The Children's Cop

by Sherry Lewis

  Questions played across Rush’s face, but he was a good enough friend to not expect an answer. “Get yourself out of here,” he said with a nod at the truck. “That little girl’s gonna need you.”

  Grateful for his friend’s understanding, Jackson headed across the field. Just hearing about Angel again had knocked the wind out of him. Knowing that she was missing made it almost impossible to breathe.

  When he reached the truck, he kicked mud from his boots, climbed behind the wheel and set off as fast as he dared. It had been fifteen years since all hell had broken loose in the family, fourteen since Angelina’s birth and thirteen since she and her mother disappeared, but he remembered every painful second as if the events had happened just yesterday.

  Wiley had poured money, heart and soul into trying to find Patrice and Angel for the first couple of years, but money was no match for the determination of a distraught young mother. In thirteen years, they hadn’t seen or heard from Angel once. Every effort they’d made to find her had met with failure. Every letter and package they’d sent had been returned. Wiley had long ago stopped talking about her, but Jackson had never given up hoping that he’d see her again one day. Gritting his teeth so hard they hurt, he bounced across the rutted field, kicking up dust and wishing he could pull more speed out of the truck.

  After far too long, Jackson pulled into the circular drive in front of the ranch house and pounded up the steps. He found Wiley in his favorite chair near the fireplace, one of his ever-present mugs of coffee at his side. Wiley lifted his gaze and Jackson’s heart dropped. Other than the day his grandmother died, Jackson couldn’t remember ever seeing his grandfather cry. The proof of it now froze him to the floor.

  “We have to find her, son.”

  “We will.” It was a rash promise, but he couldn’t help himself. Even at eighteen, he would have thrown himself in front of a speeding truck for his niece. He wouldn’t do any less now.

  “I don’t care what it costs.”

  Jackson forced himself to move, but his legs felt as if they belonged to someone else, and a dull, rhythmic thumping sounded in his ears. The ranch had been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy for the past few years. Pouring money into another fruitless search might ruin them both. But left on his own, he’d have sold the ranch, if necessary, to find Angelina.

  “Maybe she’s just gone to the store,” he said, sinking into a chair and trying to gain some perspective. “There are probably a hundred explanations for why she’s not where she’s supposed to be.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. But this neighbor-friend insists she wouldn’t leave without telling him. Says she always lets him know where she’s going to be and when she’ll be home.”

  “That’s still not a reason to panic. Let’s get the facts first.” Just as they always did when Holden screwed up, when he called from the police station or begged for money.

  Shoving Holden out of his head, Jackson tried to focus on today’s problem. “Who is this neighbor?”

  “Fella by the name of Henry Livingston.” Wiley lifted a piece of paper containing the notes he’d made. “I have his address and phone number right here.”

  “That’s good. When did this Henry hear from her last?”

  “Last night about eleven. He got up this morning and waited for her to help him with breakfast before services. I guess that’s their Sunday ritual.” Wiley’s voice caught, and Jackson knew he must be envying Henry the relationship he’d been denied. Hell, Jackson felt the same way. Angel should have been eating breakfast at Crescent Valley, not with some stranger in Houston.

  “She never showed up,” Wiley said when he could speak again. “That’s when he decided to check on her, and that’s when he found out that she was gone.”

  An image of Angel as she had been the last time he saw her flashed through Jackson’s mind. Only a year old, tiny and perfect, unspeakably beautiful, and so helpless. As he remembered the dark hair and eyes she’d inherited from her mother, the dimple near the corner of her mouth, his stomach twisted painfully and fear pulsed through his veins.

  “You’ve gotta go find her,” Wiley said, his voice tight. “Do whatever it takes to bring her home again.”

  “We don’t have a whole lot of money, Grandpa. We’re still struggling to pay off what we owe from Holden’s last visit.”

  “Blast the money. None of this means a damned thing unless that girl of ours is safe.”

  Relieved, Jackson nodded and stood. “Then I’m going to Houston, and I won’t come back until I find her.”

  Wiley turned his head and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Even when they’d been sitting in the hospital getting the word about Wiley’s failing health, Jackson hadn’t seen his grandfather as an old man. Now Wiley looked worn and weathered, beaten down by life. Could he get through another storm?

  “What if it’s too late?” Wiley asked, his voice just above a whisper.

  The idea made him so sick, Jackson couldn’t stand still. Just as they had the first time Holden took off without warning, possibilities raced through his mind—none of them good. Had Angel run away? Or had something even worse happened?

  “It’s not too late,” he said firmly. “I’ll find her. And when I do, I’ll bring her back here where she belongs. We’re not going to lose her again.”

  Jackson just hoped that he could live up to the promise.

  FIFTY-EIGHT MINUTES AFTER she left home, Lucy pulled off the interstate in Channelview. She’d had time to think as she drove. Plenty of time to formulate a plan to keep her on the Avila case. She wasn’t sure how she’d accomplish it, but somehow she had to convince Nick to change his mind. It shouldn’t be hard, especially if she could pull together enough evidence to convince him that Angelina Beckett wasn’t in danger.

  Turning away from the shipping district, she wound through industrial areas and working-class neighborhoods toward the address Orry had given her. She found it in an older neighborhood, probably built around the end of World War II. House after house looked exactly alike, one painted white, another blue, one with green shutters on the windows, another with shutters sagging from broken hinges.

  Though a few of the houses and yards were well tended, the majority showed signs of apathy and neglect. Peeling paint, sagging screens, yards choked with weeds and driveways filled with cars, many of which probably wouldn’t even start.

  After several minutes, she pulled to the curb behind a van that had seen better days and tried to focus. Even if she didn’t plan to stay on this case to the end, she needed to make sure she didn’t miss anything. She wanted to turn in the best report possible so the next guy didn’t have to retrace her steps.

  She found Henry Livingston waiting for her on his front porch. When he stepped out into the sunlight, she sized him up. He was about six feet, somewhere around sixty, with bronzed skin and a shaft of gray hair, tied back with a leather thong, hanging down the middle of his back. He wore faded jeans and sandals, a chambray shirt over a paint-stained T-shirt. He looked like an old hippie. Maybe that explained why a fourteen-year-old girl considered him a friend.

  Grabbing her badge from the seat beside her, she climbed out of the car to meet him. “Mr. Livingston?”

  “Make it Hank. Are you the police?”

  “Detective Lucy Montalvo, Missing Persons.” She showed him her badge before clipping it to her waistband. “You reported a missing girl?”

  “Angel.” He nodded toward the house next door, a worried look on his face. “I try to keep an eye on her since her mother’s gone so much.”

  In sharp contrast to Hank’s trim house and neatly tended yard, the property next door had definitely seen better days. Curtains with missing hooks sagged in the windows, dark strips of paint showed through a chipped and peeling coat of yellow and the flowers someone had stuck into the flower beds drooped from lack of water. It looked like Angelina wasn’t the only thing being neglected.

  “Do you know where her mother is?”
<
br />   Hank shook his head. “Patrice? I never know where she is. She’s a free spirit, I guess, but she’s gone too much if you ask me.”

  That was a story Lucy heard far too often, and it always grated like fingernails on a chalkboard, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. “Is there any chance Angel’s with her?”

  “I doubt it. Patrice doesn’t like taking Angel when she goes out. It cramps her style.” He squinted into the bright morning sunlight and wrinkles formed in the weathered skin around his eyes. “It’s not that I think Patrice should stay home all the time. Nothing wrong with going out. But not all the time when you’ve got a kid…”

  “Sounds like Angel’s lucky you’re around. Have you ever reported the situation to Family Services?”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not a fan of big government. Bureaucrats don’t always make things better.”

  “The system works when people give it a chance,” she said almost automatically. “Do you know if anyone else has reported the situation?”

  “No one else pays much attention. You know how it is.”

  Unfortunately she did, but it wasn’t her job to speculate. At least not while she was supposed to be gathering facts. “Do you have a phone number for Patrice? A cell phone? Or do you know where she works?”

  Hank shook his head. “She was working at a truck stop until a few months ago, but she lost that job and I don’t know if she’s even bothered to look for another. If she has, Angel hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “Are they friendly with anyone else in the neighborhood?”

  “Patrice keeps to herself mostly. She’s not real friendly with anyone. Angel is more outgoing, but there aren’t many young people around here.”

  Beads of sweat formed on Lucy’s nose and forehead, and she longed for a patch of shade or a blast of air-conditioning. “Are you sure she’s not inside sleeping? Maybe she’s just not answering the door.”

  Hank dangled a silver key on his finger. “She gave me this when her mother first started spending so much time away. It made her feel better knowing she could get inside if she locked herself out.”

  “You used the key this morning?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Lucy sent him a noncommittal smile. “What did you find when you went inside?”

  “An empty house. You want to see?”

  She shook her head quickly. She wasn’t about to ignore regulations and walk into a house without backup. “Not just now. Maybe later. I’ll check the outside and see if there’s any sign of forced entry and we’ll go from there. What about Angel’s friends? Is there any chance she’s with one of them?”

  Hank slipped the key back into his pocket. “She’d have told me. We have a deal. If she goes out, she tells me. Gives me a place to start looking if she doesn’t come back.”

  “There’s always a first time for everything,” Lucy said. “Teenage girls sometimes do strange things, especially if they feel pressured by their friends.”

  “Not Angelina.”

  He seemed so certain, she decided to drop that line of questioning for the moment. “Do you know any of her friends? It might help if I could talk with some of them.”

  “I know first names, but that’s all. Never really thought I’d need more than that.”

  So much for that direction. “What about her family?”

  “I tracked down a grandfather and an uncle on a ranch outside Nacogdoches. Just got off the phone with the uncle a few minutes ago. He’s on his way here.” Hank’s mouth curved into an apologetic smile. “I don’t know Patrice’s family. They’ve never come around that I know of. I don’t mind admitting that I’m worried. Angel and her mom had an argument before Patrice left this time. That’s not unusual, I’m afraid. They can really go at it when they want to, but this argument was worse than most.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “Do you know what they argued about?”

  “Angel didn’t tell me much,” he said with a shake of his head. “I heard voices, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying, and Angel would only tell me that she hates her mother. When she didn’t show up for breakfast, I knew something was wrong.”

  “She comes over for breakfast every morning?”

  “Only on weekends.” Hank smiled almost sheepishly. “She’s young enough to think I’m an old man, and I let her think I need help. It gets her up and doing instead of sleeping the day away.”

  Lucy bit back a smile of her own. “I’m sure she enjoys coming over or she wouldn’t do it. Do you happen to know what school she goes to?”

  “Alice Johnson Junior High. It’s just a few blocks over off Ashland.”

  “And do you happen to have a picture of her? It would help.”

  Hank perked up at that. “I have one right inside. You want me to get it?”

  “Please.”

  He disappeared into the house and returned a few seconds later carrying a small photograph in a plain silver frame. “It’s last year’s school picture so she’s grown up a little, but she still looks about the same.”

  This would be the hardest part, Lucy told herself. It always was. Even meeting the distraught parents wasn’t as difficult as looking into the trusting eyes of a child who’d disappeared. She squared her shoulders and lowered her gaze to the photograph in her hand. A beautiful young girl with shoulder-length brown hair and clear dark eyes smiled shyly up at her. She didn’t look like the kind of child who would run away, but what child did?

  Unwanted concern tugged at Lucy’s heart, and she looked away before little Tomas Avila’s face could replace Angel’s. “Do you mind if I keep this until I can get copies?”

  Hank waved off the question. “Bring her home, and you can keep the picture.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she assured him. They both knew her best might not be good enough, but neither of them acknowledged it aloud. Lucy could barely acknowledge it to herself. Every case was different, she reminded herself. Each one brought a new opportunity to produce a happy ending. A runaway of fourteen was a far cry from an abducted eight-year-old, but Lucy desperately needed a happy ending. She just prayed that she could find one this time.

  WITH HIS HEART IN HIS throat, Jackson took the steps to the police station two at a time. He’d been running at full speed from the moment he’d made the decision to drive to Houston, but it felt as if he’d been moving in slow motion for most of the day.

  It had taken too long to convince Wiley to let Rush and his wife stay at the ranch in his absence. Even longer to locate his mother on her honeymoon, give her the news and make arrangements to stay in her condo while he was in town. He’d spent the better part of an hour going over the ranch’s schedule and making sure Rush knew what to keep an eye on, but his mind had wandered the whole time and he still wasn’t sure he’d covered everything.

  After finally hitting the road, he’d been on his cell phone almost constantly. In the blink of an eye, the phone had gone from being a damned nuisance to his most prized possession. He’d talked to Henry Livingston no less than four times and tried repeatedly to find anyone in the police department who could fill him in on their investigation. He’d managed to pin down Detective Montalvo at last, and she’d agreed to meet with him at noon. He just hoped she’d have something positive to report.

  Pushing through the station’s glass doors, he paused for a heartbeat in the air-conditioned lobby to get his bearings, and the shock of cold dry air sent a shiver up his spine. All around him, conversations between uniformed officers and people in civilian clothes hummed, punctuated occasionally by the muted ringing of a nearby telephone. A laugh echoed through the corridor and Jackson battled a flash of irritation that anyone could laugh while his niece was missing.

  When he noticed a bank of elevators, he set off toward it and caught a car just before the doors closed. But the elevator climbed so slowly and stopped so often, he nearly jumped out of his skin before he reached the eighteenth floor. When the doors finally opened, he strode
down a crowded corridor, searching for the room number he’d been given.

  He went halfway around the building before he found a busy office filled with desks and ringing telephones. Four or five plainclothes police officers moved about the room, talking over one another, scribbling notes and answering calls.

  It wasn’t Jackson’s first time in a police station—not by a long shot. Thanks to his old man and his little brother, he was more familiar with police stations and jails than any decent person ought to be. But today a sense of unreality filled him, and he wondered for a split second if he’d only dreamed the phone calls that had brought him here.

  “Hey!” A voice reached him over the din and jerked him back to reality. “Can I help you with something?”

  He found the harried-looking cop who’d shouted at him and nodded. “I’m looking for Detective Montalvo. Is she around?”

  Without answering, the cop punched a few numbers into the phone on his desk. “Luce? Somebody here to see you.” Replacing the receiver, he nodded toward an empty desk. “Wait there. She’ll be with you in a second.”

  Jackson didn’t have a choice, but the energy in the room, combined with his own agitation, made it impossible to sit still. He paced from one end of the desk to the other until a door at the opposite end of the long office opened and a brunette roughly his own age strode toward him. Her dark eyes took his measure, and he could almost see her filing away her first impression in a mental database.

  She was younger than he’d expected, and surprisingly pretty for a cop. Jackson didn’t care about anything but her ability on the job, but it would have taken a smarter man than he was to read her unsmiling face. Though he towered over her by at least six inches, she gave the impression of looking him squarely with eyes that were carefully neutral. “Jackson Davis?”

  “That’s right.”