Unseen. Part 9

"What'd they say?"

"You know, standard stuff. On his fifth anniversary the Cape murderer strikes in Sunbury, Maine, blah blah blah. They mentioned Holly, but it was obvious they don't have a clue about what's going on. You should see all the activity out front. It's a circus."

"How's Holly doing?"

"She's been making calls. It sounds like she's trying to figure out if any of her friends know anything." Dan spoke low into the phone. "She keeps calling this one girl, Stacy. I get the impression she knows something."

Jake didn't know much about Stacy, but what he did know wasn't good. Stacy was plugged into the drug scene. She was one of Holly's suppliers, and for a high school drop-out, she sure knew a lot about chemistry.

The elevator made a ding, and the doors opened. A man stepped out with a box. Jake gave him a nod and stepped on the elevator.

"What do you think she knows?"

"I don't know for sure, but I get the impression from Holly's side of the conversation that there are a lot of people who have hung around Gabe in the last year. She's trying to figure out who he would trust enough to go somewhere with."

Jake looked up. The red-haired woman was stepping onto the elevator with her little girl trailing behind. Both had somber looks, and the woman was red around the eyes, like she'd been crying. Her daughter clung to her leg.

"Well, tell Holly to be careful what she says on that phone. If you know what I mean."

"You think it's tapped?"

"I'm sure it is. That's probably the first thing they do."

"Hold on a sec, she just got off." Jake listened.

Ding. Slowly the elevator doors crept open. The woman moved quickly, pulling free of her daughter's grip, and headed off down the hall. The girl quietly chased after her. Jake thought it was odd, but he had enough on his plate to think about.

He stepped off and looked down the hall toward the east wing of the schoolhouse. He decided it would be wise to check one more time for the ghost-girl before heading back over to his sister's apartment.

"Jake?" That was Dan.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Your sister's not happy."

Jake heard her screaming in the background. There was a shuffle with the phone, and Holly came on. "They tapped my phone?"

"I don't know, Holly. I'm not a police officer, but I think it's standard procedure for them to tap the phone in a kidnapping case."

"What am I going to do, Jake?"

"Well, who did you call, what did you say?"

"I called everyone I could think of that's been here in the last year, everyone I had a phone number for."

"Did you talk about anything illicit?"

"No. I told them what was going on, and asked if they'd seen anything-or asked for phone numbers."

"You told them Gabe had been taken?"

"Yeah. I wanted to see what their reaction was. I wanted to see if they acted suspicious. They're going to kill me. The FBI's gonna break down their doors and dig through their stuff. I'm dead, Jake, dead!"

"Calm down, Holly. It's okay. These guys are careful. You told them Gabe was taken. They know what that means. They're probably covering their tracks as we speak."

"You think they knew about the tap?"

"I don't know what they know, but since the feds are in town, they're probably being extra careful."

"You're right, Jake. Now that I think of it, some of them did sound weird, like they were being careful what they said." Her exhale of relief was noticeable.

"So you're okay, Holly. Just hold tight and don't make any more phone calls."

"I wouldn't say I'm okay. They may be able to cover their tracks, but they're still not going to be happy about it."

"Yeah I know. It's an ugly mess. But just stay low until I get there. I won't be long."

"Okay. I'll stay off the phone, but hurry."

"I will, Holly."

He pressed the cancel b.u.t.ton and slid the phone back into his pocket with more emphasis than usual. As far back as he could remember, his sister had always had a way of making every situation worse. The only reason either of them still had a relationship at all was because Jake continued to forgive her. It wasn't always immediate, as was the case now. Sometimes he allowed himself a brief moment of bitterness, but that was all. As quickly as the fire rose up inside his heart, the waters of forgiveness were already beating it down.

Jake came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. In the distant echo of the staircase, he heard the m.u.f.fled cry of a baby. He froze and listened. The crying persisted. Slowly he climbed the stairs, listening intently. The sound was growing louder as he went, it was definitely inside the stairwell.

He rounded the turn to the last flight and looked up, expecting to see a mother with her baby, but there was no one. Where was the sound coming from? It was very loud now, filling every square inch of s.p.a.ce at the top of the stairwell. He continued climbing, and, as his eyes crested the top of the last stair, he saw it, a baby, lying on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. As he approached, the baby's cries dwindled to a coo. It's large round eyes locked onto his face, and remained fixed.

"Hey, little-guy?" Jake said, checking to see if the child was hurt. "How did you get here?"

The baby stared through the droplets still clinging to his lashes. Jake decided it was a he. The male traits were distinct in his face, and he was wearing blue.

"Where's your mommy? We need to find your mommy."

Jake heard a noise beyond the stairwell door. When he got to his feet to check it out, the baby began crying again.

"It's okay. I'm not going anywhere, buddy. I'm just looking for your mommy."

This did not appease the baby in the slightest, and he let Jake know by taking a deep breath and letting loose a howl.

Jake opened the door and looked down the hallway just in time to see a woman reach the elevator. There was no possible reason why she could not hear the baby's crying, yet she ignored it and pressed the b.u.t.ton. Jake started to call out, but when she turned sideways, he froze. Judging by the size of her belly, the woman in the hallway was at least eight months pregnant. How could she be the mother of the child in the stairwell? But still, even if she wasn't the child's mother, why was she ignoring his cries? She stepped on the elevator.

Jake called out, "Hey!"

He took two steps forward and looked back at the door closing behind him. When it sealed, he could still hear the baby clearly. This solidified his a.s.sumption. The woman on the elevator may not have been the baby's mother, but she had to have heard him crying. He started running for the elevator. He thought to call out again, but if she was ignoring him, he didn't want to give her warning that he was coming. He heard the ding and saw the doors beginning to close. Five more feet! If he could just get his hand into the door, he could prevent it from closing. His feet slapped against the rug as he slowed himself down. His hand reached out for the crack that had almost sealed, but there was no way to reach the rubber b.u.mper inside.

"Hey!" he screamed, slapping on the elevator door. "Hey!"

He jogged back toward the stairwell. There was no way he would make it to the bottom floor in time. What was he going to do with a baby? He had to get back over to his sister's apartment. He had to find Gabe. He didn't have time to track down this baby's mother.

As he approached the stairwell door, he noticed the baby had stopped crying. He creaked it open.

The baby, and the blanket, were gone.

Chapter 14.

Holly's head pounded, and her tongue felt like a foreign object in her mouth. She watched Dan with weary eyes as he brought a tray of food for her. She hadn't really seen him in over two years. He was more muscular than she remembered, and his boyish face now had a growth of thick dark hair on it. Was this the nerd she remembered from high school, the gangly cla.s.s clown who sat in the back corner of the room reading comic books? His eyes looked darker, and his brows thicker.

A news break came on, and Holly's attention shifted to the television. A horrible picture of her was being shown in a tiny box above the newscaster's left shoulder. He spouted off details of the kidnapping as one might list items they need at the grocery store. As usual, there was nothing helpful to glean from it. It was the same story repeated for those who had missed it the first ten times.

There was a knock at the door and Jake pushed through with Dan's laptop tucked under his arm. "What'd I miss?" he said.

Holly looked at the tray Dan had brought; sandwich, chips... She reached for the Pepsi. "We haven't heard anything."

"How's the mob out there?" Dan asked.

"There's a lot more of them, it's kinda creepy. They're just milling around chatting. I expected more drama." He handed the computer to Dan. "Let's get this set up."

Dan took it into the kitchen and set it on the table. Jake and Holly followed.

Holly leaned against the wall, even though she needed to sit. Her legs felt like they were going to buckle, but she didn't want to miss anything on the computer screen. "Dan said you went to get this so we could look at some websites? Figure some things out?"

Dan gave Jake a weird look. It was so brief, she wondered if it had happened at all.

"Yeah," said Jake. "We want to look up information on this serial killer, maybe see something the FBI missed."

Dan sat down, plugged the laptop into his phone, and clicked some b.u.t.tons in rapid succession. The desktop appeared on the screen. "Let's start with a search and see what we get for hits." He brought something else up and searched for "Cape murderer."

"The top hit," said Dan, "looks like a site dedicated to serial killers."

Jake leaned in. "Let's see what they have on this guy."

Dan clicked some things and scrolled down a few pages. "This is perfect. There are articles and photos from dozens of serial killer cases in here." He scrolled down another page. "Here we go. The Cape murderer."

Jake looked at Holly. "You sure you want to see this?"

She was caught off guard by the question. A hidden barrier had gone up inside her, protecting her, shielding her from thinking about Gabe directly, but this question chipped away at that barrier. If she viewed these pictures, she would be forced to remember that her son could already be dead like these children. She would be forced to remember that horrible emotionless white mask, those dead evil eyes. Did she have the strength to see the possible end her son may yet face?

She gripped the cold soda can. "I have to, Jake. I have to know if there is anything here that will save my son."

"All right, Holly, but you tell us if you need to stop." He looked down at Dan. "Go ahead."

Dan clicked through dozens of pictures before Jake stopped him. "Which one is this?"

Dan read from the description of the photo. "Carmen Thomas, victim number three."

"She's the chubby blond one?"

Holly noticed the look again. It was as if Dan wanted to ask her brother a question, but stopped himself. She might have missed it if she was watching the computer screen with them, but she could only bear a few quick glances at a time.

Jake squinted at the screen. "Are there better pictures of the children? Like home photos?"

"Why?" asked Holly. "Why are you so interested in what the children look like?"

Jake looked up at her, and there was a fraction of a pause. "Just curious. Why?"

"Curious," she parroted. He was hiding something. She didn't know what, but the two of them knew something and were keeping it from her. She wasn't blind. She could see their non-verbal communication. She could see Dan's hesitation and Jake's rea.s.suring hand moving to rest on his shoulder.

Jake spoke in an even tone. "Let's take a peek at the children and see if there are any physical similarities."

Holly squinted at him. He'd said that before during the meeting with Agent Grant. Did he have a lead? If he did, why would he hide it? She folded her arms. "Okay, what are you two up to?"

Jake masked a guilty look. He was such a terrible liar. "We're just looking for clues. If you have a better idea, I'm all ears."

"Agent Grant said there were no physical similarities between the children. Why are you still on this? Do you know something?"

He grimaced. "What do you mean? Why would I hide anything from you?"

"Jake, you can't lie to save your life. You've always been bad at it. You two know something and you're keeping it from me."

Dan twisted around now to add his look of indignation to the pile.

"Fine," she snapped. "Keep your secrets." She leaned back against the counter and let them know, with no uncertain body language, that she was not happy with whatever game they were playing.

Jake and Dan gave each other a look, as if they were wondering what her problem was, then promptly returned to scanning the webpage. With each image of the children, Jake's face grew more and more perplexed.

"I'm guessing you didn't find what you were looking for," said Holly.

Jake put his hands on his hips. "Agent Grant was right. There's no similarity."

"Now what?" said Dan.

Jake slumped down into a chair. "I don't know."

Holly fumed. "That was your plan? Look at pictures of the other victims and then give up? Don't they have bios or something? Let's find out where they lived, who their parents were, where they went to school. There has to be some connection between them."

"The FBI would have already done that."

"Well let's do it again! Maybe they missed something!"

Dan clicked through more pages and read what he found. All the children had a single mom who collected welfare. The kids were all between two and six, which they already knew, and the author noted that each of the mothers had sought counseling from their local women's clinic.

Holly remembered the haunting accusations of the killer, and how they centered on the choice she had made to keep Gabe. He a.s.sumed she had made the choice out of weakness, but it wasn't. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. It would have been so easy to make the problem go away. She was told by the State-funded clinic that it would be quick and discreet.