Shit, he didn’t even know if he was in the right forest.
“Darren, what are the names of the missing boys?”
Darren searched the database on his computer.
“Uhh, that would be Bobby Jensen and Tyler Woodcroft.”
“Are either of them on your list of employees? The ones without criminal records?” Stitts asked Jordan.
Jordan’s eyes drifted to the page in front of him.
“No, no Bobby Jensens or Tyler Woodcrofts here.”
Stitts grimaced
“Never mind, then. Just a stupid idea—”
“Wait a sec,” Jordan said. “There’s no Bobby Jensen, but there’s a Brian Jalston.”
Stitts shrugged. An alliterative connection was a stretch, even for him.
“And there’s a Timothy Jalston.”
“Brothers?”
Jordan made a face.
“Probably. There’s nothing else here, though…”
Bobby Jenson and Brian Jalston… Tyler Woodcroft and Timothy Jalston…
It was a huge leap, but Stitts still wanted to see it through to the end. This was his last gasp, after all.
“Do you have any photographs of the employees? From, uh, I dunno, an ID card, maybe?”
Jordan nodded slowly.
“I think so. I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the fair, but I’m pretty sure they have ID cards. I don’t know if their photos are on them, but, Darren, maybe you can check?”
Again, the tech turned back to his computer.
“I still have access to the employee database… here, let me see… yeah, you were right, Jordan, they have ID cards, but it doesn’t look like their pictures are on them.”
Stitts watched names slide across the Smartboard at a furious pace.
“What about employment the records? Do they take pictures when they hire somebody? Is there any way that—”
Images started flooding the screen.
“One step ahead of you,” Darren said. Just as quickly as the photographs had appeared on screen, they vanished, leaving only two behind. “Meet Brian and Timothy Jalston.”
Stitts stared at the photographs of the two men. Brian was the bigger of the two, a man with a thick chin and the beginnings of a gray beard. Timothy, on the other hand, was lean and gaunt with high cheekbones and sunken flesh.
Stitts was no expert, but they sure as hell didn’t look like brothers to him.
“Can you bring up the pictures of the missing boys? Put Bobby next to Brian, and Tyler next to Timothy.”
“Can do,” Darren said as he did exactly that.
Again, Stitts stared at the images and was reminded about how convinced Chase had been that the little girl that had been taken thirty years ago was the same woman in the white dress in the grocery store a few days ago.
He hadn’t shared her conviction then, and now he wasn’t certain, either.
There were similarities, but without getting one of the FBI sketch artist to do an age-enhancement, there was no way to be sure.
“Well,” Jordan said quietly. “They could be the same people.”
“Could be isn’t good enough,” Stitts grumbled. “Hey, Jordan?”
“Yeah?”
“What do Brian and Timothy do at the fair?”
Stitts his eyes remained locked in the screen as Jordan rifled through his papers again.
“They work the snow cone truck.”
Stitts’s eyes bulged and he whipped around.
“What? The snow cone truck? Are you sure?”
Jordan turned his eyes to the paper in front of him.
“Yeah, says it right here. Why? What does it matter?”
Stitts couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. He quickly turned back to the photographs on the Smartboard. Now, they didn’t just look like they could be the same people, but that they unequivocally were the same people. He knew that this was just his exhausted mind jumping to conclusions, but still…
“It matters because Chase said that she and her sister visited the snow cone truck before they saw the man in the van.”
“Ah, shit, not this again. Stitts, I’m—”
Stitts snapped his fingers as he remembered something else.
“Not only that, but Mr. Peterson told me that his daughter had blue lips from a snow cone when they went to the fair.”
Jordan’s tone suddenly grew more serious.
“Rose’s daughter Becky loves snow cones. It was one of the main reasons why they went to the fair. Becky just had to get a snow cone — a purple and red swirl.”
Things were clicking into place, and although Stitts still didn’t know the whole narrative, he was definitely onto something.
“Darren,” he said excitedly. “Keep all the girl's kidnappings — from last week to thirty years ago — but add the two missing boys into the algorithm. Maybe with the two additional data points, something new will pop up.”
Darren whipped around and was about to type when he hesitated.
“Bobby Jenson and Tyler Woodcroft were taken from the Williamson fair.”
Stitts nodded.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, that’s not new information… Stacy Peterson went to the Williamson Fair.”
Stitts’s brow furrowed.
“Yeah, so?”
Darren spun around again.
“Stacy Peterson went to the Williamson fair, so it’s already a data point considered by the algorithm. I mean, I can add the two additional data points and it might affect the global average, but I don’t think that it’s gonna move the location. It’s still going to pump out Fly County.”
Stitts threw his arms up in frustration.
“Goddamnit!” he shouted, rising to his feet so quickly that his chair bashed into the wall behind him. “Fuck this. I need a smoke.”
He pulled a worn pack of Marlboro's out of his pocket and was teasing one onto his palm when Jordan’s hand came down on his shoulder.
“Wait a second,” the man said, his attention on Darren. “Didn’t you say that the Williamson fair was called something else back then? Royal something or other?”
Darren nodded.
“The Royal County Fair.”
“Yeah, and you know what? I think that Franklin County’s borders were different back then. Can you find out exactly where the Royal whatever fair took place? Maybe it wasn’t in the same location as the Williamson fair is now?”
A glimmer of hope in a sea of impossibility.
Darren did a quick internet search, then turned back, a grin on his face.
“For once, you’re right Jordan. Franklin County’s borders were actually shifted to the Northeast, close to where Pasquo is now.”
Jordan motioned aggressively towards a computer.
“Then fucking type in!”
Darren whipped around again and Stitts watched the Smartboard as the images of the two missing boys vanished and the map reappeared. The gray shadows appeared next; this time there were ten of them, all of the locations of the fairs that the missing children had attended.
“Here are all the coordinates,” Darren said to himself. “And now… the algorithm says…”
All three men read the County beneath the red dot in unison.
“Liberty Hill.”
Stitts turned to Jordan.
“What the hell is Liberty Hill?”
Jordan’s eyes narrowed.
“Liberty Hill — it’s more of a Hamlet then a County. I don’t even know if anyone lives there, to be honest.”
Liberty Hill… the most ironic name of a place to keep hostages.
Stitts jumped to his feet suddenly.
“That’s where they’re keeping them. It has to be. That’s where the bastards are keeping the girls!”
When neither Jordan nor Darren reacted, Stitts clapped his hands together.
“Well? What the fuck are we waiting for! Call Terrence and tell him to get his ass out there! Let’s go save those g
irls!”
Chapter 57
“You look… stunning,” Stitts said as he observed Chase.
Chase blushed and bowed her head.
“Do you… do you like it?” he asked.
Chase nodded.
“It’s a bit big, but…”
“But nothing,” Stitts said quickly. “It looks fantastic on you. The other girls are gonna be so pleased.”
At the mention of the other girls, the photographs from the other room flashed in her mind.
“And where are the other girls now?” she asked as the man led her out of the dressing room and back towards the main entrance to the house.
“They’re out getting supplies.”
Chase nodded, imagining little Georgina running around the grocery store, her mother and the other ladies chasing after her while she giggled gleefully.
“And your brother?”
Stitts shrugged.
“He’s around here somewhere.”
The man slid a worn rug to one side, revealing the trapdoor. Then he used the key on his belt to unlock the padlock on the floor.
Stitts wrapped his thick fingers wrapped around the brass ring and raised the trapdoor, revealing a tunnel in the earth. Then he gestured for Chase to enter. Worried that her dress might get dirty, she hiked it to her thighs and lowered herself down. It was a drop of about three feet, and pain flared up her hip when she landed. Chase also felt something sharp digging into her stomach but chalked this up to not having eaten in some time.
Stitts followed her into the tunnel. His drop was less graceful than Chase’s and he stirred up quite a bit of dust. After swatting the dirt away from his face, he wrapped his arm around Chase’s waist and led her down a long hallway toward the cells.
“I’m sorry to have to do this, but I’m going to have to put you in your cell for an hour or two. But I’ll be back, promise.”
Chase started to nod in agreement, but when she saw those metal bars gleaming in the sunlight, and the small trench that she’d dug beneath one of them, she immediately stopped cold.
Stitts tried to pull her along, but she dug her heels in.
Something in the back of Chase’s mind was telling her not to go in that cell. A tiny, but persistent voice, ordering her to do whatever she could to avoid going back in there.
“I don’t want to,” Chase said, realizing that she sounded like a little girl, but not caring. “I don’t want to go in there. Please don’t make me go in there.”
Stitts looked down at her then with his caring eyes.
“I’m sorry, but it’s just for an hour or two.”
The man pulled again, but still, Chase resisted. She knew that she can keep this up for long — she was feisty, but she was also tired. Besides, Stitts was much bigger than she was.
Much bigger and much stronger.
“Chase, it’ll just be for—”
Desperate now, Chase reached up and grabbed the back of Stitts’s neck.
When their eyes were level, she kissed him full on the mouth.
Stitts’s entire body tensed and for a brief second, he started to pull away. But then he didn’t; instead, he leaned into her, forcing his tongue between her lips and hungrily seeking hers.
Eventually, it was Chase who broke the spell.
“Is there someone else you can take me? Somewhere else where I can become part of the family?”
Something flashed in Stitts’s eyes then and his smile blossomed.
“Yeah, there’s somewhere I can take you, alright,” he said. Then, with little effort, Stitts reached a hand behind her legs and scooped her up. With Chase in his arms, he walked briskly passed the cells to the end of the hallway. He grunted, then hoisted her up a little higher to free one of his hands, and then opened a door to their right.
It swung open and Stitts carried Chase over the threshold as if they were on their honeymoon.
But on the other side of the door was no lavish hotel room. Instead, it was a square room carved out of dirt. The only similarities between the idea of honeymoon and this room was that there was a bed in the center of it.
And that’s where the matching bed frame went, Chase thought absently, her eyes falling on the ornate wooden bedposts.
Stitts took a step forward then gently lowered her onto the bed.
Then he stepped back and observed her while he started to unbuckle his belt.
“I’m so glad you came around, Chase. And so quickly. With some of the others, it took longer. Much, much longer.”
Chapter 58
Stitts was in the process of taking a heavy drag of his cigarette when Jordan gunned it.
He sputtered and coughed, and then looked over at the man.
Jordan drove like an absolute maniac, and for once, Stitts was glad.
Within the first twenty minutes of leaving TBI headquarters, they’d already investigated two farms in Liberty Hill. Both times, the farmer had zero clue what they were talking about and neither held any resemblance to Bobby Jenson or Tyler Woodcroft or Brian or Timothy or whatever the hell their names were.
For the past ten minutes, they’d been following a dirt road that actually looked like it had been used recently. They’d just crested a small hill when Stitts spotted something in the distance.
“There! Do you see it!” Stitts shouted. He flicked his spent cigarette out the window and Jordan made a hard right.
“I see it,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
Even before they came close enough to make out the car’s model, let alone tag number, Stitts had a sinking suspicion in his stomach.
And when he saw that it was a BMW, a black BMW, no less, the passenger side door dented inward, Stitts was overcome by a bout of nausea so strong that he nearly vomited.
“It’s hers,” he finally managed.
Jordan slammed his car into park and leaped from the vehicle. Stitts followed on wobbly legs.
Please don’t be in there, please don’t be in there, please don’t be in there, his mind repeated over and over again.
Jordan got to the vehicle first. He yanked the driver-side door open and then crouched inside.
Stitts stumbled, thinking that the man had found Chase’s corpse and was checking for a pulse. But relief washed over Stitts when Jordan re-emerged a second later, holding a cell phone in one hand and a small card in the other.
“That’s why you can’t track her,” Jordan said. “Sim card’s been taken out.”
Stitts could finally breathe again and as his brain flooded with oxygen it started to work in overdrive.
So, she got into an accident… but why not call for help? Why remove the Sim card? Did she know that I could track her?
“This isn’t where she crashed,” Jordan said, drawing Stitts out of his head. “These dents on the passenger door are from a guard rail and I haven’t seen any for miles.”
Stitts nodded, unsure if this was a good or a bad sign. If Chase had managed to drive here after the crash, that was a good thing. But if someone else had taken her car…
“Come on, let’s keep going,” Jordan said, hurrying back to his vehicle. Stitts nodded and followed. Before he could even light up his next cigarette, they were off again, once again tearing down the dirt road.
“What’s that?” Stitts asked, pointing to something in the distance. After another minute or so, he was able to make out the outline of a small bungalow.
Only then did Jordan finally slow.
“This isn’t on the map,” Jordan muttered as he reached for the walkie-talkie.
Stitts ignored the man and kept his eyes trained on the bungalow. It was small, roughly 10 feet wide and maybe a little deeper.
It was almost too small, he thought, too small to house four girls and Chase… if Chase was here.
It seemed almost impossible that she would be, but all evidence suggested that she was.
“Terrence, Stitts and I found Agent Adams’s car. It appears to have been in some sort of accident. Her cell ph
one was inside, but the Sim card was removed. Over.”
Amber Alert Page 19
