by Willow Rose
Did it work?
Chapter 31
THEN:
“Iris? Iris?”
Gary parked the car outside their house and rushed up the driveway, stumbling over his own feet as he hurried toward his wife. She was sitting on the porch, her head bent. He had been at the office when she called, and luckily not out on assignment. It had taken him fifteen minutes to get home, a drive that usually took thirty.
Gary knelt next to her, and Iris finally looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. All she had said on the phone was that Oliver wasn’t in his carriage. She had been screaming it hysterically, and Gary had told her he’d come right away.
“I got here as fast as I could,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Oliver is gone,” she said.
“I don’t understand; what do you mean…gone?” he said, heart pounding in his chest. How did a baby just disappear? Had his wife lost it? Had she put him somewhere and couldn’t remember? Was it some sort of postpartum depression? Gary had heard about women who suddenly couldn’t figure out even the simplest tasks after giving birth, who got so depressed they couldn’t take proper care of their child. He had even heard from a colleague that sometimes they tried to kill their own children since he had once been called out to a case like that. Worst thing in the world, he had said. A mother killing her own child. It doesn’t get any worse than that.
Iris shook her head. Gary felt like shaking her, trying to get her to explain this to him, to tell him where their son was.
“I came out here…and then he wasn’t…he wasn’t in his carriage anymore. I just went in there to get my bag. I was gone for one minute, tops, and then he was…gone.”
Gary rose to his feet. He walked to the carriage and looked inside. Oliver wasn’t in there. Gary looked on the tiles and the grass surrounding it, in case the child had fallen out.
“How could he suddenly be gone?” Gary asked. “I mean…he can’t…he can’t even hold his own head up, let alone crawl out of the carriage on his own. He’s too small.”
Iris looked at him, despair in her eyes. “I…I don’t know. He was just…gone.”
“And you’re sure you put him in the carriage? I mean, maybe you didn’t. You haven’t been sleeping much lately, sweetie, maybe you left him inside and just thought you put him in the carriage.”
She swallowed. “No, I put him in there, and then I went inside. Besides, I’ve looked everywhere inside too. Oh, God, Gary, please tell me I’m just losing my mind, that he is still here somewhere. I’m panicking; please, do something.”
“I’ll search the house,” he said and stormed into the hallway, heart racing. He ran upstairs first and looked through all the rooms and closets, thinking that if she was as confused and worn out as he suspected, then maybe she had left the child somewhere in there. And if the baby was asleep, they wouldn’t be able to hear him.
A baby doesn’t just disappear like that.
Unless she hurt him. Unless she did something bad and just blocked it out.
The thought was so terrifying that he couldn’t finish it. Gary shook it and continued into the nursery, looking at the changing table and in the bathroom, desperately lifting any blanket or towel he could find to make sure the child wasn’t underneath it. He also checked the bathtub and even the garbage bin, just in case. But there was no sign of his baby boy anywhere.
Gary ran a hand through his hair, desperately trying to think straight, but the panic that was spreading like wildfire inside of him made it impossible. It was getting harder to keep the anxiety at bay, and soon there was nothing but chaos inside of him.
He ran downstairs and found Iris standing bent over the carriage, looking inside of it, like she thought the child might still be there; she just couldn’t see him.
“Iris?” he said.
Iris didn’t answer. She stood like she was frozen and stared into the carriage and, as he came closer, she pulled out something that made his blood freeze.
A hand-written note.
Chapter 32
The flames and charcoal-gray smoke licked at the sky as we approached the intersection in front of city hall and the police station. The firefighters, who lived and worked in the building next to city hall, had pulled out their engine and were spraying water on it, Dawn’s boyfriend Phillip leading them the in action. Meanwhile, paramedics put someone into an ambulance and rushed off, the siren blaring in the air as we exited Matt’s cruiser.
We ran toward Chief Annie, who was standing with two of Matt’s colleagues, a safe distance from the fire. Spectators had gathered on the corner, and a couple of uniforms were keeping them back. It looked mostly like tourists in their bikinis and trunks with beach chairs slung over their shoulders.
“What happened?” Matt asked, panting and agitated.
Annie looked at both of us. I could tell she was emotional. “It just exploded. The FedEx truck blew up. Cooper had…Cooper was just…”
She paused to gather herself. My heart knocked against my ribcage. This was bad. This was really bad.
“Cooper?” Matt said, his voice growing shrill. “Something happened to Cooper?”
Annie nodded. It was hard for her to speak, and her lips shook as she tried anyway.
“We were waiting for the tow truck, and the FedEx truck was blocking the entire street. This is our most high-traffic area in the entire town, so it was becoming a problem. I asked him if he could check and see if there might still be keys in it, so we could move it. He went to take a look inside the truck, and that’s…that’s when it went up in flames. He was flung out and landed on the asphalt, flames engulfing him.”
Annie’s eyes teared up as she said the words. She clenched her fist and placed it in front of her lips, pressing down hard to keep herself from breaking down. Chief Annie was tough and not one to get emotional usually, but this had her at the end of her rope.
I had known Cooper since we were kids too, not well, since he wasn’t a close friend of mine, but still. I felt Annie’s despair from where she was standing. She had to be blaming herself for telling him to go in there; she had to feel an enormous weight of guilt.
“Was he…?”
She nodded heavily. “He was still alive when they took him away. But severely burned on big parts of his body. It’s hard to say if he’ll survive being burned like that.”
“Dear Lord,” Matt said. He worked closely with Cooper, and I could tell he was tearing up. I went to hug him. I held him tight while we stared at the burning delivery truck in the middle of the street, all of us wondering what kind of sick bastard would do this. Who in their right mind would boobytrap the truck and blow it up right when he knew someone would be inside of it? One thing was certain. This was getting very personal, and now he’d have the entire police force breathing down his neck, not to mention the entire town, who always stood behind our men in uniform.
Chapter 33
A bomb squad arrived from the county’s sheriff’s office, and the area was combed through in the search for more explosives, using dogs. The schools were put on lockdown, and all of downtown was blocked off. A forensics team arrived to gather bomb debris for analysis. About an hour later, the area was declared clear, and we could go back inside the station.
We had just walked in through the glass doors when Lisa, who managed the front desk, stopped us.
“Detective Miller?”
Matt stopped in his tracks and looked at her. Lisa seemed perplexed. A lot more than usual.
“I know it’s terrible timing right now, but…”
“What is it, Lisa?” he asked.
“Well, the Turners are here with their daughter. They said you asked them to come in?”
Matt rubbed his stubble. “I completely forgot.”
The Turners were the family that Melissa thought her daughter Molly was having a sleepover with on the night she was blinded and raped. Lisa nodded in their direction, and I turned to look. Three people were sitting in the row of chairs leaned against the
wall. One of them was a younger girl wearing a crop top and jean-shorts so short it looked like she wasn’t wearing any pants at all when sitting down.
“Mr. and Mrs. Turner?” Matt said and approached them.
They stood to their feet, faces strained.
“What happened out there?” Mrs. Turner asked. “We had just gotten here and sat down when we heard the explosion, and we were told to evacuate the building and go out the back. They just let us back inside. Was anyone injured?”
Matt nodded heavily. “A colleague got hurt. He’s been taken in for emergency treatment.”
“How awful,” Mrs. Turner said and looked briefly at her husband like it was his fault, then returned to face Matt again. “I am so sorry.”
Matt nodded. “As are we all, Mrs. Turner. If you’ll follow me, I think we’ll take this in the interrogation room.”
“The interrogation room?” Mr. Turner said. “But…”
He received a look from his wife and stopped. The Turners followed us through the police station, their daughter chewing bubble gum and blowing bubbles as we showed them inside of interrogation room one. Matt found a couple of extra chairs. He brought them in, and we all sat down. Matt exhaled, and I could tell he was struggling to keep it together. He opened Molly’s file.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why are we here?” Mr. Turner said nervously. He was a small man in brown cargo shorts and a light blue shirt from Salt Life. He had a nice tan. My guess was he was a boater or a fisherman, or maybe both.
“It’s regarding Molly Carson,” I said.
They looked surprised at one another, then at their daughter. “Molly? What has she done?”
“She didn’t do anything,” I said and swallowed to remove the knot growing in my throat when thinking about Melissa’s poor daughter. “It was more what was done to her.”
“Something happened to Molly?” Mrs. Turner said, her eyes growing wide. She looked at her daughter, who suddenly sat very still and wasn’t chewing her gum anymore.
“What happened to her?” Mr. Turner said. “We haven’t heard anything; have you, Leanne?”
His daughter shook her head. She was beginning to look flushed, and I sensed she was scared.
“We were hoping you could help us clear that up,” Matt said.
“Us? But…how?” Mr. Turner said, looking at his wife, then at us. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned forward. I sensed a nervousness, but that wasn’t uncommon in people who weren’t used to dealing with the police.
“She was at your house for a sleepover the night before last,” I said, scrutinizing them.
“A sleepover at our house?” Mrs. Turner said. “But…we’ve been out of town all weekend. We went to North Carolina just outside of Charlotte. We’re looking at houses since we’re moving up there this summer.”
I wrote it down on my pad. “And you have witnesses that can confirm that?” I asked.
Mr. Turner nodded. “Of course, plenty of people saw us up there, including the real estate agent who took us around town all weekend. Witnesses, huh? Are we being accused of anything because, if so, I’d like to have my lawyer present.”
“No one is accusing you of anything,” I said, “We’re in the middle of an investigation, and it doesn’t hurt to have an alibi.”
“But…” Mrs. Turner said, looking pensive. “Is…it bad, is…Molly dead?”
I shook my head and looked briefly at Leanne, who hadn’t moved an inch and was barely blinking.
“She’s not dead.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mrs. Turner said and clasped a hand to her chest.
“But something terrible was done to her, and we’re trying to find the person who did it. So, what we can establish is that Molly lied when stating she was spending the night at your house, right?”
Mrs. Turner nodded, fighting to keep her composure. It was obvious they knew Molly very well, and she had probably been friends with their daughter for many years. Mrs. Turner was visibly affected by the news. I was happy they had a solid alibi and that there was a reasonable explanation for them not being at their house when we sent a patrol out to pick them up right after we had found Molly and taken Melissa to the hospital. The fact that they weren’t home had made them seem suspicious at first, but now it was perfectly normal. They seemed like a nice family, and I would hate for anything to destroy that picture. With everything I had been through over the past six months, I needed to know that there were still nice families out there who didn’t lie to one another for thirty years or hurt children.
“We didn’t know anything about this,” she said. “Usually, the girls have sleepovers all the time, but this weekend we were gone, so…”
“And Molly probably knew that,” I said. “Do you have any idea why she felt the need to lie to her parents about this?”
Mrs. Turner shook her head. “I don’t really see why…”
She stopped then and looked at her daughter. We were all looking at Leanne, knowing she was the only one who could possibly know why Molly was lying, and who she was meeting when her parents thought she was having a sleepover at her friend’s house.
Leanne shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like she’s my best friend or anything; we just hang out sometimes.”
“So, you’re not part of her friend group with Carina, Ava, and Tara?” I asked.
Leanne shook her head. “No.”
“Leanne doesn’t go to the high school,” her mother interrupted. “We do Florida Virtual school.”
“So, she’s homeschooled?” I asked.
“Yes. With all the temptations to vape, do drugs, and drink, we believed it was best for our daughter to keep her out of all that.”
I stared at the woman, trying to imagine myself homeschooling my children. The thought was absurd. I loved my children dearly, but I also liked it when they were out of the house. We would only end up fighting non-stop, if not with me, then with each other. It just wasn’t for me.
I turned to face the girl, sensing she knew more than she was letting on.
“Leanne, if you know anything about what Molly was up to, then you have to tell us. Was she meeting someone? Had she met someone online maybe?”
Leanne gasped lightly, and her eyes grew wide.
“Okay, she did,” I said. “Who? Was it a man? Come on, Leanne. You might as well tell us. We will find out eventually when we go through her computer and social media accounts.”
“Leanne, if you know anything, tell the police right now,” her father said. He received another look from the mother, and I guessed she wasn’t exactly used to being told what to do.
“I don’t know, okay?” Leanne said and threw out her arms.
I gave her the look I usually gave my kids when I knew they were lying through their teeth and not getting away with it.
“Leanne?” I said.
“Okay, okay. She was supposed to meet this photographer. He had contacted her on Amino, I think it was, and he told her she was pretty and asked if she had considered becoming a model. He had seen her pictures and would like to take some professional ones. She could make a ton of money, he said. She asked me if she should do it. She said she’d ask her parents about it first, but I told her not to.”
“Leanne!” her father said.
“Her parents would never understand,” she continued. “They would never allow her to go. Not until they saw the pictures, then they’d see that it was real. If they saw her looking like some supermodel, then they’d realize that she could do this, and that this photographer wasn’t some phony.”
“So, you told her to lie to her parents,” I said. “And to meet with him.”
“Well, yes. I said I’d be gone all weekend, so she could tell them she was sleeping over at my house. They’d never know.”
“And where was she planning on spending the night then?” I asked.
“She was supposed to meet this guy at dusk at a park so he could take the photos while the sun was about to set. It was
the best lighting, he said. He was going to take her to Orlando, and they’d stay the night there, and she would meet some agents in the morning. They were going to stay in a hotel, he said. At the Hilton, that’s where the meeting would take place. He knew all the big names in the business, he said, and it was important that she meet with them if they were going to sign her. Molly had always dreamt of becoming a model, ever since she was little. This was her big break.”
“Except it wasn’t,” I said. “Instead, it destroyed her life.”
“You sound like you think it’s Leanne’s fault,” her mother said. “It’s not like she could have known that this guy wasn’t legit; she couldn’t possibly know what would happen.”
I stared at the woman, wondering about an article I had read recently about the parents of today. They weren’t called helicopter parents anymore; no, today they were called snowplow parents. A snowplow parent will “plow” down any person or obstacle standing in their child’s way. They were constantly paving the way for their children, removing every obstacle or disappointment that might appear, enabling them never to make responsible decisions or take responsibility for their actions.
I couldn’t legally charge Leanne for encouraging her friend to lie to her parents, but boy, I wished I could at this moment.
Chapter 34
I managed to make it home in time for dinner. I rushed inside, threw my purse on the table, and turned to see all of them seated around my dining room table.
Alex saw me first.
“MOMMY!”
He was about to jump down from his seat when my mom stopped him.
“Your mom will come here. You eat now.”
I smiled widely at the sight of my family, then rushed to Alex and kissed him. He reached up his small arms and grabbed me, wanting me to kiss him again.
