Vigilant

by Sara Davison

  It loomed in front of him so suddenly he barely managed to skid to a stop and avoid thudding up against it—a stone wall so tall it swallowed up the thin light of the sun and cast a shadow onto him as thick and heavy as a net.

  “No!” He pounded the unyielding rock with his fists until blood dripped down his arms. Shaking fingers dug frantically for a hold, but the stone was smooth, seamless. Planting both throbbing palms against the wall, he rested his forehead on the cold face of it. I’ve been here before. Many times. The pungent odors of moss and decaying leaves hung in the air, clinging to his shallow, gasping breaths and choking him as they flooded his throat.

  More heart-wrenching pleas shattered the damp stillness. He lifted his head. They were close this time, closer than they had ever been. He strained to hear.

  “Help us.”

  His heart sank. They were on the other side of the wall.

  Look up.

  Tipping back his head, he scanned the impenetrable rock in front of him. His breath caught. Above him, a dark shadow appeared, a small chink in the stone. He reached for it, sliding his fingers into the opening and pulling himself a few inches off the ground. Another dark hole gaped above the first one, and he flung his free arm up and grabbed hold of it with trembling fingers. His sneaker caught a tiny lip of rock, and he stepped on it and pushed up onto his toes. Hole after hole appeared in the stone. He made his way, slowly and excruciatingly, up the cold rock face, the voices growing louder as he neared the top. At last he threw a scratched, aching arm over the top of the wall and hauled himself up to sprawl across it, panting for breath. He glanced down. A sea of tiny hands reached for him, the frantic cries crashing over him like raging water.

  “Help us.”

  His eyes flew open.

  Trembling violently, he bolted upright in bed. He tossed back the blanket and flung his legs over the side. His heart skipped and hammered against his ribs. The liquid that had dripped from the broken skin of his hands in the dream slid down his arms, and he lifted them up to examine them. In the rose-tinted light of the rising sun filtering through his window, the sweat covering his skin glowed red.

  He slid off the edge of the mattress and down onto the thick carpet, the sheet wrapped around him like a dark blue shroud. For several minutes he sat with his knees pulled to his chest, his eyes tightly shut as he concentrated on drawing in one painful breath after another. Gradually the tremors gripping his body eased, and his heart slowed enough that he could no longer hear it thudding in his ears.

  He dropped his head onto his arms, his hands clasped together in supplication. “Lord.” The word came out in a stifled groan followed by silence. He had no words to ask the question haunting him. He didn’t even know what the question was. How could he frame his request to the God who knew all, who saw all, whose gaze penetrated deep into the heart that had broken so many times at the sight of helpless and hurting children?

  “Help me,” he whispered. That was it. The one thing he could ask, the only words that could be grasped hold of and torn out of the fear and confusion swirling through him.

  He had no idea how much time passed as he sat there, crying out the words over and over, a hundred times, a thousand. Help me. Help me. Gradually, like an object coming into focus as it drew nearer, he realized that warmth was seeping through him. He lifted his head and squinted in the bright sunlight that poured through the window, passing around the wooden frame that split the glass into four sections to cast a cross-shaped shadow onto the blue carpet. A shudder moved through him.

  Was that a sign? A warning? A blessing?

  His gaze locked on the unwavering shadow. Pressing his fingers to his forehead, he massaged his temples, trying to ease a throbbing headache. The opportunity the woman had presented him with had resonated with an intense need deep inside. A need that he’d known was there, but that he hadn’t realized was so strong. The need to do something, anything, to offer hope to the little innocent ones who had so little of it left.

  But is that enough to risk everything for? My career, my freedom, maybe even my life? How can I? A tormented groan escaped him.

  How can I not?

  He dropped his hands as the thought brought his head up sharply. Now that he knew there was something that could be done, that the situations he faced everyday were not as achingly hopeless as he’d always believed, could he go back to living the way he had been?

  The answer crashed through him on a wave of panic. Even as he struggled to keep his head above the swirling emotion, he knew it was right. The excitement and relief that flowed through him in its wake confirmed it.

  He glanced at the carpet again as a cloud drifted across the face of the sun. The sudden coolness shivered across his skin. The shadow faded until it was barely discernible on the carpet. Reaching over, he ran his fingers over the place, gathering strength.

  Then, with a deep sigh, he pulled his hand from the faint outline and rose to his feet.

  She didn’t speak when he sank onto the seat across from her. In spite of the urgency of her organization’s mission, she appeared to be capable of limitless patience. Probably why she always got what she wanted. Like she had gotten him.

  Or, to be more accurate, they had gotten him. Whoever they were. He suspected he would never know.

  Drawing in a deep, mind-clearing breath, he met her intense gaze with the calmness that had settled in his core after the initial flood of emotion had drained. “When do I start?”

  The flicker of relief in her eyes, the strongest reaction he’d seen in their depths yet, came and went quickly. The full red lips curved upwards. “Immediately. Your instructions will be delivered to you within the next twenty-four hours. Your code name is Rogue.” After a brief hesitation, she held out a hand toward him. “And my name is Natalya.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The warrant to obtain access to Ted Stiller’s file in his pocket, Daniel headed down to the CAS office on Isabella Street. The search of the suspect’s home had turned up nothing that could help track him down. He and Sharleen had attempted to talk to the foster parents, but Stiller’s father was in a nursing home with advanced dementia, and his mother had passed away six months earlier. More dead ends.

  Since Daniel hadn’t seen the vehicle he’d disappeared in, and Stiller’s own car was still in his driveway, they couldn’t track him down that way, and the licence plate of the sedan that had whisked the child away had been covered with enough mud to be unreadable. There hadn’t been any record of the man attempting to purchase a ticket for a bus, train, or plane, or using a credit card to rent a vehicle, although they continued to monitor all of those possibilities closely. Information had been supplied to border patrols at every crossing into the States, but for all intents and purposes, Ted Stiller had disappeared from the face of the earth as quickly and easily as he had disappeared from the scene of the crime.

  Daniel yanked open the front door of the CAS building. A young woman in a pink sweater and black skirt sat at the desk in the front lobby. Daniel approached her and flipped open his ID. “Detective Daniel Grey, Toronto Police Services. I need to speak to someone about opening the file of a man who was in the system as a child.”

  The woman looked up at him and her eyes widened. “Of course, Detective.” Her cheeks flushed pink.

  Daniel smiled at her. He wasn’t proud of exploiting his looks to get someone to cooperate with his investigation, but in this case, he was desperate enough to use any tool at his disposal to move things along quickly. “Thank you. I really appreciate it. I have a warrant with me.” He held it up for her to see.

  The woman swallowed. “I can let you speak with one of our social workers who would have access to those files.” She picked up the phone.

  He lifted a hand. “Wait.” His mind raced. What was the name of the lawyer he’d met down at police headquarters? Kennedy? Kelly. That was it. “Do you have a worker here with the last name Kelly?”

  “There’s a Holden Kelly.”

/>   “That’s him. Is there any chance he’s available?”

  “I’ll check and see.” She dialed a number and spoke quietly into the phone. After a moment, she set down the receiver and motioned toward the waiting area. “Mr. Kelly is finishing up with a client. He said he would come and get you in ten minutes.”

  “Great, thanks.” Daniel headed over to a bank of chairs and settled onto one to wait. Thankfully, it didn’t take long. In under ten minutes, a man strode into the waiting area. Daniel knew at once he had to be Gage Kelly’s brother. The two of them looked remarkably alike, except Holden was a little younger, his hair was shorter, and he wore trendy round glasses. His smile was genuine and welcoming as he held out his hand. “Detective?”

  Daniel rose and grasped his hand. Like his brother’s, Holden’s grip was firm. “That’s right. Daniel Grey. Thank you for seeing me.”

  “No problem.” Holden gestured toward the hallway. “We can talk in my office.”

  Daniel followed him to a small office halfway down the hall. Holden held the door until Daniel had gone into the room, then he closed it behind them. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  Daniel went around to the far side of the desk and settled onto one of two hard white plastic seats. Comfortable might be a stretch, but he wasn’t here to socialize anyway. The sooner he could get the information and get back to work, the better.

  Holden dropped onto a wheeled desk chair across from him. “You have a warrant for me to open a file?”

  “Yes.” Daniel passed it over to the social worker.

  Holden scanned it before handing it back and turning to his computer. He clicked a few keys.

  Out of habit, Daniel surreptitiously watched Holden’s fingers, able to pick up on the password he entered as he clicked it in. Not that he’d ever use it.

  “Everything’s filed electronically now, but I can print this off so you can take it with you if you’d like.”

  “That would be perfect, thanks.”

  Holden clicked a few more keys then closed his laptop. “I’ll go down the hall and retrieve those pages. Be right back.”

  Daniel nodded. While the worker was gone, he pulled out his phone and checked for messages. Nothing new on the case. He quickly read over his other texts and emails, then sighed in frustration and stuck the device back into his shirt pocket as Holden came in.

  “Here you go.” Holden passed him a file folder and sat again. “May I ask what this is about?”

  Daniel hesitated. He probably shouldn’t get into it, but given all the kids this guy must have worked with, maybe he could provide him with a little insight into the mind of a child who had been through the system, especially under less than ideal circumstances. Having been raised in a loving, stable home, Daniel really had no concept of what that would do to a person, although he witnessed the effects of it every day. He set the folder down on the desk. “Confidentially?”

  Holden nodded. “Of course.”

  “This guy is a possible suspect in the four recent child abductions in the city.”

  The worker’s eyebrows rose. “Really.”

  “Yes. We’re trying to locate him. During the course of our investigation, we discovered that he had come up through the system. A friend of his from high school suggested that the foster father might have been a bit abusive.”

  Holden’s face darkened. “Unfortunately, as much as we try to vet them, that does happen sometimes.”

  “Interestingly, all of the kids who have been abducted have files with CAS as well.”

  “Yeah, I knew that. I’m familiar with two of the children. Nasty cases.”

  “In what way?”

  Holden lifted the lid of his laptop and clicked on the keys again. “This first one, Nadine Parker. We made ...” he ran his finger down the screen, “… seven visits there in two years. She was taken to the hospital four times in that period.”

  “But she wasn’t removed from the home?”

  “She was, several times, but she was returned each time.” Holden keyed in a second entry and winced.

  “Another kid getting beat up?”

  “Yeah. Charlie Edwards, four years old. Nine visits in eighteen months.”

  “And again, not taken out of the home?” Heat rose from Daniel’s belly to his chest.

  “Not permanently. I never met the most recent victim, Mia Sumner, personally, but from what I hear, her situation was similar.”

  Daniel leaned forward in his seat. “So they all have the same story. Kids in some kind of desperate domestic situation that your office wasn’t doing anything about.”

  The worker’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t say we weren’t doing anything, Detective. All four of them have a file with us. We obviously went into the homes, likely quite a few times, and did what we could. It’s not always possible to remove kids, even when we’d really like to. One of the more frustrating aspects of my job.” Although his voice remained carefully neutral, Holden’s dark eyes had gone almost black, as though he was struggling with barely-controlled rage.

  At me or the system? Daniel pushed back his own rising anger. “Mine too. It’s maddening to get called to someone’s home and see evidence that abuse is going on, arrest them, and hear later that they were let go and allowed to return home, or that the kids who had been taken away were now back in the same circumstances. I’ve often wondered why you are not able to permanently remove kids from homes where one or both parents are clearly abusing them.”

  “Usually it’s not as clear as you might think. There are lots of reasons why we can’t, or don’t, remove kids from their homes. Parents lie. Kids lie. Families try to protect each other, even when they’re being abused. It’s a bizarre phenomenon, but we see it over and over. If another adult in the home won’t press charges and makes up a plausible story to explain the injuries, it’s difficult to obtain the court order to have the children taken out. And policy has shifted over the last decade too. The top choice is always to try and keep families together, to teach parents to deal with anger, or get help for addictions. The basic belief is that kids are usually better off with their parents than in the system, if we can help those parents learn how to raise them without resorting to violence.”

  “From what I’ve seen, that’s a big if.” Daniel wasn’t sure he approved of the new shift in policy. Not when it left kids undefended and vulnerable to attack in their own homes.

  Holden’s features remained calm, but his hands closed into fists on the desk.

  Daniel blew out a breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your fault. I really do understand that you guys do the best you can, same as we do. Unfortunately, the law doesn’t always work on our side, and there’s no way to get around that.”

  “No, of course there isn’t.”

  Daniel’s eyes narrowed slightly. Holden didn’t seem as certain about that as he would have expected.

  A soft knock sounded on the door before it opened slightly. “Holden?” A woman with long reddish hair and hazel eyes stuck her head into the room. “Oh, I apologize. I didn’t realize you were with someone.”

  “Yeah, sorry Chris. I forgot we were going to get coffee. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  “No problem. Come by my office when you’re free.” The woman flashed Daniel an apologetic grin. “Sorry to disturb.”

  “No worries.”

  With a last glance at Holden, the woman disappeared into the hallway.

  Holden studied the computer screen intently.

  Daniel almost smiled. Chris was obviously more than a co-worker. Not that it was any of his business.

  “Sorry about that.” Holden finally glanced over at him.

  “Not a problem. I know this was last minute, and I appreciate you seeing me. And again, I apologize if I was out of line. I know we’re on the same side here, trying to help these kids.”

  “Forget about it. I understand your frustration, believe me.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Daniel picked the
folder up off the desk. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  “Sure.” Holden crossed his arms over his chest. In spite of Daniel’s apology, clearly his guard was still up a little.

  “Do you think it’s feasible that growing up in that kind of environment could motivate someone to harm other children as an adult?”

  Holden blinked. “I suppose it could. Hurt people do hurt people, as they say. Is that what you think he’s doing?”

  Daniel frowned. “Well, he’s taking them from their homes in the night. And there have been no demands for ransom or any follow-up threats. That suggests that he’s not planning to return them, so I have to believe he has some kind of malicious intent. Don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose so.”

  You suppose so? Daniel studied the man for a moment. He’d had extensive training in analyzing body language. Holden’s was tricky to interpret. His jaw was still slightly tight and his posture closed. Even so, when his eyes met Daniel’s, the anger was gone, and they were now warm and friendly. Clearly his hostility was directed at the situations they’d been discussing, not at Daniel.

  The social worker uncrossed his arms. “Was there anything else? Because if not, I should probably …” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the door.

  “Of course.” Holden had an appointment with someone he’d clearly rather be with at the moment than him. Daniel pushed back his chair and rose. Tugging a card from his pocket, he set it on the desk. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, I’d appreciate it if you’d contact me.”

  The worker left the card on the desk but nodded. “I will.”

  Daniel walked out of the office, feeling the other man’s gaze on him as he left. Interesting. Holden had given him a lot to think about. And he’d agreed that a person who had grown up in a violent home, as Ted Stiller clearly had, could conceivably turn on others later in life and cause them harm.