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B efore the formal interrogation began, Kate and Rodney walked into the interview room and faced Alana, the mother of Andrew. Kate smiled at her, sat across the table from her, and asked, “How’re you doing?”

“I’ve been better,” Alana replied, staring at her. “It’s my son that we’ve lost, in case you’ve forgotten.”

There was an edge to her voice, and that edge surprised Kate. She studied Alana for a moment and added, “Some other information has come to light, which is why we brought you in to talk.”

“And yet you had to bring me into the station? You couldn’t come to my house?” she asked. Her gaze narrowed as she stared at Kate and Rodney.

“Sometimes it’s easier, and we get better answers when people are here,” Kate replied.

At that, Alana’s eyes widened. “Good God,” she snapped. “I didn’t have anything to do with my son’s death, and I don’t see how you could possibly even think that.”

“It’s not so much about that,” Kate replied, “but there are other issues. Andrew did not die from being beaten,… at least, not this time,” she added for clarity.

The mother winced. “I can’t believe I stayed with that asshole. I can’t believe I listened to his BS.”

“I can’t either,” Kate agreed, “but that is only part of what we need to ask you.”

“What?” she asked, staring at her. “I’m serious. I didn’t have anything to do with my son’s death.”

“Not intentionally, perhaps,” Kate noted, “but it’s more than that. Your son died of a drug overdose.”

The woman stared at her in shock. “What?”

Kate nodded. “We’ve spoken to your neighbors, and apparently drugs were something that you guys had a problem with.”

Alana stared at Kate. “I would never have given my son drugs,” she cried out in shock, paling as she stared at them. “I’ll do weed every once in a while, and that is legal here,” she pointed out, “but it would only be to blow off some steam at the end of the day. I never did anything hard.”

“And how about your husband?”

She winced. “Every once in a while, he would get into some of the other stuff,” she admitted, “but I haven’t seen any sign of that in quite a while.”

“What about his brother Sammy?”

She immediately glared. “God, that piece of shit. All he does is drugs. I won’t have him in the house if he’s high. I won’t have him around my son if he’s drinking.” And then she froze. “But I wasn’t in town,” she added, lifting her horrified gaze to Kate. “Please tell me that Andrew didn’t die of drugs.”

“I just said that he did,” she murmured. “He did die from a drug overdose. Drugs that he ingested.”

Alana started to visibly shake. “No, no, no, no, please, no,” she wailed. “Please, no. Not again.”

And she looked so sorrowfully at Kate, that Kate had to slowly nod and take a deep breath before she spoke again. “I’m sorry, but it seems, for whatever reason, whether Andrew found them accidentally on the table or the floor or maybe it was given to him,” Kate explained, “but Andrew did die from a drug overdose.”

At that, the mother burst into tears, and Kate could only imagine what that felt like and knew nobody could say anything to make it better. At this instant, at this moment in time, this woman who’d thought she had absolutely nothing more to lose, was about to lose the last little bit of her own ability to even deal with life, as she now realized that the death of her child had been completely avoidable.

Kate waited until the woman calmed down and spoke again. “You should know that we have both your husband and his brother here at the station, and we’ll talk to them next.”

She just stared at her. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Can I talk to them too?”

Kate looked at her and gave her a slow headshake. “No, because, if you’re anything like me, it wouldn’t be talking you want to do.”

Alana stared at her, tears were in her eyes. “And because it’s something like this, what is the recourse for me? Do Sammy and Adam just get to walk away from this, free and clear?”

“I don’t know about free and clear,” Kate clarified, “but definitely not free from guilt and not free in the prison system.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest. “Can I just go home now? If I can’t see him, or scream at him, or do my best to kill him,” she added, “I just need to get out of here.” And, indeed, she was starting to hyperventilate.

Kate asked her, “Is there somebody I can call for you?”

She started to cry. “How could anybody ever want to have anything to do with us after this?” she whispered. “My own family told me to get rid of Adam, but no.… I was so sure he would get better, that he would change.”

“Just your husband?” Kate asked.

“Him and my brother-in-law,” she replied, with a vicious tone. “Christ, I should have left a long time ago.”

Kate stood. “Look. If you have somebody we can call, we’ll send you home with them. Otherwise I’ll need you to stay here for a little bit.” Kate looked over at Rodney, and he got up too. “We’ll be back in a minute. Do you want a cup of tea or something?” Kate asked Alana.

She shook her head. “Absolutely nothing will ever make this okay.” She stared at the two of them with a haunted gaze.

“You are right,” Kate replied, “and the only thing I can do is get justice for your little boy.” And, with that, she walked out.

She assigned a policewoman to step in and to keep an eye on the grieving woman. Then, with Rodney at her side, the two of them walked into the next interrogation room where the husband sat.

Adam immediately jumped to his feet. “Have you talked to my wife?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of her, but she won’t talk to me.”

“We just talked to her in the other room,” Kate said.

“She’s here, now?” he asked, spinning around, as if she would come in with them. “Where? I need to see her. I need to apologize.”

“You think an apology will fix this?” Rodney asked him in shock.

Adam frowned at Rodney and muttered, “No, of course it won’t fix it. I don’t even know how to fix it.”

“I’m not sure fixing this is a reasonable expectation,” Kate stated, staring at him. “Your little boy is dead.”

“I know, but I didn’t do it.”

“There is that,” she noted, rolling her eyes. “What kind of drugs do you like to do?”

“Me? I don’t do drugs,” he declared.

She stared at him. “We’ve already spoken to your wife. Do you want take another stab at that?”

He flushed. “Okay, so, she probably told you that she likes to have a little bit of weed every once in a while.”

“Yeah, she did tell us that,” she confirmed, still staring at him. “And you?”

He frowned. “So, I have a little bit of weed with her every once in a while,” he replied cautiously, obviously aware that something was going wrong.

Kate nodded. “And outside of the weed?”

“No,” he snapped, then frowned. “Okay, so maybe, once in a while, I might have a little bit of something else, but… it’s not a regular thing. It’s just recreational use.”

“How often, and do you have it around the house?”

“Sure, every once in a while, particularly if my wife’s away,” he pointed out. “She doesn’t have any use for that kind of drug, and most of the time I don’t either. Yet sometimes, when I’m with friends, you know?”

“Right,” Kate said. “And what about your brother?”

“Yeah, he probably is a little more active in the drugs than I am,” he muttered, “but, it’s not as if he’s a drug addict or anything.”

“ No, of course not ,” Rodney quipped, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest.

“And when you do partake in drugs, where would the kid be?” Kate asked.

“Oh, nowhere around,” he said. “That’s always after he goes to bed.”

“Right.”

He seemed relieved, as if the answers he gave were the ones that they wanted to hear. Kate looked over at him. “We got the autopsy results back on your little boy.”

Fear immediately crossed his face. “I didn’t kill him. Honest to God, I did not kill him,” he cried out. “I know I’ve been a little rough on him in the past, but I’ve been really working on it,” he cried out.

She nodded. “He did not die from your physical abuse. Although the bruising was enough to make the coroner stop and assess the type of abuse that little boy went through,” she began. “On the other hand, what he did die of… was a drug overdose.”

Adam sank back in shock. “A drug overdose? No, no, there must be some mistake,” he muttered. “There’s no drugs.”

“There were drugs,” Kate corrected, and she named the specific designer drug.

Adam immediately turned fifty shades of red.

She nodded. “Some drugs are like Russian roulette. You can take them once and think that you’ll be fine every time, but it’s like putting a loaded gun to your head, wondering if it’ll be the one bullet that takes you out that day. But with children?… They really don’t have any resistance to drugs, and it takes very little to be an overdose for them.”

“I would never give my son drugs,” he cried out.

“No, you might not have. What about your brother?”

“No, God no,” he stated, “never.”

Such conviction filled his tone, she nodded. “And yet would he have been quite so careful to ensure your son wasn’t anywhere close when he did his drugs?” she asked. “Or would there have been an opportunity when Sammy may have just gotten up and left the drugs accessible, like on a table or somewhere close by?”

At first Adam’s face turned fifty shades of purple, and then all of the color fled at once, as he understood what she was saying. “Oh my God.”

She nodded. “There was enough in Andrew’s stomach to kill four children,” she explained. “You want to explain that?”

*

I’ve been thinking , whispered the voice in Simon’s head.

He winced. “I’m sorry, Peter. I shouldn’t be pushing you so hard.”

No, he replied fretfully. I’m trying, but I’m not getting very much. I keep thinking about what happened.

“And did you come up with anything?” he asked curiously.

He took a moment before answering. I just remembered wanting to play with something .

“Something like a toy, an animal, a puppy?”

A puppy, he cried out. Yes, I wanted to play with a puppy.

“And who would have a puppy? Because you didn’t have a puppy, did you?”

No , he said, his tone regretful. I didn’t have a puppy .

“Do you know who did have a puppy?”

Again came silence, and he said, I’m not sure. Not sure, don’t want to say. Something about it makes me feel upset . And, with that, he started to cry. Then suddenly he was gone again.

Simon swore as he stared off at the street around him. He didn’t even realize that he’d started talking to the little boy right away, without even thinking about his surroundings. That was something he would have to be a little more careful with. The last thing he wanted was his reputation to go down the tube as somebody who stood around talking to himself. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Wondering if any puppy was involved with Peter, Simon pulled out his phone and called Peter’s aunt, Simon’s stalking Realtor. When Ariel answered, both fear and curiosity filled her tone. “Did anybody around your nephew have a puppy?” he asked her.

“What are you talking about?” she asked in confusion.

“I’m asking,” he repeated, “if anybody in that corner of your world had a puppy that Peter wanted to play with.”

She hesitated, then said, “My brother-in-law wanted to get Peter a puppy but couldn’t. He’s allergic.”

“How badly allergic?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Why? What has that got to do with anything?”

“I don’t know, but I have to ask questions as they come up.”

“Okay,” she muttered. “I would really appreciate a little more information if you can give me any.”

“So would I,” he snapped, shaking his head. “So would I. Do you know if any of the neighbors had a puppy?”

“His parents got a puppy for Peter, but he couldn’t handle it,… the allergies. So they had to return the puppy.”

“And who had the puppy?”

“It went back to the original owner,” she said, and then elaborated. “He was a friend from across the street.”

“Ah, okay.” And, with that, he had to stop and digest.

“Why?” Ariel asked sharply. “What has this… I…”

“I understand,” Simon offered. “I often feel the same way. All I can say is, that was a question I needed answered.” And, with that, he disconnected.

He knew she would try and call him back, so he just put his phone on Silent because he didn’t want to deal with it. If he knew one thing, he knew when he didn’t have any more answers to give people, and the only reason he was even asking questions, or talking to her at all, was because of Peter.

He glanced at this phone a moment later to see a call from Kate coming in. He took it off silent and answered.

“You always seem to know,” Simon greeted her, with a note of amusement.

“What happened?” she snapped, her tone sharpening.

“Nothing bad,” he said immediately. “I talked to Peter again.”

“And?”

“And I was trying to get him to remember. As I mentioned to you, this whole think thing has him a little spun up and stressed out.”

“Right,” she agreed, “and did he come up with anything?”

“Just something about a puppy.”

“A puppy,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think there was mention of a puppy in the case files.”

“Maybe not. I just phoned his aunt, the realtor who stalks me and who asked me if I could do anything to help. She remembers a puppy, but Peter was allergic, so they couldn’t keep it. The mother had given in to the kid’s demands, and it ended up that they had to give the puppy back.”

“And where did the puppy come from?”

“Seems the original owner was somebody fairly close, a neighbor from across the street.”

“Right, and all Peter remembers is wanting a puppy?”

“Wanting to play with a puppy,” Simon clarified. “And I know that means nothing.”

“No, it doesn’t mean nothing ,” she pointed out. “We know that every detail helps.”

“Did you have a reason for calling?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I got a weird feeling from you,” she shared.

He smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he stated. “I’ve been worried about you though.”

“I know,” she muttered. “It seems everybody is.”

“What about your stepfather? Any progress?”

“That’s a work in progress. They’re looking for him right now. Lilliana and Rodney are handling it. I’m looking after the cases with the kids, as much as they let me.”

“Right, but—”

“I know. It’s all likely related, which is why we’re doing what we’re doing,” she explained. “I can only do what I can do and what Colby will allow me to do.”

“Right,” Simon replied. “I’m sure he understands how you feel.”

“He does, but his hands are tied to a certain extent. As long as I continue to cooperate with the shrink appointments and the rest of the crap they want me to deal with, I’m allowed to be on the periphery of the cases. But as soon as they deem me to be unfit, then I’m off all of them.”

“They won’t do that,” he stated with surety.

“You may say that,” she replied, with a snort. “However, a lot of people could definitely say I’m not doing my best work, or I couldn’t possibly do my best work because of all the emotional issues in my world.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, “but I also know that you will compartmentalize everything you can in order to continue to find out what’s going on.”

She laughed. “I’m glad you have such faith.”

“I do have faith because I know you,” he declared, “and honestly, as every day goes by, I think I know you more and more.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad right now.”

“It’s good,” he stated, a note of amusement in his tone, hearing a smile in hers. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

“Maybe, but in the meantime,” she said, “I don’t know if I’ll be over tonight. We’re waiting for my stepfather to be picked up, and I want to be here when the interview happens.”

“Of course,” Simon noted. “I might stop by and bring you some food then.”

“You’re always so concerned that I’m not eating.” She laughed. “You know, a lot of guys would be concerned that I was eating too much.”

“Not likely,” he muttered. “You burn through so many calories that it’s amazing you’re even functioning.”

“I’m functioning,” she said. “I just have to stay on top of everything.”

“And, in order to do that, you need food.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “Deliver food if you want. I’ll be here, hoping that things will come to an end tonight.”

“You think so?”

“I hope so,” she muttered, then chucked. “Yes, I’m pushing it,… but it definitely has that feeling.”

“Good enough,” Simon replied. “I’ll see you a bit later, when I stop by the office then.” And, with that, he ended the call.

He looked down at his phone and smiled. It was the first time she’d allowed him to deliver food. Now the questions were, how much should he deliver, and what kind of food should he bring?

Smiling at being given something to do that allowed him to help Kate, and, since he was at a dead end on all these other avenues, he headed back into work.

As he took another couple steps, Peter broke through with a wistful tone and shared, I really liked that puppy .

“I’m glad you had the puppy,” Simon replied. “Sometimes animals can be our best friends.”

I really wanted that puppy, he murmured.

Sensing something was going on here that could be important, Simon asked, “What happened with that puppy?”

And, with that, Peter disappeared. Up and gone, just like that.

Sighing in frustration, not knowing what was going on or whether it was an issue or not, Simon forged ahead into his work, hoping there would be no more interruptions. That way he could finish off his day, even as his mind was occupied by trying to figure out what to order in—in terms of dinner for Kate. By the time he’d finished and was headed back home again, he realized how late it was already.

He frowned and then decided that maybe a selection of pasta from Mama Rosa’s would be the answer. Solid, filling, and, if more people were there in the station, working late, it would feed Kate and her team quite nicely because Mama’s portions were always so generous. He quickly picked up the phone, talked to Mama, and explained what he wanted to do. She told him to come by in about twenty minutes.

That was another reason he went with her. She was always there, always available, and always willing to go the extra mile to make things happen. He had to appreciate that about a business owner.

When he stopped in right on time, he wasn’t surprised to find three large boxes of food waiting for him.

“I can help you out to the car,” she suggested immediately.

He smiled. “I won’t say no. Otherwise this would take a couple trips.”

“It’s a good thing you’re bringing this for Kate,” Mama stated, giving him a brilliant smile. “I know she’ll be too busy working. She’s always too busy working,”

He smiled at her. “She is, indeed, which is why I’m delivering food,” he shared. “Hopefully she will stop and take a few minutes to eat it.”

Mama looked at him askance. “Surely she won’t let it go to waste.”

“Oh no,” he clarified, “but, when things start to break in her line of work, things can get really wild.”

Mama nodded. “We won’t ever forget her and what she did for our family.”

He nodded at that, knowing Kate would say she had only done her job, but, to these people, the family of a victim, it was going that extra mile. He quickly settled up the bill, realizing she hadn’t charged a fraction of what this was actually worth, so he added a very hefty tip to help cover the loss. She didn’t even look at the receipt, immediately handing Simon one of the boxes. Then, with Henri’s help, they got everything out to the vehicle, and Simon immediately drove to the police station.

As he got inside, he saw Colby talking excitedly with somebody. He looked up as Simon walked by with one of the big boxes and said, “Kate’s in an interview room at the moment.”

He nodded. “She told me that it would probably be a late night, and, guessing she’s probably not eaten all day, I brought in some food. Since the rest of you probably haven’t eaten much either, I brought enough for everybody.”

“For everybody?” Rodney asked, as he hopped to his feet, rubbing his tummy. “I swear to God my stomach feels as if my throat was cut.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure you’re not alone in that feeling,” he noted, with a smile. “Let’s see if we can rectify that a little bit.”

And with that, he asked Colby, “Is there a place I can put all this stuff? I have two more boxes in the car.”

Colby’s eyebrows shot up. He eyed the first box and shrugged. “Let’s put it all in the conference room that we’re not using at the moment.” Colby led the way to the room, where Simon could lay it all out. With that done, he and Rodney headed back out to Simon’s car, grabbed the second and third boxes. Simon muttered, “I never even thought to get paper plates.”

“It’s all right,” Rodney said. “We’ve got some.”

“Good,” Simon murmured. They both set down the boxes in the conference room. Simon stepped back and nodded. “That should keep you all fed for a little bit.”

Rodney looked over at him. “You really do care about her, don’t you?”

He faced Rodney and nodded. “I really do. She’s like no one I’ve ever met before. She’s really special.”

“Yeah, we’ve never seen anything like her around here before either,” Rodney stated, with a laugh. “She’s definitely a new experience for this office.”

“On the other hand,” Lilliana added, as she came in, her nose deciphering the contents of the containers, “Kate’s been hell on wheels and has done a damn-fine job for the department. It took us a bit to get her integrated into the team, but we’re there now.”

Simon nodded. “Yeah, that team dynamics thing is always a challenge, but, once you’re there, once everybody knows what’s required, then trust begins to develop, so it just keeps getting better.”

“That’s the plan,” she agreed, with a nod, “especially if you’ll keep bringing food. I’m guessing, looking at the quantity, that it’s for all of us, because I can’t see Kate eating this much.”

“It’s for everybody,” Simon confirmed. “I won’t ever just feed one.”

She laughed. “Kate does say that you enjoy feeding her.”

“She never eats,” he muttered, with a wave of his hand. “I figure half the time she just forgets, and the other half she’s just too tired and can’t be bothered.”

“I understand that too,” Lilliana replied. “We have lots of days where we just go home and crash.”

He nodded. “I’m just trying to make those go-home-and-crash days a whole lot less stressful.” Then he smiled and added, “I understand she’s in the midst of an interview, so I won’t stick around.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, eyeing him. “She would probably like to see you.”

“Maybe, but she might not like to see all this.” Lilliana’s eyebrows shot up as she stared at him. Simon explained, “I think my largesse tends to embarrass her at times.”

Lilliana snorted. “Kate’s welcome to be embarrassed. I’m too damn hungry to care,” she admitted, as she reached for a plate. “Honest to God…”

Just then, Kate walked out into the hallway, talking to somebody.

He turned, looked at her, and smiled. “Hey, dinner is here.”

She stopped, blinking as if not quite comprehending. Just then her stomach growled as the aroma of the food reached her.

He burst out laughing. “Seems I’m right on time.”

She groaned. “I am hungry, but they just picked up my stepfather.”

“Good.” Simon pointed to the food. “Time to grab a few bites before they get here. Besides, don’t you want to let him stew for a bit?” When she hesitated, he raised an eyebrow and added, “It’s from Mama’s.”

“Of course it is,” she muttered, as she walked closer, her nose immediately sniffing the containers. “Good God.” She stopped in shock at sight of all the food in the conference room. “Think you brought enough?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “How many people are we feeding?” he asked her curiously. “I never had a good understanding of how many are here.”

She stared at him and shrugged. “We are short two at the moment. So me, Rodney, Lilliana, and Colby. That’s just my team. I don’t know how many others are around tonight. Yet it’s your money, and you can spend it however you like.”

“Exactly,” he replied comfortably. “Now, would you grab a plate and eat at least a little, before Ken arrives and you lose your appetite?”

“I hear you’ve met him,” Lilliana noted.

“Yeah, I’ve met him twice now,” Simon replied, with a nod. “The first time at the restaurant with Kate to get her to recant. Then the second time when he came to my apartment building to convince me to encourage Kate to recant her testimony. As you heard in the recording, Ken threatened both Kate and her mother… and me.”

Kate froze, turned, and looked at him. “Does any of this affect you?”

“No,” he stated, staring at her. “Why would it? Your stepfather is an asshole and a bully,” he noted nonchalantly. “I’ve got nothing to do with that.”

She gave him a bright smile. “Good. I would hate to think he could impact our relationship.”

“Oh no, I can mess that up just fine on my own,” Simon admitted cheerfully, “particularly if this Peter character doesn’t stop contacting me.”

He didn’t realize his voice had carried so much, but, when he looked around, Rodney and Lilliana edged closer to them.

“What did you get?” Lilliana asked.

Simon shrugged. “Not a whole lot, nothing really useful. It’s just… I was trying to get Peter to remember more. So I told Peter that he needed to think, to spend a little bit of time trying to remember what happened to him, if he had any idea. I told him anything could help, and that brought me back to the note that Kate got, telling her to think, and that added pressure on the think part. Anyway Peter kept trying to think , yet complained how hard it was. He mostly checked in to say that he was still thinking, then he would disappear. This happened a few times, yet I never got enough to do something with,” he explained.

“Then today he mentioned a puppy. He really wanted to play with a puppy, but he was allergic. I confirmed that with Peter’s aunt. Still, the mother had broken down under the kid’s insistence and had gotten a puppy from a neighbor or somebody close by. However, as expected, due to Peter’s allergies, they had to get rid of the puppy, which is all Peter remembers.”

“So, that memory was traumatic enough that it came through,” Lilliana noted.

They all stared at Simon, and he shrugged. “Right, so useless then.” Smelling the food, he put an arm around Kate, and they walked over to the table. He grabbed two plates, gave one to Kate, and shared, “I might as well eat while I’m here,” he muttered. He served himself a big plate, made sure Kate did too, while the others stood around, talking.

“I guess we don’t have anything on Peter yet, right?” Lilliana asked Kate.

Kate nodded. “He wasn’t at the school at pickup time and there’s no evidence he walked home from the neighbors’ statements.” Kate’s tone was subdued. “Unfortunately it happens far too often.”

Simon thought about it and nodded. “Especially if he wasn’t close to his house, so nobody would have been on the lookout for him, maybe wouldn’t even recognize him. So nobody would have noticed. It just would have been a case of turning around to wonder where Peter was, and, by then, it was already too late.”

“Exactly,” Lilliana confirmed. “I’ve been looking into it a little bit, and I put Reese on it to see if she could come up with anything. There were no other cases that we know of back then, two years ago. Peter just literally disappeared.”

“And when you said there are no other cases…” Simon began.

“There was nothing to connect him to any other case, at least not until we find the body and get DNA or something like that,” she explained hesitantly, glancing at Kate, who was ignoring them, sitting off to the side, eating, yet half listening. “We don’t have anything. Usually we have some eyewitness accounts, but don’t even have those in the case of Peter.”

“So, nobody saw anything… as usual,” Rodney added.

Lilliana nodded. “Exactly, which makes it even harder on everybody.”

Simon sighed. “It always makes me wonder, even more so as I’ve learned from Kate, just how unaware people can be of what goes on around them.”

“And yet it’s not so much that they’re unaware, as their attention gets pulled away, often by design by the predator,” Rodney stepped in to add. “So, it’s not that the eyewitnesses don’t know. It’s that they’ve been deliberately misdirected, and it’s all over with so fast that nobody saw anything.”

“Still sad,” Simon murmured.

“As you should know,” Lilliana noted.

“I do know,” he agreed, “and it just seems to be a never-ending problem.”

“It is a never-ending problem,” Lilliana confirmed, “and, yes, before you ask, I did check into the police reports on all known pedophiles in the area, and they were checked. Everybody was interviewed, and nothing popped. There didn’t appear to be anything to go on.”

Kate shrugged, listening in to the conversation but not speaking up. She was eating though, so that was good.

“What would be required on something like that?” Simon asked. “I mean, just because these guys register as sex offenders, what does it mean when you say they were checked?”

“We don’t talk to them,” Lilliana replied, “because we’re not part of that division. We may get pulled in, if it’s connected to another case. However, in something like this, the police do a full search, looking for the boy. They’ll contact every registered pedophile in the area. They’ll talk to the neighbors. They’ll do a full scout of the nearby area. They’ll check street cameras, as well as cameras in the neighborhood. In this case, it was a small residential street, and they didn’t end up with anything to go on. So it just becomes something that’s always there, always in the background, but never really strong enough to follow up on, not until something changes.”

She added, “To sideline a case is one of the hardest things for us, especially when we have another possible child abduction. However, until we have further information—which all too often is finding the body—we don’t have a whole lot else we can go on.”

Rodney nodded. “The sad fact is that, on any number of given days, we may have any number of killings and child abductions that are never solved. While all that is something we’re constantly trying to improve on, it’s damn hard if the family and the neighborhood aren’t aware, and the child just disappears.”

Lilliana muttered, “Very much like Kate’s brother. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone.”

Simon nodded. “And now Ken Reeves has mentioned Timmy getting into a vehicle.”

“Which is now the second person to reference a vehicle,” Rodney stated, turning to face Simon. “Wouldn’t it be nice if Ken had told us whose vehicle it was all those years ago?”

“Ken told me it was a neighbor,” Simon noted.

Lilliana nodded. “I checked Timmy’s file on that. The cops back then spoke to the neighbors, but nothing came up. Apparently the closest neighbor went to pick up his own kids and went home. Period.”

Simon just nodded at that.

Rodney sighed. “So, until something else turns up to the contrary, we have to believe him.”

Lilliana clarified, “We don’t have to believe the neighbor, but we do need a legitimate reason not to. If he’s home with his kids, it’s pretty hard for him to sit there with Timmy and lie about it. Plus, his kids were interviewed, and they didn’t say anything about Kate’s brother being there with them.”

“Right,” Rodney said, “and unlikely they would lie. Kids are far more likely to tell the truth.”

Lilliana nodded. “That’s another thing we could check. Those kids are adults now. Let me see if I can contact them and can double-check their references on that. It may have already been done, but I’m not sure I’ve seen a report saying it was completed.” With that, Lilliana took her plate and disappeared into the bullpen.

“I guess this is constant for you guys, isn’t it?” Simon asked Colby, now taking a seat beside Simon, ready to dig into the food.

“It is constant,” Colby said, with a nod. “One day it’s good. The next day may not be so good, but all we can do is keep working the cases. We do solve a lot of them, and, since Kate came on board, we’ve solved even more than our usual number. And since you have come on board,” he added, with a smirk in Simon’s direction, “I admit those numbers have stayed high.”

“I wouldn’t say that I was doing anything helpful,” he muttered. “It seems, more often than not, what I offer is less than helpful.”

“It certainly makes us go around in circles,” Colby conceded. “And we can’t ever use it for evidence, but, if it gives us a lead, a thread to follow, a direction to head in, that’s a whole different story.”

Simon nodded. “If I were to suggest something about Peter, I would say go back to where that puppy was.”

“And do what?” Kate asked, turning to face him.

“I don’t know.… All I can tell you is that the puppy is what’s so concerning for Peter.”

“The puppy or being with the puppy?” she asked.

“Both. I can’t say any more than that because Peter didn’t say any more than that.”