“You don’t have to spell it out for me. I understand the urgency.”
“Good. I don’t even want to think it. Something will turn up.” He sounded like he was chewing cud. But I had a feeling it was a Snicker’s bar. I let it ride.
“But if he did do it, then we have to believe that Billy is safe,” I said.
“Eh, I suppose.”
I thought about the twist of irony. I was no more than an hour into being hired by William to find his kidnapped grandson, and already I was having doubts about my client’s innocence. Maybe it was the strange look he’d given me earlier in my conversation with Stan. And then I learned that the cops were thinking the same thing. For me, the sum of the collective evidence appeared to be nothing more than a facial expression at a time of tremendous stress and a comment from an emotional court proceeding. And as ludicrous as it sounded to think about William kidnapping his own grandson, part of me hoped he was responsible. The alternative brought about thoughts that made my stomach turn—I didn’t want to go there if I could help it.
“We’ve got to remember that William came to me to find his grandson, apparently using cash he’d acquired from his dead wife’s life insurance policy. He’s also quite distraught. So, if he’s trying to put up some type of smokescreen to make your colleague think he’s not involved, then he’s pulling off an Oscar-worthy performance.”
“You’re right. I think Pressler is grasping at anything that moves right now. It almost seems desperate.”
My phone buzzed. I looked at the screen to find a text from Cristina.
Need extra pay for this pain and suffering. I can’t breathe in Danny’s douche-bag mobile.
I thumbed a quick reply.
Thx for update. Can u focus on finding office space?
Cristina shot back a response before I could return the phone to my ear.
About to vomit. Help!!!!!
I gave her one more bit of feedback.
Think about the kids. Send me pictures. Later.
“Okay, where were we? Oh yeah, Pressler.” I paused a second, wondering if Cristina would fire off another text. Thankfully, it never came. Maybe she was learning that there were times she just had to suck it up. “Stan, do you know if Pressler has looked into other family members, friends from either the biological family or the foster family? A lot of times there can be jealousy involved. Maybe there’s a woman or a couple who haven’t been able to have kids, or recently lost a baby.”
“The answer to your long question is yes, but I heard it’s a wide net. Pressler has a team identifying each person within and associated with the foster family, and the list is long. On the biological side, William appears to be the only one alive and not AWOL or in jail.”
“Pressler should look for someone with a technical background,” I suggested. “Those cameras didn’t just magically go haywire at the exact moment Billy was taken out of the store. Well, I’m ninety-nine percent certain. Technology is about as reliable and predictable as the weather.” I could feel the sun’s unrelenting heat on my arm. I rubbed it, then added, “Only if we’re not talking about a San Antonio summer.”
“I hear ya. I’ll pass it along, if I find the right opportunity. My neck sweats just thinking about going outside. Even my wife insists I take two showers a day during the summer. I keep telling her we can move up to Brooklyn, go back to my roots, so to speak.”
“You wouldn’t leave us, would you, Stan?”
“Eh. Just get me to football season.”
“Just get me some time with Pressler.”
“Are you joking?”
“Kind of, but not really. Listen, I know she’s pushing all the right buttons, but I think we’ll both benefit if we can have ten minutes to quiz each other.”
“Pfft. Not going to happen. Your best bet— Uh, let me rephrase that. You’re only bet is to work everything you can from William’s perspective, and I’ll do what I can to share with you what I hear on this end.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I couldn’t argue if I hoped to keep my conduit open into the investigation. “We’re quite a team.”
I thought momentarily about the other man in my life—Saul, with honey eyes that made me melt. Even though he was a lawyer-in-training, so to speak, he wasn’t half bad. Who was I kidding? Over the last several weeks, our relationship had soared. I was smitten. In some respects, it felt oddly normal.
A tap on my shoulder. I turned to see William mouthing something to me.
“Gotta run, Stan.”
“Data can flow both ways, you know,” Stan said.
“Right. Later.”
I punched the line dead.
“Did you learn anything about finding my little Billy?”
For a good ten seconds, I considered what to share with William. My thoughts floated the various theories, then a new idea came to me. Or am I grasping at straws for a positive outcome?
“William, I need for you to sit down and tell me everything you can about Billy.”
7
William and I talked for a solid hour. He shared countless memories of time spent with his grandchildren. With the mention of each significant milestone, he would pause for a moment, gather himself, and thumb a tear at the corner of his eye. The more I listened, the more I became convinced that he wasn’t reaching out to me to make it seem like he cared about finding Billy. He was the real deal—a loving grandfather who was desperate to find his grandson.
And then he said something that stuck with me. “Can you repeat that?” I asked.
“What?”
“That story about you and Billy and your fishing pledge, or whatever you called it.”
“Oh, well, he might be ten, but that kid is sharp as a tack. At times, it seems like I’m talking to a teenager, without all the attitude. He knows what’s going on in the world, understands geography, even speaks a little Spanish.” He looked at me, and I signaled for him to move on with the story.
“Billy’s got a patience about him, like he’s an old geezer like me. Which is why he took to fishing. He’s okay just sitting on the shore, or in a small boat, not saying a lot, letting time pass.”
“That’s cool, but you were saying something about your pledge?”
“Oh, well, he cut himself on one of the hooks. He was about to cry, so I purposely stuck myself and told him it was time to officially join the Cooper family fishing club. And to do that, we had to take our blood oath.”
A crooked smile split his face. I chose not to interrupt his moment and let him continue. “We rubbed our fingers together, and I made up some bullshit oath. It was all just a joke, just to keep him from getting upset. But the way his face lit up… He thought I was the coolest granddad on the planet.”
I nodded. “But a second ago, didn’t you say something about pledging to meet somewhere?”
“Oh, that part. We found this dilapidated, small fishing house near the lake, and we promised that if times ever got tough, we’d meet up in the fishing house. I told him that even when I’m dead and buried and he’s thirty years old, he’ll be able to talk to me from inside that little fishing house.” He wiped his face. “I hope you realize I understand that’s all hogwash. I’d been taking a nip from some bourbon I’d brought along to keep me warm.”
I wondered if alcohol had played a role in him not getting full custody of the kids. At the moment, it didn’t matter.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
I opened my laptop, and it purred to life. “Where’s the store he was kidnapped from?”
“Southeast of here. It’s that old one, east of 410 off New Sulphur Springs Road. That area has kind of gone to hell in the last few years.”
I logged into my computer, opened a map application. “Okay, and what’s the name of the lake where you made your blood oath?”
“Calaveras Lake.” He locked his eyes on mine. “Wait a second. Are you thinking…?”
“It’s just a theory. Show me on the map the approximate
location of the little fishing house.”
He nearly pressed his nose against the screen, his eyes no more than slits. “North side, just next to this cove, right about there,” he said with a finger on the screen.
It was no more than three blocks from the Target store. I slammed the computer shut, grabbed my purse, and lifted out of the seat. “You coming with me?”
He threw his money bag over his shoulder and shuffled out the door.
8
From where I stood, on a steep downslope with my back to Calaveras Lake, I couldn’t see the top of Black Beauty, my beat-up, eleven-year-old Civic. We’d left it at the end of a dusty dirt road, where the weeds had been trampled and the rocks buried. I turned around and saw the distant lake water rocking from the hot breeze. William stood in the foreground, pressing his red bandana against his forehead. He would look one way, and then adjust his direction and look some more.
“I thought you said it was right here.” The suspicious edge to my voice surprised me.
He didn’t respond. With his bag of money hoisted over his shoulder, he turned left and right. Then he scratched his whiskers. He seemed lost, and not just directionally. I wondered about the accuracy of his memory. Perhaps he too was doubting his recollection of events. Or was it something else? Had he embellished the story—a way of convincing himself, and me, that he had more of a connection with his grandson than he really did?
Based upon past experiences, I knew the mind could only take so much stress. After a while, it would have to find a way to cope, to relieve the pressure. By creating a fantasy, even if it were done subconsciously, it could have been William’s way of giving himself a moment to breathe, to believe there was hope in finding Billy alive.
I walked over to William, my tennis shoes crunching on the cracked dirt. The fissures were so large I had to watch each step to ensure I didn’t turn my ankle. He mumbled something indiscernible as I sidled up next to him.
“I didn’t catch that,” I said.
He either didn’t hear me or he ignored me. A drop of sweat snaked down the side of his gruff face as he cupped a hand above his eyes to block out the pounding sun. I followed his sights to take in the surrounding landscape. Clusters of trees were positioned every twenty yards or so along the weaving embankment. Limbs poked through murky water lapping against the shoreline. I spotted a man sitting in a single-engine fishing boat about a hundred yards off shore. He cast his rod and just sat there in the heat. I couldn’t imagine how that could be an enjoyable experience on any level. Not in this heat anyway.
“Does any of this look familiar to you?”
His lips twitched as he tapped a finger to his chin. But still no verbal reply. All I could hear was the hot wind whipping through the tall, lacy weeds surrounding us.
My initial working premise was that maybe Billy had escaped his captor. And if so, he might try to get to a known safe spot: the fishing house. I knew the probability was low for a host of reasons—the most obvious hurdle being the idea of Billy actually escaping—but given the resources at my disposal, I figured it was a prudent exercise to work through every possible scenario with William, even if the odds were stacked against us. But now I was wondering if the effort was a complete waste of time, nothing more than watching a feeble man, who was possibly suffering from dementia, trying to recall something that didn’t exist.
As William continued his internal pontification, I lifted my ponytail and felt the breeze cool the back of my neck. Another minute passed.
Just before I was about to break the awkward silence, he stabbed a finger across the lake. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The line of trees in the shape of a longhorn. Billy loved longhorns.” He started walking away from me, moving east through the weeds and brush. Over his shoulder, he said, “That was the landmark we used to find the fishing house.” He waved a hand. “It’s got to be this way.”
I jumped to attention and followed along the path he was taking. With the mention of the longhorns, his story sounded more plausible, but doubt still lingered in my mind. Was he simply trying to bide time until something looked familiar? Or was it all a complete fabrication and he was too embarrassed to admit it?
“William, how far until you think we’ll find this fishing house?”
He grunted something I couldn’t understand. I ran up next to him, dodging a thorny bush just before it stabbed my arms. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said it’s just up here a ways. Hidden inside this next set of trees. Or maybe the one after that. We’re close though. I know that much.”
I rolled my eyes as I walked behind him and released a quiet sigh. If William was having a tough time finding this little house, then how would a ten-year-old find it? I began to question my own sanity for believing this wild goose chase would lead us to Billy.
He picked up his pace, swatting weeds with a fair amount of energy, the satchel of money still hooked over his shoulder. We reached a small clearing, and he paused on top of a mound of rocks, which looked more like sliced potatoes that had been bleached.
“Down here.” Kicking up rocks and a cloud of dust that was promptly blown into my face by the stiff wind, he scooted down the slope toward a thick wall of trees near the shoreline. As we moved closer, I picked up a foul stench at the exact moment a swarm of flies invaded our space. One found its way inside my mouth. I spat and used both hands to swipe at the incoming flies.
“This is nasty,” I said, trying not to open my mouth too much in the process. I wondered exactly what was on the other side of the trees. The odor was unlike anything I’d ever smelled. And then there were the flies. A sense of uneasiness began to swirl in my stomach.
“William, let’s hold up a second.”
Keeping with the theme of the adventure, he acted like I didn’t exist. He moved even faster. The stench became worse, and I tried to limit the depth of my breathing. William hit the wall of trees. I saw no way through without going all the way around and stepping into the lake water, but he slipped through an opening like it was familiar to him. I followed him and then stopped in my tracks.
I was looking at a small wooden hut with warped boards and a rusted tin roof. The buzz of locusts surrounded us.
“Around here.” He walked to the side of the shack facing the lake and quickly pinched his nose. The stench had finally hit him. “What the hell…?” he said.
More flies buzzed in front of the door. He looked at me, placed his hand on the latch. I opened my lips, but words didn’t come out. I could see it in his eyes. He knew. He knew it was possible that on the other side of the door he might very well see his pride and joy—dead. I gave him a slow nod, which he returned.
Then he pulled open the door.
“Ahh!” A screaming kid plowed through the door and into William, nearly knocking him back into the water.
William righted himself, grabbed the gangly kid by the arms, and crouched down to the boy’s eye level. “Billy, Billy, are you okay?”
The boy threw his arms around his grandfather. “You came for me, Gramps. I knew you would.” He was covered in sweat and grime, and his tears of relief added to the mess.
“Thank God you’re okay, boy.” William hugged his grandson tight to his chest, rocking back and forth. He looked up at me and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “It’s a miracle. Billy is alive.” He held Billy at arm’s length for a moment. “Billy Cooper, tell me if you were hurt in any way. You can tell your Gramps.”
“I’m fine, Gramps. I’m just glad you showed up.”
“Did they threaten to come back and hurt you?” William persisted.
“What?” Billy acted distracted, his face scrunched up like an accordion, a sweaty one at that. “Nasty ass smell.” He pointed inside the shack. “There’s a dead skunk in there. It’s fucking nasty.”
I couldn’t help but smirk at his colorful vocabulary—he was only ten years old. But Billy Cooper was alive. And that was all that matt
ered.
9
The three of us sat inside Black Beauty with the air conditioning cranked as high as it would go for what seemed like hours—it was probably no more than twenty minutes—as we waited on the horde of cops and crime scene investigators to invade the banks of Calaveras Lake. I was sure the inside temperature had not fallen below ninety. I chalked that up to having a black car with no tinted windows in the middle of another San Antonio scorcher.
Billy seemed content, sitting in the back seat, counting through the bills from his grandfather’s satchel. Every minute or so, he’d ask his grandfather about a particular bait they had once used on one of their fishing trips. With a twinkle in his eye, William would chuckle and then provide Billy an elaborate story about when he was younger and fishing with his own grandfather.
We had peppered Billy with questions about the kidnapping, but he was more interested in counting the money. We didn’t get much more out of him other than a woman had given him a piece of black licorice in the store and then told him he could have more if he walked to her car in the parking lot. The details after that became fuzzy, if not confusing. Knowing he would be forced to repeat the same exercise once detectives arrived, I thought it was best for his mental health to not press him further with our questions.
During our wait, I swapped text messages with Cristina, communicating the good news about finding Billy. She was ecstatic…and then quickly went on a series of rants about Danny and his cologne warfare. Once the text-bombing ceased, we got around to the search for ECHO office space. As it turned out, the first two properties Danny had shown her, which were both in the same strip center, were already promised to a friend of the property manager. Danny seemed determined to find practical options for us—and to stay in Zahera’s good graces at the same time. He had actually brought Cristina back to his office to do more research. They shared a little lunch, Cristina got some fresh air, and now they were about to embark on a new city-wide tour of office-space options. Cristina actually had one good thing to say about Danny: He works harder than I thought he did, which before today was absolutely zero.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 3
