The Church of the Holy Child Page 17

  Rhyder nodded.

  “Can you take Allie back to school?” Griff asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Allie said. “Not until I know Mom’s okay.”

  “Allie, we’re going to make sure of that and while we do, the best place for you is at school. By the time you get home we’ll have the answers.” I put my arm around her shoulders and steered her out of John’s office.

  “On the way back to school, Allie kept her face to the window, surprisingly her iPod and cellphone remained in her backpack. By the way she shuddered every few minutes I knew she was crying.

  “Hey,” I said and laid my hand on her arm. “This has got to be freaking you out, but don’t forget that we might be wrong. Your mom could be lying in the sun right now sipping a hot pink umbrella drink.”

  She turned her face and I saw a hint of a smile. “You think so?”

  I shrugged. “It’s possible.”

  “So is the idea that Neil might be the guy you’re looking for.”

  “You’re too old for a sugar coating. You’re absolutely right. And we won’t know until we get a hold of the boat and talk to them.” I pulled up to the curb outside of the school. “But what I do know is that no matter what happens your dad will make sure everyone comes out okay.”

  “You think he can?”

  “I know he can.”

  She nodded and opened the car door, slowly stepping onto the sidewalk, her legs moving as though they were made of stone.

  “Allie, it’s going to be alright. You have to believe that.”

  She walked toward the building and I pulled away from the curb.

  “They can’t raise Lady Love,” Griff said as soon as I walked into John’s office.

  “What?”

  “The boat,” Griff said. “They can’t raise it. Rhyder called the coast guard station at Cape Hatteras. They have to have made it that far by now.”

  “Coast Guard’s sending a chopper over the area,” Rhyder said, stepping into the office with a bag of burgers and a tray of coffee. “They’ll call us when they find them.”

  Surprise, surprise, I thought. Rhyder sprang for lunch.

  Griff took a black coffee from the tray and sipped on it while he paced the office. “Allie doing okay?” he asked.

  “She’s upset. I told her you’d come through.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” he said.

  The phone rang as Griff finished speaking and John grabbed it. “Detective Stark,” he shouted into the receiver. “Where? Are you sure? You bet we want him. He’s a murder suspect. Hold onto him. We’re on the next flight.” He hesitated for a minute, listening and then nodded. “Even better.”

  He hung up, took a breath and looked at Griff. “They hit a storm that’s why the marina couldn’t reach them. Radio got knocked out. The chopper crew hovered while they waited for a boat to meet them and pick up the passengers. They searched Lady Love, Eliza was not on board.”

  The room was dead quiet.

  “Seton says she never showed up to the marina. She stood him up, wouldn’t answer her phone. He waited for three hours then he and the crew left without her. He has no idea where she is.”

  “Bullshit.” Rhyder picked up the phone and dialed the desk sergeant. “Get me two tickets on the next flight to Greenville, North Carolina and I want an immediate return flight, three tickets on that one.”

  “I’ll call the coast guard station with your flight information,” John said. “They’re turning him over to Cape Hatteras police. Cops will bring him to the airport.”

  Rhyder glanced at Griff, “You know him, Cole. You’re coming with me.”

  Griff rubbed his hand through his hair, visibly shaken. She might be his ex, but they’d spent a big part of their lives together. “Allie has soccer after school,” he said. “She won’t be ready until five. I’ll be back by then. Flight’s no more than two hours each way. But just in case…”

  “I’ve got things here,” I told him. “You focus on Seton.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It was eleven o’clock when Griff and Rhyder took to the air on Flight 257 from Portland Jet Port and headed for Pitt-Greenville Airport in North Carolina. After dropping them off I had time to kill and should have gone back to the office to get some work done. Instead I drove to the shelter’s administrative office to pick Sandra’s brain.

  Her car wasn’t in the lot when I pulled in and the receptionist at the front desk told me that Sandra had called out, her daughter was sick, so much for my fact-finding mission. I drove past Barlow’s and turned the corner, slowing the car in front of the three-decker apartment building, hoping I might find her there.

  I climbed the outside stairway to the third floor. The stairs swayed slightly beneath my feet and I implored them to hang on for a little longer and not let this moment be the one when they let go of the building.

  Outside #7 I leaned toward the door listening for a television or some sound to indicate that Sandra was here. I still wasn’t sure I should have come. This was a secret place and I felt a little like I was crossing a forbidden line by being here. No sound came from inside. I knocked lightly and a few chips of paint fell to the threshold.

  “Sandra?” I called and knocked harder. This time the door gave beneath my hand and swung halfway open. I stepped into the kitchen and looked around. It looked nothing like it had the last time I’d been here. Gone were the neatly stacked cans of beans and corn, no floral tissue boxes arranged by color on the counter. In fact, nothing sat on the counters or anywhere else. The place was empty. I walked through the kitchen and into the living room. No one could say it was over-furnished now. Not a chair in sight, or rug, or lamp or curtain. I stood in the center of the room trying to make sense of it. And then I got it. Karen had been killed after staying here. This place wasn’t a refuge anymore. Sandra was probably setting up another apartment, not caring for a sick child, but that wasn’t information the woman at her office would have divulged to me.

  I went back to my office too jittery to get any work done. What if Seton had killed Eliza and thrown her overboard? How would we ever prove it? But according to Rhyder, that wasn’t his style. He liked recognition for his deeds. I checked my watch, three more hours to kill. I did what anyone does when they have too much on their mind and need relief. I went to a movie. Don’t ask me what I saw. Something with lots of dynamite and buildings collapsing, but I couldn’t tell you more than that. Mostly I just kept seeing Eliza’s face and then Allie’s. Neither looked the way I wanted them to.

  I walked out of the theater and into what little sunlight was left in the day. It was four o’clock. I headed for John’s office.

  “They’re on their way,” he said when I walked in. “Fifteen minutes tops.”

  I wanted to talk to Griff, find out what happened before leaving to get Allie from soccer practice. “Coffee?” I asked John.

  “Always,” he said.

  I’m really lowering my standards, I thought as I walked into the squad room and set two paper cups on the counter beside a half-full Mr. Coffee that smelled like it was burning.

  I’d just handed John his brew when Rhyder came through the door with Griff close behind.

  “Bastard,” Rhyder said. “He’s not giving us anything. He’s sticking to the story that she never showed and he hasn’t heard from her.”

  “Has the boat been searched?” I asked.

  “Boat searched, crew questioned,” Griff said. “Nothing. The crew is backing up his story that she never came to the marina and they left without her.”

  “Wonder what he’s paying them,” Stark said.

  “Jesus,” Griff threw a stack of papers he was holding onto John’s desk. “The report’s there, everything from the Coast Guard and the locals.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go get Allie.”

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “No, I’ll go with you. Allie’s going to have a million questions about her mother, none of which I can answer for he
r.” He turned to John, “He’s going to lawyer up, I know it. Do whatever you have to do to stall him.”

  “Count on it,” Rhyder said. “Get your daughter settled and get back here.”

  “Soft touch,” I said to Rhyder.

  “We need him.”

  “And his daughter doesn’t? Her mother’s missing.”

  “Well he’s not doing her any good sitting home holding her hand.”

  “How many kids do you have?”

  “None,” he said.

  “Case closed,” I said and followed Griff out of John’s office.

  “Was he any better on the plane?” I asked.

  “Not much. C’mon, it’s almost five.”

  “It’s almost the end, Father.”

  “I can’t say I’m sorry, but I do wonder what the end means.”

  “It means that my work here is done.”

  “Here? You mean you’ll continue in another place?”

  “I’m heading to the west coast. Seems I might have work out there.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Eliza? No, but she will be before I leave.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “Eliza remembered her after I showed her a picture. And when I threatened to bring her daughter to the party, she spilled what she knew. It seems she put my mother on a bus bound for Palm Desert, California. Claims she never heard from her again.”

  “That sounds like the truth. I’m sure your mother didn’t want anyone to know where she was.”

  “That’s right, Father because if they did, they just might have sent me to her. But we both know now that wasn’t the plan.”

  “She escaped to save her life.”

  “And I was her sacrificial lamb.”

  “This is not Eliza’s fault. She was doing her job.”

  “And for that she’ll pay. I haven’t decided how yet. I could just slice her throat and be done with it or bash her head in like the others, a run of the mill sort of death. Or, I could watch her suffer. That has intrigue and seems more fitting. After all, haven’t I suffered?”

  “You’re a monster.”

  “She won’t feel a thing. I won’t lay a hand on her. I’ll let her watch while I do to her daughter all the things my father did to me. Then she’ll understand why telling my mother to leave me behind was bad advice. I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about it.”

  “Get out.”

  “Now, now, Father, don’t be too hasty. I don’t want to leave you wondering about the outcome like an end of the season cliffhanger. I’ll go, but not before I bring you a parting gift. How about a mother/daughter snapshot to hang on your side of the curtain, a reminder of what wisdom there is in keeping the secrets of the confessional?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Eliza and Griff had reached an easy agreement about sending Allie to a private school. Not that the public schools were bad, but when you weighed the benefits of having eight students in a classroom opposed to twenty-eight the decision wasn’t a hard one. And with the schools’ ample endowment it was able to extend a financial hand to any kid capable of handling the workload. The halls were filled with the children of doctors and lawyers, but there were also plenty of single parent families and blue-collar incomes represented in the mix.

  Griff pulled into the back parking lot that aligned the soccer field. The girls’ practice had just ended and the boys now poured out of the locker room, stampeding the field like a herd of wild horses. As if in testimony to the differences in the sexes, the girls wandered off the field in little packs, a dozen different clique formations while the boys came on as one cohesive group, loud and confident, claiming their space.

  We strolled to the edge of the field surrounded by other parents collecting their daughters. Griff said hello here and there and nodded to some of the girls. As the crowd thinned he turned to me. “Want to check the locker room? She must be inside.”

  I stepped into the tiled bathroom and got a whiff of a cigarette. “Allie?” I called, hoping she wasn’t on the other end of the charcoal filter.

  “Hi, Ms. Callahan,” Kayla Johnston stuck her head out from behind a shower curtain. A waft of smoke escaped above her.

  Kayla was one of Allie’s closest friends, a tall, lean brunette with a runner’s body that would pay off later in life. I liked her, so did Griff. Her parents had a small organic farm near the school and Kayla worked hard right alongside them all summer. The plan was for Allie to work there too next spring. I said it would keep her healthy. Griff said it would keep her out of the mall. I guess that’s the same thing.

  “Allie in here?” I asked.

  The curtain moved to the side and Kayla stepped out from behind it fully dressed in her soccer gear. “She didn’t come to practice today.”

  “What do you mean? Where is she?”

  “She was upset all afternoon. You know, about her mom and everything. I told her to just come and hang out on the sidelines. The coach would understand. But she said she was going to call her dad and get a ride home. Maybe she’s with him.”

  My stomach dropped. “He’s outside. We came together.”

  “Check the school, maybe she’s still over there. Wait a minute.”

  Kayla walked to a locker, opened it and took out her cell phone. She pressed a button and held it to her ear then looked at me and shook her head before letting her hand drop to her side. “Voicemail,” she said. “I sent her a text too, but she didn’t answer.”

  I thanked her and turned to leave.

  “Hey, Ms. Callahan?”

  I turned and raised my eyebrows.

  “You won’t say anything, right? You know about…”

  “No, I won’t say anything, but smoking isn’t just bad for you, it makes your breath and hair stink. I don’t know any teenage girls that want to smell bad, do you?”

  Kayla looked at me, eyes wide and slowly shook her head.

  I let the door swing shut behind me and headed across the field to Griff.

  “She didn’t come to practice,” I said when I’d reached him. “Kayla was in the locker room, she said Allie was upset about Eliza and was going to call you for a ride.”

  Griff pulled his cell from his pocket. “No messages,” he said. “She hasn’t called.”

  “Let’s go check the school. She might still be over there.” We turned and our brisk gate quickly turned into a run back to the parking lot.

  We pulled to the curb in front of Administration and hurried across the manicured grounds to a cluster of brick buildings that made up the middle school. Allie was already talking about next June when she’d graduate to the two-story, ivy covered structure across the street that held the upper school students.

  Griff and I hurried through the narrow halls popping our heads in and out of classrooms asking students and teachers if they’d seen Allie. Finally, one boy said she’d been sitting on the front steps of the building when he walked to the library to return a book. When he came back twenty minutes later, she was gone.

  Griff called her cell again and got voicemail.

  “Where the hell is she?” he asked looking at me.

  I shook my head, but our eyes locked, neither of us wanting to say what was running through our heads.

  “Maybe she went home for something,” Griff said slamming the driver’s side door after he slid onto the seat.

  He took his place amongst the rest of the slow-moving vehicles as parents picked up their kids from various after school activities. Each time I watched a child jump into a waiting car my heart beat a little faster and my stomach clenched a little tighter.

  “C’mon,” he said to the line of cars in front of him, pounding an open palm against the steering wheel.

  When a school bus passed heading in the other direction Griff pulled onto the opposite side of the street and gunned the engine, blurring the row of cars beside us.

  “I’m sure the parents liked that move,” I said.

  When we’d escaped the after school
round up he slowed and took a breath. “Where the hell is she?”

  My stomach rolled over hearing out loud the same question I’d been asking myself. “I don’t know, but Seton is sitting in a cell downtown. How could he have anything to do with this?”

  “Maybe he’s not working alone.”

  “A serial killer with a partner? I doubt it.”

  I put my hand on his arm. “Let’s not panic until we’ve checked Eliza’s house and then your apartment. She could have gotten a ride from a friend. They could have stopped for something to eat. There’re a million other possibilities. Don’t jump to conclusions yet.” But when I saw his fisted hand and the twitch in his jaw I knew he’d already drawn his conclusion and Griff was rarely wrong.

  Eliza’s house was dark when we pulled into the driveway. We rang the front bell, knocked on the back door and peered in windows. There was no one there. It was the same at Griff’s apartment. She hadn’t been there either. My last hope faded when we parked in my driveway and went inside to empty, silent rooms.

  “She could still be out with a friend,” I said.

  Griff opened his cell phone, punched numbers and put it to his ear.

  I heard John’s voice on the other end.

  “Allie’s missing,” Griff said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Fifteen minutes later we were back in CID. John’s eyes said he knew all too well what Griff was feeling though he never spoke to confirm it. Instead, when he stepped into his office he laid a hand on Griff’s shoulder and gave him a quick nod of his head. Like dogs, men communicate far more with their body language than they do with their mouths.

  “She’s not answering her phone and didn’t respond to a text from her girlfriend. How many fourteen-year-olds do you know that don’t constantly check their phones?”

  Griff looked at John and I knew he regretted his words. He shook his head in apology. John nodded, accepting.