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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

THE AKANAS

Amy doesn’t know when she first started resenting her husband. Was it during the endless days and nights in the hospital waiting room and cafeteria while Ken was off being Super Judge? Was it the silence at the dinner table? Ken prioritizing his grief over her own?

She told herself that she wasn’t being fair. One of them had to make a living while the other became a full-time caregiver for Timmy. And Ken gave up something far more precious than a career. He lost time with their son. Even if that time was brutal and heartbreaking and exhausting. It was still time with Timmy.

But God love him, Ken is taking action now. He was up all night sending emails, calling in favors, making sure every single resource was used to find their daughter. It’s not fair. Amy knows there are poor kids in marginalized communities who get a single overworked detective and an inevitable banker’s box in a cold-case closet.

Right now, though, she selfishly doesn’t care. She’s let Libby down these past few years and she’s not going to do it now.

Libby. Oh, Libby. The perfect child. She represses a sob, knowing, that was an unfair expectation. Particularly since Amy was hardly a perfect mother. And certainly not a perfect wife.

Ken storms out of the back office of the Starbucks after she tells him why their tires were slashed. After collecting herself, she finds the FBI agent and campus police chief sitting at a table waiting. Ken isn’t with them.

The FBI agent, Keller, gives her a sympathetic look. “Who was that man in the video, Mrs. Akana?”

“His name is Bruce Lockwood. He’s a police officer I met at the hospital where my son was being treated.”

Amy explains her son’s illness, the long days and nights at the hospital. Meeting a cop who was there dealing with the aftermath of a teenager’s overdose. She noticed how kind he was to the parents. Explains how she saw him another night, a few weeks later, in the hospital cafeteria. How he had an easy way about him. He knew who Ken was. Joked that her husband had freed some of his collars.

She admits that she began to look forward to those occasional encounters. On a particularly bad day with Timmy, she ran into him again. Ken was working late as usual. Timmy was sleeping. No harm in getting a meal outside the hospital for a change, she’d thought. Better than eating alone—again. And the rest took its inevitable course.

Until she tried to break it off.

“He became possessive. Unwilling to let go. I had to block him on my phone. Then he started following me.” She pauses, takes in a breath. “I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t get a restraining order because it would humiliate Ken. I couldn’t do that to him.”

“You’re sure it’s Bruce Lockwood on the video?”

Amy nods again.

“Did you tell him you were coming to Santa Clara?” Keller asks. “We’re a long way from LA.”

“No, the last time I saw him was the Saturday before we left. He approached me at the supermarket, of all places. He must have been following me. I told him to leave me alone or I’d be forced to call the police. To tell my husband.”

“Did you post anything on social media that you’d be here? Tell anyone he knows you were coming?”

“I don’t use social because of Ken’s job. And no, Bruce doesn’t know any of our friends.”

“Have you had any contact with him since you’ve been in Santa Clara?”

Amy looks down at the table. “After our tires were slashed, I texted him. Told him he needed to stop. That it’s over.” Her lower lip quivers. She takes in a breath like she’s steadying herself. Like she’s forcing herself to push through. For her daughter.

“What did he say?”

“He called me. Apologized, begged me to come back to him. Swore he’d be better, pleaded that we belonged together.”

“Do you think he could’ve taken Libby? Or the others?”

“Two days ago, I would’ve said that’s crazy. But now…”

“Did you notice anyone following you from LA?”

Amy shakes her head. She feels like she’s on the verge of collapse.

Soon, they walk Amy to her car. Ken sits in the driver’s seat. She expects a clenched jaw, searing anger. But he seems more dazed than anything.

“I know that was hard, but you did the right thing telling us,” Keller says as Amy gets inside the vehicle.

Ken says nothing, just starts the engine. Before he pulls out, there’s a tap on the window. He lowers it, looks at the FBI agent who is staring inside the car.

“You said only three of your tires were slashed,” she says. “Which one was left alone?”

“The front passenger tire.”

Amy watches as the agent walks over to that side of the car, squats like she’s examining the wheel well.

When she stands back up, she displays a small rectangular metallic box in her hand.

Then Amy understands and her heart plummets.

A GPS tracker.