, Kate shook her head and answered her own questions. No, no, and no.

Connor Sullivan was a pro. Every job was important to him. She was no more special than any other client. End of story.

As for the little twinge of disappointment in the pit of her stomach when she reached that conclusion—she wasn’t even going to try and figure it out.

Opening the file on her desk, she forced herself to focus on the background sheet for the new client who would soon arrive. No sense wasting any more time thinking about Connor Sullivan or his trip to the mall this afternoon. Either there were clues to find or there weren’t.

But based on her brief meeting with him, and the aura of competence and determination he projected, she was certain about one thing.

If the clues were there, he’d uncover them.

Z
oom in slowly on the entrance to the up escalator.”

As the mall security officer adjusted the image on the screen, Connor leaned closer. None of the mall cameras were focused on the specific escalator he needed to see, but at least it was in the background on this feed. Better than nothing, though the image got fuzzier the closer the officer pulled it in.

He noted the time at the bottom of the screen: five after one. “Hold the zoom there. Let’s run it from here.”

The image came to life, and Connor focused on the monitor, searching for blond hair and a red baseball cap.

At one-ten, a red baseball cap moved into view. A man, based on the build. But as he swung onto the escalator, it was clear he was alone.

Three minutes later, another red-capped man appeared—with a blond-haired child in tow.

Connor’s adrenaline surged. “Pull back so I can see the whole escalator.”

“Spot your man?” The security officer adjusted the view again.

“I think so.” He focused on the crowded down escalator, looking for Kate to verify the timing was right and this was the duo. A sudden movement near the bottom caught his attention,
and then he spotted her vaulting off the escalator and pushing through the crowd to ride back up.

Noting the time and the camera number, he gestured toward the top of the escalator. “Zoom in on the exit.”

The man complied. A few seconds later, the red-capped man and boy disembarked. The man seemed to be in a hurry as he hustled the boy through the crowd and moved out of camera range.

“Can you pick up the guy in the red cap on any other feed?”

“Maybe.” The man punched some keys on the computer, and another view of the mall came up, cued to the same time. Twenty seconds later, Connor spotted the man in the crowd, closer up this time. For a few moments, the camera caught him and the child straight on. The man’s head was bent, but the screen offered a reasonably clear image of the little boy. Then they disappeared from view.

“Any other feeds we can tap into?” Connor transferred his gaze to the man beside him.

“No. They just went into the garage. We lose them there.”

Connor wasn’t surprised. With rare exception, most malls focused their surveillance efforts indoors.

Too bad this couldn’t have been one of those exceptions. A license plate would have made his job a whole lot easier.

“Can you play those two sections for me again? But this time I want to go in tight on the boy and the guy in the red cap and follow them to the top.”

“Not a problem.”

As the security officer reran the feed from the first camera, Connor scrutinized the screen, looking for something, anything, that might give him a clue about their identity.

Nada.

The guy wore jeans and a plain T-shirt, the fabric of the latter stretched taut over broad, muscular shoulders, as Kate had
noted. Since the boy was on the other side of him, he caught only an occasional glimpse of the blond hair.

“Let’s look at the other feed again. Go in tight on that one too.”

The security officer pushed a few buttons, and the second feed came up. He zoomed in as the man and boy walked straight toward the overhead camera.

“Get ready to hold . . . now.”

The officer froze the image on the screen, and Connor leaned forward. Mr. Red Cap’s head was still bent and angled toward the boy as he hurried him along, his face in shadows. The only new piece of information he picked up was the St. Louis Cardinals logo on the baseball cap.

More telling, however, was the way the man had kept looking over his shoulder, back toward the escalator they’d just exited. As if he was afraid someone was following him.

Kate’s bizarre suspicion inched up a fraction on the credibility scale.

He turned his attention to the boy. The youngster’s head was tipped back as he looked up at the man beside him, and though the image was on the fuzzy side, there was enough detail to make a screen grab worthwhile.

“Can I get a printout of that?”

“Yeah. Matt said I could give you a couple of shots.” The security officer hit a few more buttons, and a nearby printer whirred into action. “This isn’t our usual protocol. You must have some pull.”

“Not me. One of my partners.”

The man rolled his chair over to the printer, extracted the sheet, and passed it over. “You want to see anything else?”

Connor slipped the printout into his briefcase. “I’d like to try and figure out where these two were before they got on the escalator. Any suggestions on other feeds we could look at to see if we can pick them up?”

The man scanned the monitors showing real-time activity in the mall, then scooted back to the console. “Yeah. We can try a few things, since the place is dead today. But it was a zoo here on Friday—so this will be needle-in-a-haystack stuff. You have some time?”

“All afternoon.”

And that’s how long he stayed—with little to show for his effort.

At five o’clock, Connor rotated the kinks out of his neck. The only significant sighting of the duo had been when they emerged from the Build-A-Bear store five minutes before they caught the escalator.

“Thanks a lot for your help.” Connor stood.

“It passed the time on a slow day.” The man took a swig of the soda he’d been nursing for the past twenty minutes. “But I’m not sure it was worth all the effort—or your client’s money.”

“Neither am I.” Although the visit to the Build-A-Bear store might give him something to work with.

“Well, if you need anything else, let me know. Matt said to cooperate with you guys.”

“Will do.” He shook hands with the man and exited the office, into the mall.

As he passed the Build-A-Bear store on the way to his car, he paused. Neither the man nor boy had been holding a shopping bag in any of the security footage, so even though they’d come out of the store, it was unlikely they’d purchased anything—or left any sales information behind that might offer a clue to their identity.

Still, it was all he had.

Continuing toward the parking garage, he played with a couple of different pretexts that might ferret out some information—if there was any information to be had—opting for the one involving Nikki. She was adept at phone stuff, and she got a kick out of it.

But if that didn’t pan out, the game was over. The little boy would forever remain nothing more than a blurry screen grab from a security camera.

And for the rest of her life, Kate Marshall would be left wondering whether a remarkable coincidence had been simply a fluke—or a miracle waiting to happen.

Six- to nine-year-olds can have verbally accessible memories from very early childhood. The ability to remember certain events from their early years doesn’t begin to fade until double-digit age is attained, and very emotional incidents can be recalled earlier than nonemotional events, especially if a triggering incident occurs.

That was
not
what he’d wanted to discover.

Greg rested his elbows on the kitchen table and massaged his temples as he stared at his laptop, glad now that the baseball game had run late last night and he’d deferred this research for twenty-four hours. The delay had bought him one more day without this additional worry.

And it was a huge one.

Apparently the precautions he’d taken three years ago to buy them time so Todd’s earlier life could fade from his memory had been useless. One glimpse of Kate Marshall was all it had taken for him to dredge up fragmentary recollections that Greg assumed had long ago disappeared into oblivion.

Every website he’d found on the subject concurred: it would take three or four more years for Todd’s memories of that time to diminish enough to be harmless—especially now that they’d been triggered.

And what was he supposed to do in the meantime?

Rising, he began to pace.

Think. Stay
rational. Don’t overreact.

He repeated that mantra over and over until he felt more in control and his brain began clicking.

Okay. Maybe Todd had some vague images in his mind—but he hadn’t made the connection. Might
never
make the connection. One quick glimpse in a mall, from a distance, that’s all it had been. So he’d asked a few questions. So what? As long as they didn’t talk too much about it, as long as he changed the subject whenever the topic came up, Todd would eventually lose interest.

Greg detoured from the path he was wearing in the kitchen floor and moved down the hall, stopping outside his son’s bedroom. As always, Todd slept on his stomach, arms outstretched, legs sprawled. He was growing fast. So fast.

But not fast enough to banish the dangerous fragmentary memories.

Grasping the edge of the door frame to steady himself, Greg fought back a new surge of panic. He couldn’t let anything jeopardize the life they had. The life he’d built for them. The life he’d salvaged from the ashes. He would do everything in his power to protect his son. Everything.

Failing a second time was not an option.

He watched the even rise and fall of Todd’s back in the shaft of light from the hallway. Children were so trusting. So reliant on the adults in their lives to take care of them. To provide for them. To make sure they were safe and healthy and loved.

And he had no intention of betraying that trust.

He would guard and protect his son and preserve the life they had together.

No matter what it took.

“You were awfully quiet tonight. Didn’t you have a chance to read the book?”

As Pauline Andrews dropped into the seat beside her while
the rest of the members of the Last-Tuesday-of-the-Month Book Club went in search of refreshments, Kate shifted sideways. “I read it. I just had a long day.”

“Problems at work?”

“No.”

When she didn’t elaborate, Pauline tilted her head, reminding Kate of an inquisitive bird. The older woman might be on her second set of hips and have hair the color of fresh snow, but her eyes were as sharp and clear and insightful as someone half her age.

“Why don’t we ditch this place and grab a cup of tea at Molly’s? I don’t need any of that high-fat dessert Susan made, and I surely don’t want to look at that bulging envelope of photos tucked into the pocket of Lorraine’s purse. I think it’s fine and dandy she loves her grandkids to pieces, but those babies haven’t changed that much in four weeks and I viewed the whole gallery last month.”

“Me too.”

“Then meet me at Molly’s in fifteen minutes. I’ll make our excuses to Susan.”

“It’s a date.”

The woman winked. “You go ahead and get us a table. I’ll be right behind you.”

Glad to have a reason to escape the gab session that always followed the book club discussions, Kate grabbed her purse and slipped out the door. A chat with Pauline might be just what she needed. The older woman’s wit and wisdom never failed to lift her spirits.

And they could use some lifting about now.

Because she hadn’t heard one word from Connor Sullivan.

His lack of communication could mean one of two things. Either he’d struck out at the mall and simply hadn’t had a chance yet to deliver the bad news, or he’d found something worth
investigating and was waiting to call her until he had more definitive information.

The uncertainty was driving her crazy.

After strapping herself in behind the wheel, Kate started the engine and cranked up the air conditioner. It was odd how Pauline always seemed to sense when she needed a friendly ear. The woman’s uncanny empathy and instincts had been a real blessing since she’d joined Kate’s church. And thanks to Pauline’s gentle pushing and prodding, her life now included more than work. She’d gotten involved in meal delivery for shut-ins. Joined the book club. Yoga class would be next, if Pauline got her way, though Kate was holding out on that one. She wasn’t convinced her body could bend like that.

And since turnabout was fair play, she’d also convinced Pauline to volunteer one morning a week at New Start. That had been an unexpected blessing; the insightful older woman was wonderful with the clients.

The soothing strains of Vivaldi from her favorite CD filled the car as Kate drove, calming her thoughts, and by the time she arrived at Molly’s she’d made the decision to share the events of the past few days with the older woman. Other than Connor, Pauline was the only other person she trusted to give her story a fair hearing.