Too Far Gone

by Marliss Melton

  Discover the motive. The Culprit bounced the rubber end of his pencil off the desk and thought.

  This would have to be a good one—a motive that would cinch Harlan’s guilt in the eyes of the jury and impel them to recommend the death penalty. A brilliant scenario came to mind, except the Culprit would require the assistance of a computer expert, which could be done if only the man was also a Centurion. This bore looking into.

  Reviewing his list, he jotted down his final task:

  Eliminate all alibis. Sean Harlan had just one, a woman by the name of Tiffany Hughes. A smirk lifted one side of the Culprit’s thin lips. Having her killed would cost him next to nothing. Hired killers practically vied for the chance to snuff a woman versus a man. The key was to find one smart enough not to leave his DNA behind.

  Honestly, this business of manipulating evidence to implicate the unwitting was scarcely a challenge anymore. It was practically child’s play to a man as savvy and powerful as he was.

  Ellie’s competence had lulled Sean into falling asleep. With his soft snores playing backdrop to the country music on the radio, Ellie thought about the last time she’d driven like this, ten months ago, on her flight from Mississippi to Virginia. At the time, she’d been scared, but at least her sons had been with her. God, how she missed the noise, the chaos and confusion that combined to make her life a crazy form of paradise!

  All she’d ever wanted was a better life for them than what she’d had. She ought to have protected them more fiercely. She ought to have realized that those men had intended them harm.

  She’d failed them.

  The ache in her chest became excruciating as she approached their destination. On the other side of the glinting Savannah River, the historic city slept in the predawn darkness. To the east, plumes of smoke smudged the sky where the sun would soon be rising. The sulfuric odor of a paper mill permeated the car. Suddenly the world seemed so corrupted by filth. Tears blurred Ellie’s vision faster than she could blink them away.

  What if the boys were gone for good?

  The awful thought bathed her in a clammy sweat. Then everything she was, everything she strived to be, meant nothing.

  She felt suddenly disoriented, dizzy. The precipitous, rain-slick surface of the bridge flew beneath her tires. The bridge rail flashed by, alarmingly close. A concrete barrier was all that separated her from oncoming vehicles. She made a fearful sound as she jerked the steering wheel to keep from colliding with it.

  Sean startled awake. He took one look at Ellie’s face, noted their position at the height of the bridge, and bolted upright. “Whoa, there,” he rasped, reaching out to put a steadying hand on the wheel. “Easy now, honey; you’re going too fast.”

  The shock of seeing her speed so high made her snatch her foot off the gas. She transferred pressure to the brake pedal, her knees as wobbly as gelatin, making the simple task difficult.

  Over her gasping breaths, she was conscious of Sean giving encouragement, of his deft hand on the wheel between her slippery palms.

  “Let’s pull off for a while, huh?” he suggested as they eased down off the bridge. “Right over here.” He indicated the parking lot of an empty welcome center.

  Ellie hated herself. No matter how hard things got, she’d always buckled down, kept her composure. As the car rolled to a stop, she thrust the door open and staggered out to clear her head.

  With her hands on her knees, she drew deep breaths of balmy air to keep from throwing up. The smell of river water mingled with the odor of distant factories.

  Pride forced her to stand upright. “I’m sorry ’bout that,” she choked out as Sean approached.

  “Don’t.” He reached for her, his grip on her upper arms nearly all that kept her standing. Ellie’s gaze fell to his hard, handsome face, his mouth, and suddenly she wished, more than anything, that he would infuse her with his certainty and his strength. She’d never needed a man’s touch more than she did right now.

  He must have read her mind.

  With a sudden step forward, he lowered his head, put his warm lips against hers, and left them there, giving her all the time in the world to pull away. Of course, she didn’t. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, savoring the intimate touch.

  Her panic eased. As warm, fuzzy feelings rose up within her, her trembling subsided, allowing her tense muscles to relax at last.

  “Better now?” he asked, transitioning his kiss to a hug.

  She wished she could stay in the safe circle of his arms forever. But then she’d never find her boys. “Better,” she murmured, gathering her strength to pull back. They hadn’t come all this way for her to have a breakdown. “Let’s go find Carl,” she reminded him.

  Intermittent gas lamps cast a romantic glow on the facades of the quaint mismatched buildings in Savannah’s historic district. Each building, with its own unique shape and history, faced a grassy square sheltered by immense live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

  Ellie had trouble envisioning Carl here.

  Sean turned down Abercorn Street, traveled several blocks, then slowed before a run-down Victorian. The only light in its darkened windows was a neon sign that read vacancy. Carl, apparently, rented a room.

  Sean cut the motor. “Let’s talk about this,” he said, leaning over Ellie’s knees to open the glove compartment. “How about I talk to Carl first?”

  “No,” Ellie argued, her mouth going dry as he pulled out a holster and a wicked-looking handgun.

  After checking the chamber for rounds, he flicked it shut again.

  “I’ll talk to Carl,” she insisted, reaching for the door.

  With a grim set to his mouth, he leaned forward to strap the holster around his waist. Then he got out, tucking the gun out of sight as he joined her. “I’ll wait right here for you,” he said, shutting her door.

  Traffic hummed several blocks over, but this particular square was quiet. Her heart thumping unevenly, Ellie climbed creaking steps to the main entrance. She dreaded waking all the house’s occupants to talk to just one.

  No one answered her tentative knock.

  “Knock again,” Sean called, “harder.”

  She knocked hard enough to bruise her knuckles, and light leapt on in one of the upstairs windows. Someone thumped loudly down the stairs. “What do you want?” demanded a woman.

  Recognizing Tammy’s husky voice, Ellie announced herself. “I’m looking for Carl,” she admitted.

  The door swung open, and there stood Tammy, her voluptuous figure encased in a silky bathrobe. She’d neglected to remove her heavy makeup. “Ellie, what’re you doin’ here?” she asked, gaping at Ellie, who blinked against the light.

  “Looking for Carl,” she repeated. “Is he here?”

  “That bum?” Tammy scoffed. “I threw his lazy butt outta here months ago,” she boasted. Her gaze went past Ellie to where Sean stood waiting. “Who is that?” she purred.

  “A policeman,” Ellie lied. “Carl’s in trouble. I need to know where he went.”

  “Hell, I don’t know where he went,” Tammy said convincingly. “He’s probably living on the streets,” she added with a careless gesture. “God knows he can’t keep a job. So, what did he do that got him in trouble?” she asked with a smirk.

  Ellie weighed the point of telling her. “Someone kidnapped my boys,” she admitted stiffly.

  “And you think it was Carl?” Tammy’s laughter was incredulous. “What would Carl want with them?” But then she realized Ellie’s plight, and her eyes widened. “Oh, honey,” she exclaimed, instantly remorseful. “I am so sorry. You must be sick to death!”

  Desolation made Ellie weave on her feet. The steps creaked as Sean shot up them to join the women. “Ma’am,” he said to Tammy, who perked right up, “you wouldn’t happen to have a picture of Carl lying around, would you?”

  “Oh, Lord, no.” But then she caught herself. “Now, wait just a minute. I do have his box of trophies and such that he left behind. It’s full of old pic
tures. Why don’t y’all come up?” She opened the door wide to admit them.

  Tammy had let them take the box.

  An hour later, Sean and Ellie sat in a patch of morning sunlight on the floor of their room at the Holiday Inn Express and sorted through it.

  Ellie remembered Carl’s I-LOVE-ME box only too well. It was filled with his memorabilia, most of which was more than ten years old, relics of his glory days as the all-star high school quarterback.

  “I guess he was pretty good,” Sean concluded, setting the trophies to one side to access the photos underneath.

  “Guess he was,” Ellie agreed, repulsed by the scent of stale cologne emanating from the cardboard. Carl used to pour the stuff on himself before going out at night.

  Every familiar item reminded her of a time in her life she’d rather forget. There were plaques, certificates, newspaper clippings, and letters from potential colleges. What was not in the box was a single suggestion of Carl’s romance with a high school sophomore, a girl who’d naively worshiped him.

  But there were dozens of photos of Carl, some in frames, looking young and athletic, his hair sun-bleached, a big smile on his face.

  He’d had dreams for himself. Big dreams. The future welcomed him with promises of a full-ride scholarship to Mississippi State, screaming fans, and a shot at the NFL.

  She, little Eleanor McKenzie, had ruined all that by getting pregnant. And Carl’s grandparents, who’d helped his single mother raise him, had firmly insisted he do right by her or else face being cut out of their family business. In the end, that business had gone under, anyway. And not a single day of Ellie’s eleven-year marriage had gone by without Carl reminding her that she’d destroyed his life.

  Why would a man that resentful of the past want to be stuck with three little reminders?

  “There aren’t even pictures of the boys in here,” Ellie exclaimed, tossing down the photos in disgust. The dust rising from the box made her nose itch. “He didn’t take them,” she stated unequivocally.

  “We don’t know that, Ellie,” Sean insisted, picking up the stack of photos she’d tossed down.

  At her continued silence, he glanced up at her, his gaze locking on her awful expression. “We don’t know what’s going through his mind right now,” he stated. “All we know is that he’s hard up, right? If he’s living on the streets, he’ll do anything for money.”

  “He isn’t capable of organizing a kidnapping like that,” Ellie replied through her teeth. Certainty grew like a weed, choking out any lingering doubts. “He didn’t do it, Sean. He couldn’t have!” Her voice had risen to a note of crisis. Her heart felt like it was going to burst with grief. They’d come all this way for nothing. She couldn’t bear this anymore. She couldn’t.

  Shoving the box from her, she rolled away to lie, limp and exhausted, on the carpeted floor. If Carl hadn’t taken her boys, then that left just one other possibility: They’d been stolen by pedophiles who would rape and murder them, if they hadn’t already. Raising her hands to her head, Ellie fisted handfuls of her thick hair and pulled. Making her scalp hurt helped alleviate the agony in her chest.

  “Ellie, don’t,” Sean pleaded. She heard him move the box aside, felt him straddle her hips and grasp her wrists. He put pressure on points that rendered her hands immediately useless. “Listen to me, sweetheart,” he coaxed, pinning her hands to the floor. “I still think we’re on to something,” he said, his blue eyes calming, filled with resolve. “Carl’s circumstances have changed. We don’t know what they are or whether they motivated him to steal his kids, but there may have been a trigger somewhere.”

  Though she was utterly skeptical, the certainty in his eyes was an elixir that she drank like a woman dying of thirst. With his thighs straddling her hips, his weight on her pelvis, the desire to be kissed by him again rose up in her sharply.

  “We’ve got pictures now, Ellie,” he continued, unaware of her desperate yearning. “Today we’re going to hit up every homeless shelter in Savannah and ask who might have seen Carl. You ready?”

  “Sure,” she whispered. But she was nearly comatose from their long night of driving. Making queries at homeless shelters was bound to result in disappointment. Carl didn’t have the boys. Someone else did—someone who was purely evil.

  Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, spilling over her lashes.

  “Now, what would Caleb say if he saw you crying?” Sean scolded, seeing them. “He’d say, ‘Mama, stop wastin’ water and get busy findin’ us.’ ”

  Sean’s imitation of Caleb’s Mississippi drawl summoned a watery laugh out of Ellie.

  “That’s better,” he added. “Don’t quit on me now, Ellie. Come on. Get your butt off the floor and throw some water on your face. Let’s go.” Rising fluidly to his feet, he hauled her up after him, giving her a not-so-gentle push toward the bathroom door.

  No sooner had Ellie closed the door behind her than Sean’s cell phone vibrated. He walked to the window to keep Ellie from overhearing him. “Chief Harlan,” he answered.

  “This is Special Agent Butler,” said the careful voice on the other end. “Where are you?”

  “We drove down to Savannah last night,” Sean admitted. If Butler considered him a suspect, he probably knew exactly where they were. Sean had purchased the room with his credit card.

  “Trying to do my job, Mr. Harlan?” he questioned with just a hint of irritation.

  “Figured we’d save you the trouble,” Sean replied.

  “Have you found Mr. Stuart yet?”

  “Not yet,” Sean admitted.

  “In that case, why don’t you head home?” Butler advised him. “It doesn’t look good for the two of you to take off together,” he added darkly.

  “I don’t think I like your insinuations, sir,” Sean countered coldly. “Have you checked out my alibi yet?”

  “We’re working on that. Miss Hughes is out of town.”

  “I gave you a cell phone number,” Sean said suspiciously.

  “I’m sure she’ll be calling us back as soon as she checks her voice mail.”

  “So, until then I’m considered a suspect?” Sean pressed.

  “Person of interest, Mr. Harlan,” Butler corrected him smoothly.

  “What have you heard about the DNA?” Sean demanded.

  “That was my reason for calling,” the man replied. “The DNA from the bloodstains matches the swab lifted from Caleb Stuart’s toothbrush.”

  Sean sank weakly into the chair by the window. Shit. Of Ellie’s three boys, Caleb reminded him most of himself—the rebel, the fighter.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that,” added the agent as Sean kept quiet.

  “At least we know,” Sean muttered.

  Butler sighed. “Look, I’ll give you forty-eight hours down there,” he relented, proving he couldn’t be too suspicious of Sean. “After that, you need to return to your homes or risk being slapped with a grand jury subpoena and an obstruction warrant.”

  “Forty-eight hours,” Sean agreed. Battles had been won and lost in less time.

  “If you find Mr. Stuart, make sure you contact me before approaching him,” the agent cautioned. “Let us do our job.”

  “I wish you would,” Sean retorted. “You should’ve been down here days ago.”

  “We have procedures, Mr. Harlan,” the agent defended himself.

  “Right, well, I don’t. That’s why I’m here doing everything I can to bring those boys home,” Sean explained, putting an abrupt end to the call.

  Almost immediately, his cell phone buzzed again. This time it was Reno.

  “I have news about the DNA,” said his lawyer, the same man who’d strongly cautioned Sean against going to Savannah last night.

  “I already know,” Sean answered. “It was Caleb’s blood. The FBI special agent just called.”

  “Does he know where you are yet?”

  “He said he’d give us two days down here.”

  “Then you’d better
be back by Tuesday,” Reno grimly warned. “Oh, there’s something else you might want to know. One of Ellie’s neighbors told the police that a van had parked in front of his property two nights in a row prior to the kidnapping. He didn’t get plates or anything, but it sounds like the same van Ellie’s boys were put into, and that takes some of the suspicion off of Ellie.”

  “Good,” said Sean, only the news really wasn’t good at all. Between Caleb’s blood and a white van sighted days in advance of the kidnapping, all signs pointed to a well-planned, well-executed abduction. And according to Ellie, Carl couldn’t have tied his own shoelaces without making knots. “Thanks, Reno,” he murmured.

  “I’ll be in touch,” the lawyer promised. “Oh, by the way, that Wavy News Ten lady wants to get a hold of you.”

  Sean puzzled for a moment, then figured out exactly whom Reno meant—Vinny’s fiancée, Ophelia. If she was hitting up Reno for his number, that meant Vinny was holding out on her. Good for him. “I’m saving the media card for later,” Sean replied. It had occurred to him that Ophelia could actually be useful if he could talk her into taking Ellie’s side.

  Hearing Ellie turn the water off at the sink, Sean put a quick end to the call. Given Ellie’s faltering hopes, this wasn’t the time for her to learn everything Reno had told him.

  The boys had been missing for almost four days now. He didn’t have to be a cop to know the odds of finding them alive and unharmed were diminishing rapidly.

  Chapter Six

  Dale Robbins, a graduate of the Centurion Boys’ Home in Savannah and special agent with the Cybercrimes Division of the FBI, took a call at his cubicle that sent his adrenaline pumping.

  “Is this Dale Robbins?”

  “Yes.”

  “What song does the mockingbird sing?”

  It was the question he’d been told to expect at any time in his life, without ever knowing first the day or the hour.

  For a panicked second, Dale couldn’t remember the reply. But then it came to him, and he stammered out the pass phrase.