Not Without Her Child, page 21
Her abrupt stop grabbed Brian.
And Jessica, too, based on the way she was clenching his arm with her free hand.
“Would have what? What did you do?”
“I invited him to my room. I was renting a little one-room cottage like place behind a farmhouse down the street from Gram’s. We...he...spent the night, okay? I slept with him. And... I thought we fell in love. But then he left the next day and I didn’t hear from him for, like, a year. I tried to call him a couple of times, but the number he’d called me on didn’t work no more. Then, out of the blue, he texted me. Said that he hadn’t been in touch because he was in prison. He said that his ex had claimed that he stole from her, that she framed him, but that he didn’t do it.”
“And you didn’t see the news? The baby’s face was plastered on the nightly news all over the state for the first week of her disappearance.”
“I don’t watch the news. It’s all bad and they just try to scare you. And, besides, that cottage didn’t have no hook-ups. I wouldn’t have paid for internet anyways. I was saving for culinary school.”
“And he didn’t tell you what he stole from Jessica?”
Bonnie looked him straight in the eye as she shook her head. “That one call from prison...it’s the only time we actually got to talk, and mostly we talked about how he was faring, you know, in there. I figured she was claiming he stole money, since that’s all she cared about. He swore that he didn’t do it, and that’s all I needed. I wasn’t going to be like her and grill him and accuse him or nothing. He said that she was just trying to get out of paying him spousal support. He said that he’d been going to Bible study classes in prison, and thinking about me all the time, and wanted to know if there was a chance for us. He said that when he gets out of prison, he’s going to help me with the café. We’re going to run it together and he’s going to get it online so that we can ship pies and things, too...”
Brian’s shoulders dropped. His gut felt sick.
And Jessica slumped against him.
* * *
Jessica had to get out of there. To walk away from something that wasn’t going to lead her any closer to Brooke.
Clint had slept with another woman the night before he’d come over, swearing that he’d been out fishing, figuring out his life, and wanted to recommit to her and Brooke, only to find their daughter had been kidnapped.
After everything she’d done, even after the divorce, to try and keep him happy, to tend to his so many needs, he’d taken her daughter, and then he’d been unfaithful to her.
Her mind couldn’t accept what it had just heard.
And yet it did, too. In the recesses. She knew Bonnie wasn’t lying. She just didn’t want to know. She’d wanted to believe that, in some way, Clint still needed her enough to be telling the truth when he’d said Brooke was safe and being loved. Knowing that he still needed Jess had helped her believe that Brooke was okay, too.
Not only was the fiend exhibiting signs of a true narcissist, he’d been systematically lying to her, playing her mind, ever since. Every week—for sixty-seven weeks—telling her loved her and was helping them get their family back...
She’d known he’d been manipulating her. She’d known he was enjoying his little game. But even as she’d known there’d been no way, ever, that she’d have taken him back, ever let him around Brooke or her again, she’d still thought his sick actions were motivated by the fact that he really thought, deep down, he needed her.
And all along, he’d been carrying on an affair with Bonnie, planning a new life with her.
She couldn’t...didn’t...
“I have to go,” she said, stepping away from Brian and stumbling on her path to the door. Brian’s hand reached out to the knob—not to her, thank goodness. She had to go. No one was going to hold her back—not even him.
He didn’t touch her as they left the station. She heard him tell someone to have Detective Anderson call him when he was free, as she pushed out the door and felt the hot afternoon sun hit her face. Turning her skin up to the blinding rays, she took a breath.
And another. Liked that she couldn’t open her eyes. That if she did, she wouldn’t see anything but shining light.
Wanted to just float right up to it.
And heard a car door slam.
She was in a parking lot. At the police station. She took a step. Her heel caught on a rock and she started to trip, but Brian was right there. Catching her.
And she let him.
Just for that one trip-up.
She let him catch her.
Chapter 25
Brian spent the drive home trying to come up with something to say. Somehow promising Jess that he’d find Brooke just didn’t seem to fit the bill.
He was going to uncover what happened to that baby girl. He wouldn’t stop until he did. But anything he’d tell her at that point rang in his brain like more of the empty promises Clint had been feeding her.
The way she sat, all straight-backed and stone-faced, he wasn’t sure she’d even hear him. It was like she was trapped in a world that didn’t include him, or anything normal like Thursday after-work traffic, stoplights, or even what they might have for dinner.
All he could do was watch her in torment.
Unable to help.
“I need to be alone,” she said as she let them in the kitchen door and then just kept walking, through the dining room and down the hall that led to her office.
He watched her go, knew he had to let her go, and ached like he’d never ached before.
So he went to work. It’s what he did.
The only way he had to ease the pain.
The whole Bonnie trail. The prison computer hack. Hudson and his team’s work. The threatening messages to Jess. Lincoln. Birds of Paradise. None of it had had anything to do with Brooke.
Except that...they knew Clint had to have passed the baby off, or done whatever he’d done with her, before the night he’d spent with Bonnie. So that was one less day on the timeline.
He deleted the fourth day from all of his spreadsheets.
It didn’t change much. Gave him no clearer view to the baby’s fate.
But at least there was a little less to stare at.
Jessica’s meeting with Clint the next day lurked on his shoulder, filling him with a quiet desperation as he forced his mind to see something differently. Something new.
He went back to the clues—homing in on the fourth ones. And on Barneysville in particular. Street names. Business names. All of it.
Maybe the clues weren’t biblical references—though Bonnie had mentioned Clint attending Bible study as Brian and Jess had surmised. But maybe they all added up to something else. Something that started in Barneysville or through Clint’s meeting with Bonnie. And it could be that the Birds of Paradise clue had just been a dig at Jessica. Clint smearing his affair in her face—on the off chance she’d figure it out.
Running internet searches on several minimized and open windows, each with one of the patterned clues, he brought up screen after screen, reading everything that popped up. In Barneysville and beyond. Opening links he hadn’t seen before. Using less-known search engines and social media apps.
Grasping at straws.
Trying not to think of the woman suffering down the hall.
And he couldn’t seem to escape her, either. He knew the feeling so well. Sitting down the hall, helpless...unable to solve his parents’ problems. Him being there, them having a son, a family, hadn’t been enough.
Love wasn’t enough.
That feeling...right there...was why he’d chosen the life he had.
Anderson called. They’d let Bonnie Lichen go. The detective was planning another visit to see Clint in the morning. Talked about charges being filed for the computer hacking, but didn’t say what they’d be. And he had his team scouring motels in Barneysville, looking for surveillance cameras, showing Clint’s picture around—all the things Brian would be doing if he were a cop.
The detective said he’d send Brian whatever they got, and keep him updated, day or night.
Whatever had happened to Brooke Johnson...the answers would be found.
One way or another.
That left Brian sitting at Jessica’s dining table, scrolling on his screen, certain that her baby girl was there someplace, trying to tell him what her mother needed to know.
And...the rising star. The biblical reference to a savior...
Sitting forward, Brian read, visions of Clint Johnson rising up to enrage him.
When he’d finished clicking, and learning, he went to find Jessica.
* * *
It was not going to beat her. She was strong. Able-bodied, and there was no way pieces of inanimate wood were going to prevent her from doing what she had to do.
Her daughter needed a bed.
These pieces of wood were it.
She had one side and end of the crib off. Couldn’t get one bolt each on the remaining pieces unscrewed. Had to turn the thing to get to leg screws that were mingling with the carpet. She’d remove all the screws she could and then get back to the problem ones.
Except that the solid wood, awkward half piece of put-together furniture wasn’t cooperating. With a side and end gone, the piece wasn’t weighted in any way she could lower, push or roll, and have it move in the way she wanted it to do.
For a second, she felt the prick of tears. Refused to give in to them.
Her daughter was going to need a bed.
Period.
She tried again, got what was left of the crib up on one of the remaining legs, and the whole thing started to spin. Out of control, it was going to fall and...
It didn’t.
It stopped midstream.
Halted by the male hand that grabbed it just in time.
He couldn’t have just walked in...
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.
“Just a few minutes.”
“I need to do this myself.”
“No, you don’t, Jess. What Clint did to you was all targeted at you. For a lot of years. That, you had to do yourself. But this...” He spread his arm wide, as if encompassing the room, or maybe the whole world, her whole life. “Look around you, at the teams of professionals who are giving their all to help you.”
She wanted to argue. To stomp her foot and order him out of her home at the top of her voice.
“I’m here,” he told her, his tone soft but with an odd note. “And I’m not leaving until you’ve got the answers you hired me to find.”
He was promising.
And perhaps was determined to show her that she could rely on him not to let her down.
She didn’t need his reassurance. She already knew she could trust him.
She needed more from herself. How did she love so completely and have it all go so wrong?
“How could I have let this happen?” she asked him. Not with a whimper or a whine. And not just talking about the crib either.
He seemed to think that’s what she meant, though, as he asked for her screwdriver, tipped the crib, and tackled the first of the screws she hadn’t been able to get out. With only one of them gone, and the remaining side off, the crib was easier to manage.
At work on the second screw, he said, “You didn’t let anything happen. You met someone, opened your heart, and had no way of knowing that the person you were with had a very sick side to him. Clint’s not a decent human being, Jess. He showed you what he needed you to see until he had you on the hook, until you were married. And then he made things happen, to suit him, and you did your best to do damage control. Every step of the way, from what I can see.”
She got another screw undone. And another. Allowing herself the satisfaction of dropping a crib leg to the floor. Thinking about what Brian had said.
Her life had been all about damage control. Recognizing the truth she’d been unable to see, absorbing it, her heart settled a bit.
It didn’t have any of the answers she had to have. Didn’t ease the pain. But she...felt a bit better about herself. Could feel smidgeons of trust there. Making her stronger.
And was glad again, even with all that had happened, that she’d hired Brian. That he was there.
“Thank you,” she said as he removed the final screw from the crib, freeing all parts to be rearranged, or stored, as necessary.
“I’m guessing we’re now going to build this?” he asked, picking up the instruction booklet she’d had open on the floor.
“That’s the plan.” The new one. Her original intent had been to build it alone.
But he was right. She wasn’t alone.
Starting to feel more like herself, it occurred to her that he’d come looking for her...why else would he have been watching her struggle with the crib? Why would he have been there in time to save her?
Again. Visions of flying bullets hit her, followed by another surge of gratitude toward the man in the room with her.
“Did you need me for something?” she asked, getting outside herself to help him if she could. “You were coming to find me...”
“I found the rising star.”
Holding a piece of a trundle bed siding, she stared at him. “You...what?” She set the board down, stood there staring at him. He’d...and he was only then telling her?
The shake of his head bothered her. Like he was...what? Irritated with her? Blowing her off?
She was only a job to him, but this was her life they were dealing with.
“It has nothing to do with Brooke,” he told her, but she wanted to reach that conclusion for herself.
“What is it?”
“The kind of bar you wouldn’t get near for all the money in the world. Fifteen miles outside of Little Rock. Its clientele have been busted for prostitution, for allegations of rape, and dealing drugs, from what I could see, comparing names from the prison database. I’m guessing there’s cartel money behind it.”
Okay, so now he was just fishing. He had to be.
“Clint would never get near a place like that.”
And if Brian wanted her to believe there was something else going on there, the selling of...
No. Clint would just not do something like that. Have an affair with a sweet, naïve woman who fell for his neediness and was willing to pander to him? Yeah. She could see that.
But...
“I told you I don’t think it has anything to do with Brooke, Jess...”
His tone was too kind. It rubbed her wrong. She waited for him to explain himself. Or not.
She was fine to just let it go.
They’d had a rough night. Nerves were frayed.
Time was passing.
“It was the last clue before I arrived in Fayetteville. I’m guessing that Clint sensed your restlessness. He knew you were reaching breaking point. Maybe he didn’t know you’d hire me. He could have just decided that you were going to give up on him. That his money tree was no longer going to produce for him. And he was at least going to get the pleasure out of making you pay for ruining his life. I checked prison records, Jess. It seems too much of a coincidence that the blue barn and The Rising Star both had people in prison, minimum security, like Clint, at the same time he’s been there, and he just happens to put you on to them with the clues.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. That he overheard talk. Or that someone’s helping him. Either way, if you’d found the place, you’d have gone right in there, showing Clint’s picture around...”
Probably.
“I think it was just like the blue barn. His game has turned sick to the point of depraved. He was setting you up to get hurt. Can you imagine what could have happened to you, walking in a place like The Rising Star all alone?”
“I’d have been fine.”
Because she’d have stayed by the door. Or...
“Even if a couple of big brutes started to circle around you?”
He was talking movie stuff, not real life.
“Or what if one of them offered to help the pretty lady, just to get close to her...?”
Shivering, she picked up the trundle side. He’d hit a little too close.
Was being paid to think outside the box.
Brian let it go after that. He stayed with her, though. Helping her build Brooke’s toddler bed. Even if he believed, as she figured he probably did, as he’d warned, that Brooke might not ever be home to sleep in it.
And as soon as it was done, before she even had the sheets on it, he headed toward the door.
“Thank you.” She had to give him that.
He turned.
“I mean it. For...everything.”
He nodded. Watched her a second longer and was gone.
Chapter 26
Brian wasn’t going to sleep with Jessica that night. He wasn’t going to go walking into her room after she’d gone to bed. Not again.
And wasn’t sure he could lie with her, in honesty, with the problem of Clint hanging over them.
He didn’t want her anywhere near her weekly Clint meeting.
Because he knew in his gut that Clint was going to send her into more danger.
And she’d go running into it, head-on.
Back out at the dining room table, he continued to work. Growing more frantic with the knowledge that if he didn’t do what he did, and get the job done, Jess might not be alive for another week.
“I know you think that Clint isn’t helping me find Brooke. That he’s doing the exact opposite by sending me on wild-goose chases, and wasting valuable investigative resources, so I won’t find her.”
Her voice startled him. Pulled him out of the deep focus.
