Not Without Her Child, page 9
Jessica nodded, and when Brian saw tears fill her eyes, he thanked Harriet Lichen, assured the older woman that she’d helped them more than she knew, and got his new employer out of there.
Chapter 11
Harriet didn’t want to give out her granddaughter’s phone number without her permission, but she’d taken one of Brian’s cards and said she’d ask Bonnie to call him.
As they left the property, Jessica felt pretty confident that the grandmother already had Bonnie on the phone. She wasn’t nearly as certain that the younger woman would call.
She wasn’t sure about a lot of things at the moment. But one stood out boldly.
“His clues mean something.”
“At least one of them did.”
“Two, if you count the butterflies.”
“The place is out of business. I’m fairly certain he didn’t expect you to ever find it. And even if you did, as has happened, we’re no further to finding Brooke. Clint did nothing but eat there. There was no sign of a baby and he didn’t speak to anyone. He’s sitting in jail with lots of time to think about his days on the run, he remembers the great turkey dinner, and he knows that if you ever did happen to find the place, he’d have you on the hook with that clue. While giving you nothing. He’s likely playing with your head, Jessica.”
The words were no surprise. Anyone who spent any time in her life, or on the case, got there eventually.
But...with Brian...
She stared over at him. “Are you saying you’re just going to drop this?” Because she wasn’t. He could go look for his gun seller. She’d pay to have that information, and anything else he turned up, but she was not going to let go of Birds of Paradise. Something about that café was more significant than a turkey dinner.
“I’m not dropping anything,” Brian returned with obvious frustration. Over her question? Her refusal to see the sense everyone was trying to cram into her? Or his inability to find answers? “Unless you have objections, I’d like to find a place to stop for breakfast, get on our phones and map all directions heading out of Lincoln up to four-hour stretches. He made it to that village three of the four days he was gone after the kidnapping. Four hours one way would be eight hours of driving every day. Doesn’t make sense that he’d do that, but it sets parameters for a search. If we find something that rings a bell with you, we can check it out today. Starting tonight, I’ll map out every village, town, city within a four-hour radius of Lincoln and check out every known establishment, village name, news piece, I can find...looking for any other match to any of the clues he’s given you.”
He was a man with a plan. An impressive one. She nodded. So glad, once again, that she’d called his firm. “Breakfast is good.”
Mouth still open, she was all set to apologize for doubting him, but he’d already dialed his phone, had it to his ear. And seconds later was leaving a message for Detective Anderson to call him. He’d like someone to pull what surveillance footage, if any, had been available in the village of Lincoln, Arkansas.
She wanted to go knock on every door in Lincoln and surrounding farms and countryside. Look up the closest daycare in the area—private or otherwise. To see if a two-year-old girl lived in the vicinity. And then, if she didn’t recognize her daughter, do everything she could to compel DNA checks. Of course, the DNA samples were a stretch. No court was going to force parents to comply with such a request. And someone with something to hide wouldn’t volunteer the test. There’d be others who’d refuse, too, seeing her request as an intrusion and a violation of their privacy—which it would be—so she couldn’t assume that those who denied her were guilty of stealing her daughter...
But knocking on doors... If she had a reason to do so other than suspecting them of possible kidnapping...
She’d take up selling makeup if she had to. If nothing else occurred to her. And when Brian went off chasing the uninvolved gun, she’d head back to Lincoln on her own.
No stone left unturned.
No action left untaken.
If she didn’t keep trying, she couldn’t succeed.
* * *
After spending the majority of the day in Jessica’s SUV with her, Brian was eager for an early night alone at the apartment. Had been ready to suggest as much—after a couple of completely unproductive hour-long drives to check out potential towns where Clint might have stayed during his four days away—when she beat him to it. Indicating that she wanted time at home on her computer to better study the areas around Lincoln, to research business names, street names, anything that might click with something Clint had said to her over the past fifteen months.
She’d shown him the second half of her journal, the one with all of her impressions. Had allowed him to make copies of the pages. And knew that she’d be using those pages during her search.
Further research was a better expenditure of time than aimless driving, but he’d been relieved by her suggestion for a completely different reason.
The announced attraction between them had become like a third person in the vehicle as the afternoon wore on.
He didn’t feel at all good about it.
Needed some time to regroup.
And was about to tell her so when his phone rang.
An unknown number with an exchange not immediately familiar to him. By the time he’d hung up, after a whole lot of uh-huhs and yeahs, interspersed with some thank-yous, he’d already turned on to the road to Fayetteville and let go of any further conversation regarding their early night.
“That was Bonnie Lichen,” he told Jessica instead. Business was all that he should be discussing with her.
“Her father is Harriet’s son. She’s currently in culinary school in Perrysville, with the hope of getting together enough cash to reopen her grandmother’s café. It closed last summer, after a tornado took off that portion of roof. Harriet used her life savings to buy the place, ran it on a shoestring, and had let the insurance lapse.”
Nothing pursuant to the case, but information Jessica was paying him to relay. “She had nothing further to add regarding Clint. Said her grandmother asked her about anything in his truck and she didn’t remember anything either. She said that Clint was really nice, that she felt for him, eating turkey dinner all alone weeks before the holiday, but got a sense that something wasn’t right with him. Most particularly, after her grandmother pointed out his behavior in the parking lot that first day. She also said that other than ordering in a kind tone, being patient when he had to wait for her attention, he had nothing to say, even when she tried to initiate conversation.”
Jessica faced the road in front of them as he spoke. Made it easier for him to keep his mind on the facts of the case and off the fact that he knew every word reopened her wound.
And lessened her ability to get on with her life.
He was helping her relive the past, not put it to bed.
Somehow, he had to turn the corner on that.
* * *
Before she went to bed Sunday night, Jessica was a Brain Play Toys representative. She’d applied, paid not just for the starter kit but for the top-seller package, a satchel to load for door-to-door selling and overnight shipping. At the close of the market on Monday, she tore into the boxes that had arrived that day, set on memorizing items and prices enough to be ready to sell on Tuesday after work. Stock exchanges closed at three, she could be in Lincoln by four and still have four hours until dark.
Her phone going off at five after four, with Brian’s number popping up, didn’t weaken her resolve even a little bit. She picked up after the first ring.
“We expanded the search on stores that sell Bear Bellies to include areas south, east and west of Lincoln, as well as all the places we already were looking at here in the northern part of the state, and got nothing. A few sales, but all traceable and none that matched our parameters.” No “Hello. How was your day?”
All business.
As it needed to be.
Still, it was good to hear his voice. To recognize the intensity in it as he gave his all to finding her daughter.
And being honest with her, too.
Even when it hurt.
Weird how someone telling her something even when they knew it would hurt could be a good thing. A positive in her life. But after living with Clint’s insidious lies for so many years, lies coated with the illusion of love and promises made, being taken in by them, she felt strengthened, respected, by honesty.
“Maybe he found one in a used bookstore,” she said. “Or maybe there’s something in the book that’s a clue to where he left her.”
Her. Not “Brooke that night.” Not “her baby.” She was all business, too.
After the day before, she had to be.
Telling a guy—the last-ditch effort to find hope—that she was attracted to him had been an eye-opener to her. A cry from her inner self to her brain for help.
Fifteen months of endless, completely unsuccessful searching—combined with birthday number two—was taking its toll.
“Maybe.” She figured out what he was likely thinking. That he believed the book was a dead end. Another way for Clint to torture her. Because even if Brian thought it likely that the clue was a dead end, he didn’t know for sure. Until they had the truth to rule out other suppositions, the possibility that she was right belonged on the table.
“I’ve been through hundreds of street names, businesses, business types, business owner names, even obituaries, located in the four-mile radius of Lincoln and have found nothing that pops with anything in your journal,” he said next.
Glancing at the colorful toys, still in their plastic, strewn across her dining room table, Jessica thought about how she wanted to arrange them. Some in the satchel she’d take to the door. Some in a bin in the back of her vehicle.
“Did you have any luck?”
Not on that score. She’d left the investigative work to the expert. “No, but I’m not giving up on it,” she told him. She’d have her journal with her as she traversed Lincoln and its vicinity. Paying attention to every street name, ever homeowner who shared a name, even asking for private daycare in the area for her own child, she’d already decided.
She had a whole list of get-to-know-you questions to intersperse with toy information as she started out on her new side career. Her opening line was going to be that she was new to the area.
Just thinking about getting out there...talking to real people in an area she knew Clint had been after the abduction...renewed her spirit. Invigorated motivation that had been chugging along on the fumes of desperation.
“I have word on Blake Redmond,” he told her then, his tone unchanged, and all she could think in that second was that things came in threes. Except, apparently with Clint, who was on a four pattern.
“He’s due back in town on Wednesday, to pick up a delivery from a warehouse east of here. I’ll be meeting him there.”
“Does he know that?”
“No.”
Good. Not that Redmond likely had any reason to run, but him not having a heads-up, just in case, seemed expedient.
“I know it seems as though we’re getting nowhere, Jess.” He’d spoken again. After the third thing.
Sinking into her dining room chair, her back to the table, Jessica stared at the polish on her toes, visible through the black dress sandals she had on with her dress pants and blouse. Things she’d worn for a business lunch with a group of clients that day. The fund they’d shared was due to mature and there were choices to make.
Business choices.
Him calling her “Jess” was not that. But her traitorous body warmed from the inside out. Even the toes hanging out in her air-conditioned home.
In the midst of pure hell, she liked Brian Powers...
“Trust me.” His next words seemed to be in response to thoughts not uttered, until he continued. “I’m an expert at this because I’ve been successful on hundreds of jobs and what’s going on here, the little pieces, the dead ends, they all get us closer to the truth. For everything we rule out, there’s space for something else to appear...”
Yes.
Turning, she surveyed her newly crowded dining table.
Yes!
Moisture filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she told him, meaning the words in more ways than she could even think about.
“Get some rest.”
As a tear tripped down over her smile, she said, “I think maybe tonight I will.”
And hung up before either of them could mess up the moment.
Chapter 12
“That gun was brand-new when I sold it to him.” Blake Redmond, a bearded, skinny guy a few inches shorter than Brian’s six-one, didn’t run when approached.
He accepted Brian’s offer of a cup of coffee in the café across the street from where dock people were loading his truck Wednesday morning and, reaching the door first, held it open for Brian.
“Clint Johnson was a strange dude,” Redmond said, his coffee, black with sugar, in between his elbows on the table. “A nice enough guy, likable, until you try to talk to him about his wife. He’d be, like, ‘What you asking about her for? You seeing her?’” He sipped, frowning, and shook his head. “Then I’d see him with her...the guy never seemed to look at her, he just kept watching everyone around her, making sure no one was making eyes at her.”
“What about her?” The question stuck in Brian’s throat. Made him wish he hadn’t had the single sip he’d taken of the coffee in his stomach. But to do right by his employer, with the new information, he had to ask.
“What? You asking me if she seemed into guys hitting on her?”
He hadn’t been. But with a cock of his head, he shrugged. To understand the whole picture, to be able to decipher Clint Johnson enough to break through him, he had to know what anyone could tell him, who’d had dealings with the guy around the time of the abduction.
“Hell, no. Anytime I saw her, which was, like, twice, she stayed back with that baby. She was clearly captivated by the little girl. The kid would grin and she’d call out to Clint to come see, not wanting him to miss it.” Redmond kind of grinned. “And, boy, that baby had an arm on her.”
The truck driver told him about the plastic rattle Brooke had thrown. Rubbed his forearm as he mentioned the red mark it had left.
“Did Mrs. Johnson seem bothered by Clint’s possessive behavior?” The question he’d originally been asking. He knew what Jessica had told him about her handling of her husband, her awareness of his shortcomings before the kidnapping, but it helped to have outside perspective. So far, everyone he’d met or spoken to directly pursuant to the case had only come into the grieving mother’s life after her daughter had been stolen from her.
“I can’t say for sure.” Redmond was slow to answer. “The woman was, like, one of those smart types, you know? Definitely careful to not upset the dude, and not doing anything that might, you know, antagonize him.”
“Like talking to you...”
“Or even looking at me.”
Smart type.
Brian was most pleased by that piece of information. Because it fit his own assessment of the woman he was there to serve.
The woman who had to be constantly on his mind in order for him to do the job he’d been hired to do.
Redmond held his cup out for a refill as the waitress came by their table carrying a pot. Brian had yet to take a second sip of his own.
“Johnson say why he wanted the gun?” he asked.
“Nope, and I didn’t ask. It’s all legal here, you know. A guy can sell another guy a gun.”
“As long as it’s not stolen.”
“It’s not. I got a few of them, wholesale, from the guy I used to work for online. Totally on the up-and-up, even have the paperwork to prove it. As a manager, buying wholesale was a perk of the job. Guy said it was in lieu of a bonus. I couldn’t stockpile them or nothing. Just a few at a time. But I racked up a bit of a side business. The pistol I sold Johnson was one of the last I had.”
“And you’re absolutely certain that the gun hadn’t been shot.”
“It hadn’t never even been loaded. And, no, I didn’t sell him the ammunition for it. That’s not cool, either, if he goes straight from me to commit a crime with it. I’m no angel or nothing. I like to drink when I’m not driving, and am more of a drifter than a home guy, but I don’t knowingly break no laws.” The guy gave a raw, humorless chuckle. “Much as I can’t stand being trapped in a home, I’d be a flipping lunatic if I was ever locked up in a cell.”
So maybe Redmond’s wandering spirit made it difficult for him to settle down, or to locate easily, could likely make it impossible for the guy to ever have a wife or child of his own, but Brian didn’t take him for a liar.
That meant that Clint Johnson’s gun had been fired after he’d taken possession of it.
Jessica was not going to like that news.
The dread in Brian’s gut as he thought about delivering it to her was far more acute than it should have been for an expert who was only relaying business information to his employer.
The very likely possibility that she couldn’t save the little girl was growing more tangible by the day—and Jessica was going to refuse to accept it.
Just as his mother had done.
And that led nowhere good.
* * *
Jessica was already on the road to Lincoln on Wednesday when Brian called. His daily check-in generally came just minutes after the market closed and, Tuesday, she’d still been at her desk. But after Tuesday’s successful-beyond-her-imagining Brain Play Toys selling experience, she’d been out the door as soon as the bell rang the next day.
