Forbidden (Southern Comfort) (34 page)

“The woman at the Inn this morning.”  Clay leaned closer to the bed.  “Is that who you mean, Rogan?” 

The man nodded, and Clay got to his feet.  Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?  He was paid to notice behavior, pick up patterns.  And he’d realized the abduction was premeditated.

He’d seen
that
woman, the old lady with the big shoes and the nervous hands, in the hallway just last night.  With her hand on the door that led to the third floor, and the bed where Max slept.

Damn.  She’d been trying to take him then.

If he hadn’t come home when he did, Max might have been whisked off into the night.

Of course if he’d been paying closer attention, Max might not have been taken at all.

Kim came into the room, after having excused herself to take a call from Deputy Harding, and caught the look on Clay’s face.  “Something’s up?”

“We need to get into the Inn’s computer and find the name of the person who took Max.”

C
HAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JOSH
Harding pulled his cruiser into the long, tree-lined drive which led back to the old Walker place.

He’d just gotten off the phone with Agent O’Connell, who’d instructed him to continue canvassing without her.  Seemed she was going to be wrapped up with Agent Copeland in the search for Tate Hennessey’s son.

And hadn’t
that
been a piece of crappy news.   As if the case they were working weren’t foul enough.  

A pothole in the neglected drive had Josh prying his teeth out of his bottom lip, and after examining the overgrown vegetation, chalking this up as a waste of time.  Old lady Walker had gone to live with her grandson in Atlanta a while back, and the farm was in disrepair.  Where once corn and tobacco had marched in well-tended and orderly rows, undergrowth snarled and sapling pines bumped together like boisterous children.

Around the bend the farmhouse rose, half obscured by a cloud of dust. When the debris settled in the heavy air, Josh decided the place was a pit.

It had been white – once – with neatly painted blue trim.  But the blue had long since faded to gray, the white peeling like cosmetic leprosy.   Weeds sprouted two feet high from inch-wide crevices in the broken sidewalk.

“Crap.”  Josh eyed the sagging front porch, wondering if worker’s comp would cover him falling through.  But he had to search every dwelling, barn and outbuilding in his particular quadrant. Exiting the car, feeling the slap of heat, he donned his hat and started to sweat.

Then adjusting his weapon to within easy reach, set off toward the house.

AFTER
seeing to it that a member of Tate’s family would be with her on the off chance that she awoke, Clay tried to reason things out while Kim drove.  His brain – which he definitely needed in good working order – was suffering the profiler’s equivalent of writer’s block.

He just couldn’t put himself in the mind
frame of an elderly woman using a date rape drug to facilitate kidnapping.  It was a weird combination of daring and non-confrontational, the way she’d gone about it.

When Clay thwarted the apparent initial attempt, she’d backed off and gotten nervous.  Her hand had shaken as she’d turned the key in the lock, giving her unsteady nerves away.

At first, Clay had attributed the tremors to age or a possible neurological disorder.  But given the fact that he’d surprised her in the act, it made sense that she succumbed to nerves.  Unless, of course, she wasn’t nervous at all, and had used the shaking to make herself appear feeble.

And if
that
was the case, then the woman was much more clearheaded than he thought.  And also very determined.  When Plan A had crumbled like dust at her feet, she’d regrouped rather quickly.

By waiting out the night, paying attention at breakfast, and following Rogan and Max to the aquarium, she’d been able to facilitate Rogan’s fall. 

An excellent distraction.

And leading Max away, through all the confusion, played the helpful old lady card to perfection.  Who was to question an elderly woman walking off with a little kid? 

Nothing suspicious there.

In fact, the whole abduction had been so well thought out and smoothly executed that Clay
suspected she’d done this sort of thing before. 

But why?  A pedophiliac Grandma?

The chances of that were pretty slim.

And most women who kidnapped children to fulfill a maternal need were younger, and selected younger children.  Not to mention that that particular scenario played in a negligible amount of abductions.

So why specifically target Max?  There had to be easier children to take.  Did he remind her of a lost child?  Was he the latest in a string of replacements?

He’d obviously been targeted before she ever made the reservation at the Inn.  Tate didn’t allow Max to mingle with guests, except on a very limited basis.  And the woman had come prepared with the drug and a plan for taking Max.

He wished the sheer, nauseating terror he felt would stop messing with his ability to think.  Because the more he tried to fit the pieces together the more confusing the puzzle became.  There was a reason cops didn’t investigate cases dealing with loved ones, because it shot your objectivity to hell.

“Figure anything out?” Kim asked as she pulled up behind the Inn.  

“I’m an embarrassment to the Investigative Support Unit right now, because I can’t figure out shit.”  

“Give yourself a break,” she advised as they got out.  “You’re under a lot of stress.  And please remember that as important as this is – and I know what this little boy means to you – this is not up to you alone.  You have the Charleston PD and several federal agents working to get Max back.  So whatever happens,” she stopped him just outside the door to the Inn with a hand laid in friendship on his arm, “you can
not
hold yourself responsible.”

Her meaning was clear.  If Max died, that was just the way things went. 

“Thanks for that vote of confidence.”  Clay shook off her hand, pinching his fingers against the bridge of his nose.  Visions of Max, terrified and alone, made the words a ragged lance of pain.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Clay took the key Tate had given him to let them in the back door, and headed straight for the office.  A feminine voice drifted out, engaged in one-sided conversation.

A shorter, rounder version of Kathleen Murphy sat behind the desk, cell phone to her ear.  She tapped away at the computer keyboard while leaving a message asking Maggie for help. 

Tate’s cousin, Maureen.  The pharmacist looked up from the computer as they entered, and though a smile attempted to flutter at the corners of her mouth, the eyes behind her glasses were worried. 

She shook their hands as introductions were made, then quickly got down to business. “I was having some trouble getting into the file that keeps the records of the Inn’s guests so I called Maggie to see if she could help. Or better yet remember the name of the woman you mentioned.  Her cell phone’s apparently in a dead zone because I can’t get through.”

Hell,
Clay thought.  They didn’t have time for this.  And while he was competent with computers he was no technical guru.  He turned a hopeful look toward Kim.

“I’m not much better than you. But why don’t I give somebody in tech support a call and see if they can walk me through it?”

“Excellent idea.”

Kim moved to take the chair behind the desk, and Maureen hustled out of her way.  “If this doesn’t work, should somebody wake Tate?”

“If this doesn’t work, we might have to.  In the meantime, I’m going to go up to the room where our mystery guest spent the night.” 

The door was unlocked, and Clay pulled a latex glove – an occupational staple – out of his pocket so as not to disturb any prints.  From the unmade state of the ornately carved bed, he determined that the daily cleaning hadn’t yet taken place, and thanked whatever stars had determined that at least one thing go their way.

He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he might find, especially since this woman seemed careful.  But at the moment any clue, however small, was better than none.

He checked the closet, under the bed. In the drawers of the bureau to see if anything may have fallen out of a pocket and been left behind.  Unsurprisingly, the place was clean.

Flipping back the covers on the barely disturbed bed, he noted that not one single hair or detectable fiber was visible to the naked eye.  No creases or drool marks on the pillow or residue from that night cream old ladies tended to wear. 

In fact, it looked like no actual human skin had touched the sheets. Bending to sniff the bedding, he found no tell-tale odor of mothballs.  Or rose water.  Or sweat.  Or anything other than Bounce.

Finding absolutely nothing even remotely useful in the bedroom, Clay flipped on the lights in the adjoining bath.  The shower/tub combo was perfectly dry, the complimentary toiletries undisturbed, and neither the bathmat nor any of the large towels appeared to have been used.

Okay.  So the woman hadn’t bothered to bathe.  Not totally strange, considering his own grandmother had done so only every other day, and had positively refused to use the facilities whenever she’d stayed in a hotel.  Germophobic, maybe, but not conclusive proof of wrongdoing.

The sink area also seemed in pretty much perfect condition. No watermarks from overzealous hand-washing, or toothpaste spit on the mirror.  Which didn’t exactly fit if she was a germophobe.

So why hadn’t she wanted to bathe?

The ripped end of the roll of toilet paper suggested that at least she had normal bodily functions, as the end would have been folded into a neat little triangle if it hadn’t been used.

Then Clay squatted down, pulled out the wastebasket for an inspection, and was somewhat surprised to see that she’d actually generated some trash.  One lone tissue lay crumpled on the bottom of the small bag.  He fished it out, opened it gently, trying to disturb it as little as possible.  It seemed stuck together with something resembling chewed bubblegum.  Or half-dried latex paint.  As he sorted through his mental files of what the hell this could possibly be, his phone jangled in his pocket.

And at the same moment, he heard muffled yelling from downstairs, followed quickly by the echo of footsteps.

Clutching the tissue, he prioritized the chaos, and chose phone-answering over dealing with whatever was happening downstairs.  Computer glitches could probably wait, but a phone call might be vitally important.

Spying Kathleen’s number on his caller ID, he hoped she was calling with good news. He pressed the phone to his ear as he went toward the door.  “What do you have for me, Kathleen?”

There was a rush of noise – phones ringing, people talking – and he figured she was calling from her desk.  

“We have a positive shot of Max on a surveillance video,” she told him, words tumbling out in a rush “leaving the aquarium with an elderly woman.  She kept her face averted, and put on a wide brimmed hat as soon as they stepped outside, so ID is going to be sketchy.  But at least we have positive proof of abduction, and it’s enough to issue the Amber alert.”

“That’s great.” 

“And another thing of interest, she had a bandage on her hand, which backs up your theory on the old lady at the Inn.”

Clay sighed.  It was both wonderful and terrible to be right.

“She certainly was cool about the burn this morning.  She just sat there and let Tate bring her more tea.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to call more attention to herself.”

Before Clay could respond, Maureen burst through the door, harried and out of breath.  “You need to come downstairs,” she gasped.  “Some kind of virus is eating the computer!”  

CLAY
stood by, totally helpless, and watched the information on the Inn’s computer disappear.

Apparently, someone had attached a virus to one of the files – make that
the
file, actually – which had activated when Kim finally opened it.

Whoever took Max was damn clever with computers.

A clever, computer savvy, non-bathing, burn tolerant, GHB-packing, large shoe-wearing, non-rose water-smelling granny.

Right.

No wonder it didn’t add up.  As he listened to Kim deal with the computer crisis, he opened up the tissue again and examined it.  He’d have to get it to a lab to say for sure, but he’d stake his life on the fact that he was looking at liquid skin. Liquid skin that had been partially melted by hot tea.

Little old lady, his ass.

He flipped open his phone and hit redial, knowing Kathleen needed to correct the erroneous info on the Amber alert.

Clay was very nearly certain
Max had been abducted by a
man
.

And he was going to tear the bastard limb from limb.

Kathleen answered on the first ring, asking about the computer, but Clay quickly cut her off.  “The computer virus is the least of our problems.” Anger laced his words.  He’d been
three feet
away from Max’s abductor.  “I have some very strong reasons to suspect that our infamous little old lady is in reality a very clever man.”