He sure was glad he had such an understanding wife. Danny Gregg had heard other guys on the force moaning that their wives complained when they had to work overtime. But not Colleen. They had already opened a college savings account for Robbie, and she looked at any extra money that came their way as an opportunity to make another deposit toward their son’s education. They were both on the same team, she always told him. Though she wanted the family to be together whenever possible, Colleen would do her part and mind the home front while Danny was out earning a living.
There was going to be a good deal of overtime in the days ahead, thought Danny as he sped up to the curb. With the hurricane approaching, there would be a lot to do. The sheriff’s department would be directing the evacuations that looked increasingly likely.
Deputy Gregg was the first to arrive at the scene, but he knew backup would be coming any second. He radioed his location to the desk. Then he got out of the truck and walked, hand on his holstered weapon, around the perimeter of the house. He could hear a siren growing closer.
He knocked forcefully on the screen door and called, “Police.” Waiting just a few seconds, he pulled at the handle and walked through the porch and into the kitchen. A chair was turned on its side. All the cabinets and drawers were hanging open.
Danny heard a low moan. Turning in the direction of the sound, he saw the old man lying on the floor and hurried to him. White hair, a weathered face, now gray beneath its ruddy tan. Danny recognized the fisherman who’d been with the Bayler kid at the beach the day before.
“It’s all right, old fella. It’s going to be all right.”
Blood oozed onto the cracked tiles as Danny heard the ambulance pull into the driveway outside. The old man’s hand reached out, and Danny grabbed it, feeling the sticky blood.
“Vincent,” came the whisper. The old man’s last.
CHAPTER 44
Cassie recognized the frazzled blonde who had served her lunch that afternoon. Wendy was taking a dinner order, scribbling on a waitress’s pad, smiling at her customers. The pleasant expression turned to one of alarm when she noticed her son standing on the deck. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be home with Mark.”
“I thought he was with you,” said Vincent.
“No, I left Mark at home, waiting for you. You’re in big trouble, buster. You were supposed to be home two hours ago.” Wendy looked over Vincent’s shoulder and saw her boss standing in the doorway. She bent down and hissed, “I’ll take care of you later, young man. Now get home and take care of your brother!”
“But, Mom,” Vincent pleaded.
“Don’t ‘but Mom’ me. Get going.” Wendy gave her son’s arm a push.
Cassie intervened. “Mrs. Bayler, my name is Cassie Sheridan.”
Wendy looked at her. “Do I know you?”
“Well, actually, I was here for lunch this afternoon.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right.” With a quizzical expression on her face, Wendy looked from Cassie to her son.
“I’m a correspondent with KEY News. I met Vincent while I was working a story today,” Cassie explained.
“I hope he didn’t make a pest of himself.”
“No. Not at all. But, to make a long story short, I just drove him home to your house, and, I’m sorry, but his brother wasn’t there.”
“Of course he’s there. I left him there less than a half hour ago,” Wendy said shrilly, fright beginning to register on her face.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bayler, I truly am. But Mark isn’t there.”
CHAPTER 45
Fortunately, the street was deserted. No one out to notice the crying little boy sitting in the car beside him.
He clicked the automatic door opener, pulled the car directly into the attached garage beneath the condo, and cut the motor. “Come on. Out we go.”
“No. I want to go home. I want my mommy.” The child began to cough.
“I have Coke inside,” the driver coaxed. “Come on in and have some pop. It will make you feel better.”
The boy’s hacking increased.
“What’s the matter with you? You have a cold?”
“No,” he managed to get out. “I need a treatment.”
“What kind of a treatment?”
“My pounder.”
“What the hell is that?”
“You have to pound on my chest, or I won’t be able to breathe.”
“Jesus.”
Consumed by his coughing, Mark let himself be guided from the car, through the garage, and into the condominium. The man pulled the boy by the arm, leading him to a small room. Metal hurricane shades were rolled shut on the windows. The man switched on a lamp.
“Now you sit down and rest,” he said, indicating a studio couch. I’ll go get you that Coke.”
Mark heard a lock slide across the door in the hallway outside. Alternately, he whimpered and coughed while he looked around the room. The couch, a television set, some circus posters on the wall, and a dressing table with a mirror with lights around it.
On the top of the dressing table were bottles and tubes, brushes and powder puffs like Mommy’s. At the thought of Mommy, Mark began to sob.
CHAPTER 46
For the second time in as many days, Deputy Gregg heard the address. “Child reported missing at 603 Calle de Peru.”
The detectives going over the ransacked house heard the call, too. “Go on, Danny,” said one of them with resignation. “We’ll finish up here.”
Danny gave a last glance at Gideon’s now sheet-covered body and headed out the door. With a heavy heart, he drove the short blocks to the Baylers’ house. He was well-trained for his job, but that was the first murder he had ever responded to. Just this morning he had almost wished that he had gotten the call to the murder up at Ringling. He thought he should have the experience. But after what he had just witnessed, he was glad he hadn’t. He doubted he could ever get used to something like what he had seen back there. He didn’t want to.
What was going on in their usually serene town?
Mrs. Bayler and her son Vincent were waiting outside the house, along with another well-groomed woman whom Danny didn’t recognize. He listened as the mother, almost hysterical, told him what had happened.
“Okay, Mrs. Bayler. Let’s not panic here. Mark could have wandered off. He might be safe at a neighbor’s house right now.”
“I told him not to leave the house,” Wendy wailed. “Unlike his brother, Mark never disobeys me.”
Vincent hung his head. Danny felt sorry for the kid.
“Look, I’m going to call to headquarters and get some help out here. We’ll find your son, Mrs. Bayler. Try not to worry.”
Wendy nodded and took a seat on the front stoop, burying her head in her hands. Cassie followed the deputy to the sheriff’s department truck.
“Excuse me, Deputy. I’m Cassie Sheridan. I’m with KEY News. I made a call to the police about another matter this evening.” She checked her notebook for Gideon’s address.
Danny looked at her sharply. Back at headquarters they undoubtedly had registered the caller’s name and address. “How was it that you made the call?”
Cassie tossed her head back toward Vincent, who sat on the steps with his arms around his mother. “The boy came to me and told me he had been there and that there was an intruder.”
“Well, I’m sure we are going to want to talk to you and to Vincent about that. But right now, we have a child to find.” Danny reached into the cab of the truck and made his radio call. Cassie waited until he was finished and then asked her last question. “What about the man who lived in the house?”
“He’s dead, Ms. Sheridan. Stabbed to death. It looks like it was a robbery gone wrong. But from the looks of the place, I doubt there was too much to steal.”
WEDNESDAY
AUGUST 21
CHAPTER 47
It was after midnight when Cassie dragged herself back to the hotel. The door-to-door search of the Baylers’ neighborhood ha
d proved fruitless. No one had seen Mark.
Wendy was so hysterical that she had needed to be sedated, and Cassie had stayed until the woman fell asleep. Cassie wasn’t sure for whom she felt the most sorry. Wendy, the mother whose child was missing, or Vincent, the young boy who felt responsible for his brother’s disappearance. The pain on Vincent’s face was palpable. Cassie asked if he wanted her to stay with him, but Vincent refused the offer. “We’ll be okay,” he said in an attempt at bravery. “I can take care of my mom.”
“You’re sure? It’s no big deal for me to stay and sleep on the couch.”
“No. It’s better if I just stay with my mother. I want to do at least something right today.”
She left him sitting alone on the worn sofa.
Outside, Cassie stopped to talk with Deputy Gregg.
“We’ll continue combing the neighborhood tonight. Tomorrow, when it gets light again, we’ll be able to start dredging the nearby canals.”
Cassie hadn’t thought of the water. “Point me in the direction of the canal. I want to look for him.”
The officer shook his head. “We’ve already patrolled the canal banks. Even with flashlights, it’s too dark to do more tonight. You don’t know the area, and we don’t need to have anyone getting hurt.”
“But we can’t just let that little boy lie out there somewhere by himself all night,” Cassie pleaded.
“There isn’t much more we can do tonight,” the deputy reiterated quietly. “Patrol cars will cruise the area overnight, and in the morning we’ll intensify the search.”
On the ride back to the hotel, Cassie felt nauseated. She had once lost Hannah while they were shopping at Tysons Corner. Somehow the toddler had wandered off, and Cassie clearly remembered running through the racks of clothing and yelling her daughter’s name like a crazy woman. Within minutes Hannah had turned up in the arms of a salesclerk, but those minutes had seemed like an eternity. The memory could still make Cassie’s stomach drop. She thanked God that she had never gone to bed not knowing where Hannah was.
Cassie didn’t care if they were sleeping. She was going to call home.
Jim answered on the first ring.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. I’m reading a good mystery, and I’m staying up to finish it.”
“How is Hannah?”
“She’s fine.”
“What’s she doing?”
“What do you think she’s doing, Cassie? She’s in bed, asleep.”
She supposed she shouldn’t vent her emotions to her estranged husband, but she and Jim had lots of years between them, and they were united in their love for their child. Cassie poured out the story of every parent’s worst nightmare to the one person in the world who cared about her daughter as much as she did.
“Whoa. That’s a rough one. God help that poor woman.”
“Can you imagine losing Hannah, Jim?”
“No. I don’t want to think about it. I can’t imagine a world without her in it.”
“Me neither.” Her voice cracked. Cassie felt the tears coming, but she didn’t care if he knew she was weeping. She was tired and vulnerable and alone in a hotel room hundreds of miles away from the ones she still loved.
“Don’t cry, honey.”
Honey. How she missed being called honey. How she missed their intimacy.
“I really messed things up, Jim, didn’t I?”
“It takes two, Cassie.”
She swallowed and plowed ahead. “Do you think there’s any chance we could ever fix it?”
She heard a deep sigh through the phone line.
“Do you, Jim?” she pressed.
“I don’t know, Cassie. I really don’t. But I do know I need someone who’s married to me, not her job.”
It stung, but it was honest—and, at least, it wasn’t a firm no.
Cassie fell asleep longing that they could make it right between them again.
CHAPTER 48
He couldn’t sleep. The coughing coming from the locked room was driving him out of his mind. He wanted to get rid of the kid, but he needed that damned ring.
He pulled the folded page from the pocket of the shirt he’d draped over a chair in the corner of the room. If the mother answered, he would simply hang up. It was the boy that he wanted to talk to.
“Hello?”
Eureka.
“You want your little brother back?”
“Who is this?” Vincent demanded.
“You don’t need to know who this is. All you need to know is, I have your brother and you have what it takes to get him back in one piece.”
“What do you want?”
“I want that ring.”
“What ring?”
“Don’t play cute with me, kid. We both know what ring.”
“I don’t have any ring.”
“Well, I don’t have time to play games with you, boy. And your little brother doesn’t have time for any games either.”
“Is Mark all right?’
“Yeah, he’s all right. But he’s got some horrible cough.”
“He has cystic fibrosis. He needs his medicine and his treatments.”
“Well, it’s up to you, Vincent. Turn over the ring and your brother can come home and get everything he needs.”
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re quite the little television star, kid. Look, I don’t have any more time for chitchat. If you want to see your brother again, you’ll turn over the ring.”
There was silence from the other end of the phone line.
“Vincent?”
“Okay,” said Vincent in a resolute voice. “I don’t have it with me, but I can get it.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“All right. You know the Siesta Beach tennis courts?”
“Yeah.”
“Wrap the ring in a plastic bag and tuck it underneath the trash can at the corner of the court. Have it there by noon.”
“All right. Then will I get my brother?”
“You’ll get your brother when I say so,” he said sharply. “And, Vincent, you seem like a smart boy.
Don’t do anything dumb. If you tell the police about this, your brother’s a goner.”
He hung up the phone and went to his computer. He typed in “cystic fibrosis,” and the search engine turned up over 45,000 websites. His resentment grew as it dawned on him that he had another complication he did not need.
Mark Bayler could die.
CHAPTER 49
It was already warm and humid on the New York City sidewalk as Range Bullock arrived at the Broadcast Center, earlier than usual. Yelena Gregory had given him a heads-up on what she wanted to discuss, and he wasn’t looking forward to their conversation.
The news president’s secretary wasn’t in yet, and Range walked through the empty front office and knocked on Yelena’s open door.
“Come on in, Range.”
The executive producer took a seat in the chair Yelena indicated. She got right to the point. “Look, Range. We’ve got to make it official. We’re going to name Valeria Delaney as justice correspondent. She’s been doing the job for months, and she deserves it.”
“I thought the plan was to wait until we saw how Cassie’s lawsuit turned out.”
Yelena tapped her pen on her large desk. “Yeah, well the plan has changed. Valeria’s contract is up for renewal, and her agent says that ABC and CBS are interested in her. If she doesn’t get the title, Valeria walks. We don’t want to lose her, Range.”
“What about Cassie?”
Yelena let out a heavy sigh. “It’s an unfortunate situation. But that’s the way it goes. I’m afraid, ultimately, we’re going to have to let Cassie go”
“Who’s going to tell her?” Range asked, remembering that he had been the one who had okayed her naming Maggie Lynch but still concerned about his own job security.
“I’ll tell her about Valeria,” answered Yelena, “but I’m not go
ing to tell her she’s out of a job until the lawsuit is settled.”
CHAPTER 50
God was punishing him for lying yesterday. Today he really did feel miserable. When Brian called in sick again, the assignment editor would have none of it. Suncoast News was hard-pressed to cover the story of the missing boy on Siesta Key. The bulk of the noon news broadcast would be dedicated to hurricane coverage. With evacuations ordered, the early morning assignment editor was scrambling to get his news crews on the roads to record Sarasotans boarding up their homes and getting out of the path of Giselle’s impending wrath. Everyone had to come to work.
Brian arrived at the station and went straight to the news desk for his marching orders.
“You and Tony head out to Siesta and see what you can find,” instructed the harried editor. “Get some pictures on the beach, take some shots of the traffic heading off the key, stop and get some man-on-the-street interviews. You know, the usual.”
Brian nodded. The hurricane was not a run-of-the-mill story, but the fundamentals of covering it were the same as for any other assignment. His job was to get the pictures that would tell the story.
“And, Brian? Make a quick stop at 603 Calle de Peru and see what’s going on there.”
“What’s the story?” asked the cameraman, trying to suppress his rising nausea.
“A five-year-old’s been missing from the house since last night.”
“Great,” Brian responded dully. It was a helluva time for a kid to disappear. “The cops already have their hands full. I bet they can’t have much manpower to devote to looking for the boy.”
CHAPTER 51
“Cassie Sheridan on line three,” announced the Evening Headlines desk assistant.
Range winced as he picked up the phone in the Fishbowl. “Hey, Cassie. What’s going on?”
“It looks like this thing is going to hit here, Range. The authorities have ordered evacuations. Residents have to get out fast.”
“All right. I’m going to list you guys above the line.”
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