Page 34

CHAPTER 34

“Tell me what Barry calling Suzanne ‘Suze’ means,” Miller said as Kristopher paced his friend’s tiny office.

“She told me that’s what David Phillips calls her when he’s in trouble or worried about something.”

“Would Barry Collins know that?” Miller sat on the corner of his desk.

“Maybe,” Kristopher admitted. “Right before I left, Libby Collins told me that Mercy, David and Suzanne would eat there on Saturdays and David told Libby about calling her Suze because ‘Suze’ would always keep him safe if his mom wasn’t around. I think Barry was trying to warn Suzanne not to come, but with Stan holding a knife to Libby’s throat, what could she do?”

“Not much,” Miller agreed. “But–what is it?”

“Hey Sarge?” The young officer who had wanted to keep Kristopher out of Daisy’s hovered in the doorway. “You need to come talk to this kid that Callahan and Briggs caught breaking into the Phillips’ house while you were downtown. Something about a webcam recording. And that we need to find some social worker or an army dude.”

“Holy shit! It’s T.J!” Kristopher shouted. “Get him in here right now!”

At Miller’s nod, the officer scurried away and almost immediately reappeared with T.J. The boy’s sullen expression vanished upon seeing Kristopher.

“Army Dude!” he shouted. “They took David! He was in his house and–”

“Back up, T.J.,” Miller snapped. “And go slow but just the facts.”

The boy’s story spilled out. How he’d found David in the she shed and then hid him at David’s own home, thinking the bad guys would ‘never return to the scene of the crime’. That he’d feared David would be put in foster care and never get out, like T.J. And most importantly, how T.J.’s mother thought that Mercy might have had a camera hidden somewhere no one would ever look. Like inside a pot of flowers or one of those stupid garden gnomes Mercy had liked so well.

“But they found the webcam Mrs. Phillips hid in the garden gnome on her back porch. It’s right in front of her office doors. Do you think–?”

“We’ll check it out,” Miller assured him. “T.J., think hard. “Where do you think they would have taken David?”

“I don’t know, but you can track him on his phone, can’t you?” T.J. frowned.

“David has a phone?” Kristopher demanded.

The boy’s frown became a scowl. “Yeah, I gave him mine and–”

“Do you have a new phone?” Kristopher asked. When T.J. nodded and handed it to him, he asked, “What’s that number? Miller?”

“On it,” Miller responded. “Do you want Mills in on this?

“He’ll kill me if I don’t,” Kristopher said, staring at the phone’s screen. “Good Lord in the morning. David is across the street from his own house.”

“There’s a vacant house across the street,” T.J. offered. “Kinda weird because inside it looks almost like David’s in a den downstairs and woods in the back. Maybe that’s where they are, you think?”

“I think I could kiss you but that would be gross,” Kristopher said and laughed as the boy recoiled. “But thanks, T.J. I owe you big time. Call your parents and tell them it’s an emergency and one of them needs to come down here.”

And then he was racing for the door.