“Like me?”
He was quick. She didn’t want to scare him. “Yes. But she isn’t thinking straight, and I don’t want you to get hurt. So it’s really important that you stick with your mom and dad for a while, stick to them like glue, until we find her and make sure she isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“So I don’t have to go to school tomorrow?”
“We’ll see.”
“Because I’m a straight-A student. I don’t have to go and I’ll still have A’s because school is really easy.”
Lucy almost laughed. The comment reminded her of something Sean might have said when he was a precocious eight-year-old.
“You should probably also know that I saw Ms. Sharpe at Grandma’s.”
“Talking to Grandma?” Tony asked.
“No, just out front. She was in her car, talking on her cell phone. The old car, last week. Before she got the new car.”
“Any other time?”
“Nope, that’s all the times I’ve seen her. Well, except here at Mom and Dad’s office.”
“That’s good, Kevin, thank you,” Lucy said. “I’m going to talk to your mom and dad for a minute alone, okay? The agents who picked you up will sit with you for a while.”
She stepped out of Tony’s office. When she was alone with the two of them, she said, “When you’re ready to leave, two agents will take you to your house and keep an eye on the place tonight. Tomorrow, if you can’t stay home for the day, I’d like Kevin to stay here in the building with you. It’s easy to secure, and we can post agents in the lobby. You might want to cancel Danielle’s access into the building.”
“I’ll talk to Archie, we’ll take care of it,” Tony said. He was holding Nina’s hand. Lucy didn’t know how they could do it—hold it together when they’d violated each other’s trust. Except … had they? She didn’t understand open relationships and how they worked. She couldn’t do it.
But they loved Kevin. It was clear by their fear and worry for him, and their unity in front of him. Just like Andrew and Nelia. Their marriage wasn’t perfect, but they had a shared love for the child they’d created.
Ken came running down the hall. “We know where she lives. Units are on their way, let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Danielle let herself into the Fieldstones’ empty house. The alarm beeped repeatedly. She walked over to the panel and typed in the code Nina Fieldstone had used months ago.
The beeping stopped and the light turned green.
She had done a little research on alarms because she didn’t know if they had motion detectors or door alarms or what, but she figured out how to set the house for exterior doors only. She did, so when they came home they wouldn’t think anything was out of the ordinary. The same code turned on and off the alarm, whatever alarm was set.
She stood in the entry and stared at the wedding portrait that took up one wall. They looked so happy, but they weren’t happy. They were miserable human beings, they cheated on each other, they put their own selfish needs above their only child. The one thing they should care for. The one being they should love above all others.
But they loved themselves first and foremost.
Like Richard.
Like herself.
It was over. It was truly over.
No!
She walked slowly through the house. Since the last time she’d been here, they’d moved the furniture around a bit. Added the third-grade portrait of Kevin to a wall of photos that framed the staircase.
Soon, all they would have of Kevin were the photos. Then they would be very, very sorry.
But she didn’t have time. She’d seen those people walk up to Kevin’s grandmother’s house and take him away. They were cops. They may not look like cops—no uniform, no cop car—but Danielle had been around enough cops when they were looking for Matthew that she had a sense of how they walked, how they moved, always looking around but not really seeming to. And why would Kevin go off with anyone? Friends? Maybe. Maybe, but she didn’t think so.
Danielle went upstairs to Kevin’s room. It took her a long minute before she could actually walk in.
Such a little boy. He liked football, it seemed. A poster of a quarterback in a black uniform—who were they?—hung above his bed. She stepped closer. Carr, Raiders. She didn’t know anything about football.
It looked like Kevin had every Goosebumps book ever written—they took up two long shelves in his bookshelf. A hodgepodge of other books filled the remaining space, plus a football signed in Sharpie, but Danielle couldn’t read the signature.
He had a computer in his room … what parent let a child have a computer in their room? There were predators out there, predators like that evil man who stole Matthew and hurt him.
Remembering the pain when the police told her what had happened … Danielle had to sit down. She sat on Kevin’s bed and took a deep breath. And then another. She picked up an old, ratty, stuffed Pooh Bear. The bear had seen better days, but it was obviously well loved.
Danielle held it close and, hands shaking, pulled her cell phone from her pocket.
Richard answered on the second ring. Her instincts buzzed. He rarely answered the phone when she called, as if, even though her number was blocked, he knew it was her.
“Hello, Richard.”
“Danielle.”
He sounded different.
“You betrayed me again, didn’t you?”
“What? What do you mean? Honey—”
“Don’t call me that!”
Her head pounded and she squeezed her eyes shut. Something was wrong, and she knew her husband—ex-husband—was part of it.
“Danielle, you sound agitated. Tell me what I can do to help you. I’ll do anything. Matthew was my son, too. I loved him.”
“You’d do anything? Really? Anything?”
“Yes, Danielle. Name it. We can talk, we can see a counselor, we can visit his grave—whatever you need.”
“Go kill yourself.”
She ended the call. That’s when she saw that she had a missed call and voice mail.
She listened to it.
Nina.
Something was very, very wrong.
Danielle turned off her phone, but what if someone could trace it? She’d read in an article that law enforcement could trace phones even if the phone was off.
She went back downstairs and filled a pot with water. She immersed her phone and hoped that killed it completely.
She had one more job to do. One more … and then maybe, just maybe, she could rest in peace.
She was so, so tired.
She brought the pot back upstairs and put it on the top shelf of the linen closet, then sat back on Kevin’s bed and took the gun out of her purse.
Surprisingly, her hands were steady.
Because she was doing the right thing.