Page 14

I t was hard for Kate to focus after that. She searched the database of case files for that address, but nothing came up, except the one involving her brother. She needed to talk to her mother again, and that wouldn’t be much fun. She’d called the hospital, and her mom was slowly waking up but refusing to see her. Now Kate needed to make it official.

She got up and looked over at Rodney. “I’ll head over to the hospital and see my mother, and I’ll check on Edna while I’m there.”

“Edna?”

She winced. “The single mother of the teenage boy, who we found with the syringe in his arm.”

“Right,” Rodney muttered. “The attempted suicide. At least she’s made it this far.”

“She did, but I suspect she won’t be very thankful that we saved her.”

“No, I imagine not,” Rodney agreed. “What a mess. It’s all just so tragic.”

“Tragic. Very sad,” she noted.

She walked out, stopped for a minute, and took a deep breath. Just something about all this was so painful. These poor people, going through all this pain and trauma, and nobody was there for them. But she understood because that had been her early life too, and nobody had been there for her either. Her mother had gone to pieces, had blamed Kate for Timmy going missing, and that had more or less been it for her. It made no sense. Her mother just could not look at her own actions—or inactions. Better to blame somebody else than look at herself.

Kate drove to the hospital and parked in the big parking lot. As she got inside, she flashed her ID and asked for the condition on the woman she’d brought in earlier—Edna—and got pretty well the same answer as before. Cautiously hopeful .

She nodded, then headed up to the floor where her mother had been moved to. As she got there, she realized that she hadn’t had her mother’s blood sample checked for the particular drug given to her, and that needed to be done, if someone else hadn’t already done it. It wasn’t an autopsy kind of tox screen, so it would need to go through a different chain of evidence process, authorized through proper channels. That was one of the first things she asked about when she came to the nurses’ station near her mother’s room.

The nurse checked her mother’s records and confirmed that a sample had already been taken and sent to the lab.

Kate smiled and nodded her thanks, then headed to her mother’s room to speak with her, except her mother appeared to be in a deep sleep. Kate hesitated, wondering if she should push it and wake her up, forcing her mother to share whatever she had been dealing with.

She walked toward her, and her mother’s eyes opened, and she freaked out.

Kate immediately raced to her side, her hands out as she whispered, “It’s okay. It’s all right. Calm down. You’re not alone. You’re in the hospital.”

Her mother stared at her, frightened and trembling, her eyes wide as she looked around.

Kate repeated, “You’re in the hospital. It’s all right.”

Her mother sagged back onto the hospital bed and stared at her.

“We came to find you because you wanted to talk,” Kate began, “but, when we got there, you were,… you were on the kitchen floor, with a needle in your arm.”

Her mother stared at her, then shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“I don’t know whether you did or not,” Kate stated. “What I can tell you is that’s how we found you.” Knowing her mother wouldn’t believe her, Kate brought up the photos taken at the site and held them up for her to see.

She stared at it, immediately shaking her head. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“I’m not saying you did. I’m just saying this is what we found. I came to talk to you but found you like this instead.”

Selene stared at Kate, that same shock in her gaze.

“Do you want to talk now?”

She shut down immediately, like watching all the lights go out inside. Selene stared out the window. Finally, after a long moment, she shook her head.

Frustrated, Kate replied, “It would help a lot if you would talk to us.”

She immediately shook her head again.

Not sure what to do, Kate asked, “Then why did you call me?”

“It was a mistake,” she snapped.

Swearing at that, Kate replied, “It couldn’t have been that much of a mistake when you called me to come talk to you.”

“It was a mistake. I told you that.”

When she was in this mood, Kate knew it would be hard to shake anything loose, so she changed her tactics. “Any chance that somebody else did this to you?”

She just shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I don’t know,” Selene snapped again, glaring at her daughter. “I obviously don’t know anything, because I didn’t think I did that.”

“And maybe you didn’t,” Kate conceded. “Is there anybody in your life who might have done this?”

She stared at her, bit her bottom lip for a moment, then shook her head. “No,… no one.”

That was clearly a lie. Kate frowned at her mother. “You haven’t had any visitors since you’ve been in here, except me.”

“And why are you here? Oh, right,” she grumbled, “because somehow now you’re a cop.”

“Yes, I am a cop.”

“But you didn’t find your brother though, did you?”

“No, not yet,” she stated, “but I haven’t given up either.” Her mother turned to stare at her. Kate nodded. “His file stays on my desk all the time. There is always hope that something will break in the case and that we’ll find him.”

“Really?” her mother asked, a distinctively odd note in her tone.

Kate leaned forward and stated, “Yes. I will find him.” She wasn’t sure if her mother was seeking reassurance or something else, but something was off. Kate couldn’t place it.

Even long after she’d left the hospital, that feeling wouldn’t leave her. “What the hell was that all about?” she mumbled to herself.

If she could just figure out what her mother wasn’t saying, it would help. The fact that her mother wouldn’t talk now was even worse. If she hadn’t put herself in the hospital with this stunt, then who the hell had? Kate was pretty damn sure, once her mom had woken up and had seen Kate, that’s when her mom had first realized that something was going on. Kate just didn’t know what. She didn’t see fear in her mother’s expression. Instead she found one of resignation, as if Selene understood that the end was coming regardless.

And that made no sense at all to Kate.

Frowning, she stood outside the hospital for a long moment, wondering what was going on. Then she realized she’d forgotten to ask her about the address Simon had just given her. Had they owned the house?

She didn’t remember. She walked back up to her mother’s room and walked in just in time to see her mother up, dressed, and trying to pack to leave.

Selene stopped as soon as she saw Kate and glared at her. “What are you doing back?” she snapped.

Kate noted a completely different woman now, compared to the one she had left just a few minutes ago. “I forgot to ask you a couple questions. Where were you thinking of going?”

“Home, of course. I’m not staying here.”

“Why?”

“I’m not staying here,” she repeated. “It doesn’t matter why.” With that, she grabbed her bag and walked calmly to the door. “You can tell the doctors I’m checking out.”

And yet it did matter. It mattered in a big way. Kate walked beside her in the hallway and took a stab in the dark. “Do you think you’ll be any safer at home?”

Her mother froze, then turned to Kate, and she now saw the fear in her mother’s gaze. Kate nodded. “You may not be any safer at home, and you need to consider that.”

“It’s not as if you’ll protect me,” she snapped, followed by a harsh laugh. “So, it doesn’t matter, does it?” And her mother took off toward the elevator.

“The mistakes we make,” Kate said, “they travel with us.”

“Don’t I know it,” her mother snapped. “You don’t need to lecture me about that.” She stepped inside the elevator, with Kate dogging her the whole way.

“Maybe not,” Kate conceded, “but that house we used to live in?” Kate gave her the address, trying to jog her memory.

“What about it?”

“Did you own it?”

“Yes, we did.” Her mother stiffened as if against impending doom, and Kate saw her hunching her shoulders. “Did you sell it way back then?”

“I did,” she confirmed. “I got the house in the divorce and sold it.” When the elevator door opened, Selene headed for the big double doors and stepped outside and kept on going.

And that gave Kate the first indication as to why her mother might be scared. “Do you think he’ll come back after you for money?”

“I don’t have any money,” she stated, staring at her. “So, even if he does, it won’t make a damn bit of difference.”

“That might not save you anyway,” Kate noted. “You need to tell me why you’re so scared.”

“I’m not scared,” she snapped, glaring at Kate. “And, for a cop, you’re not very smart.”

She didn’t have any reason to hold her, outside of the overdose, so she offered, “Let me drive you home at least.”

Selene frowned at her. “Why?”

“Because I’m not done questioning you,” Kate explained. “So, we can either do it while we’re driving, or I can make you come down to the station, and we’ll discuss the overdose there. You will be checked up on for that anyway.”

“If I leave the hospital, nobody can make me do anything.”

Kate laughed. “You think it’s that simple? If you are deemed a danger to yourself, then definitely people will be calling you,” she pointed out, “whether you like it or not.”

Her shoulders slumped. “No, I don’t want that. I don’t want or need anybody in my world. I just want you all to go away.” With that, she shoved her face into Kate’s. “All of you, got it?”

“Oh, I got that when you slugged me in the face the other day,” Kate replied, staring at her. “And trust me that I don’t want anything more to do with you than I have to.” She thought a flash of hurt appeared in her mother’s gaze, but Kate wasn’t too worried about it at this point in time. “I still need questions answered, so you will answer my questions.” She pointed in the direction of her car.

“You don’t need questions answered,” Selene snapped. “You’re just trying to make my life difficult.”

“And how am I doing that?”

“All the shit about your brother,” she said. “It’s done and over with.”

“Really?” she asked, as she opened up the passenger side of the car. “You would think somebody who lost her son would be the first to want answers.”

“There are no answers,” she snapped. “Some stranger snatched him, and, if you’d been a better sister, you would know that.”

Kate smiled, realizing that, for the first time in a very long time, her mother couldn’t hurt her this way. “I’m not seven years old. I’m an adult now. I know better than to believe you, and I reject that shit.”

“And I don’t have to listen to your shit either,” Selene snapped.

“Actually you do, and we can either do that here or down at the station, your choice.”

Still glaring, her mother hopped into the car and muttered, “Just get me home, then you can walk out of my life and stay out.”

“Happy to,” Kate agreed, “at least until we solve our current situation. However, if I need you back in for questioning, believe me that I’ll have you back in for questioning.”

“That’s harassment,” her mom snapped.

“Not likely,” she countered, with half a smile as she got into the driver’s side. “When it comes to needing answers and getting them, turns out I’m pretty good at it,” she shared, turning to look at her mother. “And I don’t care what kind of excuses you try to pass off this time.”

“I didn’t have any excuses last time either,” she declared, glaring at her daughter. “You’re the one who lost him.”

“I didn’t lose him,” she clarified, “and it’s nice of you to still try to blame a seven-year-old.”

“You were old enough to know better.”

“Yeah, and what does that say about you?” she asked, turning to look at her mother. “The adult in all of this, the drug addict, who was forever blaming her partner for that too?”

The color drained from her mom’s face. “You don’t know anything,” she roared, immediately trying to open the car door, but it was locked.

“Maybe I don’t,” Kate conceded, “but what I do know is that you’re still withholding information, and for that I guess we’ll need to take you down to the station. There you can scream and swear and talk all you want, but this time?… This is well past the point in time for more of your lies. We want answers, and we want them now.”

When they pulled up to her mother’s apartment building, Kate parked and went to turn off the engine. Her mother immediately bolted out the door, glared at her, and spat, “You’re not welcome here. If you need to talk to me again, and I can’t get out of it, send one of your cohorts instead. I don’t want to see you again.”

Surprised that her comment stung as it did, Kate watched as her mother, albeit a little unsteadily, walked straight up to her apartment.

Kate could see the windows from her place right from the parking area, which is one of the reasons she had stopped here, thinking maybe she could keep an eye on her mom as she got up to her apartment. Kate knew her mother. Selene wouldn’t let up. While Kate could force the matter and could take Selene to the station, Kate didn’t really have any more questions to ask of a mother who apparently no longer had anything that she wanted to say to her.

As she kept watch, she noted the curtain twitched, and her mother’s right center finger came up to give Kate the eternal signal to get lost. Shaking her head at that, she slowly drove away, wondering what she was supposed to do with that.

As she got back to the station, Rodney was just walking in. She looked over at him and asked, “Any progress?”

“Some,” he replied carefully. “How’s your mom?”

“Refusing treatment. She walked out of the hospital, so I drove her home,” she shared. “Not sure I should have, but she wasn’t staying either way.”

“So, she’s okay then? Did she tell you what she wanted? What she’d wanted to tell you, I mean.”

“No, and not only that, I got the finger and was told to never come back. So, if the police need to speak to her, I’m to send one of you guys, not me,” she shared, with studied carelessness.

He just looked at her and shook his head. “Wow.”

“Yeah, sometimes families are like that,” she noted.

“And sometimes they’re not,” he added.

“Did you find out anything?” she asked him.

He let loose a long sigh. “I know you might not appreciate this, but I did pull your birth certificate.”

“Yeah, that’s interesting,” she said, looking at him. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen it.”

“So, the man in prison isn’t listed on your birth certificate.”

She paused, contemplating that information. “I’m not terribly surprised at that. I don’t even know if she knows who my father actually is.”

He winced at that. “A name is on there though.”

She frowned at him. “Wait. My father’s name is on it, and it’s not the guy who’s in prison?”

“Right, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Okay, so who is it?” He gave her a name, and she shrugged. “That’s not a name I know. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard it. Wesley Crane,” she repeated. “I can’t think of ever hearing that name come up in conversation. Too bad I didn’t know that earlier. I could have asked her about it,” Kate said, with a laugh. “That would have pissed her off even more.”

“They were married, and I did look for a death certificate.”

Kate nodded, waiting. He wasn’t telling her something. “Come on, Rodney. Out with it.”

“Apparently your real father died a few years ago.”

“A few years ago?” she repeated, her eyebrows shooting up.

He nodded. “Yes, about seven.”

She frowned. “I didn’t even know anything about him.”

“And I suspect that was your mother’s doing.”

She nodded, a little surprised to be shaken by that news. “It would have been nice to know I had a father out there.”

“No guarantee that he even knew about the pregnancy. Remember that.”

“But you said they were married.”

“Yes, but I don’t know at what point he disappeared from the picture.”

She frowned and acknowledged that possibility too.

“What was your mom even like back then?”

“I only have the perspective of a seven-year-old,” she murmured, “and unfortunately it’s fairly twisted by the circumstances. So, I would say, rough . I think she was a good-time girl, and, when she couldn’t find a good time, she made one.”

He nodded. “Any chance that your brother might not have the same father?”

She snorted. “There’s a damn-good chance. I don’t have an answer for you.”

“I’ll go pull that next,” Rodney stated.

“You do that,” she muttered.

Lilliana took one look at Kate and said, “Aren’t families great?”

“No, not at all,” she muttered, as she sat down at her desk. “I just dropped my mother off at home.”

“She’s okay then?” Lilliana asked.

“Let’s just say she’s fighting mad and was rather desperate to get home.”

“Interesting.”

“Yet she seemed afraid, but she won’t talk about it, and she won’t tell me what she wanted to talk to me about before.”

“So, you think somebody is trying to keep her quiet?”

“It’s possible. Right now she’s incredibly uncooperative and told me flat-out that, if the police want to talk to her again, to send somebody other than me.”

Lilliana shook her head. “Well, that clears that up.”

“Clears what up?”

“Whether she harbors any motherly love.”

“There’s none. Apparently there never has been. Today she blamed me again for losing my brother.”

Lilliana slowly turned and frowned. “Seriously?”

Kate nodded. “She told me that it was my fault for having lost him. I told her that I was an adult now and didn’t take on that BS and that she had been the adult back then, so it was her job to keep him safe. Obviously it wasn’t something she did deliberately, and Timmy and I used to walk home together all the time,” she noted. “Yet I wasn’t about to take that from her again.”

“No, of course not,” Lilliana agreed, yet with a curious smile. “Do you think she’s doing it on purpose?”

“Of course she is. It stops her from facing her own guilt.”

“True, but it’s still an odd thing to say, considering you were only seven.”

“Exactly, and she’s never really eased up on that story, so I don’t imagine anything’s changed.”

Rodney walked over, a piece of paper in his hand. “Your brother does not have the same father as you, at least based on the birth certificates.”

She nodded. “Not a surprise.”

“And he’s the one in prison right now,” he stated, turning to look at her. She winced, as he went on. “Do we know where he was at the time your brother disappeared?”

She shrugged. “According to the case file, he was already in prison, but, whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.” With that, Kate grabbed the file that she always had on her desk and asked Rodney for the date that Ken was incarcerated. “Yes, according to those dates he was in prison, although that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a day pass.”

“The fact that they even give those out is pretty amazing, especially if they’re doing it to commit further crimes.”

“He may not have been convicted yet at the time, and they do tend to be more lenient if they are not a flight risk and if he couldn’t make bail,” she pointed out.

Lilliana nodded. “So, somebody needs to contact your mom.”

“You’re it then,” Kate announced, with a bright smile.

Lilliana rolled her eyes. “Fine, let me see if I can get her on the phone.” At that, she walked over, sat down at her desk, and went to work.

Kate turned to Rodney. “So, Ken’s listed on Timmy’s birth certificate?”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

“You didn’t know?” he asked her.

“I wouldn’t have had any clue, and honestly, I’ve never questioned who our fathers may have been,” she shared. “But really, it’s no surprise, knowing my mother.”

He just frowned at that, and she knew he was having a hard time with the harsh realities of her childhood. She smiled. “There are so many other things in life to worry about. So, the failings of my mother are not worth wasting my energy on.”

“I agree,” he muttered. “Your mother is a piece of work.”

“I think maybe long ago she had dreams and hopes and wishes, just like everybody else, but what I don’t know is what happened in the meantime.”

“And it could just as easily have been a divorce—or two,” he pointed out, “particularly if she had a certain lifestyle she wanted to maintain.”

“I think it’s not so much the lifestyle as potentially just some fun in life.” Kate frowned. “There were a couple girlfriends in the picture back then. They were very vocal about defending me, telling Selene how I did not have anything to do with my brother’s disappearance. They were kind to me. I don’t think they approved of Selene throwing me to the wolves,” she added in a half-mocking tone.

“Do you remember their names?”

She opened her file again, flipped through, and found their statements. “These two,” she murmured. “You might shake something loose now, after all this time.”

“Done. Do you want to come with me when I interview them?” he asked.

“No. I’ll focus on these two current cases and stay away from that as much as I can.”

“And can you?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “However, I do know that somebody could be trying to use it as a distraction, and we do have two dead kids, and that’s something we really need to solve.”

With that, she sat down at her desk, needing to contact the hospital regarding what drugs had been in her mother’s system. A phone call later, she sat here, stunned, wondering how the hell her mother had anything to do with Kate’s current cases.

Rodney walked by with a hot cup of coffee in his hand, took one look at her expression, and asked, “What?”

She shook her head. “The drug they found in my mother’s system is the same one found in the two boys.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he sat down with a hard thump . “Wow, that changes things.”

“Does it though?” she murmured. “I’m not sure it changes anything.”

“It sure does,” he declared. “There’s your connection.”

“Right, meaning they all may have the same drug dealer. However, beyond that, I’m not sure. Why would anybody give a rat’s ass about my being involved, when I’m not even on the drug squad?” she asked. “I’ve been in homicide for long enough that anybody who did two minutes of research would know that.”

“So, you think they were trying to hide a homicide?”

“No, I think they fear any connection with me would trigger my interest, regardless of what department I was in,” she suggested, giving him a hard glance. “I would be on top of it regardless.”

He cracked a knowing smile. “They’re right in that sense.”

“Maybe,” she murmured, “yet I also have to consider that this is a setup, pure and simple.”

His eyebrows slowly rose as he studied her. “A setup for whom?” he asked.

“Me,” she snapped. “Just for me.”

*

That next morning, Simon seemed revived from his latest woo-woo incident. He was thankful for that as he moved swiftly through his day, finding enough work to keep a dozen men busy. Of course he had dozens of contractors working on each rehab site. Payroll was coming up, and that was always a fun time. It was usually interesting to see who would show up after they got paid and who decided to go on a bender, crawling back a few days later. That kind of Russian roulette Simon couldn’t do anything about, but he hoped he could keep them coming back to work. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t.

As he walked through the main office of his accountant, the paperwork settled and the pencil-pushers happy—at least as happy as they ever were—Simon headed to the nearest rehab building. With that quickly handled, he headed off to the next one. By the time he was done with his visits through each of his rehab projects, while ignoring the latest calls from his stalker realtor, he headed over to a coffee shop.

As he walked up to get a coffee, the realtor stepped in front of him. “I’ll buy it.”

He turned around and asked, “Where did you come from?”

“Hey, I know this is one of your regular coffee joints,” she shared, with an eye roll. “And since you haven’t answered my calls, I figured we could talk here.”

“You’re still hounding me about that one building, huh ?”

“My clients really want to sell,” she replied simply.

“That’s nice, and I do want to buy, but I won’t do that until I have an idea of where I’m at.”

“Ooh, does that mean you’re broke?” she asked in a half-joking manner, but her gaze was searching.

His eyebrows shot up. “As you should know very well by now, I don’t talk money… ever,” he stated coolly. “If I wanted to buy right now, I’m quite capable of buying, but I haven’t yet done a cost analysis, and I’m a little busy.”

She frowned, realizing that she’d overstepped and tried to laugh it off. “Hey, I was just teasing, and I meant no offense. Don’t worry. Everybody knows you’re loaded.”

“I’m a working man,” he declared, staring at her. “ Loaded isn’t part of being a working man. I work my ass off financing these rehabs, and, with any luck, at the end of the day, money is left over to do it again.”

She gave him a coy look. “No way you would do this if you weren’t making money.”

“You might be surprised at what drives me,” he countered, with a coldness still in his gaze and in his tone.

“Then tell me,” she whined in exasperation. “You’re always looking at buildings. You’re always looking for something to do, and yet the buildings that you end up choosing are often the ones that nobody else would touch.”

“A lot of times that’s exactly what they are, but I don’t touch them because other people won’t,” he clarified. “I touch them because they need it.”

She frowned, clearly not understanding, something he was up against all the time. It was one of the reasons he didn’t discuss it, particularly with people like Ariel. “I’ll let you know if I come to a decision on it,” he stated. “Other than that, get them down in price. As soon as I reach a point where I can’t not buy it, I’ll come up with a cost analysis for it.”

She groaned. “They want to sell, but they still want to get something out of it.”

“Yet they’ve been sitting on it for how long? Twenty years?” he asked, staring at her. “If they wanted to get something out of it, they could have sold it much earlier, at any point in time.”

Simon walked from one area to another and sat down at a table again, trying to kick the stupid realtor out of his mind. She was one of those people who seemed to always be there, and it was starting to drive him nuts. When he looked up, she stood in front of him, tapping her foot on the ground. He glared at her. “Seriously, have you got nothing better to do than hound me?”

“Not if you’re interested in buying.”

“If I buy, I buy,” he stated, his patience running thin. “Why are you so pushy?”

“Because I need, I need,… want to make the sale.”

“That’s nice,” he muttered, staring at her. “Lots of other buildings are out there.”

“There sure are,” she agreed, shrugging, “but this one needs to be done, and you’re the right person for it.”

His eyebrows rose at that. “And what makes you say that?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered, frowning and looking around, “but I can’t seem to leave it be.”

“I see that,” he noted, “but it’s a little concerning that you’re hounding me so much…”

She laughed. “As if you care.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” he stated. “Of course I care. I don’t want anything weird to happen here.”

She eyed him in surprise. “What could possibly happen that’s any weirder than already is around this place?”

He studied her carefully, trying to assess what she knew, for she was acting odd.

“Besides,” she added, “I’ve heard you have some… abilities.”

He just stared at her, the smile falling from his face.

She nodded. “And that you don’t like to talk about it.”

“I don’t talk about much to anybody,” he declared, cutting her off. “I’ve learned the hard way that most people aren’t honest when they say what they’re after, so now I really don’t know what it is you’re after.”

She smiled. “All good things.”

“Now,” he replied, standing up, “I’m off to work, and I suggest you leave me alone.” And, with that, he turned to walk away.

“If you do have abilities,” she added, walking behind him, “I could use some help.”

He froze, then turned to her. “Interesting that you would even ask,” he muttered.

“The situation requires that I be blunt.”

“And why is that?”

“Because,” she hesitated, then shrugged, “my nephew is missing.”

“Good Christ. What has that got to do with me?”

“Nothing, but I did hear that you helped somebody else get a little boy back.”

He stared at her and replied carefully, “Maybe, but that was a fluke.”

She gave him a ghost of a smile. “I wonder what that even means in your world.”

“It means that I won’t be pushed into things.”

“Of course,” she agreed, with a nod. “You don’t want anybody to know, but there’s got to be a reason why you buy all these buildings.”

He laughed. “I buy them because I want to.”

She glared at him. “You could help.”

“Maybe, but so could a lot of people.”

She shook her head at that. “No, this is bigger than that. I don’t know what happened to him.”

He didn’t even allow himself to contemplate that. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Don’t you care that a little boy is lost? Peter’s never done anything to hurt anybody.”

At the name Peter , Simon froze, then pivoted to face her.

She nodded. “He’s innocent. I don’t know what the hell happened to him, but it’s bad.”

“What did you call him?”

“Peter. Peter Bigwood is his name, and I think it’s bad.”

“And how do you know it’s bad?”

“He’s missing, Simon. He’s a little boy, and he’s missing,” she repeated.

For the first time, her demeanor cracked, and Simon saw real emotions. “I don’t know that I have anything I could possibly help you with,” he replied, studying her intently. He’d become even more jaded after working with Kate. People wanted stuff all the time, and, if they found out what Simon’s involvement had been with the police, that would change his life entirely, and he was not up for that.

“I don’t know if you can help. I don’t even know if you will,” she muttered. “I just know that I need help.”

“Have you gone to the cops?”

“Of course,” she said, with a glare in his direction.

He shrugged. “We see all kinds of things.”

“And I do too,” she stated, with a nod. “Sometimes I walk into empty buildings, and I’m afraid that another dead homeless guy will be inside. It’s not supposed to happen. I’m not supposed to be the one who finds them, but somehow it ends up being that way.”

“Seems to be an occupational hazard. Maybe it’s time to change jobs.”

“Oh, I’ve thought about that lots of times, trust me,” she muttered, glaring at him. “Yet it doesn’t change the fact that, rumor has it, you helped the cops find that little boy.”

“Even if I did help find a little boy, that has nothing to do with being able to help you.”

“No, but I’m hoping,” she whispered.

He groaned. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“Look. All we know is that he didn’t come home from school.”

“And how long ago was it?” he asked.

She hesitated and then replied, “Two years.” When he frowned at her, she nodded. “I know. It’s been a while, too long, but we want to bring him home, dead or alive.”

“And that really doesn’t help in any way if you haven’t got anything to help the police find him.”

“I know, and that’s what they say too,” she admitted, with a note of desperation. “After so long, you give up. I even hired a private investigator. My sister, she’s going crazy, and she wants answers.”

“So often,” he noted, “there are no answers.”

She immediately nodded. “I know. I know. The police told us that too, but what are we supposed to do? It’s not as if we can just turn it off.”

“Is that why you’ve been hounding me?”

“No, but…” She shrugged. “I figured, what the hell? The only thing you could really do is say no. And everybody else has said no already.”

“Of course,” he noted.

“I know that you don’t want anybody to know and that you probably really wish I hadn’t even approached you. Regardless, when you’re desperate, you do whatever you need to do, and you don’t care. You may think that I’m crazy, but I don’t care about any of that.”

“What happened to him?”

“He just wasn’t there to be picked up at school one day. Nobody saw him. They didn’t have any cameras at the right angle in the playground area where he always got picked up. He just wasn’t there, and we never saw him again.”

“Who was supposed to pick him up?”

“My sister was, but he wasn’t there,” Ariel explained, “and the police checked.… They say everywhere , but obviously not everywhere because they never found him.”

Simon sighed, his brain already working overtime. “I’ll call you.”

“Please, please, if there’s anything…”

“No promises, all I can do is check all the same sources I did last time.”

Relief washed over her face. “Yes, please do, please. Anything is helpful.”

“Not necessarily,” he countered.

She frowned and whispered, “I know. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

He nodded. “I suspect he is, but that’s not what you want to hear.”

She winced. “No, I really don’t want to hear that, but, if that’s what you tell me, it is what it is, and we need to know.”

He sighed. “Let me think about it.”

She immediately backed off but stared at him anxiously.

He realized how much it had taken for her to take that step forward. He swore.

“I know. I know. I know,” she cried out. “But please, if you come up with anything, call me.” And, with that, she turned and raced away.

He watched her retreat, knowing that now he must contact Peter, the same little boy he had spoken to before. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

This was not exactly how he thought his day would go. And the fact that Ariel had mentioned Peter , and that was the name of the little boy Simon had been talking to was something he could not ignore, even if he wanted to. Peter wouldn’t let him.