Читать книгу A Son's Tale - Tara Quinn Taylor - Страница 15

CHAPTER SEVEN

“PLEASE…LETME SPEAK to my son… .” Morgan’s voice broke as she started to cry, something she couldn’t help in spite of her father standing over her as she answered the phone.

Cal was there, too, somewhere behind her in the living room. Her knees were weak and wobbly as she stood at the card table, watching Detective Warner’s face.

He nodded, mouthed that she was doing fine, and then the voice that she recognized from earlier that night—a voice she somehow knew was going to live within her forever—spoke again.

“Good, you’re begging for the life of your loved one. Just like I did.”

Click.

Morgan’s stomach felt like lead as Detective Warner listened to the earbud that connected him to his people and then shook his head.

“They got the tower,” he announced. “A different one. It’s forty miles away.”

“He’s moving,” George Lowen said.

“Or his cell phone provider has good range and other towers had conflicting signals,” Grace said from the doorway leading into the bedrooms. “You heard what he said earlier, George, depending on cell providers—”

“It’s the middle of the night,” George interrupted, his impatience evident in spite of the soft tone he used to address his wife. “There can’t be that much business out there. He’s moving south.” George left the room, cell phone to his ear, barking orders to someone to get cars on every road going south out of Tyler.

Cal Whittier was behind her, a steady presence, and still Morgan struggled to maintain composure as panic surged through her. She looked at Detective Warner.

“We’ve got officers combing south, as well, Ms. Lowen. And we’ve notified law enforcement within a six-state radius. The Amber Alert has gone out nationally. We’ll find him.”

She nodded. “You have to bring him home to me. You have to.”

“We will, ma’am.”

She wanted to believe him.

* * *

ANOTHERCALLCAME in an hour later.

“Your son is crying for you.” Click.

Looking helplessly at Detective Warner, Morgan was crying, too.

* * *

BY 6:00 A.M. Morgan had fielded a total of five calls originating from towers on a southward route. Sometime in the small hours of the morning another detective, a woman, had shown up, offering to relieve Detective Warner. He’d declined.

George had spent the night in the kitchen, except for the occasional trek into the living room to confer with Rick Warner or to witness a phone call.

“I’ve got half a million sitting in wait,” he told Warner just after six. “I can put my hands on another two and a half by noon.”

The look of relief on Morgan’s face was palpable—as if that money sitting out there would ensure her son’s safe return, when, in fact, there hadn’t been a single request for ransom.

Only a slow and cruel torture of a beautiful young woman whose biggest sin, as far as Cal could see, was allowing herself to believe that she was in any way to blame for her son’s abduction.

“I’ve arranged for a press release at seven,” George continued, the more pronounced lines on his face the only visible sign of having spent a sleepless night. He’d shed his jacket at some point. Cal had seen it draped over the back of a kitchen chair when he’d made a trip to the bathroom. And the knot of Lowen’s tie was a little loose, but neatly so. His black wingtips still glistened as though they’d been freshly polished and the obviously expensive slacks bore few wrinkles. “I’m going to be offering a million-dollar cash reward to anyone who provides the information that brings my grandson home.”

Detective Warner stood. “Let me talk to my captain,” he said. “As you know from our conversation last night, he’s planning to go to the press in a few hours. We can’t stop you from making your own announcement, but I know he’s going to want you to coordinate the press release with the department. We’re trained to deal with these types and know the things to say that get the best response the most times. And regardless of that, it would be best for us to make a joint statement—puts more pressure on the perp if he knows we’ve joined forces—and the captain’s going to insist that you run the responses through us. Anything else will jeopardize our investigation and potentially put your grandson in more harm.”

Cal stood next to Morgan, whose weary gaze moved between her father and the detective with whom they’d all spent the night. She turned to Cal and he lowered his head to catch her whispered, “This is so my father, and I hate it. What if his high-handedness makes things worse? But I’m grateful, too. Am I nuts?”

“No. He’s out of line. But if he gets results, then he’s doing the right thing.”

Grace, having come in from the bedroom each time the phone rang, raised her head from the back of the chair to follow her husband’s exchange.

“Tell your captain that I’ll agree to a joint conference if your people can be ready at seven. And he cannot insist on anything. However, if you can have a contact response team ready to begin receiving calls within the hour, and will agree to let my representatives be privy to each and every response as well, I will agree to sending all possible leads to the care of the police. We realize the offer of a reward will bring out false leads and we’ll need the manpower to follow each of them until we can weed them out. I want my grandson back.”

Warner nodded and reached for the cell phone he’d been using all night to confer with his team.

“And tell him that I will make available to him any monies he needs to get this done,” George added, leaving the room without a glance at his daughter.

He motioned for Grace to join him, though, and with a quick squeeze of Morgan’s shoulder as she passed them, the older woman followed her husband from the room.

Morgan’s lips and chin were trembling and Cal knew that unless Sammie Lowen was found safe and sound, this was one of life’s pains that would not get better with time.

* * *

DETECTIVE RAMSEY MILLER from the Comfort Cove Police Department in Comfort Cove, Massachusetts, didn’t believe in anything as certain as fate. Spending his days and nights viewing gruesome details of crime scenes had taught him one thing for certain—life was a crap shoot. Sometimes the bad guys got it. Sometimes the good guys did.

And sometimes a guy just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Since his divorce he’d taken to drinking his morning coffee in bed, reading national and local news via the laptop computer that was always either on his nightstand or, if he’d fallen asleep while working, sharing the covers with him.

The thing about internet news sources was that they were so plentiful he was never without company, even if it meant that he was reading about an Issaquah couple caught having sex in their car. This time on the fifth floor of a Park and Ride. It was news to someone. And as long as there was internet and people to talk about, there would never be a time, no matter how late in the night or early in the morning, when he would have to settle for his own thoughts.

The second Saturday morning in July was when he was the lucky guy who ended up in the right place at the right time. He’d taken an extra hour in bed to surf other people’s troubles instead of working on the pile of unanswered questions waiting for him on his own desk. Sort of.

He’d been perusing a local news site from Tyler, Tennessee, but he hadn’t been there just randomly. He’d chosen the town because he was trying to reach a man there who wasn’t returning his calls. Caleb Whittier. The guy worked as a professor at the university there, he’d discovered from tax returns. He needed some answers from Whittier so he could lessen the pile on his desk and instead all he was getting were more questions.

That was until he got lucky.

A kid was missing from Tyler—which wasn’t lucky. He’d seen the Amber Alert go out because he was on the internet looking at Tyler news. He’d called Lucy Hayes immediately. He and the detective from Aurora, Indiana, were long-distance compatriots—they’d both, for different reasons, dedicated their lives to missing children.

And then a live video feed flashed on his screen. Pursuant to the missing child. It was a press conference that was taking place. Ramsey clicked.

The kid hadn’t been found. Damn.

And more bad news—the kid was the grandson of some local millionaire who was offering half a mil in reward money.

If Sammie Lowen had been kidnapped for ransom, chances were his family wouldn’t see him alive again. Of course, there were other reasons kids were snatched that weren’t any better. He’d hoped the kid had just run away. He was ten, after all.

And Ramsey had his right-place-right-time moment.

There on the screen. The guy standing behind the mother of the missing boy—his image was also on the file on top of the stack waiting for him at work. Granted, the photo on Ramsey’s desk had been gleaned from the department of motor vehicles, a driver’s license shot, but he was certain that he was looking at Dr. Caleb Whittier. A grown-up version of the seven-year-old boy whose photo was also in the file.

Sitting up straight, Ramsey held the portable computer with both hands and stared. He still had questions. Just different ones.

Like, why was a man who, as a boy, had been involved in a missing-child case, involved in another missing-child case as an adult?

Whittier had only been seven when the two-year-old daughter of his father’s fiancée had gone missing. The boy could hardly have been a mastermind child abductor at that point.

He watched the rest of the video. The kid’s mother never spoke. She just stood behind the grandfather and Captain Dennison, who was representing Tyler law enforcement, with an older woman Ramsey assumed was her mother. Caleb Whittier was farther back than they were, probably unaware that he was on camera. Others were with him. Neighbors, maybe.

And maybe that’s all he was. Maybe there was no connection to him and the missing boy at all. Maybe he’d never even met the kid.

But there was definitely a coincidence here.

And to Ramsey Miller a coincidence was like a toothache. It bugged him until he did something about it.

* * *

“YOUREALLYDON’T have to stay.” Morgan found herself alone in her living room with Cal Whittier after the press conference Saturday morning. “You haven’t slept at all.”

“Neither have you.”

“He’s my son. My mind isn’t going to relax enough to allow me to sleep.” Detectives Warner and Martin and Captain Dennison were in the kitchen conferring. Her father and mother had left to shower and change and would be back within the half hour. Detective Martin had suggested that Morgan call her doctor and request a sleep aid, but she wasn’t planning to heed that particular piece of advice. At least not for the next twenty-four hours.

“I’ll go if it will make it easier on you.”

They were sitting on opposite ends of her couch. “No!” The volume of her emission embarrassed her. “You’ve…helped. I just don’t want you to think you have to stay. I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t want him to leave. Ever.

And that wasn’t fair to him. Or right.

Cal Whittier owed her nothing. And had no idea she’d had a crush on him for years.

“You aren’t fine,” he said, his gaze so understanding Morgan almost broke down again. “But I’d like to stay. At least until you’ve seen the fallout from the press conference.”

“You’ve been on the phone several times. I figured you had something going on and…”

“My dad asked me to keep him up to date.”

Hearing that a perfect stranger cared threatened her composure all over again. Strangers came to your aid when things were really bad.

And the world really did have good in it because strangers came to your aid.

Her thoughts rolled around one another, presenting themselves and then rolling off again. She couldn’t focus. She could only feel.

And other than an inexplicable sense of comfort from having her college professor sitting with her, Morgan felt nothing but out-of-control bad.

* * *

HALFANHOUR LATER Morgan was thirty minutes closer to flying out of her skin. Her parents were back. Grace was frying bacon in the kitchen. The smell nauseated Morgan. George sat at the dining room table with a phone to his ear, whether on one conversation or many, she had no idea. Every man he had out looking for Sammie was to report to him directly. He had charts and maps and was keeping a detailed account of every move everyone made.

Her phone hadn’t rung since the press conference an hour and a half before.

Was this the fallout, then? Nothing? This man who had Sammie really didn’t want money? He only wanted to make them suffer as he had? To hurt as he had?

His wife was dead.

What did that mean for Sammie?

Her stomach swarmed, her joints felt too weak to support her, and Morgan had to fight not to give in to the thick cottony fog encasing her mind. She had to stay coherent. To believe in Sammie. For Sammie.

“You said your dad lives with you.”

Caleb Whittier stood at the living room window, watching the street. He was looking out for her and she knew she was never, ever going to forget this man.

The crush she’d had on him in class seemed so menial now. The man had become her angel, holding her suspended just slightly above a hell that would burn her to ashes in seconds were she to fall.

“That’s right, he does.” Cal turned around, his face darkened with stubble, his eyes slightly puffy from lack of sleep, and still his smile was warm and nurturing and filled with a peculiar understanding—as though he not only saw her but felt her, too.

“Does he work?”

“Yes, but he’s on vacation this week.”

For years she’d wanted to know more about this private man who was so generous with his time and advice. And right now, she could hardly focus on his words.

“On vacation? So he’s not at home?” She’d thought his father was at home. That Cal had called to tell his father he wouldn’t be home. But maybe she was wrong. The night before was a bit of a haze to her right now.

“He’s at home. His fishing trip was…canceled.”

Something about the way he said the word was a little different. Morgan couldn’t bring forth the effort to be curious. She nodded. “Where does he work?”

“Green Pastures.”

“The nursing home?”

“Yes.”

“Is he a doctor?” No, wait, they visited nursing homes; they weren’t usually on staff there. Were they? Did Sammie need a doctor? Was there still time for a doctor to help him…?

“No, my father is a janitor.”

A janitor? She looked at him. Had she heard him right? Cal was so…genteel. So self-possessed. Like he’d been raised in wealth. She’d just assumed he was like her.

“Did you grow up here in Tyler?”

“No.”

His responses weren’t eliciting any invitation to continue the interrogation, but Morgan didn’t stop. He was special to her. She needed to know him better. Knowing him meant that Sammie was okay. No, getting to know him better helped take her mind off the possible torture her son was experiencing. The fright he had to be experiencing. If he was still…

“Where, then?” she blurted.

“We moved around a lot.”

“But you got a good education.” Obviously. He was a college professor at thirty-two.

“My father was a teacher. He made certain that I had all the schooling I could get.”

Oh. “So he’s retired?” That made more sense. The elder Whittier was supplementing teacher’s retirement.

Cal shrugged, and a car drove past out front but didn’t stop and sent a sharp stab of fear through her. Oh, God. Sammie…

“Have you ever been married?” She pushed the words out quickly and too loud, sounding half-crazed. Which was better than she felt.

“No.”

There was another car out there somewhere. One that had had Sammie in it. Could still have her son bound and gagged and…alive? Please, please. Alive.

“You and your dad have always lived together?” The question ended on a high note. A prelude to tears.

She felt Cal’s approach. She couldn’t look at him anymore. Couldn’t look at the window. “Yes, we’ve always lived together.” His words, filled with compassion, were just above the back of her neck and when he touched her, gently pulled her into his arms, Morgan fell apart.