Page 36 of Little Child Gone (Nikki Hunt #10)
TWENTY-ONE
After confirming Brandon Kelly’s alibi, Nikki spent the rest of the day going over all of her notes on Taylor, the Smith family, and Rodney Atwood.
Atwood murdered his stepson, Scott. Atwood had an affair with Stephanie, who really hated the Smiths.
Stephanie had been in contact with Atwood since Scott’s death.
Taylor was the wild card. Where did he fit in?
Nikki hadn’t noticed anything strange about Stephanie’s reaction to Taylor’s name.
She didn’t think Stephanie was the woman who had pretended to be his mother.
Had Taylor been searching for his biological father? Nikki felt like she was going in circles right down the drain. None of it made sense.
That night at home, after she tucked Lacey into bed, Nikki went into her office to go over the last couple of days. So far, the circumstantial evidence supported Taylor being alive, but why would he disappear without telling his siblings? What was she missing?
Her vibrating work cell pulled Nikki out of her thoughts. She didn’t recognize the number, but the caller ID read Indianapolis.
“This is Agent Hunt.”
“Agent Hunt, I’m sorry to call so late,” a female voice replied. “I called your office number, and your machine said to call this number in an emergency.”
“Yes, this is my cell phone,” Nikki replied. “You’re calling from Indiana?”
The woman cleared her throat. “Yes. My name is Kelsey Richard. I’m a family law attorney in Indianapolis. The evening news ran a segment about Christy Hall’s son Taylor. Is he still missing?”
Nikki entered the attorney’s name into the search bar. Kelsey worked for a large firm in Indianapolis specializing in domestic cases. “Unfortunately. Do you know if he’s turned up in the city?”
Liam had been tasked with staying in communication with public safety in the greater Indianapolis area. He’d enlisted an agent from the local bureau to make sure Taylor didn’t slip through the bus or train station without being seen by the police or CCTV.
“Not that I know of, but I do think there are some things you need to know. You’re aware Christy Hall was arrested for domestic battery a little over a year ago?”
“Yes,” Nikki replied. “Jared confirmed she received probation with anger management.”
“I’m sure he did.” Kelsey’s tone made Nikki sit up straighter. “How did they seem to you? Jared and Christy?”
“What exactly happened in Indianapolis?”
“Christy Hall met with me about a week after her arrest,” Kelsey said. “She told me that Jared was the abusive one. He hurt himself during that fight. Taylor heard the glass shatter and saw Jared bleeding, but he didn’t see who actually threw the glass.”
According to her online bio, Kelsey had more than twenty years’ experience in family court. “Did she seem like a battered woman to you?”
“I believed her,” Kelsey replied. “Jared controlled every aspect of their lives so well the kids weren’t even aware of what he was doing. He monitored what Christy ate, drank, her entire routine. Their bedroom was soundproof. She hid the bruises.”
Nikki thought about Christy letting Jared take control of all the conversations.
“She had to look presentable at all times,” Kelsey continued.
“No loungewear. Slacks, shirt, hair curled and makeup on. She’d been working in restaurants when they met.
He swept her off her feet and said she would be able to stay home and take care of her kids.
She was so excited, and they were married within a few months.
Christy didn’t have any family to tell her to stop and think things through. ”
A predator’s favorite sort of victim, Nikki thought. “Did she have any medical record of the abuse? Or anyone to back her up?”
“No,” Kelsey replied. “Jared had the kids on his side before they were married. Christy said they were happy and didn’t carry a lot of resentment toward her until Jared showed up and started pointing out flaws.
By the time they were married, Taylor had started talking about how hard things were when he was little, even though they had a lot of good memories. ”
“Christy gave us the same impression.”
“She’s probably been gaslit into believing it,” Kelsey said. “Once they were married, everything changed. Sometimes the sex was so rough she couldn’t walk the next day. Jared would tell the kids she had a bad hangover and needed to be in bed all day.”
Disgust rolled through Nikki. “He broke her spirit.”
“He really did,” Kelsey agreed. “She told me more than one story like that. He made her look unstable in front of her kids every chance he got.”
“Did she try to leave?”
“She had nowhere to go,” Kelsey said. “He told her she could leave whenever she wanted. By then, Jared had adopted Taylor and Amelia. Six months before the arrest, Christy had gone to the store and wound up with a DUI. She was driving erratically and then became combative. She hadn’t been drinking and swore she didn’t do drugs, yet she tested positive. ”
“Jared’s a surgeon,” Nikki said. “He could probably get his hands on anything he wants.”
“He’s a bastard,” Kelsey spat. “The only time she fought back caused the fight Taylor overheard. She’d caught Jared watching underaged porn.
He said they just looked young, but this wasn’t on Pornhub.
She didn’t recognize the site name, but Christy was positive that the address ended with a dot onion, not dot com. ”
“The dark web.” Tor users weren’t all criminals. Regular users did use the Tor network for anonymity. But porn with a dot onion almost always meant child pornography.
“Christy wasn’t going to let him hurt Amelia or Penny.
She told him they were leaving. He cut himself with his own knife, slammed the bottle to the floor to break it and screamed.
Taylor ran in and believed Jared. That was supposed to be the last straw for her,” Kelsey continued.
“That’s why she came to me. I think she was shocked that I believed her. ”
“Was that first appointment the only time you talked to her?” Nikki asked.
“She was supposed to come back three days later for a second appointment, but didn’t show. I called her a few times and she didn’t answer. I finally found out she’d gone with a public defender and taken the plea. I had no idea they’d moved until I saw the news tonight.”
After ending the call with her, Nikki did a deep dive on Kelsey Richard to make sure she didn’t have anything controversial in her past that would suggest she was making up the story. For all Nikki knew, she could have been an old girlfriend of Jared Hall’s looking for revenge.
Kelsey was in her mid-fifties with grown children, a lifetime public servant fighting for families and kids.
She’d received several awards over her career and had worked with the state on several child safety initiatives.
Nikki hadn’t been able to find anything derogatory about her on any database or social media.
Nikki had decided to go through social media in search of Christy’s life in Indiana, but her only profile consisted of Facebook updates on her kids.
And the account had been opened after she married Jared.
Nikki opened the copy of Christy’s arrest report Liam had emailed her, hoping someone had written her maiden name down, but she didn’t see it.
She switched gears, logging onto Indiana’s public database.
It took a few moments to narrow down the long list of Jared Halls to the right marriage certificate, but Nikki finally located it.
“Christy Martin,” Nikki said to the empty office.
Within seconds, she had Christy’s old Facebook profile pulled up on her laptop.
The account was still technically active since Facebook couldn’t be bothered to delete accounts, even when a deceased’s relative requested it.
Her old account was set to private, so only a handful of public posts from a few years ago were visible to Nikki.
A healthier-looking Christy posed with two other individuals wearing the same black, button-down dress shirts.
Nikki had confirmed the bar Christy had worked for in Indianapolis had permanently closed, but she didn’t recognize any of the names tagged in the photo captioned “Besties forever.” Every person from Indianapolis that Jared and Christy had told them to call appeared on her new Facebook profile, clearly friends of Jared.
Nikki scrolled through every photo Christy had uploaded since starting the newer profile, checking for the young man and woman from the photo with a happier version of Christy.
They didn’t appear in a single image, including the dozens from the large goodbye party Jared’s hospital had thrown him before they moved.
Nikki debated messaging Christy’s old friends, but decided an email from her official FBI address might get a faster response.
She kept it brief, stating they were searching for Taylor Hall.
Both work numbers were included in her email signature, and she added her personal cell, urging them to call her day or night.
Email sent, Nikki stared at her computer, the adrenaline from Kelsey’s call dissipating. A yawn made her jaw pop.
She headed to bed, making sure her cell wasn’t on silent.