The Forgotten
Page 23
Loki sat beside him and took his hand in hers as the voices of Dadron and Teresa reached them from beyond the trees. “When they get through with me, I’ll have one too.” She placed a hand on Grace’s shoulder. “Thank you. If you hadn’t distracted him, I wouldn’t have made it in time.”
Grace stared at a spot behind the tombstone. “We should thank Roberta. She’s the one who told me to tell him the dog wasn’t dead. She said it would make him come after me.”
So that’s why Grace had to be here. Loki gazed at the spot Grace had looked at earlier and whispered, “Thank you, Roberta.” She rose to her feet as Dadron and Teresa skidded to a stop in front of her. The scowls on their faces disappeared as they took in the complete scene.
Teresa let out a long sigh. “I’ll get somebody out here to clean this up. I think we’ve all had enough for one night.” She grinned at Loki. “Besides, Jake’s waiting for you at the house, and he said if you weren’t home in fifteen minutes, he was coming after you.”
Loki blinked back the tears she’d been holding in for what seemed like ages. “He said home?”
Teresa hugged her as Dadron lifted Jules to his feet. “Yeah, he said home.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Loki glanced up as Teresa and Karen entered the waiting room two hours later. “Right on time. The doctor says we can go home in a few minutes.”
“How is Jules?” Teresa asked, taking the seat beside her.
“The doctor doesn’t think he has a concussion. Like the British, the Redmonds are a little hardheaded. Dr. Coomer is going to be okay too, and they were able to save Anna Claire’s leg.”
Karen sat beside Teresa. “And Bruiser, is he okay?”
“He came through surgery fine, and we can pick him up in the morning.”
Karen swiped at a tear. “I can’t believe it’s finally over.”
“Have you heard anything about Wilkes?” Loki asked.
“He just came out of surgery too, and Rosetta says he’s going to be fine.” Teresa turned to grin at Karen. “Thanks to Karen kicking the director’s ass.”
“So what now?” Loki asked.
Teresa groaned. “Tons and tons of paperwork. We’ll stay tonight to clean up any loose ends or questions the local department has. They found George Bledsoe’s body in a freezer in the basement. Cody and Rosetta were able to trace one of the deposits Tatum made to his bank account to an adoption attorney in Philadelphia. We may be able to find all the babies, and we’ve got agents checking all the places the Tatums lived in the last fifteen years, at least the ones that Rosetta was able to find. They’ve already found two more bodies. Only God knows how many more are out there.”
“The forgotten,” Loki whispered.
“They’re never forgotten.” Teresa bowed her head. “Tommy has been gone for six years, and I think of him every day.”
Loki felt the sadness she’d felt before when Teresa was around Hope. “Tell me what happened.”
“My husband was killed in Iraq, and Tommy and I moved to New York. I thought it would be good for us to start over somewhere without all the memories. He was four. I hated leaving him, but I was just getting started with the Bureau, and we worked long hours several days a week. When I was lucky enough to come home early, he always wanted to go to the park. He loved it there.” Teresa stopped speaking and swallowed hard before continuing. “We’d gone to his favorite spot, where I could sit on the bench and he could swing and wave to me. A woman dropped her purse, and everything fell all over the place. I took my eyes off him for a minute to help her. When I turned around, he was gone. That was six years ago.” She stopped for a moment to swipe away her tears. “I think Karen told you the rest of the story. We found the guy we knew had killed him, and he was killed in the standoff before we could find out where he buried the body.”
Loki squeezed her hand. “You can’t possibly know this guy killed him, Teresa, if he never admitted it. Someone else could have taken him.”
Teresa shook her head. “I held on to that hope for a while, but sometimes I go to the park and sit on the bench. Tommy’s swing always moves back and forth, and I can almost see him laughing and hear his voice calling out, ‘Come push me, Mommy.’” The tears were now cascading down her cheeks, and she stood. “I want to bury my son, Loki. I don’t want him to be part of the forgotten.”
Loki thought about the bodies found along the creek bank. People disappeared, and lives went on, but no one ever forgot a loved one. Especially a child. She looked up to see Jake, Jules, Dadron, and Grace headed their way. Grace was holding Jules’s hand as he cradled the baby. She had found the courage to face her worst fears and been willing to die to protect Jules and Hope. Loki didn’t know how Jake felt about Grace talking to the spirits, or if he would accept her ability to see and talk to them, but she’d face that obstacle when she came to it.
Loki turned to Teresa and met her gaze. Tommy would never be forgotten, but it wasn’t enough to know he was dead. Teresa needed a place where she could visit him, lay flowers on his grave, and honor his memory. If it were my child, I’d want that.
“I’ll talk to Grace and Jules, and as soon as I get Jake settled, we’ll take the next plane out.”
EPILOGUE
Jake leaned his back against the car, content to watch from a distance as Loki, Teresa, and Karen stood next to the small grave and supervised the setting of the stone. For years, he’d made light of Loki’s visions, more because he didn’t understand them than because he didn’t believe her. She’d accepted him, damage and all, but been afraid to share what had to be a unique part of herself with him. As had Grace and Jules. Maybe what they did was strange, but he’d seen the beauty of it, sitting on that bench and watching as Grace gently swung back and forth next to an empty swing that moved in time to hers. And then they’d followed her and Jules from the park into the woods, trekking through an overgrown trail to a dead tree with a small mound beside it. Two days later, Tommy Nikolic’s body had finally been laid to rest.
Teresa knelt beside the stone and placed a small bunch of daisies in the center, her fingers gently caressing his name. Loki glanced his way and smiled. Cara would always be a part of his life, a part of his heart, but she would want him to continue living. “I’ll always miss you, Cara, and I’ll always love you. I hope you don’t mind if I love Loki too.”
The wind picked up, the clouds parted, and a beam of sunshine broke through for a moment, illuminating Loki’s raven hair. Jake glanced at the sky and smiled. Maybe talking to the spirits wasn’t so strange after all.
Loki hugged Teresa and Karen and walked toward him. She’d told him what she wanted to do, and Social Services had already cleared the path for the two of them to adopt Grace and Hope. He glanced at the sky again and smiled. Cara had always teased him about putting the cart before the horse, and now he was a father before he had a wife.
“I’m freezing. Are you ready?”
Am I? Jake stared at her for a moment, smiled, and leaned forward, covering her lips softly with his own. He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. “Yeah, I think I’m finally ready. Let’s go home.”
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Readers who enjoyed The Forgotten will also enjoy:
Kerry Richardson’s I’ve Been Watching You
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Tara Lyons’ No Safe Home
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Acknowledgments
A very special thank you to three
fans who took part in this journey as both heroines and victims. Thank you Teresa Nikolic, Karen Bench Vanderputt and Mary Ann Coomer Morguson for being a part of the first Loki Redmond and Jake Savior novel. I would also like to thank Tracy Fenton and the members of The Book Club for always being there for authors and readers.
Also please add a thank you to my wonderful publisher and Betsy, as well as my content editor, Jessica, and editor, Angela with Red Adept Editing Services. And of course the cover designer.
Website: lindasprather.com
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