They were sharing the couch, Charlotte curled up beside him, still chilled despite the blanket he’d brought downstairs and tucked around her.
“I’ll be fine. John’s driving us in the morning. Close your eyes, Charlotte. Trust me enough to give me that.” He found another movie.
He felt it when she finally drifted to sleep.
He lightly brushed a kiss against her hair.
He needed to talk to John. And Paul. And do it without going beyond his word to Charlotte.
Bryce joined John in the kitchen for coffee while Charlotte was still getting ready for church. “John, how close are you to identifying the third man?”
John finished stirring cream into his coffee before he looked over. “She’s talking about what happened.”
“A little.”
“I didn’t think she’d take that risk with you until she’d been around you for a few years.” John leaned back against the counter. “Charlotte can’t give me a face. She tried for years after it happened, trying to get her memory to cooperate. She’s only got a voice for this guy, and his words.”
John took another drink of his coffee. “The cop who died in the wreck had several trial depositions I could access. I put together a tape, a couple minutes of his voice, and that of a dozen other cops giving similar depositions. Charlotte didn’t pick his voice out. I had her listen to the tape a few times over a couple months’ period. I’m convinced it’s not him.”
“This guy claimed to be a cop.”
John nodded. “Could be a lie, could be true. She’s never reacted to the voice of any cop she’s met, and over the years I’ve arranged repeated conversations with the cops on the task force, ones who I thought were close to the investigation, or from the precinct that covered that neighborhood where she was held. She would have reacted if she heard that voice again.”
John set aside his mug. “I can tell you, Bryce, no trace of the guy showed up at that house where she was held. No sign of him showed up in the phone records of the men who were killed. Whoever he was, he knew when the end was coming and carefully covered his tracks.
“This third man warns her not to mention him, twenty-four hours later the other two are dead, and he has disappeared like a ghost. It had been four years and she was dying. She wouldn’t have lasted another month. I believe he made the choice to let her live and called in the tip himself. It ended on his timetable. I think he’s still out there. My best guess, he left the area the day before the raid went down. I think he left and fully intends to never come back.”
“She’s never told the cops a third man was there.”
“Her choice, but I didn’t try to change her mind. She’s got a voice, his words, the fact he was there, but nothing else to give them. Cops were already looking for evidence someone else had been involved, they were collecting fingerprints at the house, in the van, going through phone records, interviewing people, and creating lists of anyone those two cousins had been seen with during the four years they’d held her, doing what they could to trace the ransom money.
“Bryce, I hate the fact he’s out there. But I’m a realist. Charlotte telling the cops someone else was there would simply put more pressure on her to remember, and in the first years after she was rescued, that was the last thing she needed. Security around Tabitha and Charlotte is there to insure he will never again be a threat to either one of them. I want to find the guy, I keep pursuing what is possible to do, but I’m not particularly worried about him. If Charlotte remembers more, I’ll get him. It will be my pleasure to do so.”
“You don’t think he’s a threat to her being in Chicago.”
“I think he’s staying as far away from Charlotte as he can. He got away with his part in the crime. Why risk coming anywhere near her and chance getting caught? I’ll lay money he was gone the day before the raid and has never been back.”
“The cops think this case is closed. That’s a big problem.”
“Bryce, understand her perspective. Charlotte protects her sister. She shoved her sister out of the van to protect her, and paid for that decision with four years of her life. Someone who said he’s a cop has threatened to hurt Tabitha if Charlotte talks about him. Silence is the only decision she can make. She’s going to protect her sister. She’s not going to talk to the cops. I’m relieved she’s told you, but she’s not going to take this further.”
“When did Charlotte tell you about the third man?”
“After I learned a cop had been found with ransom money. She told me what the man had said, and I made arrangements that day to transfer her to the clinic in Texas.”
Bryce heard Charlotte on the stairs. “Don’t you think it’s important to get the FBI looking into the case again?” he asked, his voice low.
“I’m not sure what they could do, but you’ve got my blessing as long as you keep Charlotte out of it. The book might create an opening you could use.”
“I’m running with Paul this afternoon. I’ll see what I can come up with without breaking my word to Charlotte.”
Paul was waiting for him on the university track Sunday afternoon.
Bryce set down his gym bag on the bleacher bench, pulled out a bottle of water. “What do you want to do today, four miles, six?”
“I’m thinking four since I’ve missed a couple weeks,” Paul replied.
Bryce nodded, drank down half the water, began to stretch in preparation for the run.
“I’m glad you and Charlotte came over. It was nice to catch up.”
“We enjoyed it.”
“Marriage looks like it agrees with you.”
Bryce smiled. “It does.”
They hit the track at a steady pace, working through the miles. Running with Paul was always an interesting experience, for Paul chose a pace and tried to hold to it from the first of the run until the last. The workout became intense in the last mile if the pace had been set too fast.
Bryce waited until they were cooling down. “Charlotte doesn’t want you to get blindsided by the book,” he said, mopping his face with a towel. “Gage has the fact a cop had some of the ransom money.”
Paul grimaced. “We figured he’d find it. I don’t know what to tell you. Cops looked at him, Bryce, from every direction. I’ve looked at him. It’s as likely the cop was framed as it is he was involved. The money may have been planted in his house after he died by the uncle of the two cousins killed. We just don’t have enough to say one way or the other.”
“Useful to know.”
“How’s Charlotte handling it?”
“She already knew about the cop.”
“Ann thought she did. I know Charlotte’s got a good reason not to trust any kind of cop, given the circumstances. I know she’s never said a word about what happened. But she married you. She obviously trusts you. Has Charlotte talked to you about what happened?”
“She’s talked to me.” Bryce zipped the gym bag closed. “I told her not to talk with you.”
Paul stopped. Bryce simply met his searching look. Paul slowly nodded. “That tells me something.”
“It should.”
Bryce headed back to his car. He’d told Charlotte he would stop at the Mexican restaurant they favored and bring enchiladas home for dinner.
Ann arrived first. “Where do you need me?”
“How far did they get tracing the ransom money?”
His wife sorted through the dates in the Bazoni case file, found the first section after Ruth was rescued, and pulled out the reports. “Bryce told her not to talk with us.”
Paul nodded. “There’s only one reason I can come up with that he says that to her. Charlotte is worried about someone who is very much alive, and not just someone. Probably a cop.”
Paul spread out the forensic reports on the table. “Charlotte wasn’t talking, the two men who held her were dead—investigators had a limited amount to work with to answer their questions. The house was dusted for fingerprints, looking for anyone else who had been involved
, the same with the van the two men drove.”
Paul scanned the reports. “They lifted hundreds of prints. Most were matches to the two men who held her, or Charlotte’s own prints. Thirty-eight prints were other people. Magazines, envelopes, a casserole dish—transfer prints from being handed something. Three family members, two known friends of the cousins, six people in the neighborhood. Only four of the prints remain unidentified—taken from a beer bottle in the trash, the side mirror of the van, and two prints from the underside of the kitchen table where someone might’ve gripped the edge to push a chair back. I’ll get them run through the databases today. Hope we get lucky.”
“John would never let her be near Chicago if he thought a threat was still here,” Ann said.
“Even more to the point—if she had seen someone, there would be a sketch. She doesn’t know who it is or John would have long ago dealt with the matter. She overheard a conversation, I think,” Paul replied.
“One cop had ransom money, maybe more than one cop involved?”
Paul nodded. “Find out how much ransom money wasn’t accounted for and maybe we get a sense of it. If someone else was involved, they’d want their cut of the money.”
“Charlotte was quiet at dinner, a lot on her mind,” Ann said. “I put it down to the fact she’d read what Gage had written. Bryce mentioned it when he and I were in the kitchen. I wonder if she was debating talking to us.”
“Maybe. She’s talking to Bryce. I’m going to guess for now that is as far as she goes.”
Ann opened another folder. “Bryce is level-headed. So is John. The fact Bryce still has her in town, John does, the fact their security hasn’t tightened up even more—she told them something, but it’s not a recent detail.”
Paul’s two closest friends in the bureau, Sam and Rita, arrived. Paul didn’t bother to ask if he’d interrupted a date. He’d heard the same music in the background of his call to Rita, then to Sam.
“What’s up, boss?”
“The Bazoni case. The two guys holding her are shot dead during the rescue, a cop is found later to have ransom money. The task force did a thorough look for other people involved and didn’t identify anyone. Cops had a suspicion their uncle was either involved or knew something—the cousins killed were often at his house during the four years Ruth was held—but they couldn’t prove it. I want to know if the task force missed someone else.”
“New evidence?”
“For now just an urgent question. There are four fingerprints from the scene never identified. We’ll start with those. Ann’s looking at how much of the ransom money was able to be traced or recovered. Focus on people the cousins might trust. High school friends, work buddies, neighbors they grew up with, family. Then widen it to people who could have been involved—the cop who died being a perfect example. He was there. Who else can we list that was there?”
Rita pulled out a chair and slid over a file box. Sam took the printouts.
Bryce took the stairs down quietly Monday morning shortly after six a.m. so as not to wake Charlotte, put on coffee, then walked back to his office. He liked the early morning starts to the day. He didn’t have to wonder if the work he did mattered. Lives were being impacted by the decisions he made. There was a blessing in simply being trusted with the work, and every day he crossed the threshold of his office, he felt it. He often thought he now had the best job in the world.
At the right time, in the right amounts, funding made an organization flourish. Money was the easy part of the equation when it came to ministry. A clear vision and plan, well-trained leaders and staff, enthusiastic volunteers, opportunities to meet people’s needs—those were more vital to the success or failure of a ministry than the funding, and he was the last part of the puzzle. But he and Charlotte could partner with them and make a difference when the time was right.
Bryce turned on the lights in his office.
A large sketch rested in the center of his desk, a cookie in cellophane resting on top of it. He opened the cellophane wrapper. Chocolate chip. He smiled, tugged it out, and took a bite. Charlotte had discovered his weakness for chocolate chip two weeks ago and bought him a fresh-baked cookie when she was passing the bakery.
He lifted off the sheet of tracing paper she had placed to protect the drawing. His mom, his sisters—smiling, eating pie, having leaned together for a photo.
He gently traced the edge of the paper. At least sixty hours of work. He’d watched Charlotte build these photo-like sketches. She’d humored his mom and removed the gray hair, given his sisters the earrings they’d be receiving at Christmas. His mom had her hand resting on Josephine’s, and their wedding rings were lightly touched by the sunlight flowing across the table. Charlotte would have a snapshot on her phone of the three of them, had been able to transform that into this. The gift she had for drawing was truly remarkable.
A year ago he hadn’t realized how much he was missing from life. Sharing the days with Charlotte made life enjoyable in a way that he couldn’t have imagined or easily put into words. The real gift she’d given him was not the money; it was having her as his wife.
He placed the sketch on the credenza for Ellie to frame for him. Charlotte had drawn eight family sketches for him now. She was beginning to know his family and love them, and it showed in her sketches. He wondered if she realized it or if the family dynamics had gradually absorbed her, and a year from now she’d look back and realize with surprise they were now her family too.
The family had extended and made her welcome as his wife, created her a place. If there was something this marriage could offer her that mattered, it was his family and that absolute acceptance that came with it. She was one of them.
Out of habit Bryce glanced at his calendar. There was another birthday in the family tomorrow. Rose was turning six. He’d have a reason to go shopping with Charlotte this afternoon. They had a common love affair with toy stores, so it would be a laughter-filled couple of hours. Courting his wife by finding reasons to hang out with her and make her laugh . . . he liked the simplicity of it. One of these days she was going to laugh, turn and hug him without even thinking about it. The baby steps were adding up slowly and taking them somewhere.
He finished the cookie with his coffee, smiled as he glanced again at the sketch, then turned and started his workday.
TWENTY-NINE
Bryce was glad they had planned a trip north to Shadow Lake. Charlotte dozed during the five-hour drive, wrapped up in his jacket, her tote bag with an extra sketchbook at her feet. The dogs were asleep in the back seat. She needed the rest. She’d told him about the third man, and now seemed to struggle to push back the memories that went with it. She was getting up in the night to spend a few more hours at her drafting table, working on the final details of the Florist sketch. Bryce wanted to break the pattern but wasn’t sure how.
Bryce drove to the lake, taking the road from the east so as to avoid Graham Enterprises and all the reminders of what she had left behind. He crossed the river that fed into the lake, then turned south around the lake past John’s home to arrive at Fred’s house. Ellie was there to meet them before Charlotte stepped out of the car.
He eventually left Charlotte with Ellie, surrounded by paint strips and carpet samples, talking about cabinet choices for the remodeled kitchen. Ellie would help her relax more than anyone else could. Bryce walked with the dogs down to the lake.
John had built out the dock so a couple of fishing boats could comfortably tie up, built a small boathouse to store fishing gear, and right now was in the process of putting in an outdoor sink and work surface as a convenient place to clean fish. Bryce thought it was the perfect addition to the property, and only regretted Charlotte didn’t enjoy the water so he could take her for a boat ride while they were here.
John finished storing tackle. “You made good time.”
“Traffic was light. Joseph had a woman with him in the tailing SUV.”
“Kimberly Beach. I’ll introduce you nex
t week. She’s going to be the new security with Ellie and Charlotte when they’re out shopping. Easier for her to blend in than one of the guys.”
Bryce nodded. “Appreciate that thought.”
John pulled out cold sodas for them from the refrigerator next to the bait cold-storage box and handed one over. “I got a call from Ann Falcon yesterday, checking in on Charlotte, asking me to think back on the kidnapping and what Charlotte might have said about the two men killed—who they spent time with, who they trusted, had Charlotte ever discussed what or who they spoke about. I’d say you tipped over a pretty determined hornet’s nest with whatever you said. I didn’t have much I could give her, but she was asking the right questions.”
“Interesting that Ann called you and not Paul.”
“Not so surprising. Ann’s been a friend for a long time.” John offered the dogs each a biscuit. “Don’t get disappointed when they hit a wall, Bryce. Cops have looked before.”
“If that’s what happens, I’ll deal with it. Charlotte’s having trouble sleeping.”
“I can imagine, given she read what Gage has written. You don’t stir those kinds of memories without it causing her problems. Charlotte’s memory . . . it’s not memories, Bryce, not like you think of them. She described it once as a ‘black suffocating blanket.’ She doesn’t want the details. The emotions of it are hard enough. It simply takes her time to build a distance again so she’s not feeling that during her waking hours.”
“She’s blocked out most of what happened?”
John shrugged. “It’s there. But she remembers as little of the specifics as her mind can get away with. She’ll sleep easier when this isn’t so close to the surface.”
“Does anything help?”
“Work. Time. She’ll get past this, Bryce. She always does.”
Bryce leaned against his car and watched the moon rise over Shadow Lake. The evening breeze had picked up. He glanced over as Charlotte joined him, bundled in his jacket.
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